#last one of the night baybeee

[bbeeohazardd]

Gordon shivered violently as he was moved into a sitting position, a pair of arms hooked under his own, a jolt of pain from his leg making him babble incomprehensibly.

“Whh- where…”

“Now Gordon, I am very strong, but I do need you to remain conscious.”

The easy to recognize voice shook him further into the waking world. Dr. Harold Coomer, his friend and mentor, the only person he could even trust.

He shook his head to clear the fog before he looked around to get a bearing on where he was. An abandoned building, no sign of Tommy or Benrey. He had been trying to do something? Nothing was clear in his scrambled mind anymore. He braved a look down at his leg, only to sharply inhale and wrench his eyes closed.

Oh God, he was gonna be sick.

“Gordon.”

“I-I can’t…can’t get up. I don’t. Help?”

His shivering became more violent, causing more twinges of pain from his mangled limb.

Why was he so cold?

“Gordon, I can get you to your car, but I need you to get up.”

“No, no, no, I can't, I can’t.”

“Gordon.”

He opened his eyes and turned to look at his friend. The man had his mask off, it was easy to see how exhausted he was.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, of- of course I do, man.”

The answer was a no-brainer, Dr. Coomer was the only person he could trust. The man had done so much for him, he’d definitely be dead if it wasn’t for him.

“I’m going to help you stand, and then I’ll pick you up.”

He nodded and prepared himself to stand. He was helped to his feet, breathing in sharply as he held on to the other man’s jacket. Coomer, thankfully, paused to let Gordon adjust.

“Now, this may be…painful, but it will be easier in the long-run! Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Gordon mentally prepared himself for a few seconds. “Alright, I think ‘m good.”

The shorter man nodded and picked him up in a fireman carry, supporting him by his good leg before carefully making his way out of the building.

[bizaar]

Endless Summer ✧

Part 3: Band on the Run

Cruel Summer Masterlist

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pairing: eddie munson x afab!reader

warnings: sexual content (18+ minors dni), horny-loser!reader, brief descriptions of sexual fantasies, swearing, and so much pining

word count: 19k

a/n: we're back baybeee! also, if anyone knows the original creator of the gif below, please let me know so I can tag them, I've had these on my laptop for over a year and I've lost all my credits!!

In the three hours it has been since you got home from school, the floor of your bedroom has become almost totally obscured by what is essentially every article of clothing you own. You’d made the mess in a frantic attempt at putting together an outfit out of thin air because you don’t actually own anything cool enough for how you’re planning to spend your night.

You’re supposed to be babysitting, just like every other Tuesday night you’ve spent since you were thirteen years old, but this week, for the first time in history, you did everything in your power to get out of that duty. You’d pulled out all the stops to convince everyone that, despite the perfect health of your earlier day, you’d somehow managed to contract a sudden onset, highly contagious illness sometime between fifth-period chemistry and now (one you intend on making a swift and miraculous recovery from) and for the safety of everyone around you, you should not be disturbed under any circumstances.

You blame it on how you’d spent four hours out in the cold, taking Dustin and his friends around to trick-or-treat last night, though all that does is get your mother on your case about how she “told you to wear a coat”, but would you listen? No.  

 It took almost a full hour of debate, all the tricks you’d ever seen employed in movies to fake sickness, and what you like to think of as an Oscar-worthy performance on your part, but your parents eventually gave in and called across the street to deliver the news. Part of you feels like it was only because they didn’t want to argue with you anymore, but in any case you got what you wanted.  

Dustin was going to the Wheelers, your parents were going to their weekly Tuesday night extracurriculars, and (unbeknownst to everyone else) you were going to see a band play at the Hideout.

Though not just any band.

The only reason you’ve gone to such lengths to get out of all your previous plans is because you’ve been personally invited to go and see Corroded Coffin play — Eddie’s band. 

Of course, you didn't know that at the time of the initial invitation, which came through Gareth, just as the school bell was finishing its cacophonous ringing to signify the end of fifth-period chemistry. 

“Hey, so, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, leaning less than casually on his elbow to peer down the length of his nose at you.  

You remember thinking that the way he was twisting at the waist looked terribly uncomfortable, but you were only half conscious of anything going on around you as you began the arduous task of orienting yourself toward your original plans for the night.  

“Homework.” You replied in an absent monotone, trying for the millionth time not to get sucked back into the memory of the lunch period spent “swapping eyes” with Eddie Munson. 

It’s been five days since then, but who’s counting?

Certainly not you and all the assignments piling up in your locker, waiting on the promise of “later” you’ve been making since the moment you finally managed to drag yourself out of those woods.

You were vaguely aware of Gareth answering with some kind of a droll response – which was entirely on brand for the likes of him – but you hardly heard him say it.

 You had a lot of other things on your mind, all of which seemed much more important than divulging your wholly uninteresting after-school plans to your lab partner.

Tonight, you’ll be sitting at the Henderson’s kitchen table doing all your overdue assignments while your prepubescent charge plays Atari, nothing more, nothing less. 

Talk about a rip-roaring good time, right? 

Still, it beats the “casual hangout” in Steve Harrington’s backyard Carol had tried to coerce you into attending under threat of major bodily harm. Not that being forced to sit around a pool in early November, fifth wheeling while everyone around you sucks face doesn’t sound like just the most fun a girl could have, but you told Carol the same thing you told Gareth about your plans for that night – you’ve got to do your homework, and it’s not even a lie. 

Normally, you like to think you’re a much better student, and while you’re not entirely sure that line of thinking is warranted (as is evidenced by your last report card, which saw you pulling straight C’s) you know for a fact that any and all thoughts of academia flew right out the window the moment Eddie put himself in the seat across from you in the lunchroom. 

And aren’t you so incandescently glad he did? 

It is a sentiment your teachers do not share. That morning (the first day back after a long weekend spent miserably pining) you’d even received the dreaded summons from your guidance counselor, who sat you down and asked if “everything was fine at home”. 

Why? You’d wanted to ask – because you were seen slinking off to the woods with Eddie Munson or because he wasn’t in school the next day and you haven’t turned in a single assignment since? You might remind them that with the long weekend, there are only technically two days of work missing, but you know they don’t want to hear that because this isn’t really about the homework.  

This is about you following Eddie out into the woods.

How are you supposed to think about things like formulas and essays when you can still see him gazing back at you from across the picnic bench every time you close your eyes? With that dreamy look on his face? 

And more to the point, how are you meant to explain to an adult that everything is fine, it’s only just you haven’t seen him in nearly a week and, not to be dramatic or hideously cliche, but you can’t seem to eat, sleep, or concentrate on anything so banal as homework when you’re fairly certain he was getting ready to kiss you out in those woods before the bell rang?

You’re not positive that’s where things were headed, but you’re pretty damn sure, and it's enough to get your girlish libido ringing the warning bells of your imminent demise with every day that passes out of Eddie’s presence. 

No, you can’t explain that to an educational professional or Carol, or anyone else without raising some serious alarms. Because you’re not even supposed to be talking to Eddie Munson, let alone sneaking off to the woods to become as completely captivated by him as you are. 

And he didn’t even kiss you… 

God, how you wish he would have just kissed you, especially after the way he seemed to make himself scarce the moment you took your eyes off him. 

You’d put quite a lot of time and energy after you got home that Thursday evening into wondering what it would have taken to get Eddie to lean over that table, and quite a bit more into wondering whether you ought to have bucked up and done it yourself. 

Not that it mattered, because he didn’t kiss you and you didn’t kiss him, and there you remain, unkissed and suddenly the topic of everyone’s conversation.

Because on top of everything else, there is that side of it. 

Like somehow a spell had been broken that afternoon you followed Eddie out of the lunchroom, everybody and their mother is suddenly keenly interested in you. People who have never given you the time of day suddenly know your name, and they want to know all the intimate details of what you did with Eddie Munson out in the woods, or rather, what he did to you. 

You probably should have known that was coming.

Still, you hate to indulge them with any kind of answer, even if it happens to be a big fat nothing. They only want to know so they can wrinkle their noses and sneer and shout about how “fucking nasty” that is — shacking up with the Freak King — just like Carol did in the lunchroom the day before all your dreams came true. 

You would spare yourself that humiliation if you could, but more than that, you’re struck by how you don’t want them talking about Eddie that way. 

You have become inordinately fond of him since that afternoon, more than you already were, and in a very specific way. Somehow, you can’t help but feel that, even though your conversation lasted less than twenty minutes altogether, you understand each other now.

You’re simpatico.

You might even venture to say that you’re almost friends. 

Strange how a little quiet intimacy was all you needed to curb the rabid edge of your obsession. Eddie is still all you think about, but in a decidedly calmer way, because he thinks you’re nice and approachable, and you think the same about him.

Still, in the five agonizing days it’s been since that big fat nothing happened, the questions have not stopped. Part of you wants to give them an answer if only to shut them up, but somehow you don’t think “he captivated me” is going to satisfy the people’s ravenous appetite for gossip. 

You’re certain everyone has already made up their mind about what they think happened, anyway. In the food chain of high school social constructs, it doesn’t matter what did or didn’t happen, it only matters what people say happened. and you’re absolutely certain that you’re going to hear all about it sooner or later.

You realize now that’s probably why Carol was so desperate to get you to come out and fifth wheel tonight when she knows you have to babysit. She keeps telling you that you owe her because you didn’t go to Tina’s Halloween party, but somehow you’re not convinced she was that upset to have missed you.

Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t trust you not to lie to her about where you’re going to be and who you’ll be with, who will see you with them, and how that will come back to reflect on her. Guilty by association is the law of the land at Hawkins High, after all.

With all that weighing heavy on your mind, you ignored any further questions Gareth had about your after-school plans and shoved your books into your bag, ready to submit yourself to the quiet death of study hall. 

Ugh… study hall… you’d rather eat glass. Then again, you’d also rather not have to spend your summer watching the sweat beading on Mrs. O’Donnell’s upper lip in summer school, so down the hall you went, headed against the flow of traffic in the busy hallway.

Somehow, it feels like overt symbolism bashing you over the head – you’ve always hated a cliché.  

Lucky for you and your impending academic doom, Gareth was not so easily deterred and scrambled to follow you out the door.

“Why don’t you come out tonight instead?” He asked innocently, like it was the most casual thing in the world and he wasn’t struggling to keep pace with you as all your classmates shoved past.

The question hit you square in the back, punching your lungs flat and wrenching you out of your thoughts with enough force to make your head spin.

“Excuse me?” You gasped, pulling to a stop and whipping around so suddenly that Gareth, who you hadn’t realized was skirting along at your elbow, nearly took a blow to the solar plexus in his attempt to keep up. 

Your insides clenched and forced your heart up into your throat, but before you had the time to decide whether or not Gareth had just asked you out, his eyes went comically wide, and he began to backpedal as if his life depended upon it. 

Then again, it might have, if what he said was true and word got back around to Eddie.

“Not like a date!” He yelped, throwing his hands up and showing you his palms in a way that flooded you with a strange and instant relief, “Just as friends—”

Oh, thank God for that. 

You could barely wrap your head around the concept that Eddie feels any sort of intimate way about you —and you’re still not entirely convinced about that — but to suddenly learn that you are the object of two affections? That’s too much revelation for one week, and you can only thank that dim lucky star that so infrequently passes you over that it had been nothing but a misunderstanding. 

Not like a date, Gareth said, Just as friends, and you’re fine with that.

From there, he had your full attention as he went on to explain that his band was doing a set down at the Hideout, and he was extending you a personal invitation to come and see them play. You had no idea Gareth was in a band, though that was perhaps stupid on your part based solely on the boy’s appearance – of course, Gareth is in a band, and of course, that band’s name is Corroded Coffin (which you’re only slightly ashamed about giggle-snorting over when he told you) Between that and the location, your gut reaction was to refuse. 

Gareth is great, especially when he’s playing the herald to all your hopes and dreams, and especially when he isn’t asking you out, but no.

Absolutely not. 

You would not be going to see Corroded Coffin tonight.

Lucky for you, you’ve had the perfect excuse to get out of anything and everything that sounds like a colossal bore since you were thirteen years old, and you were all too happy to trot it out.

“Oh man, I wish I could,” you began, trying to mask the faintest hint of smug satisfaction in your tone with an apologetic scrunch of your features, “...but I’m babysitting tonight.”

And you would have been content for the conversation to end there, but you didn’t count on Gareth having an ace in the hole, one he was all too happy to knock you upside the head with and send your brains splattering all over the crusty school linoleum.

“Aw, really? Damn, that’s a bummer,” he hummed, “I know Eddie would’ve been stoked to see you.” 

Your heart skipped a beat and you had to fight to stop yourself from seizing Gareth by the front of his shirt.

If you had, you would have shaken him like a ragdoll and demanded he tell you everything he knows. Instead, you did your best to remain calm as you stared back at him and the look of smug self-satisfaction he suddenly had plastered across his face.  

For some reason, it made you think of the message you’d promised to take back out of the woods last week.

“Tell the smug bastard to mind his own business,” Eddie said, and you didn’t, because Gareth never asked you how it went. He just gave you a sly smug look, the same one he was currently giving you right there in the hallway five days later. 

“Oh,” You said, feeling about as casual as a heart attack, “Is Eddie going to be there?” 

Your voice hitched and wavered as you did your best to casually skip over his name. You were cool, calm, collected, and definitely not internally shrieking with the sudden potential of a “part two” of last Thursday…

The potent spike of desperation that thought sent rocketing through your midsection was enough to drive color bleeding up into your cheeks and a cold sweat beading across your brow.

It is a reaction you are certain Gareth was not unwise to as he continued without missing a beat. 

“Yeah, he’s our frontman,” He explained, knowing full well what he was doing dropping that kind of information, “Technically it’s his band – he started it back when he was in Middle School or something,” 

Well, put me in a fucking chokehold why don’t you? Something inside of you screamed to have had such a treasure trove of lore opened up to you.

Like the blessed hand of deus-ex-machina — cheap bitch that she is — opportunity comes a-knocking.

A personal invitation has been extended to you and you’ve never been more anxious, because you? 

At a rock show? 

At the Hideout? 

Who the hell do you think you are? You’ve never been to a concert – which is not an astounding statement to make in and of itself considering your inclination toward introversion – so you have no idea what to expect.

There are a great many things you’ve never done. For instance: you’ve never lied to your parents to get out of babysitting, so you can sneak off and go to a rock concert in a dingy dive bar you’re not legally old enough to get into, to see a boy you are strictly forbidden from speaking to.  

You’ve got no business being involved with any of that and as the school day came to a close and the final pieces of your plan steadily fell into place, you had to ask yourself whether you were seriously going to go to such lengths, just to see Eddie?

The answer was a resounding yes. 

You’re going to see Corroded Coffin perform tonight if it kills you.

As you stand there looking back at yourself in the mirror, dressed in the fifth outfit you’ve tried on in as many minutes, you begin to wonder if it might just do that.  

Your parents have been gone less than five minutes, and you’re already getting cold feet.

Yet another thing you’ve never done is try to approximate dressing to impress someone, let alone the boy you regularly spend your nights and mornings fantasizing over with all the ravenous fervor of a pack of hungry wolves.

You have no idea where to start. 

What are you supposed to wear to a rock show in a dingy dive bar? Jeans and a band-tee, maybe? And if so, what kind of jeans, and which band-tee?

It occurs to you that you ought to try and match the vibe of the band, but you have no idea whether they skew toward Credence Clearwater Revival or Judas Priest. 

Then again, with a name like Corroded Coffin, you can’t help but feel it is probably the latter, but you’ve been wrong before. 

So, maybe jeans and a t-shirt is too casual and you ought to try something a little more risqué. 

Maybe a little denim skirt and the pair of ripped nylons you haven’t gotten around to throwing out… or is that too risqué? How exactly does one strike the right balance between sultry and slutty without outright screaming “I want to feel you in my guts?”

You remember then how you once skimmed an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine about the prospective power of underwear, so you go digging through your top dresser drawer and are very quickly dismayed to find that you don’t have a hidden stash of lacy panties carefully concealed beneath your days-of-the-week underwear. 

Of course, the fact that you’re even considering what kind of underwear you ought to be wearing tonight on the very far-off chance that someone is going to see them is enough to send you into a fit of hot-faced embarrassment. 

No, not just anyone – the fact that you’re considering the far-off chance that Eddie Munson is going to see what kind of underwear you’re wearing is almost enough to give you heart palpitations. 

Christ on a fucking bike.  

And then just like that, you’re imagining how gentle he’d be. 

Laying you back on a tufted leather couch as he kneels before you and reaches up with long, dexterous fingers to unbutton your jeans — should you wear jeans tonight? — and carefully, oh so gently, peels them down your legs at an agonizing pace while puffs of warm breath fan the bare skin at the top of your thighs. 

Then again maybe not, maybe he’ll be fast and rough with you. Maybe he’ll manhandle you and throw you around like a doll, and you’ll like it.

Crowding you against the cold brick of a wall and holding you there, his body pressed flush against your back as stone bites your palms and the side of your face. You gasp when he tears at the back seam of your skirt — oh, okay so you are wearing the skirt — ripping both it and your nylons in half, exposing you to the cold air and the hard strike of his palm as he brings it down on the tender skin of your— 

You’re blushing so violently that you have to go to your hall bath and splash cold water on your face. Even after you’ve calmed enough to wander back to the black hole of mess that is your bedroom, you still have no idea what to wear. 

It’s times like this that you curse Carol for shirking her duties as your best friend. Between the two of you, she’s the expert at dressing to attract male attention, she ought to be here helping you with something like this. 

But she’s not here, she’s sitting out at the pool at Steve Harrington’s playing tonsil hockey with Tommy. That’s where you ought to be, too – sitting at the pool, trying to look anywhere but at them, going at it.

That’s where you belong, in Carol’s shadow or perched on the plush sofa at the Henderson’s with your knees up and Speed Racer reruns steadily turning your brain into soup.

It occurs to you that you might be a bad person, or at least a very selfish one – if you’re going to skip out on Dustin like this, you might as well do it to hang out with your friends, not to try and carve out a brand-new cherry-flavored personality for yourself in a crowd you don’t belong to.

You’re not equipped for something like this. You have no business with rock shows and dive bars and people like Eddie Munson – you’re just a boring, midwestern babysitter from a town no one has ever heard of, and you would do well to remember that there is no changing lanes in a place like Hawkins. 

You’re just about ready to admit defeat and march yourself across the street with your tail tucked firmly between your legs when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. 

Plain-Jane, boring little you, with the same haircut you’ve always had, same silhouette, same clothes, same as it ever was, and suddenly you can’t stop thinking about what Eddie said to you out in the woods…

“You’re not what I expected…” He’d said, twisting the rings on his thick fingers and looking at you so wistfully, in a way you’d convinced yourself was full of hope and an expectation you desperately wanted to meet.

You still want it. You want so badly to be the girl he expects to see at the show tonight, not some trussed-up idealized version of what you imagine might impress him. 

He likes you for you, after all, just the way you are, and it’s enough to stoke the fires of your courage, even if it doesn’t help you decide between the jeans and the skirt. 

By the time you finally throw something on that you’re halfway happy with, you’ve spent too much time wondering about hypotheticals and outfits and whether– in the event of an intimate collision – you would actually like to be spanked. Before you know it, you’re running late. 

You’ve almost convinced yourself that it’s fashionably so as you snatch up your keys, fly out of the house, and down your front steps. All the coolest people are fashionably late … at least that’s what Cosmopolitan Magazine says.

It’s only a short jaunt down Cornwallis to the Hideout, and when you get there, there is a semi-shitty Chevrolet van parked crooked across two spaces with the back doors flung open wide. 

