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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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who could stay? (you could stay.) (eddie munson x reader)

summary: you're convinced that being loved comes with a cost. he finds a way to prove you wrong. (wc: 9.7k+)

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Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Agree to run that errand for someone. Offer a shoulder to cry on for that person. Fix that problem for this friend. Keep going, keep offering, keep becoming indispensable.

You couldn’t pinpoint the exact age you’d figured out the formula. You can never know for sure if the day was sunny or if it were rainy, if it were a calm December morning or a buzzing July night, but those details aren’t very important. The only important detail is that you had finally cracked the code at some point – you had finally figured out the solution to feeling unlovable. And that was that, truthfully, there wasn’t a solution. Once you were destined to feel this way, to feel so sour at your core, there is no easy way to rid yourself of that rotten pit. It would always be there – always churning, always burning, always yearning. Yearning to be loved, yearning to feel those waves of warmth cascading over your brain and down your spine, the ones others had always described to you but you’d just never… experienced. Never became familiar with.

It felt like everyone was playing an over-elaborate prank on you. They’d all conspired against you, invented a false feeling in which someone claims to feel loved, only to sit back and watch as you fumbled to find it. They’d laughed as you dug through a graveyard of relationships, caked your fingernails with dirt as you sobbed and would continue to claw deeper, trying to find just one set of bones that might hold that warmth for you.

The only solution to that detrimental feeling of being unlovable, was to feel needed.

You needed to feel so necessary, so essential, to everyone around you at all times. It never mattered how much of you it took. You’d give away every piece of yourself a million times over just to feel wanted at some capacity, even if that capacity were one you’d forced upon the other person. You didn’t care if you’d built the glass cages of theirs – you just cared that they kept you around to wipe away any smudges that appeared.

Being wanted wasn’t quite the same as being loved. And if you thought about that for too long or too often, you might just break irrevocably.

“I just don’t understand him,” Nancy sighs from the head of your bed, reclining against a wall of pillows you’d lined your headboard with. Two of which were body pillows. Long tubes of fluff to try and fill lonely spaces, you suppose, “Why didn’t he just tell me he didn’t want to go to the same college? Why… Why do I feel like I am forcing him to be with me?”

Because you are. Just like I force you all to need me.

“I don’t know, Nance.”

That bland, bitter, half-thought out answer lingers on your tongue, almost burns your throat with the whisper of say more, say something useful, say something comforting. It’s the whisper of those four words not being enough. It’s the whisper of that threat that those four words could be the beginning of the end, the thing that makes Nancy realize she doesn’t need you.

After all, what use is a friend that can’t give good advice, or be supportive during relationship rants?

You open your mouth to add on something sweeter, something to coat the conversation like honey and smooth out the lines forming on Nancy’s forehead, but she beats you to it, “I’m sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Yes. “It’s fine,” at least that wasn’t a lie – you’d dug this specific grave, had rooted down tooth and nail only to find another empty coffin of a friendship curtained with want instead of love. You’d all but asked for this, “What he did really was shitty. It’s not fair to you.”

The words are almost robotic, telling Nancy Wheeler what she wants to hear rather than what she needs to hear. You don’t always do that, you do make a point of investing in the truth from time to time to truly secure your position as someone who is genuinely needed in her life, but the headache nagging at your temples tells you it’s not worth the fight tonight. You’re tired, you’re agitated, and you really just want to get Nancy to the point of contentment in her rambling so that you can send her on her way.

God, you’re an awful friend.

It turns you quiet, a ricocheting thought that bruises your inner skull the rest of the time Nancy sits on your bed. The guilt eats you alive for that moment of irritation the rest of the night. Even after Nancy goes home, even after you’ve brushed your teeth and you’ve tucked yourself into bed. The guilt gnaws on the edges of that emptiness inside of you, that ever-present black hole that already existed, and says this is why you cannot be loved.

Maybe the pity party for feeling like a bad friend is what makes you a bad friend.

And maybe if you were a better friend, you would be loved instead of wanted for once.

It’s all part of a cycle, never-ending and treacherous. It’s always been this way. You make promises to your friends and rip yourself to shreds before remolding yourself into whatever they need; giving rides to the younger kids within your circle to the pool all summer which evolved into taking turns with Steve as to who would pick them all up after their D&D club ran late every Friday night, always lending a listening ear to Nancy once Johnathan moved away and she’d had to witness her relationship and her love vanishing in real time, always being the one person who will listen to Robin ramble for hours about her sudden interests. None of it was born of ill-intent, but when you’d go home lonesome at the end of the night, you could see it all for what it was.

You were trying to fill a void. A hollow rot, a black hole. And it was only working half the time.

Half the time, until he came along.

And make no mistake, his arrival was as bloody as anyone who had previously entered your life. For a while there, you believed his headstone was at the end of the line already, sanctioned away in this graveyard of the ability to be loved. He came crashing into your life on a random Friday night, and you had sworn you could already see the end as it began, but you had been wrong.

“So, you’re the infamous babysitter.”

His voice caught you off guard. You’d been sitting in your car with your windows down, enjoying the reprieve of a cooling autumn evening as you waited for the boys to finish up with their D&D club. With your head buried in the latest sci-fi novel that Dustin had recommended and would no doubt be grilling you on once he got in the car, you hadn’t even heard the club exit the school.

“Nope,” you fought a smile as you glanced up from the pages to see an older guy standing there, closer to yours and Steve’s age than the kids. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that this was the famous Eddie all the boys would ramble on about for hours on end, “Harrington’s the babysitter. I’m just the taxi driver.”

There was something particularly pretty in the way he threw his head back with laughter at your words. Curls that messily fell just beyond his shoulders, full lips disappearing as his teeth peeked through and shined beneath the parking lot’s lamp posts. His denim vest looked purposefully distressed with a mirage of patches and pins, and he was wearing a leather jacket beneath it, even if it wasn’t quite cold enough for it yet outside. He was cute – and watching him laugh because of you sparked something irreversible inside of you.

“C’mon now,” he sighed as his cackles quieted, “Give yourself more credit than that. At least call yourself something fancy, like ‘chauffeur’.”

“Ah, but ‘taxi driver’ insinuates that I charge them,” you don’t miss a beat, and your quick wit has him chuckling again.

You caught sight of his eyes, corners creased with joy – brown. They were deep, russet, tantalizing brown. Almost indiscernible from his pupil in the dark.

“I’m Eddie, by the way.”

You took his hand that he shoved through your open window with ease, and felt an immediate shiver run down your spine. Not quite from the cold, but not quite warm. You saw the first flash of his grave, and you knew you’d be digging your greedy hands into it soon enough.

As you gave him your name in return, you knew you wouldn’t be leaving well enough alone.

You had been half right that night. You wouldn’t be leaving well enough alone, you would be seeking out the impossible from Eddie – but so would he.

It quickly became apparent that Eddie was a pest. Someone who weaseled his way into the lives of others, who made his presence felt and never forgotten.

You’d started with the same slow dance as you did with every new person, a hesitant dipping of your toes into their waters, unsure if your presence in their life would only cause more trouble than you’re worth, when you quickly discovered that nothing could ever be hesitant or slow with Eddie Munson. He’s the one constantly reaching out to you. Driving the kids home now takes double the time it used to, long conversations being had with him that has the kids dragging you away, practically begging to just be taken home. The day he’d asked for your number, you couldn’t tell which one of you burned brighter red. And the moment he had your number in his clutches? Forget about it. You never heard the end of Eddie Munson, and you never really wanted to.

Unlike your friends you already had and loved deeply, Eddie was observant.

It’s within the first month of knowing you that he had picked up on your insecurities. Maybe he hadn’t directly seen that gaping hole in your chest yet, but he noticed your habit of running yourself dry to see others thrive.

The need to be needed. He picked up on it quickly.

“What about Sunday?” Eddie’s voice traveled over the line as you laid on your stomach, stretched out across your bed for a few moments of rest before you had to get up and take the cookies you’d baked for Steve and Robin into Family Video, just like you had promised, “I’m free then if I finish all my fuckin’ homework on Saturday night.”

Surprisingly, that phone call with Eddie hadn’t been something expected or planned. It had been impulsive; in a rare moment of peace, you found yourself craving to hear his voice. Somehow, the two of you had ended up trying to figure out a free day to properly hang out. Eddie wanted to go to Benny’s for milkshakes, and you wouldn’t turn down the free fries he also promised.

“I can’t,” you paused just to hear his predictably dramatic sigh, grinning as you continued to explain, “I’m taking Max to the skatepark that day.”

“And it’s going to take all day?”

“It could!”

“There’s absolutely no way.”

“You clearly haven’t seen that girl skate.”

The conversation continued, light-hearted enough with plentiful jokes made. Something about talking with Eddie made your heart lighter, the usual unbearable and contradictory weight of emptiness no longer on your mind as you listened to him ramble about something that had happened in one of his classes – a teacher tried to embarrass him when he caught Eddie doodling for a D&D campaign by asking him a question, not expecting him to know the answer. Eddie had, of course, leaving the teacher baffled with a smirk.

It’s all about my charm, sweetheart, he responded when you asked how he hadn’t earned a detention from that.

Only towards the end of the call, when the conversation finally lulled and the two of you found yourselves settled into a comfortable silence, did Eddie finally circle back to the beginning of your conversation.

“You know,” he started, “When I first met you, I never took you to be someone so…”

“Amazing? Wonderful? Funny?” you jokingly attempted to finish his sentence.

“Busy.”

Oh. You hadn’t expected that one.

“Busy?” you repeated back to him, “I’m not that busy.”

Your mind immediately started racing with thoughts of what he had meant. Was he feeling neglected? Maybe you should have canceled on Max on Sunday, agreed to Benny’s with him instead. No, you couldn’t bear Max’s disappointment. Maybe you could tell Max you had a time constraint, even though you knew she hated those when it came to her skating days. Was there any other plans you could abandon? Anyone else you could bear to let down for the sake of not leaving Eddie high and dry? No, no – all your other weekend plans involved going to the movies with Robin, helping Steve look into colleges finally, taking the boys to the Starcourt mall to shop for supplies to make figurines for their newest campaign. The room was suddenly getting smaller, your chest constricting, your head spinning. You couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing any of those people, no, but what about Eddie? Maybe he was right in feeling neglected, maybe you deserved whatever guilt was to come from whatever his next words would be. He was your friend, you were supposed to make time for h-

“Sweetheart,” he scoffed over the line, and you swore you heart stopped right then and there, “You’re the highest thing in demand since Cabbage Patch Kids last Christmas – and trust me, I should know how in demand those fuckers were. I worked seasonally at the mall, remember?”

Your breath caught. He was feeling neglected. You weakly began your apology as tears were already filling your eyes, that panic turning over itself in your gut, “I’m-”

“And it’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong,” It’s clear your voice had been too soft, too weak, for him to hear you, “Just means I’ve gotta fight harder to be worth your time, am I right?”

You had to clear your throat, but it did nothing to subsidize that anxiety that rattled your bones. It’s blatantly evident as your voice shook with a second attempt at an apology, “I’m sorry, Eddie. I didn’t mean- I can… I’ll… Just tell me when for Benny’s. I can make it work, I swear-”

“Woah, woah, woah.”

He had to have heard the tears that had escaped down your cheeks. The shake of your breath as you’d stuttered over your words, grasping for a solution.

“You don’t need to apologize for that,” his voice was soothing and soft, the most gentle it had been the entire night. You pinched your eyes shut and just tried to imagine those stupid, big doe eyes, those ungodly messy curls (you’d started to tease him about if he ever even brushed or combed them). The panic remained, but Eddie’s voice started to give it a run for its money, “I was just playing around. You know that, right?” he paused to give you room to answer, but your throat was still tightly squeezed by overwhelming emotion, overwhelming fear of having scorned Eddie, “You could only have enough time in your schedule to see me once a year, and I’d still be your friend. We could only have these random phone calls, even if they were never longer than a minute, and you’d still be worth it. You know that, right?” Another pause, another wave of silence from your end, “Sweetheart, you don’t owe me your time. And I don’t need monopoly over it for us to be okay.”

Each word made the panic settle. You weren’t sure how he did it. You weren’t sure how mortified you should be that he had only been in your life for a month at most, and had just overheard you at your most vulnerable.

All you were sure of was that you believed him.

“Okay,” you croaked, finally feeling that ring of fear loosen, vocal chords finally functioning once more.

“Okay,” Eddie repeated back in that same gentle, soothing, soft tone.

You weren’t disappointing him. You weren’t making him feel neglected. He still found use for you, he still wanted you around – he still needed your friendship. That had to be enough.

It was quiet over the line for a few moments.

It has to be enough, you reminded yourself.

“Say,” you finally said, voice back to normal strength and the tears having dried themselves up for the most part. Your heart had almost returned to normal rhythm, “How does Benny’s sound tonight?”

“Tonight?” he chimed back, sounding as excited as a little kid the morning of a cherished holiday, something like Christmas.

A shiver ran down your spine. It’s not from the cold, and you tell yourself it’s not quite warmth – it can’t be warmth.

“Tonight,” you confirmed, “With a detour by Family Video, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a special delivery of cookies to fulfill.”

“What kind?”

“Excuse me?”

You were grinning - God, you were a pathetic fool, grinning and clutching onto that phone like a lifeline. Like if you let go of it, you’d lose his voice, and if you lost his voice, that would be the end of the world.

“What kind of cookies?”

“Chocolate chip.”

He hummed, not answering right away as if he were deliberating this information. When he finally spoke again, another shiver wrapped around your spine, spinning down, down down. Waves of what you almost believed were warmth. “Okay. I suppose I can be your taxi driver, for a price.”

“What’s your price?”

“One cookie.”

“Deal.”

It had to be enough, because you were still clutching that telephone tightly to your cheek, long after the phone call ended with Eddie’s promise of being at your house soon enough. It had to be enough, because after that night, it became clear; the world would not end with the loss of just Eddie’s voice from your life, but the loss of Eddie, period. It was the first night of many in which you played a very, very dangerous game.

Even with Nancy gone, you felt restless. You couldn’t help but linger just a little longer in all that self-pity, still replaying the night and all you could have done differently.

Had she caught on with how out of it you had been? Had she seen through your act and immediately assumed the worst – assumed you weren’t worth keeping around?

The thoughts might be an overreaction.

You were definitely overreacting.

You didn’t really care that you were overreacting, though, because you really couldn’t control it. It was just another dark path you couldn’t stop your mind from traveling down. It was endless, and it was lonesome, and… and it was just normal. What should be devolving into a panic attack can only settle like an emptiness deep within your chest; you’ve been staring at the blank wall of your living room for so long without blinking, your eyes have gone dry.

A pattern. That’s what the therapist said. You had a pattern for overthinking these interactions, for projecting feelings onto others that didn’t exist. You think all your friends hate you, you think that a stranger found your smile to be more of a grimace, you think your mom hasn’t called in months because she recognizes you as a failure finally. But none of it is actually what those people think. It’s like a mirror – you look into the eyes of others, and you see all your own insecurities reflected back.

She’d asked you to work on it. To take a step back and just breathe, just remind yourself of that, whenever this happens. You’d decide whether you’d mention this minor slip up later. For now, you were going to wallow. You were going to spiral with just you, this damn blank wall, and maybe even the bottle of wine in the fridge.

Yes, your mind was made up, and you force yourself to stand from the couch and wander into the kitchen, eyes still dry and chest still caving in on itself as you open the fridge.

That’s as far as you get. Your fridge is wide open, the bright luminescent light flooding your kitchen floor in time with the trickling chill that sneaks up on your warm cheeks and already numb toes, when you spot it.

A box of takeout. It’s old enough now you could throw it out, you had known the moment he’d taken the last of his meal to-go that he wouldn’t finish it. Teased him about it, even. But he was stubborn and you weren’t capable of turning down the opportunity to let another piece of him, another flash of evidence of his place in your life, occupy this apartment. So there it sat, a half-eaten burger he hadn’t revisited.

But he had revisited the apartment – revisited you. He’d been here every night this week, and you’d practically had to shove him out on the street to get him to leave this morning to get to work on time.

The edges of that emptiness that weighs down your insides blur, already lightening microscopically as you slam shut the fridge and forgo the wine completely to grab the phone instead.

“You don’t have to always take care of everyone, you know,” he murmured as he joined you in the kitchen to retrieve popcorn for the gang, everyone gathered in the living room for a movie night.

“Pardon?” you asked, hardly glancing over your shoulder as you punched in the designated time for the microwave to turn the kernels into an easy, mouth-watering snack of butter and crunch.

“You always take care of everyone. You don’t have to.”

His words rang clearer that time, loud enough to have stopped you in your tracks. You paused mid-reach, the cabinet for the Harrington’s bowls wide open and shelves nearly too tall for you.

“I-” you weren’t sure exactly what to say, “What do you mean?”

His brows scrunched, eyes having narrowed in the slightest in your direction, “Please don’t play dumb right now.”

“I’m not playing dumb. I’m trying to get popcorn for our movie night,” you waved your hand towards the shelves lined with bowls for emphasis on your point, “That’s not really taking care of everyone – it was just being polite. Steve’s hosting, it’s the least I can do.”

“The least you can do? The least you can do is actually just sit with friends, enjoy the movie,” the crease between his brow deepened, eyeing you with an unfamiliar concern. You shifted beneath the weight of his gaze.

You don’t know what to say. Except, “It’s not that serious.”

He scoffed, and you nearly flinched from it. Fear threatened to bubble up – he’s upset, he’s getting irritated at you. He’s getting tired of you.

You waited for him to say something more as the buzz of the microwave filled the tense space, but he remained silent. Brooding.

“What?” your voice shook, your entire being torn between succumbing to all that fear and anxiety in upsetting him further and that voice in the back of your mind that urged you to push him, to hear what he really thought. “I know you have something more to say.”

“In the six months I’ve known you, you haven’t taken a single break for yourself.”

He met your push, stood his ground and didn’t let it put any distance between you two. It felt like a goddamn revelation, right there in the Harrington kitchen.

“I take plenty of breaks, Eddie,” you tried to laugh off, “I do spend time away from you all, hard as that may be to belie-”

“Hardly,” he cut you off as sharply as the first resonating pop that echoed from the microwave.

“What’s your point? I just like being around you guys. Like I said, it’s not that serious.”

This was the part where the distance would happen. You kept pushing, took the inch he’d given you to bite back and ran with it. Normally, you avoided conflict with any of your friends vehemently. Always afraid, always assuming the relationships to be so fragile and so delicate. You would take such care in never giving them a reason to hate you that you’d never taken to a battleground before.

But there had been a look in Eddie’s eyes that night. A shine that, breaking through all the worry for you, whispered, fight with me. Stand your ground with me. I’ll still call you tomorrow, no matter what words we exchange tonight.

A safety net had formed that you’d never even noticed. That delicacy wasn’t needed here. You could pick up the sword, there in that kitchen, and it wouldn’t turn Eddie to smoke and shadows.

“My point is…” he paused, he swallowed hard, he exhibited the delicacy that was usually expected from you, “You can like being around us. But you should put yourself first. At least once. At least on movie night.”

“How is me making popcorn not putting myself first?” you got the question out, you took a deep breath, ready to go on some sort of defensive tirade for your habit you were well aware of.

He beat you to it, “Every day last week, you only got three hours of sleep, at most, before your shifts. You gave up sleep to hang out with us all way too late, refused to throw in the towel and go home before anyone else.”

“I could have napped-”

“You didn’t nap,” he stressed, taking a step closer to you. The popping of the snack turning in the microwave was erratic, mere seconds left on the timer. Static noise to the conversation at hand, “I know you didn’t fucking nap after your shifts because you were immediately running errands for everyone else, or hanging out again. You offered to give Robin a ride to work every single day, and her shifts start… what, an hour after yours ended? And then you had to give her rides home, right? But in those hours she was at work, you were helping Dustin with an essay for school – that little fucker told me all about it. You were awake when Johnathan called you and we were all stoned off our asses, went and got us food we didn’t need but still wanted. We didn’t even expect you to pick up, you know? I told them, I swore to them, you wouldn’t pick up. You had a morning shift. You were scheduled literal hours from when we called you. But you picked up. You fucking picked up, and you went and got the fucking food for us fucking idiots.”

Your brain completely malfunctioned. You couldn’t comprehend how he was saying all of these things that should be good things, things that proved you were needed and you were reliable, but with such venom in his tone.

Anger had sparked within you as you pictured how giddy Dustin had been over the B he’d earned on his essay, that sincere appreciation on Robin’s face every time she left your car last week, the dopey grin that Argyle had worn when you’d arrived with their food order in your pajamas. All previously things to fuel you, filling that aching hole inside of you, now being tarnished because he was concerned.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you seethed at him, “Would you prefer I hadn’t been awake? Would you prefer I let Dustin just… get a fucking F on that essay? Or Robin walks to work?”

“Yes!”

You were both shocked at the sudden volume in your voices. The quickness in his reply. The quiver in your lip.

“Yes,” he breathed out, quieter this time, “I would prefer those things if it meant you were taking care of yourself. The word ‘no’ should be in your vocabulary, sweetheart. I… The world doesn’t end just because you don’t constantly make yourself available.”

But you all needing me might.

“Just… just…” your breaths came out in huffs, eyes downcast and unwilling to meet Eddie’s stare. A final push, and it came out more fragile than you’d ever intended, “Just mind your business, Eddie.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but the microwave started to go off, signaling what you saw as the end of the conversation – the fight. You’d raised your voice at him, you’d swung that sword in his direction, and he hadn’t vanished. His friendship – he – wasn’t as breakable as you’d thought.

You spun on your heel, you took the popcorn out and divided it into bowls for the group, busying your hands in any way possible. All the while, he never left the kitchen. He stood just feet away from you and let you do what needed to be done, and only stopped you as you turned to exit the kitchen with the snacks acquired.

His hand caught onto your elbow, “You have bags.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have bags under your eyes,” he elaborated. He no longer looked frustrated, but defeated, a morose distress pinching the edges of his feature.

“Jesus,” you were now scoffing, adjusting your grip on those bowls, “You really know how to compliment a girl, don’t you?”

“They’ve been there for months,” his grip refused to loosen, thumb trailing over the crease in your arm, “Please don’t run yourself into the ground.”

You gave him a cold shoulder as you left him behind to rejoin your friends, unable to shake his consternation. It was so genuine, it terrified you. It made your insides churn, it turned your anxious attachment to dust.

It made a shiver of warmth travel down your spine.

The empty space beside you on the couch only remained for seconds after you’d passed around the bowls, keeping one for yourself. He was back there, back at your side, as if the two of you hadn’t just exited a battle ground. As if a stand-off hadn’t just occurred, as if it all hadn’t ended in a draw.

He looked at you with those eyes.

Fight with me. Stand your ground with me. Don’t walk away from me. I will still call tomorrow.

He did more than call that night. As the movie started, he didn’t so much as flinch when your head fell to his shoulder in exhaustion. He only tucked an arm around your shoulders, only shifted you to be more comfortable as you used him as a personal pillow. He glared at everyone in warning not to grill you on the plot of the movie when you’d awoke mildly disappointed, he’d let you sleep on the drive home. He never once brought the fight back up.

And he still called the next day.

After your shift, he was the first voice you heard after dragging your feet into your apartment. A brief apology was exchanged before it was back to business as usual between you two. And somewhere between his rambles, you fell asleep with your phone balanced half-haphazardly between your cheek and shoulder. You could only dream of the grin he wore when he’d hear your soft snores over the line, quieting down immediately to let you rest. He never hung up – he was content to sit on a hushed line if only for the assuredness that you were finally resting.

The warmth no longer traveled down your spine, instead curling up timidly near that hole inside of you. You let it.

“Munson residence!”

That warmth that had found home in your chest still remains to this day, rousing at Eddie’s voice over the line. It’s nearly enough to make you cry – the relief that floods you just by the sound of him and his endless chipper. His optimism that always seems to exist, even in contrast with those harsh edges he tries to portray.

“Eddie,” you whisper, as if you’re not the only one in your apartment, “Can you… Are you free?”

Even after a year, you still sometimes felt guilt, asking so much of him. Asking so much, and giving so little in return.

But you weren’t the one who set that standard. Eddie had. Ferociously, fiercely, stubbornly. The insistence that you simply being was enough for him.

“For you, sweetness?” he chuckles lowly. He recognizes your voice immediately; you never have to say it’s you calling. You could have shrugged it off as Caller ID, but you knew the Munson’s phone didn’t have that. No, he recognized you by voice only. He’d once joked that only you would one day be able to rouse him from the dead, based on the ‘sweet melody alone’. Recognition in death – you had managed to burrow your way so deeply into his life, you’d earned recognition in death. “Always. What’s up?”

You could have just kept him on the phone. Had one of your infamous conversations about everything and nothing. Sat on the cold tiles of your kitchen and smiled like a child as you listened to him rant. But the cold chill of your lonesome apartment was becoming suffocating, and you remembered that take out in the fridge and the way one of his socks had ended up in your laundry last week. You remembered how you started keeping his favorite brand of beer in your fridge and how one of your pillows started to permanently smell like his aftershave.

He had a toothbrush in your bathroom. He had a key to your apartment. He had a space, here, in this lonesome apartment. And all you had to do was beckon to him, and he would come to fill it. Always.

“Can you come over?”

You don’t even have to explain yourself. He complies readily, whispers out a soft yes in the voice you’d also recognize even in death, and promises to be there within ten minutes.

He makes it within eight.

And you’re still leaning on your kitchen counter, your head still swimming dangerously with all the different ways you’d let down Nancy. Once upon a time, you might have worried about inviting him over, worried that your anxieties and your short-comings might bleed into your relationship with him. In the beginning, it had been simple enough. You kept him at an arm’s length away the moment you realized you couldn’t make yourself needed to him, not out of selfishness but out of fear. Fear, because if he didn’t need you, why would he stick around?

Because without need, if you did the wrong thing, there was no necessary thread tying them to you. Because without need, there was no chance for the day that you might find love in your grave robbings, and you couldn’t handle the thought of someone like Eddie Munson deciding you weren’t worth his time.

It hadn’t occurred to you for a very long time that maybe, possibly, you’d been going around the concept of love with a very wrong mindset.

Your safe place. That’s what the back of the van had become over these sticky summer nights – your safest refuge.

It was always the same scene; Eddie on his back beside you, lazily nursing a joint, while you sat up reading passages of the latest book you two had embarked on together. Sometimes it was poetry, sometimes it was fantasy, and sometimes, it was just a reread. That night, it was a reread. The Hobbit.

