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notquitecanon · 6 months

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Tell 'em bout the Twinkie // Dr. Egon Spengler x extroverted!Reader

Summary: Egon takes care of you after a long night on the town with the other Ghostbusters. While somethings are always the same, you surprise him yet again.

I found this hand written in a notebook from two years ago while I was cleaning so I figured id type it up and post it since there wasn't much new stuff in the tag. Dinner is served.

Warnings: alcohol use, drunk reader, sober Egon (obvi), descriptions of scraped knees and cut hands, blood mention, and first aid. Lots and lots and lots of fluff. Possible cringe. shameless use of Twinkie as an emotional allegory

Dr. Egon Spengler was enjoying a rare night of quiet in the firehouse. Janine had scheduled the whole week around the entire group being free tonight. Peter had insisted a little R&R was due in spades. And for Egon that meant spending a quiet night in, lackadaisically charting his mold and fungus, and catching up on relevant literature at his leisure.

But for the rest of the Ghostbusters staff, it meant going out to a nearby bar for drinks and music. That included you, the Ghostbusters resident research analyst (as you were listed on their payroll).

You had been hesitant to leave Egon alone, especially on one of the few nights you wren’t working to the wee hours of the morning or having dinner interrupted by what Winston had dubbed the "bust alarm". Still, the scientist encouraged you to join the others, knowing deep down you wanted to go.

One of the many reasons he admired you was your easy and outgoing nature, your desire to be out in the world. Due to his introverted and nose in his book habits (even worse when he was in college), your extroverted demeanor was probably the only reason you had managed to befriend him. And because he admired it and profoundly enjoyed your company, he never Egon ever wanted to be the reason you didn’t do the things you wanted to.

However, that didn’t mean he had the slightest inclination to join you in a Friday night crowded bar: packed with sweaty people he didn’t want to touch, drinks he didn’t want to drink, loud music he didn’t want to hear, smoky air he didn’t want to breath, and sticky countertops he didn’t want to sit at. And that’s just the reasons he got out before Peter gave up trying to convince him.

So, he was content to gently push you towards the door with the assured promise he’d be happily waiting with for your return with leftover takeout- both of your favorite ways to end a late night since meeting each other as Grad Students. Nothing better than cold noodles after coming home little drunker than you meant to- and well, Egon didn’t drink but did enjoy an excuse for a late night snack (and an excuse to be close to you).

And with the firehouse still and quiet, Egon was enthused, seeing how ectoplasm interacted and affected the growth of his molds, making mental notes to show you.

Aspergillums wouldn’t grow at all, actively decaying at ectoplasmic contact. Cladosporium both grew and decayed erratically with Ecto contact, creating a cascading starburst affect. Alternaria first grew at unprecedented rates but wouldn’t produce spores. Penicillin frew at normal rates but produced an odd smell. Fusarium grew rapidly and abundantly at first but died off just as rapidly.

"Spengie!" A recklessly loud shout, Peter no doubt, echoed from the main entrance, "You gotta marry this girl!”

And thus his quiet night was suddenly over- con. But it meant you were home- pro! Venkman's shout was accompanied by the sound of quick footwork stomping and scuffing above him, and Egon could imagine him doing a little spin around the fire pole. It was Winston’s voice that following in scolding.

"Peter if you don’t shut the hell up, I will leave you at the bottom of the stairs for the night. We both know you won’t make it up by yourself.” His voice was a warning, but Venkman’s voice was cheeky.

"After all we’ve been through, Zeddemore?”

"Especially after all we’ve been through.”

Egon smirked at his friend’s antics, shaking his head as he removed the Trichoderma slide from the microscope, encapsulated it, labeled it, and sorted it into his hobby file base. A well practiced move as a set of footsteps clunked down the stairs to him. His eyebrows twitched.

Those weren’t your footsteps.

And while he loved his friends dearly, they had gotten your company and attention all night. Despite his insistence on your outing, he was feeling uncharacteristically territorial about his night time traditions with you.

"I’d knock but I don’t have a hand." Ray’s voice called out, sounding three quarters of the way down, chipper tone underplayed by a touch of strain. His steps were unaccompanied and you hadn’t called out to him yet- not even a good night. Had you decided to skip takeout all together in favore of crashing on the upstairs couch? If anything, the couch he had in the basement would be better for your REM cycle. Not to mention Egon was also in the basement.

Nonetheless, Egon answered, inviting him into the lab as he rose from his work stool. Finally, Ray turned the corner, silently answering all the scientist’s questions. Because there you were, wrapped around Ray’s back like a proton pack, your own jacket hanging behind the both of you like a cape, your purse on Ray’s shoulder, and shamefully useless shoes in his hand. Rays arms looped under your lax knees, and your arms were loosely around his neck like the worlds drunkest scarf. Meanwhile, your face had tucked into Ray’s neck, between your arm and his collar, now smudged with your lipstick.

There was a momentary flash of jealousy until it was squashed by Egon’s sudden attention to your knees. He tensed, seeing a patch of blood on both knees, staining ripped tights and dripping to your ankles. There was a more subtle smudge of injury on both of your palms.

"What happened?" Egon’s voice was clipped, zeroing in on your wounds as he crossed the lab, suddenly much more worried that you hadn’t even twitched. You were breathing deeply, but hand’t made a sound…

Ray had been expecting this reaction and kept a calm face, "Just took a little tumble, Spengler, see?”

With that, he shook one of the arms holding your legs, jostling you enough to rouse you a little. Without looking up, one of your bloody hands weakly formed a thumbs up before going limp again. Egon looked between your hand and Ray’s face in a mix of disbelief, worry, and irritation. Stantz swallowed thickly, shifting from foot to foot under his friend’s discerning gaze.

"That didn’t answer my question, Raymond.”

It only took one more cold look for Ray to start rambling the truth.

"Awww, don’t Raymond me, Spengs, it was all Peter’s fault, honest! It was like graduation weekend all over again. Venkman wanted a rematch, and, you know, (Y/N) had just enough to drink that she was feeling competitive. They agreed to the same stakes as last time and since you weren’t there (Y/N) placed a bet on your behalf." Ray explained quickly, not managing to hide his happy smile as he moved to gingerly deposit you on the couch. Egon was following like a shadow, taking great care to keep your head from falling back uncomfortably. Graduation Weekend had been the last time you had been carried home like this, only Egon had done the carrying that weekend, after going shot-for-shot with Venkman. After that and the subsequent hangover, you had vowed to 'grow up' and never get too drunk to walk for yourself. Until tonight apparently, Egon mused, brushing some hair out of the dried sweat on your forehead and noting your breathing, heavy but shallow. Not unusual after alcohol consumption. As Ray unlatched your knee from his hip, he perked up, "On the bright side, Peter’s cleaning the soot out of the Proton packs’ exhaust vents for a month! Lost on a technicality.”

"Hmmm." Egon hummed, adjusting you into a more comfortable sitting position as you slowly started to wake up, "Get the first aid kit for me?”

"Sure thing."

Egon watched your slow, scrunched blinks and how you slowly lifted your head to look at him, squinting before deadpanning until the blurry shape came into focus. It was hard to be irritated with you when your flushed face broke out into an unabated, silly grin, half lidded eyes brightening as you called in sleepy excitement, "Egon!"

Spengler took the opportunity to analyze the dilation of your pupils- glassy and dilated, but responsive. Good. He offered you a dry smile to appease you as Ray put the first aid kit beside you. In his other hand were three bottle- another college tradition. A non-FDA approved electrolyte and mineral enriched drink, formulated by Egon when he lived with Peter who was insufferable when hungover. Venkman called it "Liquid Rewind" and begged Egon to patent and copy right it, only after convincing him to add flavoring to mask the terribly bitter taste.

Spengler nodded a thank you as he plucked the red one from Ray’s hand, giving it to you. Ray watched you pressed the chilled bottle against your warm cheek. This left the already opened grape to Ray who sported a purple ring around his mouth and orange for Peter.

"Egon, red is Pete’s favorite." Ray pointed out as Egon started unpacking the first aid kit.

"I know."

"He hates orange." Ray reminded him.

"I know."

Ray nodded slowly, he knew how petty Egon could be when he was irritated, and he didn’t plan to attract the scientist’s wrath. Instead, he cheerfully patted Egon’s shoulder and moved towards the staircase, "Alrighty then, she’s all yours now. G’nite, Spengs."

"Goodnight, Ray. Thanks for getting her home.”

"Well, she sure didn’t make it easy. For a research analyst, she’s pretty slippery." Ray laughed, mostly to himself as he shuffled up the stairs most likely to the bunk room while Spengler pulled on a pair of medical rubber gloves. Egon also knew this from experience- Graduation Weekend he had also done the chasing when you pulled honestly impressive feats of escapism. Now, alone in the lab, Egon was kneeling in front of you in record time.

He took the first aid scissor and made quick work of ripping off your already shredding tights with such an efficiency that if you were in your right mind you probably would have been too flustered to think straight.

Egon ignored your little noise of protest, attractive scientist or not, those had been your good tights. The scientists offered you a cocked eyebrow as he rolled the tights down your legs. You simply sighed as he started gentle strokes to clean the blood off you now bare skin.

"Did you have to give Ray such a hard time?”

The scolding was playful even though delivered with his usual level of directness, still, even drunk you knew him well enough that it made you smile.

"Well, I was actually giving Peter a rough time, Ray just happened to be collateral damage." Sleep was starting to wear off, leaving your words only a little slurred, as if you were taking great efforts to make sure they were clear.

"And what did Peter do to deserve your ire this time?" Egon dousing some gauze with antiseptic. He didn’t flinch at the acrid scent, and usually you wouldn’t either, but this time your nose scrunched as Egon moved in even closer. However, you didn’t flinch in the slightest when he started dabbing at the shredding parts of your knees. Instead, you took the chance to appreciate the view of the good doctor kneeling in front of you, overhead lights casting a halo on his dark curls. It would be the perfect distance to lazily run gentle fingers through those curls. You seriously contemplated, but decided not to. You didn’t want to get blood in his pretty, soft hair. Wait- you were supposed to be answering his question…

"Made an uncouth comment." You sniffed as Egon moved to the next knee to clean the scrape. He hummed again noticing your non answer but not commenting- one problem at a time.

"Most of his comments are uncouth." He pointed out, pausing to smirk up at you, sighing in relief when you giggled. The was a comfortable pause as Egon focussed in on the deepest gash, but not for long.

"How is the ectoplasm variant going?" You asked after going quiet long enough that Egon wondered if you had fallen back asleep.

"I’ll have to show you tomorrow. I want your thoughts." Egon informed, a slight smile and point of pride that you had inquired after his work even in your current state as he dabbed antibiotic cream on your knees, "The Cladosporium is behaving particularly erratic."

"Ugh, my bet was on the Asparagus." You sighed, prodding at the edge of one of the deeper cuts at the top of your knee. Egon gently, but sternly, nudged your hand away, giving you a warning eyebrow before taping large bandage on over one knee.

"Aspergillus." He correct, almost sounding amused as he moved to the next knee, applying the bandage with just as much care, "Hands."

"Yes, doctor." You teased, offering both your palms. Egon gently took your left in his larger hand, using his other to repeat the same process. These scrapes were much less deep, mainly superficial, a product of catching yourself before your head hit the pavement, your knees had taken the brunt of it, but Egon was nothing if not thorough. It was quick work to clean and bandage both palms.

"There, that should prevent an infection." Spengler informed you, holding both of your treated hands in his after disposing of his gloves, he gave them a quick, tender squeeze before pressing the bottle of red ~liquid rewind~ into your grasp, quickly cracking the lid off for you, "Drink that."

"You know I’m not even that drunk." You scoffed, giving him a playful glare but obeying anyway, taking a long pull of the bottle, only stopping to swallow and breathe before going back in. This time both of his brows were raised as he stood, taking the trash from his impromptu clinic to the nearest bin.

"How much have you had to drink, exactly?"

You thought to yourself for a second, raising your eyes to the ceiling and mouthing numbers before tallying them on your fingers while you mentally replayed the night. Egon waited expectantly as he removed his lab coat, getting increasingly more concerned the longer the tally went on.

"Lets see…. approximately pi cubed divided in half times 1.5, minus six."

Egon didn’t even have to think about the calculation, instead being bewildered by the sheer amount of liquor you had managed to imbibe. His voice raised just a bit, mostly in disbelief and concern, "17 drinks?! (Y/N)."

His disbelief sounded more like frustration to you, and your lip wobbled a bit as you lurched forward, regretting the sudden move but powering through as your eyebrows knitted up, looking up to the scientist pleading, voice a whine, "Don’t be mad."

Egon shook his head with a deep sigh, catching your hand as you reached for him.

"I’m not mad. Surprised you’re coherent? Yes. Impressed at your current equational prowess? Definitely." He listed as you weakly pulled him back towards you. Egon nudged the forgotten red stained bottle, "C’mon, a little more."

After a long swallow, you nodded, "Well, after I slipped the boys, I made it pretty far uptown before they found me-"

You had started almost sheepishly, this time expecting Egon’s crinkled eyebrows and interruption.

"They lost you?" He repeated lowly, but you just shrugged, squeezing his hand as you continued your tale.

"Only for an hour, but it was a long walk back home. Well, it was for Ray at least. So I had plenty of time to workshop my math, Ray doublechecked it for me. And I still had time for a nap." You seemed pretty proud of yourself. Egon opened his mouth, eyebrows raising then falling as his mouth closed.

"I see. Is there a particular reason you needed to escape?"

"Noooo…."You dragged out, using his hand to pull yourself out of you slouched sitting, using him to keep yourself steady. Egon didn’t budge, allowing the contact. His head cocked ever so slightly to the side, looking at you over the rim of his glasses. You crumbled instantly, "Yes."

With an innocent smile, you fished into your jacket pockets, patting yourself down with increasing franticness, "I kept going until I could find a 24 hour bodega."

"You ran off inebriated by yourself in the middle of the night to a late night convenience store in New York City? This neighborhood is basically a demilitarized zone. We’re definitely going to have to discuss that." He muttered, checking you over for any injuries he or Ray might have missed. You were undeterred by his scolding because you had found whatever you had been searching for.

"Well, where else was I gonna find these at this hour?" You asked earnestly, revealing two only slightly squished Twinkie's. It was your turn to quirk an eyebrow, "What? Did you think I would forget about our late night snack?”

You were interrupted by a overpowering yawn, eyes suddenly drooping, "Gonna be honest though, don’t think cold Thai food is a great move for me at the moment.

Egon took the slightly squished confection out of your hand, giving it an appraising gaze, before breaking into that signature sideways smile as you leaned into his chest. With all the secrets of the night in the open, you didn’t have much else fighting to keep you awake. Egon his arms around your back, using one hand to rub soothing circles on your back. The good doctor allowed you to stay like that, his cheek pressed against the top of your head. As your breathing slowed, more and more of your weight slumped against him.

Egon didn’t mind, finally getting that close contact he’d been waiting all night for. Instead, he stared down at the twinkie in his hand. The cream was squeezing out of the sponge cake and smearing onto the crinkled plastic wrapper, but you had ventured countless blocks out of your way, escaping three of New York’s ghostbusters, just to pick up something you knew he’d like. Even with 17 drinks actively shrinking your neurons, you were always so thoughtful.

Egon was well aware of how much his friends loved him, and he would always be grateful for finding each of them. But there was always just something different about your love. If Egon possessed a more artistic disposition, he might describe it as a warm ocean wave washing over a beach. Gentle, yet unstoppable. All encompassing. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done to deserve someone like you to love him like you did, but whatever it was he’d do it a thousand times over- even if it meant cleaning you up after a long night out on the town.

"Did you have a good time tonight?" He asked quietly, feeling you nod into his chest . His sweater was soft against your cheek and he smelled as wonderful as always: earthy yet clean and the slightest hint of something smoky like a full trap or lab experiment gone wrong. After a deep inhale you nodded again through another yawn.

"Mmmhm. ‘missed you though." Your voice had slowed back down to its sleepy, slow tone that Egon would never admit to loving as much as he did, the warmth of him and quiet lulling you. You were fighting to stay afloat, but Egon’s thumbs working slow circles into your back were winning as he answered.

"I missed your company as well."

And it was later, when you had fallen into a deep unbothered sleep on the lab’s couch after stealing one of Egon’s t-shirts- the ones he would wear under his jumpsuit-, and using his lab coat as a blanket, that Egon thought about all this, taking a slow bite of his slightly squished gift.

Peter was right. One day, he needed to marry you.

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so I tried two somethings new. 1.) tried writing this more from his perspective, which isn't something I really do with any character. 2.) Paired him with a more extroverted out going reader, because I feel like we usually see him paired with more introverted types

anyways I typed this up at 3 am after crying for five hours so please excuse any typos.

#egon spengler x reader #dr. spengler x reader #dr. egon Spengler x reader #ghostbusters x reader #can't believe im writing ghostbusters fanfic in the year of our lord 2021 #using that tag bc TECHNICALLY I wrote this in 2021... I just reread and typed and posted it in 2023

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stubz · 3 months

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grandma said

"I wonder what's taking Max so long?" mumbled the human, waiting with several younglings and children for the other human to come so that they can leave the centre.

"Kim can we go now?"

"Not until Max and Ezshi come."

"But Ezshi takes light years to get ready~" whined the child.

"I know but--"

A wail like no other echoed throughout the halls. The screams bounced off the walls into the human's body, from their heart to their skull they felt the vibrations of the child.

"Cover your ears and stay here!" they said before sprinting inside the classroom.

The wailing grew the closer they got to the source which was little Ezshi who was being comforted by the other human.

"What happened?!" even at Kim's loudest her yells were easily drowned out the reptilian's wails and cries.

Max pointed at the youngling and she looked down to see their tail swollen and slightly discolored. He then drew her attention to the door leading outside of the centre.

Ah shit it had to be the tail. As younglings Caimunes had incredibly sensitive tails as they were still developing the necessary healing abilities to allow them to regrow them.

'Anyting I can do?' she texted.

'Just take the others to the garden without us. Ezshi' cries r probably hurting some of their ears. Text management to send over a sub in my place and close the door to muffle the noise.'

'K, gud luck' and with that she left leading the younglings far away from the pained wails.

...

What the hell do I do!? They don't want an ice pack or a cold cloth or me to even breath on it and it'll be at least another 15 minutes till Eza get's here...

The poor human had spent the last 15 minutes trying to comfort and help the youngling to no avail. He tried applying first aid but Ezshi wailed even louder at the thought of anything touching their tail. The human then tried soothing them with words and rubbing circles on their back but that had only worked for mere seconds at a time.

So far the only thing he managed to do was give them a pillow to sit on and reassure them that their Bubba was coming as fast as they can.

