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cumikering · 17 days

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F1 John Price x reader 7 (end)

3.4k | fluff, suggestive John has been doing a lot of yoga (part 1)

“No, JP’s not charbroiled to oblivion,” you said with a laugh.

John had asked what had become of JP the bear as the lift shot up, streets under growing smaller by the second.

“Oh, good.” He breathed a relieved sigh. “I was going to be really sad.”

There was a ding before metal door slid open to reveal his penthouse. You stood in his open kitchen as he fixed you a drink, admiring the spotless marble countertops and the expanse of his living room. To the side, in front of the floor to ceiling windows, he’d set up his gym. He handed you your drink and gave you a tour of his home.

There’s a room for his racing simulator setup, next to it, a memorabilia room with his office in the corner. Shelves lined the walls displaying trophies, medals and awards along with a line of customised helmets and boots he’d acquired over the years. Lastly, the hall led to the master bedroom.

“The place is massive, John, and the view is gorgeous.” Your hands rested on the railing of the lengthy stretch of balcony, overlooking London at night.

“It’s too big. For one, at least.”

You bit down a smile.

He wrapped his arms around you from behind, resting his head against yours. “You should come over as much as you can.”

You didn’t leave his apartment until when he drove to yours Sunday night. But when he helped you unlock your door, he decided he didn’t want to part yet and buried his face in your hair for another night.

As usual, he dropped you off for work before tending to his own routines. But this time, before noon, he had lunch delivered for you and your girls. On Tuesday morning, the familiar smell of coffee and cookies greeted him as he pushed the doors to your shop open.

“The boyfriend is here,” Sophie called out from the counter with a giggle.

Heat crept up his neck. He couldn’t hide now without his mask. What did you tell her?

“A bit flashy just to pick up cookies,” you teased as you strapped yourself in his McLaren.

“And my favourite woman.”

The engine roared to life before he zoomed away, taking you to the factory to finally meet his friends. When he told Kyle on the phone, he sounded so excited to see you again he sounded like he was going to puke as he listed off restaurants you could go for lunch.

“You told your girls about us?”

“Oh my God, please ignore that. Sophie was just teasing.”

“You can call me that, if you want.” He glanced at you, failing to hide his grin. “I’d like that very much in fact.”

You smiled to yourself. “Okay, papaya boy.”

At the next red light, the car behind him honked when he kissed you a little too long. John pulled away, but knowing him, the grin he wore only told you that it wasn’t long enough.

Of course, John would have preferred if he didn’t have to leave you, but having gained your full support, he flew to his next race in Japan with no weight on his chest.

The next day, he sent you a bouquet of your favourite flowers to the shop. You sent him a selfie with it, your smile as brilliant as ever.

Thank you for the lovely flowers <3

Only for my favourite x

Weeks flew by approaching summer. He’d got lunch delivered for you and your girls at least once a week. You displayed the beautiful flower arrangements he sent each time he was away next to register. He didn’t forget the postcards he promised, although he’d always be at your door before they arrived. You collected them in a small tin box.

You’d warned John about being clingy. If any, he felt he was the clingy one as he always looked forward to calling you at the end of the day to look at your pretty face, even if only on his phone. He wasn’t sure it helped curb the longing though, because he kept getting reminded of exactly what he left in London.

Especially the night before each race when he was jittery about the coming day. You’d stay up to be with him, only for your eyes to flutter as your cheek pressed against your pillow. It was a look you’d wear in another circumstance, one where he could be as loud as he wanted, groaning and panting into your ear, feeling all of you.

When the heat rose to his cheeks and his voice deepened a touch, you’d smile sweetly at him the glint in your eye unmistakeable, prompting his mind to drift further. As he palmed his pants, you’d show him where you needed his kisses, telling him how much you needed him. He’d try his best to bite back the noises that threatened to escape as his body shook at the sight that always made his head spin.

He’d drift to sleep with a grin on his face. Helps me relax, he’d said.

“John, you’ve been a lot calmer on the radio lately,” one of the interviewers said after the race.

“Yeah, been doing a lot of yoga,” he answered without missing a beat.

“In bed,” Kyle whispered behind him.

When John turned, he had taken off cackling.

His lips twitched into a smile. His teammate could run all he wanted, but he’d smack him upside the head later, as if they didn’t share the same bloody flight back.

“You know you don’t have to keep getting me flowers,” you said, arranging the bouquet he’d got from the airport in the vase. “Or sending me lunch so often.”

He draped his jacket on the back of the dining chair and looked up. ”You don’t like them?”

“I love them, but it’s just unnecessary. And… well I can’t return the same.”

“Oh, love. I never expected anything back.” He strode over, rubbing the small of your back. “I just enjoy… pampering you, like driving you around.”

“Thanks, John. I appreciate it, but please don’t feel like you have to. You’ve always been so thoughtful, but I’m just happy to see you.” You placed a hand on his shoulder, pulling him in for a kiss.

He always admired that about you: your independence and tenacity. As much as it made him proud, he, too, wanted to spoil you a little. You were his sweetheart after all, and he could never get enough of the smile on your face.

“You know, I was thinking. How do you feel about having my car while I’m away? Makes it easier for you to get around, yeah?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. My house keys will be there too, so you can go whenever.”

“You’re too good to me.” You wrapped your arms around his waist, head resting against his chest.

At the end of the week, with your consent, he posted a captionless photo of your joint hands – the very first public confirmation that there was someone. Within a minute, Kyle commented a full line of emojis: intense eyes, 100, confetti, fire, cookie and fist.

At this point John was convinced his teammate had his post notification on.

He’d also offered to stop wearing his mask in public if it bothered you, but since more customers recognised you as John Price’s woman, you too, stared wearing one.

When he’d cut his engine off, he turned to you as you pulled your mask on. “Are you going to keep wearing one?” He mirrored the action, covering his teasing smile.

“Maybe.”

“I love showing you off. Love when people look at how pretty your smile is.”

“But kisses are better when they’re stolen,” you said, your voice teasing.

He didn’t disagree. You didn’t mind the kisses that followed in that deserted parking lot. Dinner could wait.

John meant it that he loved showing you off. Of course he’d invited you to come to his races, but with your commitments in London, understandably, you’d turned down the trips halfway across the world, including the Canadian GP. He had been looking forward to taking you there very much since the first time you mentioned wanting to go.

But it’d been months now since he laid all his cards on the table, and you’d accepted what life could look like if you were to be with him. While he didn’t push, you also said no to weekend trips to his European races. He wasn’t entitled to you attending them, of course, and knowing the paparazzi, it was a huge ask to take you out of your private life. But admittedly he wanted people to know who his heart belonged to, that it was never anything short of serious with you.

Later in bed as he lay facing you, his fingers trailed down your arm.

“At least… Would you consider Silverstone? My parents go each year. It’s quite special to us, you know, home race and all-“ His eyes flicked to yours before he quickly added, “Unless you’re not ready. There are other races-”

You smiled. “John, are you asking me to meet your parents?”

He averted his gaze as heat crept up his neck. You’d joined in on the brief video calls with his parents, but meeting them was something else entirely. Was it too much to ask?

“Yes,” he muttered. “My mum’s been wanting to meet you.”

“I’d love to.”

“You’ll be my lucky charm?” He grinned, pulling you in by the waist. “At my home race? I’ll make you proud, love.”

John Price secured a win in Silverstone, making it his second consecutive home victory. Still with his bright orange helmet on, he sprinted to you on the sidelines. He crushed you in his embrace and lifted you off the ground before giving you a spin. The next second, Kyle and Simon joined in on the hug, the crowd cheering all around them.

He didn’t know he could get any happier, but seeing you next to his parents, beaming up at him on the podium made the butterflies stir. Today was more than just you being at his home race, but also the day you declared publicly you were his someone, and he was enjoying every second being yours.

You still had your pretty smile when he got off the podium, and with his cap and suit still dripping in sprayed champagne, in front of all the cameras, he pulled you into a kiss. The movement knocked the cap off your head, the same papaya one he gave you all those months ago. You laughed as you wiggled in his arms, a futile attempt of getting out of his drenched embrace.

When he finally pulled away, he looked you over, your front soaked now. You smiled up at him and cupped his cheek, making his heart flutter.

Could he have this with you forever? Could he have his career and a normal life with you after all? He would certainly die trying.

At the end of the night, Kate relayed that he was invited to a photoshoot in Liverpool. When John thought out loud that he might as well send his parents back home and spend some time there too, you said you could take a few days off. He grinned. He’d always wanted to show you where he grew up.

John took you on a ride around his hometown. He showed you his old school, the field he used to play football in with his friends and the karting track where it all started all those years ago. For dinner, he took you to the neighbourhood park where his favourite kebab shop was.

The next day, John left for the shoot after breakfast. At the door, he gave you a peck on your forehead before hopping into a taxi.

“I hope everything is to your liking, love,” Mrs. Price said as she plopped teabags into the pot. “The room isn’t too small, is it?”

“No, of course not. Everything is fine.” You smiled.

“Oh, good. I just wanted to make sure you have a good time here.”

“I promise everything is perfectly fine, Mrs. Price. You have a beautiful home.”

“Please call me Eleanor.” She patted your arm. “You’re family.”

Your gazed dropped as you tried to hide your smile. His parents had always been welcoming, but hearing that from his mum made you melt. You knew how important family was to John.

Perhaps you’d been overly guarded, that you didn’t want to go to any of his races and have your relationship exposed, not wanting to be accused of having any ill-intentions with him. But most importantly, you didn’t want his parents to.

Evidently, your worries had all been worries. You spent the rest of the morning chatting with her over tea before she tended to her colourful, blooming garden.

Footsteps and cooing came from outside before the front door swung open.

“I got his favourite blueberry loaf,” the guest said as she and Eleanor rounded the corner.

“Thank you so much. You’re too kind.” She placed the gift on the table. “Love, this is Claudia. John and her grew up together. And this is John’s girlfriend.”

You smiled. “Hi, nice to meet you.”

“I’ll get an extra cup.” Eleanor turned to the kitchen.

“New girlfriend, huh?” The brunette looked you over with a sneer. “Can never keep track, he has a different one every time I see him.”

Your brows furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Was expecting him to call. He usually would for some late night-fun.” She laughed. “Can’t forget his first time, I guess.”

Your fists balled under the table.

“Don’t take it personally when he ditches you, sweetheart. You know he can’t commit.”

Eleanor placed a teacup and a plate of your cookies on the table. “Claudia, these are from her shop. They’re lovely, please do try.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll go now.” She smiled, not even sparing you another glance. “I’ll drop by again some other time.”

“Oh, alright, love.” Eleanor walked her to the door. “Please say hi to your mum. I haven’t seen her in forever.”

Your stomach churned. You shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions. You didn’t know who the woman was nor her past with John, but judging by how friendly she was with his mum, they must have had history. You trusted John - he had been nothing less than transparent since the day you decided to make it work, but her words rubbed you the wrong way nonetheless. They made your skin crawl. The exchange only reminded you that you and John came from two different worlds.

When his mum returned to the table, you tried to not let your voice crack when you excused yourself for a stroll in the neighbourhood.

John arrived home sooner than he expected, but much to his disappointment, you weren’t there. She went to the park a few hours ago, his mum said. He called you to offer to pick you up, but you said you’d walk home.

He opened the door for you and kissed your cheek before leading you to the dining table.

“Oh, Claudia dropped by and gave you a blueberry loaf,” his mum said at dinner.

His fork froze mid-air. “Who?”

“Claudia, Charlotte’s girl.”

“What, again? How did she even know I’m here?”

“Her mum saw, probably.”

He pursed his lips. “Right, okay. Well, thanks, but please tell her she really doesn’t have to.”

You and John helped to clean up after dinner, but you were quiet and wouldn’t look into his eyes. Wouldn’t even smile when he wrapped his arms around you.

Had he done something?

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” he asked carefully when you were in the privacy of his room. “Talk to me. Do you… not like the place? It’s not too late to get a hotel-“

The last woman he brought home over three years ago was the same one who threw a fit about the house being too small for her liking and demanded a room at a luxury hotel.

You turned to him. “What? No, John, it’s not that.” You sighed. “Who’s Claudia? Do you have- did you use to date her?”

“No. She lived down the street. Why?”

“She said you bring someone new every time you’re home.”

His brows furrowed. “That’s not true.”

You hung your head. “She said you call her when you’re back. For fun. That you can’t forget your first time.”

“First time?!” His face twisted. “Fucking hell this woman. I don’t even-“ he sighed. “Before I moved to London, I told her I had a crush on her, but she called me fat and made fun of me in front of everyone at school. We never spoke again until my parents moved back here.

“She said she wanted to catch up, and summer last year I finally gave in. Thought there was no harm because well, kids do silly things and my mum’s friends with hers – well, were. I took her to a chippy and she got so upset. She said my mum raised a cheap bastard and left, so I don’t know why the bloody hell she keeps showing up.”

You blinked. “And your mum knows?”

“I never told her. I didn’t want to ruin her friendship with Charlotte.” He pursed his lips. “You know what, what she said to you is out of line. Fuck that, they’re not friends anymore anyway.”

Before you could say anything, he marched out and into his parents’ room. His mum was at the vanity combing her shoulder length hair, smiling at him from the mirror.

“Mum, I don’t want Claudia dropping by anymore. Tell her to piss off next time she shows up.”

She lowered her comb with a frown.

“You remember when you told me to take her for lunch last year? We went to a chippy and she said you raised a cheapskate who didn’t know how to treat a woman right.”

His mum gasped, turning to him. “How dare she! I always thought she was a nice girl. Is that why Charlotte stopped talking to me?”

“Probably, judging by the lies she told her this afternoon. Said I always bring someone new when I come home, that I call her at night-”

She slammed her comb down and strode to her phone on the nightstand. “I’m going to tell Charlotte and her scheming cow of a daughter to go to hell.”

When he returned to his room, you had your hand over your mouth, stifling a laugh. He closed the door behind him.

“Oh my God, John. Scheming cow?”

“Nobody messes with my sweetheart.” He grinned, sitting next to you on the bed before reaching for your hand. “But most importantly, no one fucks with my mum.”

“Go Eleanor.”

In the Canadian sun, the cerulean water glittered. Under the infinite blue sky, the clear lake stretched far and wide along the rocky mountains in the distance.

“The view is amazing, John. It’s so perfect it looks fake.” You huffed, but the grin remained as you caught your breath at the top of the hiking trail where the wind toyed with your hair.

He tucked back the loose strands behind your ear. “I’m more than happy to be sharing this with you.”

You turned and pressed your lips against his before a dog barked far off. You turned to the man with the large yellow Labrador.

He cupped your face, turning you back to him with an amused smile. “I mean it, if you want a dog, feel free.”

That morning, you’d cooed at each and every one of the Newfoundland puppy you met at the breeder. He was convinced you were going to take home the litter in your backpack.

You shook your head. “You know my place doesn’t allow pets.”

“Mine does.” He kissed your cheek. “I’d love a dog, with you.”

“Who’s going to take care of it when you’re away?”

“Can it be your reason to finally move in?” he asked hopefully. “You know I always love having you over.”

You smiled. “That’s a very tempting offer.”

“You can say no, of course. I wanted to let you know it’s something I want with you, so whenever you’re ready. I’ll wait. I’ll always wait for you.”

You took a seat overlooking the lake and rested your head against his, his fingers laced with yours. He let out a content exhale as he soaked up the view, savouring your presence. He kissed the top of your head.

Later, you took out the thermos from your backpack and poured yourself a cup of coffee.

“Sweetheart, remember when you made my double shot americano? I couldn’t sleep for two bloody days.”

You laughed.

“Well, I’m really glad I went.”

“Me too, Jean-Pierre. Me too.”

Masterlist

Hi hello, thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed the story bc I loved imagining Price in orange while writing :D I was wondering a lot of you are into F1 too? If yes, who’s your fave driver?

@tiredmetalenthusiast @le16erc @kyletogaz @its-me-mila @msluccapotato

@s-rinaldi-18 @izzybmep @the-darling-fishy @rowanyaboats @dirtymana

@gamergirlbones @hungrycrazy @wannabhere @princessdaniiiii @freshlemontea

@eve-lie @two-autumns @nocturnalreader106 @sklt987659 @fruitymoonbeams-blog

@praying-for-the-sun @shinymriver @redzscare @dwaekkiiiiiiiiiiai

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toournextadventure · 3 months

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our little secret pt.v

Summary: Letters to you.

Word Count: 4.5k Warnings: swearing, mention of possible suicide (slight mention, nothing happens), mental instability, mental spiraling, religious talk (Southern Christianity) Pairing: Lorraine Day x Reader (Masterlist) A/N: this is like a little filler, just having fun trying out something different. Don't worry, there's still a giant chapter left! Also? When Lorraine signs the letters to you, she puts a little heart over the i <3

June 15th

I thought you said you’d always be waiting. But I come home to hear from your momma that you’re on a vacation with Roy? Why didn’t you tell me before I left? I would have given you a proper goodbye.

It’s probably a good idea, though. Roy could definitely use the break and I’m sure you can too. I know the past few weeks have been… rough. I’m sorry. I didn't know it was going to happen. But we can talk more about things when you get back. For now, make sure you have some fun, okay?

Your momma said y’all went out West. If you could write me back and let me know where, maybe I can meet up with you. We can have a proper vacation for once. Do y’all have any real plans, or are you just traveling? I’m sure either one will do the job. You always did want to get out of town for a bit.

Our shoot went well. Max and Bobby-Lynne asked about you the whole time. It doesn't sit right with me when they're constantly checking up on you. Maybe I'm just jealous. It's probably nothing compared to how you feel. At least they mean well, I suppose. They send you their love. Maxine sent… a little more than love, but I’m not telling you about that.

By the time you get this letter, it shouldn’t be too long before you’re back home. I’ll be here waiting for you, okay? Don’t forget to send me some postcards. And if you find anything cute, don't forget to buy it for me! I'll pay you back, I promise.

I'll see you soon.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

June 29th

Having too much fun?

We all thought you'd both be home by now. The 4th is next week, you know. We never miss the 4th. Daddy said he would cook out this year. He's making your favourite and Beau and Huck got the good fireworks. We can take the truck out and watch the show, just you and me. RJ will be out so we can be free for a bit. That’ll be nice, right? A nice little break. So you better not miss it.

Speaking of, Beau isn’t too happy that you’re not home yet. He’s been doing a lot of pacing and mumbling a bunch of nonsense. I think he’s being a bit dramatic. He’s not happy that you left without letting him know. Said he could have told you a few places to go to be safe. I think he just misses you. We all do.

We haven’t been out to a shoot for a while. I’m glad. It hasn’t been the same since RJ proposed. Nothing has, really. Things just don’t feel the same. There’s guilt in everything I do now, I don’t know how to explain it. I just don’t feel comfortable with anything, even daily chores. Did you ever feel that guilt? The one that sits deep in your belly?

On a brighter note, Jimmy and Liz are back in town. They seem to be doing good. And no, they’re not pregnant, thank God. It’s a modern miracle. They had hoped to see you before the summer is over. Of course they will though, it’s not even July yet, the summer is still young. Besides, I know no vacation is more fun than hanging out with us, right? Even Roy would agree, I know it.

Momma is calling me to dinner now, so I’ll wrap it up. I’ll see you on the 4th, okay?

Yours, Lorraine

—---

July 23rd

Hey darlin, I think it’s about time you came home. You’ve more than missed the 4th, and Lorraine ain’t too happy. It’s the first time you’ve missed a holiday, you know? It ain’t like you. I know this ain’t the happiest place for you right now, but your family is here. We’re all here.

Where’d you go anyhow? You and Roy are homebodies, y’all don’t know anybody out West. If you really wanted a vacation, you could’ve waited for us to get home. We would’ve taken you. I’m sure Lorraine would’ve been happy to go too. We could’ve had a double vacation, you know? Like we always talked about?

Huck and I won our competition the other day. Wish you had been there to cheer us on. We wiped the floor with everybody. Best team ropers in the South, just you wait. You’d best come home for the next one. I’d hate to get too popular for you to notice us, you know?

I’ll keep Lorraine calm and happy, but I really need you to get home, darlin. It’s a bit past time to be concerned. At the very least, send us a letter back. I can handle you being gone for so long if I know where you are. I know this isn’t a happy place, but we’re still worried about you. We can make it a better place again, I promise.

Just send me something back, okay? I’d appreciate it.

Love you, Beau

—---

August 12th

Hon, I really think you need to come home. Lorraine and Beau are losing their minds. No one has heard from you or Roy since you left, and your parents don’t seem worried at all. Your momma seems the slightest bit concerned, but your daddy isn’t. Everyone is just acting weird, so you need to come home.

Jim and Liz left for seminary again last week. They were mighty upset they didn’t get to see you before they left. It’s been about since Christmas since y’all were together, right? They miss you both. Y’all are family. Maybe try to write him while y’all are gone, I’ll write his address at the bottom in case you don’t remember.

