#so i had to double strand some of em | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trashmouth-richie · 2 years ago

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ᴴᴱᴬᵀᴱᴰ

CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE DOSED

HEATED

≛ modern!eddie x female reader x modern! steve

≛ summary: a week after being stranded on the side of the road with eddie and steve, you finally figure out what you’re going to do. Can the boys agree to what you have planned?

≛ THIS CAN BE READ AS A STAND ALONE FIC

≛ chapter warnings: MODERN AU, 18+ only I can’t be anymore clear about that, fuckgirl! reader vibes, Steve’s kind of a dickhead, oral m & f receiving and giving, mentions of birth control, reader gets eaten out by a girl, drug use, mention of alcohol, modern themes including texting, snapchat, iced coffee, crumbl cookie lmao etc, no y/n used, readers nickname is taff or taffy (bruh I hate using y/n catch me using any dumb nickname) Eddie picks reader up in a hug, real simpy Eddie behavior.

“I just don’t know Robin,” you explain, pulling literally at your hair from the root, “what should I do?”

Ever since that day in the back of Wayne’s truck, you hadn’t had a single night of peace. Both Eddie and Steve were blowing up your phone. Begging for your attention. It was flattering at first. Two of Hawkins hottest at your beck and call. Each vying for your undivided, not knowing that they were competing for it.

“Quit squirming,” Robin says in a huff between your legs, her mouth blossomed red and slick with spit, “I’ve been down here for thirty minutes and you aren’t any closer to coming than when I started.”

Her apartment was hot and sticky, the oscillating fan on its last leg, and you were both stripped down to nothing to keep cool on your planned girls day in. A day to forget about the boys stressing you out and for Robin to get away from her annoying ex. And just like how it usually happened with her, you ended up snorting lines and making eachother buzz with orgasms.

“Ugh, sorry,” you say annoyed, leaning up on your elbows to see her pretty face, “I just can’t relax.”

“Tell me about it,” she says around your puffy clit, the tip of her tongue flicking it like a snake.

You had made the boys swear to secrecy that they wouldn’t tell a soul about what had happened. But you didn’t promise anything.

And the moment you had gotten home, you sent a text to Robin explaining every single detail, down to girth and length.

“I think, you should date them both, try em out, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, now please shut up, you’re taking forever and I’m bored.”

The next morning you woke with a smile on your lips. Any turmoil left in your mind on your decision had gone with Robin’s idea.

The alarm clock on your bedside table illuminated 9:15AM and before even slipping your toes into some slippers, you sent two text messages to two recipients.

The normal routine of your morning commenced without fail, washing your face, scrubbing your body in the shower, putting on light makeup before making a pot of coffee.

Eddie arrived first, his motorcycle echoed loud off the parking lot as he backed it into a spot against the sidewalk. His dark curls were honeyed by the sun, a bag of Chinese takeout in one arm and a dozen roses in another. The prettiest dimples displayed on his stupid gorgeous face.

“Hey beautiful,” he smirked, wrapping you in a hug and kissing your cheek. He smelled like muted cigarettes and bourbon cologne. The creak of his leather jacket echoed in your ears as he lifted you off the ground into a bone crushing hug, making you squeal.

“Sleep well?”

Before you could answer his smile had faded into a scowl when the door swung open and Steve stood at the threshold. Wielding a pink box of gourmet cookies and two iced coffees, his wire framed Ray Bans pushed into his hair.

“Munson,” he greeted, nodding to his friend in that jock head jerk. Stepping around him, Steve sets the coffees on the counter and gathers you into a hug, kissing your neck and whispering that he had missed you.

His golden retriever vibe of tanned skin and forest colored eyes bore through you when he licked his lips.

You pull away and smile at them. They both look so good but in completely different ways.

Eddie’s tattoos were peeking out from under the tight white shirt he was wearing, as was a silver chain necklace.

You were practically drooling to get your lips on his skin again.

Steve was in light colored shorts and a casual button up, exposing the dusting of chest hair that your fingers ached to be wrapped in. If you had your way you’d take them both right here right now but that’s not what today was about.

“Why are we both here, baby?” Eddie asks, setting the bouquet and the Chinese food on the counter, pushing away the pink box of treats from his competitor.

“It’s obvious.” Steve says with a smirk pulling on his lips, “she’s gonna let you down easy and go out with me.”

“Always so cocky,” you tsk, trying not to look at the way his shorts are cinched at the zipper.

You look between them, big doe whiskey colored eyes stare at you in longing, while the mossy floor ones squinted with a smirk.

“We need to talk, and rather me having this conversation twice- I figured we are grown ass adults and can talk about what happened.”

Eddie nods and crosses his arms, leaning forward to not miss anything you were about to say. Meanwhile Steve leaned a hip into the wall, checking his phone.

“Before I stroke your egos, you both know you’re hot, so I’m not going to tell you how fucking great that day was.”

“fuck yeah it was,” Steve chimed in, adjusting his length in his shorts.

Eddie blushed a pretty salmon and shot you a wink.

“But— I’m not choosing between the two of you, I can’t, ask Robin, I about gave her a brain aneurysm yesterday trying to figure it out.”

You were the one on the verge of an aneurysm when you came allover her lips but that’s another story.

“So, we’re gonna do this with no strings, no feelings, just friends hooking up and playing around. Cool?”

Eddie’s eyes fall to the tops of his boots.

“So let me get this straight,” Steve gaped, eyebrows pulled in, “you’re going to go out with the two of us... at the same time?”

“Yeah, kinda what you do with every hussy in town Harrington.”

Steve’s gears are grinding but Eddie hasn’t said a word.

“What the fuck Taff?” Steve huffs in annoyance.

you banter back talking to him like he’s a child, “what’s the matter Harrington, don’t like sharing?”

“Rich boys are used to having their way.” Eddie gloats.

“Oh fuck off,” he pours, “what about sex? Or is this like a PG thing, eating pizza at Chucke fuckin’ Cheese?”

You cross your arms, and lick your lips, “oh we’ll be fucking, but not until you’re clean, both of you.”

Eddie’s eyes finally perk up, he hasn’t been with anyone since last year and he was checked three months ago.

“Oh come on!” Steve whines, “MaKenna is a virgin, and Blair and Nicole have only blown Tommy since being with me— no need to fuck anyone else catch my drift?”

“Sorry Harrington, I’m not risking catching anything and giving it to Eddie because you fundipped your way across campus. Show me you’re clean and it’s game on.”

He pouts, “Jesus Christ… I’ll even wear a condom, c’mon.. I swear I’m clean.”

“What the fuck is this 1990? I have an IUD, just get clean and we can do whatever you want.”

Eddie feels like he has the upper hand for the first time since arriving at your apartment, “W-when does this start, sweetheart?”

“Right now,” you shrug, “ I know you had to take off work today so I’m yours, see ya tomorrow Stevie.”

“Such bullshit.”

“Don’t worry buddy, I’ll take care of her while you’re off swabbing your pee hole,” Eddie says with a wave to his friend, cockiness in his stance.

“Be nice, boys.”

You don’t expect what happens next but Steve grabbed your wrist and twisted you into him, kissing you square on the mouth just as firm as he did in the bed of Wayne’s truck. Rough and giving no grace he leaves you spinning even after he’s left.

“Text me if you get bored with this one,” he says, licking his bottom lip to get one more taste of you as he walks through the door, “bye.”

You cross the kitchen to the counter, lips still buzzing from Steve’s kiss. You pull out two forks from the proper drawer and rip some paper towels from the roll.

Pulling out the white cardboard containers of Chinese food from the plastic sack, you plate them with shaky fingers. The fork in your hand slipping every once in a while and clanging loudly into the ceramic plate.

“Hungry?” you ask over your shoulder.

“Starving actually,” Eddie says, “but there’s something I wanna do first.”

You tear open a foil packet of soy sauce between your teeth and squeeze it all over the fried rice, “yeah, and what’s that?”

Not noticing how close he was to you, his hands rest hotly on either of your hips, fingernails grazing the cotton of your shorts.

In a quick spin, you’re suddenly facing him, fork in one hand, soy sauce packet in the other. His eyes are impossibly dark, and a twist of a smirk lays on his pretty lips.

“I wanna kiss you.”

His lips ghost over yours and your tongue reaches for his lips but is met by nothing.

His breath fans across your lips, the sweetest of pouts escapes you, and his adam's apple bobs in his throat, swallowing your annoyance, “not here.”

His fingers tease the waistband of your shorts, cold steel of his rings icing into your skin, dipping into it with a tentative touch.

The zipper of his leather jacket bites into your palms as you pull him closer into you, and just like that day on the side of the road, it felt easy with Eddie.

You share the same bated breath as his fingers plunge deeper and push your underwear out of the way. Between your slick folds he teases at your clit with his middle finger, swallowing the pretty noise you emit.

“Wanna kiss you here,” he said with a thick fingered flick against your clit making you moan through your teeth but lips, “need to taste you, again.”

You moan his name and he helps you wiggle out of your shorts in a hurry. Feeling like you’re possessed at the sight of him dropping to his knees on the cold linoleum of your kitchen floor, like a sinner praying for mercy in a cathedral—you’re practically begging for his tongue where you need it most.

Two weeks ago you and Eddie were just friends, and now he’s pulling the prettiest noises from you that would make the angels sick with worry,

His lips kiss your thighs feverishly in his travels. Dark curls tickling against the spit from his sloppy mouth. Every sensation in your body was screaming, and you cursed out loud when he hooked your leg over his shoulder like a guitar strap.

His eyes didn’t leave yours as he pushed this tongue into your slick, flicking against the hood of your clit, “so fuckin pretty baby, been seeing her in my dream for a week.”

Nerves wrecked already you’re practically a puddle at his simping words, trying like hell to balance on one foot and carving your nails into the underside of the counter. But Eddie’s face could have held you up alone.

He’s buried in your pussy. The happiest of graves. Nose, mouth chin- gone. All you can see of him down the plain of your own body are his curls. But you can feel him everywhere.

Devil's tongue stuffed between your legs, thrashing and lapping up like a mad man starved. His groans vibrate around you and your legs quake. His fingers are pushed deep in the well of your velvet walls, another circling your ass and putting the tiniest bit of pressure there making you cry out.

His name falls from your lips like a chant, faster and faster until your orgasm peaks and blinds you, your body losing all control from his tongue, your knuckles go white when you grab his hair, holding him right where you need him.

“Fuck,” he groans, wrapping his lips around your sensitive clit once more before he adjusts your panties back into place. Your fingers ache from the grip you had on the counter and in his locks.

Kissing the delicate fabric around the apex of your thighs, he whispers softly, “I could do that everyday.”

He helps you step back into your shorts, that glorious tongue poking out in concentration, and he looks up at you with a shy smile, standing and holding your hands.

“With a tongue like that, I might let you.”

“Don’t tease me Taffy, I’m still hard.��

And now it was your turn to be needy. You pull the lapels of his leather jacket into you and you kiss his slick coated lips, he tastes like you and the salty soy sauce that was still on your lip.

Kissing Eddie was different than Steve, he painted your mouth the same way he lapped at your folds. If you never caught your breath— that would be fine with you. Your head spun around his web and you were tangled in it.

His hands wrap around your back and one holds your face. It was deeply passionate, and your heart was bursting, your lips move to his neck and you suck and bite a mark into him, and he whimpers when your kisses go small.

“This is gonna get cold Eddie,” you say against the column of his throat.

“Let it, I’ll buy more.”

You grin into his skin and he laughs when you tickle his sides, “c’mon,” you urge.

And Eddie gets in one last kiss before breaking away, pulling your lip down with his thumb, and you shudder at the way he looks at you as if you’re the only girl on the planet, “if you say so.”

The Chinese needed to be s microwaved but it was still good., The hunan pork was tender and juicy, and the lo mein noodles were to die for. You and Eddie sat side by side on the barstools and talked like you always had. He had a gig this weekend and when he asked if you were coming you said of course you were, a quirk to your brow.

“Alright,” he said, putting alot of effort and concentration into twirling a noodle with his fork, “just wasn’t sure.”

You leaned forward and kissed sauce from the corner of his mouth, and your core ached and pulsed at the sight of his boyish grin and blushing cheeks.

“Wouldn’t miss it, even if it is Steve’s night.”

He accepted a bite from your fork of fried rice, and almost melted when you held pinched fingers up to his mouth of a ripped piece of crab rangoon.

“We’re still cool, right?” he asks after crushing the bite between his teeth, his eyes watching you put your fingers in your mouth and nodding.

“So c-can I ask you something as a friend?”

His brows are pinched in a furrow and you know he’s uneasy about something.

You slurp a noodle into your mouth and talk with a mouthful, a hand in front of your face, “spit it out, Munson.”

His fork clanks on the plate as he sets it down and gives the plate away. He runs a hand through his hair, and leans on his elbows and picks at his rings.

“So, why— I mean, why the both of us. You and Harrington can’t even stand each other.”

He was right, before last week you and Steve could barely be in the same room together, and now you were agreeing to fuck with no strings attached.

“It’s physical with Steve, like pure animalistic instinct. There’s no thoughts, and I think us hating each other just makes it that much better.”

Eddie’s weight shifts on the stool and his eyes never leave his rings, spinning them in a nervous habit.

“So you don’t like him like that?”

And the truth of his question falls through but you refuse to answer it, you have your own questions to ask, you toss the paper napkin onto your plate and mimic his actions, pushing it ahead on the counter.

“Eddie.. are you jealous?”

You leaned into him, the pads of your fingers daintily walking up his thigh, your eyes blink slow in a lazy seduction and fuck he’s practically putty in your hands.

He licks his lips feverishly, suddenly hot around the collar and his heart hammered a rhythm loud enough to make a tune out of it.

“N-no,” pppft he stammers, “I’m not jealous,” he tries his best not to catch your eye but once he does those hersheys bars give him away and a bubble gum blush tickles his cheeks. He clears his throat with an ahem, and raps his knuckles on the counter.

You stand and wiggle between his legs, pressing one hand further into his crotch and the other on his chest, toying with his necklace, your finger skating the pick left and right the chain making a zippered like noise.

“Tell me what you want, baby.”

Eddie is floored, wilting like a flower— all the oxygen and water ran out from the √≈petals. His mouth was almost glued shut, it’s so dry, Sahara would be jealous.

Your lips pucker behind his ear and the filth you’re whispering to him sends shivers down his spine. It’s lust licked and heavy, want me to touch you, or do you wanna touch me?

He answers with a dry groan and a swallow, and his hands find your hips spinning you around,his lips ghost over your neck and you throw your head back into him, pushing your ass into him to feel the swell of his bulge in his jeans.

He’s rutting into your doughy ass, his fat cock loving the friction you’re bouncing against him, you move your hips and grind further into him.

“Fuck baby,” he moans hot against the shell of your ear, catching in his throat.

His hands creep under the hem of your shirt and skate against your skin, the smooth of his nails electrifying each touch. They work along your curves, his big thick hands touching every inch of your skin, rubbing along the lacy edge of your maroon bralette.

The pads of his thumbs graze against your peaked nipples and you exhale. You're surrounded by the sharp spice of his cologne, the muted cigarettes clinging to his jacket, it encompassed you, held you like a hug and had your eyes rolling in the back of your head.

It felt too good. His lips hummed against your neck, vibrating hot and sending goosebumps along your skin, and you wanted more. Needed more.

You followed his hands, tracing the veins on the tops of them with your fingers, pushing your palm flat against them, making him squeeze at your tits, and you purred out his name, a shade away from whining.

Fuck you wanted him so bad. And judging by the firmness of his cock beneath your asscheeks, he wanted you just as badly.

You spun quickly, grabbing his hands and leading him to the couch, his lips were red from sucking on your neck, bangs were pushed up awkwardly from the position his head was buried into your shoulder. He looked drunk, enamored with something you didn’t recognize.

The leather of his belt was heavy in your fingers as you unraveled it through the buckle and the first loop on his jeans. His eyes never left yours as your fingers flipped the button and pushed his jeans down his hips.

He shuddered a breath when your hand cupped him in his boxers, the velvet of his skin soft and warm in your soft grip. He was bigger than you remembered, thick like a stout of beer.

“Christ Taff,” he breathed when you stroked him fully, the pad of your finger running over the vein that ran along his cock.

You looked at him through your lashes as you lowered yourself to the ground, dragging his jeans and boxers with you, “this what you wanted big boy? Wanted me on my knees for you?”

He hums and holds your chin, brushing his thumb across your lips.

Licking the tip of his thumb, you hold his heavy cock in your hands, stroking his shaft slow then fast, “you’re so big, Eddie.”

He swallows his next words when your tongue circles his head, collecting the precum with each devilish swipe. You stick out your tongue to show him the pearl in your mouth, and he almost combusts when you swallow it with a hum.

“Yummy.”

He’s certain he’s going to die right here in your living room, looking at you with your pink tongue swirling around his cock, the way your lips suction around him, fuck, you haven’t even put him fully in your mouth yet and he’s a goddamn mess.

The teasing is too much but he’ll take whatever you give him, if you were to stop now he’d be completely satisfied, he’d have to pump his cock furiously when he got home to make the ache go away but, he’d do it.

But you don’t stop, fuck no. You’re just getting started. You like him like this, flushed in his cheeks and waiting patiently for your mouth. His mouth opening as yours does. Waiting, pleading, hoping that you would finally let your wet warmth surround him.

And then you do.

He stretched your mouth cheek to cheek, a literal mouthful. And he hums. Is he thanking God? You hide your giggle, deciding to take him further into your throat as you hollow your cheeks and slide him deeper with the help of his canting hips.

You hum around him and it tickles him, but he’s so drunk on your mouth he’s muttering sentences that don’t even make sense.

Pumping your hands along his shaft you dribble spit from your throat to the head of his dick, a slimy string connecting you mouth, one that you slurp back up and take him in deeper. His knees are bent and he pulled his shirt under his chin, wanting to see you fully with his cock stuffed in your mouth, your pretty eyes are teary and he can feel you gag around him before he pulls out and you come back for more.

He’s not sure how long you’ve been at this, and he’s trying to keep his mind averted to anything other than your slippery throat and the cute way your eyes are looking up at him.

This was better than the way you sucked him off in the bed of Wayne’s truck. You were solely focused on him here. No other distractions, just you and him.

“Look so fucking pretty, baby,” he moaned, reaching down to hold your cheek, his thumb wipes away some of your smudged make up from your eye, “ do you know that?”

You nod with him in your throat, and he breathes more nonsense as he looks to the ceiling and runs his fingers through his hair, trying not to convulse, but he can’t take it any more, you're working his dick like you’re short on rent.

“Fuck, sweet girl, fuck,” Eddie whines, scrubbing his hands down his face, his stomach burning to give in to you, I— shit shit shit, ‘m gonna come.”

He works his hips away from you but you wrap your arms around the back of his knees, holding him with his dick still in your mouth, waiting like a kitten for milk.

He cums hard, biting through his bottom lip to keep himself from yelling out loud. You don’t stop bobbing your throat, swirling your tongue, around his length and puckering your lips around him.

With his load in your mouth you paint his cock with it, moving it around and around with your excess spit, a hurricane against your tornado tongue, you finally swallow, sucking in your cheeks once more, and cleaning Eddie off in one swoop. His cries fill the room and you finally release him with a pop.

“Jesus, fuck.” He exhales, sleepy eyed. His reddened swollen cock hanging between you both, “c’mere.”

He helps you to your feet, and you tuck him back into his boxers gently. He mutters an embarrassed thanks, you’re smiling up at him with a cocky little smirk. Completely ready for him to pull up his jeans, maybe get himself a beer from your fridge, but he doesn’t.

Eddie holds you to him, his forehead leaning on yours, big hands wrapped around the small of your back. His erratic breath plumed through his nose and his chest was beating fast. You’ve never seen him like this, “Eddie?”

He doesn’t let go, doesn’t say anything, he just moves back to press the lightest of kisses to the tip of your nose. “You, “ he finally says, licking his lips and rolling his eyes into the back of his head, finally focusing back on you, he pulls you closer, enough that his eyes are all you can see.

But whatever he was going to say is stuck in his throat, he never finishes what he was going to say. Just pulls you into him and holds you there, his lips on your neck, kissing you softly. It was a perfect day. You should have known it wouldn’t have been weird between you and Eddie, falling back into sync as best friends and laughing while snacking on m&m’s and smoking from his dab pen.

You end up falling asleep on your bed together, tired from exerting so much energy and bellies full of Chinese. Netflix asks, are you still watching YOU? on the tv on your dresser. Eddie’s tossing and turning wakes you and you grab your phone to check the time. 5 o’clock. Taking an almost four hour nap, but in reality it felt like four days straight.

But that's not the only surprising thing on your phone.

A litter of texts. From the same occupant. The other half of this agreement.

hope you enjoyed, seems like Steve isn’t too thrilled right?

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@tlclick73 @figmentofquinn @eddies-stinky-battle-jacket @whenshelanded @micheledawn1975 @3rd-conchord * @leelei1980 @mopeymopeymouse @browneyes8288 @emilyslutface @mmunson86 @josephquinnsfreckles @eddiesxangel @elegantkoalapaper * @str4ngergirlw0rld * @corrodedcoffincumslut @nailbatanddungeon @crybabyddl @zenathebeautiful @astela17 @taintedcigs @bettyfrommars @munsonsuccubus @munson-blurbs @hollandweather @serasvictoria @steviesgrl @sweetsweetjellybean @curiositydooropened @ashyyboyy @urlbitchin @sllooney @lame0o @ali-r3n @bangaveragewhitewine

#Steve x you #eddie x you smut #eddie munson #eddie x fem!reader #eddie x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #Steve x you x Eddie #Eddie x you x Steve #fuckgirl! reader

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verathena14 · 3 months ago

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sooo i may be working on making a bunch of aa cats... oops :3 this first batch is phoenix, some of the feys, and the trilogy prosecutors (except payne because i dont ljke him /lh)

(its funny cuz when i got into aa i was like "im good enough at drawing humans now, im not gonna make cat versions of them! aaaand here we are)

ALSO! if youre new here, this is what i do lmaoooo i take human characters and i zap em with the cat-o-matic (not to be confused with the cat-flap-o-mat, that's not in this trilogy)

a lot of thought went into these designs, so i have details below the cut cuz some of them go into spoilers

Phoenix: I wanted him to be kinda blueish, as a reference to his signature blue suit. He's kinda stocky, with large paws. He's got very spiky fur on the back of his head, to replicate his signature hairstyle, and though the design is based on trilogy!phoenix, I gave him the little stray strand of hair from his aa5 (i think) design. I will admit, I kinda stole the badge-collar from another catified ace attorney design for him I saw, but I don't remember whose it was. His markings are pretty simple, and he's got a white heart-shape on his chest as a nod to the warrior name I gave him. And of course, he's got the little mouth scar from eating glass.

Maya: I wanted the Feys to be very visually distinct from everyone else, so I decided that the Feys would all have complex tabby patterns and distinctive curls in their fur shapes. Maya's Warriors name, Lilacpaw, inspired the shape of the tabby markings, as they form almost petal-shapes. She's purple-tinted, both as a nod to her AU name as well as to the purple medium outfit. The small star on her chest symbolizes her status as the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique.

Pearl: Like Maya, she is very fluffy and has curly fur. Her large ears are both a way to keep her looking young and cute, and simultaneously represent her human verson's hair loops. However, unlike Maya, her tabby stripes are fairly basic, and will develop into a more distinctive pattern with age.

Mia: Unlike Maya, who has a very short and fluffy form, Mia is taller, more slender, and her fluffy bits are relatively concentrated in certain areas, like her chest. This is done in order to show how she has left the Fey clan, but she still retains elements of the Fey signatures, as she has not completely cut ties with them. She pins her attorney's badge on her scarf, and her magatama is partially hidden by her chest fluff. Design-wise, she and her mother Misty are very similar.

Misty: Regarding the hairdo, I honestly had no idea how to translate it to something that would make sense for a cat, so I decided to abandon realism and just give her the same hair. As mentioned previously, she has a similar design to Mia, to symbolize how they both left the Fey clan. Her tabby stripes are wispy, referencing her name Mistystar. The star on her chest is partially hidden, symbolizing her attempts as Elise Deauxnim to hide her true identity.

Miles: Miles' design is fairly simple, as the main idea behind his design was to strike a balance between him sharing some of the von Karmas' traits while still remaining distinct from them. His chest, like the von Karmas', is very fluffy, as a reference to his cravat-jabot thing. The darker coloring under his eyes is meant to resemble eye bags, since he often suffers from nightmares. His Warriors name, Winterheart, is also significant, with a double meaning. The more obvious one is that he is distant and cold to others (especially early aa1), with a "cold heart." The second one is a reference to the DL-6 incident, which happened during December, and changed him as a person forever. One could speculate that he took on a new name under von Karma's tutelage, in order to ensure he didn't forget the incident.

Manfred: Yes these are out of order, but to understand Franziska's design one must understand Manfred's design. The von Karmas are designed as blue-grey colorpoint longhair cats, purebreds, as a nod to Manfred's obsession with perfection. They have tall ears, long tails, and sleek fur. Manfred has the same fluffy chest as Miles, referencing his cravat. The small scar on his shoulder is again a reference to the DL-6 incident, but it is mostly covered with the fluffy chest fur. His name, Thundersnap, is inspired by his commanding presence, and how in-game, his snap quiets the whole courtroom, as well as the scene where he straight-up tazes Phoenix and Maya.

Franziska: Her design much mirrors her father's, with the same tall ears and fluffy chest. Her chest fur differs from Miles and Manfred's, however, since she wears a large bow instead of a cravat. The dark patch on her back has two meanings; the first is a simple reference to her black vest. The second is a mar on Manfred's perfection; her markings are not expected of a purebred colorpoint, symbolizing her struggle to achieve a level of perfection like her father. Another point about her design is that she is slender, but with large fluffy parts, in order to make herself look bigger. She does this in-game too, with her puffy shoulders and large cuffs.