A Caimunes tail is the most sensitive body part, equivalent to a human's fingers or toes...think think think. This isn't that far from when I slammed my finger in the closet door so what was done to help me?

He cried; just like Ezshi. He didn't want anyone to touch it; just like Ezshi. He calmed down but that was because he trusted his parents when they put his hand under cold water.

There has to be something...

"Oh." and Ezshi whimpered for the human had gotten up and went to the small kitchen they had.

*wHinNE*

"Don't worry I'm coming back buddy. I just remembered something that could help. Something my Grandma once said." they opened the top cupboard and came back with a small bag.

"Now don't tell anyone about this because this is for next week," he took out a small wrapped upped square and began to open it, "but my Grandma said that it's harder to be sad when eating something sweet so we're going to give it a try." he placed the small smooth square into the youngling's claw.

They sniffed it then plopped it into their mouth. It was strange to them. It was hard but then chewy and sticky. Sweet but tangy.

"It's called a Starburst. A candy from Earth."

The youngling started to cry once again but to the human's relief it was a much quieter cry.

"What does it taste like?"

"...*whimper*"

"Is it sweet?"

Nod*

"Kinda tangy?"

Shake*

A little sour?"

Shake*

"Just sweet?"

Nod*

"Huh, usually I find that flavor to be a little tangy. It's cherry by the way."

"...can I have another one?"

"Of course."

They sat like that until Eza came. Max fed Ezshi different flavors and asked them questions about the flavor until he had them try and guess which flavor they were eating. By then the cries were far and few between one another.

Later when the Caimunes had left the human was contacted by the med bay about a hearing test as 90% of those who hear a youngling Caimun wail go deaf. Max was ultimately fine and actually found the experience interesting as he had experienced a full inner/outer body vibration from the soundwaves coming from Ezshi

#today a kid got a door slammed on their finger and screamed for like half an hour until their parents came #they're okay its just the side effects of experiencing a painful thing with a very small pain tolerance #they calmed down after I gave em some candy after remembering the sweet and sad thing my grandma or someone's grandma told me #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #the adventures of kim and max running a space child care centre

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punk-in-docs · 2 years

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🕷 Don’t Need Telling Twice 🕷

Eddie Munson x Reader

10.4k words

Summary: Movie Night at Eddie’s place. All the little things that sneak into the cracks in between new love and affection. So I was intending to get a lot filthier with this but somehow it turned out sweet enough to rot your teeth- Eddie being insecure. Wayne being parental, Pencils being nervous. Let’s see how they iron it out man. (It’s really just me waffling about insight into these two lovebirds)

Saturday morning in your scruffy yet clean kitchen. Stereo cranked high. Melded into your happy place.

The bright slip and drip of the opening guitar licks to ‘Should I stay or should I go.’ Joe’s condescending spitting voice begins. You twirl around with the greased baking sheets in hand.

The kitchen is warm, it’s got this odd glow about it, from the slanted sun gushing in through the cream drapes that have yellow flowers on them. The shabby wood cupboards and the creamy tiles of the breakfast counter with its little peach-pink roses, which is now cluttered with baking trays.

Entirely rose tinted in your view. But you’re blasting the Clash. Loud enough to wake the neighbours.

You’re making cookies for your date tonight. Moms tattered pink apron hanging limp off your body from too many washes. Really it’s a scratchy old thing.

This morning did come around quick. Sunrise like a copper-red wound knifing slashes across the sky. Burning the whole horizon to that fantastic blood orange. You’re too squirmy to sleep. Too excited.

Seeings as you were up early, you put it to use and ran to the store. And now you were knee deep in cookie batter. Chocolate chip. Little starbursts of Cocoa powder and flour dusted everywhere. Head banging, head shaking and hair flicking along to Joe Strummer and his ridiculing tone.

You kick the walnut stained cupboard door closed. It’s wonky and juts out like a stubby tooth snapped off a jaw. It’s always been like that.

Every door in your kitchen creaks. Whines all aged. The appliances have their knacks and sticky tricks that come with years and years worn behind them. Temperamental.

Sure even your whole house is nothing fancy. You’ve never had that much money to scrape together, or give a shit that the whole place is dated. One thing wins favour over all that; your place is cosy.

It’s stuffed with life. Scored deep with it. Consumed. It’s not some ultra chic monotone black-red wasteland. It’s got posters and art on the walls, the crazy bohemian touches that come from your entirely whacky mother.

Sure this house wasn’t all that. But she made it great, and celebrated it in it’s own uniqueness.

Same goes for the best kind of people too. She’d say that to you with a wink.

Handfuls of pennies and some imagination went a long way. Clicking her tongue and shooting you her fierce brand of optimism that seeps out her every pore: eternally unflinching.

A lot of it, this house, echoed its funky warm pattern after the musical, magical, mental, woman who birthed you.

Forever hunting thrift stores for funky things. Weird shaped clocks. The Who posters. 60’s pop art. French Impressionism posters. Stupid cartoon lamps with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck on the shade. Broken and chipped from the Goodwill but she liked that it wasn’t perfect or level.

She bought prints of famous artworks. Degas. Van Gogh. Millet. Flower drawings, or pressed leaves and flowers behind a sheet of glass. Not one piece of furniture matches in your living room. Or any room. The rugs are old and squishy soft, worn to death. It’s whacky to say the least. But you’d take it over any home they’re always flashing from the interior pages of a magazine.

She has blue daisy pillows on the couches. Always buys godawful cheap lemon candles that are all sugar acidic when they burn. But it cements that scent of home to you now.

There’s no inch of wall space not covered by frames or colour. One day she got up and impulsively painted your kitchen a bright buttery yellow. Just because. Flowers stamped everywhere cause she saw the idea in some hippy book.

And she filled this house with second hand books, too many, spilling over with them. She crammed your home with laughter, and literature, arts, and so many idols of your taste in music came from her.

You wouldn’t trade her for the entire world.

Flighty and bonkers as she is. You hate her being away so often, and with Charlie gone off now with her serious boyfriend, it does chip at you on the sadder days. Being here alone. It gouges just that little bit more when she’s not around.

The days when Linda says something particularly cutting, or times when jocks insults jab just that little too deep. You do miss her then. You can’t hate her for it. her job is a real earner and it makes her so happy. She brings you back souvenirs from every little corner of the globe she’s seen. Postcards. Snow globes.

She trusts you. She always says you’re her favourite kid in the world. That she knows of.

She’s not like some of the other Hawkins Moms you’ve seen. Not at all. The ones who all go to the same lousy hairdresser for the ruler straight highlighted bob. Go to Jazzercise on Thursdays. Hate their ignorant husbands. Wear beige cardigans and chunky gold jewellery and are the queen of boring casseroles and insist their kids be in bed by nine.

Then there’s her. Jagged and wound down and much looser. Etched in coolness. Less controlled - more quirky. Crazy hair even on a good day. Cherry ice cream smile. Young by their standards. Berkeley dropout. Strolling around in her suede fringed jacket and a Patti Smith t-shirt and boot cut jeans.

You’ve always seen the way other moms raised their brows at her appearance. They think she’s trashy. A single mom who dresses and eats and acts the way she does.

Scoffing behind her back at the rhinestone jacket or her vintage cowboy boots. She’s punchy. She doesn’t give two shits. She loves both her kids passionately and would be the first to swing a punch, split her knuckles open for you. Always in your corner. No matter what.

She had you both so young and braved through your dad walking out. Good riddance. He never did have the balls to do the important shit.

She told you that once you were just on the cusp of being old enough to understand why he wasn’t around.

Told you as she wrapped her arms around you and engulfed you in a hug. Smelling like Yves Saint Laurent Paris and gold Newports. She kissed the top of your head.

He couldn’t hack responsibility babe. He had his chance. Too bad he blew it. Cause I happen to think you’re the coolest pair of kids in the world.

She bucked up and scraped money together and it stung a bit sure. Pinched the corners of life at times. But she turned the back of her Brooke Shields shiny hair to the stares she gets in this town. Flipped the bird to those Carol’s and Susan’s who dared to judge her.

Somehow they thought she was a deadbeat mom. But she’s now raised two honour roll kids. First Charlie. Now you.

You’re on track for Indie State. Charlie went to Purdue. She said she’d love you even if you wanted to flip burgers or fix greasy old clunker cars for a living.

The phone shrills out loud as you’re scooping sticky chocolate chip dough into the greased sheets. It clumped between your fingers.

“Hang on.” You call out with no patience to the ringing, as you lean over to pluck it from the wall. Cradle it between your shoulder and ear. Trying to locate a dish rag for your smeared messy hands.

“Yeah.” Figured it would be someone for Mom, or a telemarketer.

“How’s it hangin, Pencils.”

Immediately a grin bursts on your lips. It’s Pavlovian. He smiles. You echo it.

You hear his voice? Ok then. Your stomach flew to bits. All fluttery like confetti.

“Well well well. If it isn’t my favourite metal head.” You say as you balance your trays down. Bumping the counter with your hip.

He chuckles through the phone. You hear the crackle of his exhale. You can picture his smile and it’s doing something to your guts that is just, crazy.

“Hey, c’mon now. Play fair. You never told me you were seeing other metal heads? I bet it’s that lanky haired bastard from the pizza place on Beechwood Drive, in his Slayer tees.” He twirled the old green phone cord around his finger. It clacks around that chunky silver ring of his.

He’s so quick to step up and play around and you love it. You can hear the jokiness layered on his voice. Hear him moving around cause staying still is his worst nightmare. Typical Eddie.

God. Look at you. You’re both twirling the phone cords around your fingers like middle school girls. Crushes thick in your throats and smiles. Choking your hearts fully. Paper airplanes tossed with love notes folded inside. Initials crossed together in a pink love-heart.

“Yeah.” You tease. “But his hair isn’t as great as yours. And don’t you know by now that I’ve got guys lined up around the block. I’ve had to have a ticket booth installed.” You pick up your wooden spoon to mix.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Linda. I thought I rang my pencils.” You hear the soft scuff of his laugh.

“Hang on one second, my lipgloss needs refreshing.” You pout. “And I feel like I should be singing ‘If I only had a brain’.”

He beams and it’s so wide his cheeks hurt.

“That’s not the Wizard of Oz I’m hearing over there pencils, right?” He deciphers.

“Saint Joe of Strummer. Our lord and saviour.” You tell him proudly. Cursing when you splodge a little of the sticky dough on the countertop. Looking around for the dish rag.

“I’m of the Anti-Christ church myself. Ozzy is my devil and I’m bound to obey.” He leers. His voice drops and it slithers between your legs to hear it get deep.

“Mmm. Sounds kinky.” You flirt. Trying your hardest not to drop dough on your bare toes where you’re scooping it to the tray. He’s a great distraction to your focus.

“If you’re into blood play and satanic practices baby, I got some great news for ya.” He fiddles with the empty microwave packets on the kitchen counter.

Chicken pot pie from two nights ago. The Kraft mac n’ cheese that he shovels down like air. Usually scraping it out the pan, eating it with a too big wooden spoon. As he reads a rock magazine at the kitchen counter.

“Sadly no. Dungeon stuff only. Oh and leather. Face masks. Lots of whipping too. And biting.” You tease.

“Hang on. Lemme get a pen and some paper… I’ll make a note…” He rustles around like he’s actually searching for it. Wiry body with the twisted phone cord wrapped around his torso.

You smile at his eagerness to please you.

“I don’t think you need to take notes, Munson. Last time was pretty sensational.” You blush. Mixing your batter and flirt is creeping onto your lips.

“Yeah?” He asks. “Jesus. You’ve no idea. It’s been driving me crazy. I should be committed. Look, I couldn’t even wait til tonight to hear your voice. I-“ He sighs in wanting. His tongue was tripping away from him. He drew back. Worried he was being too much.

He couldn’t wait. He had to call you.

“Munson. You never have to be sorry for calling me.”

Cause, I fucking like you.

“You know, you can call me Eddie. Pencils.”

“First name basis? How brazen.” You rib.

“Yeah, later on I was planning to show you my ankles. Risqué or what?” He flirts. You chuckle.

He’s wandering over to the window and flicking the curtain aside with his fingertips to see the same old drab and murky Forest Hills staring back at him.

“What would the village elders say-“ You gasp. “My reputation will be in tatters.”

“Not possible. Your name isn’t Linda.”

“I may have to kiss you for that one.” You warn.

“I’m very open to that.” He says very quickly. Twirling a packet of reds around the shiny surface of the table. Considering lighting one up. The rush of your voice is his nicotine until he hangs up.

You close a cupboard door and Eddie’s ears perk at the sound. “Learning drums over there?” He seeks.

“I’m baking.” You offer up.

Phone at your shoulder and between your ear still as you mix the dough with your other hand to fold in the chocolate chips. Shaking the packet and watching the chips fall. Plinking into the thick batter. It’s very messy and clumsily done.

“Tell me you’re wearing a tiny pink Betty Crocker apron?” He all but purrs down the phone. Licking his lips.

“It’s pink and frilly.” You drawl.

“Mmm. More-“ He rasps down directly down the phone. Grinning. Holds it right to his mouth to talk louder into the receiver.

“Pretty heels too. Lacquered hair like Donna Reed. Whole shebang.”

“Fuck.” He twirls hair around his finger. Almost bites down on his skull ring.

“The images in my head are so unmatched right now. You’ve no idea.” He charms.

“Damn.” He moans again. It’s low and it strikes a direct chord with your pussy.

Shit. You’ve had delicious filthy dreams about those moans. Your hands on that hard dick of his.

“Yeah and don’t forget my strand of pearls.” You grin.

He splutters. Oh he could give you pearls if you wanted them. It’s what he’s been dreaming of.

Such a horny boy.

“You’re the perfect date you know. Kinky as fuck, into whipping and leather. But pearls and baking.”

“You don’t even know what I’m baking-“

“You say pot brownies pencils, I’m gonna go out right this second and buy a goddamned ring.”

“Remember the four C’s. Colour. Clarity. Carat. Cut.”

“Shit. You want a diamond? Hmm I was thinking more along the lines of a pop ring. More in my budget. Or maybe something out the claw machine in the arcade.” He bargains.

“I like a man who puts in the effort. And, hey I’m not picky. I’ll take it. Diamonds are way overrated anyhow.” You decide.

“And just to lay your mind at rest I’m making Extra Chocolate, chocolate chip cookies.”

He cradled his aching throbbing heart. Hand splayed over his chest. Made a groaning noise like he was mortally wounded. A crackle of the sigh rattled the phone.

“Alright. You’re officially too good for me. I’m gonna have to hang up.” He jokes. You laugh.

You really hope he doesn’t.

“Don’t do that.” You ask quietly. “I need to talk to someone sensate. I beg of you.” You urge. “I had to listen to Linda bitch all the way home on Friday about how low fat ice cream sucks, and how much she wants to bang James Spader in Pretty in Pink.”

“Wow that really says a lot about her taste in guys.” He commented. She really was Tiffany-twisted, that girl. Wrapped up in her own over groomed looks, bouncy blonde curls, and sex life. Lived by rules out of Cosmo magazine and fad diets.

“My ears wanted to commit suicide by the time I got home. Thank god cause as I got out the car she started to mention the words sleepover and boyfriend and I just about had the sanity to slam the car door, before anymore came out.”

“Wise move baby.” He beamed.

You preened at the nickname that did dirty things. Finally you now had the cookies ready for the oven.

“Alright...” You clunked the wooden mixing spoon down. “First wave of troops going in. I’ll you know their condition after battle. Hopefully they make a worthy addition to our night as I am trying to impress you with my passably mediocre baking skills.” You charm.

“Hey don’t practice too hard now. You know us guys like em stoopid.” He puts on a southern-belle twang.

“If you can navigate yawself round a tree girlie. Keep on walkin. Them slick city fellers can have ya.” He drawls.

Your laugh makes his whole mood hop into giddy.

“You’re such a goof.” You smile. He couldn’t wait to see that grin of yours in person again. In a mere handful of hours-

“I didn’t need another incentive to be impressed by you, pencils...” He smiles. Tone slipping back into genuine. “Already there.” He offers.

Before you can respond. Hurricane Munson struck elsewhere.

“And uh, Whatever condition those troops are in. I’ll take it. I’m not picky either. Charlie. Tango. Bravo.”

“Good.” You answer. Twiddling with the corner of the dish cloth. Fondness settled like warm oozy mush on your chest. Inescapable.

You could spend hours down the phone listening to Eddie crack his jokes. Twirl around. Get distracted. Put on stupid drama club voices like he was at Hellfire

“There aren’t trees in the way of your trailer are there? Cause I won’t be able to navigate round them all on my own.” You joke in reference to his earlier remark.

“You’re the perfect lady.” He sighs in a sweet hum.

“Oh and uh, I picked the movies for tonight.” He suddenly announced. Sounding cheeky. Brimming with it.

“Yeah?” You asked with inflection. “Yeah.” He answered. With none.

“You’re not gonna tell me are you?” You clued up.

“Leave me to have my wicked wicked fun.”

“VHS tease.” You complained all snarky.

“Scoot your pretty ass over here and come see for yourself you coward.” He dares. Tongue tipped out between his smiling teeth.

“Six still good?” You check. Up on your tiptoes and swirling around the tiled floor. Stomach swooping with anticipation.

“Golden.” He answers.

“Guess I’ll see you then. I’ll be the one in the skirt.”

He sucks air through his teeth. “Ah same here. I hope we don’t clash.”

“Bye, Edward.” You joke. He gasps.

“Mm. Definitely gonna have to let you see my ankles now.” Comes his voice. Smile traced on it. You could tell.

“I’m counting the minutes.” You dip your voice low.

“See ya.” He parts. Slinging the phone back into it’s cradle on the wall. Smile charged to megawatt from your conversation. He wants to twirl and flip his hair. Goddamnit. He couldn’t keep still.

Then he drags his eyes to his surroundings. The crushed beer cans crumpled up on the kitchen counter, and the coffee table. The overflowing ashtrays. Trash in the kitchen. The dishes. The laundry strewn sofa. The dust- he chews his lip.

It was like he was seeing this place through fresh eyes. And it needed rectifying. He rolled up his sleeves.

Shit. He needed to hustle.

It was fair to say Wayne and Eddie had to grow used to living with each other.

The veil of constancy was Eddie’s safety blanket when it came to the gruff and earnestly stoic man, that was Wayne Munson; he pretty much remained himself. Didn’t change much.

Liked his bacon crispy. Made a peach cobbler that would blow your socks off til next Tuesd ay, but couldn’t assemble a sandwich neatly at all. Used to drive big semi trucks across the states. Did the crossword in the Hawkins Gazette. Adored Billie Holiday. Collected comical mugs. Liked strong coffee with cinnamon and had a dislike for cilantro. Loved old spaghetti westerns and that twanging soft country music he always hums too, which had carved space out of his soft-soppy Tennessee heart.