It’s vaguely familiar, the way all vans of its type are, though perhaps you only think you’ve seen it before because of the posse of boys meandering around it, moving gear between the vehicle and the curb. 

Your headlights briefly illuminate the familiar faces of the group before passing them over as you pull into the first parking spot you see.

There is Gareth, of course, alongside Adam and Jeff, who you only actually know by reputation and the quick debriefing of the band he’d given you earlier that afternoon, but you cannot help but notice that there is conspicuously no sign of Eddie among them. 

You try not to be too immediately disappointed by that as you kill the engine and unbuckle your seatbelt.

Oh, will you relax already? A voice chides you from somewhere in the back of your mind. Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not here.

Across the tiny lot, Gareth drops the end of the amp he’s got propped between himself and Adam (you think) and skips over to meet you as you steal one final look at yourself in the inset mirror of your sun visor.

You’re not a natural when it comes to applying makeup — yet another thing you could have used Carol’s help with tonight — but you did your best to look presentable.

You imagine if there is anything glaringly clownish about the way you look, it will be easily obscured by the dark and dingy atmosphere of the venue. Bar. Whatever.  

And then the crisp November evening air comes rushing in to flash freeze you with goosebumps as Gareth opens your driver's side door and stands practically bouncing on his toes with excitement. 

You brace yourself against the cold and suddenly cannot imagine trying to endure sitting out at the Harrington’s pool on a night like this. 

“You made it!” Gareth cries as you slide out of your trusty little Toyota Corolla and it strikes you with just how nice it is to have someone glad to see you show up for once. 

Your friends are typically less enthusiastic about that. 

Still, you don’t want to appear overly eager, so you can’t help but try and mask it by pulling a face – you’d told him you’d be there, after all. 

“Was that ever in doubt?” You ask, shouldering your bag.

You shut the door and twist your keys in the lock before quickly stashing them. 

“Well, you never know.” Gareth says, shrugging, “People get busy.” 

Yeah, and people also bend over backward to get out of prior obligations to keep their word. 

And then, you find yourself wondering if it’s totally weird that you jumped through so many hoops just to make sure you could keep yours. 

Lying to your parents, lying to Mrs. Henderson, lying to Carol (who called you ten minutes before you left and demanded once more that you come out before cursing you when you declined again).

Somehow you can’t help but get the sense that if anyone knew, if anyone could have been a fly on the wall of your life this afternoon, you might come across as desperate, especially considering you could take or leave the band. 

You’d gone through all that effort just to see Eddie, who so far as you can tell is not even here.

Shit — you’re starting to wonder if tonight is going to be a huge bummer when Gareth brings you back. 

“Come over and meet the guys,” he says eagerly with a hand at your elbow to guide you across the darkened pavement. 

Every step leads you closer to the van, to the band, to the impending night, and you find yourself second-guessing your outfit for the umpteenth time that day. You wonder if you’re underdressed, and whether you should have cowboyed up and opted for the skirt, which you’d decided was a bit much for the occasion.

Was it the skirt or the fantasy that went with it? 

The world may never know.

“Guys!” Gareth calls once you get within distance, “You know–” when he says your name, their heads snap to tandem attention in a way that reminds you of meerkats.

It might have been funny if it wasn’t for the way they stand there gawping at you, eyes big as dinner plates and out on stalks. 

The silence that hangs between you is deafening, and standing there under such intense scrutiny you can’t help but feel suddenly like you’ve made a terrible mistake.

You twist your fingers out of nervous habit and shift from foot to foot, wondering if you’re allowed to be here, or whether Gareth remembered to mention that he’d invited you out tonight.

“Well, say something, for Christ’s sake,” Gareth says through his teeth. 

“Oh, r-right… hi–” Jeff stammers, tripping over your name like it’s a hot coal sitting on his tongue.

Adam is not so smooth.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, like he absolutely cannot fathom that you, of all people would coincidentally be here at the same time as them, and certainly not for their benefit. 

It makes you feel frighteningly out of place and you have to force yourself to put down roots to stop yourself from turning right around and going back to your car. 

Before Gareth can finish telling him to shut the fuck up, a figure appears from the shadowy depths of the van and your lungs go flat. 

Lo and behold — Eddie Munson, in the flesh. 

Just the sight of him makes every part of your brain light up like a cathedral and chant his name as if it were singing Hallelujah. 

Eddie Eddie Eddie!

He’s halfway through some tirade and stumbling over a thick black cord that he has somehow become hopelessly tangled in.

“Hey – you assholes are doing a lot of standing around and yapping for–” he is saying before he looks up, sees you, and cuts himself off with a startled yelp of your name.

Despite the semi-comical octave to which he speaks your name, your insides flood with warmth as he practically falls out of the van. He skips over, dragging what you quickly come to realize is a microphone with him in his simultaneous attempt to free himself and close the distance between you.

It goes about as well as anyone could expect.

Before you know it, you’re standing toe to toe in the span of a heartbeat, and like a balm to your worries, you forget that you were ever nervous about being here tonight. You forget the awkwardness of Gareth’s friends, your stress over your outfit, and the lengths you went to be here, because here he is, staring back at you like everything else has melted away. 

All is once again right in the world. 

“Hi!” He says, quickly wiping his grimy hands down the front of the ridiculously tight jeans he’s wearing, the ones you’re desperately trying not to notice or wonder just how he’d managed to get into. 

“Hi, Eddie,” You purr, feeling the muscles in your cheeks already beginning to pull for how wide you’re smiling at him. 

Eddie Eddie Eddie. 

Had you been looking, you might have noticed the way the rest of the band was watching you, exchanging looks of varying degrees, throwing elbows and shushing each other, but you’re not looking, not at anything but the beautiful boy standing before you. 

His hair is wild, like always, but tonight Eddie’s got what looks like dark kohl liner smudged messily around his eyes and half rubbed off, like he’d tried something new and immediately second guessed it. It’s so incredibly endearing that it makes your heart throb in the stupid cupid fashion you’ve been chasing ever since that Thursday in the woods. 

Your veins flood with ecstasy and just like that, you’ve got the fix you’ve been itching for all week. 

With his tight jeans, the thick studded belt bursting out of its loops, all his chains and rings, steel-toed boots, and the faded band tee cropped at the waist and shoulders you can see him wearing underneath his jacket, he looks like something off the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.

He’s dressed like the guy who would push you up against the wall and rip your skirt off, and you’ve never felt more like a stupid girl with a silly little crush than you do now.

It might almost be intimidating if it weren’t for the way that he’s looking right back at you, as if you hung the moon and the stars and were personally responsible for the shining magic of the cosmos. 

Like the guy who would take his time unbuttoning your jeans. 

You look at him, and he looks right back at you, and you feel something begin to flutter in the space behind your lungs — something warm and frantic, like the beating of a tiny bird’s wings. 

Right now, standing in this parking lot, you could be the only two people in the world, and you’d be just fine with it. 

And then, there is a cough, a conspicuously cleared throat, and the spell is broken.

Eddie shakes his head, like waking from a trance and simultaneously pulling you from yours. 

“What - uh- what are you doing here?” He asks – it hits you like a fist to the gut. “Not that it isn’t great to see you… it’s just— I didn't expect to see you.”

Oh.

You can feel the corners of your mouth twitch where your smile begins to falter. 

“I came to see your show,” You say quietly, fighting a losing battle against the tide of your nerves as they come rushing back in with enough force to sweep you under.

Eddie’s dark ringed eyes go wide and his mouth falls open, and you feel a cold lump drop into the pit of your stomach with a hollow thump. 

“You did?” he gasps, voice lilting up into that comical octave again, “Really?”

Oh, great. So, nobody knew you were coming.

For as mortifying as that is, it doesn’t sting half as badly as the disappointment battering you over how you’d spent your afternoon thinking Eddie was as excited to see you as you were to see him.

He didn’t even know you were coming — stupid Gareth. 

Suddenly, your subconscious is whispering horrible things to you: maybe he doesn’t like you as much as he’d originally let on. Maybe that moment you shared out in the woods was all in your head, maybe you’d misread the signs and he was just being nice for the sake of the loser virgin, tripping over herself to try and win the affections of the local drug dealer.

It makes you feel particularly stupid about how you’d sat there at a soggy picnic bench out in the woods, desperately waiting for Eddie to kiss you – why the fuck would he kiss you? He doesn’t even know you.   

You can’t even touch how embarrassed you are about how much time you’d spent fantasizing about him undressing you. 

Christ, you’re pathetic. But you’re also here, and you ought to at least try to make an effort to appear like you’re not the socially inept loser everybody seems to think you are.

“Oh, y-yeah… I mean, it’s no big deal.” you fumble to explain, gesturing vaguely like it’s going to help smooth over the growing awkwardness of this moment

Maybe if you keep talking, nobody will get the chance to say anything that sounds too much like a rejection.  

You give your best approximation of a casual shrug and continue.

“Gareth invited me.” You say, and somehow it feels oddly accusatory, “He said it was cool… unless…”

Uncertainty makes you strangely brave, brave enough to lean into the awkwardness of the moment at least – if there’s one thing you’ve learned after years of being Carol’s punching bag, it’s that if you can’t beat the joke, join in.

“…Unless?” Eddie prompts.

You furrow your brow.

“Unless he conveniently failed to mention that I was coming?”

Of course, the moment your gaze snaps over to regard him with a harsh, unforgiving glare is when Gareth conveniently decides it’s time to get back to hauling gear.

With a fistful of each of their shirts, he drags the others away, spouting some bullshit about “call times” and “sound check” and leaves you standing there with Eddie in the chasm of the awkward silence fighting tooth and nail to settle snugly between you.

You refuse to give it the satisfaction as you watch them retreat, and you make a displeased sound.

Bastard coward sons of bitches. A pox on all their houses.

“Well,” you start, “This is awkward, I don’t mind saying…” 

Once the rest of the band has circled around to disappear beyond the far side of the van, you begin to feel the faintest hint of that same warmth from the woods settling over you, and you take a chance to lean into Eddie’s space. 

“Hey, listen,” you say dropping your tone, “It was great seeing you — really, it was … but if it’s totally weird that I’m here I can take off—”

“Oh, no!” Eddie says a tad too loud. His voice rings out and echoes across the empty spaces before he reigns his enthusiasm in, “No – it’s not weird! You should totally stay!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, for sure. You should definitely stay, right guys?” You look just in time to see a nondescript door set into a wall of the bar slamming shut, leaving the two of you alone in the cold, “…Whatever, forget those assholes — I’m glad you’re here.” 

And there you go grinning your face off again.

“You are?”

“Yeah, are you kidding? It’s awesome to see you. Also, nobody’s ever actually come to see us play, so that makes you the closest thing to a fan we’ve got.” 

“Oh, good.” You say. 

“Great.” 

“Excellent.” 

“Fan-tastic.” He says, stretching the word lyrically and moving to shut the back doors of the van with a hard THUNK, “Only you gotta do something for me if you’re gonna stick around,”

You move quickly to fall into step as Eddie starts toward the side door set in between a stack of pallets and a dumpster. The same one the others had only just slipped through. 

“What’s that?” You ask, doing your best to pretend that you don’t smell the toxic waste that is bar trash permeating the air.  

He yanks the door open and reveals the murky interior of the Hideout, waiting just beyond like the portal to another world. 

The smell of wet trash is quickly overwhelmed by the strong tang of smoke and alcohol, hitting you in a wave of thick, roiling air. You grit your teeth as it washes over you, accompanied by the tinny din of a Jimmy Buffett song playing over the jukebox.

“You have to promise you’re gonna cheer super loud to balance out all the booing,” he says, holding the door open for you, “We aren’t exactly what you’d call popular with the local wildlife.”

You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from telling him that Gareth already warned you of that during his earlier sales pitch. 

Something along the lines of “we’re terrible, please come see us play,” had been uttered as a backdrop to your giggling over learning the name of the band, back when it was only a silly anecdote and you knew nothing of the gravity of the invitation. 

You banish the thought to the back of your mind and bite down harder on your cheek to try and distract from the way you can feel your heart beating against your ribs as Eddie’s hand comes up to hover at the small of your back, ushering you inside. 

“I can do that.” You say with a quick nod.

“Perfect – after you, M’lady.” 

You almost don’t remember to be worried about getting into the bar when Eddie guides you over the threshold with a short, sweeping gesture. 

The side door deposits you at the far end of the bar, and despite only the slightest change in atmosphere, it takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the neon signage and overhead bulbs.

All your fears of bouncers and fake IDs dissipate when you arrive and there is no one waiting to card you on the other side. 

You do your best to breathe as subtle a sigh of relief as you can, because you made it, you’re in, whatever that means for the rest of your night.  

The Hideout is a full-on hick dive, as much as you expected. Booth seating, pool tables, and the vaguest suggestion of a bandstand in the far back corner next to the jukebox where you finally see Gareth and the others again. They’re busying themselves with the task of setting up amps and instruments beneath a slapdash Corroded Coffin banner hung crookedly over the drumkit. 

It’s clearly homemade and looks very much like it has been spray painted, black over red on a stained white bed sheet. It’s incredibly tacky in the most endearing way.

The bar is not too terribly full for seven-forty-five on a Tuesday night, though in taking in the faces of the blue-collar working-class patrons, the general décor, and the type of music shuffling through the jukebox as the track turns over to play Loretta Lynn, you can’t help but feel that this is not really their crowd.

Not really your crowd, you tell yourself, not that you have the experience to know such a thing. 

If you thought you felt out of place before, standing among the band, the feeling is amplified tenfold as you begin to notice the way half a dozen people have turned around to gawp curiously at you. 

Of course, it doesn’t occur to you that the reason they’re staring is that you’re standing there tucked in against Eddie Munson, who you also had not realized was standing so close to you.

You erupt into a fever of goosebumps as you rock back on your heels and feel the contours of his chest graze your shoulder blades. Eddie’s hand comes up to grip you kindly by the shoulder as he guides you further into the dingy building and starts to give you the rundown. 

You do your best to focus on his words to keep yourself grounded, trying to assure yourself that you’re allowed to be here. 

If he’s not nervous, you’re not nervous.

“We’re gonna go on soonish,” he says, depositing you at an empty barstool, separated from where a handful of patrons sit nursing their drinks, “– we’ll probably play for like half an hour, maybe longer depending on how many songs they let us play.”

“How many songs do they usually let you play?” You ask, having to project your voice to be heard over the din of the bar.

You do your best to hop up onto the stool in a way that is cool and elegant as you have almost perfected with your squat metal seat back in Mr. Kapz’s class. This one is taller than you’d estimated, however, and you immediately find yourself struggling to get up over the lip of the polished wood.

Eddie, ever the gentleman, doesn’t hesitate to help you up and steady you. 

“Three or four,” He hums without missing a beat. “Our record is six, but that was only one time, so I wouldn’t hold my breath for that many with this crowd. Also, don’t be surprised if they pull the plug on us — like, literally kill the power.”

“You’re kidding…”

“It’s no big deal, it’s just something they like to do in this fine establishment.”

He says it like it's funny, but suddenly you can’t help but think back to Gareth’s plea that you come and watch them play. For the first time since he’d invited you that afternoon, you are suddenly struck wondering just what you have really gotten yourself into – you have no idea what kind of music they play, whether they’re halfway decent or as terrible as Gareth let on.

You have to work to remind yourself that, regardless of the quality of Corroded Coffin, you’re here to support your friends. 

Which is only really half true – you’re here for Eddie.

You’re watching him closely when another body appears at his side and claps a loud, forceful hand down on his shoulder. Your heart spasms in tandem with the way Eddie jumps under the sudden contact, and you brace yourself for whatever is coming as his head whips around to address his assailant. 

Then, much to your patent relief, his features light up and his face splits into a wide grin. 

“Oh, hey! Wayne!” He yelps with a rush of boyish excitement, “What’re you doing here? Are you gonna watch us play?”

The man – evidently Wayne – wheezes out a chuckle that is a little too sarcastic to be kind before answering, speaking in a thick Appalachian drawl that is bizarrely out of place in this town. 

“I get enough of y’all’s music at home, thanks very much. Just sayin’ hi on my way out,” he rasps, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder with an unmistakable affection before turning his bright blue eyes on you, “Who’s yer friend?”

Eddie makes quick introductions, and once names have been traded back and forth, Wayne touches the brim of his faded ballcap. 

“Pleased to meet you,”

“Oh – sure. I mean, likewise,” you stammer, stiffening your spine to keep yourself from wilting under the intensity of the man’s gaze.

It’s almost intrusive, and makes you feel like you need to go home and put on another layer of clothing just to keep him from seeing your deepest, darkest, inner most thoughts and feelings. 

X-ray specs got nothing on this man’s penatrative gaze, and when it's just about enough to send you crawling out of your skin, then there goes Eddie saving your life again.

“Isn’t it bad luck to wear a hat indoors?” He asks with a mischievous smirk.

Wayne catches him expertly by the wrist as he reaches for the hat, like he’s a certified expert at avoiding such a motion, and guides Eddie’s ring-bedecked digits safely away from his headwear.

“Bad luck to put a hat on a bed.” Wayne corrects, “Bad luck to open an umbrella indoors.”

Eddie snorts as he takes his hand back and nudges you with his elbow, gentlemanly letting you in on the joke. 

“Wayne’s a nut for that kinda stuff.” He says, gesturing to the older man with no small amount of humor, like it’s simply the goofiest thing anyone has ever heard. “Real superstitious,”

It doesn’t feel mean, so much as a deep set rapport built over a lifetime of back and forth like this. 

Wayne makes a thick, gravelly sound in the back of his throat which you recognize as the beginning rattle of a smoker’s cough. 

“Least I know where the bad luck’s comin’ from when it shows up,” The man hums, “Anyways. What time are y’all goin’ on?”

“In a few minutes. Why?”

In lieu of answering, Wayne just hums again, thoughtfully so this time. Then that bright gaze slides back over to you.  

“They got earplugs behind the bar if you ask for ‘em,” Wayne says with a clipped gesture, “Just so’s you know.” 

“Hey—!” Eddie begins with all the moody indignance of a child.

Wayne cuts him off with raised hands, begging no offense. 

“Just tryin’ to be neighborly in case yer friend don’t know what she’s gettin’ into,” He stresses, “Y’ever heard these fellers play?” 

“Uh, well— no, actually, I—” you start,

Wayne’s brows jump. 

“Like skinnin’ a cat,” 

It sends you right back to the incident in the quad the week before, to what Eddie had said about Carol’s screeching tirade, and suddenly the look Wayne is giving you is so familiar it’s almost eerie.

You realize with a start that it’s the exact same look Eddie gave you out in the quad.

The resemblance is uncanny. The joke, however, does not land.

“Well, it was nice seeing you, Wayne,” Eddie fumes, clapping the man on the shoulder in a stilted mirror image of the way he’d done a moment before and maneuvering him past you.

If you didn’t know better, you might have said that the faintest flush of color had bled into Eddie’s cheeks, but you tell yourself you don’t as he pushes Wayne past you and attempts to maneuver him out. 

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” 

Wayne stops short then, turns, and gives Eddie a very stern look, thrusting a finger up at him in a way that feels oddly paternal as he warns him with a low utterance of, “Hey now,”.

You know that look well enough from having seen it on your father. It means “watch your tone”, and it does the job it’s meant to.

You watch as Eddie puts his hands up and retreats a step, and the tension dissipates before it’s even had the chance to settle. 

 Suddenly, they’re friends again and your brain is crawling out of your skull with curiosity over who this man is to Eddie – what a strange dynamic they have, decidedly charged with something but clearly softened by a kind of underlying affection.

Almost like family – exactly like family, you realize. 

If you didn’t know better, you might almost guess that this man was Eddie’s father, but of course that couldn’t be true, because you know exactly where Al Munson is meant to be, and it’s not here at the Hideout.  