Godot: Out of the prosecutors, Godot's design was probably the easiest for me. I wanted him to be a white cat, but with bits of dark brown as a remnant of Diego Armando, and also because somehow his beard didn't turn white when the rest of his hair did. His eyes are drawn differently than my usual style, showing how his eyesight is very poor behind the mask. Also Redmask isnt his real name, he just chose it to be edgy & to conceal his identity

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venactricisfics · 4 months ago

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Bucking Tradition

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Mornin’,” I groaned as Ryan slid out from under me in his bunk. I stretched, already missing his warmth. “Time to get up already?”

He chuckled, buttoning his jeans. “We could’ve stayed in your bed last night—then you wouldn’t have to wake up so early.”

“And let you sneak out at the crack of dawn?” I smirked, propping myself up on my elbow. “Not a chance. I like watching you get ready.” My eyes trailed down his body as he tucked in his shirt and buckled his belt. I gestured toward him with a lazy wave of my hand. “All of that is fun to watch.”

Ryan grinned, eyes twinkling. “Glad you like what you see, baby. We can sleep wherever you want.”

I reached for him, ready to pull him back into bed. “I love you—” I paused, wrinkling my nose. “But first, I need to brush my teeth.”

Ryan just smirked, shaking his head. “Come find me after, sweetheart.”

I stretched as I climbed out of bed, weaving through the bunkhouse as the guys got ready for the day. Teeter shimmied into her jeans, Mia stretched out lazily on Jimmy’s bunk, and in the corner, Laramie was still curled up in Lloyd’s double bed.

“Don’t get up,” Lloyd murmured, tucking the blankets around her. “Stay as long as you want.”

“Hey, baby,” Teeter drawled, shooting me a grin. “I wish some bronc would break my back so I could lay around in bed all day bumpin’ fuckin’ uglies till noon.” She cut a sly look toward Colby. “Don’t that sound nice?”

Ryan chuckled as he buttoned his shirt. “Just a matter of time.”

Shaking my head, I made my way to the bathroom, pushing the door open. Teeter followed close behind.

“I think you’re starting to wear him down,” I teased, smirking at her in the mirror as I brushed my teeth.

“Inch by fuckin’ inch,” she smirked right back. “He’s a hard nut to crack. But I’m patient.”

Ryan was waiting by the door when I stepped out of the bathroom.

“Hey, you,” I murmured, rising onto my toes to kiss him.

He grinned against my lips. “Minty.”

I rolled my eyes as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

“I gotta head out—Kayce called,” he said. “Think you can keep this bunch outta trouble while I’m gone?”

“No promises,” I smirked, arching a brow. “Be careful.” Livestock Agent work. Never a dull moment.

“I always am, baby.” He leaned in, brushing his lips over mine again, lingering just a little longer this time. “Needed one for the road.”

I watched as he walked away, shaking my head with a smirk. Damn, I was a lucky woman.

For the first time in a long while, the bunkhouse was quiet. The guys were off doing something, and Jimmy and Rip were taking a rank son of a bitch out to see if Sid Syner’s boy could buck the rodeo out of him.

I took advantage of the rare stillness, pouring myself a cup of coffee before settling at the table with my laptop. Last night’s ride with the girls had reminded me of something—I missed performing. Putting on a real show. And I wanted to try something different.

I wasn’t planning on jumping through fire or anything reckless. But Roman riding? That had my attention.

I knew Denim well enough to know he wouldn’t take kindly to working with another horse by his side. For this to work, I needed two horses that moved in sync—with each other and with me.

I needed two horses with Denim’s style but none of his sass. There was only one man who could find exactly what I was looking for—though he’d try to swindle me in the process. I picked up my phone, already bracing myself for the conversation.

“Well, girl, I was expectin’ your call a long time ago,” Travis drawled the moment he answered. “You know you still got a place with my crew.”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s not why I’m callin’,” I said, cutting straight to the point. “I need a pair of horses. Not one of your five-million-dollar beasts, either. They’ve gotta be able to work together.”

I could practically hear the dollar signs ringing in his head.

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” he said smoothly. “How soon you wanna see ‘em?”

“I’m in no rush. Next time you’re up this way,” I told him, leaning back in my chair. “I’m gonna see about workin’ with some of the ranch horses first. Might not even need you.”

Travis let out a knowing chuckle. “Oh, you need me, Alex. In more ways than one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not for that, I don’t.”

“Right, right. Forgot—you’re in love.” His voice was all tease, but there was a hint of something else beneath it. “I’ll call if I find a pair worth your time.”

“Appreciate it, Travis.” I ended the call before he could get another smart-ass remark in.

—-------------------------------------

“Sweetheart,” Dad said as we pulled into the diner’s parking lot, “I’m surprised you wanted to come with me.”

I shrugged, a small smile tugging at my lips. “We used to come here all the time after Beth and Jamie went off to school. Guess I’m feeling nostalgic.” Then, lowering my voice, I added, “And they have the best chicken-fried steak.”

Dad chuckled as he put the truck in park. “Don’t let Gator hear you say that.”

I smirked. “Secret’s safe with me.”

We stepped inside, the familiar scent of coffee and fried food wrapping around us like a warm memory. Without thinking, I slid onto the same barstool I used to sit on as a little girl. Dad took his usual seat beside me, just like he always had.

“Doc letting you eat steak again?” the waitress, Maggie, asked.

“Yep, I got a clean bill of health,” Dad told her. “I can eat whatever the hell I want.”

“You still like it rare?” she asked.

“Yep, just pull it out of the cooler, whisper fire, and throw it on my plate,” he answered.

“What’ll you have, Alex?” she gave me a smile.

“I’ll have the steak too, just battered and fried and covered with a ton of gravy, please,” I almost missed being able to swing my legs freely on the stool.

Maggie chuckled as she jotted down our orders. “Some things never change.”

Dad smirked. “Why mess with a good thing?”

I leaned my elbows on the counter, glancing around the diner. It still looked the same—checkered floors, faded menus above the grill, and the comforting hum of morning conversations. It felt like stepping back in time.

“You’re looking good, John,” Maggie said as she poured Dad a cup of coffee. “Retirement must be treating you well.”

Dad scoffed. “Retirement?” He shook his head. “Don’t use bad words at the breakfast table, Maggie.”

She laughed. “Figured as much. You’d shrivel up and die if you weren’t running that ranch.” She turned to me with a wink. “And you? Still giving these boys a run for their money?”

I smirked, reaching for the sugar. “Always.”

I turned at the sound of the bell above the diner door, my stomach sinking. Breakfast with my father was about to take a sudden nosedive. Clint and Wade Marrow strode inside like they owned the place. Dad saw them too. His jaw tightened as he stirred his coffee, his movements slow and deliberate.

I felt Clint’s eyes on me before he even spoke. He slid onto the stool beside mine, wearing that same cocky, shit-eating grin. Wade took the seat on the other side of my father, boxing us in.

“Mornin’, Alex,” Clint drawled, leaning in just enough to make my skin crawl.

I glared at him. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Than make you squirm?” His breath was hot against my ear. “I know how you squirm.”

Dad set his cup down with a quiet clink against the saucer. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “One thing you ain’t is stupid. So for you to set foot in this state again, much less work the land beside mine, tells me one of two things. Either you got a death wish, or your boyfriend in prison fucked all the common sense right outta you.”

Clint shot up from his seat, ready to square off. He grabbed Dad’s shoulder, a mistake he didn’t get the chance to regret.

I was done playing nice. I snatched the water glass off the table and smashed it right into Clint’s face. He reared back with a furious snarl, fist drawn, but before he could swing, my father’s punch sent him crashing onto the diner floor.

Dad stood over Clint’s crumpled form, watching as he groaned on the diner floor. “Nice to see you had a child who lived, Wade,” he said, his tone cold as steel. “Though he sure drew the short straw with you for a father. I gave you a job, a place to call home, and you stole the one thing a cowboy never fucking steals. And now you’re here—and you ain’t stupid.”

Wade met his stare without flinching. “I’m here ‘cause I was hired to be here, and you can not like that all you want,” he replied. “Hell, that’s probably the reason they hired me in the first place. But any time you feel like wrestling a bear instead of a cub, pick the barn, John.” He leaned down, gripping Clint’s arm and hauling him off the floor.

Clint wiped at his bloody nose, then turned his eyes on me. A smirk tugged at his lips. “I guess you like it rough now, huh?”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Go crawl back in the hole you slithered out of,” I snapped.

Dad’s voice cut through the tension like a blade. “Wade,” he said, locking eyes with him, “you have something that belongs to me.”

Wade didn’t so much as blink. “Come and get it.”

Dad gave a slow nod. “I plan to.”

Without another word, Wade and Clint turned and stomped out of the diner, the door slamming shut behind them.

I let out a slow breath, forcing my shoulders to relax. Then I sat back down and picked up my fork.

“Might as well finish my breakfast.”

—--------------

My phone rang just as we pulled through the gates of the Yellowstone.

Kayce.

Why was he calling in the middle of the day?

I hesitated on the porch as Dad stepped inside, swiping to answer.

“Hello?”

“Alex, meet us at the hospital,” he said.

My stomach dropped.

“What happened?” My voice shook.

“Ryan was shot,” Kayce said. “He had his vest on, but EMS is taking him in to get checked out.”

“I’m on my way.”

I couldn’t think—I just moved. I shoved through the door, grabbing my keys, but my truck was blocked in.

“Dad, give me your keys. I need to go now.”

He turned at the urgency in my voice, eyes scanning my face, my shaking hands.

“Sweetheart,” he said, calm but firm, “what happened?”

I could barely get the words out. “They shot him. They shot Ryan.”

Dad's expression hardened. “You don’t need to drive, honey. I’ll take you.”

I didn’t argue. There wasn’t time.

The drive to Bozeman stretched endlessly, every mile heavier than the last. My leg bounced restlessly, my fingers gripping my phone so tight my knuckles turned white.

“He was wearing his vest,” Dad said, like that was supposed to make me feel better.

“I know.”

But it didn’t stop the panic clawing up my throat.

We pulled into the hospital parking lot, and before Dad could even throw the truck into park, I had the door open, jumping out.

“Alex—” Dad called after me, but I didn’t stop. I bolted through the sliding glass doors, scanning the waiting area until I spotted Kayce.

His face was tense, his arms crossed over his chest, but he wasn’t panicking. That had to be a good sign, right?

“Where is he?” I demanded, barely able to catch my breath.

Kayce stepped toward me, hands up like he was ready to stop me from barging through the hospital. “They’re checking him out now,” he said. “He’s awake, talking, just bruised up pretty bad.”

I exhaled sharply, my body still trembling from the adrenaline.

“He asked for you,” Kayce added, giving me a small nod toward the hallway.

I didn’t wait. I pushed past him, weaving through the corridors until I found the room number. My fingers hovered over the handle for half a second before I forced myself to push it open.

Ryan was sitting on the hospital bed, his shirt off, a deep bruise already blooming across his ribs where the vest had taken the hit. He glanced up as I walked in, his lips twitching into a tired smirk.

“Hey, baby,” he drawled. “You should see the other guy.”

“You fucking scared the shit outta me,” I felt the tension start to leave my body as I sat on the foot of his bed. I took his hand in mine as I scanned him over, checking for any other injuries.

“I’ll be fine, baby,” he gave my hand a squeeze, “hurt like hell but I’m ok.”

I exhaled shakily, my fingers tracing over his knuckles. “You don’t look okay,” I muttered, my eyes still scanning him, as if I’d find some hidden wound the doctors had missed. The sight of that deepening bruise on his ribs made my stomach twist.

Ryan chuckled softly, then winced. “Hurts to laugh,” he admitted. “Vest took the worst of it, but I’ll be sore as hell for a while.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and met his eyes. “Who did this?”

His expression darkened slightly. “Cattle thief,” he said. “Didn’t like us asking questions, took a shot through a fucking wall.”

I shook my head, my jaw tightening. “Bastard’s lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Ryan gave my hand another squeeze, his thumb brushing against my skin. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m still here.”

I closed my eyes for a second, grounding myself in the warmth of his touch. When I opened them again, I shifted closer, leaning in just enough to press my forehead against his.

“You ever scare me like that again,” I murmured, “and I swear to God, Ryan, I’ll be the one kicking your ass.”

His lips twitched up into a grin. “Noted, baby.”

The doctor came in his face unreadable. “Just bruised. Not broken,” he looked over at me, “You the girlfriend?”

“I am,” I don’t think I’d ever been referred to as that before but it fit.

“Make sure he takes it easy for a few days,” the doctor said. “If you’re ready the nurse will bring your discharge papers in.”

I nodded, squeezing Ryan’s hand once more before the doctor turned to leave. I watched him go, the weight of everything still settling in my chest.

Ryan shifted, sitting up a bit straighter, his face contorting with the effort. “I’ll be fine. Don’t make it worse by hovering,” he said with that familiar teasing tone, though I could hear the exhaustion beneath it.

I gave him a soft, tired smile. “I’ll hover all I want. You got shot, Ryan. I’m not letting you out of my sight for a minute.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t argue, leaning back against the pillows with a resigned sigh.

The nurse came in shortly after with the discharge papers, her smile friendly but brief. “You’re free to go,” she said, handing the paperwork to me.

I signed without hesitation, my focus entirely on Ryan as I helped him sit up a little more.

He looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “You know, you’re making this look like you’re the one that got shot. All this concern’s starting to make me feel guilty.”

I smirked, tucking the papers into my bag. “Good. You should feel guilty.” I stood, offering him a hand. “Now, let’s get you out of here. The sooner you’re home, the sooner I can actually make sure you’re okay.”

Ryan smiled, taking my hand, though his movements were slow. “As long as it means I get some rest and a little more of that hovering.”

I held his hand as we walked down the hospital hall. Kayce was still in the waiting room.

“Told Dad to head back home,” Kayce said, “Y’all ready?” I saw the looks they shot to each other. There was more to the story they didn’t want me to know.

“Kayce, just tell me what happened and quit trying to sugarcoat it,” I said as we walked out to his truck.

“If your brother hadn’t told me to move,” Ryan answered, “it would have been a lot worse.”

I felt my stomach drop at Ryan’s words, his tone heavy with the weight of whatever had happened.

Kayce sighed, glancing over at Ryan before looking back at me. “It was close, Alex. Real close. We’re still piecing together everything that went down, but I don’t want you to worry too much.”

I shot a look at both of them, my hand tightening around Ryan’s as we got into the truck. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice but failing miserably.

Kayce’s jaw clenched. “We didn’t want you freaking out.”

Ryan let out a low laugh, though it was more strained than usual. “Freaking out? She’s already there, Kayce.”

I was silent for a moment, the weight of the situation finally settling in as I processed what they were telling me. I couldn’t shake the image of Ryan getting hurt, of what might have happened if he hadn’t listened to Kayce.

“Next time, don’t leave out the details,” I finally said, my voice tight. “I can handle it. But don’t keep me in the dark. Not again.”

Ryan gave my hand a gentle squeeze, the quiet apology in his eyes enough to ease some of the tension in my chest. “I’m sorry, Alex. We just didn’t want to add to the stress.”

Kayce stayed quiet, the weight of my words lingering in the truck as we made our way home.

“The guy who did this,” I looked at Kayce, “what happened to him?”

Kayce’s voice was quiet, “I killed him.”

I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved at the sound of his voice. Kayce had killed people who had deserved it more time than I knew about but each one chipped at his soul.

“You did what you had to do, Kayce,” I told him. I knew he wouldn’t believe me.

—--

“You are not staying in the bunkhouse tonight,” I told Ryan as I helped him down from Kayce’s truck.

“Why not?” Kayce asked giving me a slight grin, “Y’all don’t do much sleepin’ when he stays here.”

“When did you become so funny Kayce?” I wrinkled my nose at him.

“I’ve always been funny,” he responded.

“Funny looking,” I shot back.

“Then so are you 'cause you look just like me,” he chuckled.

“I’m much better looking than you,” I said.

Ryan chuckled softly, leaning into me for support as we made our way toward the house. “You two are a real piece of work,” he said with a grin, clearly amused despite everything.

Kayce raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, someone’s gotta keep it interesting around here.”

I shot him a playful glare. “I’m serious, though. You’re staying in my bed tonight. You’re not going back to the bunkhouse and risking pushing yourself too hard.”

Ryan sighed, but he didn’t argue, his tired eyes showing he was too worn out for another fight. “Fine, fine. But only because I know you’re not gonna let me hear the end of it.”

“Damn straight,” I said with a smirk as I opened the door. “Get comfortable, I’m getting you settled. Kayce, stop making me laugh so hard. I’m trying to focus.”

Kayce raised his hands in mock surrender, still grinning. “Hey, don’t blame me. Blame your own sense of humor.”

Ryan shook his head, a small laugh escaping him as we walked into the house. “I think I might be stuck between two comedians.”

“Lucky you,” I teased, helping him sit on the couch. “You’re just lucky I love you.”

Ryan gave me a tired smile, his hand finding mine as he leaned back against the cushions. “I’m pretty damn lucky.”

—-

I kept my promise, hovering over Ryan, fussing over every little detail until I was sure he was as comfortable as he could be. I adjusted the pillows, made sure the blankets weren’t too heavy, and even ran my hand over his chest just to reassure myself that he was really here—alive and breathing. Only then did I finally settle beside him, curling into his warmth, my head resting lightly on his chest where I could hear the steady rhythm of his heart. The sound grounded me, but it wasn’t enough to quiet the lingering fear clawing at the edges of my mind.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper as I tilted my head to look up at him.

“I’m sure, baby,” he murmured, his fingers slipping through my hair in slow, comforting strokes.

I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the feeling of his touch soothe me, but the fear still sat heavy in my chest. “I don’t ever want to know what it’s like to live without you again,” I admitted, my voice shaking despite my best effort to keep it steady. “I don’t think I’d survive it.”

Ryan’s hand stilled for a second before he tightened his grip, his other arm wrapping around me as if he could hold me together through sheer force of will. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, voice low and firm.

“You better not,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to his chest, needing to feel him, needing to remind myself that he was here. That he was still mine.

I bit my lip as I thought about my father and what he said to me in the field.

You only have so much time.

I didn’t know if a family was what Ryan wanted. I didn’t really know if that’s what I wanted. I know I want him. I’d be content enough.

“You got quiet all of a sudden,” he said.

“I was just thinking about something my Dad said,” I confessed.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I think he wants more grandkids,” I told him, “what do you think about that?”

Ryan's fingers continued their lazy strokes through my hair, but I felt a slight pause at my question. He took a breath, his chest rising and falling beneath me.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I think your dad’s got a lot of opinions.”

I let out a short laugh, but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Ryan shifted slightly, angling his head to look down at me. “But if you’re askin’ what I think about it—not what your dad thinks—I’d say… I don’t know. Never really let myself think too hard on it.”

I nodded, biting my lip again. “Me either.”

There was a beat of silence, nothing but the sound of our breathing and the faint rustling of the blankets as Ryan’s fingers traced slow circles against my back.

“I know I want you,” he finally said, voice steady, sure. “That part’s easy.”

I lifted my head to look at him, meeting his gaze in the dim light. “That’s how I feel too.”

He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb lingering against my cheek. “Then maybe that’s enough for now.”

I exhaled, some of the weight on my chest easing. “Yeah. Maybe it is.”

—------------------

I slipped out of bed carefully, trying not to disturb Ryan, but the warmth of my absence must have woken him. He let out a low groan, rubbing at his eyes before wincing as he sat up too fast.

“You stay where you are, cowboy,” I warned, pausing by the bedside. “I’ll be right back.”

Ryan chuckled softly, voice still rough with sleep. “Doc didn’t confine me to bed, baby.”

“No, but I did,” I shot back, crossing my arms. “And I think we both know I’m scarier than the doc.”

He smirked, the corners of his mouth twitching up even as he let his head fall back against the pillow. “I ain’t gonna argue with that.”

“Smart man,” I said, leaning down to press a quick kiss to his forehead. “Now stay put.”

“Alright, baby,” he murmured, his fingers catching my wrist for just a second before he let me go. I lingered, just for a moment, watching him settle back into the pillows. His breathing evened out again, his body still tired from everything he’d been through.

I knew he hated being fussed over, but I wasn’t about to let him play tough when he needed to rest. With one last glance back at him, I padded toward the door, already making a mental list of what he’d need to take it easy today. Whether he liked it or not, he was stuck with me hovering.

Softly, I made my way down the steps, careful not to wake anyone else. Though judging by the warm, buttery scent of biscuits and the sizzle of bacon, I wasn’t the first one up.

“Morning, Gator,” I greeted with a smile as I stepped into the kitchen.

“Morning, Miss Alex,” he responded, giving me a nod while expertly flipping bacon in the pan. “Made you some cold brew—it’s in the fridge.”

“See, this is why I love you,” I grinned, grabbing a cup and pouring myself a generous serving. The first sip was bliss, the chill waking me up almost instantly.

Gator chuckled, shaking his head as I moved to the counter to help him chop fruit.

“Can you grab me that tray thingy up there?” I gestured toward the top shelf. Without missing a beat, he reached up and pulled it down for me.

“Thanks,” I said, loading up a few bowls of fruit before turning to the biscuits and bacon. I stacked a plate high with both, making sure there was enough for Ryan to actually eat and not just pick at.

I scanned the kitchen, feeling like I was forgetting something. Before I could even ask, Gator placed a coffee cup and saucer on the tray, along with a carafe of coffee.

“You’re a mind reader,” I said, flashing him a grateful look.

He smirked. “More like I know how y’all are about coffee.”

With the tray balanced on my arm, I carefully climbed the steps, nudging the door open with my hip. Just as I stepped inside, Ryan was emerging from the bathroom, rubbing a hand over his face.

I shot him a playful glare. “And just where do you think you’re going?”

He held his hands up in defense. “I had to take a piss,” he said, voice still rough from sleep. “Promise I didn’t exert myself much.”

“Back to bed, cowboy,” I ordered, raising a brow.

Ryan sighed but smirked as he walked back toward the bed. “Yes, ma’am.”

I set the tray down on the nightstand, slipping back onto the mattress beside him. “Good. Now eat.”

He chuckled, shaking his head as he reached for a biscuit. “Guess I’m under house arrest, huh?”

I leaned into him, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. “Damn right.”

Ryan eyed the plate of food before looking up at me, one brow quirked in suspicion. “Did you cook this?”

I smirked, popping a piece of fruit into my mouth. “I cut the fruit. Gator made everything else. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to poison you.”

He gave a small chuckle but still hesitated before taking a bite. I watched as his expression shifted—first to surprise, then to approval.

“That is good,” I said, nodding in agreement. “I think I might marry Gator… you know, if you don’t ask me first.”

The words tumbled out before I could stop them. My heart skipped a beat as I realized what I had just said.

Ryan froze, fork halfway to his mouth, his gaze locking onto mine. “Is that what you want, baby?”

“What?” I scrambled, suddenly flustered. “I was just joking.”

His lips curled into a knowing smirk as he set his fork down. “No, you weren’t.”

I swallowed hard, feeling my face heat. “I—”

Ryan reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. His voice softened. “You thinking about forever with me?”

I let out a breath, my heart pounding against my ribs. “I don’t know… I just know I don’t want a life without you in it.”

He squeezed my hand gently, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “Then I guess I better make sure I stick around, huh?”

I let out a small laugh, shaking my head. “Damn right, you better.”

—----

We spent the entire day tangled up in blankets, wrapped in the kind of easy silence that only came with being completely comfortable with someone. No ranch work, no stress—just us, stealing a moment of peace. At some point, I might have made him sit through The Twilight Saga.

By the time we were halfway through Breaking Dawn, Ryan was staring at the screen with a look of absolute disbelief. “Okay, I get the vampire thing now,” he said, rubbing his temple like he was trying to make sense of something impossible. “But why the hell do they sparkle? That makes no fucking sense.”

I grinned, stretching out beside him. “Creative choices,” I shrugged. “Their skin is covered in crystallized venom, I think.”

Ryan shot me a skeptical look. “Crystallized venom?” He shook his head. “So, what? They’re just… walking disco balls that bite people?”

I laughed. “Pretty much.”

He exhaled dramatically, staring at the ceiling. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, baby. If I ever end up in some supernatural bullshit, I’m picking the wolves.”

I smirked, propping myself up on my elbow. “Oh yeah? You gonna run around shirtless with a pack of other guys and howl at the moon?”

Ryan smirked back. “Only if you’re watching.”

I rolled my eyes, but the warmth in my chest was undeniable as I snuggled closer. “Good choice, cowboy.”

After the credits rolled, I turned my attention to Ryan instead of the screen. He hadn’t looked completely disinterested the entire time, which was more than I could say for Kayce and Lee when I dragged them to see the movies in theaters all those years ago. That felt like a lifetime ago. Unlike them, Ryan didn’t grumble or complain—he actually seemed interested, asking questions instead of tuning it out.

I smiled, stretching lazily. “Since you’ve been so good,” I teased, “I guess I can let you out of confinement so you can go play with your friends. As long as you take it easy.”

Ryan smirked, tilting his head at me. “Play with my friends, huh? What am I, a damn kid?”

“Well,” I mused, tapping a finger to my chin, “you did just sit through five movies about sparkly vampires and shirtless werewolves without throwing a fit, so I’d say you earned some recess time.”

He chuckled, reaching out to pull me closer. “You sure you’re ready to get rid of me already?”

I pressed my palm to his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my fingers. “Not even a little,” I admitted softly. “But I know you’re getting antsy, and if I keep you in bed any longer, you might start whining.”