He had hatred for people with nasty gossiping sniping souls. Ugliness born inside, he thinks people don’t ever shift it on or lose that. He worked his fingers to the bone for the modest home and the little money they raked by on. He was unfailingly honest and generous. He had few words to give. He was Eddie’s weather-beaten yet reliable rock.

Eddie can imagine that Wayne getting to know him was more of a challenge; tricky to navigate; herding cats, walking on-knives-and-eggshells kind of difficult. How do you get to know someone when their character is set on shifting sand?

Thing is. Eddie never really changed that much.

He’s still the starry-eyed kid leaping on the couch, shredding air guitar to Metallica in filthy sneakers cause the moment just ran away with him. He’s the one making a huge show of not stepping on cracks in the pavement cause he’s down enough as it is. Not breaking mirrors, ever, and picking up sidewalk spilt pennies. And apologising and stepping over weeds in the trailer lot. Not trampling them underfoot.

Eddie was still the boy inside that felt bad for struggling weeds. The one to feel sorry for a squashed little dandelion.

Wayne wrenched open this home to this kid as a stranger. Barbs and shame-wrapped guilt set in his heart that he didn’t know his brothers own kid better than he did. He kept to his lane. He stayed out the way of his brothers numerous convictions. Remained a stranger to trouble.

But then, when need came knocking; he offered up, no questions asked. The way a bird offered the gentle lift of their wing, to something foreign needing shelter, in a warm bramble nest, from the raging storm.

Eddie will never forget the first words he heard out of Wayne’s mouth. Around the corner of some bland police precinct. Warm. Firm. Dependable.

“He’s my family. He’s blood. That’s enough. Kindly let me see him.”

He didn’t regret stepping up to bat for one minute. Maybe he’s grouchy and he’d never fully ‘get’ or approve of everything his nephew did, or enjoyed. But he didn’t chew him out, or pick at him for it.

He learned what flavour pop tarts Eddie liked best for breakfast. When he needed sleep or help. When he needed space. When to warn him to watch his attitude, or his mouth, or manners, and when to back off. Parental things.

Eddie was a stale eyed kid when he first met Wayne. Perhaps innocent and maybe just jaded enough to see beyond the rose-tinted prism of childhood. He was jaggedy-rough round the edges and not worn into himself yet. Caught up in the hard knocks of social care and down-and-out on his luck, as a mostly unwanted eight year old. That stuck some nasty pins in his ego pretty early on.

Wayne could see how Eddie kept expecting to be shuffled on elsewhere. Big shining eyes that a puppy would envy under a scruff mop of hair. Clutching all he had for dear life. His scruffy collection of tattered comics and stubby pencils and half broken toys.

Kept looking around the trailer like he shouldn’t get too attached. Sat gingerly on the edge of the sagging bed. Shouldn’t make mess or get comfy. Cause soon, he’ll have to pack his scrappy things into that sad cardboard box and eek out a wobbling lipped goodbye. Sad that home hadn’t stuck, again.

Eddie kept that empty scruffy little box sat in the bottom of his closet for six months. Just in case.

Wayne threw that box right in the trash.

Bought him a beat up old turntable. Put a shelf up in his room and a stood a few second hand fantasy paperback books on it. Bought him a few new things that didn’t belong to someone else first.

Wayne watched Eddie fall into stability. To learn how to put roots down. Grow steady and then in quick spurts, into who he was. In that way kids do. The way they grow into clothes that were too big. Shoes that would eventually fill out to fit their steps.

He watched the love of music come blasting in. Middle school. Rolling Stones magazines. Catching Black Sabbath on the radio one day. The appreciation for that loud thrashing dirty-steel rock he now loves. The one that ran vein deep. His idols with the crazy scruffy long hair. He discovered Ozzy and Axl, Judas Priest and Lemmy.

Watched him sew on badges that he bought for pennies at dime stores, and get bloody fingertips cause he really was useless at needlework. Found his signature rings at a cool vintage place outta state. Watched him saw off the arms of his denim jacket and come home with a swing in his step and a DIO shirt from the goodwill - a twinkle in his eye. Determination threaded in this burgeoning passion. Tip of the iceberg.

A plan Wayne. I have a well executed, thorough plan. Foolproof.

Mmmhmm. Is this gonna end up exactly like the last plan you had, kid?

Let’s find out.

Gone from the sweet boy who was too scared of everything, and everyone boring, and being judged, and now he’s turned inside out, full circle, to become this genuinely sweet young man, who turned against that boring tide of beige normalcy.

Eccentric and whirly with the unfocused energy that never burned out. Dynamite blaze kid. Even when he tried to hide scrapes on his knees, and raw knuckles. A shiner that he let his shaggy fringe cover, from an attempt to fight and claw back.

He still gave Wayne that shocking toothy grin with a fat lip and a busted nose, cause he was actually stupid proud of himself - and the way he stuck up for some freshman. The tiny nerdy one who had a carton of milk poured over his head by the meat head jocks. Having pages ripped out his science textbooks by them and spread to the wind like leaves.

Eddie sat beside the newbie with bleeding raw knuckles, cracked jokes, sellotaped those torn pages back together - wonky. Just to show that someone out there, cared.

The smiles became armour, devil horns and Gene Simmons tongue. The hair started to grow out into rioting curls. Doe eyes glinted promiscuity; to those who didn’t know him well enough to know there was no shred of malice anywhere in him.

Eddie collected parts of himself, the way someone would laundry plucked off the line- like the badges and pins he secured on his chest and flashed around for fun.

He found his first DND board and his dice at a yard sale. And then came that sweet head-muzzy strain of Colombia gold, and Reefer Rick and light frothy cans of beer on an empty stomach. He found acceptance. Ripped jeans and scuffed knees. The exquisite pin pricks of a scratchy tattoo the day he turned 18. Asked if he could wear the old sagging leather jacket he found hung in the back of the closet, from Wayne’s younger and more hip days.

The way he went full bonkers-gaga over seeing his 24 fret NJ warlock in the window of a music store in town. Bursting big heart eyes over it and saving up for months. Awfully tempted by the idea of some piercing, somewhere, but nearly fainted when he got in the shop. So that was the end of that. He founded Hellfire and he protected his fellow freaks. Scraped together his high school band.

Collected the little lost sheepies in armfuls, in bunches, so that no one within his reaches would ever have to sit and console that festering hungry chasm of being an unwanted kid, with nowhere to turn.

Cause Eddie knew well enough, it was a bottomless gremlin pit with gnashing teeth, and it would take take take as long as you bothered to feed it.

And all that learning and comfiness, and living, now it currently tapered down to Wayne not being at all surprised, by watching his nephew shaking frail little spindly spiders out into the doormat, talking soothingly to them.

Shooing them out off the glossy pages of his rock music magazine. Telling them to get used to the brave new world of Forest Hills outside these four walls.

“-And kudos by the way for eating the flies. Appreciate you for that. Sorry I’ll have to take down those cobwebs. Consider this your eviction notice.” As he jimmied the last one off the paper and it crinkled noisily. Bracelet on his wrist jingling.

Wayne is peering over the shield of his paper. Coffee steaming away in a chipped Snoopy mug by his side. Cigarette dangling from his fingers. Watching Eddie crouch right at the mouth of the trailer door. Holding it open and watching the insects lope away in new brave directions.

Pieces of clarity started to to swim together when he takes a look at Eddie’s clothes.

Different to his normal threads on a Saturday night; Either he’s kicking his feet into reeboks, shouldering on his leathers and vest to go out a party at some place, and come back reeking of grass and beer breath. Or; he’s shuffling around in his thread bare plaid pyjama pants and a ratty AC/DC tee, asking what’s for dinner through a smeary eyed yawn.

This is neither; he straightened up to go and neatly return the magazine to his room, as opposed to throwing it down to rest in any old place. Odd.

Wayne took notice of his clothes. Black jeans that were suspiciously clean of ash stains or frayed knee holes. His long sleeved black skull tee rolled up to his elbows, ink on display. Chest blazoned with a band name he’s never heard of, and down the sleeve too in gothic red. His hair was all fluffed up - like he’d finally discovered what a comb was.

Eddie saunters back into the room. Flitting from place to place. Shoving beer cans in a bulging garbage bag. Along with empty crushed food packets that he left out. Sweeping crumbs off the counter with his bare hands. Probably over the floor but the effort was there- picking cigarette butts off the floor that he was careless enough to drop.

And Wayne didn’t even have to shoot his usual look, clearing his throat at him, about that nasty habit. He was clearing up entirely on his own. Without prompt.

He was rushing. Rushing was the antithesis of Eddie’s speed. A thin film of sweat on his brow under that choppy lollop of a fringe. He’s crammed garbage bags full. Shoving stuff inside.

Says something under his breath that sounds like “shit” as he darts back into his room. Wallet chain jangling behind him. Socked feet thudding softly on the carpets.

He keeps an ear open for what sounds like commotion. Frantic tidying. The shuffling of clothes by the armful. Closet doors shutting with a thwack. He talks to his guitar as he hums and tidied.

“I know I know. Sweetheart. I should have done this earlier. Don’t look at me like that…”

He rounds up his dirty clothes and does a sniff test - again. That was the third time tonight.

Movement clattering along the hall. Socked feet storm back to the washer. He’s stuffing an armful of mostly all black clothing into it like he’s trying to dispose of body parts in there. Ramming in so much he has to shut the door quick.

“Rat bastard.” He hissed after he shook the dream fresh laundry powder in and slams it shut. Punches it for good measure. His rings clack on the metal-metal contact. Shook his fist out I n the air cause that hurt more than he thought it would.

Now he’s back to the trash bags in the kitchen. Looping them up and walking across the door to dump them outside in the garbage cans. Hopping across the sharp gravel in socked feet like a jumping hare.

Wayne sees that determined set in his brow as the door snaps open and back in slams Eddie at a million miles a second. Frowning at everything he sees. Sloped brows. Mouth curled into a grimace.

He comes to empty the overflowing ashtray on the coffee table near Wayne. Well, it was an old soup can that somehow turned into an ashtray. Annoyed that he missed it. Muttering to himself. Scooping away dust. It was like watching a one man ant farm.

This led to him now being stood on the couch, suddenly reorganising the shelf behind it. Batting cobwebs away from mugs and wiping a hand on his jeans.

“Jesus. I mean how dusty is this place?” Eddie asks to no one in particular. Not expecting an answer.

Silence. Rustling.

Wayne folds up his paper and nicely slaps it down on the arm beside him. Folds his hands in his lap. “Eddie.”

Eddie turns around like a doe eyed deer caught in semi headlights. Twisted at the waist. Back of his shirt riding up over his lithe waist. Peek of his back and his plaid red boxer band showing over the back of his jeans.

The bony notches of his spine poke through skin where he’s leaning over. He blinks owlishly at his uncle. One foot braced on the back of their elderly moth-eaten couch.

“What the hell you doin?” Wayne asks with kind bewilderment. Shaking his head at his kid.

“Spring cleaning?”

Wayne’s eyes narrow as he lifts his hand up and sucks on his cigarette. “Sure?” He checks.

“No?” Comes the answer. Carefully. Wincing. Wayne takes a breather.

“There’s cobwebs. And, dust.” He explained. Pointing to the wall before him. “Look see, dust.”

“Why the sudden aptitude for household chores there, huh?” Wayne asks as he nurses his cooling coffee.

To his shame they don’t exactly keep the place pristine. He tries his best, but on some days work takes it clean outta him. Eddie’s room resembled a garbage tip bomb-site most likely.

Eddie swallows. “You know. Just- some light maintenance.” He shrugs. That was the most plausible answer his brain spat out upfront.

“On a Saturday night?”

“I’m um, totally slammed on Sunday.” He admits. Clapping off his hands.

“Kid. How stupid do you think I am. Because frankly, all I’ve seen, is all I need to see. If you get my drift.”

Eddie turns away and continues his frantic cleaning. Polishing a mug with his shirt sleeve.

“I have… guests… coming over tonight.” If he makes it plural maybe he can get away with it.

“Your DND club.” Wayne guesses. This earns a snort from the metalhead.

“I once saw Gareth eat pizza off the canteen floor. Like I’d bother dusting here for those doofuses.” He grins.

“Then question remains; who are you dusting, and laundry-doing and taking out the spiders for?” Wayne leans forward and asks. Scratching the stubble at the side of his grizzled jaw.

Eddie clings to silence. Which he never does. Never ever does this boy exist without noise bursting out his mouth. Looks like a sheepish kid again.

Wayne’s gaze meets his. ‘Well?’

Cause he would support whomever Eddie chose to bring home. Girl or boy, or undecided. He’s no dummy. He’s got eyes in his head. He’s seen things. The little quirky tics in Eddie’s character when he likes someone. He knows his kid pretty darn well enough by now.

“A girl.” Eddie concludes turning away, like it was casual, cool, and nothing to get worked up over. No biggie. Just… the girl of my dreams. So what? I can be casual about this. It’s totally fine. And normal. Normally fine.

“A girl.” Wayne nods.

“Change this record. It’s skipping.” Eddie leers. Pointing a funny wagging finger at his relative.

“This girl. She royalty or something.”

Eddie cuts a look. It’s just bordering on grumpy and peeved.

“Listen, she ain’t coming to inspect the place or audit us. A little dust and clutter isn’t gonna put her off spending time with you, now is it.”

Eddie sighs. Itched the back of his head. Screwed his eyes shut.

“No. See man. I wanted to be presentable. Cause when she walks in this trailer, she’s gonna be expecting me to look and act like sleazy, greasy trailer trash. And I just. Wanna-“ he clenched his fists.

“Just wanna be….presentable.” He mumbled. Repeating. As he softly scuffed the couch arm with his foot. He sighed. Rubbed a dusty knuckle in his eye until stars scrawled black and bursting.

“Goddd. Look at me. I’ve showered twice. And I untangled the knots out my hair. I used that fancy bar soap I got for xmas that smells like lemons. I brushed my teeth for a whole two minutes. May have used a splash of your cologne. That stung like hell by the way.” He added naughtily. Pinching the collar of his shirt in two fingers and flapping it up and down to cool himself off.

“I’m sweaty. My hair feels itchy. I don’t know what I’m gonna say. She’s gonna be stunning, and awesome and I feel like I’m having a heart seizure or probably a stroke over here. I don’t know man. Fuck-“

Wayne let’s him get it out. As he’s learned with Eddie sometimes it’s best. He often just needed a ramble. To let his tongue lash til he ran dry.

He kicked the couch again. Harder. Still standing up tall on it.

“What’s she like, this girl. She into the same kinda stuff as you?” Wayne enquired.

It dipped muzzily into his big soft heart seeing Eddies mouth hooked right up into a petite smile when he asked about you. One side curls.

“No she’s, uh, she likes Punk music and Bowie, Talking Heads, Billy Idol, and like, you should hear her, she talks about all these artists and shit I’ve never heard of. It’s amazing-“

She’s entirely too good for the likes of me.

“She’s so cool. Effortlessly cool y’know?- And creative?! She likes scary movies and she works in the record store. She hates jocks. I cannot believe she’s actually bothering to look twice at a moron like me. Super senior, King of the freaks.” He jabs his fingers into his bony skull clad chest.

Because Eddie didn’t think it was exactly a secret that flunk out’s like him, were never exactly crawling in babes, or cramming in dates on the weekends.

“I really like her.” He mumbled openly. Wiping palms on his jeans. That’s what this effort all whittled down too.

He couldn’t meet Wayne’s eyes as he said it. It seemed to good to be true. His hopes were so little. Floundering seeds.

He wanted this to go well. He whirled his eyes elsewhere and fidgeted through his words. Typical Eddie.

“I gathered as much from your general-“ Wayne waved his hand around in the air of the living room and towards the kitchen “…Running round. Giving me whiplash just watching you, kid.” He stubs out his cigarette.

Eddie stays where he is. Stood couch top. Absorbing the information Wayne fed him.

“Why don’t you get down from there. Leave the dusting the hell alone. And just relax.” He soothes. Always a balm to the frizzy fraying nerves.

Eddie looks like it could be a trap if he dares to let himself chill out. You say it like it’s easy.

“She must like you to come all the way out here to spend time with you. Just be yourself. I guarantee you, that’s what she’s interested in. Not the state of this place.” He shifts in his chair and groans a little. Adjusts his legs.

Eddie let’s out a huff. Slumps down the sofa and throws his body onto it. Crazy hair flicking after he moved. It’s fluffier too. Some lame attempt at his own hands to pretty it up from its usual insanity.

“What you guys planning on doing?” He seeks. Sips his coffee. Distraction worked well, too. He often found.

“Ordering pizza and watching a couple movies.” Eddie says up to the ceiling. Scanning for cobwebs. Fiddling with the rings on one hand. One knee twitching up and down.

He had the stack of videos ready on top of the TV. Night of the Living Dead. Nightmare on Elm Street. And then Ghostbusters for something undeniably cheesy. The microwave popcorn in the kitchen. A number for the pizza place hemmed in on the fridge with magnets, as per usual.

Wayne makes a soft noise at the back of his throat at hearing that. A smile creeps on his lips. He idly reads the folded back of his paper.

“What?” Eddie quizzes.

Wayne’s smile grows if anything.

“I may be an old man. But I was young once. I do happen to know what that means.” He stared Eddie down in that parental way.

“You’re gonna be careful with this girl, right. Safe sex ain’t no joke.”

That did it.

“Aww man, c’mon.” Eddie choked, cringing, as he launched himself up out the sofa and quickly scurried away like a jangly pillar of goth black missile. Aimed sharpish in another direction.

“It’s a first date, by the way. I’m not gonna be breaking out the condoms and whistles and bells here.” He lets out.

He’s shaking his head and losing himself in the confines of his room. Music is softly shredding out the low stereo. Alice Coopers ‘Welcome to my Nightmare’ sneers softly into his room. He cranks it up.

Wayne stood up. Smiling and shaking his head in making his kid cringe. Gathering his things for work. Walking to the kitchen slowly to empty the dregs of his cup. Leave it in the sink for later. He grabs his things as he walks on past the front door. Heavy work boots crushing soft on the carpets and then the lino.

He walks right up to Eddie’s door, peers into the clustered metal gilded mess of his room.

Shocked to notice he could actually see the floor. And the raunchy pin ups were safely shepherded away inside the closet. The playboy magazines he pretends he doesn’t know about shoved under the bed. The dresser and side tables were still messy as. There’s been an attempt at making the bed. The sheets are straightened and tucked in.

“Listen now, you’re 20 year old man, and you have a zipper. I won’t say any more than that. But you best play it safe. Y’hear?”