If I have to listen to Beau and Lorraine ask where you are one more time, I’m going to lose my mind. You know neither one of them knows how to be patient or think logically. They have a single bad thought and run with it. I need you here to help me calm them down, because you’re fine, just taking a break from everything.

No one blames you for taking a break. After everything… it’s the least you deserve. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Lorraine asked the other night if this is her fault. I told her it wasn’t. We all know that girl loves you to the moon and back. And we all know you love her back. Things can be worked out, but you’ve got to come back home first, okay?

After all this, you had better be having the time of your life, darling. I’m going to assume as much since you’re not answering anybody. Hey, if you can’t write back, can you at least give us a number to try and call you at? Beau said he’d pay any long-distance charges, he just wants to make sure you’re okay.

He’s playing the part of a dutiful boyfriend, you know. Everyone thinks it’s romantic. I know he’s just worried about you, but it’s weird to hear everyone giving him their sympathies. Is this how you feel when everyone talks to Lorraine about RJ? Like you’re in second place in a race you hadn’t wanted to compete in? Because if so, then I think I understand you a bit. It’s… not a nice feeling.

Ah, I won’t get sentimental. We can talk more when you get home. I think I understand you a little better. That’s kinda sad, isn’t it? Took you leaving for me to get a better grip on your feelings? Well, just come home soon so we can talk. As I’ve made clear, Beau and Lorraine miss you. But I miss you too, darling. Enjoy your trip, but please come home soon safe and sound.

With love, Huck

—---

October 9th

This ain’t funny anymore, you know. It ain’t funny, and you need to get home now. You can quit ignoring all our letters, we get it. You’re hurt, you’re upset, you wanna teach us a lesson or somethin. We get it, we understand, just come home.

Lorraine is losing her gotdamn mind, and quite frankly I am too. No one’s heard a peep from you or Roy. You didn’t even like the West, you had always said it was too different. Never liked how they did their food either. So why would you even go out that way anyway?

You’re probably out drinking those fancy beers they try to peddle up there. They’re not as good as ours and you know it. Or you’re out doing those stupid hikes that you never cared for, getting more blisters on your heels because you don’t even like walks. There’s nothing good out there and you need to come back.

You should’ve left us a note before you left. That ain’t like you, you know. You always let us know where you’re going. You couldn’t even go to church camp back in the day without leaving a personalised letter for each of us. But now you just up and leave in the middle of the night? No warning? That ain’t right and you know it.

People keep asking me where you are and I don’t have any more answers. I can only say “she’s on vacation” so many times before people realise it’s a lie. And it is, isn’t it? It’s a lie. You’re not on some damn vacation. If you ran off, just let me know. I’ll leave you alone as long as I know you’re safe.

Did we make you that miserable? Was being around us so awful that you had to leave? You could’ve told us first. We could’ve come up with a plan, something that wouldn’t hurt you so bad. I don’t know what we could’ve done, but we could’ve tried something. Anything at all.

I need you to answer my letters, honey. I really need you to let me know you’re safe.

Please be safe.

Love you, Beau

—---

December 17th

You missed Halloween. And Thanksgiving. Are you going to miss Christmas too? And New Year's Eve? Am I going to have to jump into the new year without you? Please let me know if I am, because I need to be prepared. I’ve spent holiday after holiday waiting for you to come back, for you to spend it with me again. I get my hopes up every single time just for you to not be there.

RJ keeps asking me what’s wrong, and I’m honest with him. I miss you. I miss you so badly my chest aches. But he doesn’t understand. He thinks I just miss my best friend. And I do, you’ve always been my best friend. But you’re so much more than that, and I can’t explain it to him until you get back because I need someone to hold on to while you’re gone. When are you coming back?

Are you waiting for an apology? Because I’ll give you one, I’ll give you as many as you want. I’m sorry about RJ. I’m sorry about the proposal and that I didn’t say no. I’m sorry about Mr. Dylan, he never should’ve touched you. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye properly. I’m sorry I avoided you after the proposal, I was just scared and didn’t know what to do.

I’ll say sorry for anything you want or need. Just please answer me. Please come home. I don’t want anything else for Christmas, I don’t want any other miracle, I just want you. Please come home.

I miss you.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

January 24th

We searched Roy’s room and found all his guns gone.

I’m done asking, darling, you need to call us or send us a letter. Now. Now, I don’t believe Roy would do anything to you, but your daddy is on a kick about how unstable he was. How he’s still sick from the devil and all that nonsense he would always preach. I know he wouldn’t touch a hair on your head, but I really need you to answer me.

Lorraine has been losing her patience with RJ. She yelled at him the other day just because he tried to hold her hand. Told him not to touch her. It was quite the show. And it’s going to get her in trouble. She needs you, you know? You’re not the only one who has to hide.

I’m sorry, but I went through your room. It’s been long enough, your momma practically gave me the go ahead. You didn’t take any of your letters from Lorraine. Did you mean to leave them? I hope you didn’t. I hope it was an accident, and you didn’t mean to leave us behind.

Beau has a letter for you too, but he’s not done with it. I don’t know how to help him. He’s got himself convinced he should’ve done more. I don’t know what he should have done. I don’t know what he could have done differently. Did you want him to propose? The three of us could’ve moved off somewhere, you know. We could’ve made it work if it’s what you wanted.

Everyone wants you home. They need you to come home. No one is complete without you, it’s like a big part of town is missing. Stevie from the bar finally pulled me aside and asked about you last weekend. I couldn’t even give him an answer. He said he’d pray for you. Said he’d keep a shot of the good stuff saved for when you get back.

Fuck it. I miss you too. You’re one of my very best friends, hon. You’re the one who’s been with me through everything. Hell, you introduced me to Beau. You’re the only one I can truly talk to about things. I need you home too, okay? You’re part of my home, so I need you to come back.

I need you to write back.

With love, Huck

—---

January 30th

You’re an absolute bastard. You know that? You’re a fuckin bastard. A vacation? Give me a fuckin break, you didn’t go on no gotdamn vacation. Where’d you go, huh? Somewhere we’d never find you? Did Roy convince you to leave? He probably did, the prick. Ain’t no way you would’ve left on your own, you’re not stupid.

What the hell were you thinkin? Just up and leavin like it ain’t nobody’s business. Well it’s my business. It’s my fucking business and you should’ve told me. You’re supposed to be my girlfriend. I don’t care that we’re pretendin, I still fuckin care about you and you just fuckin left? Did I mean that little to you?

We had a pretty great thing goin, you didn’t have to leave and ruin it. I don’t care that it was a lie, we were happy. I still had Huck, and you still had Lorraine, and we were happy. You didn’t have to pack your bags and leave like a thief in the night to, what, prove a point? Well I get it now, you weren’t as happy as I thought. You could’ve told me instead of doin all of this.

You’d better answer the gotdamn letter this time. I ain’t playin around anymore. You better answer the letter and get your ass home. And if Roy is readin this, then you better get her home. You’d better have kept your gotdamn hands and your guns away, and you better get her home. Now.

Beau

—---

February 15th

Hey, momma said I should try to send you something. She said you might answer me since I’m your baby brother. Are you and Roy okay? I don’t care what Pap says, I know y’all aren’t dumb, y’all didn’t go do something stupid. Roy probably just grabbed his guns to keep you safe. He’s not crazy.

Gramma came down with something nasty. The doctors think it’s pneumonia, but we’re still waiting for tests to come back. You both should probably get back just in case it’s bad. She misses you. She prays for you both twice a day. It’s really sweet, she just wants you both safe.

Seminary has been alright. Boring. You would’ve liked it more. Heck, you would’ve been better at it. No one knows the bible quite like you, I don’t care what Pap says. If any one of us should’ve gone off to study, it should’ve been you. Maybe once he sees how bad at it I am, he’ll change his mind. Think so? Probably not.

I’m waiting to propose to Liz until you both get back. I’ve got it all planned out and everything, even bought a ring. You’d like it, I think. But I can’t get married without my big siblings, right? Don’t worry, I can be patient. Y’all just get home safe and sound, you hear?

We love you. The both of you. We’ll see you soon.

Jimmy

—---

February 18th

Your Gramma passed away today. The funeral is in two weeks. That should be more than enough time for you to get back.

We’ll see you soon, love.

With love, Huck

—---

March 4th

Your Gramma’s funeral was today. You weren’t there. Why weren’t you there? You meant the world to her. She meant the world to you. You were the one she wanted to see, and you weren’t even there to see her buried.

She would have wanted you to be here.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

April 4th

A police report came in that they found two bodies in the river a few hours away from here. The bodies are decomposed too much to make identifications. I swear to god, hon, it better not be you. I know things were hard. For the both of you. But you didn’t have to go and do that.

It better not be you.

With love, Huck

—---

May 26th

Your daddy practically declared you both dead at church this morning. I guess after almost a year, he’s tired of worrying about it. He was never a patient man. I don’t think anyone really believed him, but who’s going to argue with their preacher? No one in this town, that’s for sure. Momma and daddy said you’re probably fine, just got sick of your daddy. No one would blame you if that were the case.

After church, Mr. Dylan told your daddy you and Roy had tried to kill him the night you left. If that were true, I don’t know why he didn’t bring it up when everyone was asking where you were. Don’t know why he saved it for now, but he did. Said you had both tried to kill him in the church.

He told your daddy you were a queer. Said you were a queer and you were going to infect the town with your sin. Huck hit him. Square on the jaw, knocked him out cold. I had thought it would be Beau. I hope he gave Mr. Dylan a concussion.

Did he really find out? Because I didn’t tell anybody, I swear. We always kept things a secret. At least I think we did. No one was ever around that didn’t already know. I know none of my crew told, they wouldn’t dare. I promise I didn’t tell anyone.

Momma asked me this evening if you really were queer. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what her reaction would be. She has always loved you, I didn’t want her to think any less of you because of what Mr. Dylan said. Daddy said we shouldn’t talk about it while you’re not here. Said it wasn’t right to talk behind your back. I don’t want them to hate you.

I won’t ever let them hate you.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

June 1st

I hate you. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I hate you. I hate you, and I hate Roy, and I hate this fuckin town and everyone in it.

You were supposed to be here, gotdammit. You were supposed to be here, and we were all supposed to grow old together. What the fuck were you thinkin? Don’t you know how much you’ve hurt me? Don’t you understand? We might not have been in love, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love you. I loved you, and you went and broke my heart like this?

We were all supposed to be together, you know. No matter what, remember? I thought you were my Huckleberry. Well what are you now, huh? A coward. You’re a fuckin coward. What, times get hard so you leave? You just pack your shit and leave with your crazy fuckin brother?

What were we to you? Were we just a means to an end? Nothing more than a toy for you to play with? Cause you were never that to me. You were never anything less than my best friend, the only girl I ever loved. And you just fuckin left me. Was I not good enough for you?

If that’s how you feel, then good fuckin riddance. Stay away. We don’t want you back in this town anyway. Go stay with your new fuckin friends that won’t ever fuckin know you or care about you the way we do. No one is ever gonna understand you like we do.

Don’t even bother comin back.

Beau

—---

June 2nd

Please come back. I can’t do this without you.

Beau

—---

June 4th

I broke off the engagement today. It’s all just too much. I can’t even stand looking at him anymore. Every time he looks at me makes my skin crawl. I can’t even stand being in the same room with him anymore. Each time he touches me makes me feel like a piece of my soul dies.

Did I do this to you? Did I push you to leave? If I did, I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. If I had been smarter, I would’ve suggested dating Huck instead. Then none of this ever would have happened. The four of us would’ve been together and no one would have ever known. We could’ve been happy.

Were you that unhappy? I never wanted you to hurt. All I ever wanted was you. Every time I had to fake a smile with RJ, or play nice, I always thought about you. I didn’t care about him, he was just a good distraction so no one would know about us. It was stupid. I never should’ve been afraid of how I felt.

I need you to come home. I need you to come home and tell me everything will be okay. Nothing feels the same without you. Foods don’t taste good, the sun isn’t as bright, nothing is fun. Most days I don’t even want to get out of bed anymore. I would rather rot away than go another day without you.

I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything. I’ll take everything back, I’ll tell the whole world that I love you. I’ll hold your hand at the store. I’ll sit in your lap at the bar, and pull you to dance with me. I’ll do whatever you want, whenever you want. I just want you back. I need you back.

I love you. You’re my home. I need you here with me.

Please come back to me.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

July 1st

You took my heart with you, you know. No one else is ever going to have it. Please keep it safe.

Yours, Lorraine

—---

The bonfire was hot against Lorraine’s skin. Far too hot. Combined with the sweltering summer heat, it was painful. She didn’t care. Painful at least felt like something. It felt like something real, something she could focus on. Almost as real as the pile of letters in her hands, all stamped with the same thing on the front in red.

Return to sender.

“I’m sorry,” Max said softly. Her hand was surprisingly cool against Lorraine’s upper arm.

On the other side of the fire, off in the distance, she could hear Beau yelling. Drunken, incoherent rambling that no one could really understand. Huck had given up on trying to console him. After all, how could he console him about something that they couldn’t fix? What would be the point?

Another beer bottle shattered against the hard ground.

You were supposed to come back. You were supposed to be there waiting for Lorraine when she got back from filming. Then you were both going to talk, and you were going to come up with a plan to get out of the engagement, and then everyone was going to be happy. Maybe you could’ve gone out East for real, like the four of you had always talked about.

The letters in her hand felt like lead.

“Do you want us to give you a minute?” Bobby-Lynne asked. She squeezed Lorraine’s shoulders. It was comforting. Grounding.

“No,” Lorraine said softly. “It wouldn’t matter anyway.”

The letters were the last connection she had to you. Your daddy had quickly emptied out yours and Roy’s rooms, labeling you both as sinners and traitors. She had been lucky enough to grab your hat before he had thrown everything out. It sat comfortably on her head right at that moment.

Her last remnants of you.

No tears came as she held the letters over the fire. The flames licked the skin of her damaged fingers. She knew, logically, it should have hurt. It didn’t. Maybe, if she kept her hand there long enough, you would appear and pull her back. You would scold her for doing something dangerous, and then you could both go to bed.

That’s all she wanted. She just wanted to go to bed.

Her fingers pried themselves away from the letters, and she watched them fall onto the bonfire. One by one they caught a spark, turning a dark brown and curling around the edges before igniting. She could see the different handwriting on each page. Beau, Huck, Jimmy. Her own. All filling the pages with their thoughts, their concerns, their feelings. Things they would never dare tell each other.

She watched the fire until the very last letter burned. Your name faded away into the orange flame. You faded away into nothing, and when your name was no longer legible, Lorraine felt her own heart go with it. There was a space shaped exactly like you within her chest. No one would ever fill it, and she didn’t want them to.

You were her heart and soul. Her home.

She would never find anyone else for as long as she lived. And then, she would find you in death.

She would find you in every lifetime. No matter how long it took.

#lorraine day x reader #lorraine x reader #lorraine day #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega

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ww2yaoi · 5 months

Text

[here's a little taste of a multi-chapter clegan post-war fic I've been working on. note: I've taken creative liberties with the timeline and John and Gale's post-war lives. it's very much intentional]

Winter 1948

Marjorie Cleven dies on a Tuesday in December, two weeks before Christmas Eve.

John gets the call a few days later. Gale’s voice is steady on the other end of the line, but John knows his heart is broken. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since Marge got sick. After the wedding, there had been some letters exchanged, few and far between, but John has always been a crummy pen pal. There were reunions, but those were annual at most, and John rarely stuck around past a couple of drinks and a war story or two. When they got back stateside in ‘45, he thought the distance would be good for Gale, thought it would help put their past far behind them.

Now, in hindsight, it seems futile. John feels it all rushing back, like VE Day was just yesterday and Gale’s boots are still underneath his bed.

It’s warm in southern Florida. The sun beams down on the tarmac, hot enough to fry an egg on the airfield, sunny-side-up. John watches from the control tower as planes taxi below him. His trainees will be on furlough soon, but he won’t be going home for Christmas this year. Any excuse to maintain the two thousand miles between him and Gale.

It doesn’t last. John should’ve known he could never keep away for long.

Spring 1949

The back of the cab smells like menthol cigarettes and cheap cologne. John drums his fingers against his thigh, feeling suddenly restricted by his uniform now that he’s been let loose in the civilian world. Laramie, Wyoming passes by his window, a cluster of shops and banks and schools on a stretch of agricultural land bisected by historical railways and boxed in by mountains on all sides. The air is thinner here than in Manitowoc, and there are no waterfronts to be found. The terra firma is dusty and brown, the sun a sepia pinprick hanging low in the sky.

The cab weaves through neighbourhoods of modest-looking houses. John had handed the driver the address on a slip of yellowy paper, which Gale had relayed over the phone. John doesn’t know how close they are to his destination, but he can feel his anxiety rising like bile in his throat. He makes nervous conversation, the driver mentioning the geology museum, the fact that the town was named after a French fur trapper who disappeared somewhere in the mountains. It doesn’t do much to calm John’s nerves.

“What brings you to Laramie?” the driver asks, glancing up at the rear-view mirror to get a glimpse of John.

He’s young, probably around Gale’s age. Young enough to have served at least, but he doesn’t comment on John’s uniform. He just peers at him curiously, eyes darting back and forth from the road.

“Visiting an old friend,” John says and tries not to squirm uncomfortably under his gaze. “He goes to school here.”

A moment later, the cab slows to a halt outside of a quaint-looking bungalow. John regards it from his window: white siding, yellow door, slate roof. Rose bushes line the walk-up, not yet blooming, and the grass has recently been mowed.

“Thanks,” John says, fishing a few bills from his pocket and handing them to the driver. “Keep the change.”

The driver smiles at him, close-mouthed, and pops the trunk. John slowly gets out of the car, like he’s trying to delay the inevitable, then fetches his suitcase from the back. He rests it on the sidewalk for a moment while the cab speeds away, looking at the house once more. A gaggle of kids darts down the street on bicycles. A few doors down, a lawnmower springs to life. It’s picturesque, like a postcard Gale might’ve sent him a few years back. John immediately feels out of place, still used to Nissen huts and crowded mess halls and military time. If he wants to turn back, now’s his chance, but he picks up his suitcase from the ground and forces his feet forward, climbing up the porch steps.

He thumbs the doorbell and it chimes. A dog barks gruffly inside the house. John removes his cap from his head and smoothes out his hair. He feels ridiculous, like a socially awkward teenager picking up his sweetheart for prom. His heart is in his throat as the door opens gradually, almost startling as a golden retriever pokes its head through the opening. It squeezes outside and dashes into the yard, yelping happily.

“Archie, get back here!”

John recognizes that voice. The door opens all the way, and suddenly, Gale is standing in front of him. Everything John had thought to say on his way over dies on his tongue. Gale looks practically the same, if not a bit filled out in his middle than he was during the war. His cheeks are smooth and shaven, flaxen hair styled off his forehead in a coif. John could never get used to seeing Gale in civilian clothes, but that’s how he appears in front of him now, crisp, white button-down hanging off his shoulders, navy slacks belted around his waist and brown cap-toe shoes on his feet.

They look at each other for a moment, unspeaking, then a smile splits Gale’s face in two. “Hello stranger,” he says.

“Gale.” John can’t help but return his grin. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

He holds out his hand for Gale to shake it, but Gale takes one look at his outstretched palm and instead, pulls John into a hug. It surprises John, so much so that almost all the air shoots out of his lungs at the contact. Gale’s fingers meld into the muscle of John’s back. It takes John a moment, but he eventually returns the gesture, squeezing Gale gently. They part and Gale turns his attention towards the dog, Archie, who’s taken it upon himself to start digging around in the garden.

Gale whistles. “Come here, boy,” he shouts, clapping his hands, and Archie bounds over.

He pauses to sniff John’s shoes. John crouches down and pats the dog, rubbing his ears, and is instantly reminded of Meatball.

“He’s usually not so ill-behaved,” Gale says. “He gets excited around visitors.”

“I don’t mind,” John replies, smiling down at the dog.

Archie pants, long, pink tongue hanging from his mouth, then he retreats back inside the house. Gale reaches down and picks up John’s suitcase from the porch. John straightens. They look at each other again, a bit too long without words to be comfortable, but John knows they’re both adjusting to being in close proximity again after so long.

“Lead the way,” he says, motioning towards the open front door.

Gale seems to snap out of it. “Of course, come on in.”

John steps inside the foyer and closes the door behind him. The interior is small, but well-decorated and tidy. The ocean blue walls are hung with artwork, the hardwood floors carpeted with rugs. John sets his cap down on a table peppered with framed photographs but doesn’t stop to look at any of them. He follows Gale past the dining room, down a hallway, and through the kitchen to another hallway at the back of the house. Gale opens one of the four doors that line the hall and carries the suitcase inside. John peeks his head into the guest bedroom. A double bed sits against the far wall, night tables on either side of it that host brass lamps with cream shades. On the other end of the room is a cherry wood wardrobe and an armchair to its left, upholstered in a muted green. Above it lies a square window, lace curtains pulled together to drown out the harsh afternoon light. The bedroom is sparse and unlived in, like most guest bedrooms are, but John appreciates it just the same.