“‘I don’t see that this will help us much,’ said Thorin disappointedly after a glance. ‘I remember the mountain well-’” you recited off of the page, when Eddie suddenly sat up abruptly and snatched the book from you.

“No, no, no!” he wagged his finger at you after he discarded his joint into the ashtray you’d made him start keeping in the fan, “Sweetheart, you’re doing the voices all wrong.”

You rolled your eyes at him, reaching to take the book back, “Not all of us have a Dungeon Master voice to whip out, Munson. Give it back.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do I need to say please? I’ll say please.”

It was best like this. Just the two of you, away from everyone else. Some nights, the two of you hadn’t even needed a book to bond over. You’d just gaze at stars, or indulge in whatever weed he’d brought along with him. He never pressured you, though – if you shook your head at his offer of the joint, that was that. He seemed to apply that to most aspects of your friendship this last year.

You never had to prove anything to him. He saw your worth as if it were glaringly obvious, as if it were as simple of a concept as breathing. No extra effort needed from your end.

Just by being, you had managed to become something important to him. He needed you, if only because you were you.

“The puppy dog eyes aren’t gonna work on me,” he snorted, shifting so that his shoulder pressed against your own. A warmth spreads from the point of contact. “Let the master show you how it’s done.”

You tried to not let it show, but your grin was radiant. He was the master at those ridiculous voices, at theatrics and at bringing the story to life. You were transported from the shore of Lover’s Lake, in the back of that stuffy yet comforting van, to meadows of soft grass and hobbit holes of comfort. To a place where all the threats were mythical and all the expectations of you were released.

You’d spent the week helping Steve finish up his college plans. His parents had tried to pressure him into picking his top three universities, but the moment he had confided in you that he might prefer a community college to begin, you’d held his hand as you guided him through the process. A rewarding process, have no doubt, but it had left you numb and reeling. Sharing someone else’s stress, shouldering their burdens – it had been a bit much.

You needed this. You needed Eddie’s ridiculous voices and the sharp press of his shoulder against your temple.

“Falling asleep on me already?” he teased when he’d noticed how quiet you had gone.

“Never,” you lied through a yawn that quickly exposed you.

“Liar,” he huffed. You didn’t even need to glance up to confirm the smile you knew he wore. “We can head back home, if you need. I know it’s getting late-”

“No,” you quickly sat up, effectively making yourself dizzy, “No, I- It’s fine. I’m awake. I swear.”

“It’s okay that you were falling asleep,” he was quick to reach out, to tug you back down to his side, wrapping his arm around you to press you even closer than before, “I just don’t want to keep Cinderella out past Midnight.”

“It’s barely ten.”

“Nothing gets past you, Sherlock,” he scowled as you pressed your grin against his t-shirt clad shoulder, “I’m serious, though. Do I need to take you home?”

“No, Eddie. I’m good.”

“Swear it? Swear you don’t have an early shift, or some… some obligation?”

“No shifts, no obligations.”

“And if I just kidnap you for the weekend? Am I going to have an angry mob at my doorstep, demanding your service?”

You smiled wider at the thought. The idea of him hiding you away, letting you live in this reprieve for the entire weekend. It was a nice thought, “I certainly wouldn’t complain.”

And so the two of you sat there like that for an hour more. Eddie coming up with ridiculous tones for the various characters, you slipping in and out of consciousness as his warmth stayed wrapped around him. You don’t even notice when the warmth he’d planted in you finally covers up that hole inside of you, not even missing the absence of that emptiness until Eddie went quiet.

In the silence, you noticed it.

The gash you’d grown accustomed to, the hole that had become an extra limb for you. Vanished. Gone. Disappeared without a trace.

It was a sudden and terrifying realization. Everything in you urged you to jump up, to scramble around you to find the darkness again, like a comfort blanket you couldn’t stand to lose. You went against the instinct, though, and rose slowly from Eddie’s hold.

In lieu of scrambling, you peered at Eddie curiously. “Hey, Eds. Can I ask you something?”

He nodded sleepily, almost as drowsy as you. You’re shocked when he shifts and instead of pulling you back to him, he opted to lay his head in your lap.

That hole was still gone. The weight of his head on your thighs, the feeling of his breath on your bare thigh. For a moment, you can’t breathe.

You’re warm. Not uncomfortably so, but encapsulated with an internal warmth. Like a fever spreading, the ice in your spine that you had lived with for years had begun to thaw.

“Why do you keep me around?” you whispered, still sitting stiffly, staring in awe down at the way he just nuzzled his face into your lap.

With his eyes still closed, face smooth from any worry from the question, he mumbled, “What do you mean?”

You only hesitated due to the thought crossing your mind; what if you bringing this up reminds him?

You thought back to the night in Harrington’s kitchen. The push and the pull, the bloody battle and the way he still called.

He was not as delicate as you took him for.

“I- What do you get out of this?” you couldn’t figure out how to phrase it correctly. You knew what you got out of this, but what does he get?

“Get out of what?”

“Get out of keeping me around.”

His eyes finally opened, twisting in your lap so that he could stare up at you. “You say that as if you’re forcing me to be your friend.”

I could be, that nagging voice in your mind whispered. You could very well be forcing him, and just be blinded because you were enjoying the summer of warmth that he carried with him too much to let him go.

“You never let me do anything for you,” you sighed, fingers finding themselves tangled in his roots against better judgment. But you needed to touch him, to ground yourself, as you admitted this hard truth, “You do shit for me all the time. You drive all the way out to this lake just because I complain about everything being too much. You’ve started playing chauffeur for the kids to give me a break. Harrington said you even offered to look at college brochures with him. And…. And I’m not stupid, Eds,” your voice shook as you looked down at him, a sudden feeling of undeserving striking you in your chest, “You do so much for me lately. And you don’t ask for anything in return – you don’t let me do anything in return. Why?”

His smile twisted with a hint of sadness, and brown eyes met your gaze without so much as flinching, “Sweetheart, why do you think you have to repay me for that stuff?”

“I-”

“No, hear me out,” he reached up, taking your hand out of his hair and lacing his fingers with yours, slowly dragging it down to rest on his sternum, “I chose to do that stuff. And, yeah, maybe I was trying to take some of that shit off your plate. But you didn’t ask me to. I chose to. I wanted to do those things, do nice things for you, because you won’t let anyone else.”

You bit back a scoff, “I let people do nice things for me-”

“You really don’t,” his hold on your hand tightened, “You really, really don’t. You constantly…. You just, you take care of everyone else, but you act afraid to let someone take care of you. People are allowed to take care of you, too, y’know? You should let them. They love you – they want to take care of you, just like you take care of them.”

They love you.

The air drained from your lungs in a slow, silent sigh. You waited a few minutes, but the oxygen never replenished as you tried to grasp his words.

They love you.

Why would they love me?

“Why wouldn’t they love you, sweetheart?” Eddie looked more concerned now, suddenly prepared to sit up and remove his head for your lap. But his hand still held yours tightly, still clung to you, “You know they love you, right? God, you gotta know that. We all love you.”

You hadn’t realized you’d spoken the bitter thought out loud until he looked at you, utterly heartbroken, in complete disbelief. “I…”

No. I don’t know that. What have I done to deserve their love?

“They need me, sure,” you started, narrowing your eyes at the breaks in the waves of Lover’s Lake, “I mean, I just try to make myself useful to them. It’s the least I can do when I… when they…” you struggled to get the words out. You saw that hole again, like a light at the end of the tunnel, but so far from the relief most mean by that metaphor. Something peeking around the corner, ready to devour you all over again. So you plunged, you prepared yourself for it to spring to life and take you whole as you nearly whimpered, “When they put up with me. It’s the least I can do when they put up with me.”

“No one puts up with you,” Eddie’s voice cracked. You couldn’t even look him in the eyes. “Least of all me.”

The deadliest of blows. He cracked your hardened surface with that, shook the foundations of every belief you’d held for eternity.

“Most of all you,” you corrected without thinking, “God, I- Eddie, seriously. What reason do you have for keeping me around? I don’t know how the fuck you put up with m-”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” you’d never heard him beg so painfully before then, “Please. Don’t… You want to know my reason?” you nodded numbly, finally looking to find him with wet eyes and lips pressed into a fine line, “Because you’re you. I… Fuck, I love you. I keep you around because you’re you. You’re good for me. Whether you believe it or not. You’re good for me just by being you, and there’s nothing you have to do to accomplish that,” you started to look away before he grabbed your cheeks, turning you to face him as he emphasized each word, “You don’t have to earn love. That’s not what love is. Got it?”

You looked into his eyes, and saw all the soft declarations of love echoed back to you, even from the very start.

‘Sweetheart, you don’t owe me your time. And I don’t need monopoly over it for us to be okay.’

‘The world doesn’t end just because you don’t constantly make yourself available.’

The entire time you’d been so worried about taking care of everyone else, he’d been worried about taking care of you. Endless late night phone calls, careful check-ins when he saw the exhaustion take the frontlines, sparse fights about putting yourself first. The only thing he ever wanted from you was for you to take care of yourself.

While you were busy being there for everyone else, he was busy being there for you.

He never once made you dig to the bottom of his grave to find the warmth. He’d handed it over on a silver platter.

So how could you look him in his at that moment, and tell him that you didn’t ‘get it’? That you’d never been sure if what you were seeking from your friends was really love? That, really, you’d given up on being loved a long time ago, assuming it was asking too much?

How do you look him in his eyes in that moment and tell him you had long since declared yourself unlovable?

He didn’t make you say it. Only kept your cheeks pressed between his palms, as he leaned forward, forehead meeting yours and whispering words for only you, “I love you, no strings attached. You’re my… friend. I love you. Okay?”

No one had ever fought so valiantly to get the point across. Not just that night at the lake, but in the entirety of his friendship with you.

The hole slinked back behind the corner. The darkness decided it could wait another day. And in its place, warm brown eyes filled the void. Whether he even realized it or not.

You nearly believed him. Nearly. But you bit down hard on that belief, throwing it out of sight, and instead of echoing back the ‘okay’ you assumed he was seeking out, all you did was sob out another, “Why?”

When you collapsed into him, he held you. Your sobs remained dry, your confusion palpable as you clung to him and tried to let that belief envelope you like his arms had.

I love you.

How could someone love you?

He didn’t press it the way you thought he would. He didn’t scold you for continuing to question him and he didn’t lash out at your disbelief.

He just held you. Letting your face press into his neck as his fingers ran up and down your spine, giving it a moment before he started talking again.

“Your humor,” he hummed after a couple moments of silence, heavy breathing eventually evening out.

“What?”

“The way you take care of others,” he continued on like he hadn’t heard you, “That spark you get in your eyes when you tell someone about something good. A favorite book, movie, story from your day – whatever it is. The way you give the best hugs – and you don’t give me them nearly often enough. The way you snore, and the way you definitely deny snoring.”

You opened your mouth, about to lift your head and argue with him, but he just placed an encouraging palm on the back of your head to keep you close to him.

“The way your favorite color changes with the seasons. The way you only like artificial cherry flavoring, not the real stuff. The way you look at night when we’re driving and you’re just screaming your favorite lyrics. The way you look at me to see if a joke lands. The way you fuss about my wrinkled clothes, even when you also don’t care about the wrinkles in your own shirts. The way you take your coffee. The way you always offer to paint one of my nails to match yours. The way you treat your recipe for chocolate chip cookies like some top secret, government trade. But we both know it’s just some recipe from a cookbook you thrifted when you were ten. The way you get excited over the small things, like the cows we pass by on the way out here. They're always there, and you always point them out. The way you just… are.”

He didn’t have to say it. He was answering your question.

He was listing his whys.

“You don’t have to earn it,” he didn’t say the word, not this time. You felt it, “It just… it’s there. It’s there and it’s not going anywhere. I’ll remind you of that every day if I have to.”

Loved. For the first time ever, it felt like a possibility; to be loved.

Eddie always knocks on your front door a certain way – a pattern he rarely strays from. But you can always tell. He’s the only fool who would find humor in knocking out such an annoying compilation of hits on the wooden panels until you finally unlatch the lock and open it to find him standing in your threshold.

His hair is frizzy and in a low ponytail, wearing a baggy band shirt and plaid pajama pants. He greets you with such a wide smile, your chest aches.

“Hey there, sweetness.”

You don’t say a word, just drag him inside before you wrap your arms around his waist. Ever since that night, and his admittance of enjoying your hugs, you made a conscious effort to hug him more often.

“Miss me?” he chuckles, and you feel the vibrations against your cheek as you softly pinch his side. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him only laugh harder once you pull away.

“Not at all,” you snark back as you make sure the door is securely shut and properly locked.

“Not even a little bit?”

“Nope.”

He smacks a fist to his chest as if you had stabbed him with your words, “Ouch. You wound me, sweetheart.”

“Get over it,” you tease. Your head has finally stopped swimming, your chest no longer tight with the fear of not being enough. Nancy is long forgotten as you say, “Have you eaten dinner?”

“Depends,” he hums as he toes off his boots, “If you’re offering to buy me some, then no, I definitely did not eat spaghetti with Wayne right before you called.”

You throw your head back laughing as he’s already making a beeline for your kitchen, digging out that damned takeout menu and reaching for the phone, already so sure of your order.

Knowing your order at restaurants. Without having to ask. Apparently, that was part of the whole ‘being loved’ gig.

Adjusting has taken months. Since that night in Eddie’s van, he’d kept his word. Not a day went by without him finding a way to remind you, whether it be by direct words or small actions, that he loved you. You both kept it under that friendly guise. He loved you in that familiar way, the way the others supposedly loved you. A way you could manage to recognize some days.

Other days were still rough. Days like today were still rough.

The takeout is ordered and Eddie sets up camp on your couch, rambling about something that had happened during one of the DnD nights he still hosted with the kids. Something about a dumb decision Mike did that cost most of the group their character’s lives. You have a hard time following along, and he’s quick to pick up on it.

“Hey, sweetheart?” he murmurs as you lean into the back couch cushion, smooshing your cheek as you watched him animatedly speak.

“Hm?”

“Bad day?”

He never judged you for the rough days. He never judged you for the days you still couldn’t find the love, even after he worked so virtuously to show it to you. He may never understand it, that hollow ache that resided in your darkest corners and whispered that none of it was real, but it never deterred him.

He loved you on good days, and he especially loved you on bad days.

You consider lying to him, but you can’t. Not when he looks at you so earnestly, “Yeah. It… yeah.”

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks you, shuffling to be more comfortable where he sits as he motions for you to lay down. You do so immediately, head finding a home against his thigh and his fingers stroking over your cheek before they toy with the ends of your hair.

All you can do is shake your head. You didn’t want to talk about that fear of failing Nancy as a friend, especially when you know that wasn’t her take away from it. It felt silly now; all that overthinking, when you know now if you questioned her on it, all she would have seen from the day was a friend lending a caring ear. You know because you had asked her about it once, if she found your listening habits too callous, upon Eddie’s insistence.

She hadn’t. In fact, all she could do was thank you, had insisted that she was just grateful someone would listen to her ramblings. And you understood that, left it at that.

“Okay,” he murmurs, voice so quiet you nearly miss it. His fingers continue to play across your shoulders now, barely weighted against bare skin, “That’s fine.”

He didn’t mind if you didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t mind if you never spoke another word, if all you needed was him here. You just needed him close by and to sit with you, to make it all a little less much.

Nothing. He needed absolutely nothing from you, asked nothing of you. Because you didn’t have to earn this. All you had to do was simply be, and he would provide this.

Love. What an odd concept, to have found warmth in a grave you never even got the chance to dig your shovel into.

“Hey, Eddie?” his fingers pause at your croaking voice. You smile at his stillness, at the way he hums carefully in response, still trying to offer the silence you quietly begged for, “I love you.”

There’s more to unpack there. More than just familial love, more than just two friends that love each other without conditions. But tonight is not the night, and you both see that it is enough. There will be other nights to dig your claws in and to dissect what those three little words mean between you two. There will be other nights to consider how your other friends don’t have a permanent spare toothbrush on your bathroom counter or a space for their takeout in your fridge. But not tonight.

For tonight, this was enough. The quiet, and the warmth, the being was enough.

“I love you,” he emphasizes the last word, leaning down and his lips grazing your temple.

You notice the way he leaves off the too. He’d love you, even if you didn’t love him. You’d love him, even if he didn’t love you. Unconditional, no strings attached. A warmth you do not have to fight to earn. A rarity you never encountered before, and may never encounter again, but you have for tonight and for as long as he chooses to stick around.

Your shovel sits abandoned in a shed in the distance. Your fingernails are clean of the dirt. The graveyard, it seems, would go another night without its robber.

#eddie munson x reader

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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i’m so unwell

#he is so pookie bear 9000 #snookems!!!#joseph quinn

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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nobody… nobody speak i’m thinking.

#he did this for me specifically #the tendons???#the thumbs???#i’m gonna bite them #bite the hand that feeds indeed #joseph quinn is my religion

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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seek and destroy |cowboy!eddie munson x reader|

prompt: based off this ask. you and eddie play your favorite game.

if anyone knows who made that cowboy!eddie edit originally plz let me know so I can credit them!! I found it on pinterest!

go to @munsonology page for more cowboy!eddie

contains: 18+ minor dni!!! cowboy!eddie, language, primal play, dom/sub tones, p in v sex, anal fingering, anal sex, creampie.

Cheek smushed against Eddie's worn Wranglers, those faded work jeans that were thick, protective for the days on the ranch, your eyes blinked blearily towards the screen. Your cheek was warm against his thick thigh, eyes shutting and nose tipping towards the worn blue jeans. It took everything in you not to bite the flesh, hard and tough from years of Bronco riding and work on the ranch.

Eddie's calloused hand ran through your hair, scratching your scalp lightly and letting his hand glide down your spine, tickling the top of your little cotton shorts. He let the tip of his pinkie swipe under the band of your shorts, rubbing the soft flesh of your tailbone, lazily spinning a toothpick around his lips.

You'd made him stop smoking in the house, nose curling at the smoke filled scent that lingered no matter how many candles you lit. As sweet and domestic as the cowboy was, he was still a bachelor before you, and some of those habits still carried on when you came into his life. He didn't have throw pillows, or hand towels, and he smoked cigarettes in the house; until you came along and changed all of that, changed him for the better. He still fidgeted, itched for a cigarette after dinner but wanting to stay in your company, so the tooth pick was the compromise for indoors.

You blew air from your lips, a heavy sigh, lashes fluttering and cutting to catch Eddie's reaction. His eyes stayed on the TV, watching re-runs of Alias Smith and Jones, Eddie's favorite show from when he was younger. He'd always watch it with Wayne and his Mama, while his dad and granddaddy were out drinking themselves silly.

"Ed," You sighed, turning so you lied on your back, blinking up at him. You should feel the zipper of his jeans, heavy bulge resting deliciously under your head, squirming at the thought.

A half-lidded hum was your response, puddle eyes blinking through thick framed lashes to look down at you, a dimpled smile that left you glowing and burning. You reached your hand out, cupping the stubble of his chin, thumb tracing the scruff lovingly.

Lip tucked under your teeth, you hesitated for a moment, Eddie's lips moving to the pad of your thumb, a sweet kiss that had your hear swelling, cheeks painting with red heat. Your hips rolled gently, thighs pressing together at the movement, the slight suckling of his lips around your digits.

“Hi, pretty girl.” Eddie cooed, leaving you blistering under his warm gaze, swimming in his affection.

You grinned, blinking up at him. “Hi,” you whispered back, pressing your head further into his lap to see him better, take in all those features you’d memorized a million times over. The ones you adored so much.

Eddie's brows furrowed, thick and exaggerated, making you giggle, toothy and sweet. "What's on your mind, honey?" Eddie asked, hand rubbing down your hair, tucking a strand behind your ear, feather light touch down the lobe.

You hesitated, tilting your head to the side, brushing against his crotch. You could feel his hips tense, your thighs pressing together, heat thrumming through your core, pulsing and making you flush.

"Hmm," You hummed, batting your lashes up at him. Eddie grinned, dimples and hungry eyes. "Nothin'... 'm just..." You shivered, a stuttering breath leaving your lungs.

Eddie lifted a brow, curiously- darkly. Like he knew what you were going to say, like he wanted you to. Heat pooled in the pit of your tummy, leaving you shuddering under his half-lidded look.

"'m just," You tilted your head to the side, cheeks blooming with heat. "I'm bored, Ed."

The phrase, that singular phrase was a gateway into your favorite game. A game just for you and Eddie to play, your own version of cat and mouse, hide and seek, hunter and prey.

Eddie's grin grew wider and wider, nearly comical, the Cheshire Cat smile that left you squirming, heart thumping with excitement. His hand gripped on your thigh firmly, rolling the tooth pick around his thumb and forefinger, plucking it out of his mouth calmly.

"Bored?" Eddie asked, mocking and excited. His eyes were wild, dark and lust blown. "Hmm, well, that's no fun." He hummed, tilting his head down at you.

Your heart hammered, rolling your bottom lip between your teeth. You gave him your subbiest, prettiest eyes, his weakness. You pouted, lip jutting gently and nodding.

Eddie tutted, hand cupping your jaw gently, thumb rolling over your lower lip. "Well, what should we do about that then?" His brow raised dramatically, the creases by his eyes deepening. "Wanna play a game?"

That's how it started. How it always started.

You'd bound off the steps of the porch, screen door squealing behind you before sprinting off into the darkness, boots and a flashlight your only necessities. Hide and seek, maybe-sorta. Hide and seek with a twist, something more sinister at the end.

Eddie would wind the timer to five minutes, taking his time to sit in his arm chair until it shrilled to life. You used to wonder if he'd cheat, sneak and look and see where you went, but Eddie never did. No way, he'd never deprive himself of such a thrill.

Your back pressed against the wooden planks of the barn, the gentle hum of the buzzing light at the top of the barn, the only light besides the house. Your heart pounded loudly, thundering and deafening in your ears. That familiar tingling heat of excitement roaming down to you core, throbbing and clenching around nothing, the anticipation of what's to come.

You gasped a little when the timer sounded, hand covering your mouth to quiet any other sounds. The cicadas chirped and buzzed in the nighttime, and you were thankful for the sound they made, concealing your tiny puffs of air. The cutting sound of the screen door groaning open, then latching, Eddie's heavy boots on the ground. He whistled the whole way, casual and calm- menacing. Like he knew you were lurking around.

"C'mere, Medusa." Eddie's gruff voice, graveling and a little chilling. "C'mon, sweet girl. Need y'to help me, baby."

Your knees buckled at the endearments. He knew you were around, the asshole. Of course he did. Why else would he use your favorite pet names if he didn't? Now, he was just playing dirty.

You heard him step into the barn, the soft grunt from being disturbed so late followed by Eddie's soothing apologies. You saw your chance. You knew once he got on Medusa, she'd sense you nearly immediately, too close to be concealed for long. You slid carefully, soft, calculated side steps towards the back of the barn, near the opposite side.

You'd wait until Eddie went to the shed- because he always did- before making a dash for the house. You'd be waiting for him triumphantly like you did the time you'd played before. You'd been so smug you had won, and Eddie had been more than happy to give you your prize, spending the night between your legs while he made you into a mess on his sheets.

Your boots slid easily, quietly, over the soft grass, ear turned to the barn to hear Eddie's movements. "I know, girl, I know. You're just about as huffy as your mama, you know that?" Eddie grumbled to the huffy horse. You blushed at the title, a high honor from Eddie. Medusa was his favorite horse, his best girl. You sometimes wondered if he loved her more than you.

You bit back a grin, pressing your ear closer, palms flat on the wood while you side shuffled. "Don't tell me you're gonna start bein' bratty all the time too, now. Don't think I can handle two brats on my ranch, darlin'." Eddie jested lightly, and you could practically see him petting her snout, her nuzzling his hand sweetly.

You bit back a small laugh, feeling giggly and warm at the thought. The rubber tip of your boots brushed against the discarded plank on the ground, sending you into a slow motion fall. Your knees buckling, hand slapping against the wood, breathy gasp falling out of your lips.

There was a silence.

A moment where you stilled, heart pounding, eyes wide and waiting.

Eddie laughed, low and gravelly. "Well, honey, looks like I won't be needin' you tonight after all." Eddie purred to Medusa, the click of the gate made you jump. "Baby, don't tell me you went that easy on me this time."

Your heart jumped with every heavy footstep that crept closer and closer, eyes darting from the back door of the barn back to the field. Hand pushing off the wood, you took off in a sprint- well, as much as you could in your knee high boots. Rubber slapping against your shins with every pounding step towards the fenced field.

The barn door swung open, but you didn't dare look back. "Oh, here we go." Eddie laughed, hands clapping together excitedly before he was sprinting after you. Long legs stealing the space between you easily, unfairly.

You got to the rusted gate, thick rubber wedging into the pole before you hoisted yourself up, swinging your leg over the gate so you straddled it. You thought for a moment, you might really win. That you could at least get a head start towards the back door of the house, beat Eddie to the bedroom.

Two strong, inked hands around your waist ripped those dreams away from you. "Wait! No!" You gasped, gripping the rusted fence before you were yanked down.

"You went to easy on me this time, girlie." Eddie laughed, strong arms wrapping around you, holding you tight against his chest. You squirmed, boots stomping onto the ground. "I didn't even have to saddle up this time."

"That's not fair!" You whined, boot stomping onto the ground. You knew you sounded childish, whiny and bratty. You also knew Eddie liked that. Judging by the growing bulge pressing into your ass, he liked it a lot.

"I fell, Ed, that doesn't count! Do a re-do!" You huffed, wiggling in his arms.

"Oh, sweet girl, you know the rules." Eddie cooed, wrenching you around in his grasp so his nose brushed yours. Even in the dark of the night, you could see how blown his pupils were.

"But I fell." You pouted, eyes rounding helplessly up at him. "That doesn't count."

Eddie hummed, dark and teasing. "I think you and I both know, it does count." He growled. Your thighs twitched. "Now, you gonna be a sore loser? Do I need to rope ya and take you back to the house?"

You huffed, one that sounded similar to Medusa's from before. Eddie grinned, you two were spending too much time together. "No." You grumbled. "You're being mean, Eddie. You know I tripped."

"I know." Eddie cooed, taunting and babying. "That's why I'll go easy on you tonight. I won't be a gloatin' winner, I promise." He patted your ass gently, a chilling foreshadowing of what was to come.

Your lip jutted, the moon illuminating the pout in the moonlight. Eddie's heart lurched in his chest, stirring and swimming with excitement. "If ya wanted to play so badly, you coulda just asked, sweet girl." He grinned triumphantly at you.