“NO.” Eddie fairly shrieks.

“Not listening anymore.” Comes the answer as he faffs around and pretends to be busy with some things in his closet.

“Eddie.” Wayne smiles.

He turns back around and stands up. Expression of limited enthusiasm.

“Wayne. I am the town fuck up in a lot of ways. But not in this way.” He marched back to his bedside. Throws the blue Trojan condom packet up in the air and catches it. A silent ‘see?’

His uncles brow crooks up. Shuffling his wallet into his jeans. Pulling on his heavy fleece lined denim jacket. “Jeez. Those things still in date?”

Eddies face falls.

“They expire?” He flips the packet and looks at the back.

“Lord. I am gettin out of here. Save me some pizza would ya.” Wayne dismisses with a shake of his old head.

This high school romance thing was better left a young man’s game.

Eddie thinks he forgets how to breathe, when the buttery headlights of your car slant into the big window of the trailer.

He poked his head out the door earlier. The air is cool out tonight. Hung with moisture, so thick you could sip at it. Icy cold like a dirty clear martini. The kind of night that bloats up and leaves the taste of wet grass on your tongue.

The headlights are a sobering neon yellow under the cushy spring night that was churning slowly in dregs and streaks, to a violet. Lilac bathed air punched with cold. One of those night slow nights that gets slipped into dark majesty, and the stars cluster bright like winking pearls.

Eddie’s eyes have been on the windows for an hour. He’s paced groves in this thick matted carpet, he’s sure of it. Eyes set on the windows like he’s on a mission. Trying not to chew his nails. Got him acting like a pound mongrel waiting for their owner to come home.

The car lights flick off. Engine cuts dead.

And now he can hear the slam of your car door. His heart rockets into overdrive with scary amounts of adrenaline and stabbing excitement that will, he’s sure, undeniably make a moron out of him before then night is out.

You’re stepping up the creaky porch. He knows those snaps and shifts of the old steps. You’re knocking on his door.

He takes a deep breath. Fills his crappy sentimental lungs, that he placated with a cigarette, twenty ache filled minutes ago.

He cannot open the door fast enough, and the sight of you the other side, roundhouse whirls into his chest. Smacks right between the ribs. Fists him by the front of his t-shirt and yanks-

You’re like that song Wayne hums and taps his feet too, when he makes eggs on a Sunday mo rning. ‘Like being hit by a falling tree, woman, woman what you do to me.’

“Ah woman bearing beer. You’re definitely welcome inside.” He grins. Leaning against his door.

He thinks he keeps on imagining how pretty you are. But here you stand with the cheap orange light of the trailer washing back over you, haloing your body like a wash of heaven, and he’s gotta remember not to stare.

You’ve brushed this smoky-sparkly purple eyeshadow on. Nightshade purple like the sky out tonight. Big lashes all dark too. Your lips are pink shiny and glossy. (You so totally stole a tube from Linda, naughty pencils)

You’re wearing a brown corduroy skirt and a black polo neck. Long brown leather boots up to your calves. Your hair is so silky. Eyes shimmering this angel honey warmth at him.

You’re holding an eggshell coloured plate of Saran-wrapped cookies. Piled high and dark chocolate. In your other hand you have a six pack of coors and something else-

“Best part?” You begin.

You hold something up, tilt your head and there’s that smile.

The thing you hold, it’s all canine teeth and fake tufts of hair. Two triangle ears. Tacky acetic smell of plastic. “For the Heist.”

A wolf man mask. A smile leaps onto his lips.

“You think of everything.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Got yours I hope Pencils?” He asks with a levelled look as he widens the door for you to step in.

“It’s in the car. Messes up my hair.” You shrug. You climb up the last uneven wedge of a step and move to come inside.

“Hey.” You smile. He liked that you goofed around first. Went traditional greeting second.

“Hey back.” He said softly. Pretty smile all wide. Espresso dark eyes fixed unendingly on your face.

You nervously chew your lip and gaze down. You want to lean over and kiss his cheek but didn’t want to overstep or be weird about it.

You clunkily flounder on the doormat. Self doubt lingers on your fingertips. You wish you could just escape into the confidence to lean over and kiss him like you did the other night. But then you had a belly of vodka and Dutch courage backing you up.

Decide hand him over the plate of cookies. He can smell the cocoa and sugar sneaking out when he takes the thing off you. “For you-“ you gift.

“Troops made it. Well done boys.” It makes you chuckle. Wiggles the plate in one hand and talks to the cookies.

“Hope you got a sweet tooth. I made so many.”

“Always.” He answers to your enquiry. “My diet is 98% Oreos and mini powdered donuts.” He beams.

You nudge the beers in your hand too. “Fridge?”

He takes them off you gently. “Yeah, here, gimme.” He bundled them up and stepped past you. The door snapped shut behind him and you took in the space as Eddie padded to the fridge.

You smile as you gaze around the walls. The scratchy orange curtains. The warmness of the lamps splashing up light. A very well beloved couch and all the mug keepsakes and hats on the walls. It’s cosy. It’s a home. Capital H. Just like yours. You can see that from one glance.

The Campbell’s soup can used as an ashtray cause the actual red glass ashtray next to it was overflowing with pocket junk. The plaid shirts yet to be ironed, crumpled somewhat clumsily in a laundry basket. Some sepia family pictures tacked to the space above the counter where the sun won’t bleach them. The red pansy pattern on the sofa that clashes with the lone saggy yellow throw pillow. The marbled malty brown carpet.

A place that sure wasn’t fancy, but had character and warmth in swathes more than anything designer and clinical green money could buy. It’s a sagging trailer sure, no hiding that. But you imagine with a cold shower of outside patting at the roof, these friendly yellow walls would swallow you up in their charming blanket of old cigarettes, male cologne and powder dreamy detergent. Some scratchy record playing blues and a snuggly throw on that couch, it would be a sort of enclosing haven.

“It’s uh- not much. But… a place to crash or to hang your hat, as Wayne says.” Eddie trails off. Setting the cookies on the counter. Nodding in jest towards the numerous baseball caps.

“I like it. Honestly. You should see my house. Moms hippy-bohemian posters and pretty strange sense of interior decor reigns strong.” You tell him.

“I’d like to see that.” He says as he clunks beers in the ancient whirring fridge. You smile over at him. You nod and share eye contact.

“Come through the front door this time though, perhaps. Save your ass from that thorny rose bush.” You encourage warmly.

“Awh. You’re worried about the state of my ass.” He preens. Leans against the counter and gives you moony eyes.

“Damn right. Someone’s got to be.” You answer back.

“Thank heaven it’s you.” He simpers. Smile

Slowly crawls up and your stomach warms all dizzy. You bite your lip.

“Drink?” He offers. Hands splayed over the counter. “We got Pepsi, ginger ale.”

“Actually, a beer would be great.” You nod. Cold buzz light give you some courage to finally bump your mouth to those soft sweet lips you adore. And had missed.

You should have done it tonight the second he opened the door. Damn politeness. You should’ve sprung on him.

“Two beers. Coming up.” He grins. Drums the counter with open slaps of his hands. Dives for the fridge.

You unzip your boots. Worried about getting wet marks on the floor.

“Princess. Your shoes are probably cleaner than this carpet.” Eddie explains wryly from behind the fridge.

Coming back to see you standing into the mushy carpet in your bare feet. Painted toes mulberry purple. Sparkles glitter gritty over the deep paint.

“It’s the principle of the thing now, Munson.” You say as you toe them off. Stuff your socks inside. You place them by the door and wander over to the jut of the counter. Standing the other side looking at him. His skin itches and leaps with the realisation of your smiling at him. He more than likes it.

He’s got the beers before him. Cracking them open. The fizz and the hoppy mist. He slides yours on over for you to catch like a saloon bar in a western.

“Mi’lady” He says as he raises his can up for you to crash them together in a toast. A tinny clank where you toast. His rings clack on the side of the can.

“Thank you, gallant Knight.” You flatter. After taking back a cold hop filled sip.

It makes you think of that slanted drunken time in Kyle’s garden. Sharing polite sips of a warm beer. Stealing glances under fringes and sparing longing looks.

You watch his brows raise with surprise at your choice of title. “And here, I thought I was the jangly belled jester dude. Or the scrawny but lovable bard.” He grins all toothy.

“Fraid not. You’re my Knight in shining DIO vest.” You tell him.

If you had to, you’d rearrange the entire solar system by hand to see the sight of Eddie Munson blush again the way he is now. His cheeks full with it.

He scratches the back of his neck and looks like he wants to twirl away and hide in his hair all bashful.

“You rescued me from the pack of Ogres and brought me healing Campbells aid. Not to mention some very seriously delicious behaviour in a closet.” You played along. Fiddling your fingertips along the edge of the counter. “That’s Knightly behaviour, my guy.” You nod.

“You’d be ok with being my maiden then, huh?” He can’t ignore the very bloated intent behind those words. Chews the inside of his lower lip. He can taste beer and he’s so aching to kiss you again.

“More than ok.” You met his longing brown gaze. Those melty eyes standing stark under that chippy fringe. “Hey, as long as you don’t think I’m the Dragon. I’m fine with whatever.” You hold your hands up.

His smile brightens. “I think we all know who the dragon is, pencils.”

You laugh.

His heart swoons.

And then it twirls somewhere different. He looks intent. Like he wants to grab something but can’t. Pent up. Like he’s digging fingers into the counter to keep from something else.

“Ok, excuse the shit outta me but, fuck it, I should have done this the second I saw you tonight.”

He suddenly bursts into movement around the counter. You follow where he rounds it in record time. Chain jangling. Socked feet padding the floor.

Emotions are chunky jagged things that can’t contain him. Slip off his body like oil slick. Beat off him like rain bouncing off concrete. It can’t contain him or maybe it’s the other way around.

He comes your side and you can barely have a breath before he’s cupped your neck either side, so gentle, and pushed his lips onto yours in a kiss so sweet it made your brain wipe blank.

His body cages you back into the counter. Tile top digging the back of your waist. Your hands flounder for a second. You smile to his lips before your hands come to his back. His belt buckle jams to your skirt and it makes your stomach flutter with want.

He tastes the same and it’s a flavour you’re oddly fascinated by. Smoky brush and hoppy beer. Maybe a little acrid but you don’t mind it. So traditionally Eddie it makes your knees wobble.

His thumb is soft on the line of your jaw. Savours the way He languidly kisses you out of breath. He swallows a sugary clasp of a little gasping noise you made. Wants more- more more more of them. He’s caught in your orbit and never wants to fall out of this clutch of your gravity.

Tastes the gloss off your mouth and he prays you don’t think him a massive perverted creep for this.

When you break for air, his lips don’t wander far. Spit wet and near yours and now he’s wearing sugar high pink gloss too. His nose lays along the line of yours.

“Sorry-“ He gasps.

He may have short circuited your brain with that kiss. Glitched something out for sure.

“I don’t see what sorry has to do with that.” You murmur softly. Leaning up to brush your nose into his. Try to contain this harsh vein buzz he’s got going in you.

“Inviting you over to my trailer and mauling you.” He gasps as he rakes a soft brush of hair off your cheek. Back tenderly behind your soft ear.

You push on your tiptoes. Capture his mouth in a slowly melting peck. Hand sliding across his cheek. Palming a cheekbone. Fingertips nesting in that dry wild mane.

“I don’t mind a little mauling.” You explain. He rests his hands on your hips with a self satisfied chuckle. Thumbs stroking the waistband of your skirt.

“Not very Knightly.” He quipped. Going dumb the way you plucked kisses at his mouth in-between his attempts to speak.

“Chastity is overrated. I’m not waiting in a fucking tower to protect my virtue.” You tell him.

You’ve got his fucking chest skipping and his heart is on the roof of his mouth. Cheeks ache from smiling.

He holds your waist like he’s afraid you’ll move or drift away. Ridiculous. You’ve patiently waited to get here. You’re not budging. Eyes set on yours. The wet gloss glimmer of your lips and those eyes he pathetically wants to stare into like he’s discovered a new form of Eden.

“I can’t believe I didn’t work up the courage to talk to you sooner.” Bursts out his mouth before he can stop it. A shy little confession that he feels very nerdy to have given a voice too.

“Wanna know something?” You tell him all softly. Stroking over the wavy tips of those choppy bangs.

“If not guess I’ll just kiss it outta you…” He decides. Eyes dizzily on your lips. His hips sway into you and he tilts his head to plant a sweet kiss at the corner of your mouth.

“I think I had a crush on you from the very second you got sat behind me in history class.” You explain.

You couldn’t help it. There you were all wrapped and stirred up in your love of punk and anarchy. And then in walks this crazy, messy leather clad and metal dipped kid with doe eyes and trouble stroked deep into his smile. The frenzy and the non-conformity. Clutched you good.

“Why do you think I always tapped on your shoulder asking for a pencil, pencils?” He teased. But he wasn’t done;

Sense slotted into place.

“Do you know why I call you that by the way?” He checks. Voice such a soft chasm of purity.

“I assumed the way I’m always covered in graphite and ink, and paint splatters.” You shrugged.

“No.” He raises your hand up and marks a kiss the back of it. “But I do really dig that look on you.”

“Alas-“ He continued. “Its because you never snapped at me. Never once rolled your eyes or ignored me when I tapped on your shoulder. You didn’t dismiss me the way everyone else did.”

You’re floored. Stood pinned to this counter and you’re so touched.

“You always gave me a pencil. Always. And you smiled at me as you did it. Didn’t tell me to keep it with disgust or bark that you wanted it back right after. Look at it like you’d contract rabies from being touching something I’d used.”

You indeed smiled at him. You asked about the patches on his vest. About the bands you’d not heard of. Told him the answer to a random question of the pop quiz if you saw him struggling. Twisted around and caught sight of the horned devil skull he was doodling and thought it was cool.

You lit up when he came into class or when he said something funny. And sure, he did show off in the hopes it would earn that beam of yours. He always felt like opportunity slipped out his hands when you scurried away after class finished.

He tried every day, to stay and catch your eye- make you laugh again. Just something to rouse that little kernel of connection he had to you. And when he saw you around you were always alongside the blonde one he assumed was too cool to approach.

“Wow, we’re morons. It’s only taken us this long to get things going.” You supplied casually.

“Pencils. Trust me. I noticed you beside that blonde poodle friend of yours a lot. I thought how pretty and awesome you seemed. Would’ve tried to talk to you, but I kinda thought you hated me.” He admits with a wince.

“Why?” You ask almost sadly. Ready to crunch up your own conscience in guilt.

“That’s what people usually do. They don’t even get to know me they just decide to skip right to the ‘hating my guts’ part.”

You shake your head. Boldly.

“Not this people.” You say. Cupping his cheek. “And I’d like to spend a lot of time proving that tonight.”

Your free hand slunk to his waist. Holding him with a perfectly lovely touch that has his knees swooning. Fuck it, yes. He could swoon too.

He smiles at that. And it’s so stunningly honest it makes the slippy walls of your heart ache. Lays his lips onto yours again.

“What’s say we order this pizza, get buzzed and uh, do some very dirty hand stuff on the couch whilst we pretend to be interested in it?” He grins.

“Perfect.” You slip up and kiss him again. Arms crossed over his shoulders. Body entirely pasted to his.

“Does this mean we’re officially dating now?” You ask him sweetly when you pull back. Not having moved one inch away. Engrossed, entangled and entwined.

“It better.” He nudged his nose to yours. And it really was as simple as that.

“Fuck. I wanna kiss you again. Can I-“ He started, and before you can even answer. Before your tongue can shape and push words out your teeth. He’s on you again.

“Baby. We’re way past asking permission.” You break away and breathily tell him as the kissing gets heavier, more intense. Arms squeeze harder. Getting closer when there’s no room to spare already. Crushed. No breath. It’s glorious.

“Don’t tell me that.” He flirts. If you give him free-reign, you’ll never be able to reel him back again. You just won’t. He’s far too, far gone.

“Believe I just did.” You tell him. Ballsy.

He leads you stumbling by the waist over to the couch. Smiling. Nibbling your lower lip. Sucking and his tongue sweeping yours. Knocking and kissing, knees touching. Falling and falling into each other again. You gasp where you awkwardly clash together on the lumpy couch cushions.

“Oh, you’re gonna regret that one Pencils.” He teases. Face all blushy and definitely love-drunk. Kiss dazed. Funny how you’d quite forgotten about those beers all of a sudden.

“Bring it on, Munson.” You urged.

🕷️This here? Oh no biggie. Just the next part of Eddie x Pencils 🕷️

My taglist for the JQ babes; @ceriseheaven @indouloureux @stiegasaw @fujiihime @youaremyfamiliar @captain-tch @ghosttownwherenoonegoes @svenyves @sammararaven @feralgoblinbabe @groupie-love-71 @andromeda-andromeda @starbxcks @morganamoonstone @ramona-thorns @gvtosbith @poppy-metal @munsonswhore86 @munsonlov3r @lunatictardis @shenevertricks1831 @hazzaismyreligion @harrys-tittie @anaisweird @cerinthussulpicia @cinnamoncunt @thincrusttheworks @manicpixiedreamcurl @therosietoesy @fanficappreciationblog @thicksexxualtension @tvserie-s-world @sharp-and-swift @dadsbongos @2clones-1kamino @edsforehead @chcolateeyelver @seven-glass-kids @forever-is-not-for-everyone @creme-bruhlee @bkish @wayward-rose @wyverntatty @latenighttalkingwithgrapejuice @churchmuffins @chickpeadumpsterfire @choke-me-levi @prozacandnicotine @xeddiesbattattsx

#eddie munson #Eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson smut #Eddie Munson fluff #eddie munson x oc #eddie munson x original character #eddie munson fan fiction #eddie munson fanfic #super freak series #stranger things s4 #stranger things #i would die for this man #punkwrites

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 10 months

Text

Comet Donati [Chapter 6: No Control]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, all-you-can-eat sushi, bodily injury, violence, hungry deer, Selena Gomez, angst!!!

Selected Chapter Quote: “He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Word count: 9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @heavenly1927 @mariahossain @echos-muses @padfooteyes @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis @juliavilu1 @amiraisgoingthruit @lauraneedstochill @wintrr13 @r0segard3n

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

Your last day waking up in Singapore: lying in bed and watching the shadows of birds shoot across the ceiling like falling stars. Your wrist aches in its splint. The door to the balcony is wide open. The wind blows in hot and damp off the South China Sea. You hear him before you see him: the swipe of a keycard, the swinging of the door, the clop clop clop of undoubtedly neon Crocs against the hardwood floor.