After a quick back and forth that you only catch bits and pieces of, Wayne gives you one last parting look, brows jumping.

“I’m serious about them earplugs.” He says, then claps Eddie on the back as he takes his leave. “See you at home, Bud,”

“Yeah, okay… later.” He mutters – he gestures after the man once he’s gone, “My uncle.” Eddie explains, and suddenly everything makes a little more sense.

You just had the pleasure of meeting the elusive other Munson, who you’d heard talk of around town, but whose reputation (or lack thereof) has been vastly overshadowed by the likes of his brother and nephew.   

“He seems nice.” You offer for lack of anything better to say. 

“Yeah, he thinks he’s real funny with those earplugs – weird seeing him here though, he usually drinks out at The Attic on — hey, what’s the matter?” Eddie asks suddenly, brows creeping toward one another to form a deep crease of concern between them, “You’re not scared are you?” 

You swallow hard and try not to stare at him, suddenly backed in a multicolor glow as the stage lights come on, leaving him looking like some kind of ethereal rock god. 

“No.” You lie. 

Eddie grins at you like he knows you’re fibbing, and he reaches up to touch your arm. 

You do your best to suppress a shiver under the way he gently squeezes you there.

“Hey, you showing up like this? Biggest thing anybody’s ever done for me. Y’think I’d let anything happen to you after that?”

He barely gives you time to read into the sentiment before something over your head draws his attention and the moment ends. 

“Anyway, you’re perfectly safe. Laverne here’s gonna look after you,” He gestures to the space behind you, “Right Laverne?” 

You turn to see the woman behind the bar that he is speaking to, face split into that big, winning smile of his — a little sleazier than it was a moment before — and are suddenly struck by the knowledge that this is the second person Eddie has introduced you to in this place in less than two minutes. 

You catch yourself wondering just how much time he spends skulking around this bar as a tall, middle-aged woman with a big cloud of frizzy hair dyed a red so deep it’s nearly purple comes into view.

Laverne — the bartender, evidently.

She’s got a blown-out tattoo on her bicep that you think must have been a snake at one point in time, and her massive, freckled breasts are just about spilling out of the top of her too-tight tank top, stretching the name of the bar until it’s almost illegible. She looks entirely too rock and roll for this place, like some kind of a transplant from a seedy biker joint on the Sunset Strip.

By the way she’s glaring at Eddie, you can tell that she is immune to his attempts at charm.

“I don’t pay you to stand around flirting.” Laverne drawls, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward what you can only imagine is the back of house, “An’ you left a whole pile’a dishes stacked up back there when you ran out to put yer makeup on.”

Eddie’s grin wavers under the impromptu lecture and you can’t help but feel your insides squirm on his behalf.

“Gee, Laverne, I never knew you liked me so much,” he tries, but she is not done. 

“Don’t you think for one second I’m gonna cover yer ass so’s you can cut out early an’ go diddle yourself or whatever it is you do on your own time. When yer here, yer on my time, an’ I don’t appreciate my time bein’ wasted,  so, who d’you reckon is gonna do them dishes, Junior?”

All the sleazy charm ekes right out of him and you watch as Eddie goes white as a sheet. 

“Green around the gills” is what a distant relative of yours would have called the look on his face, and you can’t say you disagree.  

You have to resist the urge to reach out and put a steadying hand on him, purely on babysitting instinct, because if you didn’t know any better – which you don’t – you’d think he was about to keel over, and it’s almost startling.

Based on his schooltime bravado, part of you imagines Eddie would be made of stronger stuff in the face of such ire, but you’re quickly beginning to understand that the Eddie you know from school is not an accurate depiction of the man behind the mask. Then again, you’re not certain you know anyone who would be able to stand there and take a dressing down like that, so maybe Eddie is made of that elusive “stronger stuff” after all.

Suddenly, you can’t help but imagine what would have happened in the alternate universe where Carol found herself here with you, standing in his place. You’d like to see her try running her mouth then, face to face with the likes of Madam Hideout. 

Back in the real world, Eddie casts a wary gaze in your direction before answering the woman who you have quickly come to realize is his boss. 

“I’ll do ‘em after,” he mumbles, suddenly much less an ethereal rock god and more a sullen child.

The muscle in Laverne’s jaw flexes as she grits her teeth, and you can suddenly see her right at home standing behind a great oak bar in a saloon, eyes shaded in a big Stetson, spitting a fat gob of dark, rotten chaw to the sawdust floor as she chews through her thick Texan drawl. 

“They shoulda been done b’fore you punched out.” She spits in the tobacco-less, non-Old West version of herself. 

“I’ll do them after, Laverne.” Eddie insists, sliding back into the boyish indignance from before. 

She rolls her eyes and stalks off, muttering something unintelligibly rude as she goes, and an indiscernible emotion wells painfully in your chest. It is deeply offended on Eddie’s behalf, whatever it is, and moves you to want to protect him, though you don’t know how you would manage to do that. 

You don’t typically feel this way about anyone over the age of twelve, and don’t know whether to try and pick a fight with Laverne or to drag Eddie out to the parking lot where you’ll be safe from the ire of rude bartenders – that’s what you would have done with Dustin had you encountered a bully somewhere out in the wild, but somehow you can’t imagine either scenario going over well with Eddie swapped for Dustin. 

The lack of options leaves you paralyzed, and by the time Eddie is talking again, you’ve gone and said nothing in his defense. 

The indignant emotion deflates and leaves you feeling cold and guilty.

“Yeah, that Laverne…” he says, “She’s a real peach.”

You watch the woman saunter to lean over the end of the bar furthest from you, and once you are almost certain she is out of earshot, you lean in close.   

“Do you work here?” You ask in a stage whisper, if only to be heard over the din of the music and murmuring conversations. 

Eddie’s gaze snaps back down to you and you watch as he grows suddenly and strangely shy. You can see his guard cautiously slipping into place as he reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck and offers you a lopsided shrug. 

“Few nights a week, yeah.” He admits, almost like he’s embarrassed to have been caught in the conundrum of playing a set in the place where he works, “Pays the bills, y’know?” 

You wonder how much of the interaction with Wayne followed directly by the one with Laverne is coloring this moment, and you’re mortified to have put him in this situation.

If you weren’t here, he would be up on the bandstand with the rest of the guys instead of looking after you, and both interactions may very well have been avoided entirely. Suddenly, you’re desperate to take responsibility for your presence and put him at ease. 

“That’s cool.” You tell him, and for once, it is exactly the right thing to say.  

Eddie immediately brightens. 

“You think so?” He asks.

You nod, because if you’re not nervous, then he doesn’t have to be, right? Suddenly, this interaction feels a lot like babysitting, and you take no small amount of comfort in the familiarity of it, even if Eddie is most certainly the one babysitting you here at the bar. 

“Totally! You’re basically getting paid to play a gig every week – do you know how many bands would kill for that?” 

Eddie’s face splits up into that big, toothy grin.

“Yeah, exactly!” He starts before second-guessing his tone and attempting to reign in his enthusiasm, “I mean – hey, it’s not Saturday night at the Garden, but a gig’s a gig. At least until we can get the band off the ground and get a record–” 

Over the rumble of the bar, you hear somebody shouting from the direction of the bandstand – Jeff, you think. His voice is laced with annoyance as if this is the third or fourth time he’s called Eddie, and he is quickly losing his patience.

“MUNSON!” He shouts, “LET’S GO!”

Eddie twists at the sound of his name and you watch as he pulls a face, almost like he’d forgotten there was a greater purpose to being here other than standing around chatting you up at the bar.

“Whoopsie – guess that’s my cue.” He says, shrugging out of his jacket as he turns back to you, “Hold on to this for me, will you?”

Your heart rockets up into your throat and you hope that Eddie can’t see how your fingers are trembling as you accept his jacket and hold it against you.

You clench your teeth to keep something cheesy from floating up past your lips like you’ll guard it with your life.  

You think you must be making a face, then, one Eddie mistakes for anxiety as he gives you a soft look and his voice turns gentle. 

“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.” He assures you, “You’re with the band, remember? Fan numero uno.”

He raises a finger to emphasize the notion, and you nod, watching him turn and trying to beat back the spike of fear that surges in you when he leaves you sitting at the bar. 

He’s fine if you’re fine, and you’re fine if he’s fine, but only so long as you’re enveloped in the safety blanket of his presence – but you remind yourself that you’re a big girl.

If you can lie to everyone you know and sneak out of the house to slip into a bar to see a band, you can sit alone in a room full of strangers for a few minutes before the band starts to play. 

And yet, sitting there, watching Eddie move into the crowd, you’re suddenly struck with the sensation of how stridently you don’t want to be left alone in this place where you so clearly don’t belong. But you don’t have to be so overt about it, so you shout at Eddie’s back in the far-off hope that it will make him turn around and look at you once more. 

“Y’know, you keep saying that,” you start, “But I haven’t even heard you play!”

He turns on his heel and shoots you full of holes with that big, goofy grin of his. 

“Oh man, you’re gonna love us!” He calls back, and you can’t help but snort out an undainty laughter. 

“That’s not what Gareth said!” 

Eddie pulls a face and cups a hand at his ear like he didn’t hear you before throwing a shrug and disappearing into the throng of people milling about the pool tables. 

You take great comfort in the fact that for as cool as you think he is, you are starting to understand that he is an incredible dork. That makes things so much easier, especially with how you want so desperately for him to like you as much as you like him. 

And you like him so, so much. 

Too much – it doesn’t feel like just a schoolyard crush anymore, not since the moment you shared out in the woods, and again back in the parking lot, and just now, here at the bar.

Sitting here, with a big dopey look on your face and hearts in your eyes, you think you could very easily fall for Eddie as you watch him jump up onto the bandstand and exchange an indiscernible something with Gareth, grinning wolfishly as he does.  

You’re almost too busy sifting for gems through the last five minutes of conversation to realize what you just told yourself – you think you could fall pretty hard for Eddie Munson.

The thought startles you enough that you have to move to try and escape the way it makes you feel, twisting on the stool to face the bar. You sit there, letting the din of the environment wash over you in sickly waves of overstimulation, and you remind yourself of what Gareth originally assured you about this outing. 

Not like a date. He said. Just as friends. 

In the wake of your most recent revelation, the idea stings just a little bit more than you are prepared to endure.

Then, there is the abrasive sound of a throat being cleared. It’s only then that you look up and find yourself face-to-face with Madam Hideout herself.

Laverne gives you a hard side eye from where she stands at the tap directly to your right, pouring a tall pint of foamy beer.

If you’re blushing, you hope she can’t tell under the deep, colored lighting.

You try to smile at her, but it’s little more than a flattening of your lips as your mouth stretches horizontally, and somehow you know it isn’t coming across as polite as you’d intended. She doesn’t reciprocate.

Behind you, an amp flares with staticky feedback that makes your hair stand on end as someone plugs in a guitar. 

The sound of a dozen disgruntled barflies rumbles through the room as the band finishes setting up, and you find yourself witness to a sudden mass exodus. You twist in your seat again and watch as at least half of the patrons very quickly make their way out into the parking lot, following Wayne Munson’s lead after the fact.

By the time the herd has been thinned, the room is not empty by any means, but you can suddenly see the bandstand at the far end of the room where you couldn’t before. It gives you the perfect vantage of Eddie.

Corroded Coffin has similarly noticed how the room has cleared out, much to their own varying degrees of chagrin. Eddie is fumbling with the strap on his guitar, adjusting the length as he scans the room with a furrowed brow – then, as he finds you, right where he left you, his face splits into that same wide grin.

Suddenly shy under the cast of his attention, you gesture to the state of the room – get a load of these guys – and give an overexaggerated shrug. He responds in kind by sticking his tongue out at you and you feel your insides go tight and squirmy.

You don’t even realize how you’ve been grinning back at him until your face starts to hurt, and as quickly as the spotlight finds you, it’s gone again when Jeff leans over to say something to Eddie, snatching his attention away and leaving you sitting there alone on your stool again.

Brimming with what you would argue is too many feelings to process all at once, you reach around to grip the bar and spin yourself in a tight circle, hoping that maybe a little gravity will help sort out those big scary emotions.

“Quit that spinnin’.” Laverne snaps. “I ain’t moppin’ your little brains up off this floor if you fall.”

“Sorry.” You say immediately, bracing yourself on the bar to stop from going around once more – tragically, it leaves you facing her and the apparent disdain she holds for you, simply by way of association.

You avert your gaze.

Somewhere, you can hear the theme to Cheers playing distantly over the muted rumbling of half a dozen conversations.

…sometimes you wanna go, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came… 

Some less than others. 

When you work up the courage to chance a look, you find that Laverne is still staring daggers at you. More than that, a cursory glance reveals that most of the people still sitting down the length of the bar are stealing curious looks at you. 

You can feel your throat going dry under the attention of so many strange eyes. It’s not that you’re necessarily an inherently shy person, only that without Eddie to bolster you, the feeling of being somewhere you clearly do not belong is attempting to crush you flat.

You do your best to make yourself as small as humanly possible as the beginning of a beat gets thumped out on the drum set before abruptly stopping.

Soundcheck.

Your mouth is suddenly full of cobwebs, and you muster your courage to steal one more look at Laverne, whose eyes you can still feel burning holes into the top of your skull. 

You peek up at her, hoping her ire will have eased, as if miraculously in the last thirty-seconds you’d done something to earn her respect.

No dice.

“Do you think I could get a coke?” You ask, cringing inwardly as your voice wavers and cracks.

You don’t really want the overpriced, watered-down soda she’s bound to give you, but you’re willing to do anything to distract from how much you stick out among the half-drunk onlookers pressing their faces in on you like kids at the zoo.

Thank God for the shield of Eddie’s jacket, you are once again so thankful you’d foregone the tight little skirt and boots combo.

Laverne gives you a hard look, and you feel a twinge of sudden bravery begin worming its way through your midsection. This time, you stare back at her. 

Then, she throws a dish towel over her shoulder as she makes her way to you, chunky Doc Marten’s thumping hard on the spongy mat behind the bar.

As uncomfortable as you are to be sitting there under her gaze, some nagging part of you at the back of your tongue meets the annoyed twinge steadily rising in you, and together, they wish she would climb down out of your ass already.  

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, she pulls the trigger on the soda nozzle and fills a dark red, textured glass to the brim – no ice.

She sets the drink on the bar in front of you with a hard thump and you watch the foam leap up over the brim of the cup and spill down the side before dissipating with a soft hissing. 

Laverne pops a straw into the cup and somehow it feels like an insult, like something Carol would have done. 

You’re supposed to inhale, Dummy! pared down to a simple gesture with that same patent disdain. 

Still, you’re nothing if not fatally imbued with unflinching manners, and the words are tumbling out over your lips before you can stop them.

“Thank you,” you mumble, and the nagging little voice on the back of your tongue cries out at your treachery. 

Laverne grunts out a response and quirks a thin, penciled brow at you. 

It takes her forever to speak, and you wish the band would just start playing already so that you would have an excuse to turn your back to her.

“The Chief’s been known to frequent this place,” she begins, and in a brief moment of deep confusion, all you can do is stare at her, waiting for her to clarify, “Of Police.”

You have no idea what to do with that information.

“Oh,” you say dumbly, “You don’t say,”

She nods.

“Might even be inclined to call him a regular customer,” 

Somehow, you can’t help but get the sense that it’s less a statement of fact than it is a threat, and if that is the case, you can’t deny that it’s more or less effective.

The last thing you need right now is to find yourself sitting, wilting under the gaze of Chief Hopper while he reads you the riot act and lists in detail everything you’ve ever done to make you such a terrible person — faking sickness and sneaking out to go and see a boy you’re sweet on in a bar you’re not old enough to be sitting in when by all rights you should be sitting on the Henderson’s couch watching He-Man.  

For lack of a better response, you twist idly on your chair, nice and slow so Laverne can see you do it and come all the way back around to the other side.

The phrase, “if looks could kill” passes through your mind for a brief, yet terrifying second – something in the back of your mind is inexorably calm as it assures you that you haven’t done anything wrong. 

You’re supposed to be here. You’re with the band, no matter how anyone may happen to feel about that.

Leaning over the bar and taking a long, innocent sip from your straw, you make a show of swallowing, smack your lips, and shrug. 

 “Funny. I don’t see him.”  

In spite of all your affected cool, you feel your guts twinge with anxiety when Laverne levels you with a hard look and crosses her thick, tattooed arms over her generous bosom. Suddenly you’re half worried you’re about to be “bounced” or whatever the official term for being forcibly ejected from a bar is – one more for the list in your long night of firsts. 

Then, in a shocking turn of events, the corner of the woman’s lip twitches in the faintest hint of a smile, violently suppressed, of course. 

You’re oddly pleased, in the way only a goody-two-shoes like yourself can be under the attention of anyone who could even remotely be perceived as a figure of authority. 

“How old are you?” Laverne demands.

Just like that, the twinge blossoms to a nagging feeling of angry defiance, lurking far in the back of your throat. 

Stupid question. You think, biting the inside of your cheek, because it’s not like you’d tried to order a beer. 

“Forty-five.�� You say, matter-of-factly, suddenly unable to adjust your tone as you remember how rudely she’d spoken to Eddie before.    

She holds you in that hard, deadpan gaze.

“That’s funny,” She sniffs, “Bet your rock star boyfriend thinks you’re real funny too.” She hurls it at you like a slur and your heart spasms and lurches up into your throat.

“Oh, he’s not my—” but the bartender is already walking away, so you clamp your mouth shut and hum out your annoyance.

You swallow hard.

Boyfriend.

The word clangs around in your ribcage, and you wonder if that’s what people assume when they see you and Eddie together. 

Just like that, you’re feeling breathless again.

No wonder your teachers are all so freaked out – you don’t get the time to worry about that before Eddie’s voice cuts through the room and strikes you square in the back. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight–” he says smoothly into the microphone, “Before we start the show, we’d just like to say one thing…” 

You turn in your seat and find yourself immediately locked in his gaze. Even across the room, it sends a chill up your spine and goosebumps flashing across the expanse of your body. 

You’re gripped in the feeling that suddenly, you’re the only two people in this room, that no matter what happens next, it will be for your eyes only, and you’ll cherish that to the end of time. 

Eddie leans in, grips the microphone and looks you dead in the eye.

“This one goes out to all the ladies.”

Oh. Nevermind. 

“Oh, my God,” You say under your breath. 

Boo. Hiss. 

He’s so uncool, you can’t stand how much you like him. 

The strike of sticks on cymbals masks the agonized groan that rumbles throughout the bar and with the first few hard chords, the show begins. 

Corroded Coffin is not the greatest band in the world, but they’re also far from the worst.

It was an over-exaggeration on Gareth’s part to say that they’re terrible; they can carry a tune, they’re mostly on key and in sync, and that’s more than you can say you expected from how you’d been prepared.

You find that they mostly play covers of metal songs – the likes of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath – which garners a general disinterest from the bar, save for one sloppy drunk biker who just about loses his mind when they go into a crunchy rendition of War Pigs. 

You’re certainly losing your mind and falling a little bit harder than you’d expected you would be when you woke up that morning.

Eddie Munson in front of a cafeteria audience is one thing, but Eddie Munson on stage, a real-life honest-to-God stage is another animal entirely. As far as you are concerned, he was born and bred for the stage, and you’re enraptured, watching him move under the lights. The way he grips the neck of his guitar as he teases a melody out of the taught strings and growls into the microphone settles in your bones in a way you know is going to linger for months if not years to come.

It is mesmerizing in the most intoxicating way. If you thought tearing your eyes from him at school was difficult, you’re fairly certain you don’t blink from the start of their set to their less-than-grand finish.

They play a whopping five songs before someone unceremoniously kills the power, just as Eddie had prophesized.