You rolled your eyes, heavy and surly. If you lost already, you might as well act how you wanted. Eddie liked it when you'd get a little pouty, his grin spreading wider and wider on his face. Your boots stomped on the ground, arms crossed over your chest, while Eddie's arm slid around your waist, pulling you into his hip.

You took your losing like the true team player you were. The last thing you wanted was for Eddie to deem you were a sore loser.

"Look at you." Eddie cooed, standing back to admire his handiwork. Dimples that grew, carved deeper and deeper into that dark stubble, tongue poking out in satisfaction. "Pretty as a picture, ain't ya, baby?"

You didn't reply, wiggling your hips gently instead. Eddie had you hands tied, roped up in a soft rope that left your arms folded behind your back, wrist to elbow in that tight, black rope. Your legs were spread, each one tied to a different bed post, ass high in the air with the throw pillows- throw pillows you'd bought to make the place more homey.

Eddie's calloused hand ran over your thigh, skating over the naked flesh with a low growl. "Mmm, can't wait to play with my prize." He muttered. "Always such a lovely prize, ain't ya? Pretty and sweet and so obedient."

You whined, pulsing at your core. He always made a big show of tying you up, sensual teasing that had you mewling and squirming in his touch.

"Please, Ed, you said you weren't gonna be mean." You pouted, lip jutting when you looked up at him. Your face smushed against the mattress, hair braided back to keep it from falling. Eddie had gently braided it back, just a simple three piece weaving braid to keep your hair out of your eyes- he knew how much you hated it.

"'M not, baby. You just look so pretty. Can't help it." Eddie grinned, pinching your cheek gently.

"I'm tempted to just dive right in." Eddie wondered out loud, leaving you shaking in his wake. "But I think you and I both know the prize I want tonight."

You huffed, hiding your face. Of course, he'd want to fuck your ass. He always did, always slipping a pinky in when he was fucking you from behind. You only let him fuck your ass every now and then, it always left you a little sore the next day, but it was well worth it- you just didn't let him know that.

"That sound alright with you, baby?" Eddie asked, a hand gently running down your spine. His voice sounded genuine, eyes furrowing lightly. "We don't hafta if you're not feelin' it-"

"No, it's alright." You sighed heavily, eyes batting up at him. "But will you untie me if you're gonna do that."

Eddie smiled, nodding at you. "I will, honey. I know how you like it."

Heat rushed to your cheeks, blazing over your chest and neck. You were thankful your were face down, hoping he couldn't see how flustered he made you.

Eddie knelt down between your parted legs, string hands gripping your cheeks, pulling them apart. His mouth salivated at the sight, puffy lips and a perfect puckered hole, he was dying to taste.

"You'll let me know if it's too much?" Eddie asked lowly, his thumb circling your hole gently, making your toes clench and curl at the sensation.

"Yes." You whimpered, eyes squeezing tight. "I will, Ed."

"Good." Eddie grinned. He gave you a firm slap to the fatty flesh of your ass, lips rolling at the recoil. "Saddle up, baby. We're in for a long night."

***

"Fuck, look at you," Eddie grunted, hips snapping against the plushness of your ass, your hips lurching with every powerful thrust into you. "Feel good?"

Eddie could feel his knee touching the sopping towel beneath him, soaked with your release and the runny lube he'd squirted into your tightest hole. He'd worked you open with his tongue, as much as he could, until he pulled the lube out of his bedside.

You hadn't expected him to work your ass open while he fucked your sopping, aching pussy, but he'd surprised you- he always did. Pulling you up onto your hands and knees, burying himself balls deep inside of your cunt, filling you so deeply until he was jabbing that sensitive spot deep inside you that had your brain numbing with every deep stroke.

His fingers pumped further and further inside your tightest hole, stretching you open, getting you ready for his cock. "Oh!" You gasped, back arching further into his strokes, his fingers disappearing further inside of you.

"Fuck, Ed, right there! Right there!" You panted, eyes rolling back into the sockets. You felt full, so fucking full. Your legs shook, wobbly and unsteady with every furious stroke he gave you.

"Feel good?" Eddie grunted, snapping his hips so they were flush against you. "You- mmm, fuck- You feel good, darlin'. S'good. Makin' me feel like a real winner, ya know that? Always a fuckin' winner with you, baby. My best prize." He mumbled, rambling incoherently, his own ecstasy clouding his mind.

You let your head fall onto the mattress, another wave of pleasure leaving you clenching, abs sore from the constant tightening of the muscles, quivering and whimpering. Eddie slowed down, long and slow thrusts of his hips, his two fingers sinking deeper into your ass.

"I think- think you're ready f'me." Eddie's chest heaved, heart beat fluttering and pounding in his chest. "You think you're ready f'me, baby?"

You nodded, the white sound static filling your ears, too far removed in yourself but coherent enough to nod. "Baby, can you hear me?" Eddie asked, pulling out of you. You shivered at the loss, that full feeling leaving your gasping at its absence. "Can you look at me, honey?" Eddie cooed gently, hand rubbing down your back, slippery with silky lube.

You turned, eyes blinking through bleary vision to look at him. Eddie tilted his head to the side, grinning lightly at you. "You feel alright?" He asked. "Needa stop?"

You shook your head, rolling over so you laid on your back, chest rising and falling sharply, covered in a shining sheen of sweat. "'M alright, Ed. I just need to lay like this." You muttered, reaching out for him. "I wanna see ya."

Eddie grinned. "Yeah? You just needed to see me, hm? I just needed to see you too, pretty girl. Love lookin' at ya." He muttered, his lips hovering over yours, strong, inked arms caging you before his lips pressed to yours.

You felt your heart burst, the familiar racing heat that left you gooey with adoration oozing out of your chest, hands running through those sticky curls. Eddie moved himself between your legs easily, angry cock rutting against your hot, sticky core. His thumb lazily rubbing over your clit, tongue slipping past your teeth, exploring every square inch of your mouth in a lewd, sloppy kiss.

"Mmm, be gentle, Ed." You muttered, hips clenching with the harsh rub of his thumb over your aching clit. "Be careful. 'M sensitive."

"I'm sorry, baby doll." Eddie tutted, his lips still lingering over yours, stubbled cheeks rubbing your face raw. "I'll be gentle. You ready for me?"

You nodded, lashes fluttering open to meet his, taking in his dark grin, excitement flaring behind those chocolate eyes. Oh, it had you throbbing, the thrill of pleasing him in such a way- having him return that pleasure back to you. You loved Eddie, you really fucking did. You'd never let anyone else do this to you- they couldn't get you like this even of they fucking tried.

You could feel the angry, leaking head of his cock positioned at your tight hole, one arm flexing by your head, holding himself up. The other pumping his shaft, lining himself up with you.

"You let me know if it hurts, alright?" Eddie's gaze lifted to yours, dark pupils hidden by long, thick lashes, fluttering to catch your gaze.

You clenched involuntarily. "Yeah, I will." You muttered, your hands reaching out to rub his inked arms, down the protruding veins that always left you throbbing. You loved watching him work out in the fields, the way his arms would flex strong and sturdy, just for you.

Eddie grinned, tongue poking out, caught between his lips while he focused, pushing the head in gently. "Open up for me, honey. 'Lil bit wider- there ya go." He groaned, patting your thigh gently.

He shimmied in, slow and calculated, eyes moving from your tight hold sucking him in, to your face, watching to make sure you were ok. "Feel alright? Relax f'me, darlin'." Eddie bit back a moan, primal and deep in his throat.

"Feels good, Ed. S'good." You whined, hands closing in a fist around the sheet, tipping your head back into the soft quilt.

Eddie rocked himself until he was full, stuffed into you, thumb circling your clit while he thrusted slowly. He wouldn't pout you out like this yet, it was still too new to you. He was proud of you, taking him fully, weeks of training paid off. He had no problem letting you know that.

"You're so good t'me. Too good, ain't ya, baby?" Eddie grunted, hips swirling and rolling, hands under your thighs, pressing them to your chest. "My perfect little baby aren't ya? Takin' Daddy's cock s'good."

"I am. I am takin' it so good. Feels so good, Daddy." You babbled back, the combo of his thumb and cock making your mind fuzz like TV static, blanking your thoughts, leaving your breathless.

Eddie's face fell into the crook of your neck, desperately trying to hide the whiney moans and whimpers he was always so scared of letting you hear. You'd melt every time you heard them, had no problem telling Eddie that, but he'd just blush and shake his head. He was too embarrassed to grunt and moan in your ear like you did to him. In time, you told yourself, you'd get him to do it.

Eddie's shaft squeezed tightly, strangled by your puckered hole in the most delicious way. Gliding in and out of you, his fingers lazily rubbing your clit while you clawed at his shoulder, lips puckering to press to his.

"Fuck, that feel ok? Still feel good?" Eddie asked, breath caught in his throat, lips brushing against yours.

"Yes, feels so good." You whimpered, brow creasing when you closed your eyes. "'M gonna cum, Ed, keep doin' that please."

"You close? Shit, me too, baby. S'close. Feels so fucking good." Eddie's voice wobbled with pleasure, a small whimper in your ear mixed with his steady rhythm sent you over the edge, crashing into waves of your own pleasure.

Eddie followed shortly after, your clamping and spasming orgasm leaving his cock sputtering deep inside of you. Wave after wave of release dumping into your ass, oozing out that milky release when he pulled out, inked chest heaving and watching the puddle beneath you form on the soaked towel.

You still held your thighs, lazily letting your hand slip around your knee caps, eyes glossed and dazed. Even in your fucked out state, you gave him a sloppy grin. "Pretty good prize, don't ya think?" You muttered, blinking heavily up at him.

Eddie felt his heart flutter, his own grin wide and dopey when he looked down at you. It was a good prize, you were a good prize. The best prize, really, Eddie decided.

#eddie munson x reader

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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It’s Just a Question

A/N: Back on my bullshit. I’ve had some really hard times with my normal writing while also finding myself in some shitty circumstances. So this is how this came about. Just a lot of feelings. Technically plus sized reader but you can do whatever you want.

18+ NSFW No Minors

“Am I pretty?”

“What?” Eddie sprays toothpaste on the mirror, he’s so quick to ask.

“Am I pretty?” You scrunch your face up over and over, drawing your eyebrows down and crinkling your eyes. Purse your lips and frown deep and finally look over at him staring at you, toothbrush hanging from his mouth and arms braced on the countertop.

“Are you pretty?” He reiterates with a deep sigh. “Of course you are, you’re gorgeous. Especially right now when your hair matches mine and we look like two electrocuted cotton balls.” He’s not flippant but he’s definitely brushing you off.

You aren’t done though. “I’m serious, and I’m not asking if you think I’m pretty. Am I pretty like…Anne Hathaway.” You pull down on your cheek and watch it bounce back, albeit slower than it did when you were 20.

“Well…you don’t even look-no.” He stops quickly and spits in the sink and rinses his toothbrush, viciously shaking his head the whole time. “This is a trap and I refuse.” He says as he leaves you in the bathroom.

“Eddie it’s not a trap it’s an honest question!”

“This is like the worm thing and I’m not doing that again!” He yells over his shoulder before closing himself in the bedroom to get dressed for work. You sigh and turn to look at your tired reflection. Your perpetual eyebags answer your question for you, and your dusting of sun damage yells it louder from the mirror.

Not pretty, subliminally average.

Standing in line at the grocery store, Eddie slumped over the handle and picking at stray grapes, you ask again only this time with a visual aid.

“Okay, I mean like this.” You shove a copy of Rolling Stone under his nose, a new pop star gracing their cover in something sheer and tight. “I meant pretty like this.” You say quietly next to him. He chews on another free grape slowly, staring at the cover and tilting his head. He doesn’t move, just slides his eyes way over to give you the look.

“You’re prettier than her.”

“What about Juno Temple?” You quip back.

“She’s shorter than you. And British, doesn’t count.” He quips right back. You huff and shove the magazine back in its slot.

“You’re not understanding me.”

“No, I am. You’re just not listening to me.” He pushes the cart up a spot and continues his easy lean. “You’re pretty like…that.” He searches the newsstand by the register and points at a baking magazine, perfectly circled apple tart dusted with sugared cinnamon and you bark a loud laugh.

“A tart Edward?”

“Don’t twist my words. I said you’re pretty like that.” He smiles, pops another grape in his mouth and starts tossing things on the conveyer belt.

Pretty like a baked good.

He’s elbow deep in the shelf of succulents, looking for something called a ‘Black Rose’.

“I know it’s in here, there’s four dead ones up top.” He’s pushing little green teardrops to the side to find his prize, a loud ‘Ha!’ when he whips his hand out, holding the little plant by its little container.

“It’s so tiny.”

“Yeah and in like six months it might not be.” He gives you a cheesy smile and sets in the cart with your other potential house plant failures. Somehow he’s managed to keep a giant flat pot of succulents alive for almost a year and every time you go to the plant store, he adds another.

“Okay, what’s its name.”

You hum at him, tapping your finger along the cart when you get distracted. A willow of a woman walks in, hair shiny like water and flowing over her thin, petite shoulders. She looks like she’s on a mission, perfectly manicured hand pointing her in the right direction when she heads for a batch of bright zinnias. Her smile painted a bright coral like the plant she picks up and places in her cart, three more following and off she billows to the next aisle full of ivy. Eddie saw it the moment you stopped listening to him listing off names. The swivel of your head and then the tapping of your finger ceasing, knuckles going white around the cart handle. He watches you watch her and he knows the question is coming before you turn back around with that frown hewn into your forehead.

“Like this.” He holds up the small succulent, barely formed petals burnished a deep purple in the afternoon sun.

“What.”

“Pretty like this.”

“You don’t even-“ You scoff and cut yourself off, heavy eye roll directed at no one while you turn away and sulk by the snake plants.

He doesn’t tell you, but he names it after you.

The Big One happens during the summer. Chrissy is engaged, and her new belle and her decide to have a joint bachelorette party, everyone invited. You know Eddie’s people, all these random characters drawn together through something you don’t quite understand. You meet Chrissy fiancé and she’s just as bubbly and sweet as Chrissy herself. Eddie gives them your gift and drops a kiss on Chrissy’s cheek and it barely bothers you.

They’d dated just out of high school. 15 years ago and before Chrissy had realized why men just never hit the spot. She floats around her party and you hang around behind Eddie while he walks the two of you around in conversation. At some point you’d gone past your standard three (3) drinks and the mango seltzers are starting to make you a little resentful.

Thankfully you catch it, excuse yourself to the bathroom and give yourself a stern stare in the mirror.

It’s not your party.

They’re just friends.

It’s not about you.

…Is it ever?

There’s a reason you stop at 3 lately, that rolling black pit of self loathing feeds on bubbly things and it’s feeding on a blonde tonight.

So when you come back you sit at a table by yourself. You tuck your hands under your thighs and admonish yourself for how wide they are. There’s a tug of war happening between your self pity and your self depreciation, a tear balancing on your lashes while you roll the wet eyes under them. Eddie finds you bent over your phone and all you can think about is how wide your shoulders must have looked from that far away.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

“I had to uh, go to the bathroom.” Your pause gives you away, just south of tipsy, and Eddie smiles, his big hand sliding under your chin to hold it between his fingers. A move that usually has you melting into his palm, but tonight?

You tug your head away and he frowns. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t think I need to be here anymore.”

“You feeling okay?”

“I’m just fine. I’m gonna get an Uber home, you stay.” You stand up and hate the feel of your clothes on you. Your hair feels too heavy and the makeup you spent an hour on is suddenly sticky and tacky and wasted on you.

“No, we’ll leave together.” Eddie has concern all over his face. He tries to give you a hand when you obviously stumble and you slap it away.

The fight only starts when you start crying, unable to control your emotions anymore. You spend the whole ride home feeling sorry for yourself, saying the most inane shit Eddie’s ever heard.

“You can’t ask me to compare you to Chrissy. That’s not fair!” He laughs humorlessly when you ask him who’s prettier. “One, it was 15 years ago! Two, I’m not doing this anymore!” He yells and it shuts you up. He can hear the click of your jaw with how quick you stop yammering on drunkenly about your thighs.

“If you want to play that game, let’s look at your past relationships, huh?”

“What relationships Eddie?!” You scream back at him. There’s a part of his being that can feel the backslide into the terrible habit of yelling to get his point across. Picked up from his father and quelled at every turn, but today you drag it out of him.

“Oh don’t start with that shit again.”

“You mean all the guys that fucked me in the dark?! Or do you mean the ones that pretended not to know me in public?”

He gets to your apartment in record time, slamming the car in park and scrambling to hold your seatbelt buckled before you can run out.

“Let me out.” Your face is red from crying and from hatred and from loathing.

“No.” He says quieter but with finality. You stare at him, waiting for him to move his hand but he won’t, keeps his fingers locked around yours.

“You’re drunk, and you’ve been in a bad mood lately.” He knows he knows he knows that was the wrong thing to say. It spilled out of his mouth before he could throw the net out for those errant words and you give him the meanest smile he’s ever seen on your face.

“A bad mood?” You nod your head like you’re agreeing but he’s bracing for impact. “A bad mood. Tell you what, when I have a fucking roster of groupies and easy boys behind me, then we can talk about my bad mood.”

“You’re mad because of people I’ve slept with?”

“Look at me Eddie!” You scream and it breaks on his name, the sob you’d been swallowing for an hour finally surfacing. “I don’t fucking look like Chrissy and I sure as fuck don’t look like Steve! You still have that picture of that stand in drummer on your profile you fucked around with! Every single one of them is-fuck! Stunning!” You finally wrench the seatbelt out of his hand and free yourself. “I look like a fucking joke when you take me places. You think I don’t see people staring?” Another mirthless laugh before you kick the door open and wobble your way out. “Make someone else laugh, Eddie.”

He watches you stomp off inside and slap the button for the elevator. There’s enough time he could get out and follow you in and upstairs and finish the yelling match and maybe get you to see straight.

But he doesn’t. His grip tightens on the steering wheel so much it creaks. He feels on the verge of tears and when you disappear behind the closing doors he punches his door and drives home too fast.

The doorbell rings and Eddie answers it without thinking. You look small in your hoodie, your hair damp and braided over your shoulder. He’s so used to you standing tall with him, a sturdy pillar he can lean on instead of always having to be the support. To see your shoulders pulled in tight makes his chest ache.

“I’m sorry I haven’t answered your texts.” You say quietly.

“I shouldn’t have yelled like that.”

“God don’t-“ you wipe at your eyes and stare at your feet. “Don’t apologize to me. I shouldn’t have gone off the fucking handle like that.”

“Maybe, but you’re obviously feeling some kind of way that you aren’t telling me about.”

“It’s the normal shit, Eddie. I just let it get to me.”

He holds the door open wider and nods his head over to the couch. “You wanna tell me about it?”

You don’t, not really. It’s going to go the way it always does with you explaining a life long loathing and the few times you see daylight out of the pit it holds you in.

“I shouldn’t have started that pretty shit.” You shake your head and clutch the pillow tighter around your middle. Eddie sits on the other side of the couch, long legs tucked up under his chin and you wish you could fold in on yourself like that. There must be a twist to your mouth or a shift of your body because Eddie sighs deeply.

“You know you don’t have to ask me that.”

“I know, but that’s not what I was asking anyways.”

“What does it matter?”

You shoot him a puzzled look. “I mean, I just want-I’d like to know if-“ you start and stop and Eddie just waits until you stop floundering.

“If I think you’re pretty, what does the rest matter?”

“It just does.” Your bottom lip wobbles and you hide it behind your fist. Eddie catches it, of course, and crawls over to you, grabbing your quivering chin and making you look up.

“I can’t undo a lifetime of self loathing in one afternoon, but I can definitely help cut through that shit one compliment at a time.” He gives you a gentle kiss and feels the smattering of tears hit your face, his thumb coming up to wipe them away. He cradles your face till you bury it in his neck and quietly cry for a while.

You loose count of how many sorry’s you give him and he finally tells you enough with a smile. He gives you his phone and tells you to order dinner and he disappears for a few minutes in his room.

Later, after food and more talking and a quiet nap spent curled up against Eddie’s side he asks if he can take you to bed.

“Sure grampa.” He smiles at your humor, an improvement to the tears earlier. He gets you out of your Sad Clothes and you quickly get under the blankets. He wants to say something but he knows to start small.

Starts with the lights off and sheds his clothes before crawling under the blankets from the foot of the bed. It makes you laugh and wind your legs around him, a win in his book. He kisses up your legs leaving a wet trail from your ankles to your thighs before you feel your face growing hot the closer he gets to your center. When you think he might pull your underwear off he doesn’t, instead kissing up your soft stomach to your breast and it isn’t until his curls spill out from under the blanket that you can hear him murmuring against your skin. Chanting “beautiful beautiful beautiful” and laying down “I love you’s”. His nose runs along under your chin while he kisses up to your ear “so pretty so perfect”. He runs his hands up into your hair and hold you in place while he hovers, warm brown eyes staring lovingly into yours.

“You have no idea how lucky I am.”

“Eddie…”

“No, don’t start.” He kisses you long and slow and it makes you tear up in a good way. He notices them hanging in the corners of your eyes and kisses those away while you laugh at him, watery and light and he knows he’s winning. It isn’t long before he’s got you trapped under him, legs tugged up around his hips so he can fuck into you slow and deep, his fingers still carding through your hair and keeping your eyes on him.

“So good for me.”

“Keep your eyes on me baby.”

“Just me and you.”

You couldn’t close your eyes if you wanted to, anchored to his stare and his touch and the way he whispers at you such sweet things. He kisses you deep when he feels you tightening around him. Thighs pulled tight around his hips, hands grasping for his shoulders to hold him tight to you while you spasm and gasp around him. He follows soon after, dropping his head down to nuzzle into your neck.

“Sweet girl.”

“Always so good to me.”

“Love you so much.”

Eddie lets you unwind from him before he lays on his back beside you.

“Can I show you something?” He pulls you in next to him so you have to drape over his chest, tattoos swelling under his deep breath. He holds his phone over your heads and finds the photo album he was looking for. You catch a glimpse of one of you and start to turn your head into his chest before he tuts at you.

“What did we just talk about?”

Instead you give him the benefit of doubt and let him scroll through. He talks about all the photos he has of you and why he kept them. Why he took them or got them from Robin or Nancy or one of the kids on one of the many outings. He’s got pictures of sunsets and really good food and flowers and his succulent pot. There’s a skyline in the rain from a green room he was in that he tells you reminds him so much of you. Says something about composition and the rain and how it comforts him like you do and if you weren’t wrung out you’d start crying again. He scrolls for a half hour explaining every photo and why they’re all you or remind him of you and how he finds you in the things he finds beautiful.

“So yes, I do.” He grabs your chin and you melt into his touch as he pulls you in for a soft kiss. “I think you’re pretty and beautiful and stunning and I will remind you every day.” Another peck before he cradles your head against his chest.

One day, maybe, you won’t have to remind yourself that it doesn’t matter. That Eddie thinks you’re pretty and that’s all you need, but today you know it for sure and feel it for sure and it’s enough.

(Sacrifice for the read more)

#eddie munson x reader #this was too real

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

Text

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!ReaderSeries

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Summary: Eddie's past in Chicago is revealed after he reaches his breaking point, but he's not the only one facing a crisis.

Warnings: mentions of drug use/addiction, neonatal medical trauma, panic attack, mentions of learning disability, brief allusion to Kurt Cobain's death, Reader's grandma has dementia.

WC: 7.2k

Chapter 7/?

Scruffy!Eddie edit credit to @vexed-n-hexed Divider credit to @saradika

Eddie was no stranger to bad report cards, failing grades, and dissatisfied teachers. You don’t fail twelfth grade twice without dealing with all three of those. He’d learned to shrug it off and move along with his day, mostly unfazed.

Those same things directed towards his son was a different story.

Ms. Marion’s words rattle around in his brain, wrapping around his lungs and choking him from the inside out.

Constantly interrupting

His heartbeat pulses in his ears, drowning out the background noise of other parents chatting as they wait their turn to meet with the teachers.

Incapable of paying attention and following directions

A bead of sweat trickles down the back of his neck to his spine, then another, until he feels his t-shirt sticking to his skin. Despite the stifling heat building up in his body, his teeth chatter together noisily as a deep shiver rips through him.

Socially and academically behind his peers

He knew this day might come; he should’ve been prepared for it to happen. Has he only been fooling himself, pretending like everything was going to be fine?

At this rate, he won’t be ready for kindergarten

Eddie swears he’s walking to the parking lot, one foot in front of the other, keys clenched in his right hand until he feels their serrated edges digging into the calloused skin of his palm. Yet he finds himself at your classroom door jamb, leaning up against it with a soft thud.

You’re struggling to stay awake after the long day you’ve had. You roll your shoulders, wincing as you hear the small pop. You’ve just finished the last conference with Frankie’s mom, Carol, and she was a bitch and a half. She’d insisted that her son was gifted and demanded that you recommend he start kindergarten early.

A noise draws your attention to the door, and you’re suddenly wide awake when you see who’s there.

“What’re you doing–hey, what’s going on?” Your curiosity morphs into concern when you clock Eddie’s ragged breathing and tear-streaked face. He’s repeating something, but his voice is so low that the words resemble a hum, and you can’t catch them until you get closer to him.

“Harris–falling behind–all my fault.” Eddie speaks as though he’s in a trance. His brown eyes are saucers, and more tears fall with each blink of his eyelids. “Falling behind–all my fault.”

You haven’t the slightest idea what he’s referring to, but you do know that you need to get him inside the classroom before anyone else sees him breaking down. You reach for his wrist, and he instinctively flinches and pulls away before seemingly snapping back to reality and resting his hand in yours. One calloused palm trembles in your smooth one as you lead him to the table where you’d just been speaking with Carol Perkins, only letting go to steady himself into the chair.

“Falling behind–all my fault.”

You take both of his hands this time, and he doesn’t draw back when you do. “Eyes on me, okay? We’re gonna breathe together.” It’s the same technique that you’d used with Harris on Halloween. In for three, out for three. Eddie watches you a few times before joining in, breath hitching slightly before evening out. “There ya go…here, let me get you something to eat.” You offer him a small, kind smile that he doesn’t reciprocate before rummaging through the bottom drawer of your desk and pulling out a little bag of mini pretzels and a half-pint of water. “These good?”

He manages a nod, eyes locked onto you even as he twists open the snack and absentmindedly pops one in his mouth. He’s still in a daze, but no longer at risk of hyperventilating. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” you cautiously ask, not wanting to trigger another panic attack.

A solid ten seconds passes before he answers. When he finally does, the hoarseness in his voice startles you. “Could you, um, close the door?”