You look over at him, not moving from the bed. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Then Aegon notices something in the tiny trashcan beside your nightstand that’s cluttered with souvenirs. Nestled between empty soda cans and Starburst wrappers is a mostly full pack of birth control pills. He stares at it for a while before he says, tentatively: “Trying for a little bundle of joy? With anyone I know?”

“Definitely not.” You sigh, turning back to the ceiling, morose. “Baela and I did 23AndMe like a month ago, and we just got our results back. She’s distantly related to royalty. I have a defective gene that makes me extra susceptible to blood clots. So if I take hormonal birth control I could have a stroke or something.”

“Damn, that sucks,” Aegon says.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s good you found out, you know? I wouldn’t want you dropping over dead.”

“Yeah,” you say again, flatly, ungenerously.

“Hey, no big deal, Stargirl. You know I’d use condoms anyway.”

“Well I might at some point in my life want to have sex with someone who’s not you, so.”

Aegon steps closer; he appears upside down as he studies you from above, sunburned forehead knit into thoughtful grooves, smelling like Tiger Beer and Axe body spray and…you think…chicken wings. His hair is in disarray, his aviator sunglasses tangled in blond knots. He’s wearing a lavender tank top, like dusk, like a bruise. “Ohhhh, I get it. This is an Aemond and Shelby thing.”

You hate that you’re so transparent, like a window wiped clean of fog and fingerprints. You hate that he’s right. “Why are they even together? What the hell do they have in common?”

“Now or before?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, before…” Aegon scratches at his cheek. There is a bug bite there, a tiny pink welt left by the venom of a mosquito or a spider. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Aemond got the satisfaction of boning the kind of girl who would have screamed if he touched her back in high school. Shelby got a massive career boost. She had 900,000 Instagram followers when they met. Now she has over 20 million.”

That recurring, futile refrain: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

“And I won’t lie. They had some good times.” Aegon grins down at you. “Just like we did.”

“What about now?”

“Now…” Aegon ponders this. “Now I think they’re both lost. Neither of them knows what comes next. Aemond leaving Comet. Shelby hitting that age when people like her start checking off the husband and kids boxes. When you’re thrown off a ship, you cling to the life raft, even if it’s small or ripped up or half-deflated or whatever, right? You try to hold on to what you have left. You return to what’s familiar. And that doesn’t make it right, but it’s what people do.”

“It is,” you agree mournfully. “So Aemond was the one who broke it off.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he took her back.” She called and called and called, he finally answered.

“He had a moment of weakness. Now we all have to live with it.”

“I didn’t know that.” Then you sit up on the bed and look at Aegon. “When the label wanted to get rid of Aemond, why didn’t you fight for him?”

“That’s just the way of the world, Stargirl.” He shrugs, an inevitability, good weather, bad weather, sun and clouds and storms. “He couldn’t stay in the band the way he is now. And the problem isn’t what he looks like. The problem is in his soul. But I have no idea how to fix it.” Aegon smiles, warm like summer. “I thought maybe you would. That’s why I called you.”

“You didn’t even know me,” you tell him. “I was just some girl from a bar.”

“No,” Aegon says softly, and he does not elaborate. And then, bright and cheerful again: “You’re really going to earn your paycheck at our next stop.”

“Where are we going?” You recall the names you’ve heard bouncing around since Comet arrived in East Asia, the cities you’ve seen on banners and t-shirts and Instagram posts. “Bangkok? Kuala Lumpur? Manila? Jakarta? Seoul?”