“Bummer.” You hear someone groan out of the dark from the direction of the stage.

Luckily, it’s a total blackout to the whole bar, and not just the stage, saving the band any overt embarrassment in the face of their less-than-adoring public.

Your ears are ringing in the sudden absence of sound and the darkness lingers only a moment before the power comes back on again.

Loggins and Messina are back on the jukebox in an instant, the patrons turn back to their drinks, and just like that, your introduction to Corroded Coffin is cut short, one song shy of their record. 

With the lights on and free from the cloying miasma that can only come from standing in the crowd at a rock show, you manage to claw your way back to your senses enough to remember your parking lot promise.

You surprise even yourself by erupting into a cacophony of thunderous applause, whooping, and hollering just like any self respecting number one fan would do. Then again, if you’re being completely honest, and if the drunk biker hollering unevenly doesn’t put up too much of a fight, you might happily accept the title.

It doesn’t take much effort to shoulder your way through the meager crowd, particularly with the way it is steadily thinning. Evidently, the end to the show was enough to call for an end to the night for a good number of people here at the Hideout.  

You cross the room in a hop, skip, and a jump that deposits you at the foot of the bandstand, where you stand craning your head back nearly to the point of pain just to look up at the object of your affection. 

You hold Eddie’s jacket clutched reverently against your chest and imagine your steadily beating heart imbuing it with all kinds of emotion — super-charging it with what Huey Lewis and the News is now telling you must be the power of love. 

“You didn’t tell me you were good!” You cry, and are almost immediately chagrined.

You’re half deaf from the set and even through your screaming ears, you know you must be shouting. Worse than that is how you would dare to say something so incredibly awkward.

Why can’t you be cool for once in your stupid life?

Eddie is positively slick with sweat, pushing his hair back from his face and grinning again as he comes down to your level.

He drops into a squat you’re half surprised he can manage with just how tight his jeans are — the other half of you is too busy noticing how now that he’s down here, you’re almost nose to nose. 

You try not to stare at his jeans, or the sweat dripping down from his hairline to grace the curve of his cheekbones and drip off the sharp line of his jaw. His shirt has gone semi-translucent and is clinging to his chest like a lover as you force yourself to meet his honey-warm gaze. 

“You guys are great.” You try again, hoping it comes out sounding a little cooler this time around.

No such luck. 

“Yeah? Well, what’d you expect, Sweetheart?” Eddie drawls, showing you his teeth in a way that makes your insides go tight — he tilts his head over to press his ear to his shoulder, “They don’t let just anyone up on this stage, you know.”

“Yes, they do.” Jeff counters from somewhere behind him, and you watch Eddie’s brows come down in aggravation, “Remember when they let that guy do forty minutes of close-up magic?”

Somewhere, very far away, Gareth is shrugging his shoulders from where he still sits, comfortably perched behind his drumkit.

“That guy wasn’t half bad.” he posits, much to the chagrin of his bandmates.

“That dude was wearing a cape.” Eddie scoffs.

“And you’re saying you wouldn’t?” Jeff snorts.

You’re too caught up in the way your heart is beating itself senseless against your ribs to hear the back and forth continue between them because Eddie called you Sweetheart.

Normally, you like to think such a pet name would leave you roiling in disgust, but nothing about the way you feel about Eddie is normal. 

And you’re not being any shade of normal about this. Forget whatever bullshit it says on your birth certificate, forget all the little pet names anyone has ever given you — Eddie Munson reached down and christened you Sweetheart, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s your name now. 

You feel like your head is going to crack open and burst with electric light as the name rattles around and around in your skull until it finds a tight little corner to wedge itself into and stay forever. 

Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart.

Sweetheart and Eddie.

Sweetheart Munson. 

It’s so goddamn saccharine you’re almost surprised when your teeth don’t come tumbling out of your head. 

As you get lost further down the road of delusional fancy, the band’s bickering carries on without you. 

“I dunno… d’you guys think we should invest in capes?” Adam posits, and it’s almost enough to send Eddie into apoplectic shock.

“Corroded Coffin does not wear capes!” He snarls, and an intrusive little voice can’t help but beg to differ, because to you, Corroded Coffin sounds exactly like the type of band who would come out on stage wearing capes. 

“At least he had style.” Gareth huffs, “And the crowd liked him a whole lot better than they like us, maybe we can learn something from Magical Marve.” 

“Jesus Christ, you guys — you’re blowing it in front of our number one fan!” Eddie gestures to you as he says it and you blush bright red, suddenly terrified that you’ve been caught with hearts in your eyes as the rest of the band’s attention snaps over to you — their apparent number one fan. 

In a few years, when you would read Misery, you would spend a full week brimming with resentment that Stephen King would dare to suggest that it could be anything but a term of endearment. But that was a thought for the future, and only because he wasn’t there to see Eddie Munson dub you Sweetheart. 

Right here and now, you are just happy to be included. Because it’s like Eddie said before, you're with the band… who is still bickering as they go about the quick and dirty business of breaking down their equipment. 

It takes a solid twenty minutes, even with you fumbling to try and help anyway you can. Your vision goes briefly spotty when Eddie hands you his guitar and asks you to “hold her a sec”, briefly — accidentally — hooking his pinky finger with yours in the exchange. A promise of something yet untold — his jacket, his guitar, anything he gives you, you’ll guard with your life. 

It sounds just as stupid as you feared when you can’t stop yourself from saying it this time, but the way he laughs eases the sting of your embarrassment, if only a little. 

When everything is more or less put away, moods have not yet recovered from the previous moment’s tiff, but Gareth is never one to be deterred. 

“Come on, you guys. Why the long faces? That’s the longest set we’ve played in a while!” he says, nudging you with his elbow, “I’d say that’s reason enough to celebrate.”

It’s perhaps the first suggestion that night which isn’t immediately met with a dissenting chorus of booing and hissing. 

“Yeah, what do you say, fellas?” Jeff throws a neighborly arm over Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a shake for good measure, “The Palace’ll still be open for a few hours, how’s about we order a couple pizzas, get a six pack and go for a few rounds of Dragon’s Lair? Quarters are on me.” 

It sounds about as fun as any average Tuesday with Dustin and his friends, not nearly as special as anything you would do to celebrate such a monumental night as this, but being the guest here, you defer to the group. You look to their leader to gauge the appropriate reaction to Jeff’s suggestion, and you notice with a start that he does not share his friend’s enthusiasm. 

Call it babysitter’s intuition, but you seem to be the only one who has noticed that Eddie’s mood has taken a sudden and immediate nosedive into the creaky laminate flooring.

Everyone else is too busy listening to Gareth get his feathers ruffled over the plan to notice Eddie’s exchanged look with Laverne, still tucked in at the back of the bar with her arms crossed. 

You watch all of this happen with the privilege of blessed invisibility, preserving both the excitement of the moment and Eddie’s dignity as a decision is quietly made.

He’s not going. 

Your heart sinks. 

“Oh, so you’re just gonna oh-so-graciously offer to pay for the cheapest part of that plan?” Gareth snaps.

Jeff fishes a ring of keys from the front pocket of his jeans and jingles it in the other boy’s face.

If Eddie’s not going, you don’t want to go either, but you don’t dare embarrass yourself by saying that out loud, so you keep your mouth shut.

“I’m also gonna drive. You can be a cheap prick too when you get your license, Freshman.” Jeff says with no small amount of smugness, “What d’you say, Eddie? You in?”

He does his best to approximate an apologetic smile, then shakes his head, sweat damp curls bouncing as he does. 

“Not tonight, I’ve got some stuff I gotta finish up here.”

He does his best not to look directly at you as he says it, but you’re starting to learn that if there is one thing Eddie has a hard time doing, it’s not looking at you. You aren’t sure how to process that information and for a brief yet terrifying moment, it swells inside you to the point of pain. 

“You sure?” Gareth presses, glancing less than subtly between you and stretching his words past the point of pain, “Big night. Worth celebrating.”

You level him with an unimpressed look. 

Real smooth Gareth, why not just spell it out for him?

Still, you suppose you have to give him Brownie points for trying because you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him. 

Eddie is already retreating when he gives his final answer, waving you off in a way that feels almost painfully casual. 

“Yeah, no, you guys go ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

You watch him go, and he watches you watching him. You can’t tell for certain, but it feels almost as if something significant is passing you by, a moment you’ll never be able to get back if you don’t snatch it out of the air before it’s gone.

It fills you with a stinging burst of panic, especially when Eddie turns and lets you out of his sight. 

You came here tonight to see him. You’re only here for him. 

You’re almost shocked to hear your name being spoken then, and when you snap back over to reality, Jeff and Gareth are looking expectantly at you — Adam, who could evidently not care less who comes or stays, is already halfway to the door.

They had him at pizzas and a six-pack.

“—how ‘bout it?”

You blink back at them stupidly.

“Me?”

Jeff shrugs. 

“Sure, it’s like the man said, you’re our biggest fan, you ought to share in the glory too.” 

Strange how you had assumed that invitation would not be extended to you, stranger still is how you’re suddenly considering it.

Pizza and beer at the arcade is not the worst way you’ve ever spent a Tuesday night, but there is something nagging at you, stopping you from immediately accepting. It’s that same feeling as before, opportunity slipping past you and an incredibly powerful pull asking you whether you ought to stay as you turn back to watch Laverne step aside to make room for Eddie as he rounds the bar. 

Stay? At a bar?

Where you have been so summarily informed that the chief of police is likely to pop up at any moment like a cheap jump scare in a bad horror movie?

It’s certainly not the worst idea you’ve ever had. 

It’s not even the worst idea you’ve had all day. 

“I think…” you start, “Actually, I think I’m gonna pass… it’s been a lot of excitement ...and my curfew is coming up soon.”

It’s not expressly untrue, but you feel a sharp pang of regret when Jeff shrugs and so willingly accepts your polite decline.

Part of you wishes that they would have fought a little harder to get you to come out – even Carol won’t take no for an answer the first time around – but that part of you is very quickly whipped back into shape.

You’re not here to hang out with Adam and Jeff and Gareth. 

“Suit yourself,” he says flippantly, then claps Gareth on the back, “C’mon G.” 

He doesn’t follow right away. Gareth, never one to miss a quiet exchange, remains, giving you a pointed look.

“What’s up?” He asks quietly, “You good?” 

You wait for Jeff to get out of earshot, then lean in.

“...Do you think I should stay?” You ask.

Gareth’s brows furrow in a confusion that you can only imagine must be the mirrored echo of your own previous thoughts. You can almost hear him warning you that Chief Hopper hangs around here, and then something like realization flashes across his features as he glances past you. 

You follow his gaze over to where Eddie is disappearing into the back, tying a dingy apron around his waist. 

“Yes,” He says quickly, with a wide stretch of his mouth, “I think that’s exactly what you should do.”

“You do?”

“Yes, absolutely – you stay, and I’ll see you tomorrow,”

You watch Gareth disappear out the front doors and linger a moment beneath the multi-colored lights.

The jukebox has since flipped over to play Dusty Springfield, and she is warning you that being good isn’t always easy, no matter how hard you try, and it gives you courage enough to slink back to the bar, where your soda sits long empty.

“You’re not getting a refill, so don’t even ask.” Laverne snaps, startling you. 

“I just wanted to pay for it.” 

She makes a gruff sound in the hollow of her throat and begins wiping down the bar. 

“It’s paid for.” She says reluctantly.

Before you can ask what that could possibly mean, she continues. 

“So, I reckon you’re stayin’ behind.” It’s not exactly a question, so you don’t feel pressed to answer, and when you don’t, she hefts a tub of dishes up onto the flattop. “Why don’t you take this back to Junior, since you’re so keen on hangin’ around. Save me the trip.”  

You look from Laverne to the dishes, and back again, feeling the wheels of your brain creaking under the duress of trying to see the invisible pitfall ahead of you. 

“...Am I allowed to do that?” you finally manage to ask, and for half a moment Laverne stares back at you like it was the dumbest thing she's ever heard anyone say. 

“I don’t give a shit” She finally huffs, “You do what you want, I’m goin’ out for a smoke.” 

She’s gone out the side door in a flash, and it takes you far too long to work out the pieces – Eddie paid for your drink, and she’s giving you an excuse to go back and see him. 

Boy, are you dense sometimes. 

Still, you can’t help but wonder if it’s all some clunky ploy to get you thrown out of the bar. You also can’t help but wonder who is going to watch the bar while Laverne is gone, but you decide that isn’t your problem as you seize the plastic tub and heft it down to brace against your hip. 

When you slip behind the bar and into the back, Eddie’s standing at the sink, elbow deep in suds and glaring at them like they’d personally wronged him. 

You linger in the doorway, selfishly taking in as much of this candid moment as you can steal, and scrounging around for what is left of your courage. 

“Hiya.” You say, once you find your voice. 

It startles him bad enough to send him leaping back from the sink. 

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says, stumbling over your name in a way that makes your insides go tight, “I – uh – I thought you left with the guys.”

“Nope.”

“What are you–?”

You tilt the dishtub toward him and jostle it in a way that is less tantalizing than you mean for it to be with the way the dishware shifts dangerously.

“Special delivery.”

Eddie’s brows come down over his eyes and his shoulders sag.  

“...Oh, great. Thanks,” he says, then gestures to the metal surface piled high with dishes. “Just put ‘em wherever you can.” 

The task is daunting. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen as many dishes in your life – it’s going to take him hours to get through them.

You tentatively shove the plastic bin in where you can fit it, careful not to disturb the topsyturvy stacking method that has been employed here, and linger idly as Eddie wipes his soapy hands on his jeans. 

A measured silence settles  between you, through which you can still hear the muted sounds of the bar trilling distantly on.  

“What happened?” Eddie finally asks, “How come you didn’t go with the guys?”

“Oh, well…” you start, electing to fib a little rather than do something so embarrassing as tell him the only reason you’re here tonight, “You know, as thrilling as sitting around in a parking lot drinking cheap beer sounds, I figured somebody ought to stay behind and keep you company. And I figured since you bought me a drink and all, it ought to be me.”

He huffs out a humorless laugh. 

“Lucky me.” 

You try not to let the biting sarcasm of the response dig its teeth in as you continue. 

“...That was sneaky, by the way. You didn’t have to do that.”

Eddie shrugs, and rests a hand on the curved metal lip of the three-basin sink.  

“Least I could do for our biggest fan.”  

He sounds less enthusiastic about that this time around and it is enough to make your stomach clench.

“...You guys were great, by the way.” You try again, for lack of anything better to say.

Eddie shakes his head. 

“Nah, we weren’t. We were actually pretty rough, I’m surprised they let us play as long as they did … but thanks for making the effort, though.” 

“Well… you were great.” You press, folding your hands behind your back and taking a step closer, “I mean, you were pretty much the best part of the show.”

Distantly, you see his eyebrows jump beneath the sweaty fringe drying tacky to his forehead. The corner of his mouth twitches. 

“You keep stroking my ego like that and I’m gonna have to buy you dinner to go with that drink,” Eddie warns you, and something inside of you shrieks with unabashed hormonal joy.

You cannot think of anything more tantalizing than that … except for maybe one of your two fantasies from earlier in the evening, but neither of those scenarios is on the table for tonight.

At least, you’re fairly certain they aren’t. 

You thank your lucky stars he’s so fixated on washing dishes that he can’t see the way you turn bright crimson.

“I’m serious. You were great, Eddie.” 

It’s enough to finally make him look at you again.

“You think so?”

And of course, now that you have his attention, you can’t help but go embarrassing yourself. 

“Yeah, absolutely. You’re a goddamn rockstar…” 

He grins. 

“D’you kiss your mother with that mouth, Sailor?”

You curl your lips in past your teeth on instinct and drop your gaze to your sneakers as the suggestion sends you hurtling back to the picnic bench in the woods behind school. 

You’re so sure Eddie was going to kiss you out there – you watched his eyes go heavy and lidded as his gaze slid down to your lips. You saw the shift in his posture, the oh-so-subtle way he tilted forward, curling his hands into fists, moist pink tongue darting out to wet the plush spread of his lips. 

He’s not looking at you like that now, and it’s the worst goddamn thing in the world. You have to force yourself to think of something – anything else to stop it from completely destroying you as you stand there, listening to Eddie washing the dishes. 

Oddly, there is only one thing that comes to mind. 

“...Can I ask you a question?”

The lewd soapy sounds of suds on ceramic sends a chill up your spine. 

“Sure, hit me.” 

“Before you went on, when we were standing at the bar... why did Laverne call you Junior?” You ask, and the question seems to catch him off guard, so you elaborate to fill the awkward silence before it can settle between you, “She did it again just outside when she told me to bring these back to you… I was just wondering about it…”

Eddie doesn’t answer right away, and you’re just about ready to tell him to forget it by the time he opens his mouth to speak.

“Ah… hmm,” he hesitates, “… it’s a … it’s a little inside joke some folks around town like to roll out.” Eddie explains, then after a beat of silence, he gestures vaguely, “Munson Junior.”

“...Oh.” You say lamely – the subtext is not lost on you, and suddenly you’re sorry you asked.  

A heavy silence settled between you, and then Eddie clears his throat in the prelude to what you'd feared was coming all night long.

“Hey, listen … it was real nice of you to stay behind…”

Uh oh. Here comes that dreaded rejection. 

It was nice of you to stay but it’s actually super weird that you’re here at all and you should probably go home before you embarrass yourself more than you already have. 

You do your best to stamp that line of thinking out before it can settle and elect to fold your hands behind your back, rocking on your heels and doing your utmost to look carefree. 

“But…?”

You don’t care if he’s about to ask you to leave, but you hope to any God out there listening that he doesn’t. 

“But… you should probably head out.” Eddie sighs.

Okay, so you lied. You care so much, and you can feel the corners of your mouth tremble as your smile begins to waver. 

Eddie continues.  

“This is gonna take a while, Sweetheart… and I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than stand around watching me play in dish water.” 

Sweetheart. The nickname fills you with foolish courage, and suddenly you’re taking another step closer. 

“Not really,” You admit, “I actually cancelled some plans to be here tonight…” 

He breathes a halfhearted laugh out through his nose.

“Betcha wish you hadn’t.”  

Oh, how wrong he is. If only he knew just how far you’d gone to make sure you could be here tonight.

“...Can I help?” You ask tentatively, forcing yourself not to look away when Eddie’s gaze snaps up and he clocks your sudden proximity with a soft, strangled sound in the hollow of his throat.

You pretend not to hear it for both your sake, “...it’ll speed things up. And... and then you can buy me dinner, right?”

You watch him stare back at you and can practically see the cogs turning in his brain, as if he absolutely cannot fathom the request you’d just made of him. When he continues to fail to answer, you try again.

“Here, let me help.” 

You reach for the rumpled dish rag, but Eddie catches your hand.

Your lungs spasm and go flat and for the brief moment you exist under his touch, you forget how to breathe. 

He shakes his head and tries to lead you away from the sink, releasing you entirely too soon for your liking. 

“No, you don’t have to do that.” he says, and for half a moment you’re afraid that nothing you say is going to convince him to let you stay. 

Then again, it’s not exactly like you’re asking for his permission. 

“I know…” You hum, feeling your tongue go fat in your mouth and taking another step toward him, “But I want to.”

Eddie doesn’t retreat from your advance, but he calls your bluff with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

“You wanna waste your night doing dishes in the back of a bar?” he deadpans.

Of course you do. 

You want to tell him that you want to do every trivial task under the sun if it means you get to do it with him. You’d happily sit and watch paint dry if Eddie was going to be there with you, but somehow you’re not certain that is going to do anything to make you sound cool and attractive.  

“Sure, why not?” you shrug, rolling your sleeves up as far past your elbows as they will go and sidling up so you’re standing nearly hip to hip.