“Of course.” The wheels of your swivel chair skid against the tile floor, but Eddie’s too engrossed in his own thoughts to notice. When you return to your seat, he doesn’t even register your presence until you say, “whenever you’re ready.”

“I, um,” he clears his throat. “I just had the parent-teacher conference thing with Ms. Marion. And, apparently, Harris is destined for failure, just like his old man.”

He relays everything the old woman told him; the racing thoughts all spill out like bees fleeing their hive.

“She starts off by saying that he’s already behind the other kids, which may not seem like a big deal now, but, apparently, it means he’ll fall farther behind as he grows up.” He gnaws on his lower lip and continues. “And then she said that him interrupting and not paying attention is because he ‘lacks structure at home,’” he adds with a grimace.

“But y’know what really fuckin’ got me?” he asks, rubbing his hands over his jean-clad knees until his palms are tinged red. “She said to me, ‘Some kids aren’t cut out for school, and if Harris is struggling with preschool, it’ll be a long road ahead of him.” Eddie’s eyes are shiny with the prospect of a fresh batch of tears. “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

You try to quell your temper for the sake of professionalism, but your boiling blood makes it almost impossible. “None of that is true. Harris having trouble doesn’t make him impossible to teach. And it doesn’t make you a bad parent.”

Eddie can’t manage eye contact when he says, “But what if I’m the reason why he’s having trouble?” His voice is so small that you can barely hear it.

“I’ve taught a lot of kids with a lot of different needs, and none of them–”

“You’re not listening!” Eddie slams his fist on the desk, rattling your jar of pencils, and you reach out to steady it. His eyes blaze with fury, but this time, it’s not towards you. “It is my fault, because I am a bad parent! I let this happen!”

You crease your brows. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” What, exactly, is his fault? What could he possibly have done?

Eddie shakes his head despondently. “I-I didn’t know…Harris’s mom, she…Christ, it’s a long story.” But you can practically see the words on the tip of his tongue, just waiting for permission to be spoken.

So you give it to him.

“You can talk to me,” you murmur, resisting the urge to grab his hand and lace your fingers through his. Just to comfort him, you tell yourself. “You can trust me.”

Eddie lets out a slow, low breath and looks up at the ceiling. There’s a long silence; for a moment, you worry that you’ve said something wrong. Overstepped your bounds. Harris technically isn’t your student anymore, and God only knows where you and Eddie stand.

Finally, Eddie begins to speak. “I met her out in Chicago when I was twenty-four? Twenty-five? She was a groupie, I guess. We never said we were seeing each other exclusively, but after a while, I realized that she was the only person I was sleeping with, so…” He shrugs. “A couple nights before my band and I left for tour, she told me she was pregnant. Too far along to, um, do anything about it. She apparently didn’t even think to test until she complained about gaining some weight and her friend brought it up.” His gaze shifts to the window over his right shoulder, and all you hear is the sound of his sneakered feet nervously tapping a fast rhythm against the tiled floor. “Look, I’m not proud of this, but I used to party. A lot. And at these parties, there were, um…”

“Drugs?” you supply before you can bite back the comment, clenching your fists at your side where he can’t see you chastising yourself.

Eddie just laughs, a throaty chuckle that escapes despite the seriousness of the conversation. “A shit-ton of ‘em. I was partial to coke; helped me stay awake when I wanted to crash. But I swear, I only used when I was partying. And when I found out I had a kid on the way, I stopped using completely. Cleanest tour of my life.” His lips turn up in a semblance of a smile that doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “Figured she’d do the same…she said she would, but…”

Your heart sinks; you know exactly where this is going, but you don’t dare interrupt him this time.

“I was at some dive bar in Cincinnati when I got the call that she was in labor; ran right off the stage and caught the first flight back home. I got there in time to watch him be born; and it was the best goddamn moment of my stupid life, until…” His voice breaks on the last word, and he can’t stop the tears from leaking out of his eyes. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. “He was six weeks early. Fuck, I shoulda known, but I was just so excited to be a dad. He was shaking so hard that his tiny little body was practically blurry, and, like a total moron, I’m going, ‘Is he cold? Does he need a blanket?’ No one would answer me; they just fuckin’ whisked him away before I could even hold him. And when they brought him back, they told me that he tested positive for cocaine and had something called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome because of it. Said it can affect his learning, his attention span, everything. Kid wasn’t even two hours old and I’d already fucked him up.”

Your response seems meek; far too pathetic for the intensity of what he’s just admitted. “But it was his mom…”

He tucks his lips into his mouth, pressing them together until the outer edges turn white.

“Yeah, she was the one using,” he relents, but his tone is so thick with self-loathing that you couldn’t claw through it if you tried. “But where the fuck was I? On the road, thinking I could be a rockstar and take care of a family. If I had stayed back, I could’ve stopped her. I would’ve seen that she wasn’t just doing it at parties or shows; she was an addict. I could’ve gotten her help; I could’ve saved my son from being born a goddamn coke addict!”

“You can’t make someone stop doing drugs,” you say feebly, though you’re certain he already knows this.

“But I could’ve done something! Fucking anything! And it would’ve been better than not being there.”

You have to choose your next words wisely, mulling them on your tongue before talking. “Is she still involved in Harris’s life?”

He shakes his head forlornly. “I invited her to his first birthday party, and she came, surprisingly. All the way from Chicago. I thought maybe she was getting her life together. Then, right before we were gonna cut the cake, she came out of the bathroom with white residue under her nose. I told her to leave and not to come back until she got clean.” He barks out a gruff laugh, as though he still can’t believe it. “Haven’t heard from her since.”

You don’t know how to respond to this. It’s going to be okay seems too patronizing, because nothing about this is okay. I’m sorry? What are you sorry for? Harris’s mom is an atrocious excuse for a human being, and so is Ms. Marion? Kind of tips the balance towards the unprofessionalism you’re striving to avoid.

Eddie continues, not noticing your failure to respond. “The doctors would tell me that he was developing slower than he should be–walking and talking and stuff–but he always got there eventually. But hearing his teacher say that he wouldn’t…fuck, if that’s true, I’ll never forgive myself.” He puffs out his cheeks as he exhales; tendrils of hair flow upwards and flutter back down with the exaggerated breath, and you realize that he’s trying to ward off another crying spell.

You can’t remove the guilt that eats him alive, but maybe he’s not asking you to. “I’ve never met a more determined little kid than Harris Munson,” you say truthfully. “Name one time that boy gave up.”

“For better or for worse, I can’t think of any.” His eyes still don’t meet yours, but you see a flicker of happiness at the mention of Harris’s perseverance before his expression darkens again. “Call me stupid; that’s fine. But my son is gonna be better than I ever was.”

Your heart pangs with sympathy when he puts himself down. “You’re not stupid.” He bristles at your reassurance, puzzling you even more. “What?”

Eddie runs his tongue over his teeth. “That’s not what you said before.” The comment isn’t accusatory, just a simple fact, as though he’s talking about the weather. “On the first day of school, you told me to leave before I said anything else ‘ridiculously stupid.’”

“I just–”

“Look, I’m not saying the Cat-and-Mouse is the nicest thing to do,” he interrupts, cheeks aflame at the mere mention of it, “but I guess it really fucked with me for someone I…someone I just met…to call me stupid.” The phrasing is clunky and awkward, and he sinks his teeth into the tip of his tongue in a paltry attempt to stop the word flow.

You take in his shameful expression, mulling over a response. Knowing what you know now–that his little game was a poorly-designed coping mechanism after being put through the wringer–your comment was harsher than he deserved. “I was hurt, and I…I should’ve just said so. I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Just an asshole?” He tilts his head, finally looking at you. The corners of his mouth turn up to form his first smile of the evening.

“Just an asshole,” you confirm playfully. Another silence fills the room, only interrupted by Eddie crunching on the pretzels you gave him. He’s nibbling on them from the outside, as though savoring each bite. “Mr. Munson?”

“Eddie,” he says, crinkling the empty pretzel bag in his fist and tossing it into the nearby waste bin. “Please, just call me Eddie.” Mr. Munson awakens memories of his father; specifically, the way the cops addressed him each time he got arrested for various offenses.

“Eddie.” Though you’d called him that on the night that you two had fooled around, the name feels foreign in your mouth. Too casual for what you’re about to propose. “Eddie, um, back to the stuff with Harris…” You swallow your nerves and push through, knowing that you need to do what’s best for Harris, even if you have to face his dad’s wrath. “If I suggest something, promise you won’t get mad.”

Eddie flinches, but not for the reason you think. No, it’s because he hates that you’re fearful of his reaction. He hates that he’s made you afraid of him. “Fuck. I mean, yeah. I promise.”

“What…what if we talked to the school psychologist about getting him evaluated for a learning disability?” The words tumble out, and you worry that whatever semblance of acquaintanceship will shatter, leaving you unable to pick up all of the pieces. And even if you can, even the best adhesive can leave visible fractures.

His jaw clenches; his shoulders draw up and biceps flex with a twitch, fight or flight instinct kicking in. This was a horrible idea; he’s already emotional from the conference with Ms. Marion, and now you’ve crossed a line. You’re so caught up in deciphering his body language that you don’t catch his softening eyes as he silently reminds himself that you’re on his side. On Harris’s side, at the very least.

“What does that involve?” he asks. It’s inquisitive, not judgmental, and you permit yourself a small sigh of relief at the narrowly-averted crisis.

You explain the process as Eddie intently listens, nodding to acknowledge that he’s following along. “Nothing invasive; just asking him questions and giving him some tests, and then if he does have a learning disability, we’d figure out what modifications we can make so he can learn alongside the other kids.”

Eddie bites the inside of his cheek, considering your recommendation. “Will they know? The other kids, I mean. Will they know that he needs, like, extra help to learn?”

“Nope.” You shake your head. “I don’t know how Ms. Marion runs her classroom, but I always emphasize that everyone learns differently anyway.”

He nods, drumming his fingertips on the desk in a rhythm you can’t decipher. “Do you think…if we do the evaluation, would he go to kindergarten on time?”

“Well, as a teacher, I’m not supposed to say. But as a friend,” you shrug, “I think it’s worth a shot.”

As a friend. A friend. Friend. The word reverberates around Eddie’s brain, replaying like a melody he can’t pause. But he doesn’t want to stop it. He wants you to call him your friend over and over again, enveloping him in your kindness, never letting him go. He wants to wrap his arms around you in a hug and bury his face in the crook of your neck, while he laughs or sobs or a combination of both.

Do friends do that? Or is that something more complex than he can allow himself to imagine?

Your voice brings his perseverations to a grinding halt. “And you can be there while they evaluate him. So he won’t have to be alone.”

Another nod, another pregnant pause. He twists his curls around his pointer finger, brushing them over his lips. “Could you come, too?” he murmurs, quickly clarifying, “for Harris?”

“Of course.” You agree without a second thought, watching as his body unstiffens when he leans back in the chair with a sigh. “And if you want, I could tutor him after school once a week. Catch him up and stuff.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide. “You’d do that?”

“Mhm,” you beam. It’s like cracking a complex code after aimlessly spinning the dial, hoping to land on the right combination of numbers. “Just…it would have to be at my place, so I can stay home with Grandma. Medicare only pays for her aide to be there for a certain number of hours. I’m actually paying out of pocket so I could be here tonight.” While you’d initially been annoyed at having to spend your hard-earned money just to talk to ungrateful parents, this time with Eddie has made it worth every penny.

“Yeah, no problem,” he easily agrees, starting to stand and brushing some rogue pretzel crumbs from his jeans. “Oh, um, how much do you charge? For the tutoring?”

At this, you giggle. “Eddie, you’re not paying me to work with my,” you lower your voice mid-protest, even though the door is closed and no one else is around, “favorite student.”

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest defiantly, denim jacket creasing at the elbows. “Well, I’m not gonna let you work for free, so name your price.”

“Fine,” you huff, feigning annoyance. “It’ll cost one…pizza.”

“Seriously?” Eddie asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” you confirm, walking to the supply closet and grabbing your coat. The inside of the sleeves are chilly, having not been exposed to the heat churning through the classroom, and the temperature shift makes you shiver. “Saves me from having to worry about making dinner. And Grandma loves pizza, so it’s one less thing for her to argue about.”

The arguments in question were still happening frequently, though her verbiage was decreasing with each subsequent spat. Last night, you’d told her that she had to turn her TV down so you could sleep. Grandma had repeatedly yelled “no” and “hate you” until you gave up and smushed one half of your pillow over your exposed ear in a pathetic attempt to muffle the sounds of the infomercials blasting from her room.

“I can do that,” he agrees, following you towards the door and stepping out of the way so you can flick off the light, plunging the classroom into total darkness. “Any toppings?”

You think for a moment, tapping your forefinger to your chin as your other hand rotates the key in the door until you hear the soft click of the lock. You twist the knob just to make sure, only turning from the door once you’ve confirmed that it doesn’t open. “Ooh, we both love olives. Get those.”

Eddie scrunches his nose in disgust. “I’ll do half olives, half plain, so Harris and I won’t have to suffer.”

You stop in your tracks. Eddie’s chest bumps against your back. “Oh, I…”

“Shit, that wasn’t an invitation, was it?” He’s blushing, cheeks turning a deep crimson at his gaffe. “Sorry, totally misread–”

“No, no, I’d like the company.” You’ve come to appreciate how much easier it is to navigate Grandma’s moods when there are other people around, but you can’t ask someone to endure that just for your comfort. “‘S just that my grandma…well, you saw her at the hospital that night. She says things that are mean, or inappropriate, or don’t make sense…I don’t want Harris to hear that.”

Eddie just laughs, waving off your concern of Harris. “He grew up around me and Wayne. He’ll probably be teaching her some bad words.”

“Oh, God,” you shudder at the thought of Harris and Grandma swapping swear words. “Then, yeah, I’d love to have you over for dinner. Are Wednesdays at four okay? We can start tomorrow, if that works.”

“Perfect!” Eddie chirps, tossing his car keys upwards and dramatically snatching them mid-air. “I teach guitar lessons, so Wayne’ll drop him off. I’ll swing by around five with the olive pizza.” His pronunciation of the topping is obnoxiously whiny and snide, and you roll your eyes, pushing open the main doors to the school while he trails behind you.

You’re normally not at work this late, and it feels almost unnatural to walk out to a night sky. Clouds obscure the stars, and the dim streetlights do little to pave a discernible path. Eddie seems to be walking in the same direction, and there’s a sense of comfort knowing that you don’t have to navigate the parking lot alone.

The volume of Eddie’s voice lowers considerably as he says, “You’re…you’re kinda the best, y’know that?”

“About time you realized.” You smile as the two of you approach your car. You slide into the driver’s seat, tugging the seatbelt over your shoulder. “Where did you park?”

“Um…” Eddie squints, pointing to a spot clear across the lot. “Right there.”

Your jaw drops. “Eddie!”

“What?”

“Why’d you walk all this way, then?” Your keys sit in the ignition, waiting to be turned over.

“And leave you to trek across this vast terrain all by your lonesome?” He presses his hand to his heart, staggering backwards until he bumps into another parked car. “Ow, shit. So, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yup.” And as he closes your car door with a small wave, it occurs to you that you’re actually looking forward to seeing Eddie Munson.

Elise wasn’t exaggerating when she’d warned you that Grandma was in a mood today. In addition to the usual song and dance to the tune of “those pills aren’t mine,” she’s insisted on changing her clothes no less than four times in the hour since you’ve been home, grumbling that every outfit doesn’t look right. As you wipe down the kitchen counter, sweeping crumbs from your after-work snack into the garbage bin, you hear banging against the living room wall. Never a good sign.

“Grandma?” you call out as you abandon your chore and start towards her. She’s struggling to hold onto the large painting of a sailboat that should be mounted on the wall. You get to her side just before she can topple over, grabbing the artwork from her grasp. “What are you doing? Why did you take this down?”

She looks at it–and you–with utter disgust. “S’ugly,” she mumbles.

There’s no sense in telling her that it was her favorite or that she picked it out herself years ago. Instead, you heave a frustrated sigh. “Okay, well, we’ll just leave it here,” you say, carefully leaning the cherry-lacquered frame against the wall.

“No!” She shakes her head, tousled gray hair brushing against the wrinkles etched into her cheeks. “No, no!” Anger creeps into her voice, and tears appear along her lash line. Truth be told, your tears are not too far behind.

“Look, I’ll just…turn it around. See?” You swivel the painting so it faces the wall; all that’s visible now is the sad beige frame backing. It’s hard to believe that she finds this view more appealing than the soft watercolor brushstrokes of blues and greens, but you leave it as is, until she inevitably demands to know why it’s no longer hanging up.

The harsh buzz of the intercom brings your quasi-argument to an abrupt end. You can hear some shuffling, and then an older man’s raspy voice instructs, “say who you are so she knows you’re here.”

“HARRIS!” The little boy exclaims loudly. “Oh, and my Grampa Wayne!”

The sound of his voice alone is enough to bring a smile to your face. You press the button that lets them into the building, quickly ushering Grandma into her room and putting on the Animal Planet. A rerun of Wildlife SOS blares through the TV, and you can only hope that Harris won’t be too distracted by the noise. It certainly beats being the recipient of one of her incoherent rants.

The frantic knock on the door ushers away your anxious thoughts. “Ms. Sweetheart, I’m here!”

“Relax, buddy,” the older man–Wayne–gently reminds him.

You open the door, grinning as Harris barrels into the apartment. His little arms wrap around your waist as he envelops you in a tight hug. “Ms. Sweetheart! I’m at your house!”

“You are,” you agree with a laugh, patting his back with your palm before offering your hand to his grandfather. “And you must be Grampa Wayne.”

The older man chuckles as he shakes your hand in his own calloused one. The whiskers above his lips and on his chin are white, flecks of gray stubble peppered along his jawline. “‘S nice to put a face to the name. All I hear about lately is how wonderful Ms. Sweetheart is.” He bashfully scratches at the wisps of hair that lay flat along the crown of his head.

Taking compliments is not your strongest suit, but you manage. “Trust me, I’ve heard some great things about Grampa Wayne, too. I’m just glad Harris loves being my student as much as I love teaching him.”

“Huh?” Wayne’s forehead crinkles in confusion before he catches himself. “Oh, yeah, Harris. Right.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, Ed’ll be here at five.”

“He’s bringing PIZZA!” Harris shouts, unable to contain his excitement as he pumps a tiny fist in the air.

Wayne shakes his head, as if to say, this kid. “C’mere, Har. Give me a hug goodbye.” Harris all but leaps into his grandpa’s arms, spider-monkeying his legs around his waist. Emotion wells within you as the gesture reminds you of the easy way love used to flow between you and Grandma. No questions or doubts about who you were or how she would perceive you in that moment.

As soon as Wayne leaves, Harris tugs on the hem of your shirt, peering up at you with a gigantic grin. “Daddy telled me that you’re gonna teach me again! But not at school.”

“Mhm!” you say, guiding him over to the kitchen table. You’ve cleared a spot for the two of you to work. There’s a stack of flashcards in front of your chair, and Harris eyes them curiously. “Those are gonna help you learn letter names and sounds. You’ll be reading like a pro in no time.”

He eagerly nods, flinging one little leg onto the chair and climbing onto it haphazardly. He’s facing the back of the chair with his knees tucked underneath him, and he shifts until he’s sitting on his bottom, eye-level with the tabletop. “I can’t see anything!” he harrumphs grumpily.

“Here, you can face me,” you tell him, holding the chair steady as he swivels around again. “There ya go. This works out better anyway.” You tap the deck of cards on the table, watching as Harris kicks his feet in anticipation. “We’re gonna play a game with these,” you say, keeping your tone full of excitement. “I’ll hold up a letter, and you tell me what the letter’s name is and the sound it makes. And if it’s a little tricky, there’s a picture on the back that might help you out. Sounds good?”

Harris considers this, tongue poking out between his lips, and you can’t help but notice the way he mimics Eddie’s actions. “Can I see the picture even if it isn’t tricky?” he asks.

“Absolutely.” You shuffle the deck, making a dramatic show of closing your eyes and folding the cards into a bridge. “Let me give you an example.” You grab the card off of the top, the letter R printed in bold, black lettering. “This is the letter R. It makes the rrrr sound.”

“What’s the picture?” Harris squeals, clapping his hands together, the sound muffled by the cast on his wrist. When you flip the card around to reveal a cartoon robot, he cackles like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. “He has triangles for eyes! That is so silly!”

“That is silly,” you agree with a laugh, putting the card at the back of the deck and holding up the next one for him. “Okay, now it’s your turn. Remember, just do your best. This is just so I can see what we need to work on.”

He nods, sitting up straight as he reads the letter F.

“Nice job, Har! And what sound does F make?” This is more difficult for him, and he squints as though it will help him remember.

“Umm, eh?” He knows it’s not correct, and you watch as his shoulders begin to slump dejectedly. “I…I don’t know.” His lower lip juts out, quivering as he admits it.

You keep your tone light and breezy. “No worries! We can always look at the picture, and if it’s still tricky, we can figure it out together.” You show him the french fries on the back of the card.

“French fries!” Harris exclaims giddily.

“And what sound does french fries start with?” You enunciate the start of the words, but he still can’t seem to get the pronunciation. His breath hitches with frustration, chubby fingers digging into his tousled curls to pull at them. “You can ask me for help if you need to. That’s what I’m here for!”

His tiny “need help” is almost inaudible, head drooping towards his chest in defeat. “Everyone needs help sometimes,” you say kindly, pointing to the flashcard to draw his attention back to it. “F makes the ffff sound. Go ahead, try it.”

Harris emulates you, bits of spittle flying as he makes the noise over and over again. “This is fun!” he cheers, eyes widening when he comes to a realization. “Hey, fun starts with the fffff sound, too!”

“Sure does!” You raise your hand for a high-five, shaking it in mock-agony when he slaps it. “Wow, Har, you’re super strong! Okay, let’s try the next one.”

With a few breaks to release some energy, Harris continues stumbling through the rest of the alphabet unceremoniously. He’s definitely behind, you realize, but not so badly that he’s unable to catch up with some extra help.

“Only a couple more to go,” you assure him, presenting the card with the letter P.

“P!” he yells, a grin spreading from ear to ear across his sweet face. “An’ it makes the puh sound!” He reaches out and plucks the flashcard from between your fingers, turning it to see the picture on the back. “It’s a princess.” His eyes flit between you and the pink poofy dress-clad cartoon. “Me an’ Daddy think you’re pretty like a princess.”

There’s no time to ask for further clarification before a loud bang erupts from Grandma’s bedroom. You swear silently, somehow still aware of the four-year-old beside you as you dash to her door. Instinctually, you grab the knob and twist, only to be met with resistance.

“Grandma!” you call out, pounding your fist as loudly as you can. “Grandma, open the door!” You hear the soft, slow pad of her footsteps, watching as the door knob turns slightly before it stops.

“‘S broke,” Grandma says from her side, and relief temporarily floods your senses with the knowledge that she’s unscathed enough to get to the door.

“No, it’s just locked. I need you to unlock it.” Another brief twitch, then nothing. “You…you have to turn the little dial on it. See how it’s horizontal—um, left to right? It needs to go up and down. Can you switch it?” Jiggle jiggle, silence. No attempt to toggle the dial.

“Ms. Sweetheart? ‘S everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, honey,” you lie through your teeth. “Why don’t you go look at the pictures on the—”

BZZZT!

“Pizza delivery!” Eddie croons through the intercom. “One half plain, half gross—sorry, half olive—”

“Eddie!” you press your finger to the button, cutting him off more sharply than you mean to. “Eddie, my grandma locked herself in her room, and she can’t remember how to open it.” Your voice catches in your throat, and you swallow the lump in a determined attempt not to break down in front of your guests.

There’s a pause before his voice floats through the box again. “Gimme a sec.” That’s all he says before he’s gone as quickly as he arrived, and you turn to face the inquisitive little boy who remains glued to your side.

“Har, why don’t you go sit at the table until Daddy comes.” Thankfully, he doesn’t put up a fight, and you’re able to turn your attention back to the crisis. “Grandma, can you please turn the dial?” But when you’re met with another disheartening turn of the doorknob, you have to accept defeat.

BZZZT!

“It’s me; let me up,” Eddie’s words are straightforward but not brusque or curt, and you buzz him in without wasting any time. He’s at your door in a hurry, and you open it before he can knock twice. He’s got the pizza box balancing in his right hand and a small rectangular container tucked under his arm. “Is she hurt?” he asks, handing you the box as you lead him towards Grandma’s room.

You shake your head. “I don’t think so. She’s been twisting the doorknob, but she doesn’t understand what I mean when I asked her to unlock it.”

He nods, examining the knob for a second before unfastening the box’s latch and pulling out a tool that resembles a miniature hook. Splitting his stance, he squints and pokes his tongue from his mouth, just as his son had done earlier. Within seconds, you hear the telltale click of the door unlocking, and you exhale audibly. Relief floods your body as your shoulders untense; you hadn’t even realized you’d pinched them together. Behind Grandma, the TV has toppled to the floor, screen now resting on top of the beige carpet, but that’s the least of your concerns.

“Are you all right?” you ask her, checking for scrapes and scratches, but she luckily appears to have escaped unscathed. “How did this even fall?” You pick up the TV, wincing as you get a glimpse of the spider web of cracked glass right in the center.

“Dunno,” Grandma shrugs, moving past you to get to the piping hot pizza that you’ve placed on the kitchen table. She slides into the chair you’d just been sitting on, pushing the pile of flashcards away clumsily. “‘M hungry.”

You look at Eddie and Harris and muster up a smile. “Guess it’s dinner time! Oh, Grandma, wait for a plate.” You grab four of the plastic pale blue plates from the cabinet to set the table, giving one to Grandma first. You place one at the spot Harris had just occupied, and one in front of the third and final chair–

“Shit,” you whisper under your breath before addressing the boys again. “Um, we only have three chairs. ‘S normally just me and Grandma, and sometimes her aide–”

“No worries,” Eddie waves off your concern, scooping Harris up and resting him against his hip. “Harris can sit on my lap.”

“Or I can sit on Ms. Sweetheart’s lap!” Harris squeals, wriggling out of his dad’s grasp. “Or Ms. Sweetheart can sit on your lap!”

You cough as Eddie turns bright red, cheeks the same shade as the marinara sauce buried under a thick layer of cheese. He sweeps Harris on top of his thighs and snags a slice of pizza for each of them. “Uh, yeah, no,” he mumbles, taking a gigantic cheesy bite in an attempt to end the conversation.