“Tokyo.” Aegon is still smiling, though in an off-kilter way now, uneasily, his murky ocean-blue eyes somber. The scene of the crime. Where the accident happened. Where Aemond believes his life ended. “We’re performing at the Budokan.”

~~~~~~~~~~

White clouds turn to sapphire waves, then emerald green fields and forests, then buildings in a million different shades of grey that stretch on forever, steel and concrete and asphalt and glass. Tokyo is the largest city you’ve ever seen, the largest city imaginable. It is a labyrinth that makes you think of the hay mazes that farms back home set up each autumn; it beckons you in and then dares you to leave.

As the band hurries through Haneda Airport, you are pursued by paparazzi and hyperventilating fans. The usual suspects—Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—can be relied upon to high five, smile, flash peace signs and hand hearts, blow kisses, pass out crochet astronomical objects, and shout such endearments as (woefully mispronounced) “Konnichiwa!” and “We love you, Japan!” Shelby waves like she’s goddamn Princess Diana. Aemond bows his head, his eyes enigmatic behind his sunglasses, his steps swift. Luke holds Rhaena’s hand; Baela walks with them. You hide behind Cregan. He casts quite a large shadow.

“I look real rock and roll now,” you joke, gesturing with your splinted arm.

Cregan replies in his rumbly subterranean voice: “I think I have you beat.” He pulls up one of his sleeves—floral print, silk, Valentino—and shows you the underside of his right forearm. Bisecting the flesh from his wrist to the crook of his elbow is a long, faint, moon-white scar that you’ve never noticed before, never even heard anyone mention.

“Oh, ouch! You broke it?”

“Compound fracture.” He covers his forearm again with his sleeve.

“When? How?”

Cregan hesitates. Suddenly, he no longer wants to be having this conversation. “Years ago.”

Just outside the airport waits that trusty fleet of black, tinted-window Escalades; but Aemond has requested that his 1960 Gold Star be there too. He takes his keys, helmet, and jacket from one of Comet’s hulking security guards. Shelby’s detail is notably more subdued since that night in Singapore; the man who dislocated your wrist has been exiled from the tour. Aemond climbs onto his motorcycle and starts the engine. The sound takes you back to Rome: when your hopes and spirits were high, when you and Aemond were still living on the light side of the moon.

“You in the mood for a ride, Shelby?” Aegon asks, smirking unkindly, taunting, chomping loudly on cotton candy flavored Bubble Yum. “Don’t forget your helmet. We’d all be lost without you.”

Shelby combs out her beachy blond waves with her artful fingers, tan, reedy, nails turquoise and adorned with golden koi fish. “You’re psychotic if you think I’m getting on that bike.”

“Jesus,” Jace mutters. He is as shocked as anyone by his abrupt demotion to only the second most villainous person in Comet’s retinue.

Aemond doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything to Shelby, doesn’t even look at her. But he does glance over at you. And the words rise in your throat like a burning sun at dawn: I’ll go, I’d love to go, I trust you, I want you. But before you can say anything, Aemond has knocked the kickstand out of the way and is weaving through thick afternoon traffic towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. And as the Escalades roll and the band chats around you—indistinctly, abstractedly—you keep staring out the window and searching for glimpses of Aemond like the rare flash of a meteor in a city sky; but you can’t find him.

Criston knows he’s brought Comet to dangerous ground, peppered with quagmires and landmines. So he has planned a ruthlessly hectic itinerary. As soon as you’ve received your room key and unpacked, it’s time for dinner at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant down the street. Criston herds the band there like the rugged Australian cattle dogs that your parents have back in Kansas City nip at the heels of snorting, intractable Black Angus bulls. You sit between Baela and Aegon, who is wearing his neon green tank top, matching Crocs (per usual), and khaki cargo shorts. He’s also gulping sake bombs until they dribble down his sunburned face. Countless varieties of sushi and side dishes rotate by on a conveyer belt, colorful little plates waiting to be snatched up: salmon, tuna, eel, octopus, shrimp, miniature omelets, fried tofu, Wagyu beef, squid, yellowtail, veggie rolls, chicken and pork dumplings, seaweed salad.

“You okay over there?” Aegon asks, grinning as he watches you stab at your eel sushi, topped with some kind of mayo-like sauce and delicious but tragically challenging to eat.

“I didn’t know how to use chopsticks before my dominant hand was put out of commission.” You glare down the row at Shelby. She glowers back. Since that night in Singapore, you circle each other like snarling undomesticated animals, wolves or coyotes. Now you’re on her radar. Now she knows there is something—that mysterious, ever-shifting, worrying something—between you and Aemond. She just doesn’t know what it is. Neither do you, neither does he, neither does anyone.

“Want me to feed you?” Aegon slurs flirtatiously. He plucks up a piece of your eel sushi with his chopsticks and promptly drops it in your lap. “Oh. Fuck.”

Baela presses the button on the counter to summon the server. “I’ll get you a fork.”

“You are a saint,” you tell her. “Patron saint of initiative. Or drive, whichever you prefer the sound of.” Aegon is mayhem, Aemond is lost causes. What am I?

“And you are an uncultured hick from Kansas.”

You smile at her. “Missouri.”

Your fork soon arrives. A few seats down the row, you hear Shelby ask innocently, like it doesn’t mean anything: “How old is Louis Tomlinson’s son now?”

Aemond shrugs. He’s watching the conveyor belt for vegan options; he keeps missing them when they pass by. “I don’t know, five?”

“No, Freddie?!” Luke says. “He’s gotta be like seven now. We saw him last summer at Niall’s pool party.”

“He was so cute,” Shelby says. She’s sitting on Aemond’s good side, as always. She rubs his back and you fight the urge to break her fingers one by one, snapping them in half like dry autumn twigs, lifeless and hollow. “Wasn’t he cute, honeybunch?”

“Sure,” Aemond replies distractedly. And of course Shelby is the type of person who believes that becoming a father will heal a man, rather than just dooming his children to be collateral damage.

Aegon peeks over the conveyer belt at the chefs who are preparing plates in the middle. He lurches and wobbles. Criston covers his own face with his hands, mortified. “Hey, hey, can I get a Crab Rangoon please?”

A chef says something in Japanese, soft and polite but clearly imploring him to sit back down.

Aegon repeats slowly: “Crab! Rangooooooon!”

“Hey dumbass,” Jace says. “That’s Chinese. We’re in Japan.”

“Oh. Right.” Aegon sighs, retreats, and orders himself another sake bomb.

You grab a plate of veggie rolls and another of fried tofu sushi off the conveyer belt and pass them down the row to Aemond. Shelby sends you the most venomous of glares, but Aemond mouths when she’s not paying attention: Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two shows in Tokyo, two performances on the stage where Aemond was mutilated. Of course, you don’t see mutilation when you look at him. You never have. You see the way the light hits the angles of his jaw and nose and cheekbones and think of marble faces in museums, generals, kings, saints, angels. You see the crystalline blue of his right eye and think of rivers, cool and rushing and clean. You see the ethereal haze of his left eye and think of other planets. You don’t know why everyone else reads his scar and blindness as a tale of unspeakable ruin. You can’t imagine seeing Aemond that way. It would be easier, less painful, simpler for you if you could. Maybe you could stop wanting him. Maybe you could stop dreaming about him, wisps of longing and memory that escape you as soon as you wake.

Aemond does not attend Comet’s concerts at the Budokan. They’re the only ones you’ve ever known him to miss. He rides out on his Gold Star instead, and then reappears to join the band for their post-show ritual in Jace’s suite, grim and quiet and scribbling in his black-paged notebook, smoking his cigarettes, sipping his Brambles. You cannot blame Aemond. You weren’t here last December when a piece of rigging collapsed during soundcheck and nearly killed him, and yet you can’t stop thinking about it; you can’t stop yourself from glancing up at the rafters during shows, wondering exactly how it happened, picturing Aemond bloody and unconscious on the stage, half-blinded and robbed without knowing it yet.

Tomorrow night is Comet Donati’s final performance in Tokyo, but today Criston has a day trip planned. He has filled every spare second of this tour stop with distractions. The band travels by bullet train (or shinkansen) and then local railways to Nara, the city that served as Japan’s capital in the 700s. Criston hires a tour guide—an 80-year old man called Toru-san, who possesses an incalculable amount of knowledge and also a very, very thick accent—to lead you all around Nara Park to see Isuien Garden, the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, the Nara National Museum, and finally the Great Buddha. Nara Park is full of food and souvenir vendors, as well as 1,200 sika deer that you can pet and feed, albeit at risk of being trampled by overenthusiastic herbivores. There are signs posted with warnings to exercise caution, complete with cartoon illustrations of deer gone rogue.

It’s 95 degrees outside with 80% humidity. You are drenched with sweat and guzzling boba tea. The handle of your bag from a gift shop is slung over your splint. Toru-san, despite his long pants and cardigan sweater, is looking spry as ever and is deep in conversation with Luke and Rhaena; he is regaling them with a bottomless well of Nara trivia. Cregan and Daeron are still browsing through gift shops, mostly for the opportunity to escape the heat and hover, sighing with relief, in front of every electric fan they come across. Aegon, lobster-level red—you aren’t sure if he’s more sunburned or flushed—is snoring under a tree as deer nibble at his cyan tank top and white cargo shorts. Aemond purchased probably $200 worth of deer crackers and has attracted a sizeable crowd of furry new friends. He’s like he always is around animals: beaming, immersed, at peace. Shelby is capturing pictures and video clips of him from a distance.

Nearby where you stand under the shade of a black pine tree, Baela is dressed in a crop top and yoga pants and stretching in the middle of a patch of grass. She keeps having to stop to shove deer away from her as they tiptoe close, searching for snacks. Jace is using Google Translate to flirt with a crowd of Japanese fangirls who have recognized him. They are giggling so loudly you can hear them from across a field. Baela is trying to ignore this. She falls out of a pose and sighs irritably, then walks over to you. Together, you watch Jace for a while, you slurping on your boba tea, Baela frowning with her hands on her willowy waist.

At last, she says: “Sometimes we love people who we know don’t deserve it. But that doesn’t make us love them any less. We just hate ourselves for not being stronger.”

“I think you’re incredibly strong, Baela.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Strong enough to leave him. Strong enough to begin living your own life again.”

Her expression is suddenly uncharacteristically vulnerable, fearful. “I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve never been an adult without him.”

“You’d figure it out. And you wouldn’t be alone. You’d have Rhaena, and Luke, and ballet, and all your friends and family—”

“And you too, right?” she asks. “You’ll still be my friend? Even after you go back home?”

You are stunned into a silence that Baela first mistakes for rejection. Her face falls. “No no no, I’m not hesitating, you just caught me by surprise. Of course I’ll still be your friend after the tour is over. I’ll be your friend forever.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you’ll visit me in prison if I snap one day and throw Jace into a meatgrinder?”

You laugh and hug her, your sweat dampening each other’s clothes: her orange crop top, your Backstreet Boys t-shirt. “Absolutely. For sure.”

“Okay. I gotta go practice some more.” She spends long hours down in the hotel gym while everyone else is sleeping or partying or preparing for shows, running and stretching and yoga and repeating the same dance routines over and over again. You applaud and whistle as she leaves. “Stop,” Baela complains, but she’s grinning.

You procure another boba tea. You find a nice shady spot on a bench. You check your phone; there’s maybe fifteen more minutes until the band is scheduled to leave for the train station to begin the journey back to Tokyo. Naturally, Criston has dinner already planned: kaiseki ryori, a traditional multi-course meal. You wonder if there will be vegan options for Aemond. Your eyes drift back to him. They always seem to. He’s dragging his palm down the face of a ten-point buck as he feeds him a crumbling brown cracker. There’s a fawn curled up in Aemond’s lap. His blond hair is slicked back off his forehead, his black shirt mostly unbuttoned. Sweat gleams on his chest. Your fingertips ache to draw sloping lines and lazy circles in it.

“I never worried about him,” Criston says. He’s appeared beside you, arms crossed guardedly. You move over so there’s room for Criston on the bench. He sits, distant and troubled. “I always worried about the others. Aegon and Jace especially. But not Aemond.”

“Because he never needed you,” you say quietly.

“He didn’t,” Criston agrees. “And so I wasn’t there to protect him that day.”

The day of the accident. “From what I understand, it wasn’t something you could have prevented.”

“No, I couldn’t have stopped that piece of rigging from falling. But I could have made it so he wasn’t standing under it.”

You wait for Criston to explain. That’s an element that people often underestimate: the power of waiting for someone to be ready.

“It was soundcheck,” Criston says. His voice is strained, hushed. He repeatedly touches the stubble of his beard, a nervous habit. “Aemond was on time, as always. Aemond was exactly where he was supposed to be. But no one else was. Aegon and Jace had gone off to a strip club or a burlesque show or something, I don’t remember. They came back to the hotel and were absolutely hammered, they were crawling around on the hallway floor and puking in corners, laughing hysterically, completely out of their minds. Cregan and Luke were there trying to get them cleaned up. I was on the phone with Cregan, he was pissed, probably the most angry I’ve ever heard him, he kept pausing to yell at Aegon. He’d dragged him into a cold shower, but Aegon was fighting, trying to bite and kick him and whatever the hell else. So eventually I decided to go to the hotel and deal with it. Aemond offered to go with me. I told him no, you stay here, I’ll bring the other four even if I have to get the security guys to toss Aegon and Jace over their shoulders and carry them. Then I left.”

“And that’s when it happened,” you realize. “While you were gone.”

“Yes,” Criston says. And he gazes across Nara Park, here in body but his mind trapped in the maze of the past.

“You had no way of knowing what would happen, Criston. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have told him to come with me back to the hotel. Or I should have stopped Aegon and Jace from getting wasted. If they’d been on time, if soundcheck had happened as scheduled, no one would have been standing where that piece of rigging fell. Aemond would still be the leader of Comet. He would still have his face, his sight, his life.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you say again.

“Alicent blames me,” he confesses. And you only know who she is because you’ve asked Aegon: the wife of Viserys Targaryen, the mother of his three sons. “She’ll never forgive me.”

Is that really why she avoids you, Criston? Or is there another reason? “If that’s true, it’s only because she’s feeling a lot of horrible things—grief, pain, regret, guilt—and she’s directing them at you. You haven’t earned them. You’re just the person standing in the line of fire. They’re a reflection of Alicent’s inner turmoil, not of your own worth. I think you’ve done a phenomenal job trying to keep this band safe and happy. And I know it’s not easy. I know it’s damn near impossible.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, looking at you with large, dark, truthful eyes like a dog’s.

And you imagine a world in which you’d never seen Aegon after that night in Kansas City, never met Aemond, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, Daeron, Criston. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

Criston reaches over and—for a moment, so briefly you could have imagined it—rests his hand on your shoulder like he sometimes does to Aemond and Luke. Then he leaves to collect Cregan and Daeron from a shaved ice vendor. Shelby has strolled over to consult with Toru-san, presumably so she can add his trivia to her Instagram posts and TikTok videos. You go to Aemond.

“I have a confession to make,” he says solemnly as you approach.

The oxygen vanishes from your lungs; you try to hide this. “What is it?”

Aemond smiles up at you. “When the tour guide was leading us here, I thought he kept saying that the park was full of bears. And I didn’t want to kill the mood or anything, but I was definitely concerned about going on a field trip to feed over 1,000 uncaged bears. I am very, very relieved that he was in fact saying deer.”

You chuckle and sit next to Aemond on the grass, petting the fawn in his lap. It blinks sleepily at you, its fur soft and spotted, its ears pricked up and curious.

“What’s your souvenir for this stop of the tour?” Aemond asks.

You pull it out of your bag to show him: a small stuffed sika deer complete with floppy felt antlers. “Isn’t it adorable?”

“It is,” he says. “Are you going to have room for all these keepsakes in your apartment back home?”

“Already fantasizing about me leaving, huh?”

“No,” Aemond says, seriously now. Deadly serious. “No, I’m not.” And then Criston is shouting through cupped hands for everybody to huddle up so you can all head to the train station.

It’s not until the band is trekking out of Nara Park towards the blissful promise of air conditioning that you realize someone is missing. When you look around, you see Criston, Aemond, Shelby, Aegon (rubbing his eyes and yawning), Baela, Jace, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, and a smattering of security guards dressed in black.

“Wait,” you say. “Where’s Daeron?”

A chorus of confusion: “What?” Huh?” “He’s not here?” At last, Criston spies him sitting alone on a wooden park bench, glumly eating through his mountain of shaved ice.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Jace says impatiently, swiping perspiration from his forehead.

Aegon massages your shoulders. “I think this might call for your particular area of expertise, Stargirl.” And when Aemond’s eye flicks to Aegon fleetingly, resentfully, you think for the first time: And where were you, Aegon, when Aemond was waiting all those months ago? Whoring, drinking, self-destructing in ways that take other people down with you? Then you leave him.

Through the heat that lays thick over the city like a tangle of vines, you trudge to the bench where the youngest Targaryen brother is lingering. “Daeron? What’s wrong?”

He stares gloomily down into his shaved ice: blood-colored, strawberry, ichigo. “Everyone thinks I’m always joking and optimistic, but I’m not.”

You ask gently: “What are you really, Daeron?”

“I don’t know what to be. That’s the problem. I worry about it all the time. I can’t win. If I’m sad, then I’m ungrateful for this tremendous opportunity. But if I’m happy, it’s like I’m dancing on Aemond’s grave.”

“He’s not dead, Daeron,” you say.

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

“But a lot of the time people talk about him like he is. You speak around him, over him, through him. Do you think he doesn’t notice?” Do you think he can’t feel the weight of that dark gravity that roots him to the earth? Do you think he can disentangle who he is from the wreckage that has buried its shrapnel in his bones?

Daeron isn’t insulted by what you’ve said. Instead, he seems fascinated. He seems grateful, like you’ve sat down to help him with an especially baffling puzzle. “What would he want from us, do you think?”

“I think he wants to know that his time in Comet wasn’t wasted. That even if he leaves, he will still be a part of this family. I think he wants to be acknowledged. He doesn’t want pity or awkward silences, he doesn’t want to pretend that the accident never happened. He wants to know that his life will go on in spite of it.”

Daeron ruminates on this, taking a bite of his towering mound of shaved ice. “If I said something about him at the last Tokyo show tomorrow, do you think he’d mind? I’ve had this idea for a while, but I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

“That depends on what you say.”

Daeron asks, peering up at you with large pale eyes: more translucent than Aegon’s, more harmless than Aemond’s. He has been shown more kindness than either of them; he is perhaps less deep, less singularly brilliant, but also less burdened. It is a trade many would happily agree to. It is a trade they would pay for in blood. “What should I say?”

You smile at Daeron. “The truth.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I’d like to take a moment to share something with all of you,” Daeron says into his microphone as soon as Comet finishes The Worst Way To Be. The audience lowers their cheers to a reverent, intensely attentive murmur.

“Wait, what?” Baela whispers to you and Rhaena as you stand in the front row. Shelby, who had been looking rather bored, whips out her phone and begins a live stream. Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Cregan are upbeat and beaming—as is expected of them, as is required—but they pass each other nervous glances like folded paper notes in a high school classroom. This is not in the script.

“I just want to say thank you,” Daeron continues. His voice reverberates off the walls of the Budokan. “Thank you to all of you guys, of course. Our amazing, incredible fans. Thank you for letting us live this dream of a life.” There are claps and whistles, shrieked declarations of undying adoration. Daeron takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking; you can see the microphone tremble. “And thank you to my big brother Aemond.” Instantaneously, the crowd goes as close to silent as it is possible for a stadium at max capacity to be. The others are gawking at him openly now, unable to paper over it with masklike smiles. “I had been following Comet around for years before I got the offer to officially join. So I know how much work and talent Aemond poured into this band. I’m beyond honored to be up on this stage tonight performing for all of you, but I wish it could have happened a different way. I wish Aemond could be here too. And no matter where he goes in the world or what he does next, he will always be the person who made Comet Donati possible. And he will always be my greatest inspiration. I love you, man. We all love you.”

And the audience erupts into deafening cheers and applause, all for a soul who could not bring himself to attend the show. There are chants of We love you, Aemond! that go on for more than five minutes. Aegon is shouting as loudly as anyone; Jace, Luke, and Cregan are running around the stage and encouraging the crowd. They are a little shellshocked, but they are genuine.

Even Jace, you think, you marvel. Even Jace is honoring him. He doesn’t hate Aemond after all. He provokes and he taunts, sure, and he crosses lines on occasion, but Jace doesn’t hate Aemond. He might even miss him.

For their last night in Tokyo, Criston has grander aspirations for the band than the usual wind down in Jace’s suite. He gets everyone—Aemond included, fetched from the bar of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, already several Brambles deep—into the Escalades to drive to Club Camelot, where Criston has reserved one of the three floors for Comet. It swiftly fills like a flute of champagne: women in sparkling gowns, men with baiting smiles, security guards and label executives and friends and acquaintances and models. The tiles on the floor are black and white, but bathed in sapphire luminescence that covers everyone like rain. Empty hands are filled with frosty bottles and glasses clinking with ice. The song that thunders out of the speakers is a throwback: Butterfly by Crazy Town.

Cregan has acquired a harem of sorts; you look once and he’s flocked by three gazelle-like companions, you look again and there are five of them. Jace is mingling freely. Aemond is talking to Daeron—thanking him, it appears, offering heartfelt gratitude—while Shelby greets a pack of influencer-types as they arrive. They squeal and jump up and down with her in their clicking stilettos, then take turns snapping each other’s pictures. Criston actually appears to be somewhat relaxed. He sips on a Sapporo Premium and chats with one of the guys from the label, gesturing casually with his expressive hands. Aegon is curled up in a booth with Selena Gomez. Yes, Selena freaking Gomez. He keeps playing with her glossy dark tresses and making her giggle, propping his sunburned face up on his knuckles, glowing in that way that he does. It’s not just for you. It’s never been just for you. And sometimes he’s close to you and sometimes he’s not, and right now he’s on the other side of the solar system, he’s out in the Oort cloud, he’ll be back to visit earth in a few hundred years. Aegon disappears into the bathroom every few minutes. You see smudges of white powder on his hands, under his nose. If he tried to talk to you right now, you wouldn’t know what to say to him. He would feel like a stranger.

You’re watching Aemond. You wish you weren’t, but you are. He’s in all black, the top three buttons of his shirt undone. You nurse a Bramble and follow Baela, Rhaena, and Luke around the dancefloor, barely able to hear them over the music. Luke is lightheartedly making fun of Baela for something. Her earrings? Her shoes?

“I’ll have you know that I’m very important around here!” Baela cries over the music. “I’m the patron saint of drive!”

“Patron saint of driving herself to the Gucci store, maybe,” Luke says.

They’re all laughing. You feel like you’re observing them through a transparent wall, like you’re at the aquarium and they’re a dazzling rare species and you’re some grubby kid with your palms pressed to the glass. What am I still doing here? Why did I ever think I belonged here?

You break away from Baela, Rhaena, and Luke and drift by Shelby and her fellow influencers, not intending to eavesdrop but catching a few fragments of their conversation like Jupiter and Saturn capture moons. As Aemond talks to Daeron across the room, Shelby is lamenting her love life. She thinks she’s being discrete, but she’s had more than a few gin and tonics.

“No, he still…he probably doesn’t want me looking at him…he’ll let me blow him, but he won’t actually…you know…?”

And you remember what you told him on that balcony in Reykjavik: I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to.

You were right. You’re still right. And here you are, like mirrors: Aemond not fucking Shelby, you not fucking Aegon, and there’s no especially good reason for either except that it just doesn’t feel right. After a while, Shelby and her entourage leave to check out another nightclub down the block. More photo opportunities, you suspect. A change of scenery.