Ryan laughed, leaning in to kiss my forehead. “I don’t whine, baby.”

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed, unconvinced. “Just promise me you’ll take it easy?”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“Good,” I said, giving him a quick peck on the lips before sitting up. “Now go on before I change my mind.”

We got dressed and walked out to the bunkhouse. Colby pulled up in the Tracker looking beat all to hell. Then I saw Teeter. My heart sank. Her face was cut and bruised and it looked like Colby had tried to staple the skin together.

“Alex!” he called over to me. “She needs your help.” Colby had always been easygoing. Even when things seemed to be going to hell around us. But this time, his voice was shaking.

“Get her inside,” I told him and ran into the tack room to get my bag. I had sutures and some lidocaine. I hoped that would be enough.

“What the fuck happened?” Rip’s voice called out from behind me.

“It was those dude-string cowboys,” Colby answered as he struggled to hold Teeter up. Rip hoisted her up in his arms and carried her inside. “They ran us down on horses, tried to trample us to death.”

I followed behind them, hoping my hands weren’t shaking. I helped wash her up and get dressed. Then I had Teeter sit down in a chair.

“This is gonna hurt like a son of bitch,” I told her as I pushed the needle in her cheak. I tuned out the sounds of the men around me, making plans to handle this situation. I focused on Teeter and her face. I let out a calming breath as I pulled the staples out. My fingers moving with ease as I stitched her up. I’d stitched up cows and pigs while helping the vet. But I’d never done it on a person, on a friend.

“Almost finished,” I tried to reassure her, “you’re gonna have a gnarly scar but I think it’ll be small.”

Teeter barely flinched as I worked, her jaw clenched tight, her pink-stained hat laid on the table beside us. She was tough as nails, but even she had her limits. Colby hovered nearby, his fists clenched at his sides, like he was barely holding himself together.

Rip paced behind us, silent but seething. I could feel the rage radiating off him in waves.

“You’re doin’ good, Teeter,” I murmured, snipping the last suture and dabbing her skin with antiseptic. “You’ll be cussing me out in no time.”

She gave me a weak smirk, her good eye twinkling with mischief. “Ain’t no cussin’ when you’re helpin’ me, Alex. But soon as I’m up, I’m gonna beat their asses myself.”

I smiled despite the knot in my chest. “I’d expect nothing less.”

Rip finally spoke, his voice like gravel. “They still up there?”

Colby nodded. “Last I saw.”

I exhaled slowly, pressing a bandage over the stitches. “Teeter stays here,” I said firmly. “She needs to rest.”

Teeter shot me a glare. “The hell I do.”

I raised a brow. “You wanna pop those stitches and have me do this all over again?”

“I’m going,” Teeter said, her jaw set with determination. “I’ll risk it.”

“If you’re going, I’m going with you.” I tied off the last stitch and met her eyes, my tone leaving no room for argument.

“It ain’t yer fight,” she countered, shaking her head.

I scoffed, tossing the used needle into the medical kit. “They did this to you, Teeter. Right here, on my father’s ranch—on my ranch. That makes it my fucking fight.” I stood up, my hands curling into fists. “And I’m not letting any of you talk me out of it.”

Around us, the bunkhouse was already coming alive with movement. The men didn’t need to say anything—I knew exactly what they were about to do. Boots pounded against the wooden floors, hands grabbed for weapons, and horses were being saddled. The air was thick with something heavy and inevitable.

This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

I felt my father’s presence behind me before he even spoke. When I turned to face him, I could see it in his eyes—this wasn’t what he had trained me for. This wasn’t what he wanted for me. But I wasn’t backing down.

“Let’s go outside,” Dad said, his voice calm but firm as he gestured to Kayce and Rip.

I nodded, refocusing on Teeter as I wrapped the last bandage over her stitched-up wound. “Good as new,” I murmured.

Colby hesitated before speaking. “Hey… you don’t have to come.”

Teeter shot him a look, fierce despite the pain in her face. “I wouldn’t miss this for the fuckin’ world.”

“All right, get up, let’s go,” Rip called out, his voice carrying over the tense energy in the room.

I grabbed a rifle off the rack, my grip steady as I checked the chamber. Before I could sling it over my shoulder, Rip was suddenly there, pulling it out of my hands.

“No.”

I snapped my head toward him, narrowing my eyes. “Who are you to tell me no?” My voice was cold, challenging.

Rip exhaled through his nose, leveling me with a look that carried more weight than words. “I’m someone who cares about you, Alex. And this—” he gestured toward the chaos unfolding around us, “—this is something you can’t be a part of and still be who you were before.”

My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “I may not have handled things the way you have,” I said quietly, my voice dangerously steady, “or taken as many people to the train station as you have…”

His jaw twitched.

“Yeah,” I continued, my gaze unwavering. “I know about that. I’ve known for a long time. I figured out a long time ago what it takes to keep this place safe.” I took a step closer, meeting his stare head-on. “I’m not standing by anymore. I won’t just watch you do it.”

Rip studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. But he didn’t argue.

Because he knew—this time, there was no stopping me.

The walk to the barn was silent, heavy with unspoken resolve. Ethan and Jake were already there, our horses saddled and ready. No words were needed. We all knew the plan.

I held back in the cover of the trees, keeping my mare still and quiet, her ears flicking at the tension in my grip. Walker rode the fence line, playing the decoy, an easy lure for men as arrogant as the Marrows. It didn’t take long—like starving wolves catching scent of a wounded deer, they took the bait, spurring their horses in pursuit. That was our cue.

We emerged from the shadows like specters, thundering across the open field in pursuit. My heart pounded against my ribs as my mare surged forward, muscles coiling and releasing beneath me with every stride. I angled left, boxing them in, forcing them toward the clearing where we wanted them.

“I’ll shoot every one of you sons of bitches!” Wade roared, his voice lost beneath the thundering hooves and snapping reins.

Rip was faster. His lasso cut through the air with deadly precision, snaring Wade clean around the torso. With a hard yank, Rip’s horse never lost momentum, dragging Wade from his saddle. The bastard hit the ground hard, his screams muffled by the dust and trampling hooves.

But I had my sights set on Clint. That smug son of a bitch. I could see the panic flashing in his eyes as he recognized what was coming for him. Lloyd was right beside me, matching my pace stride for stride.

“Get it, girl,” he called over, voice rough with encouragement.

I didn’t hesitate. My lasso found its mark, the loop tightening around Clint’s throat as I jerked him clean off his horse. His body slammed into the hard-packed earth, the sickening crack of skull against stone echoing through the clearing. He never even had time to scream.

Lloyd pulled up beside me, spitting onto Clint’s lifeless body. “Got off easy, you piece of shit.”

I met his gaze, giving a curt nod as I coiled my rope back up. I should’ve felt something—guilt, satisfaction, even relief. But all I could taste was rage, burning hot and unrelenting.

With Clint dead, our focus shifted back to Wade. Rip and the others had him pinned against a thick tree trunk, a rope already looped over a sturdy branch above. Wade stood on his toes, desperate for any relief from the tightening noose around his neck.

“I need a name,” Rip growled, voice low and dangerous.

Wade coughed, struggling against the rough fibers biting into his skin. “What name?”

“The motherfuckers that hired you,” Rip snapped. “I’m not askin’ twice. Next time, I’m startin’ with cuttin’ pieces off.”

Wade’s resolve crumbled. He gasped, eyes darting wildly between us before spitting out the answer. “Rourke. That Market Equities son of a bitch.”

Rip’s lip curled. “Now let me down,” Wade pleaded, voice raw with desperation.

“Why the hell would I do that?” Rip’s gaze darkened. “I’m gonna kill you, but first—I’m takin’ something back.”

He grabbed Wade’s shirt and tore it open, exposing the branded ‘Y’ scarred into his chest. Rip’s voice was steel when he spoke. “You don’t deserve to wear this brand.”

He flicked his gaze toward Walker. “Over here. You prove yourself and you have our trust. Or I can take something from you too.”

Walker hesitated only a second before stepping forward. He met Wade’s terrified gaze and shrugged. “Mister, I don’t know you. But if you’re wearin’ that brand, you must be a bad man. And if these sons of bitches want it back? You must be even worse.”

Walker drew his knife, steady hands cutting through flesh with practiced ease, peeling the brand from Wade’s chest. Wade’s screams filled the air, blending with the scent of blood and fear.

The rage was still there, still thrumming in our veins. It demanded payment. Ryan pulled the rope, lifting Wade from his feet. His body jerked, fought, kicked. He pissed himself, choked, and finally stilled.

Rip watched him dangle, his voice calm when he finally spoke. “Y’all wanted revenge. Now you got it.” His gaze swept over the rest of us, landing on me. “But there’s a price to pay for revenge. And now you gotta pay it.”

I met his eyes and nodded. I knew exactly what he meant. And I wanted it.

Night had settled around us. The campfire burned hot, the branding iron glowing white with heat. I watched as Rip branded each of the men, their jaws clenched, teeth gritted as the sizzle of the ‘Y’ burned into their flesh.

“Alex,” Rip said, his voice steady.

I nodded and dropped to my knees in front of the flames, my heart pounding as I pulled my shirt open, sliding my bra strap aside.

“You ready?” Rip asked.

I locked eyes with him, swallowed hard, and nodded.

The brand pressed against my skin, and the searing pain ripped through me. But I didn’t flinch.

#yellowstone fanfiction #ryan yellowstone #ryan x oc yellowstone #yellowstone #yellowstone tv #yellowstone smut

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lavishl0ve · 1 year ago

Text

hii guys im back 🤞 new lil fic 4 y’all, still open to suggestions and what not lol

⚠️ TW !!

enjoy! ❤️

———————————————————————-

Rubber wheels grind against the dirt path.

Johnny chuckles, a strand of his hair falling out whilst doing so, “You may be good Darlin’ but chu’ ain’t as good as me.” He remarks.

I bring my knees up to my chin in the passenger's seat, rolling my eyes.

“Let’s have a lil’ competition then hm?” I ask, pushing my nose out toward him.

He stares at me for a good long while with an amused look, completely disregarding the road. I was a joke to him. I could tell. I’ll prove tonight that I was better than him. I know I would.

“First person to bring someone back home wins.” I shrug, “…simple as that.”

A smirk appears on his face, implying he is bound to win. Little did he know.

I turn straight, re-focusing my attention on the mirror, checking myself. I retouch my lipstick, rub off my smudged eyeliner and take out my double braids I'd worn all day. My hair now subtly waved as Johnny pulled up to the bar. I jump out of the passenger seat, boots hitting the gravel, shortly following Johnny close behind as he walks into the bar we’d be in every Friday night. The place is more crowded than usual. Perfect.

Johnny bent down to my ear, “Good Luck Darlin’.” He scoffs, laughing as he walks off with his hands in his pockets, heading toward the booths.

I watch him stride away, scanning the room looking for prey whilst doing so. I needed a good candidate, not some old nolife drunk. I had to shatter his ego. Show him I was better. Capable.

And then I see him. Hunched over at the bar; I only see the back of his person, dirty boots, red and blue plaid shirt, blonde waved hair. And not to mention perfectly fit too. Time to put this plan into action.

I stride over, “How ya’ doin’?”

He glances over at me, dark eyebrows raising. His shirt is open by 3 buttons. It showed his strong chest, with a golden buckle accessorizing his worn out jeans and a slight sunburn grazing his scarred nose.

A warm smile painted his face, “Hey Mystery Girl.”

His voice was smooth and heavily accented. Kind of like Johnny. Dare I say… better? Jackpot.

He gestured to the seat next to him.

I pull out the stool, “Y/N.” I say, extending my hand.

He grips my hand, roughly shaking it. “Axel.”

I lean toward him, pushing my chest out slightly, “We sound good together Axel.”

He laughs, “That we do doll.”

I stare at him smiling, his eyes a hue of browns covered by the fluff of his eyelashes.

He gets nervous breaking the eye contact, taking another sip from his glass, “Lemme’ get you a drink Y/N-”

I cut him off as he was forming another sentence, “I’ll take whatever you think is good.”, giving him a sweet smile leaning closer.

An agreeable nod and he hollers the bartender over.

I redirect his attention towards me, “How’d ya’ get this?” I ask, grazing my fingers over his scarred nose.

Axel stares at me for a second before taking my fingers and holding them slightly below his face, “Some guy was coming onto ma’ sister..” he shrugs, “…took 2 years for it to heal.”

“Definitely did some damage, I'll give 'em’ that.” He laughs.

I squint closer at his pretty face, now noticing his nose hooked slightly to the right.

“It makes you look better.” I say, reaching over receiving my drink from the bartender.

Time passed throughout our small talk with a few drinks, I believe we were well enough conversed at this point. Talking to Axel had felt like talking to an old friend.

It was nice.

I hear the music start to rise. Signaling time for a line dance, this bar being famous for them. I grab his hand, dragging him over towards the floor giggling, his eyes widening. Axel looks apprehensive at first chuckling, acting like he had been caught with his hands raised.

“I don’t dance!” he laughs.

“C’mon” I exclaim, practically dragging him at this point.

I think the few drinks we’ve had have gotten to us, feelin’ all bubbly. We spin and tap our boots along with the crowd against the creaky wooden floor, getting shoved together from the pool of people. Line dance was always popular here.

It had been so lively, the music and people swaying together as one. Chest to chest with Axel the tension felt present, he smelt like amber, mixed with pine and firewood. With warm hands he takes my palm and twirls me. My back now pressed against his chest, he guides me in rhythm with his hips as our interlocked hands are pressed slightly above my stomach. I arch my back more slightly, pressing deeper into him. The crowd starts to disperse slightly as the song ends. Leaning my head back on Axel's broad shoulder I catch Johnny glaring at me basically grinding on him.

He sits in a booth with a tanned lady that has brunette hair and bright blue eyes. He gives her short replies, holding his eyes on me. I give him an “I told you so” eyebrow raise.

He had underestimated me too much.

I’m three steps ahead of him.

Shivers run through me when Axel's lips unexpectedly graze my neck, leaving soft kisses. I run my nails through his messy hair, still maintaining eye contact with Johnny.

“Wanna get outta here?” Axel whispers in my ear.

“Yeah.” I respond lightly, eyes locked onto Johnny’s.

“Yes I do.”

————————————————————————

I gaze at her from the booth, the lady in front of me chatting about her life, dog, something like that. None of it interests me.

I had just decided to entertain this “competition” of hers.

She perks up, placing her elbows on the bar counter squeezing them together to show off her chest. That guy she’s talking to is obviously into it. I scoff refocusing my attention to the girl, she stirs her drink with its straw, talking about her past in the city. I act engaged asking a few, basic questions but my eyes don't wander away from Y/N and that guy. Every movement they make I seem to glance back over. Each time she touches his arm, or each time he caresses her thigh I grip my glass a tad more.

I don’t like people touching my things.

She stands, dragging him to the dance floor.

“Oo we should dance!” The girl in front of me interrupts.

Her piercing blue eyes stare at me in response.

“Not my typa’ thing.”

With a light “oh” she goes back to sipping her martini. I peer through the heavy crowd looking for my girl. There she was dancin’ with him, grindin’ against him. Letting his filthy ol’ hands feel all over her. She knows what she’s doing; she’s staring straight at me.

“I’ll be right back sweetheart.”

I excuse myself, walking to the back alley, opening the exit door. Pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I puff the smoke. Over, and over, and over again. I keep replaying them in my mind. I became fed up. This game was stupid anyways.

Throwing the cigarette to the throw I mush it into the concrete with the heel of my boot, before stepping back inside, knowing that I'm going to be dragging Y/N home.

Ripping my lady away from that filth.

When I step back inside they aren’t there.

————————————————————————

I had insisted to Axel we go back to the family home. It didn’t take him much convincing. I was afraid his older jeep couldn’t sustain the speed he was going, the least it was could be 70.

“Take this right up here.” I say pointing at our gate.

“Yes ma’am” he nods.

I giggle at his remark, pulling up through the familiar road. Johnny's car isn’t there. I won.

I smile to myself, Axel taking note.

“You look so pretty when you smile.” He complimented, turning off the engine.

I’m slightly taken aback by his compliment, he sounded genuine, something I’d never gotten with Johnny. I blush, his hand grazing my cheek. He stares at me in this suspended silence, twirling a strand of my hair. Axel was like a sweet puppy, admiring me.

l felt my breathing become heavier as the air in his car changed. How far can this go? How far did I want it to go?

How far would Johnny let me go…?

All I knew was that I wanted to rub salt into his wounds.

I grabbed Axel's face, connecting his lips with mine, he was gentle and slow, large hands cupping my face as his lips moved. I climbed over the console that had separated our seats. Straddling him, wrapping my arms around his neck, I push harder, deepening the kiss. He seemed to get the motion picking up his speed, movement getting sloppy. He sits up, and grabs my ass as my hands run throughout his hair.

I pant, breaking away for a breath, “Let’s go inside.”

He reaches back out for me as I crawl out of the car, him following short behind as he reconnects the kiss. I stride backward, leading him inside as his hands grip into my hips. I walk us up the stairs into my room, instantly removing my tank top, Axel watches as I throw the fabric to the ground.

I give him a motion with my finger to stride over and he doesn’t waste a second, reigniting the kiss, unbuttoning my jean shorts slowly. He slips his hands under my bra, feeling me as he works his way to the band, unclipping it. I remove my jeans for the spilt moment we’re separated, helping him with his shirt in the process. Pushed against a wall, I wrap my legs around his waist, Axel making his way down my neck. I moan lightly from the sucking sensation below the left of my jaw as his fingers grazed the fabric of my panties. Saliva spills from his sweet mouth trailing down my neck.

A grunt from him.

I’m lost at the moment.

then realize.

I look down, red flowing from his mouth with that dark, familiar shadow hovering behind him.

Axel's body collapsed onto mine, I caught him barely able to hold up his weight. The wood boards croak lightly as Johnny stepped closer, observing. His face is painted by the dark, I’m unable to see his expression, yet I know he can see mine.

Fear.

He creeps closer, pausing for a second in front of me before throwing Axel's body to the side. Like he was nothing.

Johnny grabs me with a force I’ve never withstood from him before, slamming me against the wall; I hear the drywall crack. I yelp slightly from the impact, the harsh grip on my neck. A sudden piercing makes its way next to my ear, puncturing it, barely missing my face. I could feel the coldness of the metal. His knife now embedded into the wall, a warning.

Face to face, he chews his gum slowly, taking satisfaction from my fear.

“I don’t like this little game of yours-” Johnny growled.

“…doll.” He says in sarcasm.

Slightly teasing Axel.

“Johnny stop.“ I try to plead.

He ignores me, “You think this is funny or somethin’?”

I question myself, “No- I liked him’.”

He grabs me by my shoulders, knocking me deeper into the wall, he leans down, shoving face into mine.

“You ain’t nobody’s but mine.”

A sudden pressure on my left hip, “Do I have to remind you?” He threatens.

A prick and skin breaks as he pushes the tip of his blade farther. My eyes water slightly from the pain. Johnny tilts his head. I don’t submit to him. There was a reason I wanted to prove myself.

He waits for my response, getting impatient with his furrowed eyebrows. My silence speaks for itself.

He swiftly dragged the blade down, pushing harder before the movement. I collapsed to the ground from the speed at which he did so, shrieking. Crying. My leg had felt as if it had been ripped apart. He watches me, helpless. Squeezing the endless flow of crimson emerging from my insides; my hands are now painted red.

He cowers down on my level, grabbing my wrist.

“Do I?”

The pain had been relentless, I shook my head, vision blurred by tears.

He grasps my head with his gloved hands, wiping away my tears, so gently…

“Look at me when you say it.”

“No!- you don’t.” I sob.

His eyes squinted, “Not good enough for me darlin’.” He clicks his tongue.

“I wanted chu’ to mean it.”

“Not just outta desperation.”

He hovers over me, silencing my cries with his left hand. His knife drags along my thigh, working its way up slowly to the incision he had made. The cold metal conflicts with the burning on my leg. I flinch.

“I’ll be more gentle this time.” Johnny whispers.

He leans into me more, pushing for leverage against my mouth, trying to get a better angle for his “art”.

He builds pressure, breaking skin but not incisioning deep like before, only enough to scar. It was more manageable this time, yet the previous cut was all I could feel.

Horizontally he slices. Reconnecting the line at the bottom and hooking the blade upwards. J.

I fight against the pain, biting into the leather he wears. He stares at his masterpiece for a second before stepping a few inches back. I lay there, still helpless. Drained of life.

Grabbing me by my waist he hurls me up, trying to get me to stand, although I couldn't feel my legs.

He holds me there, knowing that if he let go I'd collapse once more. He eyes me slowly up and down, I look away guilty, tears running down my face. Johnny leans in slowly, planting a soft kiss on the side of my lips, his tongue connecting the path to my tears. Johnny licks my tears, saliva replaces saltiness. His gentle kisses trail down toward my neck. His left forearm arm now beneath my chest to hold me up whilst his other hand roams free. His lips meet way to the incisions; Johnny cleans the scarlet mess he had created- savoring the flavor before reconnecting his lips with mine. The iron floods into my mouth. The taste I once learned to get used to felt strange when it had been my own.

He breaks away, hand softly caressing my jaw, “You know I love you.” He breathes.

I searched his face, met only with his adoration of me. The pain suddenly washed over me; ironic how it wasn’t physical.

Only the guilt of my actions.

I lightly nod, falling into him.

“I love you..” I shakily reciprocate.

Love.

He expresses that.

Although in a devastating way,

I know he speaks the truth of it.

because otherwise-

I would’ve been dead.

#tcm #tcm game #johnny slaughter #johnny tcm #johnny sawyer #johnny slaughter x reader #johnny sawyer x reader #johnny x reader

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seducemefanficsandheadcanons · 8 months ago

Text

Ending Unplanned

Warning for horny thoughts.

Cross posted on Ao3!

Chapter Seven- Bed Chem

How you pick me up pull 'em down turn me round oh it just makes sense

How you talk so sweet when you're doing bad things

That's bed chem

How you're looking at me, yea I know what that means, and

I'm obsessed

Are you free next week? I bet we'd have really good bed chem

Bed Chem- Sabrina Carpenter

A few days had gone by since Aron and Sam had finally started to form a comfortable friendship. After so long of hardly speaking, it was surprising to know that they could get along so well. She found herself enjoying their new playful dynamic.

The sky was bright and sunny, the air hot with a small occasional breeze. Aron and Melody were laying on lawn chairs, basking in the warmth of the sun after a few hours of swimming in the large in-ground pool.

Melody’s curly hair was put up into a ponytail, water dripping from the strands. She was wearing a black bikini with white designs, a towel lazily draped over her legs as she hummed softly to the music playing from her phone.

Aron was wearing a peach-colored bikini, her purple hair left down as she laid beside her friend. She closed her eyes and sighed contently, enjoying the feeling of the sun on her face.

Laying in the sun gave her a feeling of nostalgia, the memories of her and her family playing in the pool or ocean causing a soft, happy smile to grace her lips. She may have had a lot of negative experiences with them, but she was grateful for the fond memories she’d collected with her siblings.

“I’ll be right back,” Melody told her, sitting up.

“Where are you going?” Aron asked, glancing over to her friend.

“Just getting some lemonade. You want some?”

Aron hummed. “Oooh! Yes please! Thanks, boo.”

“Of course!” Mel said back as she got up and wrapped the towel around herself before beginning to walk towards the mansion.

Aron closed her eyes again, her mind returning to the happy memories of her childhood. She was broken out of her thoughts by Erik’s voice. “Enjoying the sun, Princess?”

She perked up and looked back at him with a smile. “Mhm!”

“Good, I’m glad. You deserve a moment to relax,” he mused, sitting in the chair beside her. “I must say, you look stunning in your swimsuit.”

Aron felt her cheeks warm at the compliment, a soft laugh escaping her lips. “Thanks! I’ve had it for a while, but I had lost it until unpacking when I moved here.”

Soon, the sun on Aron’s face became a bit uncomfortable. She reached up and touched the skin, which was warm to the touch. “Hey Erik, can you hand me the sunscreen? It’s by your chair,” she told him as she sat up.

“Of course,” he said, handing her the yellow bottle.

She gave him a thankful smile and began applying the cold substance to her face, legs and arms, leaving a shine on her skin.

Aron's double jointed because of a connective tissue disorder she was diagnosed with as a teenager, so she knew she could reach her back pretty easily. However, she couldn't help but take up Eriks offer when he suggested that he take care of applying sunscreen to her back.

She turned so her back was facing him, moving her hair in front of her shoulders so it was out of the way. She sighed contently when Erik's hands smoothed over the planes of her back and shoulder blades, gently massaging the sunscreen in.

When Erik pulled his hands away, Aron turned and gave him a smile. “Thank you!”

“It’s my pleasure, Princess,” Erik said back.

“Are y’all ‘finna train soon?” she asked him curiously, remembering hearing Damien mention it that morning.

“Yes, that is the plan. We need to stay consistent with our training now, even without the risk of Diana and Malix.”

Aron nodded slowly. “Makes sense…doesn’t that mean y’all need enough energy too?”

He chuckled. “Yes, but we’ve gotten better at finding resources since settling to live here.”

Aron leaned in slightly. “That’s good to know. And obviously if you ever need any, I can just give you some of mine,” she offered, her hand brushing over his forearm.

Erik learned in as well, a smirk approaching his lips, but the two were interrupted the other incubi and Melody walking out of the mansion.

“Get a room,” Sam called out to the pair, crossing his arms with a look of annoyance.

Aron giggled, giving the incubus a challenging grin. “What, are you jealous?”

He huffed out a laugh, but his cheeks turned a little pink. “No! I just don’t wanna see you fucking my brother!”

She laughed incredulously, a blush invading her already slightly red face. Erik sighed in annoyance. “No one was ‘fucking,’ Sam. The lovely princess was just offering up some of her energy,” he countered, making her blush more.