Dinner goes as well as it possibly can. Harris asks to try an olive, promptly spitting it onto his plate as soon as the taste hits his tongue. Grandma tells Eddie no less than five times that she likes his shirt, thoroughly embarrassing you, but he just politely says “thank you,” each time as though it’s the first. At one point, Harris gives him a bewildered glance, but before he can say anything, Eddie whispers, “I’ll explain later, bud.”

The rest of the meal is filled with conversations about work and school. Eddie tells a story about how a customer came into the store completely frazzled after listening to a Nirvana album. “She thought it was about Buddhism, and was very distraught when she got Kurt Cobain instead. Guess she missed the whole…” He mimics holding a gun to his head, and you laugh at the crude gesture, slapping his hand out of the way before Harris can see. Luckily, the boy is too engrossed in dissecting his slice to notice.

Grandma retreats to her room as soon as she finishes her dinner, and Harris gets bored soon after, squirming to the floor and dashing to the living room TV set–now the only working one in the house. That leaves you and Eddie at the table alone.

“I can take your plate if you’re done,” you say as you lean over, scoffing when Eddie starts to get up and bring his empty dish to the sink. “Hey, let me clean up. You brought the pizza.”

“Yeah, because you tutored Harris,” he reminds you, swooping in to grab your plate as well. “So we’re even.”

“Even?” you ask incredulously. “After you rescued my grandma and kept us company during dinner? Do you know how long it’s been since I had an actual conversation during a meal?”

Eddie chuckles at this. “I think ‘rescued’ is a bit dramatic. All I did was unlock a door; not exactly superhero stuff.” He shakes his hair back behind his shoulders.

“She could’ve been hurt,” you point out earnestly, following him to shoo him away from the pile of dirty dishes, “and without you, my only option was to take a battering ram to the door. I don’t even know where I would buy one of those.”

“Have you tried Melvald’s? They sell everything there. ‘S actually where I got Harris.” Eddie teases, hand inching towards the faucet.

“Eddie, sit down and relax. Don’t you dare turn on the water.” Your eyes widen as he locks his gaze with yours, flicking on the spout indignantly and grabbing the sponge without breaking eye contact. “Eddie, I mean it–”

He smacks the sponge against a plate and harshly brushes it up and down, still staring at you. “Oops,” he deadpans, rinsing it and haphazardly placing it in the dishrack before picking up another one. “Oops again.”

“Give me that!” you charge over to him, yanking it away before he realizes what you’re doing. You squeeze the bottle of soap over the already-saturated sponge just to emphasize your point. “Go watch TV with your son and let me clean up.”

He’s quiet for a moment, leaning back next to you. The hem of his shirt makes contact with some water that sprayed out of the sink, but he doesn’t notice; if he does, then he doesn’t care. “I don’t usually have anyone to talk to at night, either. And with Harris–I mean, I love him to fuckin’ death, but a guy can only hear so much about the latest episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” He clears his throat, but the words come out even softer somehow. “I like talking to you.”

The water runs uninterrupted by any movement as you look into his warm eyes. Flecks of gold punctuate the deep chocolate orbs that are drinking you in. They're the same eyes that you looked into on the night that he’d brought you back to his place. The eyes that shot daggers at you while he spewed venom at you in the music store. The eyes that could barely look at you when he’d somberly confessed his past, more motivated by anxiety than trust. The eyes that could flip your world upside down if you let them.

He lets his thumb graze yours as he grabs the newly clean plate from your hand, wiping it with a towel until it’s impossibly dry. You can’t look away from his lips, the way they practically scream kiss me. And you want to. Fuck, you want to so badly.

But you’re not stupid. Possibly naive, hooking up with him nearly three months ago and thinking it would have no emotional impact on you, but not stupid. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

“Same time next week?” you blurt out, taking you both by surprise. It’s too abrupt to be natural, but you don’t care. You need to stop this before it starts. Again.

Eddie recovers quickly, though his nod is a bit delayed. “It’s a date. Uh, a tutoring date. For Harris.”

“For Harris.”

Harris is at your classroom door the next morning, knocking excitedly. “Ms. Sweetheart, I got something for you!” Digging into his backpack, he produces a plastic bag tied in a knot. Bradley’s Big Buy is stamped on the side, but the contents aren’t anything you’d find in the supermarket.

It’s a lockout kit; the same kind that he’d used last night to unlock Grandma’s door. There’s a note Scotch-taped to it, and you read it silently:

I hope it doesn’t happen again, but I wanted you to be prepared in case it does.

-Eddie

P.S. Don’t try to pay me back. It was much cheaper than a battering ram.

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#eddie munson x reader #ongoing

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

Text

artist!eddie collection - pts 1-5

The collection of all of my artist!eddie (x fem!reader) snippets thrown together in one place for easy reading! Apologies for the strange mix of word counts! These were written off the cuff and just for fun :)

Synopsis: It's already bad enough that Eddie's excitement for his new art class dwindled when the teacher introduced you as one of the models. But when you're paired together for a project? It seems like a cruel joke that he has to work with the prissy teacher's pet and ex-cheerleader. Thankfully, you're not all that happy about having to work with him, either. So, at least the feeling's mutual. Right?

All Warnings: Eddie's POV, nsfw content, haters to lovers, Eddie and you are 21+ but the ages aren't specified (so take your pick), dirty thoughts, dirty talk, bickering as flirting, sexual tension, kinda pervy!Eddie if you squint, you pose topless, detailed descriptions of some of eddie's erotic sketches, nipple play, fingering, multiple orgasms with a hint of overstim, a hint of dacryphilia, hate sex, rough and unprotected sex, van sex, and mentions of a creampie

Total Word Count: 25.5k

pt one - sfw - 1.1k words

No.

Eddie ground his teeth together as he drew his charcoal across the paper. It covered every finger, up onto his palm, down onto his pants, and even on his shirt. It could stain his favorite shirt, and that would be far preferable to having to stare at you.

Of all people.

He just had to be hunched over a desk, eyes shooting up to look at you. Lounged back in a chair, one leg out, one arm down and almost touching the floor. The relaxed state almost looked romantic--almost. A few of the other students around his age thought so, his eyes narrowing at them as they spent a little too long studying sections of you they already had completed. Like where your shirt hugged your upper body with a low enough neckline that, from certain perspectives, appeared a tad lower.

Maybe if it were a different model, he would've appreciated it. But, as irritation stirred in his chest, he hovered the charcoal over where the pleats of your skirt got funky.

Damn it.

"This is practice, Mr. Munson," the teacher murmured softly behind him. He damn near broke the charcoal into dust when your eyes glanced over. One brow cocked, and his quip about how you needed to sit still stayed silent. "It doesn't have to be perfect."

"Yeah," he tried, keeping his eyes on the paper. His rings were covered in charcoal, his head was starting to hurt, and he still had another thirty minutes of having to look at you. And worst, your eyes met and fucking lingered as he looked over your position. "I know."

He let out a quiet, humorless, dry laugh. At least he could move around.

He waited until the teacher walked away to help another student. Then, when your eyes happened to dance back over around the group of students, he stretched. His hands, wrists, shoulders, neck, and legs. Audibly sighed at the relief too. There. Now he wasn't the only one scowling.

"(Y/N), position," the teacher cooed, and there was a spark of amusement in his gut.

"Sorry," you answered softly. Voice so sweet it was sickening. Almost like some of the goddamn Airheads he had in his bag. An annoying, too sugary, too sweet, too tough Airhead. "Is this correct?"

"Yes." A gentle hand corrected your chin before the teacher stepped back. "Perfect, thank you."

Perfect. Eddie scoffed under his breath; thankfully, nobody heard. Your fingers twitched, though. Your cheeks sucked in for a moment before you relaxed again.

Perfect was definitely a word for you. Not one Eddie would've chosen first. Irritating. Pom-pom loving. Try-hard. Teacher's pet. Privileged.

He ground his teeth together even harder. You somehow managed to have on every color of the damn rainbow despite the class drawing specifically with charcoal. A slew of bracelets went up one wrist, a diamond necklace hung down against the bare skin on your chest, and your stupid red leather purse you'd had since high school stayed by the bottom of the chair. A birthday present from your parents that everyone loved. Eddie accidentally kicked it one, and he thought you were going to either start crying or yell at him for scuffing your perfect little birthday present.

Guess you hadn't changed since high school. Not that he cared. It would've just made the whole coincidental ordeal far more manageable. Maybe then he wouldn't worry about cracking a damn tooth while just trying to draw a goddamn skirt.

"We have projects coming up." The teacher clapped at the front of the room as everyone packed up. Finally, you were able to sit up. Eddie heard your neck crack from there. Your soft groan was significantly quieter as you went to get out of the way and stand at the back of the room. Unfortunately, that put you right behind him. "Since the class is small, I'm going to assign each of you to a model, and they'll help you out with whatever you choose. The guidelines for the project and your pairings will be given out during class this Friday, and all of the models will be there to assist and meet with you all."

Her hands fell by her side as a wide, polite, interested smile took over her face.

"Until then--keep practicing, my little artists. You're doing great."

"Thought your thing was music," you said plainly, cutting through the sounds of everyone grabbing their bags. After four classes, those were the first words you'd actually said to him. Eddie almost had to double-check that he hadn't imagined it before he slowly turned around in his seat. "What? I thought your creative stuff was music."

"God forbid someone has two interests," he said while glowering. "It is. Thought your thing was waving around balls of plastic threads and shit?"

You blinked at him for a moment as if he'd just said the most outlandish thing to you. But then you shook your pretty head, pressed your lips together that someone garnered more lip gloss than when he last saw, and hoisted the strap of your bag higher.

"It was." You pushed past him as he stood, brushing his shoulder with yours. He could hear your smile as you passed by the teacher. "Have a goodnight, Mrs. George."

"You too, (Y/N), dear." She waved as you did. Eddie suppressed an eye roll. "You as well, Mr. Munson."

He stopped mid-step, meeting her knowing gaze. At least it looked knowing. Like she knew something he didn't. Maybe he had more talent that was being underutilized, and she had some sixth sense of sniffing it out. He wiped the charcoal off on his jeans and gave her a crooked smile.

"Night, Mrs. George."

He gave her a flourishing bow that earned a giggle from another classmate. But, reluctantly, he was following you out the door, not wanting to linger any longer. He could withstand having his art critiqued and complimented, but not when he already felt down in the shitter about it.

He stared at your back as you sped toward the other end of the hallway. He went right, scoffing at how the gold on your bag caught in the dim lights. Much the same way his scratched car keys did as he pulled them out of his bag and shoved the door open. A glance up at the setting sun did the collection of oranges and red far better justice than the reflective car windshields, and he let out an exasperated sigh as he trotted up to his van.

Eddie wasn't a praying man, but damn if he didn't ask the universe to give him just a little bit of a break. He turned the key in the ignition, mouth pressed into a fine line, and as the project details loomed in the coming days, his car whirred to life.

Fuck—thank you.

Maybe some luck was on his side.

pt two - sfw - 1.9k words

It was laughable. Completely, totally, utterly laughable. Eddie couldn’t believe it—or maybe he could—as he sat in the crowded classroom, hands on his lap, mouth fighting a sour smile. There were about two students per model. The oldest model went to the older two adults in the class, two models that were probably five or six years older than Eddie were divided between five other students, and then the last two—damn it. He tightened his grip on his packet. It was you and a guy named Jesse. Jesse was maybe a year older, had on a Black Sabbath shirt, and a tattoo sleeve hidden underneath his jacket that Eddie was itching to try and draw.

Eddie’s leg bounced as his eyes woefully went to you. In the blue, white, and pink dress that went past your knees, red purse, diamond necklace, and a few colorful rings on your fingers. That stupid lip gloss added a pink sparkle to your lips as you pressed them together. But when you relaxed, Mrs. George turning her attention to you and Jesse, you were back to that sweet, annoying smile. Jesse nudged you when Mrs. George turned her back to you two again, finally finishing the discussion with the other five students and their models.

Your mouth stayed in that stupid smile as Jesse tugged on your purse, the thin strap wrapping around his fingers. He had a few rings on too, but Eddie couldn’t see if they were anything specific from there. He found his mouth starting to cramp as he sat there. You rolled your eyes at Jesse’s light tug. No way Jesse fell for your crap. There was no way.

“Mr. Munson, I’d like you and Miss (Y/L/N) to work together.”

It was like there was a sudden shift in the entire classroom. A few eyes looked between Eddie and you, clearly aware of some kind of animosity. Wasn’t like either of you were subtle about it. Even up front, you tugged your purse string away from Jesse and were slow to smile. It was tight and tired, but Eddie didn’t struggle with his. It was accompanied by a laugh dripping in disbelief. He scratched his jaw to try and feign some kind of politeness just for Mrs. George, but it wouldn’t do shit.

“Sure,” he said, looking past Mrs. George’s black hair and right at you. “Course.”

“Mr. Harrison, you’ll also be working with her.” Mrs. George turned toward a guy sitting near the back—as much as one could while sitting in a sort of circle. A kid a year younger than Eddie—maybe two. Shy as shit, but he could draw like a motherfucker. His cheeks were already turning a bright red as he glanced toward you. “I want you and Mr. Munson to…embrace this project as an ability to step out of your comfort zone.”

She tapped the detailed image of a bat mid-flight on the front of Eddie’s notebook.

“This is incredible. You have talent. But I want to see what you can do with it with her as the main focus.” She turned to the Harrison kid—John was his first name. Maybe. Eddie didn’t really talk to him. “And Mr. Harrison. You can turn any object living on the page. Take something living and turn it into something magical.”

She clapped her hands together before John? Yeah, his name had to be John. Before John could protest. With a quick spin as everyone settled in, she motioned Jesse toward the last two students, two girls he was already smirking at. One rolled her eyes and shook her head, while the other acted pretty similarly to John. There were other projects, but damn it—he glared at you as he sank back in his chair. At least you were unhappy with the decision too.

“Now, the parameters for this project are outlined in the packet. And while we have not reached the body anatomy section of the course, as long as your models are comfortable, nudity is allowed. Okay?” She closed her binder and faced the class as everyone nodded with more blushing cheeks than the back of a video store. “Perfect. You have two weeks to create. Now, talk shop.”

Eddie had to reluctantly scoot over to sit beside John. He eyed Jesse and what could’ve been while the model sat with his two artists. His obviously flirty smile was a goddamn contrast to hell with your scowl as you so obviously scorned the seat between Eddie and John. Eddie’s smile was mocking as he threw his notebook open and found a clean page. The end of his pen tapped incessantly on the page, but he couldn’t seem to get himself to sit still.

“I can make time in my schedule for either of you if you’d prefer to meet alone, but I have commitments until one every day that I can’t get out of.” You pulled out a small planner from your purse and—of course—a sparkly pen with a goddamn pink pom-pom on the end. Your eyes looked from John to Eddie, rather begrudgingly for the latter while you flipped open to that week, but the page was pulled up toward you before Eddie could even see beyond the pale yellow and blue page. “So, separately or alone? Or I guess, what days work best for you, and then I guess we can go from there.”

“Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights,” Eddie said, staring at your diamond necklace. The chain was slightly messed up, and the clasp showed near your collarbone. “Those are best for me.”

“I can make those work,” John muttered, cheeks still red. Christ. You were just a pretty girl, yet John was acting like he was in front of some kind of siren. “Whatever’s easiest for you two.”

“Okay.” Your smile was sweet toward John, even going so much as to close your eyes and let out a soft laugh. Disarming down to the bone, but it didn’t do shit to Eddie. Not anything but grate on his nerves. That annoying breathy laugh used to make his teeth grind in high school. He’d hear it across the classroom as you leaned over with your friends, chatting about which basketball player you had a crush on. Or if you were going to go out to the skate rink that weekend and what dress you were going to wear and would it be cute enough. And that annoying cheerleader uniform. “Well, how about you two brainstorm tonight and tomorrow, and then Sunday, we’ll meet up at six outside the Carly building. I’ll get us a studio to use so we’re not crammed in here with anyone else.”

John nodded as his answer. Eddie grunted for his, writing down Sunday, 6, Carly on the top of his page.

“Perfect. Then we’ll do that.” You squiggled it down in your planner, the pink pom-pom shaking with the quick movements. “I feel like I should go ahead and say that unless you think it’s drastically important to whatever your ideas are, nudity is out for me.”

“That’s fine,” John said so quickly, Eddie thought the guy was going to choke on his words. Nope. Instead, he just abruptly averted his eyes, glanced down at his notebook, and turned red all the way down beneath the paint-smudged collar of his polo. “Unless he—”

“Nope.” Eddie glanced back at you, drawing his eyes over your dress. “More than fine with me.”

Something in your jaw twitched before you looked away. Whatever smile you had for John was replaced with that scowl so perfectly reserved for Eddie. He could’ve had the biggest and best burst of inspiration an artist could ask for that required you to be naked, and he wouldn’t take it. Like hell he was going to do that shit with you. Even if you were just a model. Of all people he cared to see naked, you weren’t at the top of the list.

“Well, I’ve marked the days off that work best for you guys. We don’t have to plan out anything now; we can just take it on a day-by-day basis. Give you time to brainstorm and work. If something doesn’t work, we’ll…figure it out. Go from there.” You thumbed through to the back of your planner and tore out a small part of the sheet, dragging the tip of your pen across it with ease and dropped it onto John’s desk. “Here, in case either of you need me for anything.”

Eddie barely had time to register you moving over to snag his notebook. The bright pink ink of your pen looked deadly underneath the sharp black of his. In perfect penmanship, you wrote down your phone number. They were just goddamn numbers, but he could see the slant. He had to grade your paper in high school once for some type of time-saving shit for the teacher, and you’d written the whole thing in such pretty cursive, he almost felt bad writing his name at the top. Until one of your friends asked if he’d needed any help reading cursive, and another added his handwriting was so bad, he could probably dissect anything given to him to read. He had no problems bringing your academic self-entitlement down a peg with a few slashes of his purposefully chosen red pen.

“Do you two have anything in mind already that I can wear or bring Sunday?”

Eddie caught a whiff of rose and…peony? He was shit with flowers, but there was another one thrown in there. It snuck around him when you had leaned in, but was weirdly stronger as you pulled back. Similar to that way too strong one some of the girls wore around high school, but far softer. Like a gentle kiss on the cheek or holding hands on a first date. Not something he’d noticed you wearing before, and for some reason, his eyes glanced over at Jesse, who, unexpectedly, was looking over at your back.

“Nah,” Eddie said when you leaned back and met his gaze. He closed his notebook and turned towards John. “What about you, big guy?”

“No, sorry.” He cleared his throat, which didn’t sound even remotely successful, but there was that annoying smile back on your face. Like you pitied the guy for just bring shy. “Um. I’ll brainstorm and then we can figure stuff out Sunday.”

“Perfect.” You didn’t miss a beat the second he finished, and you slid your planner back into your purse. “Then I’ll be sure to wear something lively,” you said to John before looking pointedly at Eddie. “And something colorful and positively radiant for you.”

A few others were rising as you were, class nearing its end, and Eddie just rolled his eyes. You might’ve been getting some joy out of one simple concept Eddie had to run with for the project, but you still had to sit and pose for him, and John for god knows how long. And if his brush strokes were slower on Sunday than usual, he’d just be tired. He’d never purposefully make you sit an extra ten minutes just to spite you. Never.

“See you both Sunday night,” you mused with a wave.

Jesse was already up as you passed him, a scoff leaving Eddie starting all the way down in his midsection as he watched. He glanced back over at John, who still hadn’t recovered from the general mention of nudity. Christ. He scooped up his bag and shook his head, a cigarette already getting poised between his fingers before he even waved bye to Mrs. George and her very pointed look. You followed Jesse to the right as Eddie turned down that direction, everyone else slowly trickling out behind him.

Sunday was going to be hell for all three of you.

pt three - nsfw-ish - 3.3k words

Being late wasn’t inherently bad. Eddie hadn’t even cared all that much. The grease stains he hadn’t gotten off of his hands would be explanation enough. But his baby was running smoother than ever before. He’d suffer your annoyed stared to hell and back knowing his van was back to normal. No more grinding, no more shaking, and no more goddamn holding his breath as he tried to start it.

“You’re late,” you said when he strutted up. He swung his keys around his finger, riding the goddamn high of spending the last two hours fixing his van with Wayne.

“Fifteen minutes." He scoffed as you just rolled your eyes. "Gimme a pass.”

"No," you shot back.

He eyed the empty spot beside you first. Then the outfit you had on. Christ. It was some insane pink getup. Checkered light pink and white pants that stopped just above your ankle, flat white sneakers with a heart drawn on the tip of one and a literal rainbow on the tip of the other. A solid dark pink sweater that looked a smidge too small, hanging just above the waist of the pants.

“Jesus Christ. Teach said lively, not the embodiment of a damn Care Bear.”

You looked down, frown remaining, and flattened your hands down onto your pants. The pattern was tight around your thighs, giving away how they twitched under your touch.

“I think you just don’t know anything about fashion. I’m sorry you’re allergic to anything that doesn’t have some band name scrawled across it.” You pointed at the Guns ‘N Roses shirt he’d thrown on haphazardly before rushing over. “John is waiting. Come on.”

You hoisted your bag over your shoulder and turned without waiting for Eddie to respond. A thin line of impatience threaded itself through your voice, but Eddie just scoffed and brushed it off. Why, oh woefully why, had he gotten partnered with you? John was probably asking himself the same thing. But it’d be a different kind of hell for him. Eddie had to suffer through multiple evenings with you. John had to try not to permanently burn his goddamn face.

“So John is here.”

Not that he doubted it. He could string the answer together before you even spoke. Stuck outside alone with a pretty girl in some tight pants? Ha. Anyone else, and it would've been tempting for Eddie, too.

He called it involuntary when his eyes dropped lower than they should've. But as fast as he'd drawn his eyes over your ass, they were back up on your obnoxious sweater.

Nope. He almost laughed. He wasn't about to get caught up in whatever the hell that almost was. Although, if his glance was right, it damn well didn't look like you were wearing any—

“Yes, he is. Minute one of you being late, I waved him off.” You didn’t even glance over your shoulder as Eddie trailed behind you, a not-so-silent blessing. If he got caught looking at your ass, he wouldn't face just his own internal wrath. “Felt cruel asking him to hang out with me alone.”

“Yeah, speaking of…” He shoved his car keys into his backpack as he followed you down the empty hallway of the Carly building. Cool air conditioning ran over him, and he took one stopped step to enjoy it before following your pink conglomeration of Care Bears deaths toward the room. “Surprised you chose this and not working with some of the other guys. Like in the classroom.”

That earned a glance. A cocked brow too.

Eddie cleared his throat and waved around the hallway, the only sound coming from the humming air conditioning system.

“You know, two guys alone with a girl." Two guys with one of them being him. But he elected to keep that out. "Any chance to buffer out shit, I don’t know.”

You stopped and just stared at Eddie for a moment. He’d never felt so dumb having mentioned something so off-hand. The look you gave him wasn’t exactly daggers, but the audacity that crawled onto your face made him question if he hadn’t just said something far dumber than he had. Like he’d slipped up and called you baby instead of his car or some shit. Or maybe he had gotten caught accidentally checking you out. Which he’d deny up the whole damn wall of the hallway.

“Eddie.”

Your brows pinched tighter, and, Jesus, you had pink shimmers on your lips, too. They formed into a pout that made something in Eddie's chest pinch, and all he could do was just stare right back at you. Was he supposed to answer that? Or know what you meant just by saying his name?

Apparently not.

“If it was anyone else, I would’ve just met in the classroom with whoever else was in there. But it’s you. I know you’re not gonna do shit. And John’s never been able to even draw me without turning red—figured I’m clear there.” You faced forward and continued walking. “You’re an asshole, but you’re not a prick.”

Eddie blinked at your back for a second. Then another. A moment too long and—holy shit. Why was that throwing him off so much? Sure, he'd never heard that pretty mouth curse before, but that shouldn't have made him feel like suddenly he was in a goddamn alternate universe. But who would've thought it's you would've meant so much. And from you of all people.

He shook his head, trying to reset himself. But the brain cells in his head were bouncing together like restless little bees. He was in creative bickering mode. Not accepting some weird-ass backward compliment.

“Aw, wow,” he dredged up with a mocking tone. “I think that’s the closest to a compliment you’ve ever given me.”

“I’m feeling charitable,” you said without skipping a beat, suddenly turning to throw a door open. “I just want to get this over with.”

“Yeah.” He threw a hint of irritation into his voice that he didn’t even have to pretend to find. An act of charity. Ha. “Don’t we fucking both.” He stopped in the doorway and saw John hunched over a sketchbook at one of the tables in the back. Some headphones were pulled over his ears, and his leg was bouncing real hard and fast as he glanced up and waved. “Or for the three of us.”

“Just sit down, please?” You waved to a nearby chair, and Eddie sauntered over. In the low lighting of the room, the bags beneath your eyes looked a little deeper. Some makeup covered them, but the shadows hit them at the same angle they’d hit Wayne after long nights. “Get set up; I’ll deal with this stuff.”

John nodded silently. Interesting. Eddie pulled out his sketchbook, the project packet, and the crinkled notebook paper he'd scribbled some ideas onto. He blamed you, really, for the lack of shit on the page. He couldn't figure out a nice place to settle his gaze on as he watched John scoot over toward him, turned to watch you turn all the lights on, and stared down at his annoying piece of paper. They were fine ideas if he wanted an okay grade. Draw you in some fanciful setup. Mrs. George had already said models could do the same pose, position, set up, anything between two students. They wouldn't be critiqued for taking the same concept and putting their own approach on it.

So, Eddie had some ideas he figured could work for him and John. You dancing and striking an exaggerated pose. A candid version of you with some kind of prop that he couldn't figure out what to use. Pom-poms? Only time he really saw you jubilant was during those cheerleader yearbook pictures. And the few times he'd ended up getting dragged to a game. He'd tried his best to avoid the pep rallies, but occasionally, some slipped through the cracks. At least the outfits were cute and made it a little more enjoyable.

At least John looked like he had a few more ideas than Eddie.

"So." You cleared your throat before dragging a chair up. Your eyes shifted between him and John a few times before a sigh dragged itself out of your throat. "I'm here to do what you two want." Bracelets jingled on your wrists, and your fingers wiggled as your hands lifted out to motion toward the room. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

"Oh, uh. Right." John shifted and started to thumb through his notebook. "Um. I have a few ideas."

"Me too," Eddie grunted.

"I was thinking about an angelic spread. Something dramatic. Um, (Y/N), you wouldn't have to do anything other than, like...wear a flowy dress, get some backlighting, and then we could add the rest however we see fit."