Your heart is hammering behind your ribs when you dare to steal a cautious, casual glance up at him, “I don’t have anything better to do right now.” 

Eddie stares back at you, brows furrowed quizzically before he shakes his head, mutters something unintelligible to himself, then reaches into a milk crate sitting beneath the sink that you hadn’t noticed until he fishes out a pair of oversized yellow dish gloves and hands them to you. 

“Yeah, okay – since you’ve got nothing better to do – put these on. We don’t want those fingers going prune.”  

It takes you much longer to get through the dishes than you anticipated when you originally offered your services.

Two hours later, your sweater is soaked down the front, you’ve got suds in your sleeves, and you can smell the faintest hint of budding mildew wafting off of you, but you finish the dishes in half the time you imagine it would have taken Eddie to do them on his own. 

When you’re done, you bid Laverne a cheerful farewell, one she does not acknowledge, and you leave the bar together. 

Eddie has been talking animatedly about a hundred different subjects the whole time, though the last five minutes of conversation have been allotted to his guitar – which he tells you is an N.J. Warlock series, and you have no idea what that means.

You don’t mind though, you’ve been listening quietly without interjection because your newest revelation is just how much you like to listen to Eddie talk when he gets going. Not the heated preaching you’ve witnessed a hundred times in the lunchroom, but an excitable deep dive into something he is clearly very passionate about. 

In your deepest flights of fancy, you imagine him talking to someone about you like this, and as you cross the parking lot and arrive at the back of his van, it makes your insides flutter with a girlish excitement.  

Unfortunately, he mistakes your silence over the past few minutes for disinterest and grows sheepish.

“...Anyway, I didn’t mean to talk your ear off like that,” Eddie says, rolling his shoulders. “When I get going it’s hard to shut me up sometimes … sorry.” 

You shake your head.

“No, not at all! I didn’t want to interrupt your flow, I just don’t really know anything about guitars.”

A look of patent relief flashes across Eddie’s face and is very quickly replaced with something sly as he pops open the back doors to the van. Inside sits half a dozen pieces of Gareth’s drum kit, two amps, and a sleek, black, rectangular case.

Eddie rests a hand on the hood of the case with a thump and you watch his gaze slide over to you. 

“You wanna meet her?” he asks. 

You don’t respond right away, if only because you don’t know who he could possibly mean, here in this deserted parking lot, but he doesn’t give you the opportunity to linger in the limbo of that unknowing. 

He pops open the hinges and flips the lid up, revealing the angular crimson body of the guitar. Eddie lifts the instrument carefully from its crushed velvet bed and presents it to you with all the reverence of a lover. 

You reach out tentatively to trace the smooth resin of her body with your finger pads and suddenly the moment feels supercharged with something heavy. The air is thick with it, whatever it is, and it settles in your lungs with a cloying film. You can’t be certain as to why, but you can suddenly feel your heart beating in your stomach.

“This is Sweetheart,” Eddie says, voice dripping with an admiration that makes your insides clench.

The heady atmosphere dissipates almost immediately, and you drop your hand back to your side to try and mask the way it makes you flinch to hear him call the guitar that.

Sweetheart?! No, it most certainly is not. 

You’re Sweetheart. That’s your name now, remember? He only went and gave you the goddamn thing, now here he is telling you it’s just some random term of endearment he slaps on anything shiny and new that happens to catch his eye?

Fucking lame. 

“Oh. Wow. It’s pretty.” You force yourself to say, because it’s not untrue, even if you are suddenly gripped in a ridiculous burning jealousy over his relationship toward an instrument. “Really pretty.” 

And then Eddie pulls a face of sheer and total mock offense.

“Hey now,” he warns you gently, “Show a little respect for the love of my life here, will ya?” 

You glance up at him and for half a moment aren't entirely sure you’re in the mood to meet him there. But it’s stupid to be jealous of an inanimate object. That would be like finding out Eddie was jealous of your vibrator or something stupid … which also suggests he’s fucking his guitar, so no, maybe it’s not like that at all.

Still, the thought manifests an image, which immediately sears itself into your frontal lobe and sends the blood rushing to your head so quickly you’re half surprised it doesn’t pop.

“...she’s pretty?” you hum, feeling suddenly like you’re about to faint. 

Eddie gives you a satisfied smile – one you don’t see for how your vision has briefly gone spotty – and nods. 

“Damn right she is," he says, laying her back in her case and snapping the lid shut.

If you’d been looking, and not feeling a stupid sense of satisfaction to see her get so summarily shut away, you would have seen Eddie go suddenly shy as his eyes slide over to peek at you from his peripheral.

“...Second prettiest girl in the room tonight.”

It hits you like a slap in the face and is oddly grounding. Your vision clears, your ears stop roaring, and just like that everything goes back to normal. Just you and Eddie standing in an empty parking lot with the echo of his attempt at a smooth line lingering between you. 

Your mouth falls open and you choke on a loud bark of startled laughter. 

Ha! Take that, Sweetheart.

Eddie wrinkles his nose and pulls a face like he immediately wishes he could take it back, not knowing that you’d strike him dead before he would even dare. He’s a total fucking dork, and that’s yours now. There will be no takebacks. Not now, not ever.  

“Damn,” he mutters, squeezing an eye shut and reaching up to scratch at his brow, “That was super fucking corny, wasn’t it? Not my best effort – sorry.” 

You press your lips together in a tight seal in a desperate attempt to keep a hideously giddy sound of animalistic joy from bleating up out of you, and you shake your head. 

“That’s okay.” You start, dismissing the thick layer of cheese with a flippant wave, “I’m sure Laverne would be flattered to hear you say that about her.” 

It takes him a moment to catch on, but when he does he snorts and rolls his eyes, mumbling something under his breath about Laverne. He doesn’t correct you, and you let the moment die with dignity because you know what matters.

Eddie Munson thinks you’re pretty, and that will forever be etched on the front of your brain, whether he likes it or not. 

“So,” Eddie begins, shutting the van up again and leaning back against the door. He fishes a rumpled pack of camels from his jacket pocket, and you elect not to say anything about that, “It’s a little late for dinner… but how would you feel about a midnight snack?”

You know the muscles in your face are going to be sore in the morning for how widely you’ve been grinning back at him all night, and you nod, hoping you don’t look too overeager, but also not giving a damn if you do. 

“What did you have in mind?”

He pops a cigarette between his teeth and goes looking for his lighter.  

“Let’s see. I think Fosters might still be open. You could get a milkshake, chili dog, banana split, – whatever your heart desires, Sweet Thing. Your wish is my command.” 

The thought of riding out to Foster’s Freeze on the far end of town with Eddie Munson is tantalizing in the best possible way. You’re beaming as you bring your wrist up to glance at your watch and try to visualize what you can stomach so late.

All thoughts of your growling stomach sail right out of your head as your heart rockets up into your throat before dropping into a free fall because it’s nearly midnight. 

“Jesus Christ!” You gasp, head snapping up to share your horrified look with the class. 

Eddie blinks back at you.

“Nope, just me–” 

“Can I see your watch?” You’re taking hold of his wrist and pulling it up to stare into the digital face of his Casio before he can answer, “Oh, God – it’s so late.”

“What’s the matter, you turning into a pumpkin or something?” He teases, lighting his cigarette with his free hand.

“My curfew was like half an hour ago,” You say quickly, dropping his wrist and nearly upending your bag in the frantic search for your keys.  

“Oh… shit,” Eddie mumbles, “Well, d’you need a ride? I’ll get you home lickety-split–” 

You elect to ignore any intended innuendo there in lieu of your mounting panic.

“No, thanks, I’ve got my car – listen, I really gotta go,” You say, “But let’s do a raincheck, okay?” 

You don’t wait for him to answer before you turn and bolt for your car shouting back to him as you go.  

“I mean it, Munson! You owe me that midnight snack!” 

You’re fumbling with your keys in the lock and whipping your door open with a harsh creak before you remember yourself and spin on your heel.  

“Oh— Eddie, wait!” He’s circled around to the driver’s side and is standing on the runner, already half way up into his seat when his head snaps up, and you grow suddenly shy, “Thank you for this, it was – I mean, you’re – I had fun tonight. More fun than I would have had sitting at home, anyway.” 

He gives you a strange look.  

“...you really mean that, don’t you?” He asks after a moment, “Truly. Dishes and all?”

You nod, and you watch him shaking his head in a way you imagine must be accompanied by a good-humored chuckle as he takes a final drag on his cigarette and tosses it.    

“Well, bless you for saying so.” He says, “Let’s do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely. I’ll do the dishes with you anytime.” Oh my God, why the fuck did you just say that? You’re cheesy and boring and stupid – just a stupid girl with a stupid crush. 

And Eddie is laughing. 

“Get home safe, Sweetheart.” he calls, “Wear your seatbelt.”

“Yeah, you too… goodnight, Eddie.”  

Despite the traded goodbyes, you both linger a moment longer, looking back at one another halfway into your respective cars and so reluctant to part despite the ticking time bomb hurtling toward you at breakneck speed.

You need to get home, and yet…?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie calls, and you feel yourself flush. 

“It’s just… you know … what Shakespeare said…”

Across the lot, he steps down from the van and nods. 

“Sure. Good ol’ Willy Shakes.” and when you don’t elaborate, he gently prompts you, “What’s Shakespeare say, Sweetness?”

The saccharine twist on your new nickname has a lump forming in your throat, one you almost don’t get the words around as it swells and threatens to strangle you.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” you sigh. 

It’s perhaps the uncoolest thing you’ve said all night, and you don’t even have the good sense to be embarrassed about it, because it’s also the truest thing you’ve said all night, and suddenly your heart is pounding in your chest.

You really, really have to go, but you don’t want to. 

Eddie crosses his arms and leans back against the van.

“Yeah… it sure is.” 

The silence endures, and as the seconds tick by, you continue to fail to tear yourself away. The last time you left him like this, you didn’t see him again for five days, and after tonight you’re not sure you can survive another five days without Eddie in your life.

Maybe you can stand to miss your curfew. Maybe your parents won’t notice your car is gone and won’t come to check in on you. Maybe you can sneak in after midnight or stay out all night … maybe you can just stand here saying goodnight over and over until the sun comes up and never have to get to the parting part. 

“Go home, Sweetheart.” Eddie says then, “I don’t wanna get you in trouble.” 

The sentiment causes the lump in your throat to swell, and you have to force yourself to breathe out slowly to ease the pressure it puts on you.

You watch him climb up into the van and feel your heart thumping again. One of you had to go first, you suppose. Last time it was you, this time it’s only fair it’s him. 

“Bye Eddie.” You call, and when you still fail to get into your car, he heaves a long-suffering sigh, which is a little too fond to be just that.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” He asks, “It’s like I told you – lickety split.”  

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. You want to warn him, but all you can manage is a smile.

Then you slide in behind the wheel of your car and shut the door behind you. You linger a moment longer and when you feel that lump threatening to return – one you quickly realize is the prelude to melancholy – you can’t help but steal one last look out your window, back at the van.

Eddie is still there, and better still, he seems to have had the same thought as you, because when you look, there he is looking at you again.

It fills you with a bright and warming sense of satisfaction. It's not so easy to tear yourself away, is it?

Then, as if to answer, Eddie waves.

You grin, return the gesture, and start your cars at the same time. It only takes a short dosey-do around each other to exit the parking lot side by side. You turn left, he turns right, and you watch in your rearview mirror until his taillights fade into the dark.

Yeah, you think you might have fallen pretty hard tonight, and you’re going to have a very hard time getting up again.

[msbigredmachine]

Coming In London (Jey Uso/OC)

A date night for the ages across the pond. Post-Money in the Bank 2023. Jey Uso/OC one-shot.

Warnings: SMUT

Word count: 5.5k

A/N: New Edition's 'Can You Stand The Rain' was my muse for this fic. It kinda fit. I'm not weird I promise.

Enjoy!

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

Money in the Bank was so much fun! 

Zainab had attended a number of WWE shows with some great audiences in the past couple of years, but there was something about the atmosphere in the O2 Arena that could not be replicated elsewhere. They were on fire all night, especially for the main event, yet another one her boyfriend and his twin brother were headlining this year. Watching him feed off the fans’ energy and tear it up with his three brothers was mesmerizing. Emotions ran high afterwards and she ended up hanging out in the hotel lounge with the Bloodline and several other Superstars till the early hours of Sunday morning. It was hard to fall asleep with how happy everyone was about the great show they’d put on.

Jey was still passed out at breakfast time, buried beneath the white sheets of the plush bed of their hotel suite. Deciding not to disturb him, Zainab went alone, and ran into Jimmy and Roman at the buffet table. They were still buzzing from last night. As she kept them company, she noticed there was something else exciting them. They kept checking their phones, smiling from ear to ear and sharing secret looks. Her curiosity was piqued, but before she could press for more info, both men finished up their breakfast and quickly kissed her goodbye before leaving for their flights back home.

When she returned to her man, he was awake but still in bed, with his phone in his hands, the sheets pooled around his waist and his hair all disheveled and sexy. Damn, he looked so good. Like, “I woke up like this” kinda good.

“Morning, sexy. Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” she greeted, giggling when he yanked her down to the bed the moment she was within reach, almost knocking off her glasses. She accepted his soft, gentle kisses as his arms wrapped around her. He tasted like mint, like he’d just brushed his teeth. “I brought you a couple of muffins, a banana and some yogurt. How ya feelin’?”

“Like I been hit by a damn truck,” he murmured, sitting up to rest his back against the headboard while keeping his hold on her waist. “How was breakfast?”

“Good. Your twin and Roman were there. They were acting real sus. Kept smilin’ all wide and shit and checking their phones like you’re doing now. Who are y’all gossiping about?”

“Haha, no one, babe. We just goofin’ around.” Clearing his throat and putting his phone away, he smoothly changed the subject. “Date night at the London Eye is a go. Tonight gon’ be lit, baybeee.”

Zainab pursed her lips and adopted her most neutral expression. “Are you sure we’ll be able to go? You still look really tired.”

Jey couldn’t hold back his laugh at her faux concern. “Z, I’m good. We goin’. Don’t know why you so scared.”

“You know I don’t like heights, Mr. Day One Ish,” she rolled her eyes.

“Last time I was in London, I went on the ride. The view was unbelievable and I told myself I’d take you there if we ever got the chance. Don’t be a scaredy cat. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

Whenever his mind was set on something, he went through with it no matter what. Since he only wanted to show her a good time, she decided to indulge him. “Fine. Bianca invited me for afternoon tea. Imma do a little shopping afterwards, maybe get my nails done too. I’ll be back in time for tonight.”

Jey reached for his wallet and handed her his black American Express card. “Here. Go crazy with it. Just make sure you look sexy for me tonight.”

Zainab sighed dramatically and plucked the hard plastic from between his fingers, previous back-and-forths reminding her that he would not take no for an answer. “You spoil me too much, babe.”

She tried to sound stern, but that smile he loved was bright and happy, and he couldn’t stop himself from stealing another kiss. “For you, baby, ain’t no such thing as too much.” He meant it. She had him sprung, head over heels for her. He would give her the world if she asked for it. She worked so hard on the daily and she deserved to be spoiled and pampered all the time.

Zainab’s fingers trailed over his pec tattoo as a fiendish idea came to her. “Hmm. Would you like something in return then, Daddy? It’ll be unfair for you to do all the giving.”

“Well, if you insist…” he rasped, taking her hand and putting it between his legs, making her cup him through the sheets. His other hand curled dangerously around her neck, squeezing lightly, watching the flame of desire ignite in her gorgeous eyes, “...You can gimme that throat.”

His gruff demand, topped by his darkened irises and his bottom lip tucked between his teeth, had her pussy purring. She drew the sheets off him and exposed his mouth-watering erection. Adjusting her frame on the bed, she closed her fist around his dick, leaning down to flick her tongue over the slit of his head, and her smirk widened when a sharp hiss escaped him. 

“Whatever Daddy wants, Daddy gets,” she said to him with a wink, licking him one more time. As her mouth sank lower down his shaft, Jey felt his bones melt, and he laid back with a relaxed sigh and let her work her magic on him.

Today was going to be a great day.

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

The weather was nice, mostly sunny with none of the infamous London rain showers in sight, thank God. After tea at the highly esteemed Fortnum & Mason, she headed out to the High Street with Bianca Belair to find a knockout outfit for tonight. The odds were in her favor as she quickly found a pair of heels that would rock her man’s world once he saw them. That inspired her to search for an equally stunning dress, and several stores later, she came across one that made even notoriously-hard-to-impress Bianca’s jaw drop. So that was settled. Next stop was Agent Provocateur. The store was stacked with so many beautiful designs of lingerie, it was tough to choose. With Bianca’s approval, Zainab finally settled on a blood-red, backless lace push-up bra and matching thong. She was highly impressed with the amount of cleavage the bra afforded her and how the color made her skin pop. She looked forward to watching it get torn apart by her boyfriend tonight.  

Her predictions were headed in the right direction, as said boyfriend was already drooling before they left their suite for dinner. “Damn, girl. I ain't sure I wanna let you leave this room no more,” Jey drawled, resting his hands on her shapely hips. “You look good enough to eat, baby.”

Laughing as he tugged her backwards right up against his crotch, Zainab didn’t take her eyes off the mirror as she bumped him away with her backside. “Down, boy, before you make me drop my contact lens. This was your idea so we’re going. But who knows?” She locked darkened eyes with him through the round shaped mirror and twerked her ass for his benefit. “If I enjoy myself, I’ll be sure to let you…eat me…later tonight.”

Damn. “We’re gonna have an awesome time tonight, later and afterwards,” he declared loudly and confidently, finishing with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows that made her laugh. Her boyfriend could be so goofy sometimes.

—-----------

Dinner was quiet and intimate, and Zainab couldn't help but feel loved up and romantic as her man kept sweeping her off her feet. He was super attentive and she was enjoying the attention and their playful banter. She loved that he topped up her wine glass whenever it emptied, loved that he fed her the last piece of his steak. Being together like this was really nice; thanks to their busy careers, this kind of alone time was a luxury, one neither Jey nor Zainab took for granted.

The walk from the food market to the world famous ferris wheel was thankfully a short one. Zainab beamed as she entered the structure known as Cupid’s Pod and was greeted with rows of red roses and candles decorating the enclosure.

The ride came with a complimentary bottle of Rosé Champagne and a luxury box of Pink Champagne Truffles, set up on the wooden oval bench in the middle of the pod. Jey was right about the views from inside the London Eye. They were unbelievable, overlooking the boats gliding along the River Thames and several high rise buildings. The higher they went, the quieter it became, save for the personalized playlist playing softly in the background. Snuggled up with Jey on the bench, Zainab sipped some more champagne, indulged in some chocolate and basked in the ambience and the safety of her man's arms, which currently were around her waist, the heat of his body pressed against her from behind. His soft lips dispensed tender kisses along the curve of her neck, eliciting a small, welcoming moan from her at his gentle caresses. 

“You so damn fine, girl,” he complimented, pressing more kisses to her skin, absorbing her intoxicating scent. “I’m glad you’re in London with me.”

“Thank you, my love. I’m glad I’m here with you too,” she smiled up at him, lazily rubbing his thigh.

“We met on this day two years ago. Do you remember?” he asked.

Zainab sighed dreamily, her eyes closed as she nuzzled her face against his. “Like it was yesterday.”

“Mm-hmm. I also remember your stubborn ass ain’t want nothin’ to do with me.”

“I told you why. I dated a soccer player and a basketball player. They both put me through some shit. Didn’t want to deal with another athlete.”

"Naw, baby girl. None of them dudes was right for you, that's all," Jey stated matter-of-factly, his toothy smirk showing off his silver jeweled grill.