Hiding how flustered she was, Aron leaned back in the lawn chair and closed her eyes with a small, amused smile on her face. She heard some more lighthearted bickering between the brothers before they all ventured away from the pool to begin their training.

Soon, Melody sat beside her with the lemonade. Aron grinned and thanked her friend, sipping her drink through the straw.

She could faintly hear the sound of the incubi’s training, and the magic being used caused a soft tingle in her fingertips. For a while, she resisted watching, not wanting to weird them out by staring. But when she finally glanced over, she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Much to her own dismay, her eyes immediately landed on Sam. She absentmindedly noticed he seemed to be targeting Erik a bit more, but didn’t think about it too long as her mind went other places.

Obviously, she knew the man was absolutely ripped. Out of all of the brothers, he was the one she saw shirtless the most. It wasn’t because she’d paid more attention to him, but he just so happened to be the one that usually paraded around the mansion shirtless as if he owned the place…not like she was complaining.

However, now that she knew there was a possibility that he wasn’t completely vile, she noticed it more.

He’s an incubus, she reminded herself. It’s basically some kind of unspoken rule that he's gonna be hot. Still, she tilted her head, considering. His arms were huge, and she was reminded of the other night, when he’d effortlessly lifted her onto the roof. She also found herself thinking of the times he’d lifted large objects around the house or around the yard. She blushed as she thought of him manhandling h-

“Aron,” Melody whisper-yelled, lightly swatting her arm, effectively cutting off her train of thought.

She blinked and shook her head, her eyes shooting to the brunette. “Wha- what? What is it?” she asked frantically.

“You’re staring,” Melody explained with a laugh, making Aron blush more.

“I wasn’t staring!” she argued.

“Yes, you were! And your face is red!”

“I’m sunburnt!”

“Not that sunburnt!”

“Well- You- Ughhh,” Aron groaned in defeat and laid back down, closing her eyes.

She heard snickers from Melody, unable to stop her own soft laughter.

After a few moments, Aron started to feel a sudden hunger, which caused a painful pit in her stomach. This wasn’t uncommon, she typically didn’t know she was hungry until it hurt. It was mildly irritating, but it wasn’t until she began her training at the hospital that she learned people knew beforehand that they needed to eat.

“I’m hungry,” she sighed.

“Wanna go in and get food?” Melody asked.

Aron debated for a moment before shaking her head. “Nah. Too lazy for that. I’ll eat later,” she said, feeling too comfortable to get up.

Over time, it became more uncomfortable, and she found herself craving a specific food in particular. “I want mac ‘n cheese.”

“I really want mac ‘n cheese.”

“That’s so real,” Melody said back, but neither of them seemed to have any interest in getting up to make any.

Aron chuckled as she spoke. “Dawg, I can fucking taste it. Like- I want it so bad.”

“Go make some,” Melody suggested with her own soft laughter.

Aron debated for a moment and sat up, trying to find the motivation. After a few minutes, the two decided to go inside together and make it.

They entered the kitchen and looked around the cabinets, searching everywhere for the Kraft mac ‘n cheese. Every cabinet, shelf, and counter was frantically searched by the two women.

“What the fuuuck,” Aron complained as she searched the pantry. “We don’t have any.”

“Damn,” Melody sighed. “Do you wanna eat something else?”

Aron laughed as she responded. “Nah, I’m not even hungry no more. I lost my appetite.”

They decided to each get a bag of chips, and they brought some extra bags in case the incubi wanted some as well. They sat back down in the lawn chairs and settled to watch the incubi as they ate.

Aron sighed, the chips failing to fill her food craving. They didn’t fulfill her one bit, and with each bite, she wished it was mac ‘n cheese instead.

“I’m ‘finna be so real with you. I would suck dick for some mac n cheese right now,” she proclaimed with a bored tone in her voice.

“Girl…what?” Melody asked, looking at her with a look that was mixed with shock, concern, and amusement.

“I would suck dick for Mac n cheese,” Aron repeated. “I would give someone head so good that it’s life shattering. They’d have a new positive outlook on life. They’d have hope for the future because of how good it was. I would do that for someone if it meant they’d get me mac ‘n cheese afterwards. I’m dead fucking serious.”

“You’re so real for that,” Melody sighed, leaning back. “So, if one of the incubi, other than James obviously, offered to make you mac n cheese for head, you'd do it?”

“Honestly? Yeah, abso-fuckin'-lutely,” she responded confidently. “Look, sucking dick is fun as fuck, and I'd get Mac n cheese after? Hell yeah.”

Melody started to agree, but was interrupted by Sam. “You guys know we can hear you, right?”

Aron and Melody froze, eyes shooting over at the group of incubi, who were looking at the women with amused expressions- though a few of them were blushing. It wasn’t until the women’s eyes met that they dissolved into laughing fits.

“Whoops,” Aron said in reply with a shrug once her laughing had calmed down.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melody joked sarcastically. “We were talking about the sunset.”

“Yeah! The sky is beautiful,” she agreed with her friend.

“Uh huh,” Sam said, crossing his arms as the group walked over to them, likely done with their training.

“Is that what you were staring at earlier then, Aron? The sunset?” Damien spoke up, making her blush even more.

“Wha- yep! What else would I be staring at!”

“Well, your thoughts seemed to be focused on S-”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Aron interrupted with a lighthearted tone, laughing even harder as she playfully swatted his arm.

Soon the entire group- including herself- was laughing at her expense. They continued to joke around for a bit before going inside.

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ponds-of-ink · 9 months ago

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A… Disney Speedstorm Fanfic? (“Chapter” 1/Prologue - Oogie’s Challenge)

Or, more properly titled: “Speedstorm: The Quest to Defeat Oogie”.

…Yes, I’ve taken it upon myself to write a fanfic about the whole Quest for Oogie Boogie event in Speedstorm. Idk, something about it felt right.

This should be more of a fun little writing challenge in-between Speedstorm sessions, but uhh.. I’ve already kinda written lore for this actual joke/for fun fic. And I’m pretty sure I’m accidentally doing some Mirrorverse-type shenanigans when writing these versions of Speedstorm characters.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy the chaos about to ensue.

It had been a busy day for the racers in the Speedstorm Arena. All four members of the newest team were given their training by Arbee, every other racer had to learn how to deal with said team’s abilities, and Arbee relayed her typical briefing to the system’s manager. All in all, the standard stuff for a new season in the Arena.

Except, this time, something was off.

A reddish tint filled the sky. Only Doctor Finkelstein reported back from the Pumpkin Team’s briefing. Racers from other teams received frantic calls from the manager. Even AR-Bee felt something other than excitement in her coding.

Yet, amidst all this building chaos, Mickey strolled to the farthest corner of the stadium. “Stay close, now,” he told the two other racers behind him. “I dunno if this place is safe or not.”

“Can’t Aladdin go check?” a lanky creature asked, brushing back a ‘strand’ of her snake hair. “He’s always been a sneaky kind of guy.”

“He’s supposed to be training with Ar-Bee,” Mickey responded softly, giving a side glance towards Aladdin. “He’s still under-leveled for this place, last time I heard.”

“Only by a few!” Aladdin cried out, only to be cut off by a chorus of shushing. After everyone finished waiting for some terrible danger, Aladdin huffed in exasperation. “I might be ‘under-leveled’, but I can still outrun the best of ‘em,” he insisted, habitually putting his hands on his sides. “All I gotta do is steal this Skellington guy away like he’s the Genie’s lamp in the Cave of Wonders. Nothing to it.”

“I still think we should be careful,” Mickey retorted quietly, lightly stomping his foot as he resumed his sneaking. “Oogie Boogie knows how to cheat. And if he’s in charge of this place, then there’s nothing he won’t do to win!”

“That’s right, Mouse-Ears!” a fourth voice yelled with a booming laugh. “Finally, a racer who gets me around here!”

Before the three could recover, a large shadow materialized in front of them. Its pitch-dark tones was soon replaced with a bright neon green. The transparency solidified into a towering, cackling mass of glowing burlap. “And now that you’ve brought me an audience, it’s time for my show to begin,” the burlap-‘sewn’ racer said with a slightly theatrical motion of its arm. “It’s ‘Oogie Boogie’s Champ Challenge’!”

The stone walls holding the iron gates turned into a moving checkerboard. Swing music blared as neon letters flashed to life. “‘Oogie Boogie’s Champ Challenge’?” the snake-haired woman read in a puzzled mutter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Glad you asked, Medusa,” the being known as Oogie responded slyly. “This here is the ultimate challenge: You win against the toughest ghouls this side of Halloween Town’s ever seen, you hit the jackpot: An all-paid trip to Boogie-Central!” Another boisterous laugh followed, which only made his listeners glance at each other. “That is, I get to join your group all nice and quiet-like,” he added in a slightly calmer tone, though no less cheery.

“And if we don’t?” Aladdin questioned, cautiously taking a step closer.

“I’ll just gobble up Jack and Sally’s chances of joining instead,” Oogie shrugged casually. “Dollface’s already been turned into a pal o’ mine, so what’s one Pumpkin ‘King’ for some extra spice?”

Mickey did a double-take. “What did you do to Sally!?” he cried out, readying to march up to the squirmy behemoth.

Oogie chuckled in a deep, menacing tone. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he returned, looming over the silently arguing trio. He turned his head just enough to look at the iron gates.

A smaller, much more shadowy figure emerged from the billowing fog. Its hands made quick work of the gates’ locks. Then, after unlocking the doors, the stranger gently pushed them open. It looked at the snakewoman, then mouthed something.

“…Cecilia…” the woman seemed to hear. Instinctively, her one blue eye followed the sound. Two pin-prick pupils stared back at her. “The rest of your friends to train,” the hushed chorus of whispers continued. “Most of them will be very close by this month’s end. Some of them already are.”

Cecilia’s snakes bobbed their heads in agreement. Cecilia herself pulled Mickey aside. “We‘ll come back for them later,” she said in a stern tone. “Come on, Mick. We’ve got some racing to do.”

Mickey and Aladdin protested, but Cecilia dragged them away. All she could do was glare at the taunting Boogie-Man before returning to the main section. This was going to be a long October, even if she was going to be sidelined again. She could feel it.

#disney speedstorm #crossover fanfic #for fun fanfic #oogie boogie #mickey mouse #cecilia monsters inc.#aladdin 1992 #okay I think that’s all the relevant character tags for this “chapter”

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we-are-sailin-the-odyssey · 8 months ago

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I swear! The sea has a personal grudge against me. So much that it's usin' castaways just to lure me in. 'Cause heaven knows I won't leave a stranded man.

'Cause I be sailin' the seas, doin some quests, when I saw, not one, but two castaways that just disappeared in thin air.

Like I be looking out on the horizon, looking to where the person calling for help is, sail closer to 'em, then they're gone.

Had to do a double take to make sure that I'm not leavin' a man behind. Even divin' into the water just to check if they sunk. But no! They're definitely gone! And this happened TWICE!

And just to make sure I get the sea's message clearly, just as I got out of the water and into me ship, A FREAKIN' SHARK JUMPED OUT OF THE WATER. Had I waited a few more seconds, I might have been shark food.

So yeah! The sea's givin' be the big L for reasons unknown. Like MATE! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?

Afraid to get conquered? Well too bloody sad! 'Cause I ain't givin' up that easily!

#the captain rants #arcane odyssey #where destiny goes #arcane odyssey oc #arcane odyssey oc blog

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dogmetaph0r · 10 months ago

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SIC 'EM

Chapter 6: Heel

A/N: Hiiii did y'all miss me...... so I actually adored writing this even though it was so long and so complicated and took so much out of me and also killed me dead and spit on my grave. But other than that I loved this one :) :) :)!! Disclaimer, I'm not yet fluent in Polari so my grammar is probably pretty clumsy. It's heatin up in this soup pot. A certain someone of course is gonna go really ham-fisted with the dog metaphors but y'know what? I wouldn't entrust shenanigans to anyone else.

Pairings: M!OC x F!OC, M!OC x Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby x Alfie Solomons

Warnings: Anti-Romani microaggressions, Alfie being Alfie in general, past child abuse, brief ableism, homophobia

Soundtrack: POWER - Kanye West (i know and i hate him sorry) // Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys // Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long - Light Sleeper (cover)

Summary: Tommy has some business inquiries to make. Sam tries to be helpful, which is something that always seems to backfire. A conversation with a friend brings up some latent complications, and tensions threaten to boil over. There are two very good dogs in one room.

“Not fucking happening, Tom!”

Tommy rubbed both hands over his face. “I’ll pay you double.”

“Get John to do it,” Arthur begged, hands tucked beneath his armpits as he paced circles into the faded persian rug.

“John’s handling export issues in Wales,” Tommy explained for the umpteenth time, though whether Arthur was intentionally forgetting the fact or had simply lost track of it in the snow-covered landscape of his brain was unclear. Try as she might, Linda was evidently having a difficult time getting him off the stuff. “I’m asking you because I can trust you to have my back, and I know he’ll be happy to see you there.”

Arthur sniffed, petulant. “I don’t give half a fuck what makes him happy,” he grumbled. “I hate ‘im, and I’m not fucking going.”

They’d been at this all morning. Frances had come and gone with offers of tea twice now before giving up and bringing them some whiskey, which hardly had time to breathe before it was gone. Didn’t cool the temperature of the room much, but it did wonders for the headache Tommy was smarting with. Arthur flopped onto the couch, hands fisted on the knees of his trousers like they were the only thing keeping him from blasting through the wall like a mortar shell.

Tommy did feel bad about it, sure. It was his fault for putting him in this position, just as it was his fault for sending Arthur in his place that one time. But business was business, and it needed to be done by someone. Arthur just happened to be the only Blinder he knew wouldn’t wet himself in fear when faced with the sort of hazing in store for anyone playing a second to Tommy. A low bar in Tommy’s mind, but in unique circumstances such as these he was hard-pressed to find anyone better for the job than Arthur, hotheaded though he might’ve been. Arthur was not easily cowed, and certainly not by this man.

“I need you there, Arthur.”

Arthur snapped, snarling and red. “You bring me there, I’ll kill ‘im! With my own hands, I’ll kill ‘im!”

There was a knock at the door. Before he could stop him, Arthur was up out of his seat and storming across the room, whipping the door open with fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the handle.

Sam blinked at him on the other side, practically nose to nose. “Arthur,” he said impassively, only a flicker of surprise at the proximity. “Is Tommy still here?”

“Let him in, Arthur.” Tommy ashed his cigarette perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary, the darkened end crumpled alongside the rest of the pack in the crystal tray.

The tall man glowered for a moment longer before stepping aside, pushing the lank strands of hair from his face. Sam stepped in, cautious but not frightened, even patting Arthur on the shoulder amicably on the way in. Predictably, Arthur bristled, but did nothing about it; he had a brotherly soft spot for Sam, having known him as a shy little boy and now an endearingly awkward grown man. He confessed feeling some responsibility still for the fight in the tent, John replacing Arthur in anticipation of his hot blood getting the better of him only for it to still turn out poorly.

Then again… if Arthur had threatened him at that moment, Tommy wasn’t sure that Sam’s reaction would’ve been any different. In the months he’d known Sam, the man had only ever panicked in three conditions. One was highly unusual on principle; he doubted that there would be any stallions there, regardless. Another was a flashback unlikely to be triggered by a simple sit-down meeting, and men like them didn’t fuck around with the residue of war left on the brain. Too risky and too cruel. Dishonorable, even for their line of work. The third being any time those mysterious notes showed up. Framing an unsuspecting man? Now that was not out of his contact’s wheelhouse by far. But if this hunch was true, and he really was their suspect, then Tommy could accept Sam throttling the man to death for his troubles. Fair was fair.

Sam leaned on the corner of his desk and cast his eyes at the ground, a significant tell of an incoming big ask. Last time, he’d asked to take Grace’s Secret for a gallop— in the height of race season, no less —and the time before that he’d wanted to take Florence into town. Tommy, naturally, had a hard time not indulging him. He’d created a monster, it seemed.

“Was just wondering,” he started, coughing and shifting his shoes about, “I mean— well. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from them. I don’t think they know I’m here.”

They, of course, being their mysterious foes up north. Sam had taken to calling them The Horsemen, unsettled by their revelationist message early that summer and their possessiveness over the racecourse. And he was correct— the one and only time they’d contacted anyone was weeks ago, and they’d sent their letter directly to the house on Watery Lane. The message, Proverbs 28:13, was read loud and clear: come out, come out, wherever you are. Petulant. They were at a loss. Even Arthur, still tetchy from the comedown of their argument, preened at their skilled evasion.

Tommy nodded, sure he knew where this was going. “And you want to stretch your legs a bit, do you?”

Sam flushed at being caught onto. “Well, erm. If that’s okay.”

Tommy might’ve considered that a step too far, a leap too risky, if it weren’t for his lack of backup for this damned meeting, posturing though it may be. And, regrettably, if it weren’t for Sam’s damned hands. Blunt nails on big, calloused hands picking at the crackling of varnish along the edge of the desk. And he knew, didn’t he? Knew how to distract and supplicate. Otherwise he wouldn’t do it so often, skimming his fingers over meaningless trinkets that a second ago had slipped Tommy’s mind. Sam was curious and cheeky. Two observations, independent and fused. Fuck.

He looked at Arthur. Back at Sam. Measured them in his mind, the length of one leg to another. He’d fit Arthur’s navy suit, if just barely.

“How’d you like to go to London with me? I need to visit an old friend.”

When Tommy said London, he imagined clubs and restaurants. That big clock tower, maybe, or the Royal Palace. But the London they’d paid for a swank hotel in was as smoke-sick and gray with rainwater as Birmingham. Perhaps a fair bit bigger, with men and ladies in nicer clothes, but not the glamorous epitome of wealth he’d been taught that the world aspired to. Camden Town, the little neighborhood on the outskirts, might as well be Small Heath if one took away the trash fires and replaced them with the disconcertingly incongruous smell of fresh-baked bread. A bit disappointed, Sam fussed with the way his hair sat under the hat.

It was Arthur’s spare, apparently. Woolen and itchy on the outside, but lined with silk that stuck to his overgrown fringe, prickling his fingers with static as he tried to smooth the flyaways down.

“Quit fussing with that,” Tommy said, eyes never leaving the road. “You’ll cut a finger.”

That— being strapped with weapons head to toe, that is —was perhaps the biggest adjustment he’d had to make about London. Sam had personally never had a friend he felt the need to bring an armed guard around to visit, even just an impostor for show. Then again, Sam had never been a gangster before. The suit, the razor-edged cap, the gun holster digging into the crease of his underarm… all very new. Any confidence the ensemble might’ve given him melted away without a fight at the basement entrance to the warehouse, where two broad, bearded men flanked a nondescript side door. Hasidic, he figured, what with the payot. They eyed him up and down, the slimmer of the two subtly moving his coat aside to reveal the gun at his hip

“Straighten up,” Tommy said, patting the lower curve of his spine. “You’re near two meters tall. Use it to your advantage.” Sam obeyed, face a bit hot at the contact.

Tommy let the men search him, then Sam; a formality at best, because neither the gun nor the hat nor the knife strapped to his calf were confiscated. Hell of a power move, Sam reasoned. Let them wield it all at their own risk. It wouldn’t matter in the end.

Sam’s instructions were simple: do as Tommy says, and no else. You don’t speak to anyone, Tommy explained. You only respond to Rokka. You don’t react. Ever. You don’t escalate. You don’t draw your weapon before me. Arthur warned him, too: don’t trust what the mad fucker says. Grace just laughed when she saw them leaving, shaking her head. Oh, good luck, boys. Have fun.

The distillery (as it now evidently was, with the stacks of barrels lining the narrow basement and the sweet chemical scent of rum flavoring the air) swarmed with workers, aproned like bakers but hands sticky with a thin film of molasses. They seemed not to even notice them, nor pay them any mind besides an occasional glance and below-breath mutter. All except for one man, wiry thin and striding towards them with a purpose. He wiped his hands on a white apron before reaching out to shake Tommy’s.

“Ollie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel.”

“Mornin’.” The man, Ollie, extended his hand towards him. But Sam had his orders. He stood still, glancing at the man’s hand impassively before looking to Tommy.

“Go ahead,” Tommy told him, Rokka replacing English. Sam obeyed and returned Ollie’s less-than-enthusiastic handshake.

Ollie looked… not quite impressed. Filled with dread, perhaps, by the way he whale-eyed Tommy.

“Warning you now, Tom,” he gestured at Sam, “he’ll have fun with that one.”

“I bet,” Tommy replied, sighing fondly. And what the hell did that mean?

He hardly had the time to ponder it before a shout reverberated through the cavernous tunnel. “Boss on the floor!”

Like a hypnotist had snapped their fingers, the shouting of the distillery went quiet. Eerily so, even with the sounds of light machinery still hissing and groaning in the background. Men sitting around having a lunch break scattered, laborers walking down the center aisle parted down the middle as though cleaved in two. Still looking busy, but conveniently far away from where he, Tommy, and Ollie stood waiting for… someone. And then there he was.

A broad, bearded man at the base of the stairs opposite them seemed to dwarf everything around him. Like a pirate of old with his wide-brimmed black hat, shiny shoes, flecks of blood at the collar of his shirt, and thick, bruised knuckles glittering with gold rings. And then he lumbered leisurely toward them, ursine and heavy-gaited, cane clicking on the floor with an echo at every other step.

“Thomas Michael Shelby,” a voice boomed, the strong cockney accent bouncing off of oak casks and cellar walls. “You got some fuckin’ nerve, mate.”

Tommy’s face would’ve radiated boredom if not for the way the corner of his lip twitched upward ever so slightly. “I assume you got my message last week?”

The man scoffed, now close enough that Sam could see that he actually… wasn’t that tall. He had maybe a few inches on Tommy, but all of the grandness he radiated came from the span of his shoulders and the commanding way in which he carried himself: chest puffed out, head held high. Sam straightened his posture again, remembering Tommy’s words.

“Treacle—“ and that was unusual, humorous for someone so rugged, but he kept a straight face, “—if by message you mean one of your fucking leftovers from… what, Hoxton Gang? Their rat-faced little spy what’s been sniffing around my neighborhood? Then yeah,” he cracked those bruised knuckles, and now Sam could see the rusty dried blood settling in the crevices of his rings, “I got your message.”

“Good.” Tommy did smile then, very faint but noticeable for those who knew what to look for. Something mischievous sparkled in the man’s eyes for a second as he opened his mouth for another quip, but Ollie cleared his throat. The man took a slow look in the direction of Ollie’s pointed sidelong glance, then practically jumped out of his skin.

“Oh, fuck me! What is that?”

Sam whipped his head around, expecting some unseen assailant, but flushed red when he realized Tommy’s associate was talking about him.

“Alfie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel. He’s a mute.” Mute? Sam shot him a look, but Tommy’s face read stop reacting loud and clear.

The broad man guffawed, clapping Sam on the arm. “Seven hells, mate. Thought you were a ghostie or a ghoul of sorts.”

“And Samuel,” he said, switching languages once again, “this gentleman is Mr. Alfred Solomons, Jr., a business associate of mine.”

Alfie scowled, recognizing his own full name even through the layer of an accent. “Oh, yeah. Real cute, Tommy. Very mature. Bet you’re all geared up to say summat about how I started it, ey? Callin’ after you all proper like a wrinkly old nanny and in turn you play the junior card? Speakin’ your unholy tongues and all, you call me Junior?”

Tommy shrugged, a brand new shit-eating grin plastered on his smug face as Sam struggled to not scowl at the slight. Alfie grumbled, eyeing Sam up and down for good measure before turning on his heel and marching off. Tommy motioned for Sam to follow, Ollie trailing quietly behind.

“New guard dog then, ey, Tom?” Alfie asked over his shoulder, leading them into the labyrinth of the distillery with those wide, limping steps that Sam very quickly began to realize were not put-upon in the least.

Tommy was impassive, even as Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste behind the bearded man’s back. Where the hell did he get off?

“Don’t suppose you’ll be sending our Arthur my way ever again, after the lovely Pesach dinner what’s been wasted on him?”

Aw-fah. What a strange way of speaking!

“Something like that.”

“What tricks have you taught this one, eh? Sit? Stay? Roll over?” Sam didn’t like the salacious rumble to Alfie’s voice as he said it.

“Bite,” Tommy replied, deadpan. “He hasn’t got the hang of let go yet.”

A chuckle as Alfie led them up the stairs, leaning heavily on the cane and shaking his head with a curse. They reached a second floor— an actual bakery, to Sam’s surprise —and then another gangway, where Alfie beckoned them all into his office.

He slumped into a worn leather chair, and with Tommy’s nod, Sam sat ramrod-straight in one of the two wooden armchairs adjacent to the mahogany desk. Alfie liked comfort, Sam noticed, taking in the high quality of the furniture around him. Despite the dust and clutter, it was clear that he took great pride in his belongings. But there was a roughness to the place all the same— bullet holes puckering the wallpaper behind him, panopticon windows cracked in places, flecks of dried blood on the armrest of the chair. Desperate, panicked scratch marks gouged on the inside of the door. Sam shuddered involuntarily. Then he startled, heart in his throat at the rhythmic thump from an unseen corner behind the desk.

Tommy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as a whistle-whine yawn announced the leisurely awakening of a podgy little dog, wet nose nudging at Alfie’s palm for a pat before ambling wiggle-bottomed to Tommy. He indulged the little fawn-furred mutt despite the glare he cast on Alfie.

“Oh, don’t mind ‘im none.” Alfie turned his head to address Sam as the dog sniffed at his trouser leg. “That’s Lawless. He’s friendly. Law! Go to bed, now, attaboy.”