"Angelic?" Eddie snorted as he looked at you, your glare doing nothing to stop the laugh that followed. "That's certainly an idea."

"And you, Eddie?" Your voice was sour. A dare. "What do you have?"

"No, by all means." He motioned behind you where a small circular stage would mark where you'd strand for the next few hours. "I'd love to see the teacher's pet play an angel."

"Well, uh, the other was some kind of spin on mythology." John scooted closer and nodded down at Eddie's sketchbook. "I know she wants you to, uh, stretch out of your comfort zone, and I think mythology could be a good stepping stone from...bats and spiders and some of those hybrid animals you've drawn before and into a more lively concept. Which...I also need to work on."

Your eyes visibly widened before you said it.

"That sounds really awesome, John."

How could five words sound so grating? And a compliment, at that. Not to him. Eddie scowled at himself as he sank back in his seat. He'd been so damn distracted with his car and Wayne and Corroded Coffin and practicing and trying to get over the fact that you were the one he had to forcibly work with that his brain just stalled. He'd stared at his stupid notebook for goddamn ages and nothing.

"I mean, if that's not a good idea," John started, eyes flicking over to Eddie.

"No," he said quickly, finding both of you looking at him. His jaw hurt as he tried to stop frowning. "Better than anything I got. Sounds good."

"Oh. Okay."

John seemed to visibly relax. His cheeks were a bit pink as he glanced back at you, and he nodded to himself before flipping through to another page in his notebook. Goddamn. The guy had ideas. It pressed a little sharp pain to Eddie's chest as he leaned over. Your perfume wasn't doing anything to help his focus as he looked at John's picture-perfect handwriting. The guy was so damn talented, had ideas just coming outta every part of him, and his flaw was he got flustered around a pretty woman. Eddie just had a few honed talents when drawing shit for Hellfire and Corroded Coffin, not creating some of the masterpieces he'd seen John conjure up or creating that many ideas. He'd been so overrun with other shit, and then the inclusion of you added in, even his brain still felt run down.

The two of them decided on posing you first. Eddie liked a handful of John's ideas that he figured could be versatile enough. And the second he heard siren, Eddie was sold. He could already picture you spread out on some rock, soaked and leaning against the sharp edges, waving out to passing sailors to lure them in. Well, he had to get past the obnoxious outfit first but wasn't that hard.

John wouldn't pose you. Despite trying to verbally explain in as much detail as he could, and you being extremely patient and trying to carefully shift into what John meant, he just...wouldn't go up and pose you. It'd been about forty minutes of working through different poses that neither of them could agree on, and this snag went right to Eddie's patience. Or lack thereof.

His chair shot out from behind him as he pushed up, tired of seeing you listen so sweetly to John's second-guessing. He knew what John wanted you to do, but, apparently, there was a miscommunication between not like that, could you try to move your hips a little more?

Who would've thought?

You jumped as Eddie sauntered up behind you, and he reached out for your hip before stopping.

"Mind if I—"

"Fine," you muttered, eyes dropping away before Eddie's could barely meet them. "Go ahead."

"Great." He pivoted behind you, hands on your hips, and guided you back toward the center of the platform. The pants were thinner than he was expecting, and he could feel your body heat through the touch. A reminder he really shouldn't have needed that you weren't actually some mythical creature in disguise sent to torment him when he was least expecting it. "Just...come on."

He angled your hips back, making your back curve into a faint arch. Just not enough of one for his liking. So he brought one hand a little lower on your hip while the other skated all the way up your spine and pressed between your shoulder blades.

Shit.

You weren't. Eddie's hand twitched on your hips. No fucking way you were wearing any underwear. He was so grateful your back kept his face hidden and that you hadn't chosen that moment to turn around cause he could feel the heat pressing against his cheeks. He had to look like damn John as he tried to pull his hands back, but the other just skated back down your spine.

It was almost cruel how soft your sweater was.

Your feet shifting just as the tips of Eddie's fingers left your sweater brought him out of the sudden quickening of his heart. It wasn't beating any faster, was it? Shit. He pressed his mouth into a line as he walked around to your left side. John was nodding at the shift, his mouth opening to give the next instruction, but Eddie already knew it. And he reached up for your elbows. Your arms were raised up and—goddamn it—it brought the bottom of your sweater with it. It was just a small patch of skin. A line of your stomach visible and soft looking and why was his mouth starting to hurt? His jaw even had an ache to it as he positioned your arms just right, willing his hands to stay still.

Get it together, Munson. Christ, it was you of all people. It was you, a small patch of skin, no underwear, and those pouty lips. Why were you even pouting? Did you realize you were doing it? Was it cause he was touching you? Probably. He wasn't supposed to be having an argument with his internal monologue. But it was damn hard not to. Especially when he had to reach up and fix the position of your head.

He should've washed his hands. He hadn't even bothered to check your sweater to see if any of those damn grease stains had fucked it up. Stop caring. You'll just get a new one. But he still wiped his hands off on his jeans before he carefully touched the bottom of your chin. Soft and warm. That was all he registered as he guided you to look up. At the stars, at a descending god, at a passing ship in the distance you could call out to. The background could be fixed after figuring out which one the guys wanted to run with for their own projects. But, for now, as Eddie drew his hand down and the tips of his fingers grazed down to the hollow of your throat and they touched your necklace, they just had to get an idea.

He swallowed harder than he liked as he carefully fixed your necklace so the clasp wasn't showing.

"Think you can hold this pose for me?"

Us. Shit. One little slip. But he couldn't correct himself. Instead, he just gave you an expectant look when the seconds started to tick by.

"I've had to do worse for cheer practice," you finally answered, and was there a roughness to your voice? There had to be. Cause it went right damn down to Eddie's cock. Oh, he was royally screwed. Doubly so when you had the gall to glance down and meet his gaze. "I can take it."

Eddie let out a short laugh. Almost a snort. Even gave your nose a soft little boop with his finger to try and find at least some of that irritation and mocking from before. Either on your face or his own. Didn't work. And he felt the words creep up with the best opportunity to say them that he had, and he pitched forward.

"Good girl." He lowered his hand and finally found that annoyance he could cling to. "Who knew you could be so amicable?"

"I always do what I'm told," you muttered, eyes shooting back up as the words just barely stuttered.

And maybe you were some being meant to torture him. He had to take a deep—and very quiet—breath before stepping back. The images that line produced should've been almost impossible, but the setup aimed to kill. He wanted to kiss that lip gloss off your mouth, unzip the side of your pants and really confirm what he already knew, and tell John to fuck off as he bent you over one of the tables near the back. You'd moan so pretty for him, and he's stall, draw it out. Just enough to hear you ask him to fuck you; it'd be so vindicating, especially as that diamond necklace bounced with every slow thrust.

Fuck.

But even worse, he wanted you to ask him.

He turned quickly, going for his seat so he could get a pencil in his hands before they started to shake too much. Get it the fuck together. John was already bent over his sketchbook and drawing out an incredible starry backdrop while Eddie could barely figure out where to start with some kind of oceanic shit.

When he glanced back up, his thoughts were immediately shut up when he saw you looking at him.

Goddamn it. It was you. Bitchy, cheerleading, gossiping, rich-girl you.

He hunched over his desk and tried drawing anything. A sun, a spider, a bat, a dragon, a ship, ocean, rock, a flowing dress, a mermaid's tail, a bird, a guitar, a skull. But nothing felt right.

Cause even if was you, that didn't mean he didn't want to fuck that pout off your pretty face.

Damn it.

Maybe he was a bit of a prick.

pt four - nsfw-ish - 9.9k words

Shit.

Eddie sucked in his cheeks. The bottoms of his teeth were exceptionally sharp into them as he started on page four? He thumbed back at the bottom corner of his blue sketchbook and winced. Page five of some shitty attempts. John was on number two after finishing a rough sketch of some goddamn angelic, goddess version of you. Now he had you splayed out on a rock as a mermaid, hands up to take a bottle of wine from some curious sailors. All he was using was some pencil and paper, and the bastard managed to make your eyes sparkle. And Eddie? He couldn’t even figure out how to get the rock right for you to lay on.

“Hey, guys?” Your voice was soft, but it still pulled Eddie right out of his thoughts. “Mind if we take a break? I think I need to stretch.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m so sorry. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” John quickly closed his sketchbook and set it aside. His hands scraped down his pants repeatedly before he broke. “I’m actually, um, just gonna run to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Oh, fucking great.

Eddie stayed hunched over his latest attempt—the sea smashing against the side of the rock, your basic outline on top of it. But it wasn’t clicking. The purpose was there; the lines connected and made sense of the image only halfway completed in his head, but it wasn’t…

A soft moan pushed from your mouth as you stretched. He hadn’t even heard you hop off the platform, but there you were, bending over to touch your toes. Pulled your arms back, popped your back, rolled your neck. Sighed. Grabbed that red purse, pulled out that sparkly pink lip gloss, and dabbed on a little more onto that pout. A soft frown that barely turned the corners of your lips down.

Cause you were stuck alone with him, that’s why it was there. He could feel it.

His eyes trailed down over your profile slower than he’d ever given himself the moment to do. You were pretty. Pretty, popular, prissy, and a teacher’s pet. He looked back down at his sketch and tried to fix the sailor’s being beckoned in, but he couldn’t help but imagine himself stuck somewhere between the rock, the sea, you, and the ship. He’d just wanted to be paired with Jesse. None of this would’ve been worming itself into his head if he was focused on detailing that tattoo he rarely showed off.

“Do I need to do a new pose?”

“What?” Eddie asked, far too eager to take the opportunity to not draw.

You slowly stepped over and pointed at his notebook. A flush of humiliation he hadn’t felt before hit him. Was he that obvious?

“As much as it pains me to say it, I’m here to be your tool. If something isn’t working, you have to…” You pursed your lips and gave him a deadpanned expression. “Well, you have to tell me what to do.”

Eddie drew his teeth along his bottom lip as he scooted forward. His weight was pressed into his forearms on top of the cold desk, and his rings clanked loudly against each other. His fingers were sore as they clasped together, and a damn blister was already starting to form on his middle finger. The humiliation stung, especially when he knew John’s art was sitting just out of sight, looking incredible. He could transfer it onto a canvas, turn it in later in the week, and he’d get a damn A. Eddie couldn’t even get the damn bare bones down.

“And you’ll do what you’re told?” He smiled up at you with what was supposed to be annoyance, but he could hear it in his voice. It definitely wasn’t that. Far from it as it came off quiet and almost rough around the edges. And all he could do was own it. Whatever it was. It got you to stop as you reached toward his sketchbook to see his current draft, and your eyes quickly jerked up to his face. Right where he maintained a mocking smirk.

“No, I’d make life harder for both of us, not listen to your directions, and have to spend even more time here.” You shifted your weight around on your sneakers. Had you had those in high school? He had a distinct memory of watching one of your friends draw on your shoes during class. You’d gotten in trouble for it instead of paying attention. One of the few times he’d actually seen you get in trouble with a teacher. “Yes, loser. I’d listen. Now what do you want me to do?”

He jerked his chin in the direction of the platform, teeth grinding. His mind was starting to get off-topic again when you were so close, and he could smell that damn perfume again. It was a curse to his focus, one he barely had a grip on. There was one buzzing light that kept driving him mad. A slightly uneven distribution around the desk which made the thing wobble weirdly when he moved around. Trying not to think about your lack of underwear. That sliver of your stomach that’d been visible when your shirt rose.

He’d gotten that down. Wow, yeah. In every attempt, he’d been able to get your torso right damn perfect. The curve of your back, what he imagined the rest of your bare stomach to look like, some shitty version of a bathing suit top cause when he was sitting there in a room with just you and John, he couldn’t remember what a siren looked like.

“I…”

He wanted to smack himself. To go home, grab his guitar, and just play until the pads of his fingers hurt. Wayne wouldn’t be there to piss off, he hated his neighbors, and he didn’t have to worry about having anything in the morning. He could just play all night, letting the music swirl around him, stealing him away until his brain went numb and he could sleep. But the door abruptly opened and John stepped back inside, hands still damp and a faint sheen on his less red cheeks.

“Just hop back up there, will you?”

You held up your hands after your eyes lingered. If you were going to say something, you kept it to yourself. You did have a job to do, after all. And as Eddie’s eyes strayed down as you walked away, regretfully enjoying how your hips swayed, he was grateful. He really didn’t want John to know how much he was struggling. And if the way you were already wincing as you stepped back up into the position, the torture wouldn’t last too much longer. He just had to figure out how to get past drawing your torso and figure out how to create a hellscape of an ocean with a siren looking for victims.

But, as silence fell around the room and the scratching of pencils resumed, it seemed utterly impossible.

“Jesse said one of the girls is doing a charcoal piece of him from behind, engulfed in some kind of weird dark flames.” You walked beside Eddie a few paces when time was finally called. “It’s pretty minimalistic compared to what John’s thinking for this stuff.”

John was already gone, off somewhere climbing into his car after routinely thanking you for your help. Eddie just scoffed and took his time packing up, trying to get over how he’d wasted three more pages in his notebook with shitty renditions of the sketch. You were scheduled to meet back up Thursday night so John could start on an actual canvas. He asked if you could wear some kind of flowy dress or skirt if possible, and Eddie already knew you’d say yes before you even nodded. No doubt that you had to have a whole closet full of pretty flashy dresses like that.

“And?” Eddie dug his keys into his hand as he peered at you. Anger seeped into his voice when he hadn’t fully intended it to.

“You…” A sigh snuck out. A tired laugh. “I’m trying to offer you advice, Eddie. That’s all. You don’t have to make it this grand piece of art with a full landscape and multiple people. It can just be something you are fascinated with and can find a little bit of that in me—in my modeling.” You turned, sneakers dragging on the sidewalk. “That’s all. Jeeze. I’ll see you next week, Eddie.”

Eddie frowned at your back, the sway of your hips still edging its way into his mind beyond what it should’ve been. Too many slip-ups. Why the hell was he feeling guilty about this? He scratched his jaw as he continued to stand there, letting his vision blur before finally turning to leave. He left you with your back to him on the sidewalk, those pink pants catching in the overhead lights like some kind of fantasy.

What was wrong with him? First, the damn thoughts about fucking you in the back of the classroom, now guilt. Had he hit his head? He pulled a cigarette out and had it lit before he even started his car. Christ. Those stupid pants. He wiped a hand over his face, old grease be damned. He could still feel how warm you were just under a damn fleeting touch.

The inhale was long on the cigarette, and he whipped his van out of the spot and lot to get home.

His leg bounced, and he turned his music up so he couldn’t hear his thoughts. Or see your pouty lips quiver as you struggled to hold the pose near the end there. Your thighs quivered, your arms quivered, those lips, even your stomach twitched. He’d been the one to call it, telling you to relax. It was getting too late to stick it out any longer. He couldn’t handle seeing you so visibly determined to keep the pose without fucking it up.

He felt blood rush to his cock as he stopped at a red light and pushed back against his seat. Why the fuck were you in his head? He shook his head considerably violently and tried to move it to the music. Tried to get some of the sighs you’d let out while stretching to leave his head. But nope. You’d been annoying as hell in high school. A mutual nuisance to each other. Irritated glares in the classrooms and hallways. Not this shit. Not him wanting to help you pose again next time so he could have an excuse to touch you.

He flicked the cigarette out the window, a groan getting lost in the music.

He had art he had to focus on, all different mediums. But when he got home and climbed in bed, the only thing he could really do was crumble up paper, drop his head into his hands, and then play guitar until his fingers hurt. And even then, nothing became clear. He needed something else. Maybe not a siren. It wasn’t clicking. Wasn’t right. You’d be in a flowy dress the next time he saw you; maybe that would spark some kind of joy.

When he saw Jesse drop you off, joy was damn well not the emotion elicited.

“Careful, he doesn’t have a varsity jacket for you to wear. Doubt you could pull off leather,” Eddie chided as he passed you. A bundled dress was folded over your arm, a pair of heels hanging from one hand.

“Yeah, cause that’s the only reason I talked to people in high school. For their jackets.” You jerked past him, bumping his shoulder with yours. “You’ve caught me, Eddie. My god.”

He caught the door before it closed on you, still wrestling with your stuff. Your sneakers tapped down the hallway quickly, and Eddie had to speed up to keep up with you. Jesse’s car hummed as he pulled away, making a weird tingling go down Eddie’s neck. Why was he looking at yours? Why was he satisfied when the only thing he found was your necklace?

“And yes, I would,” you snapped, a glance thrown back at him. He only cocked a brow at your glare and waited for you to elaborate. “It’s not my go-to or my preferred, but I’d look damn good in his leather jacket.”

Your eyes dropped to the one Eddie wore like a second skin. He barely even registered he had it on until you looked down at it. His jacket. Jesse’s. Not his. It pushed on his chest for a second before he just pulled out an annoyed smile and jerked the classroom door open.

“Good. Cause I don’t lend mine out to prissy suck-ups.” He nudged past you before you could get through the doorway, finding John already in the room. Your scoff went unanswered, but he damn well registered it. A few more choice words came to mind, but he just dropped his bag and started to fish his shit out. The faster he could get the shit over with, the faster he wouldn’t have to deal with you. Or the weird shit happening in his head whenever he smelled your perfume or looked at your legs.

John loved the dress you bought. Some weird costume with too much fabric in places that’d look damn good in some kind of breeze, and damn well not enough where there was supposed to be some. It billowed out around your legs and clung up to your upper body. It had a sinfully low neckline that barely allowed for a bra, but even if it hadn’t, Eddie already knew you’d keep it on. Not just for John’s sake, but the sheer cups that pressed to your chest. Christ, he was being tortured today. His leg bounced hard as you got into position on the small platform, and the lights hit the sheer white—maybe it was a super light pink?—fabric, and you really did look like the ethereal being John had plastered on his paper. Except this time he had a canvas.

“Is it okay if—”

“Don’t care, man.” Eddie sank back in the desk and tapped his pencil against his sketchbook, watching you get into the position John wanted. “Do whatever.”

One day with you. John found his shit after one goddamn day. Yeah, fucking fine. Eddie might’ve been simplifying it a bit with the days in between. But he’d had all that time too. And his pencil had only touched the paper once for the project. And that was to perfect the curve of your back and try to imagine how you’d look without something covering your upper body. Which was a plan he gave up the second it left siren territory and what that’d look like in his bed. It was his own fault that he’d tried to work on the project there.

You’d been such a kiss-ass in high school. Annoyed and uninterested glares over your shoulder and in hallways. Gossiping friends and way too much care about all that other shit during school. Think about that, Eddie. Think about the assholes. The meatheads he’d seen you flirt with just cause they had a fancy letterman jacket. The teachers you’d sucked up to and do goddamn extra credit for.

He penciled in the low neckline, focusing on where your necklace found itself right by your tits. He really tried not to think about them. He tried to draw other parts of you too. The dress was fine. The position your body was in was fine. But he really liked how the light hit above you and traveled down over your, blanketing itself over your top half. It faded off near your legs, so he used that as the reason to keep his attention where your tits were. And not just because the neckline would’ve made it real easy to pull the straps down from your shoulders so he could kiss every damn inch of your chest until it was littered in hickies. He squeezed his pencil harder as he shaded down along the curve of your breast, and he could practically hear the soft moan you’d let out when he put his mouth on one of your nipples. Would you fold into him like he damn well wished you would or grab him by his hair and snap at him to keep going?

“That looks really good.”

Eddie jolted up as you put a hand on his shoulder. You were touching him. You were touching him? Why were you willingly touching him? Oh. There was a loud thump on the ground as one of your heels was dropped to the floor. For the next one, your hand went to the back of his chair, the warmth and weight of you gone in an instant. Didn’t stop his heart from hammering as he peered up at you. Thankfully, though, you weren’t looking at his shocked expression and catching him painfully off guard. Worse, you were staring down at the shitty attempt at drawing you for the third time in that pose, and the most detailed part was your goddamn upper body. Like your tits.

“What?” Eddie shook his head and felt his cheeks burn. “It’s…thanks. Sure.”

What the fuck?

When he dared to look back up, he was willing death to creep in and end his stuttering. Cause, for the love of god, he’d stuttered? When he found your expression, though, it was a soft smile. Almost genuine. But it was so close to the shit you pulled when John was blushing his damn ass off. The same shit you’d pull in high school to get your way. Just a little smile and everyone would always be around you, fluttering like little bees around their queen.

“Do you draw a lot of this kind of stuff?” You reached down and tapped a pink painted nail onto your drawn stomach. “Like people? I thought this stuff was more your speed.”

Eddie froze when you tapped his forearm. He knew exactly what tattoo you were touching—the puppet master he’d gotten years ago now—but you were purposefully touching him. His skin. Standing beside him. Smiling at him. He felt like some sick fuck was playing a joke on him. Maybe you were playing a joke on him. Looking to see if he’d recoil like holy water to a demon. But the few seconds he had to do that were gone, and he just swatted your hand away before readjusting how he leaned back in the chair. For the love of…his cock pressed hard against the zipper of his jeans, and he prayed you couldn’t see it.

“It is,” he grunted. “I don’t do this ethereal kinda shit that well.”

But, the horny side of him had experimented with some different doodles of stuff closer to what you were still looking at on the page. They were just less clothed. And less you.

“But you do this well.” You tugged his sketchbook closer. Why did it feel like Eddie’s heart was going to squeeze itself to death? The way you canted your head and drew your eyes over some of the shittiest work he’d done, that wasn’t genuine interest, was it? “Why not do something more like this and pull the focus there?”

Eddie just threw up a hand, his rings clanking hard on the desk when it came down.

“Cause it’s a project. It’s supposed to be this big fucking thing. Gotta make it look good. I don’t fucking know.”

The classroom door opened and closed. John—when the hell had John even left—came back in with some paint-stained paper towels on his hands. And there was that smile back right on your face. The same one you’d given his art. The same one you were giving John as he blushed as hard as the red paint still on his hand. Eddie tugged his sketchbook back in front of him and flipped to a clean page, ignoring how you pulled back quickly but didn’t move away from his desk yet.

He was starting to get why so many of those meatheads leaned against your lunch table and batted their lashes at you. He just hoped his cheeks weren’t as red as John’s.

Three days. It took John three days to finish his project. It was Sunday night when he turned the canvas around to show you. You put a hand on his shoulder, beaming at the goddamn talent bleeding from the piece. A starry night with a ray of sunshine cutting in from off the page. Your dress had a moonlight aura to it until the sun hit it, making it sparkle with a pale yellow tint. The sun warmed your face as you smiled, reaching out for more. A midnight landscape of tall grass and wildflowers covered the rest of the canvas. A desperate woman reaching out for a goddess before the darkness swallowed her. Mrs. George wanted John’s shit to come to life, and he damn well captured it.

And what had Eddie done? Shit, he mastered a few new songs with his friends. Helped Wayne change the oil on his car, pointlessly used up pages in his sketchbook, chugged some Mt. Dew during a D&D session, and watched Jesse drop you off the next few days. But he’d done goddamn nothing on his project. He even tried calling you once, just to see if he could snag you for a one-on-one to try and get something to work. But after he’d dialed, he realized how fucking weird that was. Asking to work alone with you. And as the dread kicked in that he was about to do that, the message tone went off, and he quickly slammed the phone down. Fuck that. There’d also been one meeting in class so Mrs. George could see how the projects were coming along, otherwise she wanted all of the students to have ample time to complete it.

Eddie purposefully skipped that class.

“Tuesday night,” you said as Eddie and John packed up. “Meet here at six again?”

“Sure. Fine.” Eddie slammed his notebook shut and pushed out of the desk. “Six.”

He was embarrassing himself. He ground his teeth together and shook his head. Maybe he wasn’t ready to take classes yet. He couldn’t even come up with a damn idea for this project. It was like a fist pounding the side of his head over and over and over. But no ideas were getting knocked loose. For fuck’s sake. At least let that happen. Give him something to fucking work with.

“Eddie.”

He felt himself stagger to a halt just outside Carly. Confusion covered him as you ran up behind him, clutching that red leather purse and the dress hiked up so you didn't trip on it.

"Wait, just…" You sighed and dropped the dress down, rolling your shoulders and hugging the clothes you'd worn there to your chest. "Work with me here. Is there anything I can wear or bring Tuesday to help?"

Christ, to help. He really was making a whole mistake with the class, wasn't he? He'd drawn you how many times in class now, and he couldn't muster up anything for this shit. He realized he was shaking his head before he saw you frowning.

"Nope. Just supposed to make something outta you. That's what the teach wants." He dramatically waved a hand over you, letting his sneakers carry him toward his van without much pause. "So just bring yourself or some shit. That's all."

He slammed his car door and lit a cigarette, sitting in the lot a few minutes longer than he should've. But from where he was parked, he was able to watch you slip back inside, say bye to John when you came back out, and then head off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Damn it. He took off before John could pass him and see him sitting there.

The realization only dawned on him when he got home, showered, and climbed in bed. And it smacked him like a goddamn idiot, wading through all the other muck and shit flooding his brain. Just scoped out that little growing ball of guilt in his chest and made the damn thing double. It tripled through Monday when he tried to work on Corroded Coffin shit with the band, swinging by to pick up the guys before they went to The Hideout to talk shop. It was pressing hard against his chest when he was leaning up against the side of Carly when you walked up the sidewalk. You came from the opposite direction of where he'd parked in the damn near empty lot, and his stomach tightened.

"What the fuck happened to Daddy's fancy red car he gave you?"

You stopped dead in your tracks like he'd just called you a cunt or some shit. There was offense, confusion, amusement, then offense again. But he knew for a fact you still had that car. He'd seen it around just a few months ago. Pissed him off cause it'd been a big deal when you'd turned eighteen, and your parents gifted it to you. Suddenly, you started driving yourself to school instead of hopping outta one of the cars with the other cheerleaders.

"I'm sorry?" There was a little bit of laughter in your voice, and you hoisted the tote bag you had with you up higher on your shoulder.

"Jesse's been dropping you off, and there sure as shit isn’t a parking lot that way." He nodded in the direction he'd seen you come from. "The fuck happened to your car?"

Your jaw clenched hard for a moment. Your eyes went up to the building, back to the parking lot, then finally at him again.

"It's been busted for about a month. Check engine light's on, and I can't afford to take it to the shop. Okay?" You cleared your throat and tugged on that diamond necklace. "I live close enough that I just walk. We're wasting time."

You jerked the building's door open and strutted inside. But that guilt just weighed harder on Eddie as he followed you in. How blind had he been to that shit that he hadn't noticed you walking there? Shit, walking home. At night. Late at night. It might've just been goddamn Hawkins, but that was still leaving you to walk home alone at night. Or, shit, Jesse was dropping you off; there was clearly something there. Why the hell wasn't he picking you up?