“How’s your wrist?” Jace inquires. He’s found you loitering on the outskirts of the dancefloor. He’s wearing a black sequined blazer with nothing underneath except skin and ink. He’s unsteady on his feet, a Vesper sloshing in his glass. Now the song that’s playing is Ed Sheeran’s I Don’t Care, featuring Justin Bieber. In the booth she’s sharing with Aegon, Selena Gomez audibly groans.

“Great. It actually feels better when no one talks to me.”

Jace cackles, far too loudly. “You are hilarious. Hey, hey, listen.” His free hand skates around your waist. Instinctively, you jolt away from him.

“Nope.”

“Listen.” He grips you more adamantly. “Let’s do this.”

“No, no, that’s a very kind offer but I’d rather chew off my own limbs, thank you.”

“Look, I don’t care if you’ve hooked up with Aegon,” Jace purrs into your ear, sweating out vodka and gin, his curls brushing against your cheek. “Hell, I don’t care if you’re still hooking up with Aegon. I’m better than him. I have to be, right? That fat drunk. I’ll show you.”

You try to pull away from him again. You’re wearing the short sparkly dress you bought in Reykjavik, black velvet and silver stars. “Jace, don’t touch me.”

“Come on, Stargirl, give me a shot—”

“Jace,” you say harshly, your eyes blazing. “Do not touch me.”

“Okay,” he sighs; and, to his credit, he releases you. He holds up his palm in surrender. “Okay, fine, but when you change your mind—”

Aemond soars in out of nowhere, a comet, a meteor, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. His fist connects with Jace’s jaw. Jace’s Vesper goes flying; blood spurts from his mouth, split lips and lost teeth. “Don’t you fucking touch her!” Aemond is roaring. He has Jace pinned to the floor, black and white and sapphire and red. “When she says not to touch her, you don’t, you hear me?!”

People are screaming and descending upon them, trying to pull them apart. Your Bramble shatters against the tile floor. Criston is here, and security guards, and Baela and Rhaena and Luke and Aegon. Everyone is talking at the same time, so it’s almost like no one is. Jace is striking at Aemond from the ground. Aemond hits him again, and again, knuckles into defenseless flesh and bone, blood vessels bursting, nerves on fire. The music stops, the lights come on.

“Aemond, stop!” you shout. “Aemond, Aemond, you’re going to kill him!”

“Let him go, Aemond, please!” Baela is yelling, and there’s raw terror in her voice.

Then Jace lands a solid punch at last, a hook that comes in from Aemond’s left. Blood pours from Aemond’s nose, it’s on his face and his throat, it’s running down his chest. Cregan arrives, locks his arms around Aemond’s waist, and heaves him away. Before Jace has a second to recover, Aegon wrenches him up by the collar of his blazer and slaps him open-handed across the face.

“He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Criston bellows: “Aegon, back up, back up, back the fuck up!” He finally gets a good look at Jace: bleeding, bruised, teeth missing, blinking dazedly at the spectators, too stunned to feel the pain yet. “Oh my God!” Criston whirls to Aemond, who is struggling against Cregan’s grasp. “How’s he going to perform in five days, huh?! Jesus Christ, he looks like he’s been butchered! How am I going to cover that up?! How is he going to sing?!” Criston pulls Jace to his feet; he practically has to carry him. Baela follows after them, more distressed than you’ve ever seen her, flowing tears and strangled sobs. Rhaena and Luke go too.

You, Aegon, and Daeron rush to Aemond. He’s bent over and spitting blood onto the floor so he doesn’t choke on it. “Not broken,” Cregan pronounces after examining his nose. “Just gonna bleed real bad. Needs pressure on it.”

“Are you okay?” Aegon asks you, a hand careful and tender on your face. He’s back again, for a minute, an hour, a day.

Your voice quakes. “Yeah.”

“What did Jace do…?”

“Nothing, nothing that bad, I mean he grabbed my waist but—”

“Aegon?” Selena Gomez says tentatively, waiting nearby and hugging her arms around herself.

“Yeah, one second, love. Give me a second.” He appraises Aemond and whistles. “Man, you are wrecked.” And not just physically. He’s incensed, he’s in shock. You reach for Aemond’s hand and he lets you take it.

“You got him?” Cregan asks you.

“I’ll clean him up. I’ll take care of him.” And as blood continues to run down his face, you draw Aemond towards the bathrooms. You lead him inside the women’s room and lock the door, blue walls and white florescent light. Somewhat ungainly—relying mostly upon your non-dominant hand—you press a pile of paper towels against his nose and tell him to hold it there. Then you wet more paper towels and wipe down his knuckles, his face, his throat. The blood on his chest has run beneath his glossy black shirt. We match, you think randomly. “Can I…?”

He yanks the shirt over his head, then returns the mass of crimson-stained paper towels to his nose. Fortunately, the bleeding appears to be slowing. You erase the smudged trail of scarlet that runs all the way to the waistline of his dark jeans. When you reach the end of it, Aemond flinches away from you; not a pained flinch, but a fearful one. He turns his back on you and walks to the other end of the small and shadowless room. He braces one palm against the wall and sighs deeply. He throws the wad of paper towels in the trashcan and then covers his face with his hand, shaking his head.

“Aemond,” you say. And you wait for him to look you in the eye. It takes a long time. “What do you want?” Why were you watching me and Jace? Why did you lose control?

“Nothing,” he replies immediately.

“That’s a lie.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” you insist, your voice fracturing. “It does matter. Just tell me what you want.”

“Why, so you can let me down easy? Or worse, pretend to be into it to make me feel better, to help piece me and my fragile little ego back together? I don’t beg for anything. You really think I’m going to beg you to want me?”

“No, you’re too fucking proud, you’d never even ask for it. You’ll beat people half to death for things you’re too much of a coward to say out loud, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?!”

“Then why are you even in here with me?! Just go back to Aegon, I know that’s what you want. I guess you’ll have to wait in line behind Selena Gomez, but he’ll work his way back around to you eventually.”

“Jace stole something from you, right?” you say. “You feel like he stole the band from you after you were kicked out, and then tonight you felt like he was stealing something else, and that’s why you freaked out and almost murdered him—”

“No. No, because you’re not mine.”

“What do you want, Aemond?” you ask him again, tears of exhaustion and desperation in your eyes.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he says, coming in closer. “So you’re absolved, you’re free to go, I don’t need your goddamn charity—”

Your good hand juts out, and what you plan to do is plant it against his bare chest and push him away. What you do instead—as if by muscle memory, a reflex, an instinct—is reach up to plunge your fingers into his hair. And then his palm is cradling the small of your back and his lips are on yours, moving seamlessly like how currents thread through the ocean. He helps lift you up onto the counter; there is just enough room between two of the sinks. Your legs link around Aemond as he presses himself to you, lips still tinged with coppery blood, bare chest, his waist, his hips. Your back hits the mirror—cool and unyielding, the ink of his lyrics flat against the glass—with enough force to make a thump.

“Are you okay—?”

“I’m more okay than I’ve been in years.”

He tilts up your chin and kisses you deeply, dizzyingly, his tongue darting between your lips. He tastes like his Brambles, sweetness cut with the bite of gin, and smoke, and something else too, something that’s just purely him, something you could drown in like the river of his clear right eye. Gently, you bring your fingertips to his face, to his scar. “Don’t,” he pleads softly, pained.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Don’t—”

“Aemond, look at me.” And you hold his face still so you know he hears you. “There’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

You watch it hit him like a stone into water, ripples that wash away everything he’s felt before. He knows you mean it, he can feel it, the same way you can feel the care with which he caresses you, not just lust but engulfing warmth, wordless veneration. He whispers between kisses: “Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want.”

Your lock your gaze with his, then reach down to unbutton his jeans. It’s difficult with the splint, but you manage. You think he might stop you, you prepare yourself for it, but he doesn’t. Instead, Aemond’s hands vanish beneath your dress and slip off your panties, black lace you hadn’t planned on anyone seeing tonight. As you kiss his face—jagged scar, flushed cheek, the slope of his jaw—his fingers slide into a pool of staggering heat and wetness.

He moans. “Oh fuck, that’s for me?”

“I’ve wanted this from the start.”

“Show me…show me how you like it…”

You guide his hand to exactly the right spot and give him a rhythm, a pressure, a pace that rolls a euphoric shudder down your spine. He’s barely touched you, and already you’re shaking all over; you’re throbbing, you’re dazed with that delicious needful aching, you’re gasping into the sweltering, salt-strewn dampness of his neck. His fingertips stroke you in commanding circles—only a few times—until you’re on the precipice, until you stop him. You’re ready, even though he’s huge: long and thick, revealed as he tugs down his jeans and boxers. He pins your uninjured hand against the mirror and kisses and bites at your throat as he eases himself inside you: a stretching that is intense but not unpleasant, hunger being satisfied. And when he thrusts—carefully at first, waiting for you to tell him he can be rougher—there are so many layers of pleasure that it stuns you, it leaves you speechless. Has it ever been like this before? Never, never, never, not once, not for a moment, not with anybody. His future was stolen from him, but he’s taken your past from you; he’s carved it out like a gemstone from the earth and locked it away in a vault no one remembers the passcode to.

“I’m so close,” you whisper, you beg. “Aemond, please, please, I want to come for you…” And you gasp as his fingers skim down your belly again, stroking you forcefully as his thrusts become deeper, quicker, impossibly powerful.

His voice is low and murmuring. His scent is everywhere; it’s all you know how to breathe. “You okay, baby? You alright?”

“Yes, yes, oh God, Aemond, don’t stop, please don’t stop…”

“I won’t stop, baby. You’re doing so well, you’re almost there.”

“Aemond…yes…I love this…”

“I love you.”

He what…? He WHAT…??

And it doesn’t just drag you over the edge; it pushes you, it propels you, you go plummeting off the cliffside and freefall for miles. There’s no disguising it. You have to bury your face in his chest to keep from crying out, clinging to him, your fingernails leaving indents like crescent moons. Aemond, fighting his own climax viciously, lasts just long enough to fuck you through the aftershocks and then empties himself not just physically but also of the shame and aimlessness of the past seven months, of his fears, of his suspicions.

“Wait,” you say as he pulls away from you. You yank a paper towel out of the dispenser and wet it with cold water. First you cool his forehead and the back of his neck with it, then you wipe his fingers and his cock. Still perched on the counter, you wet another paper towel for yourself.

“No,” Aemond tells you. “Let me.” He takes it from you, opens your thighs, and kisses your mouth—teasingly, biting and sucking your lower lip—as he spreads your folds and cleans them of his seed, abundant hot white fluid that you can feel dripping out of you. As he passes over where you are most sensitive—where you can already feel longing for him rebuilding brick by brick—you jump a little, and you both laugh. I could go again, you think. I could do this with him forever. And then, as Aemond descends from the chemical high like a plane gliding down towards a tarmac, you watch as those old familiar poisons—shame, aimlessness, fear, suspicion—begin to fill up in him again, slowly but unmistakably.

He throws out the paper towels and takes several steps back. He starts putting on his clothes, staring at the wall, then at the mirror, not at you but past you, at himself, his clear river-blue eye wide and vacant. He looks horrified by what he’s done; or perhaps, rather, by what he’s said.

You grab your panties off the counter and step into them, readjusting your dress. “Look, uh…if you didn’t mean what you said…that’s totally cool. I get it, sometimes people say things in the moment that aren’t real, there’s the oxytocin and the dopamine, and I don’t want you to feel…uh…you know…like you have to keep up a false pretense or anything…”

Aemond turns around and walks out of the bathroom, the door slamming behind him.

“Okay,” you say to yourself. “Okay. I can fix this.” You use the toilet quickly—UTIs are not welcome here—and then head out onto the dancefloor.

The lights are dim again, and thank God for that; your makeup is smudged, your hair unruly, your eyes glazed, your dress rumpled and stained. Cregan is the only person still waiting. “Hey,” he says flatly, then squints at you. You avoid his astute greyish eyes.

“Hey. Where is everyone?”

“Criston took Jace to the hospital. Baela is there too. Rhaena and Luke are back at the hotel. Aegon is presumably balls deep in Selena Gomez. Aemond just sprinted out of this club and I’d guess he’s headed back to the hotel too. Daeron went after him. I think that’s everybody.”

You shift your weight from foot to foot uneasily. “Shelby?”

“Oh, right. Haven’t seen her. Still out with her friends.” His eyes sweep over you. “On a scale of one to ten, how homicidal would she be if she found out about whatever happened in that bathroom?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Uh huh.” Cregan strides towards the stairwell that leads down to the front door. “Let’s go.”

Back at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, you swipe your keycard and flick the lights on in your suite. You stand there alone, feeling the evidence of what you’ve done: sore muscles and bruised skin and pooling wetness, both yours and his. You are absorbed with thoughts of what you’re going to say to Aemond when you confront him, how much of your truth you are willing to bare. And then your eyes catch on the small trashcan beside your bed, which reminds you of the one back in Singapore, which reminds you of your pack of birth control pills discarded on a pile of crumpled soda cans and snack wrappers.

I haven’t taken a pill in days. How many days? A week?

“Oh my God,” you breathe. And then, more frantically: “Oh no, oh no, no no no…”

What do I do? What the hell do I do?

You race out into the hallway and knock on Baela’s door. Nobody answers. You try Rhaena’s next. She appears in her pajamas, pink and dotted with tiny green Tyrannosaurus rexes. “Hi,” she says agreeably enough, but she’s rubbing her eyes drowsily.

“Hi. I’m really, really sorry to bother you, but it’s an emergency.”

She perks up considerably. “Okay, how can I help?”

“Where’s Luke?”

“In the shower.”

“So he can’t hear us right now?”

“No, he can’t.”

“Good. Do you know when Baela will be back from the hospital?”

“Not anytime soon,” Rhaena says. “She messaged me that Jace needs stitches and has a concussion. They’ll be there all night, at least.”

You exhale, a defeated little squeak. “Is Aegon around? With or without Selena Gomez?”

“No, they haven’t come back yet. I have no idea where they are.”

“Okay.” You swallow noisily.

“What’s going on with you?” Rhaena asks, concerned.

“This really is not a Rhaena situation. This is a Baela or Aegon situation.”

“Alright, but neither of them are here. So I’m who you’ve got.”

You stare at her. “I need Plan B. Do you happen to have any Plan B?”

“Plan B…? Like, you just had unprotected sex with someone Plan B?”

“Yes, exactly, that one.”

Rhaena gapes, scandalized. “With who?!”

“Confidential,” you say briskly. “Do you have any or not?”

“No, I definitely don’t have any Plan B lying around.”

“No,” you groan. Tears are welling up in your eyes. “What am I going to do? How do I get Plan B in Japan?!”

“We’ll figure this out,” Rhaena says. She dashes to her nightstand to grab her iPhone. “Don’t panic. It’ll be okay. Let’s Google 24-hour pharmacies in Tokyo…”

You don’t have Criston here to summon an Escalade—nor would you willingly risk him finding out about this—but Rhaena uses Google Translate to ask the hotel’s front desk to call a taxi. She shows the taxi driver an address, figures out how many yen you owe him, and then asks him very politely (if haltingly) in Japanese to wait ten minutes while you’re inside the pharmacy so you can take a return trip as well. He seems to agree.

Rhaena accompanies you into the pharmacy and repeats these steps: Google Translate, an exchange of yen, the receipt of a service. She tells you that based on her quick research, Plan B is usually by prescription only in Japan, but pharmacists will sometimes be willing to prescribe it on the spot to a patient in need. Rhaena spends a long time typing out a message for the middle-aged, bespectacled pharmacist, then points to you. This is my friend, the maybe-pregnant slut from Missouri, you imagine her saying. She needs emergency contraception. It’s really in all of humanity’s best interests for her not to continue her bloodline.

“You have to show him your ID,” Rhaena tells you.

You give your passport to the pharmacist, and then he hands you a small package. You and Rhaena purchase a bottle of Coke Zero as well. You gulp down the single tablet as the pharmacist watches with bushy raised eyebrows, amused. You are pleased to discover that the taxi driver has waited, and within fifteen minutes you and Rhaena are back at the hotel.

“You’ve talked to a lot of people tonight,” you tell Rhaena matter-of-factly as you ride the elevator back up to the band’s floor.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I did. I mean, I’ve been practicing. And you needed me.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say.

Rhaena smiles sheepishly. “Thanks.”

“And I’ll be even more proud of you when I get my period.”

She giggles, she trots off to her suite, you retreat into yours. You collapse onto the floor and gaze up at the ceiling, studying the specks and grooves in the tiles like constellations.

“It was only one time,” you say to the ceiling. “I was on the pill for years. That takes a while to leave my system, right? I mean, what are the odds? It’s fine. It’s totally fine. Nothing’s going to happen, right?”

Right?

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #Aegon Targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #Aegon II Targaryen #Aegon Targaryen II x reader #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader

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stars-n-spice · 2 months

Text

KHEA + TBB:

A little look into the dynamics Khea shares with each member of the Bad Batch!

Khea + Wrecker:

Opposites attract - they’re nearly opposites in every way but they make it work

Slow burn baby because Khea took forever to open up and admit to her feelings, but thankfully Wrecker is patient

Wrecker keeps her grounded and is her voice of reason, he's there to reassure her that things are okay

Fuck, if they don't love explosions and causing a scene - they can be reckless as hell and it's advised not to leave them alone together or they will get into trouble

Khea is not used to men who wear their heart on their sleeve so finding out Wrecker was genuine in his affections and promises threw her in for a loop

Since Khea isn't a verbal person about her feelings, it's great that Wrecker has such a high emotional intelligence and can just tell when something's wrong and it's even better for her because he knows what to do when he does sense something is wong

In return, Khea always makes sure that Wrecker is looking out for himself because she realizes he's the glue holding the team together and doesn't give time for himself, so she makes sure that every now and then he takes a break from everything

Wrecker fell first, Khea fell harder.

Hunter + Khea:

Khea takes great joy in teasing Hunter at any chance she gets (all in good fun of course) because she claims it's her 'right' as the younger sister-in-law to do so

Khea will never admit to how much she respects/thinks highly of him as both a leader and older brother

Khea has a bad habit of stealing Hunter’s things (both intentionally and unintentionally)

Hunter is the other one outside of Wrecker who makes her feel like she's not as closed of a book as she thought she was because he can always sense when something's wrong but unlike Wrecker he doesn't know how to go about it to try and make her feel better

They both have sensory issues (yippee) and bond over that; giving each other tips and whatnot to avoid being overstimulated in dire situations

Khea's always there to help Hunter out with Omega whenever he needs it (especially with 'girl' things)

One of Khea's favorite things to do is give Hunter crap about him not tying up his hair because she thinks it's impractical to have it all out while under the helmet or when fighting

Khea + Echo:

Next to Wrecker, Echo is the closest Khea is to out of the group

Was the first of the Batch that Khea actually opened up to and he was the first one to hear about what happened with her brothers

Khea sorta sees Echo as the older brother she never got to have; one that's patient and kind with her but also makes sure to keep her in check

Bond over the trauma of losing their brothers + the guilt over not being able to save them

Echo gives her tough love often and will call her out on her bullshit, constantly pushing herself to be better and to take care of herself in healthier ways

Khea calls Echo "Eyayah" - which means 'Echo' in Mando'a

Echo lets Khea work on his prosthetics and Khea has made adjustments/attachments of various sorts for him

Kama buddies :) (sometimes Khea takes his kama on "accident")

Khea + Tech:

Both are big nerds, Khea's just more subtle about it

Their interactions are either them talking each other’s ears off or working in complete silence on projects next to each other

Tech does not understand how or why Khea is with Wrecker but since they’re both happy, he’s happy

Tech is learning Mando’a from her

Sometimes will butt heads and will passive-aggressively ignore each other until they’re forced to make amends (i.e. Wrecker makes them apologize to each other)

Like when they fight, they FIGHT; both hate admitting to being wrong whenever they come into conflict with each other and it's like bone on bone. It's never anything physical, it's always emotional and verbal assaults

Tech likes to point out things about Khea that Khea will adamantly deny or ignore because it pisses Tech off (i.e. Tech telling her she is nearsighted and should get some glasses or something and her insisting she's fine and it's okay to see things a little blurry sometimes)

Both are incredibly blunt people and maybe probably are on the spectrum one way or another (another thing Khea will deny when Tech points it out)

Khea + Crosshair:

Both are little shits

Crosshair takes his role as the 'annoying younger brother-in-law' VERY seriously

Took some time for them to warm up to each other once Crosshair was reunited with his family (He didn't know what to make of her let alone how Wrecker managed to pull her)

Khea only knew so much about him from the others (Wrecker and Omega occasionally told her things about him) but decided she'd try and be nice to him should she ever meet him but that went right out the door when he pointed out she was a little short for a Mandalorian

Would rather be caught dead than getting along in front of Wrecker because he will cry tears of happiness

They love to hate each other and their competitive personalities make them clash ALL the time (which can be both amusing and irritating depending on the situation)

Crosshair learns about Khea's brothers and the things she went through from Wrecker and after that, he's a little more understanding and compassionate with her

Khea drinks and Crosshair smokes; they like to poke fun at each other for who is going to die first from their bad coping mechanisms

Khea + Omega:

Khea and Omega both see each other as sisters (neither of them knows what it’s like to have one)

Tag team when it comes to raising Hunter’s stress levels (all in good fun)

Khea is fiercely protective of Omega as she kinda sees her as a “Mitcan Redo” - she would, can, and has killed for the kid

Omega was the one who got Khea to open up a little more to their squad (was also the first to pick up on how she felt about Wrecker and vice versa)

Omega is really interested in Mando culture and Khea takes delight and pride in telling her stories and teaching her things during their time off

Khea likes to tease Hunter and say that she's going to make Omega a Foundling (Omega loves the idea) and has promised to one day get Omega some beskar and maybe even a helmet if she wants it

Omega made her a little charm of a star that she wears on a necklace and totally didn't cry when Omega gifted it to her, nope

Khea sometimes finds herself incredibly frustrated over Omega's situation and wishes that someday Omega will get the chance to just be a kid and enjoy life without having to worry about things no child should have to worry about

#tbb #the bad batch #clone force 99 #oc #sw oc #tbb oc #star wars oc #tbb wrecker #tbb hunter #tbb crosshair #tbb echo #tbb tech #tbb omega #khea nultez #oc x canon #wrecker x oc #starburst

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desert-fern · 9 months

Text

A Gun Amongst Daggers - Jake “Hangman” Seresin X Fem!Navy Seal Reader

Part 15: Game of Survival

Summary: When Jake meets a woman at the Hard Deck, the last thing he expects is for her to be a Navy Seal. And not just any Seal, the Commander of Seal Team 3. She’s beautiful, smart, dangerous, and everything about her just makes him want to get close. Her name? Bear. When the Seals need backup, Cyclone puts the Daggers on their radar and now, Jake has to work with Bear and her team, all the while trying to stay professional. Can he do it? Or will he end up falling for the Navy sniper and mission Commander?

*GIF is not mine*

A/N: Song title is from the song of the same name, Game of Survival by Ruelle

MINORS DO NOT ENGAGE! 18+ ONLY. MINORS & BLOGS WITH NO AGE/EMPTY BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED.

Warnings: mentions of death, mentions of torture (not described), blood, dissassociation, mention of injuries sustained by torture (very briefly glossed over ie. mentions of cuts, bruises, broken bone), fluffy bits, flashbacks, please let me know if I missed anything.

Word Count: 5.1k (I wanted to make you all less mad at me, but I might have done the opposite)

A/N: THIS IS A HEAVIER CHAPTER AND I DO INSIST THAT MINORS FUCK OFF AT THIS POINT. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Masterlist >> Part 14 >> Part 16

===

Bear closed her eyes, tuning out the sounds of fist on flesh echoing through the little cell. Starbursts of pain splintered through her exhausted body, the fight trying to leave her with every screamed word in Urdu, every fist that was thrown, and every kick that landed against her already battered body.