Lawless willfully disobeyed, dancing like a wriggling fish over to Ollie’s position by the door. Some of the tension bled from Sam’s spine; ruthless and of dubious sanity, but an animal lover. Sam could work with that. There was humanity in it.

Alfie cleared his throat, shaking open a newspaper and perusing it behind the rims of his reading spectacles with great interest. He hemmed and hawed, stroking the whiskey-red shine of his beard now and again. A grandfather clock tucked into the corner ticked rhythmically, setting Sam more on edge with each passing second. Tommy cleared his throat.

“Are we doing business, Alfie?” Tommy’s Birmingham drawl gave the image of boredom, but Sam could see the way his fingers rapped agitatedly on the armrest.

Alfie looked up, as though only just remembering his guests. Peeved, almost, like this was some random inconvenience and not a meeting scheduled far in advance. He huffed, tapping the surface of his newspaper with his knuckles for emphasis. “I’ve got a crossword that needs finishing first, Thomas.”

Sure enough, he flipped the paper around and the two were greeted with that trendy new puzzle of squares that Grace and Fia would pour over when they had tea. Only this time, none of the squares had been filled, despite Alfie’s rapt attention to the page.

Tommy looked unimpressed. “You haven’t started it. Are you even writing the letters down?”

Alfie scoffed, tutting at Tommy like this was a ridiculous observation to make. “Don’t need to.” And with that, he returned to his crossword.

They waited in silence, the clock’s staccato tick-tock-tick joined by the dog’s panting breaths and the distant sound of machinery.

Eventually even Tommy had his limits. He sat higher in the chair, hands clasped and elbows on the armrests, a picture of power and control. “We have a deal to discuss, Mr. Solomons.”

Alfie glared at him over the top of the page. “Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Then, finally, he set the newspaper aside, hands folded on his lap. “I’d like to start with the telephone, honestly. You know that thing goes two ways? I leave my messages with your lovely receptionist, and yet you never—“

“Lizzie does her job just fine,” Tommy snapped.

“I know that,” Alfie fired back. “Great secretary, yeah, always keeping your fucking whereabouts lock-and-key-like.”

Tommy said nothing, but that sly smirk was back. Sam shifted uneasily in his seat, sneaking a look behind him at where Ollie stood guarding the door. If the rumors about the King of Camden were true, his temper could flare at any time with the way Tommy seemed to enjoy provoking him.

Tommy caught on to his discomfort, perceptive as always, and gave an assessing glance at Ollie as well. Taking this to mean it was play time, Lawless’s nails click-clacked on the hardwood as he wormed his way between the chairs, licking Sam’s palm and pawing at his shoe.

Tommy sighed reproachfully. “Does the dog have to be here, Alfie?”

Alfie scoffed, once again offended by an apparently stupid question. “Well yeah, ‘s only fair. You have your guard dog and I have mine. We’re even.”

“If that’s even, then what’s Ollie still doing here?”

The aforementioned Ollie shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting between Sam, Tommy, and Alfie before landing on his own shoes.

“Well,” said Alfie, “have you seen the size of your friend? Practically a Great Dane, that one. Are you Danish, mate? Been to Denmark?”

Sam, startled at being acknowledged, ignored Tommy’s warning look and shook his head. “No, sir.” He realized his mistake the moment the words spilled out, ice-cold fear twisting his stomach.

Alfie’s heavy brow furrowed. “Huh. Pity, that. You’d’ve made an excellent net fisherman.” A wink at Tommy. “Hell of a talented mute.”

Tommy was glaring at him. Sam felt himself shrink under the scrutiny, knowing he’d been tricked.

“Don’t engage. Just follow my cues and don’t intervene.” Tommy hissed the command in Rokka under his breath. Then, icy blue eyes back to Alfie, he continued: “I wanted to talk to you about Aintree.”

That caught Sam’s attention. Resigned to following Tommy’s orders, he kept his reactions to himself, but he felt his fist clench into the leg of his pants as his pulse jumped.

“Aintree? Mate,” Alfie rubbed a hand down his face before his nails strayed almost compulsively to claw at an angry-looking patch of rough, inflamed skin on his neck, “you seem to be under the impression that I give a fuck about your lot taking over shit-stinking Liverpool.”

“I’m not,” Tommy replied, cool as water. “But I know you give a fuck about being paid for protection.”

Alfie held onto that little detail, quirking one brow. “Paid for protection, ey? You think I have the men to spare to send to Aintree on a lark, what with Hoxton up our arses in the metaphorical?”

Tommy shrugged, lackadaisical. “Contact your family.”

Alfie bellowed a laugh, slamming his wide palm down on the desk so hard it rattled everything but Tommy, still staring through him impassively. “My fucking family, he says! The wanker, he says contact my family! Thomas, I don’t know how it is with your free-range people—“ he nodded his chin to indicate Sam, who felt angry, defensive heat rise to his cheeks despite himself, “—but I don’t just have a thousand ill-begotten cousins to pull out of thin fucking air from all corners of the King’s country. In Boston I have Solomonses up to the gills, yeah, but we’re not in fucking Beantown, are we?”

“I’m offering you a good opportunity, Alfie. An untouched racecourse and a new region to expand into.”

Alfie pondered that as his eye twitched, staring down at the surface of the desk for a moment. “No. If I am going to dedicate the time to get my men out there, I want to make my profit on the gambling, too,” he said. “But I can’t spare my bookies from Epsom because unlike you Birmingham thugs they live in fucking London like civilized folks, and I don’t have the time to train some illiterate fuck off the streets.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw jumped.

“Then call up the local bookies in Liverpool or Manchester,” Tommy said. “Invite them to do their business inside the tracks for a fee, and you can collect a percentage of their earnings. I’m sure the Jewish population of Merseyside will have some respect for your standing.”

Alfie looked taken aback, suddenly quite serious. Sam caught a glimpse of the bearlike giant standing at the other end of the hall when they’d arrived, so frightening from afar and now even more terrifying leaning into Tommy’s space. He knew to respect the orders he was given, but Sam mentally prepared to draw his gun.

“Do you think,” Alfie growled, eyes manically wide, “that just because I’m a Jew, I must know every fucking son of Abraham in the country? Ey, Tom? That’s what you think?”

Tommy said nothing. Alfie sat slowly back in his chair, maintaining that unblinking eye contact the whole way. “Because I do, for the record. Fucking know everybody, don’t I?”

Sam let out a quiet sigh of relief. Tommy, unfazed as ever, made a motion with his hands as though to say well there you go. “We can draft an agreement to edit the next time I’m in London,” Tommy said, cocky now that he’d won.

Alfie ignored him for a moment, burying his face in the newspaper again and grousing under his breath about Liverpool and horse money and Boston baked beans. “We can write up a final deal here and now,” he said, peeking over the edge of the paper, “if you indulge me for a mo’.”

An almost imperceptible sigh from next to him.

“Now,” Alfie said, cracking his neck. “Since you have decided to make me talk business on a crossword sort of day, I’m going to make you,” he pointed at Tommy, “solve a crossword for me.”

Tommy grit his teeth and nodded almost imperceptibly, slow and calculated. Oh, he was properly pissed now. Sam almost missed that look of frustration and superiority in his eye, as though everyone around him was an idiot and he was the only reasonable player in the game.

“Tommy, you’ll guess this one.” Alfie pointed at a chain of squares on his newspaper, now animated and jovial again. “It’s something I like to call you. Starts with a T.” He leaned across the desk to show Tommy the blank crossword, hand covering the clues. How he remembered where each letter went was a mystery, considering Alfie still hadn’t made a single mark in all the time he spent pondering it. “I’ll give you a challenge, right, since you’re a smarty. It’s one of these words between five and seven letters, and I’ll let you guess which chain. And that’s your challenge, yeah, you’ve got to guess: five, six, or seven letters. Starts with T.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. “Is it a variation of my name? Thomas, Tommy?”

“No, silly lad! C’mon, it’s easy but not that easy.”

Tommy gave him a dead eyed glare, thoroughly unimpressed. “Tosser.”

That provoked a full-on chuckle from the bearded gangster. “Funny, mate, very funny. But no, alas, it’s summat a bit nicer. They’d never print that, no.”

“It wasn’t a guess,” Tommy muttered under his breath. Samuel bit his lip to keep from laughing; he’d never seen Tommy so petulant and rude. He looked at Sam, eyes dull and lifeless like an old teaching horse put to one too many rides. “Guess, Samuel,” he pleaded. “Play by his rules. Put me out of my misery here so we can move on. Speak, I don’t care. I hate this fucking game.”

It was difficult, playing an invisible crossword with no schooling to speak of, but the letter T was easy. T for Tommy. T-T-T. Sam thought back to when they’d first entered the basement of the warehouse. The strangeness of Alfie’s speech, the way he picked words like fruit and discarded all but the ripest choices. And then an idea came to him. “…Treacle?”

Alfie looked at him in surprise, as though he forgot Sam existed. With the way he had been watching Tommy, analytical and carnivore-sharp, he very well could’ve. A broad smile spread across his bearded face. “Oh, very good guess, Samson.”

“It’s Samuel,” Tommy corrected, drawing a cigarette to his lips. Alfie snatched it away, chiding him about smoking in a distillery. When Alfie turned his full attention back to Sam, Tommy seemed simultaneously relieved and put-out.

“Shmuel, you’ve made a good guess, but not quite.”

Tommy reluctantly gave him a permissive nod, elbow propped on the armrest and fingers curled as though still holding his cigarette. Sam swallowed, thinking about how easily his fingers curled around that gun. How he pointed it at Sam’s bruised and battered head without a second thought, hooking the trigger, safety off, painting him the villain, calling him a—

“Traitor.” Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, willing his molten blood to cool, willing his mouth to stop imagining the bitter, metallic taste of a gun. He gulped against the saliva pooling behind his teeth. “Is- is that the one?”

Alfie’s left eye twitched and he scratched at his beard again. Interesting… he’d done that just a few minutes ago when he dangled the idea of an alliance in Tommy’s face. “Not that,” he said, drawing out the vowels. Sam must’ve been onto something.

Sam guessed three times more. ‘Thin’, the wrong number of letters. ‘Champion’, not starting with a T, even though it bloody well sounded like it. An agonized guess of ‘torture’ forced Tommy to restrain a laugh, but that wasn’t the answer either. Before he could try again, Tommy had evidently had more than enough. “Alfie, I didn’t come here to watch you play word games.” Below Alfie’s sight line, he signaled with his hand: that’s enough. Sam frowned, still unused to being bossed about by someone he’d begun to consider a friend.

Alfie’s gaze sharpened and locked onto Tommy’s as he folded the paper up and set it aside with a pat. “Alright, mate. Fine.” He beckoned with his hands. “Give me the pitch.”

Tommy blinked hard, the sharp lines of his face betraying annoyance. “I’ve got Aintree to meself right now,” he said. “That’s the Grand National, plus the Meetings from October through to Boxing Day. But if we take the tracks alone, that’s risky. Suspicious. Now, we can hire your men as our own security, but if you’d rather have the books yourself,” he hung another cigarette between his lips, leaning back in his seat so that Alfie couldn’t snatch it away again, “then I will be charitable and allow you a tenth of the space.”

“Fuck off,” Alfie called out, foghorn loud. “Fifty-fifty.”

“I’ll give you fifteen,” Tommy conceded, even and calm. “Consider it a gift.”

“I’ll consider it a gift when it looks less like another metaphorical gaping fucking maw to feed,” Alfie grumbled, hunched over his desk with hands folded. “Give me something that matters, Tom, because as it stands now I have absolutely no interest in Aintree.” He scratched that spot on his beard, eye twitching again. Sam was immediately on edge.

They volleyed numbers back and forth, a greedy push and pull process to grab up as much space as was available as Tommy quickly smoked his cigarette down to a burnt stub. Sam zoned out, not so captivated by the display as he was by the little autochrome photograph tacked up in a modest frame on the wall behind Alfie’s right shoulder. He squinted. A high-headed buckskin thoroughbred, male. Gelding. Four black half socks, common enough. One white pastern, back left leg, with an odd little stripe of white through an otherwise black hoof. Sam fucking knew that hoof. His heart pounded in his throat. King Solomon. Of fucking course.

“Tommy,” he hissed as Alfie dug in his desk for a fountain pen and a scrap of paper— something about splitting up territory down to the square footage.

“One second.”

“Tom.”

No response. Sam suppressed a howl of frustration. He fucking knew that hoof. He knew that horse. He knew the jockey. Young Jewish lad, good stability. Solid hold on the reins. The duo placed just below George and Tsarina in the rankings. He was at the track that day, and would have every reason to want his rival gone. No interest in Aintree, my arse.

“Tommy, listen to me.”

Rokka. Tommy’s eyes widened a fraction when he looked at Sam, ice blue on raw pearl white. Alfie had been digging through the desk for an awfully long time. Suspicious. There was a pen and notepad already within reach on the desk. Very suspicious.

“What, Samuel?”

“He’s bluffing.”

Tommy’s eyes followed the path of his stare, and then all hell broke loose. There was a flurry of activity as guns were drawn, Tommy’s at Alfie, Alfie’s at Tommy, Ollie��s at Tommy, and Sam’s at Ollie. A beat, stalemate. Sam could feel his blood quickening just below the skin.

Alfie looked pleased as punch with the circumstances— downright giddy, by the rumbling chuckle and the lax way he wielded the revolver.

“Come now, sweetie,” he drawled, patronizing and sugared, “you think so little of me.” From within the desk, he drew out an embossed envelope, tossing it carelessly across the table. “Now let’s put the guns down and talk about this little slip of paper here, eh? Use our civilized words.” A pointed jab, with a sidelong glare at Sam.

“You’ve gone too far with this one, Alfie,” Tommy growled, ignoring the request. “If you wanted Liverpool to yourself, that’s one thing. But going after me own over it, that’s another.”

Baffled, Alfie wrinkled his nose and put his hands out in pacification. To Sam’s distress, that put the gun in line with his throat. “Alright, mate,” Alfie said, slowly and firmly as though reasoning with an unruly child, “while I usually have many clues as to what’s flared your particular neurosis at any given moment, I’ve been bested this time.”

Tommy didn’t relent, whole body rigid with anticipation. “Psalms 94:1. That’s you, isn’t it? Right out of the Hebrew Bible. I should’ve known.”

“You must be havin’ some sort of a fanatical episode for your heathen arse to be quoting holy books at me,” Alfie warned. “So let’s put the gun away, right? Before we put a hole in someone.”

“You’ve left us messages. Warnings to stay away from Liverpool,” Tommy growled. “All disguised in verses, and now you want to play dumb? Shooting that woman and putting it on us, that’s your idea of a warning? You want the racecourse all to yourself, don’t you?”

Something clicked, and Alfie sagged in his chair, tucking the gun away. “Treacle, this is a new low. If I wanted Liverpool, you think I’d just willy-nilly go and shoot a woman? A politician’s wife? At the biggest event of the year for that fucking dump of a city?” He tsked, shaking his head like Tommy had just thrown a tantrum rather than threatened his life.

Tommy narrowed his eyes for a moment before slowly holstering his own gun. Sam did the same as Alfie scolded Ollie, whose reluctant compliance Sam was not comforted by. Not Alfie, then. Sam’s jaw unclenched a fraction as Tommy apologized for the interruption.

“All’s forgiven. We’re good, yeah. That’s over.” Alfie gave Tommy a cautious once-over. “Whatever the fuck that was. Now take a look-see at that there, eh?”

Tommy opened the envelope and drew out the contract. Sam could see it over his shoulder, but in hushed tones, Tommy read it aloud for his benefit: a Bill of Sale, agreed between some horse breeder up north and one Alfred Solomons, Jr., for a gelding colt.

“Harry’s wife has a nephew,” Alfie said, fiddling about with a paperweight. “Very nice boy. Over in, ah…” he thought for a moment, eyes squeezed shut before he snapped his fingers, “Bristol, yeah, that’s it. Over in Bristol. I promised him that fine creature there as a Bar Mitzvah gift, since he’d been taking lessons. That was some years ago. He’s a proper jockey now. Good investment, yeah?”

“Thought you didn’t talk to Harry much anymore.” Tommy reached a hand up to ash his cigarette in the wordlessly offered tray as opposed to letting it smolder perilously on the desk, the little crystal dish evidently another treasure from Alfie’s cluttered desk.

“Well, you know how my brother is,” Alfie sighed, resigned. “Anyway, he’s a jockey, right? The nephew, that is. Making a name for himself.”

Tommy hummed. “You want me to fix a race?”

”What I want,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “is for my little investment to take flight. Now you might not know this, being of a provincial people and all—“ he glanced at Sam, already anticipating the way he fumed at the slight, “—but in high society, poncy gentlemen might purchase a share on a high-performing racehorse just like our King Solomon here. Nothing more than posturing and something to talk about with their fellow vapid old men, but they like to think it’ll make them even richer. And as the owner of that treif beast eating and shitting his weight in money, I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to make some of that investment back and support my nephew-in-law’s early career.”

Sam thought about that. Horses were expensive and delicate… how could anyone’s share break even, much less turn a profit, if the owner of the horse wasn’t making much money either? But by the glint in Alfie’s eye, perhaps he knew that.

“I need an endorsement,” Alfie said. “Somethin’ flashy and new like Shelby Company, Ltd., now that draws attention. And I mean, come on, Tom.” He leaned back, looking him up and down. “Folks like you know a good horse when you see one. And folks like them? Those dunderheaded old farts? They’ll believe just about anything if there’s a little mysticism thrown in.” He wiggled his fingers there to emphasize, like some sort of children’s magician.

Tommy sighed, rubbing his temple. “You want me to do… what, the endorsement equivalent of the powder trick for your nephew’s horse?”

Alfie shrugged coyly. “A little rumor of bohemian horse-charming never hurt nobody.”

Tommy crossed one leg over the other. “And what do I get?”

“For you, biscuit, I will accept your offer of limited co-authority over the racetracks. Just to put your maternally-derived fear of being left on your lonesome at ease, you little nudzh,” he said. “80-20 share. Favoring the Blinders, of course. And if you’re on your best behavior at our next meeting, I might even help you unravel whatever the fresh fuck your little outburst was about.”

They waited stock-still and silent for a while, and just when Sam thought for sure Tommy would say no, he spat in his hand and shook Alfie’s. The bearded man’s responding grin made Sam uneasy, but there was hardly time to comment on it when Tommy was already rising, saying his goodbyes, and nodding Sam towards the door. He was well pleased to follow Tommy out, grown sick of the bickering and sore in the head with nerves.

“Ah, just a minute, treacle,” Alfie called after them. “We have something else to discuss. Few things, actually, yeah.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Is this a private conversation?”

Alfie shooed Ollie off without breaking eye contact with his target. The nervous-looking man ushered Sam out with a hand on his upper arm, trailed happily by little Lawless with a slobbery leather ball in his mouth. “Go on, then, Tall Saul,” Alfie called after him, “and mind your keppele on the rafters, won’t you, poppet?”

Sam bristled.

When the door closed behind them, he shook off the grip and whipped around to go nose-to-nose with the lanky baker. “Tommy didn’t fucking say I should leave,” Sam growled, hooking his thumb into the band of his holster— a stupid move, threatening a man on his own turf in plain view of an entire bakery-slash-distillery, but after the display he just saw he wasn’t feeling terribly rational.

Ollie didn’t look surprised, or even bothered by the fact that their… bosses? Co-conspirators? Were behind a closed and— click! —locked door. Instead he turned, exhaustion hunching his shoulders, as he took to the stairs. “Trust me,” he said as he went, “you’ll wanna be elsewhere for a while.”

Sam took one last look at the windows as Alfie pulled down the blinds one by one, sighed, reasoned that Tommy knew what he was doing, and followed Ollie out.

Tommy seated himself again as Alfie kvetched about the bad weather and his stiff leg. The London gangster was typically unafraid to mention his old war injury, but on a bad pain day like this, he often became quite cagey about it around strangers like Sam. Ironic. Even the most irreverent, crude man in all of Camden Town had soft spots that ran deep. It was never something he hoped to exploit. They knew each others' weak points too well for the sort of nonsense that plagued their early... whatever this was.

Tommy cleared his throat. “You wanted to speak further?”

Alfie looked at him as though he forgot Tommy was still sitting there, but just like everything else, it was an act. Another trick up his sleeve to distract and disarm. “Yeah,” he mused, placid like an addled grandfather despite being not much older than Tommy, “yeah I did, didn’t I?” He leaned forward, folding his hands before him on the desk and staring pointedly into Tommy’s eyes. It was a callback to the warning he was given as a boy: never make eye contact with a wild animal. Even as a child, he disregarded that rule.

“This whole…” Alfie made an exaggerated gesture, “…Psalms mess, that’s not me. Alright? I swear that on me dear mum’s grave, that woman gone brown-fucking-bread many years ago and not often sworn upon.”

Tommy hated when he said things like that. Mentions of the grave always gave him a chill; a blast of mildewing air from the depths of a crypt. He nodded anyway.

“But I don’t exactly know what the mess is about,” Alfie continued, tapping his fingertips together. “I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten little ol’ me? You know, the man you pointed a gun at.”

You said you were over it, thought Tommy, but he knew better than to fall into Alfie’s trap. “What do you want to know?”

He could tell that Alfie wasn’t impressed with the non-answer. Rather than countering with another question, Alfie reached behind him with a grunt and pulled a book from the shelf. Tehillim, he called it, and waited patiently for a moment to see if Tommy would hiss and recoil at the sacred name— a favorite little gag of his as of late, checking to see if Tommy was a demon.

“You don’t trust me with your problems enough,” Alfie said, pointing the book at him with the irreverence of a man who saw himself as above any law. He thumbed it open, peering through those incongruously delicate spectacles until he found what he wanted. “Chapter 94, first verse, you said?”

Tommy nodded.

Alfie read. And then read it again. Then another time, now whispering the words under his breath in a language spanning generations. He looked up. “Tommy.”

“Yes?”

“You are so very fucked, mate.”

Alfie’s expression was as blank and wide-eyed as it usually was when he was putting on a show, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Tommy couldn’t help but breathe a laugh. It tugged Alfie’s face into one of those genuinely delighted grins.

The very real threat was unavoidable, though. Tommy would have to consider spilling the whole story out before his ally and rival, and Alfie was looking at him expectantly. It was only a few moments’ standoff, but Tommy gave in. “Alright,” he said, “here’s the problem.”

The more Tommy explained, the more concerned Alfie seemed to grow. The lines betraying his age drew shadows on his face, sober and contemplative, as he stroked his thumb over the scar interrupting the red of his beard— a souvenir of the Great War.

“I really don’t know, Tommy.” He sighed, furrowed brows folding creases into his forehead as he read the passage again. “Never heard of no gangs up there, nor theologians with an axe to grind. All I know’s that your secret admirer is of a Christian persuasion. The Revelations—“

“Revelation,” Tommy said. “Singular.”

Alfie glared at him. “Revelation. The Revelation verse is your lot. We don’t do that. Awful fucking mess, that wicked fever dream.” He thought for a moment, stroking his beard. “Here’s a strange thing,” he said. “The ink was still wet, right. Who the hell brings a pen and ink to a race? Use a fucking pencil.”

That gave Tommy pause. “Racketeers,” he said. “Ready to forge a signature at the drop of a hat.”

Alfie leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Hah! It is a gang, then. A rival gang none of us know about, with the means to carry out a public assassination and stalk you in your own home.”

Not the most comforting thought. Alfie gave him a knowing look.

“I’ll confess it, Tommy,” he said, “I already know about your so-called assassin.” He flipped his newspaper to the opening page, and Tommy’s shoulders slumped. Search Continues for Hangdog Killer, the headline said, accompanied once again by that damning sketch. “But I know he’s no assassin, because he’s slower than molasses on the draw. Now usually I’d go after the reward money being offered, but I don’t gain much from throwing away a perfectly good secret to hold over you.”

Tommy said nothing, but nodded nearly imperceptibly. It was as close to a truce on their back-and-forth game of betrayal as he was likely to get. Putting all he knew about their involvement— and lack thereof —on the table was Alfie’s way of showing his cards.

“Right!” He clapped once, a manic glint in his eyes. “That’s enough business talk, innit?”

Tommy startled, betrayed only by the slight jump of his shoulders. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up with Alfie’s moods, even the positive ones.

“I want to have a chat with you. I think you know about what.” Alfie had the kind of look on his face that Tommy always associated with trouble.

He braced himself, sighing deeply. “What kind of chat?”

Tommy regretted the question immediately at Alfie’s response: “Been a minute since we had ourselves a little polari, treacle.”

Ah, fuck. Polari. The talk. The language of outcasts: thieves, whores, traveling sorts… and men like them. Omi-polone. Queers.

His father forbade that language in the house— or anywhere, really. It was below them, he’d said. The speech of idiots and hedonists, a bastardization of languages not meant to be mixed about. A slight at Tommy’s mother; she spoke The Talk as well. For a time, Tommy wouldn’t take John with him to the fairgrounds to see the circus performers because he knew it’d be a flogging for him when the little one inevitably began copying his big brother’s conversations. Babbling about their father drinking their gelt away in the bungery, asking their mother to patch a rip in his clobber. You’ll make him a sissy, Arthur Sr. would hiss between bruising blows. Do you want your brother earning his keep in a molly house? Do you want the boy’s whore money in your pocket?

Do you, Dad? He should’ve asked, just to make him confront his sins out loud, but he had the nerve smacked out of him at that young age. Hadn’t yet reached the size Arthur had where he could finally hit their father back. So Tommy decided to keep it to himself. Listened to the sailors talk about dilly boys at the docks. Watched the pickpockets evade the charpering omi. Learned it all while he nursed a black eye.

“C’mon, Tom,” Alfie begged.

Tommy sighed, swallowed his pride, and let the words come to him. “Only a quick polari, aye? And nishta leaves this room.”