“Ha, ‘course you’d say that.” Their romance was a slow burn, as both were still struggling with recent personal heartbreak when they first met. But their deep attraction to one another was something neither could stop themselves from exploring. When he was still working in the Thunderdome, he would make the trip to Fort Lauderdale to see her after the show every Friday night so they could bond and get to know each other better. They didn't even start sleeping together right away, because they were more interested in learning about each other first. When he resumed traveling, Zainab was sure that she would never hear from him again. But nothing changed. Not a day went by when he didn’t call her; a month did not pass without them meeting up at least once. She had been afraid of falling for him, but it was impossible not to. The man was beautiful, inside and out; not without his flaws and bad habits, but who wasn’t? 

At first, she wasn’t sure how long they would last, given his crazy schedule and his history, along with her own bad breakups. But somehow she shelved all those fears and worked with him to strengthen their relationship. The fact that they were now one of the few couples in their circle still going strong to this day, meant they were doing something right. 

She studied his features as he took her hands in his. There was a nervous energy about him tonight he'd been trying to conceal, but it only felt more palpable now. “You okay, baby?” she queried. 

“Any regrets? Ya know, gettin' with me?” he asked, his voice quiet and shy.

She made a show of thinking about it. “About two or three, maybe,” she shrugged, and burst into laughter at his bombastic side-eye. “I’m just playin’,” she chortled, nudging him playfully. “We’ve had our ups and downs like any other couple, but it’s been incredible. I won't change a thing. You're an amazing boyfriend, Jey.”

“You’re amazing, Z. You’re a special person, and you been so good to me these past couple of years. I love you.” He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but shiver at the intensity in his eyes. 

“I love you too.” The feeling was still so surreal after all this time. Every time he said those words to her, she had to catch her breath. She knew about what he had endured in his past and how long it took for him to open up again. Knowing that he felt this way about her made her heart swell. She had never felt as happy and as loved as she did with him.

The moment stretched with them gazing lovingly into each other's eyes. Zainab raised his hand to her lips and placed a soft kiss across his knuckles. With that same hand, Jey caressed her cheek, down to her jaw, cupping her chin. His thumb softly rubbed across her bottom lip. Boldly, she sucked the tip into her mouth, her heated stare locked on him, and he could not resist replacing his thumb with his lips, feeding her with warm, languid kisses that made her lady bits clench and her toes curl. 

Their little make out session was interrupted by the British A.I. woman’s voice announcing that they were at the very top of London. Jey reluctantly released Zainab and helped her to her feet. “The best of all the views is right here, babe. Take a look.” He pointed, gently rotating her and stepping back.

Summoning enough courage to go closer to the railings she’d been avoiding all evening, she cast a cautious glance out at the wondrous skyline before her. “You know what? I think I’m getting used to the height now,” she agreed, turning back around for his rebuttal.

Jey was down on one knee. A little velvet box was open in his hands with a sparkling diamond ring shining out of it.

Zainab burst out laughing and covered her face. “Oh my god you asshole! Are you fuckin’ serious?!”

Jey feigned hurt. “I know your ass ain’t cussin’ me out while I’m about to propose to you, woman,” he exclaimed, watching her walk away with her hands still on her face. He could hear her laughter gradually disintegrate, and when her shoulders began to shake with sobs, his eyes prickled. “Z…Baby, come here, I got somethin’ I wanna ask you,” he called out softly to her.

She was sure she was dreaming. It was a struggle processing this overwhelming surge of happiness, a happiness that only Jey Uso made her feel. She had to sit back down because her legs were shaking. She would definitely fall over and ruin this beautiful moment he'd clearly worked hard to set up. Luckily, Jey was kneeling before her, his hand resting on her thigh while holding up the ring to her. Her tears flowed freely, but he was there to wipe each one away, being there for her as he had been for the last two years.

“Fuck, I had a whole speech planned out and shit,” he whispered, his own voice clogged with emotion, “But now I got nothing, except that I’m so in love with you, baby. You changed my life, and I wanna be with you for the rest of it. Thank you for teaching me how to love again. Zainab Ortega, my queen, my love, will you marry me?”

Tears kept streaming down her cheeks, threatening to ruin her makeup as she stared at the man she loved more than anything in the whole world. She had only one answer. “Of course. Yes, yes I will,” she replied without hesitation, nodding enthusiastically as she watched him slide the stunning diamond ring on her finger. It fit perfectly.  

Jey’s head was spinning. He never thought he’d be in this position so soon after Nisha. He thought he would never find love again. The morning Nisha breathed her last breath, he all but lost his will to wrestle, to function, to live. Never did he imagine that just eighteen months later, at a fundraiser to combat the disease that took his wife, he would meet someone else that made his heart flutter again, that caused his skin to sprout goosebumps with just a smile. At first, he felt so guilty and so ashamed of his feelings. But before her passing, Nisha had made him promise to move on, to open his heart again if he ever found the right woman. 

So he did. Allowed himself to fall in love one more time. He couldn’t believe he’d found such a beautiful, caring, patient, sexy ass woman like Zainab. Her kind soul, her perennial optimism and her zest for life inspired him to push on with his own. Now, his career was thriving and he was in the best shape of his life. In so many ways, she saved his life. Putting a ring on her finger made all the sense in the world to him. With this, everything between them would become that much more final, much more complete. 

Zainab stared down at her finger in complete awe. “It's so pretty! I can’t believe it. This must have been such a difficult step to take, baby,” she said, looking at him.

“At first, it was,” he confessed, wiping the corners of his eyes with the pad of his thumb. “But then I quickly realized how much in love I was with you, and I couldn’t live without you. I got that ring made two months ago, ma. This weekend wasn’t gonna go by without me poppin’ the question. Nisha will always be in my heart, but it’s you and me now, Z.”

She nodded in understanding and pulled him close, pressing her lips against his. “I would be honored to be your wife. I love you so much. Thank you.” She was literally on top of the world. She would never forget this trip to London, ever.

They spent the next ten minutes calling up family and friends to tell them the good news and show off her brand new engagement ring. There were a lot of happy tears and a lot of love. Apparently everyone had been waiting for this day to come. Roman and Jimmy had merely grinned proudly, and just as Zainab suspected, they both knew that this was going down tonight, which was why they’d been so cryptic and secretive at breakfast. Jey and Zainab were so happy to have the support of both their wonderful families.

She couldn’t stop fawning over the sizable diamond glowing on her ring finger. “Baby, this rock is so big.”

“Thought you liked big things,” Jey teased with a light squeeze of her waist, flashing her a knowing wink. 

“You know first-hand that I do. Oh my god, Jey…we're getting married!”

“Mm-hmm. I’m so fuckin’ lucky, babe, you have no idea,” he gushed. He cupped the side of her face and bent down to kiss her, gently at first, then harder, leaning into her. Zainab ran her hands up the bulge of his biceps, moaning into his mouth when his tongue lashed against hers and his hand slid over her ass, giving it a firm squeeze.

“You know, proposing to you wasn’t the only thing I imagined doing in this here pod,” he said.

One look at the heat in his eyes made her understand right away. “No. You wouldn’t.”

“That a dare, baby?” He moved his mouth down to her neck, a small groan rumbling through him as he nipped and licked her skin. It served as the perfect distraction for his hands to slip under her dress and massage the round, ample globes of her backside. 

“Babe, people can see us,” Zainab gasped, but melted into his arms anyway, “We’re gonna get in trouble. There’s cameras in here-”

“Fuck the cameras,” Jey dismissed. His penetrating stare shot tremors down her spine. "Do you know how fuckin’ hot you look tonight? Do you know the nasty shit I wanna do to you right now?”

She could already tell with the bulge pressing insistently against her. But she wanted to hear him say it. She couldn't quite think straight anyway. She wouldn't have been able to stop him if her life had depended on it. "Tell me, Daddy," she moaned.

"You drive me crazy when you dress up like this, baby, all sexy and provocative and shit…I seen dem thirsty ass motherfuckers at dinner, starin’ at you, wishing you were theirs...I wanted to bend your fine ass over our table and give you this dick in front of everybody. Let ‘em all know you mine."

“I will always be yours,” she whispered. "Always."

He walked her back to the bench, sitting down and pulling her to sit on him. As always, she fit perfectly on his lap, her ass resting between his muscular thighs. They hugged and kissed, his eager hands all over her body while she rocked back and forth against his hard erection. He took his time maneuvering her dress up to her waist, caressing her thighs the whole way and amplifying her already rabid need for him to be inside her. His fingers dipped beneath the lace edge of her panties, finding her wet and ready for him. He teased gently, lightly stroking her pussy lips, causing her to moan into his mouth. He knew just how to touch her, knew exactly how to make her body react to his every whim.

His hands slipped upwards to rest over her delectable bosom. “This a pretty ass bra, ma. You got it for me?”

“Yes, Daddy. You like it?” she asked. Jey answered her question by freeing her breasts from the confines like he was opening up a present. Her titties were nice and plump and made his mouth water. He eagerly took a nipple in his mouth and sucked while he massaged the other one.

“Baby…” she whimpered, hesitancy thick in her voice. 

“Z…” he growled, his lips giving her nipple a quick, audibly wet tug that momentarily short-circuited her brain, “Unless you tellin’ me to fuck you harder, ion wanna hear it.”

His mouth covered hers before she could speak again, and this time she completely surrendered to him, allowing his tongue to slide in and wrestle with hers to a no-contest. She unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants to get access to him. As she pulled him out of his briefs and dragged her palm up and down the hard, smooth length of his cock, she gasped as he immediately tugged her new lace panties to the side and lowered her down onto him. The stretch was incredible, and they both moaned. She looked at her new fiancé, who sported a sexy smirk on his lips, watching her mouth fall open as she sat all the way down on his long, hard dick. They’d had sex many, many times together, but each time something new was awakened in her, even more so now as it occurred to her that anyone in the surrounding capsules could take a close look through the darkness and see what was happening. Her heart pounded in her chest in anticipation. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening, but she wasn’t going to stop it. 

She moved on top of him, moaning as his dick twitched inside her, welcomed by her warm depths. He grabbed her breasts again, kneading them expertly, which made her bite her bottom lip harder than intended. When he pinched her nipples, her back arched and her head hung back. His long fingers then met her waist as he leaned in to suckle her throat and smell her, basking in the pleasure and feral desperation in her voice. Her thighs locked around his hips, giving her a little leverage to lift herself up and down on him with ease. She was dripping but still so tight around him thanks to how endowed he was. 

“Damn, baby…keep ridin’ me like this and you gon’ be a mama in nine months,” Jey choked out, his eyes rolling back as she kept grinding herself on him, squeezing her walls snugly around his cock. “Imma give you all the babies, fuck, you feel so good…”

He already put a ring on it. Babies were the next step, surely. The thought of conceiving his child on the night of their wildest sexcapade yet, aroused her to no end. “Hmm, then breed me, Daddy,” Zainab groaned. Threading her fingers through his hair, she gave him a kiss so passionate that he moaned into her mouth, he then forced her to do the same when he smacked her ass, the sharp sting zipping down to her loins. The bench was not comfortable, but they were so into it, and the ambience was so romantic and sexy, that neither of them cared. 

“Unnnhhh god, baby,” she whined with her lips parted over his own, tasting his heavy breaths, “Shit, you feel so good inside me.”

"I can see that, you creamin’ all over me,” Jey looked down at her gyrating hips with a smirk. Her creamy mess had visibly smeared his exposed gray-colored briefs. “You love this dick, don't you, baby?" he taunted, flicking his tongue over her lips.

“Yes Daddy.”

“I know you do. Fuck me, beautiful, bounce on this dick.” His moans had dissolved to primal growls now, mingling with the soft music and the wet, slapping sounds of their lovemaking. She pushed him down flat on his back, and the surprise on his handsome features evaporated when she began riding him harder, taking his dick deeper inside her with each drop down, with each salacious roll of her backside. Her moans mingled with his groans as he started to bounce her himself, his hands clutching the meat of her hips, moving her more vigorously up and down. His pouty lips were parted and gasping in stereo with hers as he made her fuck him, that big dick meeting the sweetest of her spots. 

“Shit, Daddy, that dick in me!” she groaned. The atmosphere was so incredibly hot, she buried her face in his neck, moaning her pleasure as she felt herself start to tingle and throb. "Oh, fuck, Jey, I'm gonna come,” she breathed heavily, her voice vanishing into thin air as she bounced harder and faster on his dick, hunting down that potent high. She nearly lost her balance as it seized her, a glorious cascade of orgasm, her thighs quivering and skin humming as the explosion eviscerated her senses.

She felt him sit back upright and rise to his feet with her still in his arms, his mouth moving against hers with more purpose than usual. It wasn’t until she felt something cool and hard pressing against her bare back that she finally broke the kiss out of curiosity. Looking behind her, her heart stopped cold inside her chest.

Jey had pressed her directly against the clear glass wall of the capsule, with nothing below her but the twinkling lights of London. Zainab screamed and squirmed against his body, her head spinning with both fear and the remnants of her orgasm as she struggled to get away from the glass.

"Jesus! Fuck, Jey, what…" 

"Hey, hey, shhh," he whispered, keeping a careful hold around her trembling frame. His lips swept tenderly over her jawline as he tried to keep her calm. She was shaking, her arms and legs gripping him with the strength of a boa constrictor. "Breathe for me, Zainab. Look at me. Look at me."

She twisted her face away from the view, her pretty eyes wide and frightened. 

“I-I-I…”

“Calm down for me baby. Relax.” His mouth brushed along her throat, doing his part to quell her nerves. Her squirms subsided, but only a little. He could tell she still wanted to get away, but he kept her body firmly secured between himself and the glass. “Do you trust me?”

Right now, on the cusp of grave danger, she wasn’t so sure she did. “Yeah,” she finally ground out.

“Then you know I’ll never let anything happen to you. I gotchu.”

His kiss was gentle but insistent and full of reassurance. She felt his hand sneak along her hip, then the sharp tug of her panties pressing into her skin, and a tearing sound and the flimsy material falling away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him tuck the ruined undergarment into his back pocket. Keeping his body flush against hers, he molded her bare ass cheeks in his hands, grinding against her for a few seconds before sliding his dick back home. She clenched around his girth immediately, greedily, and Jey groaned softly as he worked himself into her with slow, winding circles that touched every single sweet spot her pussy possessed. He was a tight fit, always was. It felt so good that she couldn’t stop the moans that spilled from her lips.

“You like that, huh? Daddy’s gotchu,” he said, repeating the action again and again. He stared with wonder in his eyes at his love, the most wonderful woman in the world. “You so beautiful, baby. I love you so much.” Placing another gentle, calming kiss on her lips, he increased his pace. Zainab did what she could to block out the very real threat of the deathly drop behind her and focus on her fiancé now pounding into her. The sound of his body meeting hers was almost deafening in the exposed enclosure.

“Damn, Z, you soppin’ wet. I knew you’d like this shit. Love this pussy so much.” His expression was one of lust-filled triumph as he studied her face, the parting of her lips panting for him, goading him to angle his hips and fuck her harder and deeper, bottoming her out. “This turnin’ you on, huh, your ass and titties out, all of London watching you take my big dick…”

With another whimpering moan, her head rocked back against the glass as she felt her climax creep closer again. Her eyes fluttered shut as her nerves settled and more erogenous sensations took over. Her legs tensed around his waist as she rotated her hips in rhythm with his thrusts, each one pressing her ass deeper against the glass, making her wetter and wetter and bringing her closer to succumbing to that euphoric feeling that only her man, now her betrothed, could give her. Her breath was stolen from her as his dick continued to toy with her g-spot, his grunts and gasps warming her neck, her pussy walls quivering and rippling around his girth in reaction. “Fuck, Jey, right there…Mmm fuck, you ‘boutta make me come again!”

Holding his girl in place with his big strong hands, Jey intensified his strokes, his gruff voice grunting with the effort. "You fuckin’ right, baby, gimme that nut,” he mumbled, himself starting to unravel from the near-crippling pleasure. “Give it to me cuz it’s mine. Drain your pussy all over my dick."

Zainab hugged him even tighter, her nails digging through his shirt and into his back as her moans devolved to whimpers, and the faster he thrust into her, the further their bodies seemed to plunge from the same dizzying heights as the capsule they were in. She cried out as her release tore her apart, her walls suffocating his cock. Jey was right behind her, his guttural groan at the pulse of her throat, his dick lodged in the back of her pussy as he came just as hard for her. Desperately, she clenched around him, taking it all, milking him for everything he had as the world seemingly collapsed around them.

Seconds later, the A.I. woman’s voice popped up again to announce that the ride was descending in ten minutes. Jey leaned in for a breathless kiss as he pulled out of her and finally edged her away from the glass. She clung to him as he carried her back to the bench. He pulled wet wipes seemingly out of nowhere and cleaned her up, sharing more kisses with her while helping each other redress. 

“You good?” he asked, smoothing her hair back into place and drawing her legs onto his lap.

Zainab nodded, biting her lip as the last of her climax rippled between her squeezed thighs. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

“You loved it though,” he said, his deep voice seductively low as he stroked her thigh. “Don’t lie to Daddy now. I could tell you loved every second, you got so wet for me, babe...”

There was so much amusement and cockiness and love in his eyes. All for her. “You always make me wet, Daddy,” she admitted, glancing back at the sheet of glass she’d been trapped against just moments ago. She had to give him his props for his highly unique sense of adventure. “You think we’ll still be this lit after we’re married?” she questioned.

“Ay, as long as we work on it, together, like we been doin’, and we don’t let none of that outside noise creep in…we’ll be good. That’s what I want for us, Z.”

She liked that answer a lot. It was what she wanted, too. “I made you a promise earlier that if I enjoyed myself, you can eat me when we get back. My offer still stands,” she noted, batting her long lashes at him.

Jey smiled like the cat who got the cream. Literally. Picking out a truffle from the box, he popped it into his mouth and licked up the morsel that stained his finger.

“Mmm. I bet this goes great with pussy,” he commented with a sly smirk.

Fuck. Zainab’s throat went dry and her body instantly flooded with heat, despite having been thoroughly fucked just minutes ago. “You might be right,” she uttered back.

The capsule finally came to a safe stop on the ground, bringing the ride to an end. Jey and Zainab settled for a few more chocolatey smooches as the pod's doors opened. Expecting to be confronted about their antics by someone in authority, they were relieved when no one approached. The newly-engaged couple walked out hand in hand with big dreamy smiles on their faces, eager to retreat to their far more private hotel suite to continue their raunchy celebrations.

They took the box of chocolates with them…for research purposes, of course.

THE END

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

I really enjoy writing soft Jey.

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[multiverse-imagines]

SkyDragonGrandeeny of ao3 asked!

I was going to request a fluff story prompt, where Vash is having trouble sleeping or woke up from a nightmare, and reader hums or sings him back to sleep. A very wholesome and comforting story quq

-

A/N: I have written a fic like this already, BUT! mans has a lot of nightmares. Let's give some comfort baybeee!!!? The song is My Wish by Rascal Flatts!

My Wish

You and Vash stumbled back to the Inn after a long night of drinking and partying with Nicholas, the insurance girls, and the rest of the patrons. You practically had to drag him up the stairs, and up to your shared room. 

"Aw, don't bench me coach, I can still make the field goal!~" Vash babbled as you set him down on the bed.

"Come on, Angel, let's get you to bed. Games over." You giggled as you unbuttoned his coat. He made some slurred comment about undressing him, but you promised him that you would stop at just his coat. He could dress himself into his PJs, or stay in his uncomfortable armor. He huffed and stumbled around as he changed into his pajamas. The two of you curled up into bed, and he was out pretty much instantly.