Her gear had been stripped from her, discarded somewhere in the desert, leaving her in just her undershirt and pants. All her weapons were gone. Even the non-weapons that she could have used had been taken. Her belt had been used against her, she had open wounds to prove that. Her boot laces were also gone, having been shredded and thrown on the floor in front of her. She was defenseless, left hanging from her arms, toes just touching the now blood-spattered floor.

Bear was trapped. There were no two ways about it. Since her sacrifice for her team and Jake, she had been here, enduring the fists and curses of enemies that she had sworn to destroy. That sacrifice was 16 days ago. Five days ago, she had turned one of her boot laces into a garrotte, killing three men, before getting not quite a kilometer away. She had been hauled back by her hair, body bruised and scraped by the sand, being dropped in front of the man who had taken charge. He had been disorganized since the start, temper balancing on the edge of a knife.

He had screamed at her. Berating her. And thanks to the limited Urdu she knew, all Bear could figure out was that his boss was dead, and that she would tell them who did it. However, she had put the final bullet in their missing leader’s body as she and her team burst through the doors of the bunker in the basement of al-Hameed’s compound days ago. Not that she was going to tell him that. All she had said was her service number, over and over and over. 175-66-23. It had become a mantra that she repeated, frustrating him even more.

But her team. Shit. Was her team okay? Had they made it back after she blacked out? Had Jake survived? The only reason she was here was because he needed her to buy them time. God, if Jake was gone… no. NO! She couldn’t think like that. Not here, not now. “Think Bear,” she urged mentally, eyes seeing the knife that had been dug out from somewhere. “Think about Jake. What about that one night?”

Distantly, she felt the red-hot pain, but mentally, Bear was back in her office, pouring over files.

There was a knock at her door, making her glance up. It was late. Damn near 2100, everyone had gone home. So who was this? “Come in!” She called out, closing her folder.

The door opened and it was Jake, holding something? “Hey Teddy, hope I didn’t disturb you.”

She shook her head, smiling at him. “You didn’t. Why are you here, it’s late.”

“You’re still here,” he countered, smirking at her as he leaned against the doorframe. “But I brought dinner. Figured you hadn’t eaten yet because you are in the same position I saw you in before I left.”

Bear made a face. Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten. Like clockwork, her stomach rumbled, making Jake chuckle. “…there might be some truth to that,” she admitted, taking in the sight of him standing in her doorway. She knew she shouldn’t stare, but the plain black tee and dark jeans were doing something for her. Bear gave her head a minute shake before gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. “You wanna sit? I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone since training this afternoon.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Jake slid into the chair, crossing one foot over his knee as he leaned forward to try and sneak a peek at what Bear was working on.

“Hey!” Bear flapped the closed file at him. “Get your nose out of there! You don’t need to know that!”

Jake sat back with a chuckle. “Okay, okay. I won’t look at… munitions reports?”

Bear stared at him, one eyebrow raised. The look on his face made her burst out laughing. “I-I-I’m sorry!” she wheezed, one hand coming up to wipe her eyes. “God I pity Maverick some days. He only has 12 of you but the shit you pull?” She kept laughing, Jake watching in amusement.

“Okay, okay, okay. Here. Eat something before you pass out.” Jake slid the glass container across her desk, a fork sitting on top.

She looked at him curiously. “What is it?”

“Just eat.”

Bear opened the container and nearly moaned at the smell. The smell of oregano and melted cheese wafted out, filling the air around her. Digging in, she couldn’t help herself as a small groan slipped out. “What is this?”

“My mom’s pasta bake. Figured it was a safe bet since you devoured that pizza a week ago,” Jake replied, smiling at her. In his head however, he was struggling. The sound Bear made? God he wanted to find a way to hear those again and again for the rest of his life. “Plus, it saved my ass more than once.”

“Oh yeah?” Bear asked around a mouthful of pasta. Chewing quickly, she swallowed and repeated herself, making Jake laugh. “What?”

“Nothing. Nothing,” he told her. “You just look cute.” Jake grinned as the tips of her ears reddened, spreading down to her neck.

Bear was yanked from her memory by the sound of the cell door slamming shut. She felt the cuts on her body, miniscule in nature, but full of bright sparking pain. It physically hurt her to come out of her mind, but she was thankful for the reprieve it gave her.

The men had left, at one point letting one hand hang loose so she could eat. Someone must have pointed out that she was no use to them if she died because they didn’t feed her. She didn’t want to eat, but Bear knew she needed to. How else would she have enough energy to fight to free herself? So she grabbed the piece of flatbread that sat nearby, using her teeth to tear off pieces as she held it with her free hand.

Not even 20 seconds after she finished eating, one of the men came in and cuffed her wrist back up again before leaving as suddenly as he came in. Left alone to her thoughts once again, Bear felt her thoughts wandering to her team. She hoped that Priya was managing okay. Her second was a natural leader, but under the circumstances of her taking control? That was a whole new set of challenges. And she knew that. Bear had taken control of a spiraling operation after her Commander had been killed, and as the highest ranking member of the group, she became the boss. That had been the defining factor in her promotion to take permanent leadership as the Commander of Seal Team 3.

But was her team okay? Was Jake alive? What about the Daggers? She had more questions than answers right now and it drove her crazy. So like dimming the lights, Bear let those thoughts fade away into a kinder memory, chasing her doubts and fears back behind the curtain where they had taken up a near permanent residence.

In this memory, Bear saw herself on the beach, sitting on the sand and wrapped in a blanket. She had been unable to fall asleep after the day’s training. It had forced her to realize that someone was likely not coming home alive and that realization would always hurt. Operations were designed for minimal friendly casualties while maximizing enemy elimination, and none of the scenarios that she had run today created less than ten casualties on the breaching team. It was humbling, the realization. Her team was her family away from her parents. She had no one else.

She didn’t know how long she had sat there, lost in her thoughts, planning out possible drills and other tactics, until someone tapped her on the shoulder, startling her. In her mind, all she could think was ATTACKER and the other person soon found themself flat on their back in the sand with Bear’s arm pressed to their throat. “Teddy!”

Blinking, Bear looked down and saw Jake underneath her, his green eyes wide in a combination of what looked like fear and something she couldn’t quite make out. She jolted back, still straddling his hips but giving him room to sit up. “What the actual fuck?! Did anyone tell you not to sneak up on me?”

Shaking the sand out of his hair, Jake gave her a sheepish look. “Phoenix might have mentioned it once…”

She just shook her head in disbelief. “Unbelievable… You idiot! I could have killed you!”

Jake made a face before yelling back “BUT YOU DIDN’T!”

Bear just stared at him, before starting to laugh. She knelt back in the sand, her weight still resting on his lower thighs as she laughed until she cried.

“Jeez. Didn’t think I was that funny, Teddy,” he remarked, beginning to laugh with her. “Gotta admit, thought I was gonna die for a few seconds there.”

He was met with a flat stare in such contrast from the laugh that had come from her moments earlier. “If I was armed, you would be walking away with a scar at best,” Bear admitted with a wicked grin.

“And at worst?”

Bear shrugged. “At worst, I would be burying your body on the beach.”

Her nonchalant tone sent a shiver down Jake’s spine at the look in her eyes that accompanied it. Her brown eyes glimmered in amusement that seemed to shine in the moonlight, and Jake felt himself fall just a little more in love with her. “Good to know, Teddy. Good to know.”

Bear only winked at him, before realizing her position on top of him. “Shit. Sorry, I’ll move,” she said, her voice suddenly small.

“Teddy,” he said, catching her wrist, his large hand wrapping around her arm and squeezing once gently. “I don’t mind, honest.”

“But if someone saw us, I could lose my job, Flyboy.”

Jake chuckled at her antics. “Bear. It’s the middle of the night, and we are out in the middle of a random beach on miles of coastline. We’re fine.”

The soothing tone of his voice was enough for Bear to settle back down on his legs, shaking her head at him. “I’m blaming you though. If someone does see us.”

“I’ll take all the blame, Teddy. Jus’ keep sittin’ pretty.”

Suddenly, Bear was thankful for the darkness around them. Her cheeks flushed pink and she hid her face in her shoulder, trying to avoid the intensity in the green eyes of the man in front of her. It was a very significant change from the usual confidence she exuded, and it made Jake grin, having discovered this part of her. “So,” she finally spoke. “What are you doing out here this late?”

“Couldn’t sleep. You?” Jake still had Bear’s wrist in his hand and he let his thumb trace shapes over the back of her hand, reveling in the softness of her skin despite the job she did.

“Me neither,” Bear whispered, her breath hitching at the gentleness at which his hand touched her. It had been awhile since she had been touched with anything but aggression. The Seals weren’t a profession that believed in coddling and she had quickly abandoned hope at ever finding that gentleness again. But here was Jake. Fucking Hangman. An arrogant asshole that supposedly only cared for himself. At least that was the word on base. “Shit,” she thought. “I can’t be doing this.” But she stayed where she was, eyes drifting over to watch the ocean ebb and flow, taking with it her anxiety and worries.

Jake watched her, noticing the shift in her body language, how her shoulders lost the tension that always seemed to be resting there. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

He watched Bear shrug. “Everything, nothing,” she commented distractedly, still staring at the ocean. “Being in charge is hard.”

“That so?”

“Yeah.” She paused, shaking her head a little. “My mom always told me that I was too determined for my own good. That one day, if I wasn’t careful, I’d get hurt. It’s funny how it’s just settling in.”

“And what about your dad?” Jake asked softly, like he was trying not to disturb her. She was warm somehow in the cold night air, the skin under his palm radiating an unexpected heat.

Bear grinned at him. “I don’t have one. I have two moms, Flyboy.”

Jake blinked. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” she teased. “Surprised?”

“A little. But it makes sense,” he admitted. “They anything like Nix?”

Bear hummed. “I don’t know. My mama, yes to a degree. My mom, no. I don’t know how to explain it, but they always warned me that sometimes I flew too high. I just hope they aren’t right.”

Jake’s heart panged with sympathy. “There’s nothin’ wrong with being ambitious. Look at you. You’re incredible, the first female Seal Commander in years, 60 kills to your record. Plus you’re a nice person so…” he trailed off, watching her blush climb up to her ears.

“Stop. You’re just saying that.”

“Hell no. Look at me,” Jake let go of her wrist to turn her face back to his, catching how her face heated and her gaze dropped his, choosing to look at his collarbones. “Look at me. I don’t give compliments often, so this is a little out of character for me, but that voice in there,” he tapped his finger against her forehead, “That voice needs to learn to shut up, because you have done this, you can do this, and you will bring them all back. Trust yourself. I do.”

Bear finally met his gaze, eyes wet with unshed tears. “Fuck you for knowing what to say,” she chuckled, trying to play it off.

“I mean it.” Jake’s gaze was firm but kind, eyes trying to convey the feelings he had for Bear, whether or not they were reciprocated. She needed encouragement and he was more than happy to offer it.

Bear’s head was swimming, Jake’s words mixing with her thoughts. They felt like slipping into cool water during a hot day, a balm to a bruise she hadn’t known was there. “Thank you,” she whispered, stifling a yawn. “I needed that.”

His face split into a familiar cocky grin. “I told you,” he crowed into the darkness, heart seeming to swell as she laughed, head thrown back before she wobbled and placed a hand to steady herself against his chest. She was beautiful, mirth making her eyes sparkle. Then again, she was always beautiful. Even at 2 am in the darkness as the ocean wind whipped her hair around. “Now grab your blanket, my truck’s back there. I have a constellation I want you to see.”

And she followed. They had fallen asleep in the bed of his truck, woken by the sun’s first morning rays, the two of them having been drawn together in sleep. Bear had a glimpse of Jake at peace and it stopped her heart as she took in the gold threading through his hair, the slow rise and fall of his chest, and his warmth. The sun painted him in gold, wreathing his head in fire like a matching crown to the one that opened in her heart as she took him in.

It was simple. It was peaceful. Yet Bear vowed, swore with every fiber that she would make sure that both of them returned home. It wasn’t possible for her to survive without Jake’ gentleness, his kindness.

So in the ever-growing sunlight, Bear memorized every freckle, every detail of Jake’s sleeping face. If she couldn’t have him, then at least she could have the memories. She was drawn from her thoughts at the sound of Jake’s deep voice seeming to crackle through the stillness of the morning. “Y’re starin’.”

Bear only smiled, letting Jake grab hold of her and pull her into his arms. She hummed, wiggling a little before settling and dozing off under the rays of the new day’s sun, letting both its warmth and that of the man beside her lull her back into sleep.

The clanging of the cell door jerked her back to reality. A small child stood in the concrete room, his eyes wide in fear. He couldn’t have been more than eight. He held something out to her, but in the darkness, she couldn’t make out what it was. In broken English, the little boy spoke. “Is key. To the cuffs.”

“What?” Bear asked, confused as to why this child would help her, but even more so at what a child was doing here. If the light was better, maybe then she would have recognized him as the child from the compound that Flare had spotted and pointed out. But the limited light cast his face in shadow, obscuring that detail.

“Soldier.” He pointed at her. “Friend.” Then he pointed out the door where the sounds of drunken shouting echoed down the hall. “Bad men. They hurt my mama.”

Bear’s heart hurt for this little boy. He was too young to know the things he did. Too young to be here. And here he was, trying to save her. “Thank you. What’s your name?” she whispered, watching the entryway closely.

“Amir,” he said shyly.

“Hi Amir. You can call me Bear.” She smiled at him, unable to do much else. “Can you climb on that chair,” she told him, pointing at it. “And give me the key?” Amir nodded, scrambling quickly to the chair and passing her the key. Bear clutched it in her fist, giving him a nod. “Thank you.”

“I go,” he said, pointing at the door.

“Bye,” she whispered, giving him a little wave, which he returned before he snuck out the door and closed it behind him.

Bear began to plan. She had a key to the bars that caged her in, an unlikely and secret ally, and nothing to lose. Her team had no idea where she was. Hell, Bear had no idea where she was, all she knew was that she was getting out, hopefully soon, when the opportunity presented itself. For now though, she shut her eyes and tried to get some sleep to keep her strength up. She was going to need it.

===

Surprisingly, the men let her sleep. Maybe it was because they had been absolutely drunk off their asses the night before, but when they entered her cell, the sun was already high in the sky and her cell had begun to feel like a sauna.

“Who killed him?” One of the men demanded as Bear slowly lifted her head. She blinked away sleep, opening one eye against the brightness in the cell.

“I don’t know.” Bear had been saying those words for the better part of two weeks now. She was exhausted, infection was setting in and it had become harder and harder to fight back. “I don’t know.”

The man cackled, saying something to his friend in Urdu. The tone of his voice made her skin crawl and it didn’t take a translator for Bear to grasp the concept of which he was speaking to her so crudely. “He said you knew. He said the…” the man paused, stumbling over the English wording “…informant was right”

“Who said that?” Bear was intrigued and frightened. Someone knew her moves, her play. Someone had told these men that she knew something about who had killed al-Hameed, and considering it had been her bullet, this was a big problem. That meant that someone was a mole and since only her people had informants out of the teams, it had to be someone on her team.

Oh fuck. The realization was sobering. Betrayal, especially one of this caliber, was nearly unheard of. Her team was loyal and Bear would stake her life on that fact, except now she had and it appeared that she had no more moves to make.

“We ask the questions. Not you,” the man snapped, poking her in the chest directly over a cut and Bear struggled not to react. Her ribs screamed as the man put more and more pressure over the cuts and bruises that littered her torso. She was able to get her foot up, kicking him hard in the ribs and watching with barely concealed rage the look that flashed over his face.

This man wanted to hurt her. Wanted to hear her scream and she would not do him the pleasure. So when he stormed forwards, his fist raised to punch her, Bear slipped back through the curtain in her mind that replayed memories, drawing solace in the steady quiet.

It had been a random Tuesday when Bear found out that Jake hadn’t seen her favorite Marvel movie. “I’m sorry but that’s unacceptable, Flyboy. How can you not have seen it?”

Jake had shrugged. “I don’t know. I just haven’t.” Bear was giving him shit and yet he still had the biggest smile on his face. It was funny watching a Navy Seal lose her mind over the fact he hadn’t seen a movie. “But I’m sure I could be persuaded to watch it, Teddy.”

“I hope so. As far as I’m concerned, this is treason.” Bear was grinning like an idiot, but trying to remain serious. However Jake’s smirk and the sparkle in his eyes were forcing her to reevaluate her intentions. “Tonight. If you have nothing else going on, watch it with me.”

“What time?” The words flew out of Jake’s mouth as soon as Bear finished speaking, surprising the Hell out of both of them. “Sorry. Let me try that again. No, I'm not doing anything. I’d love to watch The Winter Soldier with you. What time do you want me there?” Jake said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck in effort to regain his lost dignity.

Bear chuckled, her own blush rising in her cheeks at Jake’s eagerness. “What works for you?” she asked, shifting her weight to her other leg, before tugging at the straps of her vest, trying to pull it off.

“I can be over around 6?” She knew that he was staring at her, watching as her shirt rode up when she pulled off the gear and it made her smirk a little as she did.

She grinned, shuffling the vest off, and folded it over her arm. “6 sounds great. Bring snacks.”

Jake’s split wide into an excited smile. “Popcorn?”

“Nah. I’ve got some. Just bring whatever you want for snacks, I’ll get pizza,” Bear told him. She was trying to hide her own grin, but was failing to keep the excitement from dancing in her eyes. After their conversation on the beach, she and Jake had become closer, sharing inside jokes and stifled laughter as they met up for coffee on weekends and slowly grew to know the other person. The only thing Jake didn’t yet know was her actual name.

A cracking sound shattered the memory she was hiding in. The pain that erupted in her side told her that at least one rib was broken, but Bear knew that she would prove to be a useless captive. Unwilling and determined to keep her secrets. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared. God no. Bear was terrified. Terrified for herself, for Amir. Afraid and worried about her team, if they were coming for her or if they too had discovered this mole within their organization.

“Who. Killed. Him.” The man, she’d heard whispers that his name was Saif, was insistent, demanding answers from the woman who remained silent, eyes glazed over like she wasn’t present.

“175-66-23,” Bear wheezed out, a look of defiance filling her eyes “175-66-23.”

“I warned you.” And Bear watched him flinch as she shook out her leg, taking that fraction of a second to grip the key in her hand before sliding into her memories once more.

She found herself sitting on her couch with Jake, the two of them bantering over the best Marvel characters as the movie sat paused on the TV screen. “Nope. No way. I like Tony. But he is not my favorite!” Bear argued, eyes wide and blinking at Jake, who wore his signature shit-eating grin.

“Is that right?”

“Yes!” She stared at Jake, watching the amusement flicker across his face, noting the smirk and Bear gasped in mock horror. “You’re just trying to get a rise out of me!”

Jake leaned closer, wiggling his eyebrows. “I think I did get a rise out of you,” he told her. He had once again gotten lost in her eyes, watching humor sparkle through them. But he was too late to catch the flicker of smugness before a handful of popcorn hit him in the face. “Hey!”

Bear laughed, ducking as Jake tossed him popcorn at her. A piece hit the end of her nose, making her scrunch it up at the feeling. “Jake! You got popcorn everywhere!”

“And you didn’t?” He fired back. “You started this mess.”

“Oh sure, blame the host,” Bear snarked back, but the look on her face was playful and teasing. She loved the banter that she had with Jake, loved how his face lit up when she challenged him. Bear had gathered that not a lot of women did that right from their first meeting at the Hard Deck weeks ago.

“Well, if the shoe fits…” Jake trailed off, picking a piece of popcorn off of her shirt and eating it. He was having the time of his life and he watched as the look on Bear’s face went from amused to mischievous. She lunged at him, tickling her fingers into his sides, laughing loudly as he shrieked, trying to bat her hands away.

Bear had the upper hand for a good five minutes until Jake snuck his hand under her shirt to tickle her side, laughter rippling from him as the woman before him screeched. She tried to push herself from the couch, desperate to escape his torment. But all it took was Jake’s other hand to grab her hip and pull her back down half under him as he continued his assault.

Her pleas for mercy were broken up with wheezing giggles and Bear couldn’t gather herself enough to fight back against Jake, who was struggling to breathe due to his laughter at the look on Bear’s face. “Ooookay! Okay! Okay! Stop iiiiiittttt!” she finally managed to squeal, shoving her hand in his direction, batting away his hands.

Jake relented, watching as Bear took a deep breath, still giggling. “What?” She said, watching the look on his face soften.

“Nothin’, jus’ you underestimated me,” Jake replied. “You might be a badass Navy Seal, but I have younger siblings and nieces and nephews. I can and will win a tickle fight.”

Bear grinned from her position on her back. She was halfway off of the couch, her lower back on the armrest. The only reason she wasn’t on the floor was Jake’s hand gripping her hip. He was basically holding her in place, and Bear would be lying if that show of strength didn’t make her a little hot under the collar. But there was no way that that little detail would ever be realized. Jake didn’t see her like that. Why would he? So she pushed it away. “Guess I did.”

“Did I hear you right?” Jake asked, giving her a feigned wide-eyed look. “Did a US Navy Seal just say that she underestimated little ole me?” He pitched his voice up at the end, trying to get her to laugh. And she did. The sound seemed to echo inside his mind and Jake found himself wanting to record it. Just so he could treasure the laughter she gave him when so many people didn’t have the pleasure.

“Shut up,” Bear shot back, trying to curb her giggles. “God damn, I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.”

Jake just grinned at her, his thumb absentmindedly swiping softly along the small patch of skin that had been revealed when her shirt rode up. “You should do it more.”

Butterflies erupted in her stomach at his words and Bear knew that her cheeks had gotten pink again. Something about Jake just flustered her and she had been struggling to hold herself together since that first training session she’d organized. “Laugh?”

“Mmm.” The sound of his hum sent a shiver down her spine as Bear took note of their current position. She shuffled a little, trying to get back on the couch, but her foot knocked against Jake’s knee, sending him tumbling face first into her lap. “Shit, sorry,” Jake apologized, his words slightly muffled against her thigh.

“N-no you’re fine,” Bear stuttered. Internally however, she was screaming. Jake was in her lap. Jake. Hangman. That one blond pilot. Fuck, how long had it been since she’d been touched? “Based on that reaction,” she thought, “Too fucking long.”

Jake, on the other hand, was dying. He had practically thrown himself forwards into Bear’s lap when her foot had kicked his knee. If he had put a little more into the fall than necessary, he wasn’t about to tell. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Bear’s voice was considerably less shaky than it had been moments before, but she knew that her face was bright red from what had just transpired. “I’m sure. We should uh… probably finish the movie.”

He turned his head, from where he’d been facing the TV, to look up at Bear. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope.”

They had finished the movie in that position, Jake laying with his head pillowed on Bear’s thigh as he lay between her legs, while Bear ran a cautious hand through his hair. Unbeknownst to her though, Jake had melted the moment Bear’s hand tugged gently through his hair, carefully picking through the knots that had dried in while they had been goofing off. He was absolutely, irrevocably in love with her. There were no two ways about it. Jake promised himself at this moment, if Bear wanted him, he’d be hers.

The clanging of the cell door pulled Bear once more from her reverie. This time, her breath punched out of her chest as the pain she’d avoided hit her in full force, nearly making her puke. They had been rougher than usual. Something wasn’t adding up, and if she were a betting woman, she would place her money on whoever it was funneling information to them. But she knew that she couldn’t take much more of this. Her palm hurt from the key’s teeth digging into her skin and she vowed to free herself tonight.

===

A/N: Do I need to hide or am I safe? Big big thank you to @startrekfangirl2233 @sarahsmi13s for proofreading and all the love to @dakotakazansky who helped me do some restructuring!

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