“Hopefully this suits you alright,” Gale says, setting the suitcase down beside the bed.

John nods. “Suits me just fine,” he says. “Better than what I have back at base. That’s for sure.”

Gale looks at him. An emotion John can’t exactly pinpoint passes over Gale’s face, something like recognition, bordering on wistfulness.

They return to the kitchen, and Gale beckons John to sit down at a round table in the corner. Archie laps water from a bowl as Gale putters around the kitchen, opening cabinets. He appears tense, but not in his usual stiff, reserved way. His energy is almost jittery, nervous, and he taps a rhythm on the countertop. It’s not like him, at least not like the Gale John knew during the war. He pretends not to notice.

“So, how was your flight?” Gale asks eventually.

“Good,” John says and adjusts his uniform, crossing his legs. “Felt strange not being the one flying the plane.”

“I’ll bet,” Gale replies with a suggestion of a smile. “Do you want something to eat? Some coffee?” He reaches into the cabinet and produces a tin of Foldgers.

“Just coffee, thanks,” John says.

He looks around the kitchen as Gale spoons coffee grounds into the machine. His eyes trace the checkered red wallpaper, the white-tiled backsplash, the laminate countertops, the icebox in the corner. He’s never seen Gale in such a domestic setting, not even during the wedding. Maybe that’s why he stayed away for so long, even when he was invited time and time again. Perhaps he didn’t want to experience Gale so far removed from the world they both inhabited for so many years, a world where the only people they could rely on were their men and each other. Now, there’s no avoiding it. It’s all laid out for John to see.

The coffee maker beeps and steams. Gale rests his elbows against the kitchen counter and looks over in John’s general direction, but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. John doesn’t know what to say to him. He doesn’t know how to fall back into the easy camaraderie they had at the beginning, before the stalag, before the march, before the end of the war. Seeing Gale has ushered back a slew of emotions John has been distancing himself from since they parted ways four years ago. He feels like an intruder in Gale’s home, looking for Marge in the corners of the room but not finding her. Guilt stirs in his stomach, and he asks himself again what the hell he’s doing here. This isn’t his place. This isn’t his life.

“How’s training?” Gale asks. “Are the boys following their orders, Lieutenant Colonel?”

John smirks at that, partly to hide his discomfort. It feels wrong that he should outrank Gale after everything they’ve been through, flight school, then serving together, then imprisonment.

“It’s busy,” John replies and drums his fingers against the table. “They’re good kids. Fucking caterpillars though. So damn young.”

Gale smiles softly. “Were we ever that young?”

“Maybe you were,” John quips. “I feel like my bones have been creaking since before our war even started.”

Gale laughs, and the sound hits John like a fist to his sternum. He realizes suddenly that he’s missed Gale’s laugh so goddamn much. It rings in his ears, out-of-reach and yet familiar, like a favourite song of his he hasn’t heard in years has come on the radio out of the blue. For a brief moment, John regrets denying himself this for so long, even if it was the only way he could get on with his life.

“How’s school?” John asks in turn. “Master’s coming along?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Gale says, nodding. “I like my classes. Lots of grading, lots of writing, some teaching. I’ve got a meeting on Tuesday with my advisor about my thesis.”

“Well, well, look at that,” John says, the corner of his lips twisting into a grin. “Professor Cleven.”

Gale dips his chin towards his chest, almost shy. “Not just yet, John.”

“You’re getting there,” John says. “Y’know Marge wrote to me about your thesis a year or so back, not that I understood a word. Astrophysics, not exactly my wheelhouse.”

Gale’s face falters imperceptibly at the mention of his late wife’s name, and John immediately feels apologetic for bringing her up without much warning.

“It’s not done yet,” Gale says flatly, his gaze falling from John’s face to look at his interlocked fingers resting on top of the counter. “You can read what I have though if you’d like.”

“Yeah, I might,” John says and grimaces at his own inadeptness while Gale’s eyes are elsewhere.

The coffee maker beeps and Gale goes to it, removing two mugs from the cabinet and setting them down beside it. He takes the sugar out of the cupboard and the cream from the icebox.

John bites the inside of his cheek, knowing what he needs to say but unsure if he has it in him to say it. “Buck?”

Gale’s head snaps up at the sound of the nickname. He regards John with a puzzled look, like he’s no longer used to being called anything other than Gale to his face. The name is a relic from a different time, John supposes, something that belonged to them only, and when John was no longer around to use it, there was no one else around to take up the task.

After a moment, the expression on Gale’s face smoothes out. “What is it, Bucky?”

John swallows, then pushes the words out. “I’m sorry, y’know, that I, uh, I couldn’t make it. To the funeral.”

Gale looks at him for a moment, then his face softens. “It’s alright,” he says. “Marge didn’t much like being the centre of attention anyway.” He pours coffee into the two mugs, then adds sugar to one and cream to the other. “My mother-in-law appreciated the flowers you sent.”

“Oh, good,” John says. “Azaleas were Marge’s favourite, right? I remember them from her wedding bouquet.”

Gale’s eyes grow heavy with sadness. He nods. “Yeah, they were.”

As if on cue, John hears a grumbly cry coming from one of the bedrooms down the hall. It starts off quiet, like a baby stirring from sleep, then gradually gets louder until it becomes a full-blown wail. Archie’s ears perk up before he quickly sulks away.

“Sorry,” Gale says as he grips the coffee with sugar and hands it to John. “I just put her down for her afternoon nap, but she’s in that phase where she’s rebelling against sleep.”

John says nothing, frozen in his seat as Gale crosses the kitchen into the hallway and slips inside the bedroom. John had been so caught up in seeing Gale again that he’d almost forgotten. He stares into the inky well of his coffee, too stunned to drink from it.

Gale emerges a moment later with a bundle in his arms. Now calm, the little girl clings to him, her head tucked into the crook of Gale’s neck as she sucks her thumb into her mouth. She’s wearing cream-coloured footie pyjamas with pink roses on them, her curly blonde hair tangled from sleep. Gale draws circles against her back, rocking her slightly from side-to-side. John regards her carefully. She must be at least a year and a half now, much bigger than she was in the pictures Gale had sent him however long ago.

Gale approaches the table where John is sitting. “Lucy, this is your Uncle Bucky,” he says, pointing over at John. “Can you say hello?”

Lucy turns her head and looks straight at John, and John sees the Marge in her face right away, the slight upturn of her nose, the fullness of her cheeks, the pink purse of her lips, but her eyes are all Gale, blue and round and yawning. She quickly looks away, hiding her face back in her father’s neck.

“Sorry,” Gale says again and rubs her back. “She gets shy around strangers.”

John doesn’t expect it to, but the comment stings. The fact that any child of Gale’s could be a stranger to him is borderline unforgivable.

[To be continued...]

#masters of the air #john egan #gale cleven #clegan #buck x bucky #my fic

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bettyfrommars · 1 year

Note

Might be too much in line with I'm on fire.. but what about classic a classic motorcycle riding drifter.. that is more than meets the eye... maybe more monster than man and that's why he drifts... idk if that's enough maybe he's drifted into small town USA and he meets reader at like a Truckstop/ Diner that's across from the one hotel in town and over days of her waiting on him (EDS) they strike something up... spicy.. if you will.. maybe he finds her delectable and she finds him mysterious & charming idk just spit ballin

The Drifter

missed connections

out on the highway

blurb 1 blurb 2

monster!drifter!Eddie x dinerWaitress!Reader

18+ONLY, smut, blood, oral (f receiving), mention of drug and alcohol addiction, mention of physical abuse by an ex, mention of PTSD, emotional trauma, 2 lost souls finding each other, a killing, monsterfuqqing, but it’s also a really sweet, fluffy story if that makes sense. wc: 4.2

A/N: I was so excited to get this ask! I had to really pull back on the length of this story because I could've kept writing it forever and will most likely bring back Eddie The Drifter again in some oneshots. I did a quick re-read, but sometimes I just need to post these before I obsess over them for too long.

(Also, when Eddie is thinking about how "damaged" they both are, that is his perception, not mine. I think they are both perfect.)

Eddie had been drifting for a while. He didn’t want to know anyone, and he didn’t want anyone to know him. He hadn't been the same since the physical and emotional trauma he’d suffered in The Upside Down. Steve took him by the arm once and told him he understood what he was going through—that they all understood—and that he wasn’t alone. Eddie knew Steve and the rest meant well, but they couldn’t understand, and he was convinced no one ever would. Trauma affects everyone differently and for Eddie, it started to turn him into his father, and that was what scared him more than anything. Dark and brooding with a short fuse, there was a beast living inside of him that had not been there before the ordeal with Vecna; or perhaps, it had just been sleeping.

He lost his temper with Dustin once, and at the time, he thought he was having a very normal reaction to the situation. It wasn’t until he recognized the fear in his younger friend’s eyes–the way he backed away from Eddie and put his hands up as if he needed to protect himself—that Eddie knew he had to go. After years of silent struggle and becoming a hermit more and more, he decided to hit the road.

He started out in his van, sleeping in it, getting odd jobs wherever he went, staying in town just long enough to make some money, and then he was in the wind again. He called Wayne from payphones and sent postcards back home to Hawkins once in a while, but not often. In his mind, they were better off without him.

The second year he was on the road, he ended up getting involved with a biker gang and doing some jobs for them that paid well but were on the wrong side of the law. Before the Upside Down, he’d been more of a lover than a fighter. Sure, he had to defend himself a few times, especially from his old man, and he never took shit from people without giving it back, but ever since he almost died, he’d acquired some type of superhuman strength. There was a transformation that happened in him now, fueled by the adrenaline of his rage, and in the past decade, he’d been paid to hurt more people than he could count. The problem was—he’d started to like it.

Eventually, he was able to trade in his van for a Harley FXS 80, and he carried most of his early possessions with him. He put the rest of what he owned in a storage unit in Oregon, and he’d planned to circle back there again one of these days to get it all when he decided to settle down—but years later, he was still on the road. He’d been using his bedroll to sleep out under the stars the past couple nights, but the clouds told him it was about to rain, and he decided he could use a shower and a real bed for the night.

Red River Junction was less than a dot on a map, a truck stop town with a place to eat, a place to sleep, and a place to pump your gas, set right plop in the middle of nowhere. You’d grown up in a town not too far down the highway, and you were still there, in the same trailer your mother left to you when she passed. You worked at both the Sundown Motel part-time, and at Margie’s Diner, and in your free time, you dreamed about leaving town and never coming back.

You heard the rumble of his motorcycle before you saw it; chrome pipes growling to a stop as the rider found a place for his bike in the lot. A motorcycle, or even an entire MC, pulling into the junction was nothing new. You were the only stop for gas and food for a good fifty miles.

You were staring for so long out the window as he dismounted and took his helmet off, that you overflowed the coffee cup you were refilling and the elderly customer scoffed at you. He had long, curly hair tied back in a ponytail and bangs that had grown out just long enough to tuck behind his ears. Black leather jacket, and leather chaps over his jeans. Your attention was immediately drawn to his jewelry: the small hoop piercing in his ear and the chunky rings across his knuckles. My Boyfriend’s Back by The Angels played softly from the jukebox while you made your way to the front to greet him. The kitchen was slammed with only Big Joe behind the grill, and Leslie was the only other waitress, but she was on a smoke break.

You fumbled the big plastic menu in your hand when he took his sunglasses off to nail you with those star-flecked eyes. “Just one for lunch?”

He tucked his sunglasses into the front of his shirt and looked around. “You still serving breakfast?”

“All day long,” you assured him. Seats at the counter were all full, so you offered him a booth, and he slid in without another word or glance in your direction, taking the menu from you with a grunt. You tried not to stare at his scars: the angry, purple one on his neck, and the deep white slash across his chin. His hands were also flecked with scar tissue from various fights, and punching through mirrors every time he hated his own reflection.

50 year old Leslie was tying her apron and chewing gum when you moved behind her to grab a cup and saucer for his coffee. “Another grumpy one,” you whispered over the sound of clinking silverware and scattered conversations.

Leslie raised her eyebrow a few times, resting her elbow on the counter. “Hell, he can get grumpy with me any day.”

Eddie didn’t say much while you waited on him, and you didn’t think he was paying any attention to you, but he saw the way you splashed a bit of vodka into your soda can behind the counter. He also caught the way you used that same liquid to toss back a couple pills you scooped out of your apron pocket just before you turned to grab some hot plates from the kitchen hatch. He didn’t judge you for it or think it was odd being that he’d spent the past ten years trying to find ways to dull his pain.

He thought you were too beautiful for this deadbeat town; too sweet, too kind. He noticed the bruise on your forearm and the vacancy in your eyes and he felt an instant kinship with you: the damaged recognizing the damaged.

When you came to clear his empty plate, he asked you if the Sundown Motel was a decent place to stay. It was the only motel for miles and he didn’t care how decent it was, he just wanted a reason to keep talking to you.

“Sure, it’s great,” you shrugged. “If you like bedbugs and carpets that look like a violent crime took place recently.”

He met your eyes, and there was a moment of levity there that lightened both of your spirits if only for that moment.

“I’m cool with bedbugs,” he brushed his tongue between his lips. “It gets lonely on the road, it’s nice to have some company.”

He told you his name was Eddie after he read yours off of your name tag, and when you came back from seating a table full of seniors who were on a bus tour to the casino, he was gone.

He left you a generous tip, though, and after hours of getting tipped in quarters and loose change, it felt good to have some solid cash in your pocket. His motorcycle was gone too, and you wondered if he’d decided to hit the road or stay the night.

You told yourself to forget about him, that he was just another drifter you’d never see again, but the evening had other plans for you.

You were supposed to have the night off from both jobs, but Susan at the front desk of the motel begged you to come down and work the check-in desk for an hour while she went to pick her kid up. You wished you could say you had some big plans, but that was absolutely not the case, and so you rolled your car up to the back lot behind the dumpsters and changed out of your orthopedic shoes and into something less drab.

You thought it would be an easy hour to space off and read a book, but ten minutes after you clocked in, two guests locked themselves out of their room. It was a two-tier motel, and as you made your way up the concrete steps with the husband and wife in question behind you, fumbling with the keys, you caught sight of Eddie a few rooms down, and your heart jumped into your throat.

He was sitting in the plastic chair in front of the door to his room, smoking a cigarette, stripped down to jeans and a wife-beater. His hair was still wet from his shower, hanging down his shoulders, showcasing the patchwork of scars that covered his flesh.

He didn’t make eye contact, but he saw you. In fact, he knew you were on your way a few minutes before that, because he heard your voice, and it made him stay and light another smoke. He flicked his ash and waited for you to let the couple into their room.

On your way back to the stairs, the soda and snack machine blocked your view, but once you rounded the corner, there he was again.

“Is your room satisfactory, sir?” You put the keys in your pocket and stood tall, pretending to act professional.

Eddie met your eyes then, staring up through his lashes, and one side of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Disappointed I haven’t found any bedbugs.”

You coughed a laugh, swaying on your feet. “Give it time. They come out at dark.”

Eddie didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but he’d also learned never to miss an opportunity with how transient his life was. His attraction to you was not purely physical, which was a rare occurrence for him.

He shifted in his seat, a silky curl of gray smoke passing from his lips. “Are you free later tonight? Can I buy you dinner?”

Suddenly shy and baffled as to why he’d have any interest, you lowered your chin and shuffled your foot.

“I-I’ve got a boyfriend,” you cringed as you said it. Tony had cheated on you and left you more times than you could count. He took off a couple days ago after he knocked you around, and you had no idea where he was, but you continued to hold onto this strange sense of loyalty for him. Perhaps it was because you were convinced he was the best you could do.

“Did the tough guy do that to your arm?” Eddie asked in a low mumble, his eyes lingering on your bruises.

You covered the marks with your other hand, reflexively. “He’s been under a lot of stress lately,” you always felt like such an idiot when you defended that loser, but you didn’t know how to stop.

“Well,” Eddie smashed the butt in the ashtray by his chair and stood up to full height. One nipple under his white tank was hard, but the other one seemed to be missing. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

You were too stupefied to move, you just stood there holding your arm, waiting for him to go back into his room.

But Eddie paused in the doorway and turned to give you one last look. “You deserve a lot better, sweetheart. If he puts his hands on you while I’m around, I’ll fucking kill him.”

—------

You thought about Eddie’s words for the rest of your shift. When it was over, you drove the ten miles back to your trailer, took a shower, and found yourself driving back to the motel, as if your will was no longer your own.

“What are you even doing?” You hissed aloud to yourself as you parked behind the Sundown in your usual spot. It was dusk now and you accepted the possibility that he’d probably invited a different woman out to dinner by then, but any amount of reasoning couldn’t stop you. You checked the scene first, looking up from the main parking lot to catch the flicker of the tv in his room to let you know he was, indeed, still up there. His motorcycle was safe in its place, too, and you realized you hadn’t even prepared what to say. You were an anxious mess, but you were also hungry for him in a way that was foreign to you.

You hadn’t known much comfort or safety in your life, but you felt those things when you were around Eddie.

After standing at his door for a good 5 minutes, you finally found the courage to knock.

Eddie opened the door while your knuckles were still on the wood. His eyes looked you over, offering a buck of his chin in appreciation. “Well, well. You are a gorgeous bedbug.”

Your cheeks burned hot at the complement. “I had some free time, so I thought I’d just check and see how you were doing, if you have everything you need.”

Eddie braced his shoulder against the door jam, giving you a squint. “So, you came to check on me while you’re off the clock? Damn, that is good service.”

You flexed your hands, forcing a laugh, trying your best not to just turn around and run away.

“Are you hungry?” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to come in? Cause we can —”

“I’m not hungry.” You answered, bolting inside of his room when he extended his arm as an invitation, before you lost your nerve.

“Neither am I,” Eddie agreed. But, he was craving something else.

He locked the deadbolt and made sure the curtains were closed.

—-----

There were very few words left to be spoken as your lips collided with his, meeting with equal levels of urgency. You kept trying to kiss him deep and desperate while your hand palmed him through his jeans, but he held you off a bit with soft pressure. He cupped your face and caressed your cheek with his thumb while he kissed you, giving individual attention to your top lip and then the bottom one. He kissed down your neck, flicking his tongue out every so often to taste you, making you gasp—you’d never been worshiped with someone's mouth before.

Breathing heavy, he started to unbutton your shirt. “Is this okay?” He asked, wondering how far you wanted to take it.

“Yes,” you gulped. “Please.”

Once you had his shirt off, you bent down to kiss and lick his scars—it was an unspoken act of acceptance that made Eddie’s cock twitch. You weren’t used to being cared for in bed, and Eddie could tell by the way you hurried to push your jeans down and bend over so he could take you from behind.

“Not like that,” he whispered, using strong arms to lower you to the bed while he shimmied your jeans off. He got on his knees and scooped up your hips, nudging your pussy through your underwear with his nose, and then he planted kisses across the wet spot and along your inner thigh. The animal inside of him loved your scent; he wanted to bury himself in it, and he couldn’t help the growl that escaped him.

You fell back on the bed and covered your face with one hand. “Wait, I’m—not many people have done that—I’m not sure how to—”

Eddie finger pulled your underwear to one side, exposing your slippery lips for his tongue to flick. “Do you want me to stop?”

You arched back at the sensation of his mouth on you. “No, no, please don’t stop,” you urged, putting your hand on his head to gently cup his ear, the one with the silver hoop.

He moved away just long enough to pull your underwear all the way down your legs and off, maintaining eye contact with you. He didn’t rush, he took his time, and kissed his way back up your legs to the prize.

The gentle and precise way he swirled his tongue on your clit had you stammering his name with a few curses in between. As his attention to your bundle of nerves built your arousal and it spilled down your slit, he dove his mouth down a few times to taste it and drink you, shivering at the pleasure it gave him. He couldn’t help it, he had to reach down to grab his cock so he could fist it while his mouth brought you closer. The taste of your hormones in your slick had pre-cum wetting his tip already.

Tony had only gone down on you a few times, and he never really seemed to enjoy it. But Eddie was one of those who could eat a peach for hours, as they say.

“Right…there…” you hushed, startled as you felt the wave of an orgasm rise. Eddie zeroed in on that spot with just the right pressure, fluttering his tongue as he sucked. His other hand milked his cock in long strokes, taming the beast from cumming too soon, moaning warm breath against your cunt.

“Eddie!” You cried out just as the release took you and wracked your body, like a spring popping out of a tight coil, unraveling. Eddie pressed his mouth closer to lap you up, feeling your body vibrate as he held your hip in place.

He only broke the seal made by his mouth once you were too sensitive, and your limbs dangled off the bed for a minute, unable to move.

It didn’t take long for you to start coaxing him up on top of you, spreading your legs out, begging for him to be closer. He met your kiss with deep, soul-searching need, and you whined at the sensation of his tip sliding up and down your slick. But, then he hesitated, and pulled up to meet your eyes.