Alfie grinned. “There she is. The bitch is back.”

They went about catching up in such a manner for a while, Alfie reveling in yet another game of wits and words while Tommy mostly just tolerated the embarrassment. It was almost soothing, in a way. Alfie’s growling voice maneuvered smoothly, eloquently through the vocabulary of his childhood secrets. Tommy’s speech was more stilted, uncharacteristically reserved. He didn’t run in the sort of circles Alfie did; wasn’t out, as they say. All he’d known had been stuffed into a box to be forgotten, shameful and secret. No London drag ball for him.

“Let’s not cackle on ‘bout nishta,” Alfie urged after a less-than-respectful description of how badly he’d beaten that Hoxton spy Tommy had sent him. “You need to tell me about that dolly chicken you brought ‘round today.” The meaning? Tell me about pretty-boy.

Tommy swallowed around a burning mouthful of whiskey, nearly choking as his heart rate kicked. “What about him?”

Alfie looked at him as though the answer ought to be obvious. Perhaps it was, but Tommy didn’t want to think about Alfie’s ulterior motives. Not towards Sam.

“Is he ‘so’?” Is he a homosexual?

Tommy made a face. “Samuel? Come on, Alf, that’s naff. Proper naff.” Unfuckable territory, Alfie. Take a step back.

“Pshh!” Alfie leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “On what fuckin’ authority? I took a good vada, I did, and I didn’t find anything I could clock as cod ‘sides the fact he might be a little dizzy.” I got a good look at him. Didn’t seem too bad except that he might be a bit stupid. Is he stupid?

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no stake in what Alfie got up to outside of their unique alliance, but this was angering him in a rather troublesome way. Made something ugly tighten up in his chest, unsure if he was possessive of Alfie’s attention… or the unthinkable other option. “He’s got a palone at home. Dally one, her.” I meant that you should leave off. He’s got a lovely girlfriend. He knew this. So why did it feel like he was reminding himself?

Alfie smirked, vicious and arrogant. “You know that don’t turn me off. With plenty of trade you don’t know what you’re missing ‘til you’ve got ‘em in a doss, innat right? And rough trade? That’s the real bold type.” Plenty of straight men are not so straight when it comes down to it. Right, Tommy? To make his point, Alfie raked his eyes over Tommy’s figure. Blue-collar men like him? They get eager. Tommy rolled his eyes; no such thing as subtlety with Alfie.

“Well, you can’t blag Sam,” Tommy stated, feeling his ears go warm. You can’t have him.

“Why not?” Alfie leaned forward, mischief written on his face.

“He’s not…”

“Could be,” Alfie taunted. “Unless that isn’t your issue?”

“Hasn’t dropped any hairpins,” Tommy countered, raising a brow. He hasn’t hinted at queerness.

“Oh, and you’re absolutely bonaroo at clocking that, are you?” You’re terrible at catching a hint!

“If you would hush and Aunt Nell me for just a second—“ Listen to me! Christ!

Alfie found the weak point and dug in. “Tommy, sweetie, is it possible that you’re all out of sorts about this because you’re alamo for him?”

You’re attracted to Sam, aren’t you?

Tommy shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked, beet red and speechless in a way he hadn’t been since he was a youth caught staring at Arrow Collar Man ads. If it were even possible, Alfie became even more smug.

“Ohh,” he gasped, faux-pitying. “You are.”

“No.” Yes.

And he was, wasn’t he? So sue him. He thought Sam was… pretty, in an odd way. Melancholy features arranged just so, not strikingly beautiful but striking like lightning. It was difficult to pinpoint when he started noticing Sam. Before he took up in the guest wing, certainly. Before he even arrived at the house. Was it when he gripped his hand at the hospital? Or the van? Maybe it was when they sat around the fire and remembered the war? No, he resolved. Before that. Perhaps the moment he saw him.

“I figured as much,” Alfie crowed, “when I saw the way you ogled him up and down. Like he was a challenge. Taming a stray, are we?”

Tommy frowned, and not only for the way he’d been caught. “What, you’re not looking to charver him yourself?” You’re not interested?

Alfie scoffed. “Nanti. He’s got lallies a mile long, sure, but… well, not much of a dish back there, innit?” Nah, he’s all legs and no arse.

“It’s just fine,” Tommy snapped. “It’s a bona dish. It’s normal.” Leave his arse alone, it’s decent enough.

Alfie just laughed. “Fuck me, you’re in deep. You meshigener.” You’re a fucking nut. “But remember, right, that fucking and feelings do not mix.”

Tommy nodded morosely, staring out at the warped world beyond the glass block windows. Fuck, he couldn’t let this get away from him. Already he found himself thinking of Sam more than he should, more than was necessary for a guest in his house. And what if he got too attached? Each of them had their own lives, Tommy engaged and Sam with a baby on the way. This wasn’t anything like the anonymous dalliances of his bachelor days.

“You know,” Alfie said, uncharacteristically sincere, “you’re always welcome in my slice of London. Safehouses, clubs, hotels, the like. Just in case there’s… well, I’ll keep an eye out for trouble, ‘s what I’m saying.”

Tommy nodded, quiet but appreciative. London had proven safe enough so far. If they needed to evade The Horsemen yet again, at least here there’d be two powerful gangs watching Sam’s back. And Florence! Florence and Sam. Both of them. Right.

Alfie must’ve taken the silence as a sign that their business was done, because when a light thud on the desk caught Tommy’s attention, he found himself sitting before a bottle of white rum.

“A drink before you go?” Alfie asked, raising his brow suggestively. “I’m not that loyal stray of yours, but you never seemed to mind before.”

Their conversation… both conversations weighed heavily on his mind, distracting and stomach-twisting. He couldn’t let the proximity get to him. Couldn’t trust himself to be rational if it all went sideways. If he was rejected. If harm came to anyone. Too many moving parts at play, business and loyalty and the beating of his heart all crescendoing every time he thought about the what if, what if, what if.

“I’m getting married,” he said instead of admitting the crushing force of worry on his lungs. Could he even fucking perform, bogged down like this?

Alfie nodded slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. “Right, mate,” he said cautiously, catching the rolling storm of Tommy’s stress on the wind, “we don’t have to. But I will say, six months ago you was also going to tie the knot and it weren’t no bloody moral objections then. And last year we had several meetings, didn’t we, where you cut the business-talk quite short because you needed your fix. Marriage and your little bundle of joy not on the mind back then, yeah.”

Tommy smirked. Yes, he preferred this: Alfie knocked out of that state of supernatural wisdom, back to earth, back to the present. Not playing shrink, just wanting something simple and fun out of him.

“Fine,” he said, holding out his glass for just enough rum to have an excuse, “have it your way.”

Alfie grinned, dark and cunning as he poured. “You never finished guessing the word, treacle. Something I call you, five to seven letters, and I think you know what it is.”

Tommy looked the man up and down slowly, the tip of his tongue running over the backs of his teeth, stopping at one sharp canine. He watched Alfie follow it, setting a fire in his blood that he couldn’t quite blame on the rum. “Tease. The word is tease.”

Alfie downed his own glass in a gulp, expression proud and hungry. “Atta boy.”

Thirty-eight minutes. Not that he was counting. It took Tommy that long to wrap up his conversation and meet him outside by the car, looking for all the world like a man who got into a fistfight after turning away his only backup.

Sam didn’t care about the wait too much beyond the pointlessness of his sitting around. Camden Town wasn’t too terrible, and a portly little fellow named David had apologetically gifted him a loaf of bread for the road and a dram of brown rum from the basement. Something about working men looking out for one another. It tasted like shit, but drink was drink. Besides that, Lawless was rather content to have someone to play with in that time, chasing whatever pebble Sam kicked across the alley and returning for a good fuss on the flank and head. He stared at him with big, simpering eyes before Sam pitied him enough to break off the crunchy heel of the loaf and toss it for him. That’s how he got so chunky, he realized, and had himself a private laugh at the idea of Alfie and Ollie and countless other gangsters buckling to the begging of that precious little face.

When Tommy did return, it was instead the state of him that made Sam angry. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, tie slightly askew and a button missing from his shirt. Why the fuck did he bring Sam, a man he knew could hold his own, if he was just going to get into a private one-versus-one with the King of Camden anyway? It rankled him something fierce, the casual way in which he motioned Sam into the car. Rankled him worse when he slid behind the wheel with a wince.

He fucking smelled nice, unfortunately. Rum and sweat and a strangely familiar vetiver-musk cologne he was sure Tommy hadn’t been wearing earlier. Where did he get that? A gift from Solomons? A tang of salt, metal… blood from the fight most likely, and fucking vegetable oil of all things. Sam sulked. Did Tommy just bring him around to be bullied by some rum smuggler? He felt ridiculous in the gangster getup, the jacket pinching him in the underarms, the pants too short and in danger of ripping down the crotch if he sat too quickly. Not to mention the hat, static-shock silk lining clinging to everything on his head. He threw the damned thing onto the back seat with the bread as they drove off, his clammy, crumb-dusted palms not a better sensation as he ran a hand over his hair.

“Good conversation?” He sneered, ill-tempered and overtired after too much Alfie in one day. Tommy didn’t dignify it with an answer, but his hands gripped tighter around the steering wheel.

“What happened, ey?” Sam slouched petulantly in his seat. “You’ve seen me fight. I could’ve backed you up in there.” You still don’t trust me.

“Next time,” Tommy chastised, ignoring his questions yet again, “just do as I say. You need to control your impulses or you give too much away.”

Sam blinked incredulously. Next time? “He caught me off guard,” he said. “And besides, I helped you, didn’t I? With the horse thing.”

“The horse thing could’ve gotten someone shot,” Tommy snapped, his low voice warning like rumbling thunder. “You couldn’t just let the insults go, could you?”

“He was talking about us— about Roma, us! —like the dirt off his shoe.” Sam was beginning to rile, fueled by the memories of slurs and clutched purses and globs of spit hurled at his feet. “You sat by and let him say whatever he wanted, and all the while you just looked at him like… you looked at me like—“

“He’s a madman,” Tommy barked. “He says all sorts of things. You knew this and you let him get in your head.”

“You two treated me like I was your dog, Tommy!”

The car stopped with a jolt. Tommy’s glare was a dangerous, electric thing that he determinedly kept fixed on the road.

“If you don’t want to be heeled like a mutt,” he snarled, quiet and definitive, “then don’t fucking act like one.”

Sam raged and roared in his own head the whole way back to Warwickshire.

#fic: sic em #oc: samuel lovell #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders oc #this couldve been titled 3 annoying bisexuals argue in a warehouse

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greenishghostey · 3 years ago

Note

the commonly referenced 'messy bun' eddie puts his hair into isn't actually a bun, it's just a ponytail he didn't pull all the way through

His pretty pretty curls tied back all messy because it’s summer and he’s got to clean out his van

That’s the plot synopsis of this. Also, goofy fluff for fluff's sake

///

July in Hawkins was usually a similar temperature to the surface of the sun. Eddie would lovingly grumble about how it “feels like Satan’s moist armpit”; he had such an eloquent way with words.

The summer sun was particularly punishing as it bounced around the trailer park. You were almost tempted to try and cook some eggs for breakfast on the steps of Eddie's trailer - the resulting bacteria would have been a bitch to deal with though.

Eddie always used hot, sticky summer days to clean his van. The body and windows desperately needed to be blasted with a hose. A whole lot of random crap had accumulated in the back of the van - fast food wrappers, busted guitar cables, Corroded Coffin poster samples. The brown shag rug lining the back needed to be vacuumed very, very badly, too.

You were always happy to help out with the van cleaning. Partly because it was just nice to spend time on a nice day with your boyfriend. But mainly because you got to look at him while he cleaned.

Eddie didn't own any shirts that were breezy enough for the July heat, so he ditched the shirt altogether. His tattoos and freckled skin were on full display in the golden sunshine. He was glowing. One, because he was a pretty guy, and two, because you had rubbed a lot of sunblock on him - much to his protests.

In addition to going half-naked, "showing off the goods," as he put it. Eddie also tied his curls up. The hair tie he used, which was probably months old, given how overstretched it was, only held his hair back loosely. The ponytail sat against the back of his neck, and several wild strands fell around his sweaty face.

You were taking a break from vacuuming the car seats, lounging back on a low, green deck chair and observing. Secretly, you were happy that you had the privilege of seeing Eddie being all effortlessly hot. The guy was a solid 10, and no one else in the entire town got to see him the way you did.

Admittedly, you felt a little iffy watching him while knocking back a beer from the cooler at your feet, objectifying him while he was hosing down the van. But you also knew that he was far too aware of what he was doing.

"You missed a spot on the windscreen." You pointed out, gesturing to the dried bird shit near the window wipers. Eddie turned to you and peered over his sunglasses. Letting him buy aviators was an awful idea. Especially since you'd seen Top Gun with your friends a few months back.

"I'm doing the wipers separately. There's more bird shit and dead bugs on 'em than what you can see," Eddie explained. He still moved the spray of the hose over the area you had pointed out. You were just trying to be helpful, and he appreciated it. "Oh, there's a huge spider in here too! Come see!"

You had to peel yourself off the plastic of the deck chair - the heat was just a joke now. Eddie had started poking at the wipers, inspecting the area for any live creepy crawlers that he could save before causing a tsunami for them.

"I swear if there's hair on this spider, I'll-" You were abruptly cut off by a fast spray of water hitting you in the chest. Eddie was a dead man. Regardless of his summer look.

"Been waiting all day to do that." Eddie cackled, doubling over at the sight of the death glare you were giving him. "Love ya, though. Hey, no bra, how nice of you." he preened, quickly stealing a kiss on your damp cheek.

The t-shirt you were wearing was now like a second skin. The red cotton clung to your torso, and you quickly realised the reason for Eddie's aim. As Eddie moved away from you, you made fast work of disarming him of the hose. The second it was in your hand, his face dropped, and he bolted around the van.

"Can you blame me for the wet t-shirt?! Like really?" Eddie pleaded as you stalked after him, hose in a vice grip. You knew your boyfriend was a perv, sure, but you could still get a bit of revenge in exchange for it.

"It is chaffing my armpits, Edward." You hissed, aiming a hose blast at his head, but he quickly ducked behind one of the open back doors.

"Well, I'm sorry about that. But you've been ogling me all day! Can't a guy see some wet t-shirt action!" This time he luckily dodged your line of fire.

"I've been ogling you for twenty minutes AT MOST!"

"HA! So, you admit-" Eddie cut himself off with an "oof" as you had managed to catch him and shove him lightly into the side of the van - the clean side. He immediately raised his hands in defeat, pushing his sunglasses into his hair so he could try to win you over with the puppy dog eyes. Damn, the guy was good; you had to give him some credit. "C'mon, babe, you don't really wanna do this. How 'bout I make it up to you later? I'll do that thing-" The offer was tempting, but you only pinned Eddie more firmly to the metal.

The spray blasted directly on the top of his head, soaking his face, hair and shoulders in an instant. "You will be doing that thing later, dumbass." You grumbled, releasing the now water-logged man and marching off with the hose.

You took maybe five steps away from Eddie before he ran up, grabbed you from behind and started shaking his sodden hair in your face like a big dog. His barking laugh at your struggling to run away warmed your heart and made you forgive him. Only a little bit, though.

#Eddie Munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #Eddie Munson x reader fluff #Eddie Munson fluff #Eddie Munson fic #fluff #fic #Eddie #stranger things

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wordynerdygurl · 3 years ago

Text

Two Sizes Too Small

Author’s Note: Well, lovelies, I pulled an all-nighter to finish this one. I just really wanted to give Eddie Munson a wonderful Christmas. That it involves love and my favorite holiday movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, well, how could I resist? Full disclosure- there’s a lot of holiday movie and music references! Also, my taglist is open, so let me know if you’d like to be added! Lastly, I hope everyone has a lovely and restful holiday season!! Pairing: Plus Size Female Reader x Eddie Munson

Summary: Eddie hates Christmas, the whole Christmas season, and maybe his heart is too small but it’s Christmas and miracles can happen at the holidays!

Warnings: SMUT, a touch of dubcon in the beginning, and also some angsty pining!

If it weren’t for Wayne, Eddie would have given up on Christmas a long time ago.

Around the time when he realized that Santa was his uncle scraping up extra change to ensure that there was something for him to open under the tree, Eddie’s heart had hardened against the holiday. Wayne already did so much: working double shifts, making sure that Eddie had food, clothes and a safe way to get to school each day. Why add to that burden with a day set aside for the sole purpose of spending money on stuff that no one really needed? Oh, he’d heard the arguments about showing people how much you cared this time of year. That the depth of someone’s feelings was greater than or equal to the quality of whatever sweater, baseball cap or new crock pot could be wrapped in pretty paper with a ribbon slapped on top. In his opinion that was a shitty system for communicating how much you appreciate someone, not to mention it only happened once a year.

There was no question in Eddie Munson’s mind that Wayne loved him. He didn’t need a stocking full of candy or a gift boxed t-shirt to show him what he already knew to be true. So, why make a big deal about it? It was just another day on the calendar.

Regrettably, his sentiments weren’t shared with, well, anyone else. All of the people around Eddie, his uncle especially, seemed to go Christmas Crazy. Shopping all the time, planning events and scheduling parties, worrying about what to buy everyone and where to get the best sale price. It didn’t make sense to him. The decorations, the lights, the ornaments, all of it was sentimental in a way that Eddie just couldn’t abide, “What’s the point? You’re just gonna pull all this shit down in a week.” Not dissuaded, Wayne snorts indignantly, digging through a dusty box marked X-MAS, “The point is, I like it. The point is, it reminds me of when you were an excited kid who liked the simple things in life. Things like bikes and blocks and crayons, not girls and drinking and rock music.” “Ok, ok, you made your point.” Eddie concedes, helping to tape a strand of red tinsel garland along the shelf of mugs which had all been gifts to uncle over the years. Wayne stoops low, child-like glee on his face, as he readies to plug in the light strand, “Ready for the tree?” It was like this every year and Eddie nods, ready to get this part over with, faking his way through Wayne’s Christmas crankiness. With a snap of electricity, the three foot artificial tree lights up. It’s filled with paper Santas scribbled in red marker, macaroni stars and once glitter covered foam gingerbread men. It is an annual homage to Eddie as a kid and Wayne adores it. Despite the grumbling from his nephew, Wayne refuses to give it up, at least, not without a serious fight. Unimpressed, Eddie drones, “Very nice. I like how you managed to keep all the ugly ornaments facing the window. The neighbors are gonna love ‘em.” Incredulous, Wayne scoffs at his semi-scowling nephew, “They should! I’m damned proud to have them.” A heavy wave of nostalgia falls over the old man, making his proud chin quiver with unspoken words of affection for the little boy turned man standing in front of him. Eddie hears the dip in his uncle’s voice, recognizing his yearly Christmas melancholy from a mile away. What was it about this time of year that made everyone go a little nuttier than usual? Was it the weather? The food? Or just the expectations that the holiday season seemed to carry? Screw that. Eddie wasn’t going to give into the commercialized crap that seems to sweep everyone else along in December. Christmas was for suckers and Eddie Munson was nobody’s fool. Well, almost nobody’s fool.

His hand lands on Wayne’s shoulder, going for fondness while ignoring the emotions playing out behind his uncle’s faded eyes. Softening a bit, Eddie offers an olive branch, “Wanna get drunk and watch White Christmas? I had Steve snag it for me.” Patting at his damp cheeks, Wayne nods happily, sappily, “That sounds great-” The phone trills shrilly, cutting through their conversation and Wayne lifts his eyebrows in Eddie’s direction. But his nephew shakes his head. “Ignore it. I’m exactly where I want to be.” Whoever was looking to score was gonna have to call back. Three rings later and Wayne is practically shoving Eddie towards the receiver, “Just answer the damn thing!” Grumpy and gruff, he gives in, whipping up the phone, “Yea?” —-------------- It was December 23rd and the party at Barry’s house was winding down, thankfully. People had been peeling off in pairs and trios, leaving just a few of your boyfriend’s buddies drinking the night away and ignoring you. At some point you looked around and realized that Barry was just gone. The house he grew up in- still lived in, with his family, was, in a word, enormous. There were dozens of rooms and thousands of doors which made your search all the harder. It was just like him to vanish, leaving you to fend for yourself when he had assured you that this time it would all be different. Arms circle your thick waist from behind as he pulls you into the second floor bathroom, pressing you against the granite countertop while lifting your pretty green skirt, “I’m so hard right now, gotta fuck you.” You giggle uncomfortably, already feeling a little too full of bubbling champagne, “Barry! Here? Now?” But you don’t get an answer beyond a rough tear in your tights, Barry’s fingers shifting your panties to the side abruptly, “Yea, right fucking now.” And then he was pushed inside of you, his thrusts sloppy and bordering on painful as he drunkenly rubs at your full breasts through your sweater. If he was concerned with your needs, it didn’t show in the fast sawing motion of his hips, and before you could even trace the beginning of your own ending, Barry was babbling through his own. Curving over your back, he pants in your ear, “Hmm, that was great.” Pulling out of you quickly, Barry tucks himself back into his chinos and presses a tiny kiss to your cheek, “Make sure you clean up before coming out to say goodbye to everyone.” And then he’s gone, leaving you frustrated with sticky thighs. You thank a god you don’t believe in for birth control pills and shuffle over to the toilet, eager to tidy up the mess Barry had left in his wake. Swiftly removing your torn pantyhose, you toss them in the trash can, regretting the loss. Money wasn’t exactly tight, but you were trying to save as much as you could, unlike your upperclass boyfriend. Flushing behind you, you replace your panties and wash your hands. Wiping some water over your cheeks, you smile at yourself in the mirror, confident that no one would know what had happened in the bathroom between you and Barry. Carefully, you shut the bathroom door, surprised when you hear voices, low pitched, in the nearby hallway. Whispers that carry the weight of the familiar voice of your boyfriend begging quietly, “Come on baby, it’s Christmas.” “So? You told me you were done with that trash, Barry and then, then you bring her here. Throwing her in my face? Are you trying to hurt me?” “Dawn, please. You know I only want you.” “Barry, I want you too, baby. But I won’t share you, not with someone like her-” And then the sounds of sloppy kisses gain strength, complete with moans and grunting. It was bordering on pornographic, like something private that shouldn’t be witnessed by anyone but those involved and you wish that you weren’t having to hear it at all. A gross knot of nausea welled up inside of you at the realization of what was happening, and so soon after Barry had cornered you in his bathroom. Disgusted now, you knew you had to leave. The sooner the better. On quiet feet you tiptoe into the nearest bedroom and choking back tears, reach for the phone. Dialing the only number you can think of, the only you have committed to memory, you pray to that same god that he’ll pick up. Finger twisting in the beige cord as you wait through four long rings, nervousness and shame filling your belly as you wait for the call to connect. “Yea?” His voice is gruff, grumpy, which takes you by surprise. It makes your own sound small as you ask timidly, “Eddie?” “What’s wrong? Where are you?” It’s immediate, that change in tone, his understanding of your need, and you drop into a whisper, “Would it be too much trouble for you to come and get me? I- I don’t think Barry-” He breaks in, direct and guarded, “Meet me at the corner. I’ll be there in ten.” The line went dead in your ear, a sure sign that Eddie was already en route to you. Sneaking away was easy when your boyfriend was frenching someone else and no one else at the party cared about you. Scooping up your fuzzy holiday sweater, you went right out the front door into the chilly night, without anyone noticing. Sobbing openly, you scurry to the corner, suddenly overeager to get away from this whole night. Eddie told you ten minutes, but he made it in seven, the van idling loudly when you rounded the corner. Dashing away tears, you climb into the heavenly heat of his vehicle, smiling tightly, “Hey Eddie. Thank you so much, I just- I really needed to get out of there.” He eyes you, a look full of questions, but wisely Eddie asks none of them. Waiting for you to buckle up, he rests a broad palm on your thigh, patting it twice, “No problem, sweets. Where we headed?” “Just home, if that’s alright. I’m- I’m kinda tired.” Putting the van in drive, he appraises you from the corner of his eye. Something about you was so small tonight it made Eddie’s heart hurt. When he heard you on the phone that damaged sound in your voice was enough to make his Spidey sense tingle. It was wrong, the way you had whispered, asking- no, pleading for him to come and get you. Wayne completely understood why he had to leave, even if it was in the middle of putting the final touches on their Munson Christmas traditions. Besides, nothing was going to stop Eddie, not when you sounded so shattered. Clearly something had happened, something not great. And it was something big enough for you to run away from Barry’s huge holiday party, something you had been talking about for weeks. So, while Eddie appreciates you calling him in your hour of need, he absolutely wants to know how to make it better for you and make sure that you’re really alright. “That’s okie-dokie artichokie. But, uh, can you just tell me-” turning to you now, his deep eyes searching yours, full of concern, “-you’re not hurt, right?” He couldn't stand to think about what he might be capable of if you said that you were, or had been. But still, Eddie needed to make sure that you were okay for his own sanity’s sake.

You nod shyly, appreciating the kind hearted way that Eddie handles your privacy, and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. Looking away, you hum lowly, “Yea, Ed. I’m alright.”