You, on the other hand, needed some time to process the day's events. It had been a long day of running, avoiding gunfire, and watching Vash face the flaws in his ideals. Another person died today. Yet another person who was shot right in front of Vash. Another person he couldn't save. Another argument with Wolfwood, who had forgiven Vash by the time they had all gone for drinks, but Wolfwood seemed to be cramming his feelings down. 

You held the sleeping stampede in your arms as he snored away his buzz. His face was peaceful, in such vast contrast to the contortion of fear, sadness and the little simmer of anger he thought no one could see. But you could see it. Your heart ached with him. What a terrible environment they lived in, where people killed each other over petty squabbles, and minimal currency. 

His face began to contort as he began to shake, and stir from his slumber. A nightmare. You knew it was gonna be a while before he would sleep peacefully again. 

"Vash, Angel, Wake up. C'mon, Dearest." You gently shook his shoulder, his eyes soon snapping open, and a gasp escaped his lips before he looked up to you, his eyes quickly bursting into tears as he came to his senses. 

"Oh Mayfly…" his voice shook as he pulled you close to him, and he sobbed incoherent words into your chest, clinging to you as if you were the last living thing on Gunsmoke. 

"I've got you, Angel. It's okay. He's not in pain anymore. You did everything you could."

"But he still died…" you hardly made out Vash's whimper.

"You can do everything correctly, and still lose."

"All I ever do is lose…" he grumbled, his breath and voice coming back to him now. 

"I'm insulted that you think I'm a loss, Angel. I don't think you should talk about Preacher, Meryl and Milly that way too." You comforted him. Vash took in those words, lightly tapping his fingers on your back as he processed. 

"How long was I out?" He tried to drop the subject.

"Like, a half hour." You frowned, "We have a long day ahead of us again. Let's get some sleep." You caressed the beauty mark on his face.

"I don't wanna. I'll just have another nightmare." He pouted. 

"I know, Angel. But you have to keep your mind clear in case shit goes sideways tomorrow too."

"I just want a nice day walking around town, playing with the kids, getting donuts with you, and drinking with everyone. No gunfire, no fights, just love and peace."

"I know, Angel. We'll get there someday." You comforted him.

"Will you… sing me that song?" He seemed afraid to ask.

"Of course, Angel. And if you have another nightmare, I'll be here to wake you." You slipped your fingers through his sweaty tresses before guiding him to lay down once again. 

"I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow, and each road leads you where you wanna go. If you're faced with a choice and you have to choose, I hope you choose the one that means the most to you." You quietly sang to him as you pet his hair, 

"And if one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep on walkin' til you find a window." He hugged you closer as he got comfortable, "if it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile, but more than anything. More than anything," you pressed a kiss to his forehead, 

"My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to. Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small, you never need to carry more than you can hold. And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' to, I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too. Yeah, this is my Wish." You soon heard the light snores coming from him once again.

You had once learned the song that Rem used to sing to him, but some nights that made the nightmares worse. Instead, you sang him this song your family has passed down since before the fall, before the space-faring age. You always found it uplifting and it was like your family's creedo.

Now you got to sing such a wonderful song to your beloved Angel to bring him hope on the nights when he had none. You just hoped that someday this song would manifest itself into his life, and that you, Vash, Wolfwood, everyone on Gunsmoke, would be able to live such a life described in the song. Because that was your wish.

[fadingplaidlibrary]

You asked for rare pairs.

Gunther x Wizard lives in my brain on rainy days.

Elliot x Clint is a weird rarepair.

hello my darlinggg yes yes yes!! here’s a lil bit of both just for you <3

a fluffy drabble double feature baybeee. canon-typical mention of minor injury and alcohol consumption in the second one. word count: 979 for like-minded (gunther x wizard), 294 for a happy accident (elliott x clint). no beta, we die like men. i do not consent for my work to be reuploaded elsewhere. have funnnn ;p

like-minded

gunther had been desperate for a job when he took the position as pelican town’s librarian. it wasn’t ideal, of course, to be suddenly in charge after the last owner had robbed the town blind, but he was up to the challenge. a small life in a small town was his real goal, and at least the seemingly impossible task of replenishing the shelves around him (while also staffing the front desk on his own) keeps him occupied

rasmodius can’t help but feel impressed by the ambitious newcomer. the wizard had never liked the last librarian, found them arrogant from the start. but this new guy, gunther, is different. he seems resolute about the work he’s chosen, what will surely be a years-long restoration project. and despite his reputation as a mysterious, aloof figure, all alone in his tower, the wizard wants nothing more than to share the company of someone who loves and craves knowledge like he does

the wizard’s mentors had passed their wisdom to him with the promise that he would one day pass it to another. they meant that he should one day seek an apprentice, but rasmodius was sure that sharing his personal collection with the small town library would count towards that aspiration. and to be honest… he would have traded his entire tower just to ease this clever new docent’s burden, to make him smile, even. maybe in that easygoing way that deepens the dimples in his cheeks. hm…

one morning when gunther arrives at the library, he finds a box on his front step. inside are three beautiful hardcover books of poems — first-editions, no less! the anthologies are clearly well-loved but still in excellent condition. the next day, he finds a small dwarf-script scroll wrapped in waterproof canvas. the week after that he finds a single perfect ancient seed in a glass jar. every package comes with a small handwritten note, with a brief description of the contents, and signed M. R. in scrawling cursive. maybe these old shelves would be filled sooner than anyone could have predicted…

penny and the children are thrilled to explore the new additions to the library. gunther never reveals the true source of the materials, but he can’t help but wonder… months pass, then a year, and slowly the shelves of both the library and the museum are filled up with fascinating new books and specimens. the new farmer has certainly contributed a fair share, but the majority of the new pieces have come from that same unnamed benefactor

one night, rasmodius finds an envelope on the front step of his tower. inside is a letter from the pelican town library and museum, on official stationery, but handwritten in gunther’s small, neat script. it looks to be… an invitation? to our generous anonymous benefactor - g. von roemer, librarian

when rasmodius breezes into town that night and lands in front of the library, he finds gunther sitting on the bench in front the humble building. “i received your letter,” the older man begins. “you need not trouble yourself with any repayment. i only…” the sentence trails off. he only what? wanted to share his knowledge? yes, but there was more to it. selfishly, secretly, he had hoped that the new docent would connect the dots and… notice him. as pathetic as that sounded, this almighty magician wanted to be noticed by the librarian. and now that he had gotten his wish, he didn’t know what to do with himself

“well now…” gunther’s voice is soft, awestruck. “so it really is you.” his deep brown eyes search the wizard’s face, now glowing with a self-conscious blush even in the weak moonlight. gunther hadn’t expected his anonymous benefactor to be so… so easy on the eyes, as they said back home. he rises slowly to his feet and removes his hat, then continues in his low drawl. “i wanted to thank you in person, mister...” “rasmodius.” the wizard clears his throat and repeats, “mage rasmodius.” gunther nods slowly, eyes still fixed on the man in front of him. “it’s an honor to finally meet you, mage rasmodius,” gunther nods. he swallows hard and adjusts his glasses before continuing. “your generosity has, uh… well, it means more’n you know. i-i’d like to give ya this.” gunther reaches into an inner pocket of his coat, then extends his right hand to the wizard. there, in the center of his gloved palm, lay a gleaming silver key. rasmodius holds his breath. “i had clint make this a few weeks ago.” gunther explains gently. “don’t worry ‘bout clint, he uh… he ain’t the type to ask too many questions. your secret’s still safe with me,” he says with a wink. “go on then.”

the wizard looks down at the key, then up at gunther, then back down at the key, before hesitantly reaching for it. on the handle of the key is a carving of an open book, with the letters M. R. on the pages. rasmodius runs one callused finger over his initials, speechless

“you can stay anonymous if ya like,” gunther says, fixing his hat back onto his head. “but if ya ever need anything, that key’ll let ya in anytime.” the gentle librarian smiles from ear to ear before adding, “and i’ll be here if ya ever need me.” rasmodius briefly worries that his thudding, stuttering heartbeat will wake the whole neighborhood. he closes his hand around the key, still warm from gunther’s pocket, and simply replies, “the honor was all mine.”

years later, clint found himself melting down that same silver key into a pair of matching rings for an off-record special order. gunther was right, clint didn’t ask too many questions, but he didn’t need to. the initials engraved into the rings — R. M. in one and G. V. R. in the other — told the whole story

a happy accident

elliott has always had a thing for strong working men. he enjoys his own foppish aesthetic, of course, revels in his theatrics and melodrama, but nothing gets him going like a down-to-earth man with big arms and strong hands. all of his bravado melts away when clint is around, but he’s sure the blacksmith doesn’t feel the same way

clint is slouched in a booth at the saloon now, one hand wrapped around a glass of pale ale and the other wrapped haphazardly in bandages. the writer sits across from him, offering fumbling apologies which clint waves off. elliott hadn’t meant to startle the blacksmith when he breezed into the shop that afternoon, but when his unexpected arrival led the blacksmith to accidentally drop a heavy-looking iron bar and injure himself, elliott insisted on making it all better — first by wrapping the blacksmith’s sore hand in gauze, and then by buying him a drink. one drink leads to another, and before long clint and elliott are ordering dinner together

clint has always had a soft spot for the poetic types. his own life is full of hard labor, sore muscles, and more than a little loneliness. he’s always felt drawn to people who could look at a rock and see a crystal, who could maybe look at a tired, awkward blacksmith and see someone worth holding close. as he nurses his drink, he wonders if elliott, with all his flowy hair and flowery talk, and who can describe anything like there’s some magic in it, gets lonely too. he watches his companion swirl his wine glass, effortlessly poised and pretty, long flaming locks spilling over his shoulder. one day, clint resolves to himself with a little smile, one day i’ll buy him dinner too

[onekisstotakewithme]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 🤍 -ypq

hello! what an opportunity! what a blessing! what a chance for you to get the curated ✨ cool onekisstotakewithme jams ✨ (aka you've unleashed the annoying <3 )

etymology (M*A*S*H; BJ/Peg/Hawkeye) this one is an all-timer, even though I only wrote it in December. the triad's relationship evolving over time tracked via the evolution of terms (complete with dictionary definitions!)

Last Requests (M*A*S*H; BJ/Hawkeye) a tag to 'novocaine mutiny' that i had the idea for in 2018, but wasn't able to write until 2022. i love this story sm. 💜

happily ever after... and after (M*A*S*H; BJ/Peg/Hawkeye) this story... has one of the strongest themes/throughlines of any I've ever written, and it was METICULOUSLY researched, and I still get starry-eyed thinking about it. essentially the theme is 'what happens after the heroes ride into the sunset?' (Very technically a sequel to 'ye who are weary,' but it remains my favourite in-verse story)

In the Still of the Night (M*A*S*H; BJ/Hawkeye) I have a soft spot for this one because it was the very first hunnihawk fic I ever wrote. January of 2018, baybeee. I have no idea if it holds up, but I agonized over this one...

younger in october (than in all the months of spring) (M*A*S*H; Hawkeye/Charles) Charles goes to Maine for (Canadian) Thanksgiving in 1953.

Plus bonuses because i like talking about my work:

katabasis (M*A*S*H; gen) Hawkeye journeys to the underworld at the end of "the late captain pierce"; classics inspired spookiness.

Many a Weary Mile (M*A*S*H; BJ/Hawkeye-ish, BJ/Peg) BJ's journey home - full of reunions and partings

Aurora (M*A*S*H; BJ/Peg) A sort of companion piece to the previous one - BJ's homecoming, from Peg's point of view.

[miraculouslybobatea]

15 Questions 15 Mutuals!!

Thank you thank you so very much for the tag @bengaltiger25 !!

Are you named after anyone?

Kind of. My name isn’t the same as, but it is based on my maternal grandmother’s name.

When was the last time you cried?

Uhhh probably last night lol. Nothing really happened yesterday , I’ve just being doing that a lot for the past year.

Do you have kids?

NAUR. I’m wayyy to young for that lol.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Oh never. I’m probably the least sarcastic person ever /sarcastic/. No bit in all serious I can be pretty sarcastic. I’ve been told that despite being pretty quiet I tend to say the funniest stuff under my breath.

What sports do you play/have played?

I used to play soccer for a while until I was like 13ish. I would’ve liked to have continued but to do it in school I would’ve had to choose between sports or theatre (I chose theater). I also did track and field one spring.

What's the first thing you notice about someone?

I never really thought about it but probably their outfit. Not in a judgmental way, I just tend to notice what people are wearing, even if I’m just passing them on the street.

What's your eye color?

Okay so this is actually kind of interesting! If you’ve noticed in any of my drawings of myself my eye color is probably kind of indeterminate.That’s because I have central heterochromia, so the center of my eyes are kind of blue but the outsides are brown (it’s more noticeable on my right eye). Trust me, it doesn’t look as cool as it sounds irl.

Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings PLEASE. Though I love some good angst, I need it to end happily. I don’t really like horror movies because I usually just end up bored.

Any special talents?

Idk if I have any special talents. I like to preform, like music and acting. I also like most things art, so painting, drawing, digital (as you’ve all seen if you know me), etc. I also bake and I’m decent at it.

Where were you born?

New York New York baybeee

What are your hobbies?

I already listed some, but singing, listening to music, anything artsy, skating, watching movies and tv, sewing.

Do you have pets?

Until recently I had a cocker spaniel, best in the world- here look at him. Look at his face.

How tall are you?

5’0”, or 152 cm (I think). My parents are pretty short so it makes sense.

Favorite subject in school?

Ooh this is tough. I enjoy most subjects and I do about the same in all of them so it’s hard to pick. Idk if I can pick a favorite but I can tell you that my least favorite is probably mathematics.

Dream job?

I’m not really sure! I’m probably going to end up doing something medical/science oriented, but it would be really cool in a complete fantasy world to do something involving designing or where I’d get to work with animals.

@o-cinnamonstickz @eating-you-alive-cutely @spookyanxiety @silverwolfie100 @andonyourown @xocosplayluverxo and anyone else I may be missing, it’s your turn now!!!

[hexiewrites]

15 questions, 15 tags

thanks for the tag @hotcocoaharrington!! tis the season for ask games I guess haha

nickname: hex

height: 5'6"

last thing i googled: "are doves pigeons" and no I will not elaborate (answer: basically yeah!)

song stuck in my head: maniac by michael sembello (?? i literally had to google it its just the line 'she's a maniac, maniac on the flooooor' over and over, thanks ADHD)

# followers: 1,270ish? but the first thousand or so are old ones from my previous fandom days who are relatively inactive I think - so in my head I count about 200 of yall!

amount of sleep: last night? around 8 hours, which is my preference!

dream job: I'd love to be a writer full time but I know that's just not feasible

wearing: sweatpants and a tshirt, it's nothing week baybeee!

book/movie that summarizes you: that... summarizes me? yikes. I have literally no idea. i dunno pick something with a manic pixie girl who actually just has serious and crippling adhd that's how i feel a lot of the time.

fav song: i literally couldn't choose one to save my life. I think right NOW it's free by florence and the machine? but it'll be different again in another week.

aesthetic: i'm not really an aesthetic person because of the adhd. jeans and tshirts? is that an aesthetic? too much curly hair? i like bright colours and plants? and also books.

fav authors: man I have so many from so many different genres. like. rick riordan and tamora pierce feels like bad answers but god i love them, and their works from my childhood still hold up relatively well. @olivieblake because her writing is amazing and I'm still just so endlessly proud that i can go into a bookstore and SEE HER NAME it blows my mind. OH! frederick backman - if yall havent read beartown you should fix that immediately. this year storygraph says my most reads include: alice oseman, elle kennedy, alexis hall (another top fave), v.e. schwab, and for nonfiction I'm a sucker for jon krakauer.

random fact: i LOVE boardgames! I just got "parks" for christmas and we're having SO much fun with it, but i'm also a big fan of azul, wingspan, and botanik.

tagging: no one because I hate this part but if you're reading this: consider yourself tagged!!!

[suzieb-fit]

I'm back baybeee 😋

Day one of life back to normal for a couple of weeks. Going on an actual holiday at the beginning of next month!

Anyway, even with ridiculous blood sugar levels (been a mess all last week while I was away, and all through my first night back at home), I got on with it.

It has settled down now though, thankfully.

I've reshuffled my individual macro targets.

Fat first, protein second, carbs last in terms of amount.

And funnily enough, I've hit it bang on today!

Big salad planned for lunch, then chicken with veggies for dinner.

Three meals. No snacks.

Feels good to get back on it!

And now, a bit of reading while I chill til lunchtime.

Not a bad day.

[android-lloyd-webber]

One of my besties is a straight dude who dresses exactly like me to the point where we realized today that we got the same haircut last night. Pacsun sales rack, Old Navy, dad hats, SportsClips, and cargo pants forever baybeee. Now that’s what I call solidarity. Every butch lesbian has a straight male counterpart to talk abt Podcasts with. Nature is beautiful

[talysalankil]

i forgot to post about last night's sprints but i got a chapter one, a beginning of a chapter 3 (i'm doing a jumping timelines thing so i wanted to stick to that one while i did the follow-up to chapter 1) and a decent idea where the present timeline is going for the first act of the book

also much more exciting (to me and no one else), i'm back to mapmaking baybeee

basically it's a lot of refining of the map i made just before nanowrimo started. vectorizing that map is kind of essential if i want it to be useful in the future, and it proved to me a little problematic, but in the end i found that inkscape has a really strong tool for it, as long as you work strictly in black and white.

but first I tweaked the threshold tool of affinity photo to edit my map (i'm so glad i kept the file with all its many layers and not just the final render LOL). i also adjusted the curves so the map's a little different

mostly it's flattening the ocean floor because there was a pretty sharp dive.

then with the threshold that got me a total of 25 maps (though i discarded one of them) for varying altitude values.

those are for the surface, and these are for the sea

just for the record, since the original file (you know, based on data from nasa) is humongous, each of these took a decent amount of time rendering, and THEN it took forever to get inkscape to vectorize them. most of my afternoon and evening. good thing i was wasting it with mandatory family team building exercises anyway.

anyway. once all these are vectorized, i can pop into affinity designer, add some colors, slide stuff around to get a nicer cutoff, and voilà! a map

for comparison, the same file using the raster map above looks like this:

it obviously looks darker because the vector one essentially rounds down altitudes, so i'm keeping both versions handy just in case. but i'm pretty amazed at how little detail was lost. inkscape did some real magic in there.

(well also it is still a massive file. a big chungus. i didn't know vector images could even be this big. but yeah it makes sense)

now of course the real data under this map still uses the old cutoff point and i just duplicated the map to get this. the next step is to unscramble all that, and then, well, i guess i'll have the vector map i wanted and i can work on climate zones. which will be useful so i can decide where my protagonist actually is in the scenes i'm writing lmao.

speaking of, it's past 10pm already (not just because of this, my mom did waste more of my evening) so i should, like, do a writing sprint. I guess.

[tiptapricot]

Summary: The universe is always watching Bill and Ted, always bending in ways to let them achieve things and to keep them safe. Until, that is, it isn’t, and the castle goes very differently.

[multiverse-imagines]

A/N: part 2 baybeee! Hell hath no fury like an inspired fanfic writer!! time for some Disney magic, y'all!! ✨✨

I'll do the best that I can

Plush!Vash au (part 2)

She stumbled out of bed as she does every morning. She got dressed, trying to decide what she wanted to wear. The choice between a short or long sleeve shirt.

"Fuck, it's only gonna be twenty degrees today" she shook her head and chose the long sleeve, tossing the short sleeve back into the clean, yet unfolded clothes. 

After she was dressed, she scooped me up, and brought me out to the living room, setting me on the end table as she grabbed a quick breakfast of cereal. She had been restless last night, a nightmare probably. It looked as if it still haunted her in these early hours.