“Inside of me,” you begged, nodding. “I need you inside of me.”

And yes, that was what Eddie wanted too, but now there was another problem.

Eddie’s ears pricked at the sound of footsteps outside the door. He sniffed the air, trying to identify the presence. He slid off of you and stood, watching the door while he pulled his jeans up and zipped his stiff, aching cock into place behind the denim.

Shuffling up onto your elbows, you were about to speak, to ask what was wrong, but Eddie silenced you with a finger to his lips. He tossed your jeans over and motioned over his shoulder for you to put them on in the bathroom.

There was something about the whole situation, and Eddie’s sudden silence, that unnerved you, and so you scampered off the bed as quietly as you could and did as he asked.

There were no lights on in the room, except for the infomercial on the mute TV, but the bright moon illuminated the walkway outside enough for him to catch sight of someone pacing out there.

Finally, there came a heavy knock and a voice.

It was Tony, and he shouted your name. “ARE YOU IN THERE? HUH? You fucking whore!”

You buttoned your jeans and all of the blood ran from your face. Eddie turned his head to look at you. The adrenaline of pure fear pumped through your body as you froze in place.

Eddie put his hand out, motioning for you to stay right where you were, behind him.

Tony pounded on the door again. “YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME! One of my guys said he saw you go in here with some fucking dude. IF YOU’RE FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE I’LL KILL YOU, you goddamn bitch!”

By “one of his guys” Tony meant one of the other drug dealers in town, who were generally crawling all over the motel, leeching off of the clientele. Eddie looked deceptively calm as he stood at the end of the bed, breathing slow, and you walked over to grab his arm, to warn him that Tony was a crazy motherfucker, and you’d just go with him so Eddie wouldn’t get hurt.

But Eddie motioned for you to hide, so you did.

“Hold up, man,” Eddie was moving now, heading to undo the deadbolt and you cringed, pushing back as tight as you could between the wall and the bathroom door.

Once the door was unlocked, Tony stood there heaving, looking Eddie up and down. Tony was big in a stocky way, but not big like Eddie, and he enjoyed that flash of fear that lit over his adversary’s eyes at first glance. Sure, the guy had some obvious prison ink, but that didn’t mean shit to Eddie.

“Where is she?” Tony demanded, pushing in.

“Where’s who, man?” Eddie was being so casual about it, and you were trying not to scream.

Eddie shut the door and quietly locked it behind him

Tony’s eyes darted around the room, and then he spun on his heel; his eyes were pinned and doped-out. “Don’t act dumb, man. My fucking girl. Someone said they saw her come up here.”

Tony walked up to Eddie and started poking him in the chest. “Tell me where that fucking whore is before I make you my bitch.”

Nothing could have prepared you for what happened next—for the transformation and the carnage. You witnessed it all through the crack in the bathroom door as if you were watching a horror movie.

Eddie changed, in an instant; the muscles in his shoulders and arms bulged, the teeth in his mouth turned jagged and sharp, and his eyes went completely black. His massive, clawed hand wrapped around Tony’s throat, lifting him up so that his feet no longer touched the ground.

You muffle a scream with your hand, watching Tony gargle and spit, his limbs flailing.

Eddie’s lips stretched to speak around his fangs. “She’s not your girl anymore,” he growled.

Eddie strangled Tony with one hand until he lost consciousness, and then he threw him to the bed like a rag doll, pouncing on top of him. He proceeded to rip his throat open with his teeth; blood squirted on the wall and across the door where you were hiding, misting you in the face.

When he was finished, you made your way out of the bathroom.

Eddie was still a monster as he got off the bed at the sight of your approach. His clawed hands twitched at his sides, his hair dripped with blood, and his skin from nose to chest was bathed in crimson. His black eyes assessed you, waiting for you to scream or try to run—-but you didn’t.

You got close enough to touch him, to run your hand up his chest to feel the blood between your fingers, and then brush some bloody hair behind his ear.

Eddie frowned, wondering why you weren’t afraid of him, wondering why your desire for him didn’t seem to falter.

You parted your lips, watching the red drool drip from his teeth. “Are you okay?"

Your mouths found each other again, tasting the tang of your own blood as one of his fangs pricked your lip. You each did frantic work of unzipping each other’s jeans as Eddie scooped you up to lay you on the floor.

While the last few pumps of blood shot from Tony’s artery, monster Eddie spilled his seed inside of you, throwing his head back with a howl.

Now, there really had been a crime committed in that room, and Eddie would need to be on the road again, gone by daylight.

Maybe this time, you’d be going with him.

#Eddie Munson #Eddie munson fic #Eddie munson monster #monster!Eddie #drifter!Eddie #requests #biker!Eddie #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson x reader #diner au #truckstop au

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jo-harrington · 6 months

Text

Stranger Than (Fan)Fiction - Chapter 2: Out of Character

Previous Chapter: Alternate Universe

Summary: Things are starting to get weird in Hawkins. Weird for Eddie, especially. (AKA Eddie Munson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week)

Word Count: 9k

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!Reader

Warnings/Themes: No-Upside-Down AU, Fluff, Angst, mention of virginity, Smut (male masturbation), sexual fantasies, brief Breeding Kink mention (I SWEAR IT WILL MAKE SENSE bear with me), Isekai, Mentions of FOI-compliant events and characters, Lovesick Eddie, jealousy, satire, a Monkey’s Paw type situation, Cliffhanger, Meta Fiction, Eddie acts a little OOC—it’s in the title

Note: Hey everyone, we're back with hopefully some more regularly posted chapters now that my baby SMVerse is complete. Very sorry for how long this chapter is, the next one is admittedly planned to be shorter. There was just a lot of dough to knead here. Thank you to @dr-aculaaa @powderblueblood and @rosewaterandivy for their contribution to some details of the chapter. IYKYK. And they know. Especially how much it means to me.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

It goes without saying that your newfound independence had led to the most fun you’d ever had.

You weren’t afraid to be by yourself; on the contrary, it was almost like you were by yourself for the first time in your life.

That was the thing about living in a small town, everyone knew everyone else and your friends and neighbors always popped in unannounced, usually to a lot of fanfare and excitement.

There was never a dull moment with your friends.

But every aspect of your life in Port Geneva hinged around them, and now you could really focus on you. Realize that you were worth more than what you did to enrich someone else's life. Now you could enrich your own.

You listened to music you'd never heard before. What music had you even listened to before?

You ate foods you'd never eaten before. If you really thought about it, what had you ever eaten but short stacks with strawberries and sandwiches from the deli and cafeteria pizza?

You saw the world; sketched buildings and landscapes that were so different from the ones you were used to. Had you ever seen a house that didn't look like the ones in your cookie-cutter suburb? Or seen grass that wasn't perfectly manicured?

Who knew that wildflowers existed outside of storybooks?

Sometimes you stayed for a while; got a little room at a motel in a town that reminded you a lot of home and nothing like home at all. Too homesick to keep jumping around but not homesick enough to go back. You'd get a job for a few weeks--always lucking out on an opening for a waitressing or babysitting gig or something--pad your pockets, fall in love with the town and sometimes with the people there.

Then the need to leave simmered in your bones once again and you were forced back onto the road.

There was one town you were almost loath to leave. A midwest town and a goofy guy named Ed who made you laugh and called you sweetheart and kissed you shyly; he really understood you, understood the need to march to the beat of your own drum, because his big dream was to get out of his hometown too and make a name of himself.

Which is why he wasn't mad when it was time for you to go.

You'd always remember Stuckeyville.

But it was no matter; the world was yours for the taking. You'd keep going, on and on to the next destination, until you couldn't anymore.

Then one day, a year-or-so into your trip, it happened.

You'd been driving, thinking of the postcards that were burning a hole in your backpack to be sent back home. It was late, and you were tired and ready to make it to your next destination.

That's when you crashed.

December 1985

"Ed..."

"Hmmm?"

"I've gotta get up."

"Five more minutes."

"You're lying on my arm." He could feel the slight movement of something beneath him. "God, you and your big fat head, my hand is numb!"

Eddie groaned as you pushed at him and before long, your finger--cold and wet with spit--slid into his ear, rendering him fully awake and squirming to get away from you.

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed as he hopped off his bed and tried to rid himself of the phantom feeling of your invasion. "Gah, ugh, gross!"

"A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do," you grinned and got up from the bed to stretch. You put your hands on your hips and glared at him playfully. "Especially when she's gonna be late. You should know how Bev is better than anybody."

Violation quickly forgotten, Eddie watched you run back and forth around his room; a satisfied feeling settled in his chest as you picked bits of clothing up to layer back on, fixed your hair, swept the fingers over the corners of your eyes to wipe the sleep from them as you got ready for your shift at the Hideout.

It was a feeling that he was quickly becoming addicted to.

How many weeks had you been dating now?

Not enough to satisfy his rapidly increasing dependence on you.

Dating.

You even called him your boyfriend. God it still seemed like such a dream to him. One he never wanted to wake up from. But it was real. You had dates and you took naps together and talked on the phone; sure it was just easier to cross Forest Hills and sit on one of your porches to chat until it was past midnight and you were dozing off, but as the cold weather rolled in, the phone was the easier bet.

Racked up a bit of a phone bill but who was he to complain?

He always paid Wayne back.

It was worth it.

More often than not he started the call with the obligatory “what are you wearing” despite having most likely seen you earlier in the night. But you, not one to leave a man hanging, would always come up with a comical response: astronaut suit, Princess Leia’s bikini and a clown nose, pajamas made out of the hide of Big Bird himself.

It was ridiculous and nothing less than Eddie expected from his favorite tv character and the one true love of his life.

Thankfully, the two of you decided that sickeningly sweet was not your style. Not like some couples. There was no you hang up first or schmoopsie pet names. More often than not he just called you sweetheart; it rolled off the tongue. And you? Called him your idiot.

Yours.

He'd worried with Paige once upon a time that he didn't know how to be someone's boyfriend. Turned out, he just had to find someone to be a friend first, then the rest just...fell into place.

And aside from some of the nerves he'd had when you first showed up in town, and the ever-present question of just how you came to be in Hawkins--

There was a knock on the door to his bedroom.

"'Right Ed, I'm heading off to work," Wayne said through the door.

"Wait up," you called out to him as you hopped to pull your boots on. "I'm about to leave too."

You stopped briefly to give Eddie a tender kiss, and he chased after you when you tried to pull away. His lips refused to part from yours, his hands found your waist to tug you closer, and his heart soared when you sighed and gave into him a little longer.

--Everything was perfect.

You gave him a dreamy smile when you pulled away, one that quickly turned into a feral grin.

"I'm gonna be late," you whispered conspiratorially. "And the old man is gonna question whether your innocence is still intact or not if we take any more time."

Eddie froze.

Well. Almost perfect.

You took the opportunity to stick your tongue out at him and reached up to honk the tip of his nose, before you bolted from the room to leave.

Once the door to the trailer slammed shut and Eddie was alone, he fell back onto the bed with his hands over his face; his head spun as he wondered how the fuck he'd gotten here. To this point. This moment in time.

Because somehow...some way...you thought he was still a virgin.

"Somehow," he grumbled to himself after a second. "You're the one who told her you were, you idiot!"

And he had.

It was a funny story; it always was with Eddie.

Except this was anything but funny.

It has been the third date and there was just…a natural progression of things on your sofa after a day out at StarCourt. Music was playing, hands were wandering; he’d gotten a bit excited and rocked his hips against you creating a delicious crescendo of moans from both of you.

Then for some reason, Eddie thought back to Port Geneva.

Besides a few sweet kisses you shared with douchebag Mark Fisher, you never engaged in any…physical show of affection. No one did, actually. There had never been anything heavier than hand holding and kissing—maybe the occasional make out—shown on screen. Which, in hindsight he should have rationalized as being obvious; it was a family show on television, after all.

Instead he’d opened his big mouth and asked “hang on, are you a virgin?”

Rather than answer, you got bashful all of a sudden; you turned the question back on him, stuttering all the while.

“Eddie…a-are you a-a virgin?”

What could he say looking into your big wide eyes and kiss-bruised lips, thinking you were nervous and wanting to fix his gaff—especially considering all the blood had rushed from his brain to his cock—but yes?

Next thing he knew you were cuddling him, coddling him, and telling him that you could proceed with whatever next step he wanted, whenever he was ready.

In that moment how could he admit that it was all a lie? That he was an idiot and a liar trying to make you feel better? That he was no bumbling, blushing virgin; he was only saying it because he thought you were.

He knew if he tried to backtrack, you’d either believe he was a jerk or that he tried to lie again to feel less embarrassed.

So he let it slide.

Whatever. Virginity was a bullshit concept anyway.

The truth would come out eventually. It just made everything a little more complicated in the mean time.

“As if everything isn’t complicated enough anyway,” Eddie huffed.

Speaking of complicated, between napping in your comfortable embrace, your kiss, and thinking of the events that led up to the unfortunate virginity confession, he was in a bit of a situation.

Stiff and aching in his jeans, he did what he always did: Eddie took care of himself.

He unbuckled his belt and quickly rid himself of the barriers of denim and flannel, then scrambled to find the bottle of lotion that he unceremoniously shoved into the drawer of the bedside table. Just like all of the other things he tried to hide whenever you came over.

Other things...including the poster of you that he'd cut out of the TV Guide.

There was a spark of desire in him—of need—at the sight of it. Of you.

"I shouldn't," he muttered as his fingers hovered at the edge of the drawer, ready to close it. He'd already found what he needed. Best just close the drawer and crank one out and be a happy camper til the next time the need arose.

"It's just...not right...right?" he tried to convince himself as you stared up at him from inside the drawer.

He weighed the pros and cons, tried to convince himself that it was a normal thing. How many other times had he jacked off to pictures in magazines, or crushes from school. Shit, he'd even done it to the fantasy of you.

But now you were real and his girlfriend. Wasn’t that some kind of moral dilemma?

On the other hand, he would just be using a picture of his girlfriend to get off. That was normal, right?

Except...well...it was you, but not you you. Rosemary Glass you. The real you just left for work. The you in real life and the you in the TV Guide were not the same. You were full of life and energy and affection and not an ultra posed picture on a page.

There was another beat of debate before Eddie made a decision.

"Fuck it," he groaned and grabbed the flimsy magazine page and then slammed the back of his hand against the drawer to shut it. If he spent any more time weighing the moral implications here, he'd lose out on the opportunity.

So, poster in one hand, lotion well-coating the other, Eddie immediately sought out his hard cock and groaned with the brief sense of relief.

"Yeah," he sighed. His tongue traced the seam of his lips and he locked eyes with yours in the poster. "That's it."

Internal debate forgotten, he lost himself to his imagination with every stroke and squeeze and twist.

You kissed on him and your hand replaced his. No, your mouth instead of your hand. His mouth on you? He knew what your mouth tasted like; what about the rest of you? It was a delicious fantasy to explore.

His eyes roamed over the dips and curves of your body; he focused on the way your legs looked in that skirt as he squeezed the base of his cock and moaned.

What he wouldn't give to rip that skirt off of you. No, wait. You deserved better than that. He would undress you carefully, show how much you meant to him, then skink into your warmth. How would you feel? Like Heaven, he was sure.

His hand moved faster now, his toes curled, as he imagined this scenario and that one. What if he fucked you in the backseat of your car? Or shit, what about if he bent you over it? Take a drive out to the quarry and have his way with you.

"Fuck, fuck," he groaned and stilled for a second, savoring the intense build of feelings, before he bucked up into his fist repeatedly. "Yeah sweetheart just like that."

He focused on that sly smile, that tilt of your head.

Would you smile up at him like that when he was buried deep inside you, finding all the ways he could make you whine and keen for him. Shit, finding all the ways he would whine for you, just like he was now. Would you ask him for more?

"I'll give it to you baby," he muttered and bit his lip as the wave of his pleasure began to crest. He closed his eyes again to savor it. Savor the fantasy of you there with him, rocking and riding the wave with him. He couldn't wait for the day. "All of it. Whatever you want. Whatever you need."

Would you let him cum inside? You'd beg for it. Beg for his cum.

"Yeah? You'd let me?" he asked breathlessly.

"Please, please," you'd whine.

"Uh-huh? Yeah?"

"Please." You'd scrunch your eyes tightly, pull him in as deep as he could go. "Put a baby inside of me Eddie."

Eddie's eyes shot open and he choked on air. He let go of the now-crumpled magazine and his throbbing cock with a shout.

Panic gripped him.

"W-what the fuck?" he panted, rapidly coming down from his high like a man plummeting to the earth with a parachute that simply wouldn't open. "What the fuck? Why?"

His mind raced.

How had he thought of that? Where did it come from? He wasn't...he didn't...he'd never fantasized about something like that before. With anyone. Ever. Not alone either. Shit, he'd even accidentally checked out a porno from Family Video once that had a pregnant...

"Blagh," he gagged at the memory and fully lost the edge of his erection. The need to come was now gone; in fact, he suddenly never wanted to come again. Not if it meant that he was going to think thoughts like that?

With intense clarity, he tried to retrace his metaphorical steps. Tried to remember what exactly got him to those thoughts, to that...well, he could hardly call it a fantasy now could he? Nightmare. But he simply couldn't fathom how it had cropped up.

"Fuck," he groaned and looked down at himself. At his softening cock slick with lotion, at the crumpled picture of you with the sparkling eyes and smile. And he was reminded of the moral dilemma that he'd encountered a short while ago.

"No," he shook his head. "Not her. Rosemary Glass. That's all it is. I just...fucked myself up fantasizing about Rosemary Glass and my mind punished me. Haha Eddie, jokes on you, got the girl of your dreams and you'd prefer a picture. That's it."

Yeah, that's all it was.

All it had to be.

Otherwise...what the fuck was wrong with him?

What the fuck was wrong with Eddie Munson?

That seemed to be the question of the day, every day, for the rest of the week.

Well, that was what everyone seemed to ask Eddie; friends, teachers, bullies. To Eddie, though, it seemed like everything else was wrong.

It all started in O'Donnell's history class the following day after the, uh...fantasy incident.

He was excited to show up to class.

No, that wasn't why things were wrong. He'd been passing History, working hard ever since that first study date, excited to show up and succeed and actually graduate. And that day they were due to get a test back, one that he actually studied and prepared for.

So yes, he was excited.

Imagine his surprise when Mrs. O'Donnell placed the packet face-down on his desk and shook her head at him.

"I don't know what went wrong here Edward," she tutted. "You were making some real improvements. Such a disappointment."

Eddie frowned as she walked away, and he quickly flipped his packet over to the oh-so-familiar sea of red pen scribbles and a big fat F at the top of the page.

Not just an F. A zero.

"What the fuck?" he whispered.

He might not have been a star student but he’s never outright tanked a test before. Especially not one he’s studied for.

He went over every question again and every answer, wracked his brain for the responses he knew to be true—he had several B’s and C’s on quizzes to prove it—and then read the wrong answers on the test for all of them. Written in his obvious chicken scratch with doodles in the margins just like he remembered drawing when he took the test. So it's not like someone just wrote his name on their test.

O’Donnell took pity on him at the end of class and said he could sit for the test again during his study hall, especially since he’d been making some improvement. He’d practically kissed her.

Only for him to fail again.

He burned with self-hatred at first, and then simply turned his rage on O'Donnell, because he knew all of the answers. She must have just been a picky grader.

That was it, right? She just had it in for him.

But then other things just got worse.

Jason Carver might have been a tool bag and an antagonistic bully but he’d never been outright hostile before. Not like some of his predecessors.

Not like Tommy…Tommy H.

On an unrelated note, that bothered Eddie too. He couldn’t remember Tommy’s last name. Tommy who bullied him and his friends viciously. Tommy H…Tommy Hayes? Tommy Hagan? Both existed in his mind. And yeah normally he wouldn't give a shit but what the hell? First the History test and now Tommy H?

Regardless, Jason had been especially brutal lately.

Overly antagonistic, even calling Edde a freak in the middle of class. He and the rest of the basketball team had even begun their physical assault on him and his friends openly. The jocks pushed them into lockers, spit on them, and threw things. Gareth even got a black eye when they "ran into" the jocks after gym on Thursday.

Eddie knew he wasn't well-liked, but it burned him deep inside that no one spoke up, students and teachers alike. It was all out in the open, where everyone could see or report to the faculty. Even his friends kept their mouths shut and endured the abuse.

No one seemed to be bothered though; they kept to the status quo. And Eddie wasn’t gonna try his luck with Higgins on his own.

Cowards.

Friday morning, Eddie thought he had the answer; Chrissy Cunningham—Queen of Hawkins High and Jason’s girlfriend—spoke to him in homeroom. Not only spoke to him, but made moon eyes at him in every class they shared and in the hall between the classes that they didn't.

And it was getting annoying.

“Dude, Chrissy keeps looking over here,” Jeff whispered at lunch.