“You sure?” “Uh huh. Just got my heart hurt, so, ya know, nothing too serious.” You try for lighthearted, breezy, but you don’t sell it because Eddie frowns, “Just your heart? Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” There’s a lot of things you find hard to bear, but Eddie’s pity is just too much. It punches the air out of your lungs. It crumples your bottom lip, setting your chin wobbling as you give into the burning tears of your heartbreak. Smoothly, Eddie pulls over although you’re not too far from home by now. You can hear his seat belt unlock and then your own is set free so that Eddie can scoot you closer. His chin rests on the top of your head as you cry into his neck, his voice soothing as he comforts you, “It’s ok. It’s going to be alright, sweetheart. You’re going to be ok. Hush now.” You don’t know how long you let Eddie console you, his leather jacket warm under your damp cheek, but eventually the sobs become sniffles and the sniffles fade to hiccups. Pulling out of the comfort of Eddie’s embrace, your eyes red and cheeks chapped, you lament thickly, “I got you all wet! I’m so sorry, Ed!” “Hey, stop that. I’m fine.” Brushing wayward hair from your streaky and sticky face, Eddie tuts, “Are you sure you’re alright?” “Yea.” It’s sad sounding, but you’re being honest. You will be ok once you get home, have a shower, and start putting Barry behind you. It helps to have a friend like Eddie Munson there to offer his shoulder to cry on. He fusses over you for another minute, wiping away the crystalline dew of your tears with his thumbs, “I’m here for you, whatever you need.” Eddie makes you stay in your seat until he can open the door for you, like a gentleman should, and walks you to your door. His hand is loosely holding yours as you slide your key into the lock. Almost embarrassed, you look his way, suddenly shy again, “Wanna come in? I’ve got some beer and I think The Grinch is on tonight.” Laughing a little, Eddie shrugs, agreeing easily but still giving you the option for backing out, “Alright, if you don’t mind?” “Of course not.” Once inside you slink out of your coat and motion for Eddie to do the same, “Have a seat. I’ll be right back with something to drink.” Your place was very sweet, just like you, with a tinsel tree glowing with colored lights and other small holiday decorations set out just so. It seems to Eddie like you’re also on the Christmas Crazy-Train. There are two small boxes laying on the red plaid skirt beneath the tree and a single stocking tacked under the television stand. He half expects you to leave out some cookies and milk, as if Santa was going to shimmy down your chimney tomorrow night and deliver you a Christmas miracle. Eddie couldn’t help it. He thought it was precious, sorta like you. And if he’s being honest, he feels as though his own Christmas miracle is happening, right here, right now. For two long years, you had been friendly, a close relationship beginning when you both reached for a recently returned copy of Evil Dead at Family Video. In a moment of unprecedented cool guy maneuvering, Eddie’s suggestion that you come over to his place and watch it together. When you agreed, offering him that sweet smile of yours, well, that had started everything. He didn’t regret it, couldn’t even if he wanted to. It wasn’t your fault that Eddie was using you as the standard against which all other ladies in his life would be judged. And even though, in a bunch of unsuccessfully small ways, Eddie had tried to nudge your friendship in a more romantic direction, he was still as sprung on you as he had been from that very first moment. Now, he was here, with you, and so close to the big holiday. It felt like his own Christmas miracle might be possible, if he believed in that kind of stuff- which he didn’t. Because Christmas was a commercial product. It was soulless, despite what people said to the contrary. But still, he rubbed his hands over his thighs nervously as he thought that maybe tonight was the night. Tonight you would see him as the charming, romantic leading man that you deserved in your life and not just the guy who bailed you out when trouble came around. Eddie’s seen enough of the fluffy, feel-good films that capitalize on the holiday season to recognize that he may be a part of one, with you. Because it couldn’t just be a coincidence that you called him on Christmas Eve, needing help and knowing exactly where to go to get it, right? From the sound of things, Barry was quickly moving out of the boyfriend column and into the exes pile. Another coincidence? He sure as shit hoped not, but Eddie can’t get his hopes up, they’ve been dashed too many times. With eyes that couldn’t seem to settle on anything in particular, Eddie’s mind strays to the countless other times where you had required rescuing and he had charged, nobly, into the fray. Finding you crying on the nearest corner after running out on Barry’s insensitivity, pulling up in his ratty van outside of a party where you had clearly been unhappy, and once driving to the Indiana state border to fetch you from another one of your idiot boyfriend’s debacles. Each time he promised himself that it was the last time- that he was going to protect himself, he was going to stop answering the phone, he was going to tell you how he felt. But the calls, they just kept coming. Happening way too frequently for his liking, the worn muscle of his heart tightening every time Eddie had to hear you sob, or listen to you talk about the belittling way Barry treated you. Over and over again, you let the guy break your heart, only to take him back after some groveling and half meant apologies. And over and over again, Eddie could feel his own aortic organ shriveling up from the knowledge that you refuse to see him as anything more than your second choice. Tensing, he rubbed the back of his, wondering why he was here, waiting for you. Sometimes, it seemed to Eddie, like he was always just waiting around for your next phone call, your next emergency. On hold until the phone rang, on the shelf, out of use. Sure, he went out, hanging around other people; Steve and Robin, obviously, the Hellfire crew, his band. Other than that, Eddie was at home, puttering around, on alert for the jingling ring that means you’re tagging him in for an assist. And he hates it. He truly does, because even though he hasn’t said it in exactly these words, Eddie needs you too. Even more than that, he needs you to need him. It gives him a purpose, a reason for sticking around this one horse town that isn’t connected to tragedy or trauma. You were unavailable, sure, but always present, the living embodiment of his happiness and his sadness. Eddie couldn’t help that the ache of wanting you for his own and always coming up short, time after time, was starting to splinter him into pieces. Snapping his head up at the scuffing steps you made, you pad back into the room wearing a cozy flannel nightgown, complete with elastic wrist cuffs and satin covered buttons at the throat. In place of your make-up was a scrubbed clean face, glowing from the effort. Your heels had been replaced by a pair of simple slippers. Eddie swallows thickly, all of his other thoughts knocked out of his head. Never had a woman been more covered up and still so alluring. The old fashioned sleep shirt skimmed over the sweeping curve of your hips, but still managed to show off your shapely legs and graceful neck. He isn’t sure why it affected him so much, this comfortable and easy version of you, but it did. “Do you still want a beer?”

He’s seen your mouth move, shaping the sounds of your question, but Eddie is dumbstruck by the innocent version of you hovering at the doorway. Tossing his head, mostly to clear away the fog of his want, he croaked, “What?”

Giggling softly, you take a step closer, “I asked if you were thirsty. Still want that drink?” “Oh, that? Yea, yea sure.” Knowing that he must seem mental, Eddie shifted on the couch, rolling his eyes at his own erratic behavior. From over your shoulder you ask him to turn on the tv, “The Grinch is on channel five, I think.” “Gotcha!” The snap of the television coming to life fills the small space and you were practically running around the corner by the time Boris Karloff starts his narration. Plopping down right next to Eddie, you gently hand him a bottle and drop a bag of chips onto the table, “Just in case we get hungry.” “Uh huh. Since when do you like Doritos, huh?” Flicking at the plastic bag, Eddie gives you a friendly side-eye look, full of teasing. Settling back into the cushions, you tug Eddie’s arm around your shoulders, “Since I’ve been forced to eat them with you.” An appreciative tone rang out from Eddie’s chest as you pressed your ear over the dip in his torso, right over his heart. The gentle, even rhythm you found there was one of your favorite things and you took every available opportunity to listen to Eddie’s heartbeat. You couldn’t say why it was important or what it was about his particular pulse that made you feel better, but it did, and Eddie, well, he never seems to mind. His fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, petting sweetly over the strands of your hair that trailed down towards your shoulders and he saw you shiver, “Here.” Eddie tugged the knitted afghan from the back of the couch, tucking it in around you. Sighing, you snuggled into him, letting your eyes shut, feeling truly and completely at ease finally, “Hmm, thanks babe.” Babe? Oh shit. That wasn’t good. Not for his spiraling thoughts. Sipping his beer, he refocused on the green Grinch stomping on the screen. He couldn’t bear to look at you. Looking at you, right now, was dangerous. You were too precious. And the scene around him was too domestic. It was exactly what life should look like if you weren’t the town scapegoat, raised by your uncle in the worst part of town and Eddie didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid in pursuit of that idealized image. Against his thigh, Eddie felt you shift as you drifted off. You were practically in his lap with your head nuzzled into the center of his chest, eyes gently shut. If he wasn’t careful, Eddie was going to enjoy holding you like this, so close and so easy, a little too much. The Grinch was complaining about noise and Eddie understood the sentiment a little too well because right now he was struggling to ignore the little kitten snores you were making with every exhale. Your tiny huffed puffs blowing against his tummy, beer scented and sweet. He smiled down at you, full of affection and pulled you tighter to his side. Unable to stop himself, Eddie brushed a peck to your upturned forehead, whispering a rueful “Fuck” into the night. When The Grinch ended and Charlie Brown’s Christmas started, Eddie sat still, his empty beer bottle in his hand, afraid that any movement would wake you up. A news broadcast, filled with updates on the coming snow storm’s progress and holiday toy drive details wrapped up before the intro to Johnny Carson began. Through it all, Eddie kept his arm around you, enjoying the worn in feel of your nightgown under his hand and the way you were burrowed into the crook of his shoulder. It was hard to be in your space so intimately and not touch you, even if his hands burned at the effort of keeping them to himself. So, he didn’t trace the sweet sweep of your nose or tuck your hair behind your ears. And somehow, Eddie managed to keep from pulling you into his lap fully, just to pet you, like he would a sleeping kitten. Instead, he relished the trust you put in him, content to imagine happy kisses shared between the pair of you, while you dreamed next to him on the sofa. And you slept just like that, curled into Eddie Munson’s warmth until the strains of the National Anthem faded into staticy snow. You sat up quickly, pulling back from the shared heat you and Eddie had created with a yawn. Blinking his way sheepishly, your words full of drowsiness, “Sorry Ed- Did-” you rubbed your still sleepy eyes, “Did you- did you stay all this time just to let me sleep?” It was his turn to look bashful, and glancing out your window, Eddie nodded, “Yea. What can I say? You were too cute to move, sweetheart.” Snorting, you rolled your eyes at his kind words, “Oh, I bet I was! All drooly and-” But he cut you off with a firm finger under your chin that yanked you near enough for his lips to press into your own. A hungry sound, the kind a man makes when he’s digging into his favorite dinner, rolled through Eddie as you let your mouth part. Thick and probing, Eddie licked over your bottom lip, letting the kiss deepen as your hands tangled into the second skin of his t-shirt. His forehead rested against your own, chest rising and falling rapidly, as Eddie’s dark eyes locked on yours, “Hey.” “Hey,” you echoed, keenly aware of Eddie’s presence in your sphere, breathing him in with short inhales as you tried to quiet your racing heart. Hands that you know as well as your own come down to cup your face, handling you as if you were porcelain- precious beyond measure and utterly breakable, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.” Looking like a happy kid on Christmas morning, Eddie’s dimples show as he smiles your way, his fingers threading with yours. Falling back into his original spot, he drags you with him, eager to have you in his arms, but you hold yourself back, teeth toying at your bottom lip as you blurt, “But Barry. He’s-” Your words stick in your throat at the sight of Eddie’s crestfallen face, a new iciness filling each syllable, “What? He’s what, sweetheart?” When you don’t answer right away, a rage that he normally can keep in check threatens to overflow, as Eddie carried on in a rising voice, “I’ve seen- shit-” a fist slams into the meat of his thigh, his anger focused on that one spot as hurt filled eyes find yours in the silver light of the running television, “-I’ve seen what he’s done to you. How he treats you. How he hurts you over and over.” Slender fingers reach for your cheek but Eddie doesn’t touch you. Instead he lets his hand drop into his lap, his heart falling into the abyss as he manages to choke out, “And still, you’d rather be with him?” For a long second you didn’t answer, your brain too full of thoughts. A lot had happened in the few minutes since you woke up, huddled around Eddie’s middle and you still weren’t thinking straight. How could you after an incredible kiss like that? And Barry. What about him? Were you together? You didn’t think so, not after what you had overheard, but that final conversation hadn’t happened yet.

Eddie’s words surround you though, the pain in them unmistakable. Shaking your head slowly, you huskily counter, “I didn’t say that, Eddie. It’s just-” But he pushed to his feet without giving you a chance to explain. Swinging his jacket over his broad shoulders with furious flare, “Ya know, what? Don’t. I don’t wanna know. Just uh-” in three long strides Eddie’s jerked open your front door. His back is to you, the handsome face that you’ve come to associate with protection and honor haloed by the streetlights, Eddie chokes out over his shoulder, “Merry Christmas.”

Your door, red bowed wreath swinging, slammed shut and now, now your apartment feels really empty, cold. The lights on your tree seem garish and glaring as this year’s holiday slowly but surely becomes the worst kind of memory. Feelings that you’re too tired to process flow through you, but in the end you drag yourself to bed in the early hours of Christmas morning, wishing it all away as a bad dream. Flopping into bed, you clutched your pillow in your arms, disappointed that it didn’t have a pulse to share with you. Already missing Eddie, you kicked yourself for being so indecisive, for ruining the precious seconds where only you and he existed in the twinkling glow of Christmas lights. Pale sunlight was streaking the sky when you finally closed your eyes, hoping that you’d wake up to a world that was back in its proper alignment. Only, morning finds you, just the same, and unfortunately, there are no singing Whos to make you feel better about the night before. There’s no one to kiss you awake and wish you a Merry Christmas Eve or tell you about the snow that is just starting to fall in fat, perfect flakes. You don’t have anyone to cook for or watch open gifts. It’s just you, all by yourself. It was always going to be a small Christmas, you knew that, truly. You didn’t have much family and only a few friends, except for the people you met through your boyfriend or Eddie. In fact, the gifts laying under the tree had been for them, of course. Now they both were ghosts: Christmas Past and Christmas Present. At some point you throw yourself onto the couch, clicker in one hand, a can of Coke in the other even though it was still breakfast time. It was around that time he’d called, much too early for your liking, so you let the machine get it. With a self assured voice that proved how little he understood or cared about you, Barry had left a message asking you to bring a dessert when you came for dinner that night. A last minute request for a last minute invitation. He was so sorry, but you would do it, right? His call went unreturned. Angry, you immediately erased the tape and took the phone off the hook. After last night with Eddie, you were fairly certain that no one else was going to be calling. Not on Christmas Eve when there were presents and parties and people to enjoy. Besides, all this silence gave you time to think, so while Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby tap danced across the twelve inch screen of your tv, you did just that. And if your eyes got misty at Rosemary Clooney’s gift of a knight on a white horse, then that was just how good the movie was, right? It didn’t have a single thing to do with a certain man willing to ride into battle on your behalf, over and over and over again. The more you thought, the more you realized that Eddie hadn’t been wrong about the ways in which Barry failed you as a boyfriend. He had been treating you like garbage for a very long time, longer than anyone should tolerate, but when you had so little, even the scraps seemed significant. Swallowing down your less than festive Swanson’s turkey dinner lunch, you realized that you didn’t want scraps- not anymore. Changing the channel, Jimmy Stewart’s drawl takes over the room, but you're not thinking about bells ringing. You’re thinking about Eddie, again. Still. You’re thinking about how, even now, your nightie smells like tobacco and light beer and old leather. You’re thinking about the sacred synth beating of his heart and how it always seems to settle you. You’re thinking about that tender kiss he laid on you when your brain was still fuzzy but your body knew just how to respond.

You’re thinking about Eddie this Christmas Eve, but is he thinking about you?

— Eddie has never been more miserable in life. Surrounded by all of his friends, gorging themselves on pie and turkey and ham and potatoes and cookies cut to look like snowmen, mittens or bells, Eddie is cursing the whole Christmas season. All of the trappings are just red and green reminders of what he doesn’t have, what he can’t enjoy, what he had with you last night when you were tucked into him, safe and sound, while The Grinch stole Christmas. “What’s eating you?” Steve’s got a small paper plate in his hand, balancing a slice of lasagna along with a piece of cake that’s been stabbed through by a white plastic fork, as he dropped down beside Eddie. “Nothing.” Leaning his chin into his hand, Eddie’s elbow dug into the meat of his thigh, a grouchy position for a grouchy guy. Licking frosting off his fork, Steve hummed, “No way. Something’s got you all pissy. Pissier than usual- and on Christmas too! Come on, lay it on me.” Rolling his eyes Steve’s direction, Eddie sat back reluctantly, “I- I think I fucked up.” Steve’s bite of lasagna hovered in midair, between the plate and his open mouth, as he tossed his infamous locks, “Impossible. It’s Christmas.” “What’s that got to do with it?” Eddie grumbled, sitting up swiftly. Really, was that any kind of explanation? It was December 25th so your life couldn’t be totally screwed up? Humbug. Chewing loudly, Steve nodded, holding up a finger as a silent indicator for Eddie to wait up until he swallowed. With a sip of his egg nog, Steve twisted in Eddie’s direction, “Well, first, everyone loves Christmas. Everyone but you, I mean. It makes people feel better. Want to be better, do better, ya know?” “So?” “So, you’re more likely to be forgiven for fucking up. I mean, shit. Nance and I got back together over Christmas. It’s magical, dude.” Blowing out a noise that was similar to a fart, Eddie shook his head in frustration, “It’s a day, Harrington. One day out of 365. Why does everyone make such a big deal-” “Are you kidding me? Have you like, never seen A Christmas Carol or, or watched ‘Rudolph’?” Confused, Eddie shrugs, “I have, but-” “But what? All the songs, the movies, the stories, they’re all about loving each other- and, and being kind at Christmas time.” Throwing up his hands, Eddie stared at his friend, his smile sort of sad, “Well, what if you kiss someone who’s still hung up on their asshole boyfriend?” With rounding, wide eyes, Steve stuttered, “You- you kissed her? It’s about damn time, man!” Flopping back, his long haired head resting against the tall cushion of the Wheeler’s couch, Eddie groused, “Naw, Harrington. She-” sighing deeply, willing the pain out of his tone, “-she’d rather stay with Barry.” Steve tossed down the empty plate, standing quickly, “No. Nope. Nuh uh.” Looking around, shocked by Steve’s sudden movements, Eddie can’t help asking, “What’s happening, Steve?” Bending at the waist, his handsome forelock falling forward, Steve’s hands find his hips as he admonishes the depressed rocker in front of him, “I’ll tell you what’s happening. You’re getting up and going over there. You have to talk to her, man.” Glaring up at his friend from under his shaggy bangs, Eddie shook his head defiantly, “No way. No fucking way. She-” Leaning down further, dad stance activated, Steve snapped, “Do you like her? Do you-” pausing to cock an eyebrow skyward, “-love her?” Gulping guiltily, Eddie’s head bounced in response as Steve added, “I thought so. Well, the good thing for you is that this magical day isn’t over. You never know what might happen if you go and talk to her. I mean, it’s Christmas, man. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find out you didn’t fuck up everything after all.” “Is this some kinda motivational speech, Harrington?” Tilting his head as that wicked grin spread over his face, Eddie isn’t laughing at Steve, but he can’t help mocking him just a little bit. Confusion filling his face, Steve faltered for a second, “Uh, is- is it working?” Genuinely this time, Eddie smiled genuinely, “Yea, I think it is.” Straightening his spine, resolute, Steve countered, “Then, yes. I’m motivating you with my speech. Now, uh, get lost, Munson.” Offering his unlikely friend a hand, Steve pulled Eddie to his feet and was already ushering him towards the door. “Alright, but if this backfires, I’m coming back here and kicking your ass to the tune of Jingle Bells.” “Fair enough.” Steve tapped him twice on the back as Eddie slid towards the van, his sneakers not offering much traction in the snow, “Go get her, Munson.” Eddie started the van and gave Steve a thumbs up before backing slowly out of the driveway. For some reason, his heart felt lighter, buoyed by the pep talk from his buddy. Maybe Steve was right. Maybe there was a way to save this Christmas after all. Mind whirling, he was already planning out what to say to you- an apology to start. And he was sorry. Sorry for kissing you out of the blue. Sorry for not telling you how he felt. Sorry for talking about your boyfriend.

Ex-boyfriend? Whatever the hell he was now. But mostly, Eddie was sorry for walking away without telling you what was going on inside his head. You deserved that much at least. Snow was falling faster now, dusting the whole town in powdered sugar whiteness, and he found himself hunching over the steering wheel to see better between the drifting flakes. His defrost was working overtime, struggling to keep the fog off his windshield, as he cursed, “Jesus Christ!” As he got closer to your place his headlights illuminated a person, bundled up like a snowman, trudging along the barely plowed street. Shaking his head as he slowly rolled past, Eddie couldn’t understand what would possess someone to do something like that, even if it was Christmas Eve. What was so damned important that you went out in bad weather, a soggy sack of gifts melting under the swiftly shifting snow, he’d like to know. Pressing on the brake, Eddie stopped, disbelief flooding him. “No. No way-”

— Snow was dropping down in gentle swirls when you decided that you had to see Eddie, regardless of the fading sunlight, before Christmas Eve came to a close. Too much had been said, too much left unsaid, for your mind to let it go. Not to mention the way your heart ached dully when you thought about the wounded look on his face before he’d left you, stunned and speechless, after that tasty kiss. No. It was Christmas, dammit. And at Christmas, you told people how much they meant to you. How much you needed them. How much you relied on their strength, their warmth, their willingness to take teary phone calls at all hours of the night and then come rescue you from shitty situations time and again. How much you, gulp, loved them. It was Christmas Eve and you were only just now realizing that there was one person who you needed to make the holiday happy and bright. One dark hued, leather wearing metal head who just happens to be the white knight of your personal story. You just hoped it wasn't too little, too late. Jamming his gift into a bag, you dressed as warmly as you could, layering up like a cake before lacing up your boots. Pulling on a striped winter hat, complete with a fuzzy pom pom on top, you zipped up your heavy coat and stepped outside, shivering in the chill. You didn’t have a car of your own, so you were going for a wintery walk to the trailer park, all in the name of love.

With a foggy exhale, you hummed to yourself, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful-” On a good day, the walk to Eddie’s place was about fifteen minutes. Today, Christmas Eve, during a snowstorm, that quarter of an hour turns into forty five minutes easily. Color rose up on your cheeks, across your nose, and the tips of your ears. Anywhere you couldn’t cover with a scarf or coat was chapping in the cold air. And you had long ago stopped your singing. Forced to walk on the road since most of the sidewalks were untreated, you didn’t mind, but you were incredibly cautious about oncoming traffic. You wanted to talk to Eddie, not get turned into road pizza on the biggest holiday of the year, so you are walking into the wind and making yourself as visible as possible in the coming dusk. Still, it required a lot of effort on your part, even if you had started to question the sanity of your idea.

Headlights catch your eye and you raise a hand to block the brightness. The driver was going slow due to the snow and you move as far to the side as you can while also avoiding a slushy splash. Tucking further into your scarf, you trudged on, rehearsing the speech you were going to give when Eddie opened his trailer door. And maybe that’s why you didn’t notice when the passing vehicle slid to a stop before reversing on the empty roadway. All you know is that one second you were inside your head, white flakes flying past in swirling cyclones, and the next you hear a shout, “What the hell are you doing?” “Eddie?” Stopping short, your head snapped up at a voice you know as well as your own. He was out of the van in a flash, his hands gripping onto your shoulders tightly, “It’s cold as fuck out here, not to mention snowing like crazy, and you’re just- just walking around?” Tipping your chin up, you eyed him from under the brim of your stocking cap, “I was going to your place. I- I have a gift-” “A gift? Sweet fucking Christ! You coulda been killed! A car could have- or, or, you could have slipped on ice and hit your head. I mean, do you have any idea-” Horrible scenario after horrible scenario filled Eddie’s mind. Worrying about what could have happened to you and knowing that it hadn’t could not stop the flipped switch of his panic. With a cracking voice, Eddie pulled you into his heart, his warmth, questioning you brokenly, “What if I hadn’t seen you? What if- what if something happened to you and I wasn’t able to stop it. To save you?”