"Jesse drops you off; the fuck doesn't he pick you up?"

You threw the studio door open, face twisting in confusion.

"Jesse just dropped me off cause I had to bring the dress. He was just doing me a favor, and he was already going out of his way to do that. I'm not going to ask him to pick me up and interrupt his night." You sat the tote bag down on what used to be John's desk. "Besides, he'd get the wrong idea then. And I don't feel like having to explain that I really just wanted a ride home, not an excuse to invite him over to my apartment late at night."

Eddie slowly pulled out his sketchbook and stared down at the desk. It was a weird mix of feelings—the guilt accompanied the notion that you and Jesse were so clearly just friends. Even if he could damn well read it on Jesse's face that he damn well wouldn't mind being more with you. Although that was fairly obvious. Eddie slowly sank down in his chair and opened the book. Goddamn it. He eyed you as he flipped back to a blank page. He’d grabbed the wrong one. He had his school one, and then the one he drew late at night when a different kind of inspiration struck. And that was all he’d been experiencing lately.

Problem, besides the obvious of not wanting you to see the filth he drew, was this one was too small to do any real work in. But he'd make do. It wasn't like he was expecting to get anything done tonight. No inspiration had struck since he'd left Sunday. He had drawn the few dirty pieces, but those were nestled near the front of the book with lots of blank pages in between as he opened up to another. Trying not to think about you only pushed his mind further into that section of his brain, apparently. Made him draw lots of naked upper bodies, though. But he couldn't exactly turn those in to Mrs. George.

"Let me give you a ride home then tonight," he said abruptly. His voice sounded a little weird, but he just tried to clear it away. "Wayne would kill me if he found out I was letting someone walk home alone at night. Let alone a pretty girl."

Oh, how he craved death when his words were just met with silence. He squeezed his pencil so tight he almost popped a knuckle. And beside him, you just slowly lifted your tote bag. Held it in front of you as you gradually stepped back from the desk.

"Fine." You turned toward the classroom door. "Only because Wayne comes into the diner a lot after work, and he tips well."

Eddie glanced up as the classroom door shut loudly behind you. Diner? When the hell had you started working at a diner? There was a little mom-and-pop kinda place Wayne stopped at after work to grab a special at like five in the morning, and then he'd bring something back for Eddie to snack on when he got up. But…he blinked at the door and sank back. The fuck were you doing working there? A sudden onslaught of questions he wanted to ask piled up in his head. How long had you been working there? Were you working early morning shifts while coming here to help the guys out late at night? Jesse mentioned once that Mrs. George paid the volunteers for the days they worked, and so far, you’d worked the most along with Jesse. He felt like he'd missed something crucial, but he couldn't figure out what the hell was missing.

And, goddamn it, he was going to ask you about it. But when you stepped through the damn door, he lost all will to speak.

"The fuck, (Y/N)."

Eddie blinked a few times as you sauntered in. It wasn't the Hawkins High uniform. And no school had purple and white as their goddamn colors. It had to be a costume or some shit. One you definitely wore well, even with the skirt looking a little too short and the top a little too tight. And—hell—you were positively beaming as you lifted two crappy silver pom-poms up and wiggled them, giving him the biggest shit-eating grin he'd ever seen.

"You said you had to draw me." You tossed the pom-poms aside and hopped up on the little platform, giving Eddie a twirl that sent blood right to his cock. The skirt puffed up with the spin, and there weren't little shorts underneath. Just your underwear. Yellow and blue striped underwear with a fancy yellow bow right on the front. Holy hell. "Figured this fit the bill perfectly." You flattened down your skirt as you faced him. "It was for a costume party I went to a year ago. Found the best reason to dust it off again."

You rolled your shoulders and cracked your knuckles.

"Should I do a cheer? I still remember some of them from high school. I can still do a round-off too." You canted your head and pursed your lips, looking at Eddie's leather jacket on the chair behind him. "I should've brought you a varsity jacket. Really give you the full experience."

Eddie swallowed slowly, mouth dry and hands flat on the desk so he didn't let them shake. He couldn't even be mad. He was so goddamn amused—amongst some other emotions that lent themselves to the erection in his pants—that he just shook his head and laughed. Christ, he had a project due, and you showed up in a goddamn cheer uniform. Doing exactly what he'd asked. What Mrs. George probably wanted from him. You. To draw you. Sweet, prissy, opposite of his shit you.

"You'd have to kill me before I put one of those ugly jackets on," he finally said, leaning back and kicking his feet out. "Thought models were supposed to take this shit seriously."

"Oh, I am." You hopped off the stage and strutted over to him. The goddamn pleats on the skirt—Christ. The way your hips swayed. He really couldn't blame John. "Draw me. None of the stuff John was talking about. Just start small. Draw me in what I know is your favorite version of me. I'll even get the pom-poms."

"If I had to pick something that was anything less than a muse, it'd be you in a goddamn cheerleader uniform."

"Come one. Loads of guys like these. They're cute." You spun a little bit again, and the air left Eddie's lungs. Did you fucking know what you were doing to him? There was no fucking way. "I have the word from many cheerleaders who thank the uniforms for helping score a few kisses behind bleachers."

"Yeah, and what about you?"

What the hell was he doing? Why wasn't he just telling you to go back and change into the jeans and blouse you'd had on before? But goddamn, your lack of mention that you'd experienced that had caught his attention so damn hard.

"What?" You picked up the pom-poms, and Eddie damn near got up and told you that you couldn't bend over in the skirt. It was cruel torture. "Me? I kissed a few guys behind the bleachers, but I wasn't really that invested in stuff like that."

"Bullshit. Those losers fawned over you like you were some Pied Piper or some shit."

You turned and blinked at him. A soft shrug of your shoulders was given before you hopped up on the platform and threw out your arms. The pom-poms shook obnoxiously as you spun.

"Maybe. But I had other stuff I had to focus on. Now, pose me, Eddie. Whatcha wanna draw?"

That was the question of the hour, wasn't it? It was the question of about two and a half hours as he painstakingly leaned over his sketchbook, trying to work with the few basic poses you switched between. He was trying to capture the general image of you as a cheerleader just hanging out up there, nothing special. Just an exact copy. There was some idle chat about what he was trying to draw, what he wanted to draw, and what you could do better for him. But he just shook his head on the last question. It wasn't you. It was his dumb brain. He couldn't get his shit to connect. He was distracted, anxious, and his cock was starting to hurt because you just kept spinning or bending over to grab something. He wanted to tell you exactly what the fuck happened when you did that, but you were alone, at night, in a room with just him. He wasn't going to say shit and make you uncomfortable.

So he'd just suffer the blue balls until he got home and took a cold shower.

"Maybe you need to just play some guitar or something," you muttered on the way out, silence having taken over most of the space after Eddie reluctantly called it early. "It might help clear your head."

"I've tried." He also tried desperately to ignore the fact that you'd remembered what instrument he played. "It's whatever. I'll figure it out next time."

He tossed his bag behind his seat. He'd intended to go over and get your door for you, but you were already sliding into his passenger seat. Goddamn it. You were putting on more lip gloss as he put the key in the ignition, and your skirt bunched up as you sat back and got comfortable. He struggled to find the question he needed to ask as your eyes darted to his, and it was this weird kind of uncanny valley feeling. Was this what it would've looked like if you two had actually been some kind of friends in high school? You riding in his van, plopping some lip gloss on and tugging down on your cheer skirt while heavy metal blared too loudly from his radio?

"Shit. Sorry." He turned it down, fingers lingering by the volume too long. He kept some volume as the tension already crept in. Shit, and worse, he glanced at his dashboard and sighed. "Fuck. I gotta get gas, then I'll get you home. 'Kay?"

"Sure," you said softly. "That's fine."

"Great. Awesome."

He'd never felt so awkward speeding out of a parking lot. Shit, he'd never felt so awkward having to turn his music down while having someone else in the car. He blamed himself and he blamed you. If it were anyone else, it'd be totally fine. He wouldn't feel like he couldn't get comfortable. He’d even cleaned up a bit just in case this actually happened.

"It's my grandma's car, by the way." You shifted in the seat, staring out the window as the gas station came into view. "I got it when she passed. My dad just fixed it up for me. This necklace was hers too."

Eddie stopped beside the pump, putting the car in park and just staring at you. Oh. That damn ball of guilt practically exploded in his chest when you looked at him, and those eyes getting caught up in the ugly overhead lights of the gas station looked real goddamn big. He seriously was a prick.

"I didn't—"

"I know. My friends said the same thing. That my dad bought me the car. He ensured it ran well before I got behind the wheel." The bittersweet smile that crept up on you fucking annihilated him. "It's okay. Just felt like I should clarify that."

Eddie nodded once before doing the only thing he could do: slipped out of the car while a fifty-pound weight pressed against his chest. The fuck was happening? He shook his head. Idiot. It was one misconception. Technically two. He glanced down at the sneakers barely holding themselves together since high school. Goddamn it. He talked so much shit about you wearing that necklace too. And that car—everyone fucking said your dad had gotten it for you.

Damn it.

He went inside to pay, grabbing another pack of cigarettes and a new lighter. Anything to stall having to get back in the car with you while he figured out what the fuck he was going to say to that. He hadn’t meant it like—no. No, he definitely meant it like that.

He groaned as he hopped back out to the car and leaned against it. The whole van moved with him as he gripped the handle on the pump with a vice grip, listening to the gas pump through the hose. Closing his eyes, he scrunched his nose hard until he could get the embarrassment to sneak away just a little more for it to be bearable. He was so dumb. The shit had been right in front of him, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Apologize. That was all he had to do. Just a sorry for insinuating. That was it. Didn’t have to be anything serious; the time for that already passed. And, Christ, he was overthinking it. He pressed his hand to his forehead, reaching for the driver’s door, a groan sneaking out as it jerked open. All he had to do was just drop you off, ask when you wanted to meet up again, and then everything would be—

Eddie stopped dead when his eyes flicked up to you. In his back seat. Holding his sketchbook.

“What the fuck—”

“I swear, I wasn’t snooping.”

You dropped the sketchbook instantly and put your hands in the air like he was a fucking cop. Your cheer top was gone and swapped with the white button-down blouse you’d had on earlier. With wide eyes that matched yours, Eddie slowly took a breath and tried desperately not to ask what the fuck you saw in his sketchbook. Or what the hell you were doing.

“Not on purpose. Listen, the costume’s cute, but the top’s uncomfortable. I went to change and spilled my bottle of water. Some of it got on your bag, and I got scared I messed your stuff up. I wasn’t…purposefully trying to rifle through your stuff.”

You slowly climbed back up to the front seat and buckled yourself in. But Eddie could barely move. If that was his class sketchbook, fine. Whatever. But what the fuck had you seen in that one?

As if his life depended on it, he gradually lowered himself into the seat. He spun his keys in his fingers and started the car. He only realized he was nodding when he heard you say his name.

“Hm?”

“I live over in the Hills complex.”

“Sure,” he said softly. Right. He had to take you home. A fifteen-minute drive. Christ. How long had that taken you to walk? “Right.”

The whole class had been such a dumb idea. He pulled out of the gas station with his jaw clenched, hands tight on the wheel. Wayne had mentioned something about taking it—it could be fun, and then it might help him find muses to make Corroded Coffin album art. Sure. Fine. It was cheap enough, and if it did help, it’d paid for itself. But if he knew it’d have turned into this shit stain, he wouldn’t have bothered. Or he would’ve waited until the next round. Fucking anything other than this guilt-ridden, leg-bouncing, not-good-enough gnawing sensation in his stomach.

“You’re a good artist.”

Eddie almost missed his turn when you spoke. He cursed under his breath before running a yellow-turning-red light.

“What?” He blinked at you, making an ill-fated mistake. How could a person look so good in the moonlight?

“Your notebook is safe and fine. But I saw some of the stuff in there. I’m sorry for snooping, but I have to say it’s really good. Better than what you were working on with John and me.” You played with one of your bracelets. “I think you work a lot better channeling a person than trying to create a story out of a whole picture. You prefer the story the body tells.”

The red light of the signal was harsh across the car, but you didn’t stop looking at him. He was fairly certain his heart was stopping in his chest, though. Your voice was softer and that sickeningly sweet you used around like John. A soft flutter like a butterfly was going to suddenly go and sit nicely on your shoulder while you continued, unknowing and frustratingly graceful as you spoke.

“If that makes sense.” Your quiet laugh was like when Gareth got a new knife, and he’d accidentally swung it a little too close to Eddie and pricked his chest. But he didn’t mind the weird stinging this time. “I’m better in different creative areas. Art like this isn’t my most knowledgeable subject. But there’s such a significant difference between the stuff in there than the stuff you were trying to make out of what John pitched.”

“(Y/N),” he said quietly, pressing his foot down on the gas when the light finally turned green. His voice was catching in his throat, his cheeks were burning hot, and a special kind of mortification he had never felt associated with those drawings slammed into his back. “Some of the shit in there—”

“I’ve posed for Mrs. George’s class before. I’ve done a couple of projects that put me in less clothing than you had some of those sketches in. My point still stands. They were good, and I think you shine in that department.”

Eddie opened and closed his mouth a few times. What the fuck? He shifted in his seat, fixed his grip on the wheel, tried to get comfortable. He craved a cigarette he wasn’t going to light with you in the car. Shit, he wanted to know which ones you saw. He wanted to know where the girl recoiling away from him when he happened to walk by you in the hallway went and who the hell this version of you was. Were you like this in high school and he just hadn’t been able to see it cause you avoided each other like the plague? Or was this new?

“What, you think I should draw some of that shit for Mrs. George? Doubt she’d appreciate something that explicit.”

“She said nudity was fine.”

You spoke without missing a beat, not giving Eddie any time to be able to come up with another deflective response. He was going to drive himself mad if he didn’t change the conversation topic. Nudity and you could not intermingle when he was already struggling to get his head in order. Damn it. He squeezed the wheel tighter and forced out a playful laugh.

“Yeah, and last I checked, my model said she didn’t do nudity, so on to the next step.”

“And if I change my mind?”

Eddie couldn’t speak. He just took a slow, ragged, uneven breath and pressed himself back in his chair. You were a model offering to help him with something he was supposedly good at. That was all it was. It was just that. He couldn’t let that go to his head as fast as it was going to his cock. Even if the idea of you sprawled out on a bed completely naked, lying there while he just got to memorize every curve of your body, was killing him. Jesus, and he knew you’d look damn good like that on his bed.

“I’m not gonna…no.” Eddie shook his head. “No. I’m not doing that.”

“Well, the offers there. Just nothing below the belt.” You smiled down at your lap, and the van came to another stop at one of those awkward spots in Hawkins where there was just nothing. Nothing but trees, a pointless empty field, and darkness when the sun went down. “Sorry, but the cheer skirt stays on.”

Oh. Oh, it had to be a practical joke. He cursed internally as he glanced past you. It came out of nowhere too. Sort of. That stupid skirt was what started it. Then that image of you on his bed. They mixed together easily, but it was the hit of moonlight on the damn patch of wildflowers in the field that brought the whole image together. And your necklace. The thoughts weaved together like a perfect plait, and he felt panic rise as the light turned green.

“Shit, damn it.” He didn’t go. There weren’t any other cars behind him. He couldn’t ask you. He couldn’t. But then you murmured his name with some concern, and his itchy fingers and bouncing leg brought the words out. “Can I…are you serious about that offer?”

Your brows rose and your mouth parted, but you nodded. “Yeah, I am. Why? Sudden inspiration strike?”

“Yes. Sort of. Just…” He pulled forward, jerking his wheel to the right and pulling off onto a little dirt road there. The whole van wobbled until he came to a stop, a cloud of dust surrounding the windows as he shifted to face you. “Can I try something real quick?”

You blinked at him a few times. Those wide eyes narrowed before there was a little smile tugging at your lips.

“Okay.”

“I swear, totally realize how weird this sounds, but…” He pointed to the back of the van. “I need you back there for it.”

You glanced back past the seats and to the massive open hatch he had. It was such a shitty request. You offer to essentially take your top off so the loser could get some kind of muse, and then he’s pulling off the side of the road and asking you to get in the back of his car. Jesus Christ, what the hell was he thinking? He looked like a total goddamn pig.

He turned to face his wheel and shook his head.

“Wait, I—”

“Okay.”

He stared at your back as you threw open the passenger door. You trotted out to the back and jerked the doors open. A soft laugh carried up to the front, and Eddie couldn’t really catch up with his head. When he glanced back, you were holding up the pillows and blankets he kept back there. But in his defense, those were for when he carried the band equipment to The Hideout and didn’t want shit banging around.

“It’s for band equipment, alright?” He shoved his door open and hopped out. “Just…lay down. I’ll be right back.”

He sped into the field and gave himself an estimated two minutes to pick the best flowers he could find. They were relatively small, so he had to make do with getting two large handfuls and hoping it’d be enough. But he kept distracting himself with you. You, laying in the back of his van, he didn’t deserve that kind of trust. No way you were naive enough to not piece together how weird this looked. But as he sauntered back up to his car, heart pounding, you were laying on the blanket, staring up at the ceiling, ankles crossed.

You pushed up to your elbows and pinched your brows as you saw the flowers.

“How do you want me?”

Just like that.

“I gotta cut some of these stems off, but like that. Just arms above your head, and um…shirt—”

“It’ll come off when those doors shut,” you said narrowing your eyes.

“Course. Yup.” Eddie nodded and sat on the edge of the van. “Yeah. Right.”

But after an excruciating five minutes of knocking the stems down onto the ground and creating a pile of randomly colored flowers beside you, he was grabbing his sketchbook and kneeling beside you. His pencil damn near fell from his hand, his emergency flashlight too, as he tried to get some actual light shining on you. But when he turned around, your shirt was hanging over the back of the seat, and you were sitting there in a white bra.

“On or off?” Your fingers tugged on one of the white straps and Eddie had to count to five in his head before answering.

“Off.”

He looked away as you reached behind you, and he could hear every movement. He could imagine the straps sliding down your arms, your chest getting exposed, the soft thump of it being sat beside you on the ground. His hands shook as he pulled them away from the flashlight, finally getting it just right. And he purposefully kept his eyes anywhere but on you as he turned around. But he had to look. He had to get the flowers situated on you just right before he could start drawing. Even if he had the general idea in his head, he needed to make it perfect here first.

He picked up a handful of flowers and glanced up.

Oh, Christ. He felt the heat shoot to his face. No fucking way he didn’t look like John as he couldn’t stop his eyes from looking at your tits. He felt like an asshole, but they were so damn pretty. And it was for the concept. He needed you bare for the concept. He knew that. But the lingering look was a fine mixture of surprise and general selfishness. And as a small laugh snuck out of you, it really did nothing to soothe the humiliation that had been needle-injected right into his fucking bloodstream.

“How do you want me, Eddie?” You murmured, and all he could do was grind his teeth.

“Arms up,” he answered. It came out a tad more like a command than he intended, but you had your top off in front of him. He was trying not to think about how goddamn pretty your tits were. How badly he wanted to put his mouth there, not the flowers. He watched all of you move as you brought your arms back, and he really wanted to lean down and kiss your jaw. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Fuck that. But your positioning wasn’t quite right, and despite his best efforts, he was having trouble speaking the right words when his eyes fell back down over your nipples. “Can I…is fine if I touch you?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” You nodded.

He watched you swallow as he sat the flowers down. Instinctively, he wiped his hands off on his jeans first, earning another small laugh from you. His look was pointed before he carefully took your wrists. It was a full-body effort not to think about how perfect they felt in his hands. He was not going to think about anything like you pinned beneath him, wrists above your head, back arching as he slowly fucked you. No. He was going to focus on the goddamn pose he needed you to be in. And he needed your wrists up just right, even if they weren’t going to be in the actual shot. Everything had to be just right. Like your back and your hips. Thankfully, the latter settled right where he needed them while he put your left wrist right above your head, and then went for your right and dragged it a little ways away before frowning and bringing it back to rest beside your ear.

There.

He pulled back and reached down, his knuckles accidentally dragging over the curve of your breast as he went for your necklace. He meant to mutter an apology, but acknowledging it felt like it’d only make the whole situation more tense than it already was. And he still had to carefully balance some flowers on you. He messed with your skirt first, though. He needed that just right too. And he reached down for your right leg, murmuring for you to lift before he was cursed with feeling how soft your thigh was as he guided it up. Just enough to bunch your skirt, and he got another flash of your underwear. If he was being tested on keeping his dirty thoughts in check, it was going to be another F on his report card.

He had to stop and slowly pick up the flowers one by one, pretending he was picking them purposefully so he could catch his breath.

“I’d prefer,” he tried instead, hoping that talking would do the trick. It only showed off how his damn voice somehow turned to that shitty sandpaper he’d gotten on sale once. Fucked up his desk he’d been trying to repaint before Wayne helped him fix the damn thing. “If these were spiders crawling outta you, but teach wants me to go with you. And pretty, adorable, sweet little flowers seem far more you.”

“And the cheer skirt,” you murmured just as he placed the first flower right above the top of it. He jerked his eyes up to find you watching him.

“Yeah. And that.”

It should’ve been illegal to touch you as much as he was. Certainly fucking felt like it. Like he was betraying some part of him that rolled his eyes at you in class and scratched off every possible point he could from your homework. That picture-perfect cursive still haunted him. But it didn’t feel like he was crossing off wrong answers on a sheet when his fingers dragged over your stomach, placing the flowers carefully. He had to rearrange a few times, and every time, he tried not to notice how your stomach twitched under his touch. Soft, warm, quick breaths that made the flowers look like they were alive—truly alive. Goosebumps formed on you as he moved higher up. The flowers were getting slightly more sparse here. Not on purpose to keep your tits bare, but he couldn’t have the necklace covered, and he needed the bare vulnerability to show through. He couldn’t get that if you’d kept your bra on. Maybe if someone else was drawing it, they could channel it, but all of it felt right as he placed the last flower and pulled back.

He vowed to ignore the fact that not only were there goosebumps still on your skin, but the very real observation that your nipples were hard.

“This okay, (Y/N)?” He asked when he glanced up and saw you looking at the ceiling.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Just trying not to twitch and mess it up.”

He could’ve sworn your voice sounded rougher. He didn’t comment on it.

“I’ll try and go fast, I don’t—”

“No, take your time, Eddie.” You gave him a sweet smile; still didn’t look at him, though. “I’m comfortable. It’s fine.”

“Do you always interrupt people?” He grabbed some of the pillows so he could lean back, thumbing to a bare page and propping the notebook up on his knee. “Or am I just special?”

“I interrupt people when it’s called for. Like when they’re going to say something ridiculous.” You cleared your throat, your next breath making him stop to watch how the whole picture unveiled itself. A soft movement like those damn butterfly wing image he kept having with you. “I’m paired with you to help you do your project. Don’t rush through this just cause you’re worried about me, Eddie. I’ll tell you if I want to stop.”

You barely turned to peer at him, and a laugh almost snuck out when he saw your pointed look.

“Just make my chest look good for me, please.”

He cocked a brow as he started to sketch your outline. Warmth slid its way down to his cock.

“Already does. Don’t gotta do shit.” He snorted and brought the tip of his pencil down over the curve of one of them on the page. “They’re their own work of art.”

Your laugh rang out in the closed space, bouncing off the walls with that sweet sugar dripping from it. Sounded so much better when it was just the two of you. When he didn't think one of your friends was leaning over to say some nasty shit in your ear.

"Shut up," you murmured, mouth pressed into a line that so clearly fought a smile. "Just...draw, loser."

"Oh, sure. Yes ma'am."

He gave you a small salute with his pencil before leaning back over his notebook. It'd take forever to just get the details on the flowers down, but if he could get the general idea on the page, he could recreate it later. Later. He cleared his throat and continued sketching, trying not to get too distracted by how your chest moved with every careful breath.

He couldn't think about recreating this in the studio. That was so clearly different. Technical. Professional. This felt more right for the pose. Personal. Off-the-cuff. You lying on his blanket in the moonlight and flashlight, not on the floor in some classroom.

Later.

He'd figure out the next steps later.

He squeezed his pencil harder and let out a controlled breath. Later. Damn it. It lingered in the back of his head as he tried not to fuck up.

He just had to get the bare minimum done—that was it—then he'd know what to do next.

pt five - nsfw - 9.3k words

A few years ago, if someone would’ve told Eddie that he had one of the most popular cheerleaders topless in the back of his van, well...he probably would’ve laughed and asked how he managed to pull that off. But once your name was thrown into the mix, then he’d stop dead and ask what the fuck kind of alternate universe Hawkins had slipped into. He’d sit back with a cigarette, scowl at whoever told him that bullshit, and then go on his way wondering what the fuck kind of bullshit they were on.

You’d never purposefully be in the same damn room with him, let alone in the back of his van.

His eyes flicked up from the quick sketch shadowed on in his notebook. The soreness in his back meant nothing as he watched the flowers move with every light breath you took. Your wrists stayed where he’d left them, right leg up and skirt bunched just right, eyes locked on the ceiling as you blinked slowly. Your necklace flickered in the flashlight’s beam and settled right down over your bare chest.

Christ. He felt his heart thump hard in his chest. Over and over and over, it just slammed into him while he stared. His pencil moved, detailing the bottom of your skirt, but he needed to get closer. Needed the perspective change and the highlight on the flowers. The question bubbled in his throat, but the talking had trailed off a while ago. A dryness in his mouth kept him from picking it back up again.

He held his breath as he pushed up and slid over to you. Your eyes flicked over, and a brow asked your unsaid question.

“Just…” He narrowed his eyes down over how the skirt was bunched. It didn’t match perfectly on his page, or how he wanted it in his head, and he could feel his frown forming. “One sec.”

The pencil and book were quiet on the ground beside you, yet Eddie somehow managed to be even quieter as he reached down. Just a quick fix. He was just adjusting your skirt to see where he’d gone wrong on the page. He really was trying not to touch you out of some sort of line he’d drawn for himself, but it was impossible for his fingers not to brush your thigh since that’s where the damn thing was resting. And, Jesus, he felt you twitch. Not horribly, but enough that he saw your thigh move, and you muttered an apology behind him—you did. He just grunted in response, haunted by the flash of your underwear he got when he brought the skirt back up and then down into the scrunched position. But it still wasn’t right.

His palm went flat against your leg, trying to change the position just enough to work. He should’ve just redrawn the damn thing instead of trying to make his mistake work, but he knew what he’d drawn was there. He just had to get it right.