“I know!” Eddie slammed his hands on the table, startling the others. He took a calming breath and repeated himself, softer, to Jeff.

“What’s her deal? Does she wanna join Hellfire or something?”

“I dunno man, something strange is happening,” he shook his head and picked at his food. “I don’t know if she’s in some…argument with Jason and is trying to make him jealous. Or if she’s just bored and is enjoying his torment of the village idiots or something.”

“Maybe she wants to buy some weed,” Gareth piped up. “Slumber party with the rest of the cheer squad. She is the Captain. It’s her job to score.”

“Nah man,” Dave chortled. “I think it’s more likely that she’s trying to score in a different way. Get Eddie to fall in love with her or something and make a fool out of him.”

The guys all started laughing and making kissy noises, much to Eddie’s growing annoyance. Every puckering noise grated something deep within him. And it only pissed him offs more when the freshman started to get in on the fun, with Mike and Lucas singing about Eddie and Chrissy sitting in a tree—

“K-I-S-S-I-N—”

“Shut up!” Eddie slammed his hands on the table and shouted, voice echoing across the cafeteria, practically silencing everyone at the intrusion.

His shoulders heaved as he glared over at the jock’s table, where a certain someone with a bouncing strawberry ponytail waved hello, even as she sat with her boyfriend’s arm comfortably around her. And said boyfriend was glaring knives at him; if looks could kill, Eddie would be done for.

His thoughts spiraled and his ears started to ring.

What the fuck was going on? Why was everyone trying to fuck with him now? Why was everything suddenly out of control in such a short period of time? Was this karma? He got one thing he desperately needed so everything else was going to shit?

Suddenly he had an out of body experience, or at least…that’s what it felt like. He watched it all happen, felt all the movements and the words fly out of his mouth but he wasn’t in control.

One moment he was sitting at the head of his table, hands tented in front of his face as he contemplated life, and the next he was standing. Standing on top of the table, actually, and while that wasn’t an unusual occurrence, it’s what he did up there that was.

“Hey Carver, you have a fucking problem with me?” He shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. “Why don’t you step into my office and file a complaint!”

His arms swept outwards of their own volition and he bowed over to gesture to the table and to his friends.

“Pretty sure my associates have a few choice words for you too.”

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck…

Jason was on his feet immediately, with Patrick and Andy quick to follow.

“What’s your damage freak?” He chuckled sardonically through gritted teeth. “Trying to have your own little David and Goliath moment? Prepare to get toppled.”

“Wait, do you think you’re David right now? You think you’re a hero?”Jeff scoffed and got to his feet, spurning the rest of Corroded Coffin to do the same, sending jeers and taunts across the room. The jocks did much of the same, name calling and shouting vicious threats.

“I’m gonna kick your ass Emerson!”

“Kick? How about kiss! Just like your mom likes to do!”

It kept going until Eddie took a few steps down the table, leant down, and scooped his fingers through Mike’s gloopy mashed potatoes, ready to fling a handful towards the enemies.

He was prepared for the worst as he witnessed it all from inside his own body, as he felt the gravy slip down his hand and into the sleeve of his jacket. An all out war, the need to protect his friends again—worse this time with the Freshman—the dread of listening to Gareth’s fingers breaking once more…it would all start once the first shot was fired.

If there was a God—or some fate writing this in the books of the universe who was just really bad at writing a fight sequence—now would be the time for them to make themselves known.

“Munson!”

Eddie inhaled the air greedily as he regained control of himself, and he marveled at Higgins' sudden appearance: standing in the doorway to the cafeteria with Coach Palmer and Nancy Wheeler standing behind him.

He’d never been so happy to see them in his life.

“Munson,” Higgins shouted at him. “Get down from there!”

Jeff, knowing what was good for them all, pulled Eddie down from the table and he stumbled on legs made weak from the rapid loss of adrenaline. Lucas passed a handful of paper napkins for him to clean off his hands as Higgins and Coach crossed the cafeteria, Coach to take care of his little minions, and Higgins to take care of him.

Despite their tenuous truce, Higgins grabbed Eddie by the arm and tugged him towards the cafeteria doors.

“Detention,” he hissed in Eddie’s face.

“My fucking pleasure,” Eddie replied desperately, suddenly a devout believer in whatever deity he had evoked.

Man, this was getting to be a habit.

As he was escorted out of the cafeteria, Eddie vaguely heard Dustin over the din of classmate whispers.

“Guys, that was weird. What’s wrong with Eddie?”

“What do you mean?” Gareth answered blithely. “He’s always like that.”

"I can't believe you got detention."

"I mean, Higgins could have expelled me. Or tried to get me to drop out again."

"I really fucking hate that guy," you muttered and reached out to grab a box from the shelf. "How about this one?"

"Seen it, fake blood is obviously fake."

"You're such a horror snob."

"Don't deny it," he whispered in your ear and pressed a kiss to your cheek. "That's your favorite thing about me."

You put the movie back on the shelf in a huff and then the two of you shuffled forward down the aisle.

Saturdays were made to be spent together; Saturday mornings specifically. Eddie would take as much time with you as he could, but Hawkins was Hawkins and there was only so much to do. So you designated Saturdays as mornings out before you went to work and Eddie made the rounds to whatever parties he could safely show his face at and make some quick cash.

You traded off on whoever made plans, and today he had pathetically suggested a movie, snacks, and cuddling on the couch, needing to find a respite in your arms after the abject chaos of his week.

He already felt worlds better, more like himself, because you listened and understood.

He ranted and cursed during the drive and you hung onto every word, only interjecting to offer gentle encouragement. You didn't pity him or blame him--well, you blamed him for almost starting a food fight and since he couldn't explain what overcame him in that moment, he accepted it--but you made sure he knew that you had been in his shoes and understood exactly how he felt.

His dependence on you made itself known when you got into the store. As much as you protested his arms latching around you immediately, he knew you secretly enjoyed the proximity and the sweetness that he lavished you with.

Hobbling down the aisles with him practically attached to you; whispered stories, jokes, and terms of endearment; and an occasional raspberry on your neck if and when you had differing opinions about a movie.

Eddie thought The Outsiders was a good movie. You preferred the book. Which was fine. You tried to tell him Rob Lowe was cute, though; that earned you some punishment.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you never had a crush on a celebrity," you snorted and squealed and tried to free yourself from his grasp. Which you did successfully as your words made him freeze. "Or like...a character from a tv show or something."

You didn't know how close to the truth you were.

He felt his world tilt on its axis as you kept browsing and spouting off names and laughing, and with each celebrity or character you named, the more he thought of Port Geneva with intense clarity.

He could hear the theme song, see the neon text of the closing card, and feel his heart skip a beat when you'd show up on screen and greet your friends "Hey guys!"

"Hey guys!" your same voice rang from the other side of the partition of tapes, same emphasis and volume and cheer as you would on tv, as you greeted Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington. "Are those new?"

"Mmhmm," Robin affirmed. "Technically they were supposed to go out yesterday for the weekend, but someone was too busy flirting with Melanie Hartford."

Steve's embarrassed trip-up over a response was overshadowed as you called out.

"Hey Eddie, come here, I think they're putting out some new movies."

Eddie took a breath to compose himself, carefully placed the mask of cool and adoring boyfriend back on, and then rounded the corner to join you.

"If it's Death Wish 3 on tape, it wasn't that goo--" Eddie trailed off as he stopped in his tracks.

He understood why Steve sounded so embarrassed.

Eddie mainly steered clear of Steve Harrington over the years; yeah he was a shithead and a bit of a bully, but especially since the Freshman insisted that Steve was a nice guy, he'd tried to put it all in the past. Best not think of King Steve and all of the opportunities and advantages that he'd gotten, no matter how good of a guy they claimed he was.

Knowing Harrington's reputation and then fall from grace over the past few months though, he wondered if Steve had ever had some unreciprocated crush before.

Because he was certainly acting like he had a crush in front of you.

A crush on you.

Eddie knew what it looked like when someone had a crush; shit, he'd felt that way plenty of times over the years. The shifting eyes, the nervous stuttering. He'd gotten pretty good at hiding it, being able to put on the cool guy front. But Steve was doing it all out in the open.

Steve watched as you and Robin passed tapes back and forth--watched you more than Robin, actually--threw a comment in every now and again. When he cracked a joke, his eyes slid directly to you, and when you laughed, he beamed brightly.

And Eddie didn't know what he was more grateful for: the fact that you seemed oblivious to it all, or that he was there to witness it and put an end to it.

He tamped down the fire that built up inside of him and closed the distance; he threw an arm over your shoulder with a cool greeting to Robin and Steve.

"I've never even heard of some of these movies, have you?" Robin asked with some bewilderment.

"I don't know, this one sounds familiar," you hummed thoughtfully.

"See that's what I told Rob," Steve interjected and Eddie grit his teeth.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Robin scoffed.

"Isn't this the girl from Legend?" You held up a video box to Eddie to show him. He couldn't be bothered to really notice the titles of the movies on display--Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Lost Boys, Lethal Weapon--and instead he chose to press a kiss to the side of your head and continue glaring at Steve.

You turned back to Robin.

"Do you guys have Legend? I saw it when it came out but it'd be nice to see it again."

"I can show you!" Steve jumped at the chance, but Robin rolled her eyes and pushed him away.

"I've got this dingus," she waved at the tapes on the counter. "If you could finish processing these like you should've done yesterday?"

Steve huffed as you and Robin walked away, but Eddie stayed behind. He leaned over the counter, elbows resting against the edge.

"How've things been Harrington?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Uhh," Steve shrugged but pointedly ignored Eddie's eyes. "Good, fine."

"Did I overhear Buckley right? Going on dates? You finally over Nancy Wheeler," Eddie's voice got progressively louder.

"What the--listen keep your voice down, Jesus," Steve laughed nervously, gaze shifting in the direction that you and Robin had disappeared. "A guy's gotta move on. Can't be lovesick over Nance forever."

Eddie plastered a fake smile on his face and laughed heartily.

"Yeah? Gotta find someone else to obsess over?" The smile dropped almost immediately and he became dead-eyed. "Stop making goo-goo eyes at my girlfriend."

"Hey, Munson, I'm sorry--" Steve held his hands out innocently. "She just came in one day and I thought she was cute; I didn't know that you were--"

"I'm sorry," Eddie mimicked Steve, standing stiff and straight with shaking hands. "I didn't know the freak could have a girlfriend."

He reached across the counter and grabbed Steve by the vest and pulled him forward, close enough so he could get in his face.

"Don't look at her again, don't talk to her again," he hissed. "You can have literally any other girl in Hawkins, King Steve. So you better get over your crush fast."

Yeah, it was harsh, and in hindsight he should have been a little nicer about it. But after everything had compounded on him all week, it was nice to just be a raging asshole like everyone expected him to be.

Unfortunately, you had never experienced Eddie The Villain Munson.

"Eddie, what the hell!" you exclaimed as you appeared in his peripheral vision.

Until right that second.

"Let him go, what are you doing?" you rushed forward and slapped at his hands to get him to release Steve. He did, but continued to glare as he backed away and took several calming breaths.

"Hey, in all honesty," Robin laughed nervously as she returned to the counter. "Dudley Do-Right here probably said something dumb and deserved it."

"What's going on?" you ignored her and whispered to Eddie. "I thought we were just gonna have a relaxing day. You were fine two seconds ago. What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," he deflected. "Don't worry about it."

"We can just go home and hang out like you wanted; you said Wayne has some Bonanza reruns on tape. We can laugh at Hoss and Little Joe and--"

His eyes went wide; the Bonanza tapes were by the TV, mixed up with the Port Geneva tapes.

"No!" he shouted aggressively...defensively; it startled you. "No Bonanza!"

"Oh...kay."

Then your whole demeanor changed.

You crossed your arms in front of you and your eyes went cold and distant; you frowned, deep enough to create lines on your forehead and around your mouth. You suddenly looked a lot older than you were, aged by disappointment and...guilt maybe? He didn't know. He'd never seen you like that before, and he suddenly felt bad.

"Let's uhh...let's just go," you offered quickly, then apologized to Steve and Robin for taking their time.

"Hey wait, I'm sorry," he tried to apologize. "We can still get a movie and hang out. I just...I don't know...I fucked up. I'm sorry."

"No, I...I forgot Bev said she might need some extra help today. Making some changes, I don't know. I need to go in. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

"Sweetheart wait!" he called out as you walked out of the store and towards your car. He looked back at Robin and Steve, who pointedly avoided looking at him, and then huffed a sigh and followed you.

The ride back to Forest Hills was tense and silent.

Eddie knew he fucked up, knew he hurt you, but didn't know what to say or how to fix it.

"What the fuck is wrong with Eddie Munson?"

That was the question of the week, and now even Eddie was asking it of himself. Especially since he couldn't even control himself.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to you when you parked in front of his place. "I don't know...I'm just sorry."

"It's ok," you shook your head. "Seriously Eddie, don't worry about it. You just had a bad week. I need to go to work. We'll hang out another time."

"I'll call you tonight," he promised. "After work."

"Sure," you offered a tight-lipped smile. "Just rest today ok? And feel better."

"Yeah."

"Everything's gonna be ok."

"I know."

He leaned over and gave you a kiss and there was something about the way that you kissed him...that made his heart ache, and he didn't know why.

Eddie watched as you drove away, off to the Hideout to help Bev, or whatever else you could do if it ended up being a lie so you could just get away from him.

He'd fix it; he had to. He just got his wish, got you; he couldn't lose you. It would be the last straw.

He climbed up the porch steps, lost in his own thoughts, but when he opened the door--

"What the fuck?"

--all of his worries were forgotten, because the trailer was trashed.

Wayne was blissfully asleep on the fold-out bed, but there were piles of laundry on the couch, dirty dishes piled in the sink in the kitchen. Empty, crushed beer and soda cans littered the floor; honestly, there was just trash everywhere.

Eddie had only left an hour or two ago, and the trailer...well it might have had some clutter but at least it was tidy. It looked like an atomic bomb of trash had exploded in here.

If he had just been wondering what was wrong with him, he was suddenly wondering what was wrong with the universe again.

"What the fuck?"

The rest of the weekend had been spent cleaning.

Not tidying, literally cleaning.

He'd tried to ask Wayne about it all--maybe some weird trash bandit had come or kids trying to pull a prank, it wasn't like they really locked their doors--but what was even more suspicious was that Wayne didn't blink an eye at the mess.

"I work, you have school," he shook his head and tried to go back to sleep. "Chores pile up kid. That's the way it's always been. We'll get ahead of it again eventually."

And that just made Eddie feel bad; had it actually been this bad all along and he never realized it? Had Wayne done all this cleaning and housework on his own and now the weariness and the years just started to catch up? It must've only gotten worse now that Eddie lived with him.

So Eddie kept his head down and his mouth shut and tried to make it all better.

He cleaned and cleaned, and it seemed that no matter how much he cleaned, everything only got worse. The laundry on the sofa had been put away--more laundry than Eddie or Wayne really even had clothes to be honest. The fridge was somehow both empty--even though he'd just remembered to do a little grocery shopping...or had that been the other day--and full of rotten food at the same time. There was plenty of beer though. The dishes were all cleaned and spotless, only for him to come home from school on Monday afternoon to find them all to be right back again. Has they even used real dishes? Not that he could recall.

Fuck.

He complained to you on the phone late Saturday night--

"I don't know how it happened. It's like suddenly out of the blue it all just...appeared."

"Wayne didn't hold a secret party while we were out?" you asked, although your voice seemed stiff...distant.

"He just rolled right over and went back to sleep."

--but aside from some sympathy, you didn't seem to think anything was weird.

Hell, even his friends didn't seem suspicious.

"The trailer is always dirty," Gareth scoffed at practice on Monday night. "Like...no offense man, it's a trailer park, what do you expect."

It took everything in Eddie not to knock his buddy out right then and there; how many times had he told them how awful and stereotypical that kind of idea was. How hurtful people were when they found out he'd moved in with Wayne. Only for Gare to come back and spit it back at him again?

Instead he put that hateful energy into coming up with some kind of way to make you...forgive him...or love him again or something. He'd floated the idea of a ballad or some kind of love song to the guys at practice, ready to wow you on Tuesday night at the Hideout.

They hemmed and hawed but after he promised they'd all roll with advantage during the following Friday's session, they agreed and even suggested songs to get him back in your good graces.

Now it was Tuesday night. Time had passed by in a flash and he was standing at the door to the Hideout, ready to knock your socks off.

The guys were inside already, setting up, but he'd needed a moment to think of what to say to you.

He paced in the gravel, thought about his apology, thought about the song that he'd picked. The last song of the set, one he'd dedicate to you.

It would be perfect.

He mustered up the courage and walked inside, only to be hit by shock once again.

How many times could someone utter the words "what the fuck" in one week? Eddie had to be going for a world record.

When Eddie had suggested the Hideout when you mentioned looking for jobs, he'd warned you that Bev was a curmudgeon but the nicest curmudgeon you'd meet, and that the bar itself was, affectionately, a shithole. A house turned into a bar on the side of the highway, with a bunch of plywood in the corner that doubled as a stage, a makeshift bartop that was probably older than his uncle, and chipped glasses.

Now, it was almost...nice?

With an actual small, raised stage and a few spotlights hanging from the ceiling, neon signs boasting brands like Old Style and Coors--something Bev had always said was just the glitter and not the gold--and a sleek black bar with a marble top and comfortable-looking barstools. And it all had Eddie wondering if he'd stepped into the Twilight Zone.

That was it right? That had to be it. He'd stepped into the Twilight Zone the minute you'd showed up outside of his trailer and he hadn't returned to the real world since.

"Hey, there you are," you approached him from behind the bar with a tense smile. "The guys were wondering when you'd come in. I got them all cherry cokes to shut them up."

"You didn't have to buy them drinks," Eddie shook his head. "They don't deserve it."

"On the house," you reassured him.

"I'm sorry," he choked on air. "On the...on the house? On the house meaning...Bev's treating? Bev who must've secretly won the lottery or something? Look at all of this." He gestured around the bar and then lifted his feet. "The floors aren't even sticky."

"I told you that she was making changes," you shrugged, but refused to meet his eyes.

"Changes, not...a full renovation, wow." He looked around in awe, then squinted when he saw something on one of the tables. "She even sprung for printed napkins too."

"Yeah," you laughed nervously. "Guess she did. It's as much of a shock to me as it is to you. You, uh, better get the guys before they cause too much trouble."

"Yeah I should," he nodded slowly, but grabbed your wrist when you tried to walk away. "I know I've said it a million times sweetheart but I'm sorry I scared you."

"You didn't Ed, I promise," you tried to smile but it didn't quite reach your eyes.

"Can we talk maybe? After the set? Like really talk? I'll even wipe the tables off for you." You hesitated but nodded, and he gave you the briefest peck on the cheek before running down the back hallway to the little smokers exit to find the guys.

Only to find them in a legitimate green room in what he was sure used to be the storage room where Bev kept the kegs. His friends were all laid out along leather couches that sat along the perimeter of the room, sipping their cherry cokes and chatting. There was a coffee table right in the center laden with snacks and magazines.

"Man," he commented with a whistle, alerting the guys to his presence. "Can you guys believe this?"

"I know," Jeff giggled maniacally and then reached out to grab a bag of peanut M&M's. "Brand name snacks, and not the generic kind we usually get."

"Makes me feel like we're about to hit it big," Dave agreed.

Eddie tripped over his words for a second, not entirely sure that they were as astounded by the Hideout's transformation as he was, but he shook off the bewilderment to tell them it was time to go perform.

They raced back down the hall to the stage, and although the bar had just been empty when he walked in--save for you and some of the regulars slumped in their seats--there was definitely a crowd. Or the beginnings of one. A couple canoodling at a table, a few college-aged people ordering beers, and a group for a bachelorette party or something at the large booth that had been installed in the corner by the door.

"Wow," Eddie breathed out, nerves suddenly overtaking him. They'd never played a crowd like this before. "Hope they like metal."

And they did. They were head banging and once they were familiar enough with the lyrics a few people were singing along.

It was invigorating. Refreshing. Aside from the handful of people who'd been involved in the whole...record label fiasco, he'd really never experienced this many people who were excited for his sound. Their sound.

He wasn't gonna betray his friends, his band, like that again.

There were a few songs that Jeff and Gareth suggested that weren't originally on their setlist, and they really weren't metal technically, but they all knew the songs and the crowd was excited for them, so he couldn't complain.

Towards the end of the set, he felt his stomach churn with nerves again. Worse now, because it was time.

"Uh," he stepped up to the microphone, a little too close as it squeaked with feedback. "Hey guys, thanks for uh...thanks for coming out. Make sure you...tip your bartender...and her lovely assistant." He gestured over to you and a grumpy-looking Bev at the bar.

The audience clapped, even the handful of drunk regulars.