I was excited, able and willing to get some more cuddles before she left for work. She watched tiktoks as she ate. She giggled at the funny ones, and swooned when a rare Trigun one came on screen. 

"He's so babygirl. Ugh, I love him so much." She fangirled over the Spiky haired blond on screen. She let out a sigh before gazing my way. She used her thumb to stroke my face, with that all too common loving gaze that said, 'Why cant you be real?' 

"Look at me and my silly little delusions." She gave a chuckle of self pity, "Thinking I could ever win over the heart of a man who doesn't even exist." Her eyes seemed to moisten up with threatening tears. She shook her head, as if the motion would remove the thoughts from her brain. She curled her arms around my tiny being, hugging me to her chest. 

"I'd make him so happy though. I just know I would." She whispered, even though no one else was in this big, lonely house. She checked the time on her phone and sighed.

"Time to head out already. Fuck." She picked her unwilling body up from the chair, and walked to her bedroom, giving my forehead a kiss before setting me down on the pillow of her bed. 

"Have a good day, Vash. Love ya." She petted my hair before leaving the room. I heard another fit of self pity chuckles before I heard the front door shut and her car leave the driveway. 

It really tore me up inside to see the loneliness get to her like this. I'd heard her say to a friend who apparently lived far away that they feel like they can never truly open up to anyone. No one is there to hear the whole story, only bits and pieces of her life. A new mask for every new person in her life from strangers to friends, to family. To her, she's a stranger to everyone.

Everyone except me, it seems. The words she rambles to no one but herself, talking out stories, talking out her mental health, things she would say to Vash The Stampede or Nicholas D Wolfwood. 

Why can't I be with her? Why can't I give more to ease her pain? I wanted to throw something, but I can't move. I have to sit here and let my non-existent blood boil. 

A twitch in my arm, something I'd never felt before. Pain? Was this pain? Arms. Legs. Head. Holy hell this hurts. I shut my eyes. Shut my eyes? I can't do that? I could now, I guess, because they were shut. 

By the time the pain subsided, the bed was a lot smaller. The room seemed a bit smaller, but not too much. The reflective surface of the TV showed a man. A man I'd seen many a time, Vash the Stampede. But only in face and hair.

I figured I'd be the same height when I stood up, but my body wasn't riddled with scars. My left arm was real too. The real Vash had scars and a prosthetic arm.

Upon closer inspection, some of the missing scars were markings on my body, tattoos. It was all of the major ones she liked. The one over my right shoulder, the little cross on my left hip, a thick black tic tac toe over my left peck. Then there were two dark lines where the prosthetic would have been, and a symmetrical scar tattoo that he had on the other arm. Moving my right hand, I noticed tattoos of the thumb stitching he had. She'll be excited about that one.

I was pretty fit as well, the muscles he'd worked so hard on, only to be gifted to me.  Looking to my side, a pair of orange W wire rim sunglasses sat folded on the bed. I stood from the bed- oh shit I was naked.

I dug around in her dresser for a pair of basketball shorts, and one of her larger t-shirts. I prayed that they would fit me. The shirt was a little tight, but liveable until she got home.

I looked on the bed to find the ripped remains of my little coat I used to wear. I hoped that the trade off of losing her beloved plush for, basically, the real thing would be acceptable to her. I was starving. 

I went to the kitchen, trying to find something that didn't require cooking. I didn't know how to cook, and didn't want to risk damaging the house or an appliance. I settled on some chips I'd seen her eat before, and sat on the sofa, opening the bag. Thankfully the process of eating seemed to come naturally to me. 

I found myself picking up the controller for the video game system she had. I booted up the system, and chose a game that had multiple files, and started my own. 

By the time I was hungry again, I checked the fridge and found a small pizza lunch able. I'd seen her heat up the little bread rounds in the microwave. 

"Twenty seconds!" She would sing whenever she would put them in the machine. She did that no matter how much time she needed. I smiled at the memory, excited for her to come home. 

I had just finished the last of the pizza when I heard the front door open and her beautiful singing echoed through the house. She was listening to her headphones, considering the lack of pause. She entered the living room, and stopped mid lyric, frozen in place at the sight of me. The bag of fast food she'd gotten, fell to the floor, unnoticed by her. 

"V…Vash?" Her voice was a whisper as her eyes were locked on me.

"Hey… w-welcome home, Mayfly." I said the favorite nickname she would have wanted to be called by him.

"You're… I've gone full on delusional, haven't I? Have I finally lost it?" she pinched her arm. When I didn't disappear, she bit her thumb. I wasn't gone.

"You're real. You're really here."

"Y-yeah, I had to borrow some of your clothes. I uh, don't fit into my coat anymore." I dug the little fabric coat out of the pocket of my shorts, handing it to her.

"You're… little Vashie. You're really Vash."

"Kinda, I guess. My left arm is real, and my scars aren't. Check this out!" I lifted the sleeve on my left arm, "They're just tattoos. All of the ones you like!" I smiled down at her. She was so much shorter now. She just came up to my chest. She looked back up at me, bringing her hand to my face, she seemed to hesitate before cupping my cheek, caressing the beauty mark under my eye. 

"Holy shit, you're real." Poor thing was still in shock. I spoke her name, and took her hand with my left, and cupped her cheek with my right hand. 

"I'm here. I'll always be here. I've wanted this for so long, just to be here with you." I gently pulled her into a hug. She stiffened up for a second, before finally returning my embrace.

It wasn't long before she began to shake, and her throat released a chorus of sobs. I caressed her hair, and rubbed her back. Something I've always wanted to do when she was crying. I could tell these were tears of joy and relief though. 

"Mayfly, I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy. I've seen your ups and downs for so long, and I want to make everything better for you."

"Yes please. Please please please." She sobbed against my chest, "b-but, you gotta let me know if you need anything too, okay? We can't both be neglecting ourselves to make each other happy, ya know?" She looked up at me with a sniffle.

"Of course silly. We can take care of each other. 50/50?" I laughed, wiping some of her tears away.

"Y-yeah, 50/50." She smiled through her tears. I let go of her to retrieve the fallen bag of food.

"I can start by insisting that you eat something." I handed her the bag.

"Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that." 

--

We laid in bed that night, she'd eaten her food, and she'd told me about her day at work. We laid tangled up in each other, while one of her favorite movies played. One she'd probably played a billions times since my arrival. Not that I cared. 

"You're really sure that you're okay with looking after me?" She asked for the 3rd time since the movie started.

"Yes, Mayfly. I want to make sure you're happy, and loved, and heard and can be your authentic self around me. It's all I've ever wanted for you."

"But I'm a lot to handle. I don't wanna be a burden to you." 

"You've never been those things before. You relied on me when I was just your plush toy. Please continue to rely on me."

Her face went red, remembering I still have all my memories of being a toy.

"Oh, oh no, I'm so sorry, that means you've seen me-"

"And it makes me love you even more, Mayfly." I cupped her face with my free hand, "I love who you are. The you that you don't show anyone else. Your real opinions, your real emotions… every inch of your body…" my heart fluttered as I pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

"You deserve Vash the Stampede. You deserve to be loved by him, and your kind heart deserves to love him." I pressed my forehead to hers, "I-I mean, I may not totally be Vash, but I am officially licensed." I chuckled, "so let me be your Vash. It's your turn to be loved." 

[non-un-topo]

Literally wtf I only get like this on “boy days”

[thebluestbluewords]

Five Gold Rings

holiday fic time baybeee! This is TECHNICALLY part 5/12 but it stands well enough on its own to post now. Malvie/Jayvie (don’t question it), holiday gifting fluff. ~900 words.

*

Evie owns a lot of jewelry.

What she doesn’t own, however, is the golden ring that’s sitting on the top of her jewelry box. It’s a nice ring, small and gold and with a little round blue stone set into it.

There’s no note, but it’s a nice ring, and it goes perfectly with the glittery skirt that Evie’s had on the top of her to-be-worn pile for ages, so she slips it on her right hand. Her starstone droplet earrings match as well, and the soft sweater with the embroidery on the collar is the perfect blend of cute and cozy that she needs for the last week of school before the holidays.

Outfit selected, Evie throws a slipper at Mal on her way to the bathroom.

“Fuck’ff,” the blanket lump on Mal’s bed mumbles. “Too cold.”

“Too bad!” Evie calls back. “Get your dragon butt moving or I’m going to open all the windows and let it snow on you!”

“Mmrgh,” Mal groans, instead of answering. “Mgreeb.”

Glitter eyeshadow is so outdated, even for the holidays. “Did you leave me a ring, babe?” Evie asks as she’s putting on her liner, and Mal is stumbling her way out of bed. “It’s cute.”

Mal presses her face into Evie’s shoulder and mumbles something inaudible. Her hair is sticking up into two little cowlick spikes like her mother’s horns, and it’s kind of adorable.

“Do you think I should wear the cherry red or the mahogany today?” Evie wonders, holding up the two lipsticks. “Babe?”

“Cherry,” Mal mumbles, and leans around for a kiss. “Tastes better.”

“Of course.”

“And I didn’t leave the ring,” Mal adds. “It’s from Jay.”

“It’s cute, I’ll have to tell him he has good taste for once.” Evie says, lifting up her hand to admire it. “I almost want to layer more, but it shines so well alone too.”

Mal bonks her head into Evie’s cheek. “I would wait on layering any more,” she says, and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You never know what else might show up.”

“Oh?”

Another kiss. Distracting. “I just think,” Mal says, between pecks that are getting deeper each time. “That there might be,” Another kiss. “More to the present than,” a deeper kiss, lingering. “Just this one.”

Evie puts down her lipstick and returns the favor. “You think so?” she says, almost teasing. “Sure nobody put him up to it?”

“Gifting is about bringing joy to others,” Mal says loftily. “And if I find joy in giving other people gift ideas then it’s none of your business how that happens.”

Evie laughs, and keeps laughing all the way through her morning routine.

*

There’s another ring in her pencil case. Still gold, but this time with a little red stone. Square cut, and matching the blue one. Evie slips it on her finger just before she picks up her pencil for the final history lecture of the semester.

*

A third ring, this time clipped around the ring of her chemistry binder. A diamond shaped stone, black as the night and glittering with internal crystals.

*

The fourth ring has a pale purple stone, cut into an oval. It stacks on with the others, a little progression of bright shapes and shining gold bands up the pale skin of her finger. It comes slipped into the top of her bag just after lunch, as she’s rushing to her next class and worrying about the end-of-year quiz she’s going to have to finish out the day.

It makes her smile, which is worth a lot more than the little piece of metal and stone’s monetary value. Worth more than a castle, the love that she has for her little family.

Auradon has made her soft for affection, and it’s not a bad feeling.

*

“Hey princess,” Jay says later. Evie is washed up for bed now, soft and wearing her cozy dressing gown that she made herself before they came over to the land of fairy-tale endings. “I have something for you.”

Evie looks up at him, this wonderful boy who finds things just for her, even when they lived on an island with nothing of real value except for the people it contained. “Jaybird,” she says softly. Just for the two of them. Mal and Carlos don’t need to know that they’re being emotionally vulnerable over here. “Thank you.”

Jay doesn't really blush, but he ducks his head.“It’s just a little thing,” he says, like an apology. “This one isn’t as nice as the others.”

Evie stops her restless fingers from playing with the other four, which she’s still wearing, stacked up on her right ring finger like the treasure that they are. “And I’m not as nice as the other princesses,” she says. “Since when has that ever stopped us?”

“True,” Jay says, and opens his hand for her. “Here it is. Five golden rings, delivered just for you, Princess.”

Evie scoops up the fifth ring. It’s a plain gold band, much like the others. The stone set in this one is clear, shaped like a heart, and with a crack running through it. She slips it onto her finger, settling it right where it belongs at the top of the stack.

She holds out her hand, and Jay scoops it up to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to the stones. “Fairest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Charmer.” Evie shoots back. “Flattery will get you– oh!”

Jay pulls back. “Do you want me to stop?”

It’s so easy to pull him back in for one more kiss. “Never,” Evie whispers against his lips. “Never-ever-ever.”

[jellyluchi]

Prosciutto x Focaccia; "Mentorship"

A/N: I'm most definitely asleep right now since I wrote this late last night. Based on this commissioned art piece. Focaccia is riding. But where is she going? Absolutely nowhere except pleasure town baybeee. This is literally so long for no reason.

— Summary: Ham and Bread make sandwich at La Squadra di Esecuzione's humble headquarters 👍

— Genre: NSFW, romance, established relationships

— Warnings: blow jobs, dick riding, h*nd h*lding 😳

— Word count: 1644

He walks ahead of her, longer legs taking him farther with a purpose for something she has no clue about. “Shouldn’t we get back to the base?”

He promptly ignores her question for a moment, pocketed hands moving out with two objects, a lighter and a single cigarette. She watches him from behind as he puts it to his mouth and lights it gingerly before pocketing the lighter and his hand once more. Without a single word he motions her forward with a gesture of his head and she understands. They’ll walk back to base. Target dead and forgotten. It’s not her kill but but she watched him age the already dying old man without a second thought. It’s the reason why she never stops him from reaching for his lighter. He probably needs it, addiction or not.

She should probably know these streets by heart but every alleyway looks the same and reminds her too much of her hometown back in Bangladesh. When her parents didn’t allow her to go outside, were they protecting her from men like him? But how could that be when all Prosciutto does is protect her. If he were like that, she would have parted from him long ago. She speed walks to be level with him and purposefully takes out the hand from his pocket to hold it out in the open. He’s surprised, looking at her with well disguised alarm, but she’s not afraid of a little PDA so she looks up at him with a smile that makes him feel more flustered than he’d care to show. They reach the base like that, with intertwined hands and a Prosciutto who uses his cigarette to hid the smile on his lips. Content in unspoken affection and silence.

They find the base to be empty, a surprise, since a couple other members, namely Ghiaccio, was supposed to be there by the time their mission ended. As usual, Prosciutto thinks nothing of it, sitting down on the couch, long done with smoking in their little walk home. Focaccia is a bit unsure what to do. She knows she needs to be there for the mission debriefing because of the information they uncovered. And she can’t miss the way Prosciutto always looks to her to prompt her to peak up during meetings to make sure her thoughts are heard. She never imagined being so deeply ingrained into their group and the comfort of familiarity settles into her stomach like a home cooked meal.

She sits beside him, a little away, politely as if it’s her first time visiting a friend’s home. They’ve not been alone in the base after he asked her out. And her nerves buzz with energy and excitement at getting a moment alone with him, it makes her nervous in a way that molds her behavior into how it was when they first met. She unconsciously fidgets, taking sideways glances at Proscutto’s form sitting with his legs spread and arms over the back of the couch. He takes a moment to bring out his Nokia cellphone most likely to call Risotto. He dials the number with one hand and looks away, holding it up to his ear. His posture looks so inviting the way it creates a space for her beside him, becking and calling her to go hug his torso close.

She sneaks up to him when he’s not looking as he speaks in rapid fire Italian. It’s barely understandable but she caught a couple keywords. One of which happens to be late. She slowly snakes her arm over his torso and rests her head on his chest gleefully and with the lack of eyes on them and the much needed privacy he’s less alarmed and more physical in the way his hand comes to rest against her back, rubbing slowly, soothingly. He bids Risotto goodbye and Focaccia looks up at him with a questioning look.

“He said he’ll be late,” as they expected.

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

“Good girl,” he whispers, head thrown back in pleasure. The worn green leather couch of the base shifts as he pushes himself farther towards her face. She thinks he looks so majestic like this, legs spread and pants hastily opened, a heavenly angle as she looks up to him, worshiping his very being. Her tongue traces the the tip of his cock as he rests a hand on her head, black thick black strands slipping between his fingers. Prosciutto remembers a time not so long ago when he found out of Focaccia’s inexperience, it was rather thrilling to watch her take him for the first time, teaching her to use her mouth, her pretty little lips. He remembers her hesitance and insecurity, something that he alleviates with much needed praise. And he finds her reaction to encouragement equally as arousing, as she looks up at him with curious, eager, innocent brown eyes, trying to bob on his cock and use her hands at the same time. Giving her a hard time will only mess up part of the fun but he can’t help wanting to thrust into her mouth. He adoringly removes a strand of curly hair away from her face as she gives a particularly hard suck to his tip, making him groan. She learns rather quick.

It’s becoming quite obvious how eager she’s become to suck him off despite her uneasiness from the way she has no rhythm and takes too many chances to kiss his tip over and over. He once felt Focaccia’s lips dip much too close to the plush flesh of his balls when her eyes were closed in pleasure and he kept the tidbit of information tucked into himself making a mental note to put it to good use in the future. “You’ve been so good for me, piccolina,” he says. “Do you want a reward?”

She moans onto his cock at the pet name and he has to hold himself together to keep from shaking. The shaft is pulled off with a loud pop as she eagerly nods at him, looking into his eyes, trying to read what he has in mind.

He pats his thighs invitingly but not before telling her to stand from her crouched position. She’s about to climb onto his lap when he tsks lowly. “Other way, darling.” She quickly shifts around, bunching up her skirt in the process and and giving him a perfect view of her ass. Lithe fingers pull at her flesh and he ponders when did she take off her panties? Or was she not wearing them in the first place? Filthy minx. “Sit, kitty,” the nickname has her all but collapsing onto his cock, slowly, allowing him to feel every inch and crevice as she takes him. It pulls a moan from her, one of many, and no doubt he’ll have a cacophony of them. Prosciutto is a greedy man, always has been. So it’s not surprise to Focaccia when he claws at her breasts unbuttons her top desperately kneading the voluptuous flesh through her bra. And she responds with a satisfying whine.

She looks back at him, pleading eyes and drool rolling down her chin. “May I?” She asks desperately. Focaccia is such an inquisitive woman. One would think it could drive Prosciutto mad. But on the contrary, he loves her questions so much, loves teaching her. Especially when she asks for permission. Without needing to be told to do so. Such an unassuming daintiness is what made him give her the pet name. “Go ahead, princess.” He knows the use of which would stop her from holding back on her pleasure and ride him to her heart’s content. He brings two fingers to her clit, feeling the thick fluid already among the strands of back hair a smirks before continuing with his rubbing. Her moans become incomprehensible and high pitched, he looks at the reflection of their bodies on the glass shelves across from them and wonders if Illuso’s voyeuristic ass is watching them from some hiding place. Though, at the moment, he doesn’t care if they’re seen.

Focaccia soon tires of riding and falls back to rest on his chest, breath heaving and short. He takes the opportunity to bring her lips up for a kiss, remembering how well she put them to use on his cock and thrusting into her from the memory. She yelps into his mouth, letting it turn into moans. She notices her drool from sucking him off and rubs the saliva off with his thumb as she looks at him adoringly, fucked out ready to cum.

He smiles gently, genuinely.

“Do you remember how I taught you, princess?” he asks.

“Yes…”

“Good girl, now go slow.”

This time she looks right into his as she rides his cock, panting into his face and his when his hand continues under her bra to pinch at the nipples.

“Prosciutto… “ her thrusts get wilder and he can feel her cunt squeezing him for dear life. He kisses her once more when feeling the rush of fluid from her cumming on his cock, pushing him to finally spill deep inside her walls as she moans some more into his mouth. A single tear drops from her left eye, the one he knows is sensitive, and he pushes his thumb up her cheeks to wipe it off, making her wink cutely, almost as innocent as he once thought she was.

“Did I do well?”

A chuckle.

“You’re always looking to get praised, yes?”

No answer.

He brings their foreheads together and looks into her hazy brown eyes, barely open. He rubs at the exposed skin of her belly lazily.

“What do you think?” He asks.

She stirs her hips with his cock still inside for a little tease and he takes a breath through his teeth.

“Just as you taught.”