His grip tightens around you and your bulky coat, almost lifting you off the ground, “What would I do if-” A sweet half smile curls over your face as you put a mittened hand over his chest, cutting him off, “Eddie.” Your voice stills him, those wide burnt sugar eyes locking on yours, as he tips your head up, “Yea?” Pushing up onto the toes you could barely feel, you pressed a chaste kiss to Eddie’s warm mouth, lingering in his cinnamon gum scented sphere. For a second, he froze, your cold nose rubbing against his as your eyes fluttered shut. Then, his arms pulled you as close as your jacket allowed, those lips of his finding your chapped ones with a happy hum. Heat rushed through you, a welcome change from the dropping temperatures out on the snowy street. Only this heat was spreading from the clenching muscles in your tummy, a fire ignited by the wanting way Eddie moaned into your mouth. His nimble tongue danced alongside yours as the sky deepened into an inky indigo, dotted with picture perfect snowflakes. Fingers, pinkening from the cold air, tug on the ends of your scarf ensuring that you can’t get away from Eddie this time. He didn’t need to worry. You weren’t going anywhere, not without Eddie Munson, anyway. Not anymore. Parting in a puff of heavy air that turned silver in the snowy night, Eddie’s forehead bumped against the cuff of your cap, a goofy grin making his dimples impossible to ignore, “Hey.” “Hey.” Looking up at him through the curve of your lashes, expectant and excited, you were waiting to see what Eddie’s next move would be. You were rosy from cold, eyes shining bright in the fading light of day, and Eddie had never wanted you more. Swallowing thickly, you watched his Adam’s Apple bob while his arms rubbed over your thick sleeves, “Can I- Will you let me take you home?” Biting into your bottom lip, you nod quickly, “Yea. Yes, please.” Guiding you, Eddie ensured that you’re safely situated in the passenger seat before securing your buckle and shutting the door. You giggled as he moved around the front of the van, slipping in the slush, his face illuminated in the headlights. Catching your eye, he winks wickedly and then is seamlessly sliding behind the steering wheel with a wild toss of his snow-dampened hair, “Where to m’lady?” Sighing deeply, but happily, you pull off your winter hat, staticy strands sticking up at odd angles, “I’d normally say take me home, but-” “But?” There’s caution in Eddie’s voice. Like a skim of ice on the lake, things between you are still tentative- not solid, and he has a momentary lapse of confidence. Laying a hand on his denim clad thigh, leaning closer to reassure him, you shrugged, “But I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight. It’s Christmas Eve.” It gives Eddie an idea. A wonderful idea. A perfect, Hallmark Card, winter wonderland idea. “Ok, but just remember… You asked for it.” His tone is playful when Eddie swings the van in a circle, turning from the direction of your place back the way he came. Oh, he’s nervous. There weren’t a lot of people who had been to his trailer; just the closest, dearest of friends. Steve had seen the inside of the clean and cozy space a time or two, Robin and Nancy for sure, but mostly, Eddie was the guy pulling up to your place, not the other way around. A small Christmas tree, loaded with lights and ornaments faced the gravelly road where Eddie’s uncle was already parked. There’s strands of blinking lights criss-crossing the awning and a small sign that says, “Santa Stop Here” propped up on the porch. It’s a sweet sight, a glowing, golden invitation on a cold and snowy Christmas night and you can’t help the dopey look of glee on your face at what you’re seeing. Pulling the van in smoothly, Eddie held up a hand, “Wait, k? I haven’t been here to shovel.” Agreeing with a head bob, you sat patiently as he stomped around, snow high enough to cover his sneakers. Snagging your bag, you are prepared to step into the snow, but Eddie doesn’t give you the chance. One foot touched the ground and then he’s bear hugging you, walking you straight to the stairs as you laugh, “What are you doing?” “Keeping you from getting cold feet. Obviously!” Once he’s sure you’re on the firm ground of his steps, Eddie bounced back and kicked the van’s door closed. He brushed by you, his hand finding your elbow so that he could haul you inside, calling out warmly, “Hey, Uncle Wayne! Hope you don’t mind-” An older, more worn in version of Eddie, minus the long locks, popped a head out from the kitchenette, “Wha? Oh. Oh, we’ve got company then?” Wiping his hands on a well used dish cloth, he moved closer, arms wide, “I’m Eddie’s uncle- Wayne, in case you didn’t get that part.” The hug is crushing and so full of tenderness that you can’t help but wrap your arms around this new person, squeezing hard as he welcomes you. Stepping back, Uncle Wayne kept a firm hand on you, but eyed Eddie steadily, “Your phone call, I take it?” Chuckling nervously, Eddie rubbed a palm across the back of his neck, ruffling his hair in the process. He’s never been able to hide much from his uncle, this is no exception, and he can tell that he’s busted. “Yea, Wayne. She’s the one who called last night.” A look passed between them, approving and accepting, before Wayne clapped his hands, asking, “Are ya hungry, darling? It’s not much, but it’s our tradition, so to speak.” “If you don’t mind? I-” “Mind?” Wayne says it as if he’s offended by the idea, “You’ll be doing me a favor. Keep this one-” pointing at Eddie with an up turned thumb, “-on his best behavior. Come on!” Your jacket disappeared into a closet somewhere and Eddie helped you shuck the soaking boots you’ve been wearing for much too long. Excusing yourself, you duck into the bathroom, and when you come back, there’s a heartwarming scene unfolding in front of you. Wayne and Eddie, setting an extra place at the table, grumbling about the “good china” which you can tell is paper plates. Stopping, Wayne appraised his nephew for beat as Eddie centered a folded paper towel over your spot. A small smile pulled at the corners of his uncle’s mouth before Wayne dragged Eddie into an unwilling hug that ended with a firm clap on the younger man’s back. You swing back into the room at the sound, “This- this looks great, you guys!” A pot of macaroni and cheese, neon orange and buttery, sits in the center of the table. There’s a plate of ham and cheese sandwiches, cut into triangles and piled high on a Miller High Life tin tray, next to a bowl of salad greens. A big bottle of ranch dressing standing proudly at its side. “It’s not traditional, I guess-” Eddie started but Uncle Wayne cut him off, “It’s our tradition! All of Eddie’s favorite food is here. Except the salad, of course.” “Except the salad.” He echoed his uncle, offering you a sandwich from the tray while his teeth pinch the fat of his lip, desperate for your acceptance. He had no reason to worry. It’s just so lovely to be with other people, especially guys like the Munson boys. They pass around bottles of beer, telling stories, making you laugh so hard that your stomach muscles ache from it. From deeper in the trailer you heard the sound of an alarm clock buzzing and Uncle Eddie exhaled hard, “Well children, I have to get going.” Looking up from your seat at their table, you questioned, “No! You’re not leaving are you?” Taking one of your hands in his, Wayne pats it gently, “Double time at the plant is too good to pass up, even if the company is as excellent as yours, darling.” Pouting, you let your bottom lip stick out and Eddie is struck by an urge to kiss you stupid. Instead of whipping you into his arms in front of his uncle, Eddie stood up and started clearing the table, “Ok, old man. You can stop flirting with her now.” “Me? I would never!” And you could hear the same teasing tone in Uncle Wayne’s voice that Eddie has inherited. It’s flattering and flustering at the same time and you just knew that they could feel the flush of heat radiating off of you from the attention they both give you. “Yea, yea. Here-” Eddie handed a small box to Wayne, “-Food, for tonight’s shift.” “Thanks, son.” Turning in your chair you watched Wayne shrug on his coat, popping the collar up high to block some of the snow that’s still falling. At the doorway he nodded your direction, “Don’t be a stranger young lady. Merry Christmas to you both!”

And then the trailer goes quiet. Eddie pivoted fast, big eyes finding yours, and you both started laughing again. “Shit! I mean, I knew Uncle Wayne had moves, I’ve just never seen them in action like that before.” Feigning innocence, you placed a hand over your heart, “Do you mean to tell me that he was flirting? My, my, you Munson men must have a type!” Eddie’s chuckle petered out, his face growing serious, as he looked you over, “Yea. We do. Pretty ladies who uh, who walk through snow storms and love The Grinch.” You didn’t laugh because it wasn’t funny anymore. Reaching out his hand, Eddie lifted you to your feet, spinning you in place before bringing his hands to your hips. “Hey, hang on, k?” Nodding, you missed his presence when he stepped up to the record player hidden in the corner of the living room. The speakers spring to life, and with a triumphant grunt, Eddie placed a 45 on the turntable before returning to you. Nat King Cole started to croon about chestnuts and open fires, but you’re hardly listening. You’re caught up in the way Eddie’s eyes reflect the multi-colored lights of his cute Christmas tree, reds and greens and yellows and blues. The feeling of his hands swaying you back and forth, moving you where he needed you to be, is intoxicating, heady. Drawing your palms over his forearms, you slid them higher, higher, higher, until you could lace them behind Eddie’s neck. He stretched against your folded fingers, looking down at you, “I’m really glad that you came over tonight. I don’t think Wayne will ever get over it.” Snickering sweetly, you wet your lips, “He loves you.” “He’s the only one.” Shaking your head, your hooded gaze never leaving his, you countered, “Uh uh. That’s not true.” Eddie tilted his head, studying your expression, “You calling me a liar, sweetheart?” His tone was playful but the tenor was low, raspy, grating, and you matched it when you answered, “Yea, maybe I am.” “Are you saying that you love me?” Whispering, just in case he was dreaming, just in case he had to deny that these words had ever been spoken, Eddie paused all movement. You nod, yes, but it’s not enough. Not for Eddie. Not tonight. “Please, I need- I need you to say it.” A clock ticked away the seconds while you peered into the hot cocoa gaze of the only man you truly trusted, “I love you, Eddie. I- I think I always have, really.” If you could capture an image to look over forever, it would be the face Eddie made at your husky confession. The unadulterated joy that crowds his features made you think about New Year’s Eve fireworks, exploding and expanding as they brilliantly burst. Eddie broke your hold on him, his fingers threaded between your own as he brought a hand up to press a little kiss to your knuckles. “I know. It took you long enough to realize it, though, sweetheart.” Looking away from him, a stupid, giddy smile grew across your face. You rolled your eyes, “Maybe I was waiting for the right moment? ‘Tis the season, ya know?” Eddie didn’t reply, at least not with words. He picked his moment and using your waist as leverage, snugged you tight to his lean body. One arm braced along your spine as his other hand cupped your bountiful bottom, tipping you off center a bit so that he could wrap your leg over his hip. He’s so solid, so sturdy, that you melted into the embrace, letting Eddie support you entirely as you gripped at his firm biceps. That curtain of ebony hair brushed against your cheek as your mouth searched for and found more of Eddie to taste. Mewling against his lips, you could feel his growing excitement and your core pulsed with need at the idea of having all of Eddie, all for yourself. Pinching your bottom, Eddie straightened you both up, jerking his head towards the small room at the end of the hall, “Come on.” A little light headed, you followed where he led, landing in his personal domain. It’s a space dominated by his love of music and all things D&D related, and it smelled so good, so right, that you launched yourself in his direction, needy lips already moving in on him. Eddie met you there, in the middle, ready and wanting. Longing for him, you toyed with the hem of his t-shirt, desperate to feel Eddie under your hands. Gliding higher, Eddie chuckled, catching your hands in one of his, “Your hands are freezing!” “Sorry!” You rubbed them together, blowing on them, trying to warm them up as quickly as possible. “S’ok, I got you.” He stepped away and crossed his hands at the bottom of his shirt before ripping it off in one fluid motion. Eddie is stunning. His compact and constant strength is evident in the smooth lines of his chest, his tattoos a road map to pleasure. You didn’t know whether to touch him, or kiss him, or lick him- your thoughts derailed entirely when he tisked, “Um, see something you like?” Beneath your hands Eddie felt so substantial, so solid. Tracing his ribs, you leaned in to kiss the places where black ink outlined the images associated with his rock and roll persona, keeping a hold on his trim waist. When you reached the hollow of his chest, the place that hovered above his heart, you lingered long enough to purple the skin there as yours. Home. It’s the sort of attention that Eddie isn’t accustomed to- someone showering him in affection. The time its taken for your tongue to lick lines over his pecs, press kisses across his collar bone, nips at the cologne stained skin of his neck, feels like decades. Eons. Ages. But he let you take that time. Breathing became a struggle, especially when you purse your lips and sucked little red splotches over the length of his core, your still chilly fingers dug into the muscles of his back as a reminder for him to keep still. Tentatively, you played with his belt, not wanting to show just how eager you truly were in this moment. He doesn’t stop you, instead Eddie moves your hands to his handcuff shaped buckle, encouraging you, “Yea, go ahead, babe. I- I want you to.” Jumping at the contact, Eddie’s stomach muscles contracted and he hissed. Dropping to your knees, you pushed his jeans down, down, down, and tapped his calf. It was a silent way of telling him to move his feet so you could get his pesky pants off of him. From this position, Eddie stood tall and straight like a mythological hero above you. Other guys might have tried to hide their growing erections, crossing their hands over any visible sign of their desire, but that’s not Eddie’s style. If anything, he parted his legs, widening his stance to showcase his masculine power. And if the boxers he wore weren’t covered in Santa faces, then you were certain his manliness would have overpowered you. “Ah! These are very cute.” Flicking at the hem of his shorts, you had to tease him. You have to lighten the mood otherwise, you were going to combust right to ash at his feet. “‘Tis the season- isn’t that what you said?” Throwing your words back at you, Eddie let his fingers tangle in your hair, urging your head back as your dewey mouth parted. You were so close to him, to his aching stiffness, that all his willpower is being channeled into behaving. It would be all too easy to dig his thumbs into the pudgy flesh of your cheeks, keeping your mouth open wide as he fed his hard cock between your lips until you were full up with Eddie. A shadow of his thoughts crossed behind his eyes and you gulped audibly, pressing your thighs together at the idea of him using you for his own end. Only, that wasn’t who Eddie Munson was, at heart. There was no forcing, no taking, not without talking first. And that alone was so very different from whatever his name was that you were already feeling more excited, more aroused than you could ever remember being before. Nodding at his quip, you stretched your fingers toward the gathered elastic band of his jockey shorts, but he stopped you, “Not yet, ok, pretty girl? Wanna see you first, alright?” “Oh, yea, ok. Sure.” You stood up on shaking legs, never breaking the heated stare between you and Eddie. Slowly you started to peel off the layers of clothing that you had wrapped around yourself before heading out into the snow. Fumbling, you toed off one thick sock when Eddie’s low laugh interrupted your eager undressing, “Lemme help you. You helped me, it’s only fair.” Motioning to his thigh, you brought your socked foot up, inhaling sharply when Eddie rolled the soggy wool down your toes before chucking it towards the door. Those calloused fingers massaged up your calf, the muscles there tense from your excursion, and you groaned gratefully at the softening his touch brings. Too soon, in your opinion, Eddie lowered your leg back to the floor, but it’s only because he was raising the bottom band of your hoodie over your head. Stumbling a bit, he caught you, now in a t-shirt and leggings, “Did you put on everything you own?” “It’s cold out! And I was walking here to tell the guy I love “Merry Christmas”!” It’s your best defense and the base honesty of it makes Eddie weak. “Fair enough, sweetheart, but I need you naked. Like, now.” His eyebrows are raised expectantly making you chortle as his overeager attitude. You got a little bit fresh though, wanting to tease him, to draw out the night, so you sass, “What if I’m your gift, huh Munson? And you’re just rushing through the unwrapping part-” He doesn't let you finish. Instead, Eddie scooped you up with his hands on your soft bottom, pushing his nose into the crook of your neck, “Oh, I know how to take my time, babe. Especially when it matters.” “Fuck, Eddie.” It’s a broken exhale, wanton and laced with a desperation that he had never heard from you before. He’s an addict already. Buttons part easily under Eddie’s knowing fingertips. Your flannel shirt and faded tee are thrown across the room joining the growing pile of your clothes. After your ribbed tank top comes off, the last barrier to your bountiful breasts is the emerald green bra you put in, hopeful that Eddie would have a chance to see it before the night ends. Now here he is, an owlish look on his wonder filled face, “Wow.” Heat climbed through you at the raw realness on display in Eddie’s features. That’s when you decided that you can’t wait any longer and took his wrists in your hands, placing them on your waist as you stepped into his arms, “Eddie, baby, please? Please touch me.” He doesn’t respond with words. Gripping you tight enough to bruise, your head is tipped back to make room for Eddie’s roving mouth as he scorches a path down your neck. At the swell of your breasts he slowed down, savoring the flavor of your skin, teasing you with his tongue. Licking over the lace of your bra, Eddie sucked on your hardened nipple through the fabric, the foreign sensation making you jump under his ministrations. You tangled a fist in his hair, pulling against the loose curls, and he let you direct his mouth back to your own bee stung lips as you mewl, “Need you, Eddie. Need you now.” “Fuck, baby.” Walking you backwards, Eddie lowered you onto his bed, following you down to the mattress. His hands cupped your cheeks, brushing your hair back so he could really see you, those broad thighs pressing your own open. You could feel the delicious weight of him on top of you, his hard cock unavoidable, and you rolled your hips into Eddie’s just to hear him groan. In a rush now, Eddie ripped your pants off in a flash, taking your panties with them. Kneeling between your spread legs, he laid his hands over his heart, “I really love-” you angled up onto your elbows, anticipating how he’ll finish his sentence, “-my Christmas gift. Thank you so much for bringing it over, even if you had to walk a mile in the snow.” “You shit!” Giggling at his theatrics, you grabbed for him, only satisfied when he’s draped over your prone figure. There’s a kiss then, and another, and another until they blend together in your mind. Some are sweet and slow. Some tender and testing. Others are sloppy, teeth clicking, tongue sucking kisses. Hands are everywhere. They glide along hairy thighs and smooth arms. They paused to fondle, to flick, to squeeze. They never stopped moving. Fingers find ticklish spots to linger on, drawing out laughter, high and sweet. Fingers press hard into soft skin. They dig in, they hold on. When Eddie’s bold enough, he touches you at the dark, damp cavern of your core. The un-rushed attention is overwhelming and it doubles in intensity when his calloused middle finger finds a home surrounded by your satin walls. Clutching at his arms, you wailed thinly, “More, Eddie, more, please.” A second finger breached your wet cleft, the stretch delicious and somehow delicate because Eddie’s listening to you, to your body, and he’s not rushing. His gaze had not left yours, the show you’re putting on is just too good to miss and he has a front row seat. Kissing over your tummy, moving lower, you bucked into his grip just as his plush pout pressed against your straining clitoris. Fisting his pillow with one hand, the other curled possessively around the back of his neck, holding him steady. Holding him close. Holding out for the inevitable peak of your pleasure, brought on by the unceasing attention of your lover. Panting, your thighs quaked, the ecstatic energy gathering in your body ready to explode. It’s been so long since you had someone take care of you, worry about pleasing you, think about getting you off first, that when your orgasm hits it is leveling. The air huffs out of you in short bursts as your body goes rigid, all of your limbs seem to lock up, and every molecule of your form is concentrated on the overriding bliss created by Eddie and his feelings for you. Maybe you blacked out, you don’t really know what else to call the far away floating sensation that accompanied your little death. What you do know is that Eddie has you gathered in his arms, your head cradled over that spot- your spot on his chest, his heartbeat the first sound that breaks through the fog of your climax. Rocking you back and forth, soft kisses pressing into the crown of your head, as Eddie cooed, “I got you, pretty girl. It’s alright. You’re ok, honey.” Shivering as you come down from your intense high, stray tears cascaded down your cheeks, but these are not born of sadness. Experiencing euphoria like this was overwhelming and you gratefully sunk into Eddie’s warmth, hiccuping, “I’m- I’m ok, Eddie. I’m- thank you. Thank you so much.” “Thank me? Sweetheart, I didn’t do-” Swiveling in his arms, you peered up at him through wet eyes, “But you did! You do. You always take such great care of me and tonight, all this, it’s no exception.” And you kissed him with everything you had in your heart, saying ‘I love you’ with your body over and over again. When you pulled back this time, a small hand on Eddie’s stubbled cheek, you shook your head, not believing that you were here, now, with this loving man, “I think I must be dreaming.” “Then, please, for the love of Ozzy, do not wake up.” An undignified snort of laughter snuck out of you and Eddie takes advantage of the distraction to lay you back on the bed. Floppy and boneless, you’re spread out and giggling, ready for whatever Eddie wanted to do. You run your foot over his leg, landing on his hip before he wrapped a hand around your ankle, steadying his hold on you to ensure that you were open wide for him. You nibbled on your pinky finger, knowing what came next, but playing coy. That sweetness, the innocent way you batted your eyelashes at him, it made Eddie throb. Yearning to be inside of you, he smooched at the skin of your inner thigh, “God, you’re so fucking pretty. Can I touch you, beautiful? Can I make you feel good?” Why would you ever say no to that? Letting your calves lock around his, you lifted your hips up so that you could hump against Eddie, “Please, Eddie, for fuck’s sake!” And then he was fisting himself, lining the hardest part of his body up with the softest part of your own, “Hey, hey, look at me.” Locked in on Eddie’s blown out stare, you licked over your bottom lip, which only made him groan. Dropping his chin, he shook his head, “You- you can’t look at me like that, baby. I’m going to cum before I ever get to feel you if you keep that up.” “But, I didn’t-” Running a hand through his hair so that it fell over his shoulder, he husked, “You can’t help it. You’re just so damned adorable and-” the expansive head of his cock caught at the slick circle of your quim, “-And I fucking love you.” Inhaling sharply, your body arched off the bed and straight into Eddie’s chest at his first breaching thrust. Hands tensing, your nails clawed at his forearms as he stilled, giving you time to adjust to his shattering length and stretching width. Distracting you, Eddie’s mouth dotted kisses along the base of your throat and over your jaw, before huskily growling into your ear, “I’m gonna move now, ok?” Noiseless, you nodded as Eddie kept his word. Withdrawing slowly, Eddie was exercising all the control he possessed to ensure that you got the best of him. And even with his concentration focused on the long, smooth strokes of his thrusts, he still managed to touch you, kiss you, mumble out sounds like yes and fuck and your name. “Eddie, more, please?” You hadn’t meant to whine but he felt so good that you wanted all you could get. It was as if you had cut him free by asking that question. Eddie let his body reply, rolling his hips, no longer pulling free from your velvet vice. Instead he surged forward, deeper and deeper with every press of his pelvis against your own.

Your sweaty skin had gone over goosebumps, a shivering, shining sensation spiraling from your core. You found your voice but could only manage to whimper as Eddie let a free hand rake over your thigh before his fingers landed on your clit, rubbing in light circles. The contact made your muscles clench and through gritted teeth, Eddie cursed, “Fucking hell, sweetheart!” His reaction made you giggle breathlessly, “I’m so close Eddie. Are you? Are you gonna cum?” “Yea. Yea I am, honey. Can you hold on? Cum with me?” Hugging him, your back off the mattress, you peppered him with kisses, agreeing with a happy hum. Eddie kept his rhythm, the even movement of his fingers, and when he felt his own eminent ending, took a beat to encourage you, “Sweetheart, please? Let go for me, yea? Wanna- shit- wanna feel you cum around my cock.” Language like that would have made you embarrassed before but coming from Eddie’s sweet, sweet mouth it set you aflame, “Eddie! Yes! Yes, baby!” Your ruinous release arrived with a shout of his name. Going rigid under Eddie as he rocked into you, his palm pressed to the center of your chest, right over your heart, and then he shuddered above you, his forehead coming to rest against your own as you both fought to catch your breath.

But then Eddie pushed away, abruptly, the overflowing spend of his ecstasy wetting your thighs. It left a cold and empty gap between you when he turned his back to you, his shoulders hunched. Sitting up, you moved to Eddie’s side, “Eddie? Are you- are you ok?” There was no answer, so you crawled to his side, but he avoided looking at you, so you draped a hand on his meaty quad, squeezing slightly, as you asked, “Babe, what’s going on?” Kneeling on the bed in front of the man who just gave you two delicious orgasms, you were utterly shocked at the sight that met you; Eddie, skin shiny from sweat, sitting cross legged, was biting into his knuckle. It was the reason which broke you. He was crying. Tough, beautiful, Eddie Munson was crying. Sobbing really, and to stifle the sound, his teeth were gouging into the flesh of his finger. Once more he tried to avoid you, but you were quick to pull his arm down, “Eddie, what happened?” “I-” his voice was thick, embarrassed and full of emotion, “-I’ve never- What we just did, I-” When you realized that he couldn’t get the words out, you took his hands in yours, kissing over the pulse point of each wrist, “Imma need you to take a deep breath, babe. There ya go!” And you praised him when he inhaled brokenly. Puffing out his cheeks on the exhale, he allowed your clever fingers to wipe away his tears, apologizing, “I’m so sorry. So sorry, sweetheart.” “For what? Where’s this coming from?” “For being a big baby, now, after we just-” damp and wet cheeked, his pretty brown eyes found yours in the dim, “-after we made love.”

“Oh, Eddie.” Your hand cupped his cheek and he leaned into the warmth he found there, sighing. For the first time in your relationship, you were able to offer Eddie the sort of comfort and care that he had shown you so many times. Wasting no time, you straddled his lap, wrapping him in a hug. He hooked his chin over your shoulder, “I just- I’ve never had anyone love me. Not like this and-” You silenced him with your lips, your tongue prying into his mouth, drinking the sadness from the source. All of your want, all of your love, all of it went into the kiss you laid on Eddie. When you leaned back far enough to stare at your man, you were met with his earnest expression, still raw and real.

Your forehead nudged into his, a half-smile playing on your lips, “Hey.” “Hey.” Still sounding sad, Eddie let a chuckle burst out of him, but you found it endearing, encouraging. Eddie let his hands find a place on the thick meat of your tush, keeping you close as you nuzzled into his neck, “I love you, Eddie. All of you. And for so many reasons.” “Yea?” He sounded like he still couldn’t believe it. That this was all too good to be true. Pulling back on his hair, he hissed but didn’t try to stop you. “Yea, Eddie. Yea, I do. I fucking love you.” Then he was laughing. A joyful, open, happy sound that brightened the room and made you smile wide. Eddie lightly slapped your ass, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips as he licked open mouth kisses along the top of your chest, leaving red marks along the way. Laughing too, you basked in the bubble of love that the two of you were creating. Dragging you to his side, your head rested against his chest, over your special spot. His heart was thumping, steady and strong, already lulling you to sleep, when you tipped your head up, “Merry Christmas, Eddie.” “Uh, Merry Christmas.” And what happened next, well in Hawkins, they say, that Eddie Munson’s small heart grew three sizes that day. On Christmas morning, Eddie cooked you breakfast, and made sure there was plenty of fresh coffee for Uncle Wayne to come home to. After the dishes were washed, you pulled his gift out of your snow stained bag, “This is for you.” “Aw, baby! You didn’t have to do this.” Shifting your weight, you nervously danced, “I know! But, well… OPEN IT!” The paper tore away quickly, revealing a framed photo of the two of you sitting on lounge chairs at Steve’s house, happiness visible on both of your faces. When he looked at the picture it was painfully obvious; you were in love even then. It was clear from the way you leaned into each other, your head resting right over his heart, exactly where it belonged. All you needed to make that love a reality was a Christmas miracle, but those only come around once a year. A lump rose in Eddie’s throat. Maybe there was something to this holiday after all. Something about love and caring and showing people how much they meant to you. Maybe it wasn’t about the cost of gifts or the wrapping paper; the ornaments or the parties. Maybe Christmas wasn’t so bad. Not if it brought you two together, once and for all. Shit. Steve had been right. Eddie was going to have to thank his friend for the motivational speech. When he saw your expectant look, Eddie cleared his throat, declaring, “I love it. Thank you, so so much.” Extending his hand, you took it, letting him settle you in his lap, humming, “And I love you, so so much.” When Wayne came home, you were curled in Eddie’s lap, his arm holding you close. Both of you were sleeping peacefully, the tv playing a repeat of the holiday parade. He shook his head, happy in his heart. Merry Christmas, indeed. —------FIN—-----

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