"Now uh, speaking of the lovely assistant, I...um..." he cleared his throat and looked down at his guitar. "I might have messed some stuff up with her the other day, and I know she's still a little mad at me. So sweetheart, without further ado, this one's for you. Corroded Coffin's rendition of..."

He paused. Froze.

The words were right on the tip of his tongue: All Through The Night.

They'd practiced it for hours, really making the cover theirs. They added all sorts of guitar riffs and a sick solo that ended with him sending a kiss across the bar to you. It was supposed to be perfect.

He cleared his throat and tried again.

"Corroded Coffin's All..." He shook, struggled to get the words out. "All...All My Only Dreams. Enjoy."

What the fuck? What the fuck?

He felt that out of body experience again, just like he had in the cafeteria, as his fingers plucked at the strings of his guitar and Gareth and Dave set a slow beat.

It felt like some bad knockoff song from the 60's. Maybe something he heard on one of his mom's records. But he couldn't place it.

What was this song? How did the guys know it? Why had he said that? What was All My Only Dreams?

It was certainly not metal. Certainly not music.

"Every night I pray, I'll have you here someday," he felt himself sing. "I'll count the stars tonight, and hope with all my might..."

He stared at you across the bar as the song continued, out of his control; the couple stood from their table and began swaying back and forth and you stood there behind the bar, wide-eyed with a hand covering your mouth. In shock or disbelief or pain he couldn't quite tell.

"Every waking hour it seems, I only have you in my dreams."

All he knew was, this song kept going and going and he couldn't stop it even if he wanted to. Couldn't stop himself from playing or singing, couldn't stop Jeff from harmonizing with him on certain verses.

Until the song was over.

"If I could have just one request, stay with me girl I'll confess, all my only dreams."

He strummed the last few notes, and as soon as the audience started clapping, he felt whatever puppet strings get cut, felt himself in control again.

Eddie panicked. He didn't even wait for the applause to be over, didn't thank the crowd like he usually would. He just swung the guitar over his shoulder and jumped off the stage with the guys hot on his heels.

"What's going on?" Gareth hollered after him.

"Yeah Ed, where are you going?" Jeff caught up to him and tried to put a hand out to stop him, but Eddie just shrugged him away.

"That was our best performance ever," Dave insisted. "And applause on an original song to boot."

Eddie froze as he reached the green room, and then turned on his friends, hackles raised.

"Original song." He parroted. "Original song? That wasn't an original song!"

"Yeah it was," Jeff nodded. "All My Only Dreams. You made us practice it all night last night so it was perfect."

"We practiced All Through the Night," he laughed dryly. "Are you high right now Jeff? Fuck, am I high right now?"

"Are you?" Gareth exclaimed. "Because I didn't just learn that song so you could make it up to your girlfriend just so you could act crazy like this man."

Jeff walked over to the pile of their stuff in the corner of the room, and fished a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of his backpack.

"Here I'll prove it to you," he grumbled and unfolded it. "All My Only Dreams. By Eddie Munson."

He shoved the paper into Eddie's hands and Eddie stared at it in disbelief. His handwriting, again, with words that he didn't remember writing. A little heart in the corner with your name scribbled inside of it, just like he did in his school notebook sometimes.

"What the fuck..." he muttered to himself, and then looked up at his friends, suddenly lightheaded and sick.

He felt angry, he felt like crying, he felt like...like everything in the world was turning upside down on him and it was some kind of cruel joke that everyone was in on but him.

He opened his mouth to start yelling, when your head appeared behind the guys.

"Hey, 'scuse me guys," you announced your presence and Dave, Jeff, and Gareth all parted so Eddie had a full view of you.

You looked just as sick as he felt. Your face was crumpled in a terrible pensive frown, hands wrung together in front of you.

"Can you give me and Eddie a few minutes alone? While you all break down your stuff?" you asked softly, and Eddie felt his heart drop into his stomach as the others left.

You closed the door to the green room behind you and then took a few deep breaths.

This was it.

You were gonna break up with him.

The universe was cruel to let Eddie have you, only to play these games and lose you in such a short amount of time.

He was so caught up in the panic of possibly losing you that he didn't notice you talking until you were right in front of him. Your hands cradled his face and you stared into his eyes, your own full of worry.

"Eddie, Eddie are you ok?" you asked, voice edged with panic.

"Yeah," he cleared his throat. "Yeah, sorry...I was..."

"It's ok, don't worry," you reassured him. "It's...fuck...it's ok."

"Did you like the song?" he questioned, dumbly.

You let out a snort of laughter and then squished his face between your hands for a second.

"We need to talk," you whispered. "It's gonna be a lot. And it's not gonna be easy to hear, and I know you're gonna have a lot of questions, and I don't...I...fuck Ed...I'm so sorry."

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"I..." You looked lost for a second. "Eddie, I don't know how to answer that question. No...not really."

"Not really isn't no."

"Alright smartass," you scoffed. "No, I'm not breaking up with you. But that doesn't mean...doesn't mean that this thing we've got going on now isn't over. It's...what I'm gonna tell you right now is gonna change everything."

You helped him to sit down on one of the leather couches and then you paced back and forth, nervously chewing your thumbnail and looking for a way to start.

"This..." you began tentatively. "This isn't...real."

"So I am dreaming," he looked around for a moment. "Makes sense."

"No...you're not dreaming. It's just...well, ok, Ed. It's gonna be really hard to understand. But I'm gonna need you to tap into that big imagination of yours. Ok? Because God damn, if there was anyone I could get to understand, it's honestly you. Making up all sorts of stories and fantasies for Dungeons and Dragons.

“I’m sure you’ve started noticing things happening? Weird things, uncanny things, impossible things. And it’s making you go a little cross-eyed, a little crazy, makes you feel like you’re losing your mind because the only person who notices the changes…well it’s you. But it isn’t only you.

"This..." you waved around. "It's all real. It's a real world and we live in it. I'm real, you're real. I can touch you, kiss you. But it isn't. Not really."

He suddenly felt like you were talking down to him, and felt that irrational anger start to build again. You’d made sense up to a point. This was real, but it wasn't real, but it was real enough so he could kiss you? But somehow not real enough because you were bringing up stories he created for DnD, like it was all part of his imagination. But somehow he was also crazy?

"What the fuck is going on?" he demanded.

"Eddie," you took a breath and closed your eyes for a second. "This right now? Everything you see? This room, that song, me, and you?"

"Yeah."

"We're all fictional. We're all...in a fan fiction."

Next Chapter: Lore Dump

There is no taglist for this series, please follow the STFF Updates tag or check the series out on AO3.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #Eddie Munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #stranger than (fan)fiction #stff #stff updates #stranger things fic

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nymph-yoongi · 2 months

Text

affection w/namjoon

Word count: 767

Namjoon is not the most affectionate person, often preferring to just exist in each other’s company

That being said, he does like it when you cling to him; you bring out his soft side

If you’re shorter than him, he’ll rest his chin on the top of your head

Although he’s not very into PDA, he does like to be able to either see you or touch you, happy to even just observe you while you do something

The way he shows his love for you most often is by making time for you and showing you that you’re a priority to him

Spare time is very rare and precious, so he makes sure to make time for you, even if it’s not easy

He enjoys taking care of you and feeling like you can depend on him to provide, but it also warms his heart when you do anything to provide for him as well (cooking for him, buying him gifts, etc.)

When he’s working, he tends to fixate on what he’s doing and forget to eat; when you bring him food or water or send him reminders to take care of himself, he feels grateful to have you in his life

He’s not afraid to admit his flaws, but it does bring him a special kind of peace when the two of you just lay in bed and talk about your own flaws with each other; to know he can be imperfect and still be loved is a healing thing to know

Likes having intellectual discussions with you about philosophy, cosmology, and just anything that lets him see more into the inner workings of your mind

He loves when you match his energy, whether he’s being goofy and dancing around like a maniac, or if he’s in a more spiritual and thoughtful mood; it makes him feel like you understand him in a way few others do

Likes coming up with places to go with you and events/activities you can experience together

Prefers shared experiences to buying you physical gifts

Has a hard time being very cutesy, he almost always gets shy and covers his face, especially if he does aegyo

Despite his shyness, he enjoys it when you compliment him; especially if you call him handsome and/or smart

He used to be insecure about his nose, so he still gets a little shy if you kiss him on the nose

Has a tendency to wrap himself around you when you’re sleeping together

Can’t and won’t stop taking pictures of you

Even though he can’t post them, his gallery on his phone is mostly photos of you, whether you’re at a museum, in nature somewhere, or just looking cute while asleep

He loves doing little photoshoots of you and showing you off to the people that know about you

Since he takes so many photos of you, it makes him happy when you take nice pictures of him too

It makes him happy knowing that you feel the same urge to show him off, that he feels about you

It’s pretty common for you to either be on an adventure together or just staying inside with good books

He leaves you little notations in the books he’s already read because you once said it makes you feel like he’s reading it with you

Takes pictures of the scenery around him whenever you’re apart; plants, pretty rocks, crab, you name it, he’s sent you a picture of it

“I didn’t want to bother the bugs under this rock but look how pretty it is!”

If he ever has to travel without you, he sends you the prettiest postcards he can find with the cheesiest messages on them

“It’s raining here today; even the sky is sad you’re not with me”

Draws little Koyas on his letters and postcards to you

If he knows he’ll be gone from you for a long time, he’ll leave letters for you to read when you miss him

Writes short poems for you when he’s feeling sentimental and will leave them on sticky notes and index cards for you to find

Writes snippets of songs about different mythos of soulmates when he thinks about you

Tells you about the myth of humans being created; how we were all made with four arms, four legs, and two heads, then cursed to spend our lives wandering in search of our other half

“Despite the distance, I feel at peace knowing that I’ve found my other half; I don’t feel the need to search for anything anymore. I found what I need”

#bts #bts x reader #kim namjoon #kim namjoon x reader

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morganbritton132 · 1 year

Note

You said that you did not have tiktok, so you have likely not seen it but there is this series called roll for sandwich in which this guy makes a list if ingredients (like a list of types of bread that he has, vegetables, roughage, sauces, wild magic, etc) and each option has a number, so he rolls DnD dies and randomly makes sandwiches and rates them

Very popular, it has inspired a lot of spin-offs, people love it. He always starts with “Hello DnD tiktok and beyond, welcome to roll for sandwich a series were we let fate decide our lunch” it’s great.

My point is, Eddie would definitely do something like that but with one of his many hobbies and post it on TT.

I have not seen this, but I do love the concept. I do think I might’ve seen a spin-off though because my sister sent me a video of a girl using a d20 to decide which chore she was going to do next, and I can definitely see that one being used in the Harrington/Munson household.

Every summer begins with a deep clean.

Steve shampoos all the carpet. He pressure-washes their driveway. He declutters the entire top floors of their house. Eddie, if he is a smart man, cleans his studio.

Eddie is not always a smart man.

He gets distracted, or bored, or he just doesn’t want to do it, but this year, he’s determined. He makes a list of everything he needs to do and everything that he wants to do, and then he numbers it. He even starts a live-stream to give him more incentive to stay on task, and it works for a while.

He rolls the dice and gets a 4. He changes the burnt out lightbulb in the overhead light.

He rolls the dice and gets a 17. He dusts and reorganizes their record collection.

He rolls the dice, gets a 11. He paints the sword on his latest miniature.

He rolls the dice, gets a 9. He moves the couch to get the guitar picks that have fallen under it.

He rolls a 15, takes a break, gets distracted by a box of old tour memorabilia.

The chat is not helpful with getting him back on track because they are more interested in the stack of postcards that Eddie pulled out of the box. They need more than Eddie saying that Steve kept every postcard he sent him, especially when he looked at one of them and said, “Ha! In this one, I asked him to send me some dirty pictures. If I remember correctly, he did.”

An hour later, Eddie’s like, “Maybe I should get back to cleaning.”

He rolls again, scores a 20. Eddie looks at his list and reads, “Do something you want to do.”

He thinks about it for a second and then reaches under the couch and pulls out some ancient looking walkie-talkie, “Eddie to Stevie, do you copy?”

Eddie releases the button, waits a second, and then repeats himself. He does this a few times before he gets back, “What do you want, Eddie?”

“Wanna fuck?” Eddie asks. “Over.”

There’s a long pause and then Steve says over the line, “Did you vacuum?”

Eddie, who did not do that, says, “Yep.”

“Okay,” Steve says eventually. “Come up here.”

Eddie smiles brightly and tosses the walkie back down on the couch, before taking the stairs two at a time. The room descends in silence and then you hear static from the walkie followed by Dustin’s voice saying, “If you’re going to make a booty call, use your own frequency. Over.”

#Dustin texted Steve to let him know that Eddie was calling for him on the walkie and then got subjected to their phone sex #also Eddie did try to make soup once using the luck of the dice and it did not go well #Steve was sick and wanted chicken noodle but the soup was mostly onions #it was almost entirely onions and broth #eddie munson tiktok saga #steve harrington #eddie munson

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eliashirsch · 10 months

Text

Sweet Mornings

Bradley wakes up, like most mornings, warm and comfortable in his bed. He managed to tangle the blanket around himself like a burrito, only his head peeking out to feel the cold morning breeze flowing through the ajar window. He peeks an eye open, watching the sliver of light appear and disappear through the swaying curtain. The clock on the wall reads seven thirty-eight.

He cracks his jaw open with a yawn, a full-body shiver running through him. Wiggling his toes and poking them out from the blanket, he immediately shrivels back in at the cold.

“Hm,” he whines, burying deeper into his pillow. “Jake…”

No one comes. Bradley closes his eyes again and pouts. Having a boyfriend means he should come at his beck and call. Where is that Texan fucker?

“Right here, honey.”

Bradley smiles, a Pavlovian response. How can he not when his beloved is drawing out his favored pet name that exaggerated southern twang. Jake’s voice has some rasp to it, so he mustn’t have been awake for long.

“Miss me that much?” Jake asks, sliding behind Bradley to wrap around his waist, smooching a kiss to the back of his ears. “I was only gone for a minute.”

“Hm. It’s cold. Where did you go?”

“Getting the mail. Ice and Mav sent their latest postcard.”

“Where are they now?”

“Venice. They sound happy.”

“God, I hope so. If they come back still bitching at each other I’m going to hire a hitman to kidnap Mav.”

“Then Ice will really burn this world down to get him back, babe,” Jake reminds, tracing lines on Bradley’s stomach, though it goes unfelt from the thick blanket. “You ever wanna go on a road trip?”

“What? Like them?”

“Mh-hm.”

“When are we gonna find the time?”

“We have some leave saved up.”

“Not that much to travel the world.”

“You know, Jessie was talking to me about her boyfriend last week. Something about if he wanted to, he would?”

Bradley huffs, shaking his head. “I’m just saying. We’re busy people. We can’t exactly drop everything to go away for days at a time.”

“If he wanted to, he would,” Jake repeats, though without heat. He drags Bradley closer to his chest, spreading his hands so that they’re splayed on Bradley’s chest, right on his heart. Bradley wonders if he can feel his quickening heartbeat on his fingertips. “If you could, where do you wanna go?”

“Anywhere in the world?”

“Anywhere in the world.”

Bradley thinks about it for a second, brain taking its sweet time to catch up. He thinks about Ice and Mav, his two dads finally getting the time to live without death hanging over their heads, who get to hold each other’s hands with lessened fear about someone making a huge fuss about it. Who got their happy endings.

He thinks about those two sappy old timers and his chest warms just like when he looks at Jake. Proof that people like him can be happy.

He turns his head, finding his boyfriend, hair rumpled, eyes still soft, mouth quirked up in a genuine smile and not a mocking one. Whipped, Natasha would say. Bradley lifts his head and pecks his boyfriend’s lips. Once, twice, three times. They smell like morning breath, but at this point, neither of them mind. They’ve tasted each other at their worst.

“I’d go anywhere in the world.” Bradley rubs their noses together, the same way he and his mom used to do all the time. “Just as long as you’re there with me.”

“Sap,” Jake teases, but his ears and cheeks are red, crumpling under affection so sweetly. “Such a fucking sap, Bradshaw.”

“Only for you, honey.”

#i've been feeling very burnt out lately #all efforts of trying to write longer fics have been unsuccessful #so i'm going to just write oneshots like this to try and get back into it!#top gun maverick #tgm #hangster #sereshaw #jake hangman seresin #bradley bradshaw #rooster x hangman

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tgmsunmontue · 2 months

Text

Season to Taste - 1/? WIP

Explicit Hangster - Celebrity Chef Bradley and Naval Aviator Jake Seresin who have a relationship spanning the globe before they realize how tightly bound they are to one another. Heading into this little world.

PROLOGUE

~2001…

He hadn’t thought about where. Hadn’t cared. Away. As far away as he could. Getting on a plane seemed like a good idea, and he had the money and a passport and hadn’t really thought about it further than that. He’d arrived at LAX and walked up to the ticket counter and asked about the next flight and then asked if he wanted to be put on standby. He has no idea what that means but next thing he knew he was on a flight to Rome. He hadn’t had a visa, but he’d applied for one when he arrived.

He’d hadn’t considered money until he paid for a month in a backpackers and then realized he still needed to feed himself. And he was on a tourist visa, eighteen years old and no skills to speak of. He’d found the restaurant, the price of the margherita pizza the most appealing thing on the menu. He’d returned daily because not only was it was the best damned pizza he’d ever had, the waitress, Silvia, seemed to appreciate his fumbling attempts in Italian and would ask him questions, forcing him to practice. It also made him feel a little less lonely.

He hadn’t expected to feel so homesick, anger simmering away but for there to also be the deep-seated ache for home. Then there had been a knife, used to beckon him into the kitchen and a severe looking man called Leandro who put Bradley to work washing dishes. Then he’d been fed food more substantial than pizza and realized that maybe the looks he was getting from both Silvia and Leandro were of concern. He’d been thoroughly enveloped into the Gallo family. Taught how to make pasta by Leandro’s mother, then sauces, breads, desserts, dishes that made his mouth sing.

He hadn’t thought that they would care about what had happened to him, but been quickly disabused of the notion when Ice had walked in not even two months in and he’d seen the relief on his face, the grip of his arms around him hard and bruising. The shame he’d felt when Leandro and Silvia realized his family didn’t know he was alive and well. They’d let their displeasure be known, making him do all the prep for the restaurant and then some. Ice had left after two weeks with the promise of regular postcards and monthly phone calls.

He hadn’t realized that the languages he’d studied so diligently, hopeful that he’d one day get sent to foreign destinations where he’d be able to use them, would suddenly become useful. Helped tourists from all over with his rudimentary Italian, Spanish and French until it was no longer rudimentary. Silvia and Leandro switching between French and Italian whenever they think he’s getting too comfortable. He finds joy in creating new dishes, not afraid to try different things which make Silvia roll her eyes but surprise Leandro, who starts giving him more and more freedom, keeps pushing him to be better.

He hadn’t ever thought he could have a different dream.

… … …

~2008

Bradley doesn’t get nights off very often, but the peak tourist season is over. He’s more than earnt the pleasure of not having to cook or wait on tables or, for a very brief period there, act as translator for a film crew travelling with some British celebrity who was trying authentic cuisines throughout Europe. He wants to go dancing, cut loose a little and then head back to his little studio apartment and crash, knowing he doesn’t need to get up early in the morning. Dressed in his skinny black jeans and black t-shirt he isn’t dressed for anything fancy. Not looking for it tonight. He heads toward the club he likes the most, because it’s difficult to find and they generally don’t let in tourists, so he won’t feel bad pretending he doesn’t speak a word of English, can just be one of the crowd.

Of course his plan is completely out the window as soon as he steps inside, it’s after eleven, but that’s still early hours yet, the club doesn’t open before ten so it’s only the very keen or people like himself who potentially want an earlier night. However there is a guy standing by the bar and he can tell they’re not fucking local simply by the way they’re standing and they way they’re dressed, far too stiff for a start and far too formally. And from Giacomo’s expression they’re trying to talk to him in English. Which he knows Giacomo understands but he’s also a bit of an asshole. He catches Bradley’s eye and by the curl of his lip he knows he’s likely an American tourist and Giacomo is going to make him Bradley’s problem. Great.

“Leonardo,” Giacomo greets, and Bradley tips his head in greeting, grins at the name because it’s an inside joke now after years of it being used. Giacomo slides his eyes to the man he’s clearly begrudgingly served a beer to. Bradley rolls his eyes and shakes his head, he’s not going to take responsibility for drunken tourists of any nationality tonight. It’s his fucking night off and he wants to make the most of it. Then the guy turns to him and Bradley swiftly reconsiders his stance. The guy is cute, hair cut in a buzz, smile easy and wide and looking at Bradley like he’s maybe interested in… something.

“Hi…”

“Hi.”

“You speak English?”

“Yeah. I do. Enough.” He ignores the snort from Giacomo.

“I’m Jake. Dance?”

“Leonardo,” Bradley offers, because he’s not getting into the explanation of why everyone calls him Leonardo when his name is Bradley. Or the fact that’s he’s a fellow American because this guy’s Texan accent is thick and broad and unmistakable. “Sure.”

He watches as Jake throws back his bottle of beer, wonders if Jake was a member of some frat where they had been beer chugging competitions. He’s been getting lessons on wine from one of Leandro’s cousins and has started enjoying it, although it’s still not his first choice. Then he’s following Jake onto the dance floor and the lights are almost non-existent over the space, some strobing flashing lights and making it difficult to focus on anything that isn’t directly in front of you. Even then…

Jake’s fingers hook into the loops of jeans and for all his stiffness when he’d been standing at the bar Jake moves like he loves dancing, in time and responsive to Bradley’s own body movements. The beat is loud and pulsing, filling him with the energy to just let his body go and he lets his hands rest around Jake’s neck, brushing over the spiky-soft hair with his finger tips and they tingle a little. There isn’t much space between them, not meant to be with Jake’s hands effectively resting on his hips as they move. The DJ changes the song and Bradley’s head shoots up, catches Lara’s eye and she laughs at him, the sound not at all audible over the sound of the music. He gives her the finger but continues dancing, because there is no way that Jake is going to know what this song is called or why his friend has just decided to put it on.

More people join the dance floor and the press of bodies and heat increases, the space between the decreases though, each of them with thigh between their own, grinding against each other easily. His cock has grown heavy under the ongoing pressure and movement and the fact that the guy in his arms is cute as hell and keeps staring at his lips like he wants Bradley to kiss him but is too polite to ask or take.

So he kisses him, feels Jake smile against his lips and then he’s kissing back and they’re making out more than dancing, he can feel Jake’s fingers digging into his ass and he lets one of his own hands come to rest on Jake’s ass, palm a handful and sucks his bottom lip and nips it lightly. Savors the sudden shift of air against his face, a little gasp that Jake makes; wishes he could hear anything other that the pumping base of the club music. Wants to ask if Jake wants to come back to his little studio apartment and maybe spend some time doing a similar activity sans clothes… Jake is pulling away, eyes a little wide and alarmed.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a curfew. Shit. Sorry.”

He presses his lips against Bradley’s again, his expression apologetic and Bradley wonders if Jake thinks he didn’t understand what he just said. It feels like a Cinderella moment, the guy disappearing into the night and him standing there staring after him.

CHAPTER ONE

#Season to taste #Hangster #Sereshaw #Top Gun Maverick fanfiction #AU

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mynamesaplant · 7 months

Text

Just a Dragon in its Den

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Just a little short story about @critterbitter's submas hc. Please go take a look at Critter's work, it is beautiful in every sense of the word. This particular story looks more into Drayden, the twins, and the tension that has built between them. This takes place right before they make it to Opelucid. Enjoy another bad phonetically written accent! One other thing to note: Kaita is called "mother" by her sons and Lucielle is "mom".

Little piece of my own hc: The particular Haxorus that helped raise Emmet and Ingo is informally known as Darling by everyone bc they heard Drayden referring to 'darling' after battles and thought it was her name.

Thank you to @ingo-ingoing-ingone for being my beta reader. I appreciate you immensely, my friend.

You can find my series of Critter inspired works on AO3.

Don't like to read on Tumblr? Find the stand alone piece here on AO3.

Enjoy!~

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Sunlight still managed to get into his eyes even with the canvas canopy over their heads…

Ingo pried open a bleary eye, scanning from his left to his right. A moment ticked by before he flopped his head back down.

It was just him, and his waxy partner half-way fused to his sleep shirt.

He could hear his best friends talking just outside the tent flaps, the sizzling of oil in a pan which made him jerk upright. Litwick was launched as he was quick to change and get outside before they burned a hole in the tent… again.

Ingo loved Emmet and Elesa, but they couldn’t cook without supervision. They could barely cook with supervision.

“Make way!”

Emmet and Elesa jumped out of the way as Ingo barreled out from the dark interior of the tent. Quick to relinquish stove duty to his twin, Emmet shot Elesa a smug grin that she merely harrumphed at.

“Told you that would get him up.”

“You two are cruel,” Ingo tried to say through a yawn, but it only came out as a garbled noise. However, the intention seemed to come across just fine.

“We’re not cruel! You sleep like a log!”

He ignored Elesa, groggily shifting the bacon that was just starting to spatter and hiss in distress.

You jerk! I was sleeping!

A displeased crackle and spark came from the tent flap, Litwick's wax running with the intensity of her lavender inferno.

“Apologies, Litwick. I was terrified our tent would turn to cinders if these two were manning the camp stove any longer.”

The flame atop Litwick’s head, at the moment burning high and hot, slowly began to whittle down into a manageable flicker. Ingo stooped, scooping his Pokémon up carefully, and setting her near the small propane tank that fueled the stove, the Ghost Pokémon grumbling the whole time as her eyes fluttered shut. This was a new gift. Their mother heard from Uncle Drayden that they were on their journey through Unova and she had purchased this from a camp store in Galar; in her letter she suggested that it might be useful. Camping was very big there apparently; she had seen many people using this model of stove, and she saw no issues with twelve-year-olds using flammable materials like propane.

Their mother, Kaita, rarely sent them anything and, when she did, it was usually impractical or downright dangerous. The boys had stared at the box waiting for them at the Poké Mart in Lacunosa Town, perplexed when they saw their mother’s name with the return address for a hostel in Galar. How she had even known that they were going to be in Lacunosa before heading to Opelucid was anyone’s guess, but they took the package and attempted to call the number on the postcard, stuffed in hastily judging by the torn edges and messy scrawl, but the man with a thick Galarian accent told them she had left just the other day.

Somehow that was unsurprising to Emmet and Ingo.

“So, what’s on tap for today?”

“We should reach Opelucid by noon,” Emmet said, pulling his knees to his chest as he watched Tynamo flitter around the Dwebble that had been following them since they had departed from Route 18.

The little crustacean had been tottering after them at a distance, disappearing into its shell when anyone was close, but joined in on the fun with the other Pokémon on occasion.

“That’s where Drayden works, right?”

“Correct, we will be visiting him.”

That seemed to give Elesa pause, looking from one twin to the other.

“Are you sure?” Emmet shifted, throwing a glance toward Ingo who minutely shook his head. Though the motion was subtle, Elesa didn’t fail to catch it – she was used to their rhythms and motions. For whatever reason, they were uncomfortable. “We don’t have to stop by the gym if-”

“That is very much appreciated, Elesa.”

“Yup, verrrry nice of you.”

“But everyone knows us in Opelucid. Even if we don’t go to the gym, he’ll know we’re there.”

Against her side, Elesa felt Emmet shudder and mutter something about old ladies. She wasn’t sure what that meant either, but she assumed it wasn’t good.

“What about old ladies?”

“All of the octogenarians like to sit in the plaza by the gym to read their papers, feed the Pidoves, gossip, and play chess. You must pass by them if you want to get to the Pokémon Center. They like to joke that they are Opelucid’s stalwart sentinels and they… tattle on us to uncle when we got into mischief. It is why we asked to stay in Anville Town most days.”

Ingo did not add that by that point, Drayden had stopped asking and would be gone for most of the day. It had only been when they were very young, usually following hand-in-hand in their uncle’s wake and scurrying behind his Haxorus when strangers got too close to them.

“They pinched our cheeks… Fingers like Kingler claws.”

Emmet was the one to actually answer their friend’s question, subconsciously rubbing his cheek as if it had just been pinched. After the first few times that had happened, Darling realized that the twins did not like being touched without permission, and the Dragon Pokémon would insert herself between Emmet and Ingo and the elder men and women. She would rumble out a warning when people got too close, flashing her glinting tusks despite the fact that they were covered with thick Bouffalant leather to prevent any accidents.

Only until Drayden commanded her to stop, she was aggressive with any strangers or anyone that the twins seemed uncomfortable with. At the very least, Emmet and Ingo were convinced that Darling would be happy to see them.

Breakfast was a drawn-out affair. Each bite seemed to be smaller and smaller as if to prolong the inevitable meetup. Packing up and hiking to the city was also glacially slow, Emmet and Ingo dragging their feet as they neared the dragon’s den. Elesa stopped them just as they passed the first few residences, looking them over with steely eyes that the twins shrank away from.

“We can turn back now.”

“No… We mustn’t delay any further.”

Ingo insisted, forging ahead, and chewing his bottom lip to shreds with the all-consuming anxiety that he and Emmet collectively felt.

Opelucid was an overwhelming place. It radiated an unexplainable energy that seemed to loom over all those who entered her walls. They remembered the streets well. Ingo’s eyes fixed on the place where Emmet had tripped and scraped his knee, crying and oozing blood on the whole walk back to the gym. Emmet nervously flicked his eyes to the place where a mother yelled at him and Ingo when her teenage son had been bullying them – he’d called them oblivious, creepy, unsettling… Emmet swallowed hard, reaching for Ingo’s shirt tail, and gripping it tight, rubbing his thumb over the fabric methodically.

Ingo’s hand reached back and offered his brother’s wrist a light squeeze, trying to reassure him even if he didn’t feel so sure himself.

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Despite doing everything in their power, the trio could not avoid the parties of the elderly that seemed to stalk the streets of the city. There was no escape from the simpering words and the ruddy cheeks from pinching fingers, the kids barely escaped with their cheeks and dignity intact.

The doors to the gym hissed open, sounding more like an angry Zweilous bickering over a meal than the squeak from the friction of the moving belt. They moved into the atrium tentatively, the twins bunched together while Elesa stood off to one side, eyeing them worriedly as a young woman leaned over the counter. Thankfully, Emmet and Ingo didn’t recognize her, which must have meant she was new. Her accent confirmed it.

“Welcome ta the Opelucid Gym, are ya here ta challenge the gym leadah?”

“Ah, no. We, uh, we are here to see him.”

Ingo tried hard not to stammer and failed miserably, somewhat baffled by the heaviness of the Castelian accent rolling off her tongue. The young woman pursed her maroon-stained lips before turning her gaze to the computer before her. There was some clicking, some squinting between the monitor and the two boys, and she finally picked up a walkie-talkie that Emmet and Ingo knew was there.

“Mista Drayden, there are some… youts here ta see ya.”

There was a pause.

“Send them in, Audrey.”

They tried not to think about how irritated their uncle already sounded, instead choosing to focus on the awe on Elesa’s face as she looked around the gym. Her blue eyes quite nearly bulged out of her skull when they walked under winding bridges, gasped at the beautiful carvings of dragons that adorned the whole facility, and she oohed and aahed at the way the placed made the perfect mechanical maze to make every challenger prove their mettle before squaring up to the dragon master himself.

They traveled up the ramps without hesitation, Emmet and Ingo giving appropriate responses to the gym trainers who recognized them. A few of the older trainers stopped the trio, cooing over the twins who tried not to cringe at the unwanted touches and comments that only served to make them more anxious about their inevitable encounter.

The last ramp up to the arena was just ahead and Ingo took a deep breath, Emmet being the one to release – a frankly inadequate coping mechanism when faced with something like this. Before either could begin the ascent, Elesa leapt before them, and gave them an appraising look, the fierce blue tinged with a soft concern.

Her best friends did not act this way.

“Spill. What’s the matter?”

She didn’t give them a chance to look at each other as she inserted herself between them, there would be no silent agreement on how they would deflect her questions. Emmet flinched back, finding the seam of his bandana, and running over it with the flat of his thumb; Tynamo buzzed softly below his chin which was just as comforting for the young man. Ingo, the one directly under Elesa’s scrutiny, was standing firm – although, if one looked closely, they could see his knees shaking beneath the cuff of his shorts. He could feel it in his back and shoulders, so heavy from the anxiety that it was dragging him face first towards the ground like it was the planet’s gravitational pull.

There was no lying to her. She would wheedle it out of them before they took another step.

“The situation is… precarious. It has been more than a fortnight since we have spoken to Uncle.”

Elesa, nose scrunched in confusion, looked to Emmet for a translation.

“More than a month.”

Now he was fiddling with his hair, tugging and twisting his gray locks that framed his face rapidly between his spindly fingers. Tynamo offered another buzz, the tingle felt familiar and comforting.

“So? I haven’t spoken to my father in even longer.”

Behind her, Ingo pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. The situation is not the same. Elesa wanted nothing more than to go on her journey to be away from her father. Emmet and Ingo…

“Lesa…” There was more to their story in the city of Opelucid, but neither twin had the heart to delve into it. “We should not dillydally, uncle is waiting.”

Without another word, Ingo brushed past her, and Emmet was on his heels, both practically running up the ramp, which just felt like such an odd juxtaposition to earlier this morning where they seemed intent on moving slower than Slugmas.

Elesa tried to keep a close eye on her friends as they greeted their uncle, the three of them shifting uncomfortably like the idea of a hug seemed impossible. Drayden’s face was usually hard to read thanks to the copious amount of facial hair, but there was a pinched quality to his expression.

That detail was quickly replaced with exasperation as a large, leathery Pokémon tore across the arena at a breakneck pace. Skidding to a stop just before them, the beast lunged forward and -

“Haxorus!”

Ingo spluttered, his front coated head to toe in slobber that he was wiping from his eyes. The other two kids weren’t spared from the assault, not even Blitzle, who shook out his striped coat of the sticky saliva with an indignant snort. The bubble of tension seemed to ease a little with this interruption, but it was still palpable.

Tynamo remained close to Emmet, nestled in his bandana, and offering soft nips to his jaw and chin. Litwick was doing the same, unable to conjure up witty dialogue when Ingo’s soul looked so withered and violently flickering with each interaction with his uncle. Even Blitzle, who was first and foremost Elesa’s Pokémon, was sticking close to the twins. His training as an aid Pokémon was kicking in to shove his snout into the boys’ floundering hands so they could have an outlet for their pent-up anxiety.

Elesa attempted to catalog each word, each expression, each vocal fluctuation – but they seemed so… normal? What were her friends so worried about?

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Drayden was across the arena with Elesa and Blitzle, introducing her to his large, and very fluffy, Altaria. Emmet watched over the top of his magazine; this issue was dedicated to Dragon Pokémon found in the Alola region, and he elbowed his twin when he saw Drayden cast his gaze in their direction. Although Darling was curled around them, her tusks bound to prevent injury, Emmet and a groggy Ingo sank into her flank to make themselves as small as possible.

Darling woke up with a rumble, nudging her snout against them before lightly nibbling on their hair to put them at ease. Drayden seemed to take a deep breath as he approached, taking a seat on the bench beside them, and looking at his nephews out of the corner of his eye.

“Your friend likes Altaria.”

“Altaria is nice.”

Emmet’s reply was more like a squeak than anything. Ingo had taken interest in the skin on Darling’s neck. There it was again, the pressure on that bubble of tension becoming unbearable once again. Without Elesa there to deflect, it was like back all those years before.

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All of them were thinking the same thing: Kaita not so quietly arguing with Drayden, the twins covering their ears because they didn’t like the shrill tone their mother’s voice had taken. The four-year-olds didn’t really understand what was happening, but they were used to the yelling.

Mom and mother had been doing it for weeks.

“I can’t handle them on my own!”

Kaita had snapped, her eyes bright and her mouth curled into an awful snarl. Drayden offered her an equally ferocious growl, too much like their draconic partners than either of them cared to admit. He and his fraternal twin never saw eye to eye, but this?

He wanted to tell Kaita that that was too fucking bad. She and Lucielle should have thought this through a little longer. Kids were not marriage savers. Now she was trying to dump them on him? No fucking way.

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Drayden blinked hard, allowing the blessed dark to cool the bubbling anger he felt toward his sister. This was not Emmet and Ingo’s fault… He had never addressed this incident with them before, had he? Of course, they had been old enough to remember. The Dragon Master picked on their discomfort quickly and he was just as happy to leave them home than he was to take them on his hour-long commute to Opelucid.

In that moment, it occurred to Drayden just how awful that sounded. He had never really thought of his nephews as being lonely, not when they had each other. He left them at home with Darling when they were still young, but that had only been a few years. They had been abandoned by their mothers and then again by him.

This knowledge felt like bile stinging the back of his throat.

“I love you boys.”

Whatever his nephews had expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. Drayden propped his elbows on his knees, not unlike Emmet did when he was chatting with his brother and looked at them with something akin to a pleading look.

“We love you too.”

Ingo’s response was so… Mechanical. A reflex. Drayden seemed pained and they both cringed, waiting for their uncle to adopt that tone of voice they were so well acquainted with by this point – that horrible concoction of disappointment and frustration that was all too familiar to their ears.

“No, Emmet… Ingo…” He got up, stepping toward them and crouching down, Darling temporarily swinging her head around to butt her snout under his chin affectionately before resuming her doting on the twins. He hated how they shrank away, cowering like they expected him to yell – had he ever yelled at them? No, not as far as he could remember, but perhaps his silence spoke volumes about his bitterness. “Boys,” he croaked, schooling his expression into something softer (which he only just realized was something he and Ingo had in common), “I am very proud of you. I’m proud of all you’ve accomplished.

Two sets of gray eyes blinked, a staccato of confusion at this admission, as if unsure how to process that compliment.

“… Thank you.”

Ingo said, a gravelly quality to his voice that made it quieter than its typical boom. Emmet’s hand was shaking, but Drayden recognized that a precursor to a form of stimming. It was something that evolved from learning sign for Elesa for both twins; Emmet used to snap his fingers and his brother hummed (usually quite out-of-tune and loudly).

“May I join you? You look quite cozy there.”

Emmet and Ingo scooted over, leaving room between them so their uncle could sit. They were still a little confused by the unexpected behavior from him, but Drayden asked for permission to put his arms around them, and they didn’t reject him. The aversion to touch made unprompted touch nearly unbearable for all except themselves and more recently Elesa, but Drayden seeking their acceptance felt… different – it felt nice.

“Your Pokémon’ve gotten a lot stronger. I can tell these things, you know.”

Gradually, Drayden felt Emmet and Ingo relaxing into him while they told him all about their adventures. They showed off Tynamo and Litwick, the latter looking a tad smug when Drayden said she had a menacing aura.

“We also have this Dwebble… Well, perhaps that is not quite accurate. He shares the same carriage as us and travels the same tracks, however, he insists on remaining unaccompanied.”

The Pokémon in question was observing from under the bench Drayden had vacated – oh my, nearly an hour ago, those boys really knew how to fill in the time. Dwebble’s eyestalks twitched, its body cautiously retracting into its shell now that it was the center of attention.

“He is shy, yup!”

Drayden offered a nod, crooking his finger at the small, shelled Pokémon. Dwebble, body still half hidden, obeyed the unspoken command and skittered forward.

“See, he has a magnificent specimen on his back. I have not looked into the logistics of whether sediments found in or on Crustle and Dwebble affect their battling, but he has a King’s rock. It is spectacular!”

Their uncle nodded with agreement, Darling grumbling encouragingly at the smaller Pokémon with his approach.

“I must agree. He’s spectacular… Have you asked him if he’d like to join you?”

Drayden listened carefully as Ingo explained the fiasco that was Route 18 – Frillish and all - and, although he was tempted into chastising Ingo, he held his tongue about his nephew’s so-called inside voice. In fact, Ingo parroted some of the lessons that Drayden had attempted to instill in him. He was trying to work on his “volume output”. The Dwebble seemed to be quite used to them now, scraping a claw against the sole of the Gym Leader’s shoes, which inexplicably reminded him of his nephews yet again.

“Such a shame. Ingo really likes rocks, too,” Emmet said with a sympathetic shake of his head when his brother sighed much too heavily for someone of his age. Drayden’s brow was furrowed, watching as the Bug Pokémon’s eyes darted to Ingo, and he said,

“Ask him again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ask Dwebble to join your team. Pokémon, just like humans, can have a hard time saying what they mean. Sometimes they need help or a little nudge. He’s come this far with you, hasn’t he?”

Ingo seemed to contemplate this for a moment, they certainly had gone the distance with Dwebble at their side…

Ingo leaned forward, trying to tamp down his excitement – just in case his uncle’s instincts were off.

“Dwebble… Are you interested in... Would you join me on this journey?”

The Pokémon blinked up at the boy, eyestalks tilting to one side and then the other. In that moment, it felt as though all the air was sucked out of the room, the anxiety unwittingly rocketing up with each second that ticked by where the Pokémon before them didn’t answer.

Dwebble raised his pincers tacked against the ground, his eyestalks swaying to a music that only he seemed to hear, only for the Pokémon to instantly shoot back into his shell when a sonic boom shattered the silence.

You better get used to the human Exploud if you wanna be a part of this team.

Litwick groused, her annoyance was mostly for show at the pure joy in her trainer’s eyes when he picked up Dwebble. Spinning around in tight circles, Ingo wasn’t even able to say anything, only a mix of laughter that verged on happy sobs, as he held his new Pokémon close to his chest.

Emmet watched on with a bright smile, happy for his brother’s first genuine catch, allowing the bright glow of the moment to not be stymied by the fact that they had no money for Pokéballs and were fresh out because they lent all theirs to Elesa to catch some Plusle and Minun on Route 6 (with no resulting captures).

“King! You shall be called King.”

How does this walking pile of rocks have a name before me!?

Litwick shrieked, batting at Ingo’s ear in aggravation to no avail. Drayden watched on, beard obscuring the placid smile on his face.

Good. It was time to make better memories here in Opelucid.

#pokemon #submas #nimbasa trio #pkmn #subway boss emmet #subway boss ingo #subway bosses #subway master emmet #subway master ingo #gym leader elesa #gym leader drayden #fan fic #fan fiction #fanfic #fanfiction #i thought King would be a cute name for Ingo's Dwebble :)

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http-paprika · 7 days

Text

There Was Something Here Once but a new day hides that haze

alternative universe / call of duty x female reader / taglist open / wc 2623 / warnings light swearing / no use of y/n / ship not yet decided / no beta, my grammarly hates me

a word from the author- i started classes in August, so I'm not on top of my writing but I started this the other day and wanting to share it with ya'll because it's too good. And for the pairing, I'm between two characters so you'll just have to see how it goes.

Dew clings to the windshield, a heavy fog leaving the morning hazy and gray. Autumn would soon have a firm hold on the small, quiet town of Aberdeen, making the weather impossible to bear if one did not have a good flannel or coat. Which was a new addition to her wardrobe when she made plans to leave the city and hide away. The one postcard sent from her college friend, the one responsible for getting her this new job, boasted a quaint downtown, heavy snows, and an eerie ambiance she couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried. It was Twin Peaks personified, just lacking David Duchovny and a young Kyle MacLachlan.

The engine of her Ford Bronco sputters and creaks. The old vehicle had spent the whole drive up protesting the hills and winding roads that left her constantly breaking. Now, it seemed her ancient car, that she had served her faithfully through college and early adult years, had decided to kick her in the ass.

“No, no, no.” She groans, hitting her head against the hard steering wheel and instantly regretting it. There’d be a bruise later in the day with her luck. “Not today, baby. I’ve only been at this job a week, I can’t be late already.”

It would be just her bad luck that the car would give out, her luck that the cell service was questionable so she couldn’t even call. But what wouldn’t be her normal bout of unfortunate events was the man who lived just down the road that she’d seen tinkering with an old sports car. She pops up her head, remembering his existence and hurries out into the morning chill.

With her fingers crossed together that the stranger would not be a creep, she walks in a fast pace down the cracked asphalt to the little arts and crafts home that sat at the bottom of the hill. There was a blooming garden out front, despite the change in seasons, vegetable, herbs and a few flowers bursting to life and ready for harvest. The two rocking chairs on the front porch made her a little less nervous. Whoever the home belonged to, they seem charming enough in their landscape and aesthetic.

Hands trembling, she knocks against the screen door, wondering if she should open it and knock directly on the faded blue front door. But after a few knocks, the sound of muffled footsteps reached her ears and soon enough the door was unlocked and opened. Except, the man standing in the doorway was not who she’d seen tinkering with the car, instead, he struck her as a cowboy. Someone who would’ve starred in the western movies her father watched when she was a kid.

“Can I help you?” He asks, a dull but still visible southern twang visible in his voice. Maybe he was a cowboy, his checkered shirt and worn down boots said as much.

“Oh, um–” She pauses, trying to collect herself so as to not sound like a fool. The anxiety of being late and belittled by her unruly coworkers was pressing deep into her skin. “I’m sorry for disturbing you so early in the morning. But I just moved into the house up the road last week and my car doesn't want to run today and I’m going to be late for work. I had noticed in passing before that there’s someone in this household who works on cars and was wondering if he’d be willing to take a look at the engine for me? I’m helpless with mechanics.”

The man nods, understanding her plea for help. “That’s right, John spends all his free time on that hunk of shit.”

“Are you talking bad about my car again, Phillip?” A booming voice asked from inside the house, it caused her to stand at attention being vividly alert. Suddenly, the man she’d seen while driving by is standing over Phillip’s shoulder, hands resting on Phillip’s hips and a tilt to his head. “Hello there, not often we get new people in these parts.”

“She just moved into the Riley’s house, her car is acting up, John.” Phillip tells the newcomer in the conversation. Together, the men made quite a fitting pair, rugged and worn at the edges, with various lengths of facial hair and two sets of blue eyes. Without them having to say it out loud, she could feel the warmth of their shared intimacy, a love she could only envy and never grasp.

“Really? Never thought anyone would be willing to buy it— Ow!” John grumbles, rubbing his side where Phillip had jutted his elbow. “Right, your car. Let me get my things.”

She frowns at the statement the man had begun but been unable to finish. What had John meant by that? Sure, the house wasn't the nicest, there were cobwebs in corners, cracks on some of the window panes, and a musty smell from sitting empty for a while, but it was a nice enough house. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a cozy kitchen that looked out into the woods. It was a quaint cottage that was a dream come true compared to the studio apartment she’d left behind.

John disappears back into the house, leaving her with an awkward look on her face as Phillip stands there. She wants to ask what John meant by it, the curiosity or rather fear of the truth taps insistently against her skull. But she imagined her neighbor would just shut her down like he’d done with his partner.

“If it can be fixed, John can fix it, ma’am. He owns and runs the little auto shop in town, you’ve probably seen it. It’s the only one in this hellhole.” Phillip tells her, breaking up the static silence that had overcome them.

“You don’t like it here?” She raises a brow, surprised to hear it. The few coworkers she had at her new job only sang the praises of Abedreen, telling her it was the greatest little town to live in. But it was clear in Phillip’s tone that he didn’t share the sentiment.

“I like John, that’s enough to take me anywhere.”

There was a faithfulness in his voice she didn’t think she’d ever heard outside of television and novels. Her parents were divorced when she was a girl, all her friends in college seemed to have constant relationship problems and doubts, but there wasn’t a doubt in his words.

“Alright, lead the way.” John reappears behind his partner with a fat toolbox in hand, seemingly unaware of what Phillip had said. But she had a suspicion he knew, because as subtle as it was, she noticed John loop his finger quickly through the belt loop of Phillip’s jeans and tug slightly. And as she turned away to walk off the porch, the smile on Phillip’s face was as visible as the mist that hung in front of her.

The crunching of John’s boots on top of the gravel kept her company as they walked back to the road. There was a clear impression that the man was the less talkative of the couple, using few words to get his point across. Normally, she wouldn’t mind, but his big hulking figure following her like a shadow kept her nervous. While Phillip had reminded her of the movies her father used to watch, John reminded her of her father. Broad shoulders, dark hair covering his jaw, lack of conversation, and intimidating stature. She couldn’t even remember where her father had been born. Somewhere out west, or so she thought.

“So how come you moved to Aberdeen?” He finally speaks up once they’re on the road, headed back up the hill to her new home. “Got family in the area?”

“No.”

“Okay. You don’t exactly strike me as the logging or mining type–”

“An old college friend was from here, and I happened to come across a job position at the library and remember her telling me about the town.” She shrugs, not knowing what else to say without spiraling into the life events that left her desperate enough to start anew in the middle of nowhere, in a town no one seemed to know about.

“Ah.” John responds. She turned to look quickly down at the asphalt, his thoughtful gaze told her more than enough. He knew there was more to the story, and either he didn’t care or he was polite enough not to ask. “Who’s the friend?”

“What?”

“Your old college friend from here? Who are they? I’d probably know them, lived my entire life in the area.” He says, coming to a slow pace as they reached the top of the hill, her Bronco sitting and waiting to be inspected. She could only pray he could tell her it was fixable.

“Um, Beau Ridley. Well, now Beau Mayfield since she’s married.” She rambles off, stopping quickly in fear that she’s being too much. A habit she’d developed quickly in college.

“Yeah, I know Beau– pop the hood for me?” John sets down his tool box and she scurries to follow his orders like a kid finding the right wrench for their dad. Despite owning the car for ages, she struggles to remember where she had to look to open the boot. Finally, the boot clicked open and her view out the windshield was obscured with the metal. From this view, she could see just how badly the paint had begun to fade, and that there was dried bird poop that hadn’t been there the night before.

“Sorry.” She apologizes as she climbs back out of her car, fiddling with the sleeve of her shirt.

“What for?” He doesn’t even bother looking up from the engine of the car as he pokes around. Blinking at him, she realizes he doesn’t care that it took her a bit too long to pop the trunk or that she disturbed his morning. Realizing that makes her shift from one foot to another and drop her gaze down to the dirt of her driveway.

“Do me a favor and try to turn on the engine, would ya?” John asks and she quickly hurries to fulfill that task too. She hated meeting new people and new beginnings simply because it meant she had to work hard to make a good impression, the people here weren’t disappointed in her and expected failure like those she knew before. It was a feeling she hated, seeking approval. Yet she did it anyway.

Propping herself up in the driver’s seat, she fumbles with her keys– the cat keychain she had kept getting in the way– before finally turning the key in the ignition. The rough sound of her car sputtering and struggling, failing to do it’s most basic task of running, causes her to wince. And when she pokes her head out to see John’s expression as she continues to try to make it turn on, she realizes her car is screwed.

“So?”

“Need to get in the shop,” He informs her. John takes his time explaining what he believed to be the problem and it went all over her head, so she simply nodded. She knew how to change a tire, replace the blinker fluid, and even knew where to refill the car’s coolant, but anything more was outside her realm of knowledge. “You didn’t understand a thing I said, did ya?”

“No sir.”

John nods his head in sympathy, probably used to clueless customers in his auto shop. Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, John pulls out his cracked phone and types up a number. “I’ll call my tow-guy to come up and take it down to the shop, free of charge.”

“How am I going to get to work?” She suddenly responds, remembering why she’d even gone to John’s house in the first place. There’d always been a struggle for her to focus on what comes after something, stuck in the present unable to look forward to the future. Even if the future is only an hour away.

“Where do you work?” He asks her, putting the phone up to his ear to make the call.

“At the library.” She responds quickly, John registers her words with a nod before turning away to speak to his tow-driver. He barks at the unfortunate driver, seemingly annoyed by his antics until the call finally ends and he turns on his boot heel to look back at her.

“Johnny’s gonna be here in about twenty minutes, he’ll drop you off at the library. If that’s alright with you?” John says, making sure that she was comfortable with the situation. “Otherwise, I could drive you down later once I’m done with my breakfast and coffee.”

“No, no, that’s more than enough.” Her mind keeps going back to his statement, free of charge. How many times had she gotten something in life free? Rarely, if she could remember correctly. “Thank you, John.”

“You’re in Aberdeen. We take care of our neighbors here.” He turns to close his tool box, picking up the metal container with ease. “You fine with waiting on your own–”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s fine.” The thought of inconveniencing John further after he’d already taken time out of his day to help her was too much to ask. Even if she didn’t like the idea of waiting for a stranger to come get her car and take her to work, she’d handle it.

“You sure?”

“Yes, thank you. Again.” John nods, turning to leave with a hum in his throat low in sound but enough for her to hear in the morning. The fog is beginning to dissipate, letting the autumn sun climb through the tall spindly pine trees, the crisp air clings to your lungs like swallowing ice water. Up here, she finds that she can take a moment to breathe. Away from the bustling traffic of the city, the bog that coated the air. The only noise here was birdsong and wind. A bliss that eclipsed her senses before her phone decides to ring– her manager’s number on the caller ID.

Her manager forgives the lateness, and even tried to ask if they could do anything to help her but she declines. Sitting on the front step of her house, the hum of a truck overtakes the sounds of nature. And when the tow truck slows to a stop in front of the cottage, she finds herself biting the inside of her cheek. The sudden realization that there’s a stranger here to get her car and take her to work makes her queasy. If she were still in the city, she would’ve considered taking the spotty public transport over this. But it was too far and difficult of a trek to make with her heavy work tote slung over her shoulders and her loafers sinking into the mud from last night’s rain. She wouldn’t make it walking.

The door of the tow truck opens and the driver climbs out, his back stays turned to her as he reaches back in to grab something. The navy coveralls compliment his tanned arms well, and when he turns to look at her, she realizes they match his eyes as well. Even with his odd mohawk-like hair she finds herself coughing on nothing at the sight of his face.

“You alright, ma’am?” He asks, knitting his brows together in his concern. There’s a golden look in his face,

“Yeah, yeah. You’re Johnny?” She wheezes, struggling to clear her throat.

“That’s right. I’ll have your car hooked up and you to work in no time.” He promises her with a grin, and she fully believes it. Maybe Aberdeen wasn’t the worst little town to exist?

Chapter II

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jackactuallywrites · 29 days

Text

All Seeing, All Knowing, All Loving

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x You

Rating: PG, no smut or violence

Warnings: You’re getting stalked and hacked! Life pro tip: don’t put random USBs in your computer ;)

Summary: A cat gets dumped at your front door and a strange email gets dumped in your inbox. Who could it possibly be?

Notes: Yes you’re using Firefox because it’s the BEST

Word Count: 1,904

ao3 link

Someone was watching you.

You couldn't tell whether it was all in your head; logic and the power of chance dictated that it was, but there was that tiny little whisper of doubt in the back of your mind. One CCTV turning to follow you down the street was a coincidence, and you could argue that for the next half dozen, but not for every single one on the route from your work to your home. You couldn't remember when it started, but you'd first noticed it in the industrial estate when you'd taken another look for that skinny cat. The CCTV had practically swivelled all the way around, centring in on you, too overt to even pretend it was scanning the street. That had made sense. You'd walked onto some sort of military base; security on the old buildings might have been upped. The one after it wasn't too unusual either; undoubtedly, you looked pretty suspicious coming out of the disused alleyway. But every single camera after that, each one swivelling to watch you for long enough for you to come in range of the next one?

Whatever you'd done to get onto the radar of the higher-ups was beyond you. Perhaps it was your little foray into closed-off territory, but you'd reassured yourself that it was a one-off. They'd see that, and then they'd leave you alone. You hoped.

At any rate, you had more important things to do.

Saturday was Caturday, and that meant you had to check all the applications that had come in, go through them, and set up meetings for the applicants to meet the cats. Then, you had to walk over to the cattery and see what new cats had been brought in or surrendered, take their pictures, and then update the website, as well as all the updates from the successful adoptions that had happened over the week.

Your last task of the day was to open the post, finding your usual selection of postcards from adopters and fosterers, as well as a few thank you cards. Those went up on your desk, where you took your cards to display around your workspace and found the USB sitting on your desk. Usually, your colleagues sent you new pictures by email, but you had just assumed that they'd chosen a new method, perhaps one that would have an archive of pictures that were easier to look back at. It did have a cute drawing of a cat on it, and when you plugged it into your computer, it was full of cat pictures. You didn't recognise any of them; they were strays, by the look of it. Regardless, you didn't end up having enough time to click through them all; your day ended up swallowed by working through all the applications and scheduling various check-ups on all the cats. By the time you got back to your desk, it was already the end of the day, so you did the usual thing and took the USB stick home with you to work on it from home.

You'd noticed that your screen had flickered a little when you'd put it in, and the command box popped up for half a second, but that wasn't so unusual; the laptop was half a decade old at this point. That kept you occupied until you almost fell asleep on the sofa, at which point you decided to call it a day.

The next morning wasn't any less bizarre; in fact, it was perhaps more so.

Your usual morning routine had been interrupted by a sharp knock on the door, and when you'd gone to investigate, begrudging having to put actual clothes on, all you found was a box. You hadn't ordered anything that you could recall, but the women at the rescue liked to get each other little gifts, with that being your initial assumption. Of course, there was the fact that the cardboard box was roughly the size of a microwave. And the fact that it had air holes poked in the side. Not to mention the large block letters scrawled on top, perhaps the biggest clue of all as to what was inside.

'CAT.'

They had to be joking. Someone had left a cat on your doorstep? You were used to that at work, sure; you worked in a cat rescue, it was only natural for people to drop cats off in all manner of boxes and even bags, but this was your front door. You couldn't think of anyone who knew your address that would drop a cat off without at least texting you. Granted, you didn't have your phone. You were still irritated about that; what kind of man took someone's phone? Regardless, there were other things for you to worry about now.

Gingerly, you picked up the box, making sure to support the bottom as you brought it back into your home. There wasn't a holding crate like there was at the rescue, nor was there any protective gear. At least the cat inside didn't sound angry. It was worth the risk.

Your bathroom would be the safest place to open the box; it was the smallest room, with ample access to water in case you needed to clean, which was likely.

You set the box down on the floor, pushing the door closed with your foot. Then, you gingerly pulled the cardboard flap open. As labelled, there was a cat inside. A small, skinny little thing, white and grey, with stains— hang on, you knew this cat. The little bastard that had gotten you caught trespassing on a military base—sans the plastic ring around its neck. And now it was here? It still didn't look particularly afraid of you here, even if it was giving you a reproachful look, curled up in the furthest corner of the box. Its tail was still smooth, its ears slightly back but not completely flattened. You could risk holding out a hand toward it, your fingertips reaching out so it could smell you. It may not have been thrilled by the fact that it had now lost its freedom, but it wasn't aggressive by any means. Nor did it seem particularly interested in you, letting you boop its nose without flinching. It just watched you carefully as you stroked its head, just silent and curious.

You had another problem now. How were you supposed to leave your apartment when you had a new cat to take care of? You already knew you couldn't take it to the shelter; it was overcrowded as it was, but you weren't about to leave it alone in your house. For the time being, at least, you would be working from home.

First things first, you'd have to send an email into work, so that was what you'd do. There wasn't too much trouble the cat could get into, so you left it in the bathroom to get acclimatised. Thankfully, your workspace was right across from the bathroom, so you could keep an eye on the door from your desk. Already, there were emails waiting for you the second you turned your laptop on. They were easy enough to skim through, mostly junk; offers from shops you were sure you'd already unsubscribed from, but one caught your attention, having arrived just a few minutes ago.

'CAT.'

If it was a spam email, it worked well enough for you to click on it, even though '[email protected]' seemed like the fakest address imaginable. Still, you clicked.

'Subject: CAT

Is the cat okay?'

That was a little creepy. Then again, maybe someone had anonymously donated a cat, and was too ashamed to reveal their identity. It wasn't completely beyond the realm of possibility, even if it was strange. So, you replied.

'Subject: CAT

Yes. Who is this?'

The response pinged into your inbox quickly,

'Subject: CAT

Take care of Soap.'

Who on Earth was Soap? Was that the cat? It looked far too unclean to have such a name, but who were you to argue with a mysterious stranger. Soap it was.

With that taken care of, your next priority was to get in some sort of supplies for Soap. You clicked to send a new email, but the light of your laptop flicked on. You instinctively checked to see if you'd accidentally opened a program, but the only thing open on your computer was your email. You then hit ctrl-alt-delete, but there wasn't any other application open there either. The camera light shone mockingly, and you frowned at it, before quickly opening up Firefox and typing in 'Camera light on laptop on, no program using it.'

Naturally, Microsoft was the first result, so you scrolled through the forum and read through the advice. Already, you were bored, but you still took on the suggestions. First on the list was the classic. 'Turn it off and on again.' You pressed the power button, then sat back and waited for the laptop to turn off. After a moment, it did, the light switching off and the screen going dark. You waited ten seconds, then switched it back on.

Victory! The light was off once more, so it must have been some strange hardware bug. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but you couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that something was wrong. You decided the easiest thing to do was to run a virus scan, so you left the laptop to it while you went to check on Soap.

Soap had made himself quite comfortable in the bathroom sink, curled up underneath the tap. You took the opportunity to examine the cardboard box, checking to see if there were any supplies that had been stashed in a corner.

At the back end, right where Soap had been curled up, was a phone. Your phone! Of course it would turn up after you'd ordered a replacement. At least there was still enough time to cancel that. Oh, how you'd missed your phone. You couldn't remember how to live without it; the last few days had been like trying to live without an arm. Surprisingly, it was fully charged, and everything on it was still intact. So that military man hadn't just mugged you. The mere memory of those cold green eyes unsettled you, and then it clicked. He had your phone. He'd put it in a box with the cat you'd been chasing and left both at your front door. He knew where you lived.

You could feel the chill down your spine as you scrambled to your feet and shot back over to the laptop, gears turning in your mind as you sent another email.

'Subject: CAT

Are you stalking me?'

It wasn't subtle, but you were too freaked out to play detective. The reply came in quickly.

'Subject: You

:-)'

You'd never considered a smiley face to be scary, but now it was fucking terrifying. Another email came in, and you clicked with trembling fingers,

'Subject: You

Relax. Just needed good home for Soap. Not going to hurt you.'

The email did little to reassure you. When did anyone ever admit they were planning on going to hurt someone? You chewed your nails, stomach twisting as you typed,

'Subject: You

Who are you?'

It was a shot in the dark, but maybe a Good Samaritan would give up his name. Another notification popped up.

'Subject: Me

Ghost.'

#jack writes #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley #cod #cod fanfic #cod mw2 #ghost mw2 #cod fic #simon ghost x reader

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