It was torturous how soft the inside of your thigh was. He hadn’t even intended for his hand to end up there, but as he shifted to straddle your other leg, both of his hands went to yours to fix the position. And then up your thigh they went as you moved your leg with them. Just as embarrassment was pricking itself down the back of his neck worse than the time he’d fallen off the stage during a gig, he got the skirt exactly how he’d wanted it.

“Your leg okay like this for a few minutes?” His thumb, for some godforsaken reason, pressed where he swore he felt a small knot. If that’s what it was, the gentle pressure sent a goddamn shockwave through you. A hitched breath, a parting of your mouth, a twitch beneath the flowers, all the way down to both legs.

“Mhm.” Your eyes flicked from him and back to the ceiling. “I’m fine.”

He gave your thigh a gentle squeeze that was supposed to be a nonverbal thank you, but it felt like a self-indulgent way to keep his hands on you for another second. And, truly, he was going to just go sit back and fix the shit on his drawing from there, but his little attempt at trying to make you more comfortable made some of the flowers shift. Just enough to be noticeable. So before he even got his fingers fully back around his pencil, he was scooting around to your side and reaching for the flowers.

“Won’t make you suffer too much longer,” he murmured as he painstakingly fixed the flowers.

“You say that as if you’re not getting some joy out of this.”

A smirk tugged on the corner of his lips as he fixed a flower just above your navel.

“Me?” He put his hand over his heart. “Getting joy out of you suffering? Never.”

Still, he swallowed hard behind the smile. Playing it up was significantly fucking easier than getting lost in whatever else was happening in his head. His fingers went a little higher, brushing the valley between your tits. Jesus, your nipples were still hard. And as he reached down to adjust your necklace, he could feel your heart pounding.

“I seem to remember you getting immense joy out of that ridiculous pose I had to do like, what, two weeks back?” A faint, short-lived laugh snuck out. “Where I had to hold that heavy bowl of fruit.”

Eddie snorted as he went back down. Your laugh messed up some of the flowers, but he damn well wasn’t going to say shit. He was starting to really like that sound.

“I might’ve gotten like a hint of it,” he muttered, recalling how annoyed you’d looked that you’d been seated near him for the class. Gave him the best view of what they were supposed to be drawing. And…well, the way your hands twitched on the bowl as class drew on longer and longer. “Whoops.”

“That’s what I thought,” you muttered back. Eddie caught your throat as you swallowed. He accidentally wet his lips as he stared, following the curve up to yours. “I got a little bit of joy knowing you had to work with me. I mean, not that it’s the ideal pairing, but I figured Jesse would be your top choice since your interests overlap.”

“This is better,” he said as he gently tapped your necklace again, getting it back in place from where it’d slipped. His heart stuttered in his chest, but there was no taking his words back. “This would only work with you.”

You were silent as he sat back down, this time right beside you. The silence was deafening as he picked up the sketchbook, taking in all the details of the flowers, the way your necklace sparkled, and even how your mouth would part and the glittery lip gloss still on it. That wasn’t part of the drawing, but he kept finding his eyes there. Yours never made it back to him, though. It made the little ball of guilt still in his chest twitch and twist. So he drew a little faster.

He’d never felt weird drawing the different iterations of characters pushed over beds, desks, splayed on beds without tops on, legs bent back against their stomachs, all just begging to be fucked. Or were getting fucked. He’d hunched over the page, detailing everything he could and trying to get it just right. The veins in any cocks, the line of hair going up from them, the wetness dripping from a cunt as fingers pressed into it, the wet draw of a tongue over a nipple. Yet when it came time to actually focus on drawing your chest, the gnawing feeling that everyone in class was going to see it kept making his fingers still.

You knew everyone would see it; he knew that you knew that. He drew his eyes from one hard nipple to the other, tightening his grip on his pencil so he could just draw. And he did, stiffly. The movements were slightly too jagged, but he got it down just enough. Sleep was starting to show on your face, but he couldn’t bring himself to draw any faster. Not just for the sake of trying to make the sketch look good, but he knew the second he finished, he had to take you home, and shit would be real different the next time you met up. He had to make the most of whatever weird niceness had sprung up on the two of you in the back of his van.

“Can I say something that you can’t let go to your head?”

Eddie’s eyes flicked up from your chest. His pulse shot suddenly higher, curiosity threading itself through him at what you could possibly say. He’d been mid-thought simply praising how damn pretty your tits were, and he was fairly certain it showed on his face. But you weren’t looking at him. Your eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling as you took a slow, unsteady breath.

“Can’t make any promises,” he cooed, the tip of his pencil stilled on the page.

“I saw Corroded Coffin play a few months back. I was at The Hideout with a friend of mind after some stuff went down—we just needed to drink a little bit and forget the shitty two weeks we’d had.” Your mouth tipped into a wry smile as Eddie’s soul started to leave his body. “I was so mad that you guys were good. I’m still kind of mad about it.”

Eddie slowly lowered his notebook. There was no way in hell for anyone to stop the massive grin that took over his face. Motherfucker. You saw him play, and you fucking liked it. Holy shit. Vindication, spite, validation, excitement, adrenaline—it was a rush of emotions as he sat back with his weight on one hand. He just stared at you, waiting for you to look over and see his reaction. It took a few seconds, and damn if that didn’t make him fucking soar even higher. Your face deadpanned when you finally dared to look at him.

“You liked my music,” he so obviously teased.

“I said don’t let it go to your head, idiot.”

“Oh, no fucking way that’s going anywhere but there, baby.” He couldn’t take the word back before it slipped out, but it came out so easily, it looked like you barely registered it. Barely. He still saw your eyes jerk to his, but that was the only indication. “Why tell me if you didn’t want me to get a big head?”

“I just remembered you guys used to play on Tuesdays for a bit in high school, but you played on Monday night back then. Confused me for a second.” You cleared your throat. “I don’t know. Just felt like it’s something I should say since I’m being held hostage with a sea of flowers on my stomach.”

“Hostage?” Eddie laughed—far more genuine than he was expecting—and picked up his sketchbook. “You’re the one who offered.”

“And you’re taking your sweet time,” you shot back with a soft smile. “If you wanted to see some tits, Eddie, you have loads in your notebook.”

His eyes shot up just as he started to shade one of your nipples. The high of you liking his band was impossible to wipe away, but the mention of his other drawings almost did it. His heart continued to pound as he tried to just keep drawing, the image in his mind going from figuring out which performance you could’ve seen, drunk you scowling as you watched him, right into you topless in the back of his car as you looked through the filth in his notebook.

“Which, uh, which ones did you see?” He hid his scrunched expression behind the sketchbook. Why the fuck was he asking that? “They’re just shit I like to draw when I can’t sleep.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. I was being honest earlier, you’re good at drawing that kind of stuff.” Your hands twitched where they otherwise stayed unmoving by your head. “Saw most of it, though.”

Most of it. That encompassed a lot of possibilities. Some more risqué than the others. Like the painstaking attempt he’d made as the black-painted nails on the slender fingers over a clit while they spread the cunt in some pornographic shot. Or of the upper body shot of the woman bound in rope, nipples with chained clamps on them, as she sank down on a cock. He’d been trying to nail down how the skin would look underneath the bondage attempt, but he’d gotten carried away with the scenario. There were a few of guys solo, too. Similar positions. Some bent over beds, others with their legs spread, waiting to be sucked off.

“You did?”

“I’m not gonna say anything to anyone, Eddie,” you said, voice with that sweet tone that sent a shiver down his spine. “Your art is your art. I just wanted to compliment it. It…it stays in the back of your van.” Your eyes shifted over to look at his sketchbook and then his face. “Consider that a promise.”

All Eddie could do was blink at you. He was really starting to hate the concept of confusing and conflicting emotions. They were so potent it wasn’t even possible to try and figure out what was coming from where. All he knew was he couldn’t believe, one, who he was looking at; two, what he was hearing; and three, the fact that it was being said by you in the back of his van, still goddamn topless.

“Yeah, well, don’t worry. Nobody will find out pretty Miss Popular was topless in the back of my van for me,” he tried, an attempt at sounding joking, but it just came out breathy and almost sinful.

“Doubt anyone would believe it anyway,” you said with a soft laugh. “Few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“What, you don’t think I could get you on your back for me?”

What the fuck was he doing? He’d already learned that he couldn’t take the words back, not without sounding like a complete fucking tool. You were doing him a massive fucking favor, and he was being a dick about it. All he had to do was roll his eyes, move on, finish the sketch, and then everything would be fucking fine. Shit. Didn’t want to sound like a tool—he already fucking was. As if you were some easy conquest kinda bullshit. And one with some kind of easy goddamn goal. His idiocy was showing, massively.

“Thought I was into varsity jackets, loser,” you said, dragging Eddie’s eyes back up to yours. “You don’t fit your own description.”

“And you said you’d pull off Jesse’s jacket.” He narrowed his eyes like you were offering some kind of challenge. “Think there’s still a chance for you have good taste. Already have you topless right now.”

“That’s for your project. That doesn’t count.”

“So if it’s for something I’m drawing, it doesn’t count?”

“Nope,” you shot back. “I’d do a lot to help create art.”

Eddie felt high as your eyes locked. There weren’t very few smart decisions left in his brain as he tried to weave through the muck within it. You weren’t baiting him. Goddamn it, he knew that. There wasn’t a chance in hell you were flirting with him like this. He was misreading. He needed to keep his mouth shut, keep drawing, and not do anything to jeopardize whatever the fuck was happening there. Just draw. He just had to draw.

“So, if I asked you to do something for the sake of my sketch, you’d do it?”

You answered without any goddamn hesitation, second thought, or fucking pause.

“Yes.”

And so did Eddie.

“Pinch your nipples for me then. They were harder earlier. Need them back like that if I wanna keep drawing.”

It was a damned lie that left him so fucking fast. He was pretty sure your nipples were harder than before, Christ. Yeah. They were goddamn peaks now. Ones he wanted to lean over and kiss until you knocked the flowers off and moaned into his van. But the mortification of his own words....sure there was some confidence behind them, but it was to you. The hell was he doing crossing that line when he was the bastard giving you a goddamn ride home at night?

“I can’t.” Two words he wasn’t expecting. Maybe a fuck you or a you’re a fucking creep. But as he waited for you to sit up, throw something at his head, quickly dress and demand he take you home before asking Mrs. Georgie to switch partners, you just…stayed perfectly still. “I need my wrists to stay up, remember? I don’t want to lose that position.” Your voice was so uneven, breathy, and goddamn nervous, it was goddamn Kryptonite. “You do it.”

Eddie just…stared. The burning in his cheeks traveled over his entire body, leaving him unmoving as he just…stared. It was a bluff; it had to be a bluff. You were fucking with him. He couldn’t…you wouldn’t actually let him… But sure as hell, he dropped his notebook aside, determination swelling in his chest and far more in his cock as he scooted up next to you. One hand held his weight as he peered down at you, your breathing quick and uneven as he drew his eyes over you. You’d tell him to stop before he even touched you. You were just trying to bait him. He’d get close before you laughed and told him to stop. Laugh at him for even thinking he could touch you like that. Even for the sake of some bullshit excuse for his sketch.

But as he painstakingly made sure he didn’t touch any flowers, he let the tips of his fingers skate up over your breast. Nothing. No words from you. His heart beat exponentially faster as he glanced from your tit to your face, his jaw set hard as he waited for you to say something. But nothing. You continued to say nothing. Even as he dared to just fucking make you stop him, grazing his fingers over your nipple once before everything in his body lit up as he gently pinched it, and the only sound from you was a goddamn gasp. Faint as hell, but it made your eyes flutter closed, and down where your skirt rode up, your thigh twitched.

He pinched a hair harder than he needed, lingering far, far longer than he should’ve, and your teeth snuck out and dug into your bottom lip. Fucking hell. He held his breath as he went to the other side of your chest and went even goddamn slower there. Drew his fingers in a slow spiral around your breast, watching your whole body shiver before he even touched your nipple.

“Careful, baby,” he murmured, eyes down on the trembling flowers, “you’ll ruin the setup.”

Your breathy apology was cut off so goddamn beautifully by his fingers pinching your nipple and giving it the faintest twist.

If he hadn’t been studying you for, what, the last hour? Probably longer? He really wouldn’t have noticed it. But he knew how he’d left your legs. Exactly how he’d left them. And when his fingers stayed on your nipple, his thumb swiping over it as if it needed any more contact, he happened to glance down and fucking caught your legs opening. Just a smidge more. And he could see your toes curling in our sneakers, pressing the top of your feet up against the laces.

Oh, it was such a dick move, but he had a hard time feeling too bad about it when your legs moved again and visibly messed up how the skirt was laying.

“Keep still,” he murmured. His hands finally left your chest to poke at the flowers on their way down to your legs. “And keep your legs where I had them, baby.”

He went for both legs, guiding them carefully back to how they’d been; your thighs were shaking before he even touched you. But when his palm guided them back, he could feel the conflict in your movements the whole way. He had to be misreading the whole situation. It felt easier to misread than even fathom the other possibility. But he had to know. And he kept his eyes trained on your face—eyes closed, teeth still digging into your bottom lip—as he skated his hand up your thigh and just barely let his pinky graze your cunt. It was such a light touch, so he just knew he had to be imagining the wetness he’d felt. But your thighs tensed and stayed tensed. Your teeth dug harder into your lip.

“Which one did you like the most?” He slowly slid his hand back down your leg, forcing himself not to overstep. Not to do it again. Not to double-check to see if, Jesus Christ, you were actually soaking your underwear for him. And like this of all goddamn ways.

You cracked your eyes open, mouth parting and forming a confused o that he wanted to kiss away so goddamn badly.

“My drawings. You said they were good.” He found himself back beside you, fingers skating over your tits, nipples, and down to fix a few stray flowers. “Which one was your favorite?”

It was meant to come off as some kind of teasing bait—like what he’d thought you’d been giving him when you’d told him to touch you. But it sounded more like a dare—a challenge to take up as if you wouldn’t ever admit to being into dirty drawings. You could like and appreciate something without admitting you liked liked it. And with the quickness that you answered, he knew you’d taken it as a dare.

“The spread on one of the later pages.” Your eyes closed as his fingers pointlessly went back up, and he swiped his thumb back over your nipple. “Um. With…the toys. And the handcuffs. Doing a bunch of different…stuff.”

He goddamn knew exactly what you were talking about. It was a night he fucking couldn’t sleep, and he’d just thumbed through another Playboy that hadn’t done anything for him. So he tried to make his own, just….with the collage focused on a dripping cunt and nothing else. An attempt to get the details just right as a tongue pressed up against a clit, two fingers plunged into another, a vibrator was pushed against a pierced clit, and a dildo was partially pressed into another cunt while a finger went lower. The handcuff—ha. He almost laughed. They were just a fuzzy pair he’d drawn on some wrists in the shot as the person spread themselves for the dildo.

“Dirty,” he whispered with a smile before finally dropping his hand. He was being enough of a dick, and the fact that you hadn’t smacked him yet was his guess. You should’ve already stolen his car keys, kicked him out, and driven yourself home. “Who would’ve thought?”

“You drew it well,” you muttered so breathily, he was starting to lose his mind. His cock was already painfully strained against his pants. If he didn’t get some kind of relief soon, he was sure he’d bust in them. He sure as hell couldn’t do that in front of you. “I also liked the one with the pierced nipples, and the multiple shots of the person, uh, kissing them.”

“Kissing?” Eddie laughed just as he picked up his sketchbook. But his pencil stayed down. Why he was thumbing back to the page he thought you were talking about completely escaped him, but it made his cock throb harder as he turned the sketch to face you. He leaned down with a hand beside your arm, looking from the page to you. “You call that kissing?”

It was closer to a hand tightly gripping a breast while a tongue was dragged over it. It was a multiple-panel comic—well, sort of. It was multiple panels of just that. Pinching, sucking, licking, tweaking, rolling of the woman’s nipples as she writhed around beneath her partner. Her legs were spread wide, underwear pulled to the side to show off how needy she was, but they wouldn’t touch her yet. Not until she was about to cum from just nipple stimulation. Then, only after there’s a soft please, they slid their fingers in to make her back arch.

“If the person’s doing it right, yeah,” you whispered with a wide smile.

“Baby,” he said, slipping up again. “That’s fucking devouring. Kissing is…”

He was running on adrenaline when he moved. He waited—goddamn, he waited. He counted to five as he got on his side, eyes shooting up to meet yours. They were wide, and your mouth parted, but you fucking said nothing as Eddie tucked some of his hair behind his ear and slowly leaned down. He couldn’t breathe as he gently dug his fingers underneath your tit, lifted, and barely pressed his mouth to your nipple.

“That’s kissing,” he breathed, voice gruff and rough. “Quick, chaste. Sweet.”

He noticed your entire body shiver, and he damn well hadn’t taken his hand off your tit yet. He needed to. Goddamn, he needed to. But your eyes were locked on his.

“And devouring?” You asked, the two words so sinful, he almost came in his boxers. “What would that be then?”

Don’t. Eddie wasn’t dumb. He might’ve taken three attempts to graduate, but he wasn’t fucking dumb. He knew how dumb it was to lower his head back down, hand squeezing your tit harder. He fucking knew the line that was being crossed as a few flowers were knocked askew by his hair. He fucking knew. Still, he wrapped his mouth around your nipple, drawing his tongue over it, and fucking devoured the choked gasp you let out.

Flowers be damned. His other hand went up to pinch your other nipple, one leg sneaking between yours when your legs started to close. Like hell he was going to pass up the opportunity to feel you drag your cunt up his thigh. And he was damn certain you would if you were half as wet as he thought you were. And, Christ. He sucked hard on your nipple as you instantly pressed your hips up. The flowers were smushed between you as your hands went for his hair, nails digging into his scalp as you held him close.

He moaned as he moved to the other side of your chest, dragging the flat of his tongue over your nipple and making you shiver.

“Thought I told you to stay still,” he hummed against your chest, mouth dipping down so his teeth could nip at the sensitive skin. “Bad model.”

“Says the guy with a damn erection pressed into my leg,” you spat back, fingers digging harder into his head. “Shit, Eddie.”

You ground yourself against his leg, seeking out friction he was gonna give you the second he finished making you squirm under his mouth. He couldn’t help the hickies he left down your stomach. And he was going to continue going lower, damn well determined to lick your clit until you came all over his tongue, but you tugged him higher. Higher up until your mouth crashed against his, and he got to taste that sweet sugary and tart cherry on your lips.

“I could see your underwear the whole fucking time. Every time you spun. Every time you bent over. It was fucking hell,” he stuttered against your lips.

“I know.” You were grinning against him before he got to taste something sweet on your tongue. “I forgot the shorts and just decided to own it.”

“Really?” His hands skated over your tits until they got up to your cheeks. Gave you just enough of his weight to pin your hips down, and he could press his leg up. You hummed against his mouth, eyes staying closed as he took everything you were giving him. You—you were giving it to him. He didn’t realize he was smiling until his cheeks started to hurt. “Even with big, bad me being the one who’d see?”

“You want the truth?”

Jesus, you were panting. Mouth parted, quick breaths fucking huffing as he kissed your jaw. Shit, he could feel himself matching the speed too. Right down to the breathy tone you had. He answered by grunting, taking your chin in his hand and angling it away from him so he could kiss down your neck. He could smell your rose and peony perfume dabbed right behind your ear, and he almost shuddered.

“I figured you either wouldn’t give a damn about it, or it’d piss you off.” Your giggle was downright evil. “Kinda hoping it was the latter.”

Ha. Of course you had. Fucking hell—his fingers got a smidge tighter on your jaw to keep you still as he found a little sensitive spot by your collarbone. Your gasp echoed out in what suddenly felt like a far too small of a space. You probably deserved a bed or a couch, at least. But it fucking shot adrenaline through him knowing you were pressing your hips up against his leg in the back of his van parked on the goddamn side of the road.

“You like pissing me off?” He finally started going back down, taking a moment to feel how goddamn perfect your tits felt in his hands. His tongue drew slowly over your nipples, fingers pinching them again, eyes burning as he peered up at you.

“You ask that like you don’t like doing the same to me.” Your tongue came out and licked the corner of your mouth, a mesmerizing movement that kept him hypnotized for a few moments. “You were a dick to me in high school.”

Eddie’s eyes jerked up to yours, hands dropping away from you to hold himself up. He felt his mouth part, and he had to stare at you for a few extra seconds so he could just fully process what you’d just said. Him. He was a dick to you? He didn’t fucking do shit to you. Didn’t talk to you, didn’t purposefully go near you, fucking didn’t interact with any of you or your lame friends. For all accounts, despite your classes together and whenever you passed each other in the hallways, he didn’t give a shit about you.

“Me? I was a dick?” His laugh was dry and sharp. It made you push up to your elbows, brows furrowed. “You fucking with me, (Y/N)?”

“I was nice to everyone,” you shot back quickly.

“Not to me,” Eddie answered just as fast. “You and your friends were assholes.”

“Why?” You scoffed, mouth curving into an offended smile. “Cause we wore cheer uniforms and didn’t hate the school-led activities and events? Or cause we went to the mall, the school dances, and some of us cared about our grades?” Calling it anger was far too intense of an emotion. Irritation, maybe? Whatever it was, it burned behind your eyes. Eddie felt his jaw tick as you inched almost close enough for your mouths to touch. “Or are you just mad that of all the guys I flirted with, it was never with your dickheaded self?”

Wow. He scoffed. It was the only thing he could even think to do as you glared at him, clearly waiting for a response. Your brows raised, mouth parted, head tilted. Like you’d just called him out for fucking having dirty thoughts about you when he thought you hadn’t known or some shit. Irritation grated against his chest as you looked at him so goddamn smug. His laugh was dark and low as he pitched forward so he could talk right next to your ear, the little hint of your perfume sneaking up and making his hands twitch.

“Why would I care if a privileged, popular, teacher’s pet gave me the time of day?” His mouth grazed your ear. “Especially when I already have you with your tits out right now?”

“That’s now, not then.” He heard you swallow. “And I caught you looking at my legs more than a few times my senior year.”

He caught your jaw tensing before he put his hand on it. You stayed silent, breathing heavily as his hand slid down your neck, where he felt you swallow again, and he paused only for a moment before he found your shoulder and shoved you down on your back. He didn’t follow you down, just stared as your whole body moved with every deep breath you took.

“You have nice legs,” he murmured, eyes dropping down to where your skirt wasn’t covering anything. “I can still admire the annoying.”

His cock throbbed as you barely parted you legs, teeth noticeably grinding together. He was waiting for you to tell him to fuck off. To smack him. But you just pushed up to your elbows, a few flowers that’d been pressed into you finally fell, and gave him a frown that turned into an impatient pout.

“The feeling’s mutual.” Your eyes dropped to his belt. “Question is, are you going to fuck me or not? It’s getting late and I do have to be at work at four.”

“Christ,” Eddie said with a short laugh, not hesitating to come down while pulling his shirt off. The anger burned in his chest with the added desire to feel your skin against him—and as soon as his chest pressed to yours, he got to feel your tits drag against him. “You’re a fucking brat.”

He couldn’t exactly get his thoughts in order as you reached down and tugged on the back of his belt, hooking your legs around him and pressing your hips up. Holy fuck. His whole body shivered not just as you arched into him, but as your teeth dug into his shoulder. Hard. Jesus Christ. Your kisses were sweet over what had to be an indentation of your teeth. Such sweet, sweet kisses. They made the ones he left on your neck feel cruel and sinful. Well, they were. He wanted to fucking devour you. Make you whine his name as he made the whole van move with every thrust he gave you.

Fuck it. Fuck it. He’d planned on being a little teasing. Planned on hooking your legs around his shoulders, jerking your underwear to the side, and fucking making you scream as he locked his mouth onto your cunt. He wasn’t going to fucking move from that spot until you were begging him to fuck you, treating your clit with the anger and frustration currently pushing through his veins. But if you wanted him to fuck you, fine. Fine, yeah. He’d fuck you.

He jerked one of your legs off of him, but his hand didn’t go for his belt. Not yet. He was going to fuck you, but he’d be damned if he didn’t get at least his fingers in your cunt first. And he pulled back just enough to see your face as his hand went down your underwear and—just fuck. You were fucking soaked. There’d be a damp spot on his goddamn jeans kind of soaked. He knew there’d be. Wet, warm, and as he slid two fingers over your clit and down into your cunt—fucking perfect.

The instant your mouth dropped open, he was frantically trying to find the spot that’d drive you fucking wild. He needed it. He fucking never knew how badly he’d needed something until he heard his fingers fucking you, and your eyes rolled back.

“Oh, hell, Eddie.”

Your mouth stayed open before your teeth dug hard into your bottom lip. Your legs parted even more for him, and he took the opportunity to press the heel of his palm against your clit, feeling every part of you not only gush, but twitch. Your cunt squeezed his fingers as they curled, and it was pure spite that kept him from rutting into you right then and there. He needed to make you cum, and he was going to make you cum fucking hard. He had no idea what was going through that pretty head of yours, but the urge to prove to you that this dickhead could make you cum so prettily was fucking massive.

“That feel good, baby?”

“Yes,” you moaned instantly. “Yes, fuck. Don’t stop.”

He had zero fucking intention of stopping. Not when your nails were digging into his shoulders, eyes clamped shut, mouth parted as you whined. God, and the sounds. How could you sound so sinful and sweet while his fingers fucking plunged into you and squelched from how fucking needy you were? He couldn’t stop watching you, shit. You were so goddamn stunning it was almost irritating. Yet he smirked. Smirked right on down at you as you started to say his name faster. Oh, baby. He knew. He could feel it. The way your cunt tightened and fluttered. As your back arched harder and your nails pressed in harder. He beamed when your next plea turned into a broken breath, shifting into a gasp and a high-pitched moan that tore through the back of the van. Your cunt clamped down over his fingers as they curled against that sweet spot, and he swore he wouldn’t stop moving his fingers until you couldn’t take it. He needed to keep making you cum, and he needed to draw it out as long as possible. How goddamn good you looked as you came was fucking otherworldly.

He needed to be inside you. And he needed to fucking make you do that on his cock.

He shoved his hair out of his eyes, not giving a goddamn how his bangs looked or how messy the dark strands became. He just needed to see you. And he saw. Saw as your brows raised and you whispered his name over and over, reaching down for his wrist. He could feel you trembling, and it was mean, but he took his time getting his fingers out of you. Fucking grinned as he pumped them a few more times and caught your face pinching and body shaking.

You jolted as he drew them out, soaking fucking wet, and brought them up to your clit. His hair became like a curtain, blocking your face for a moment and only giving him your breath sucked in through your teeth as he rubbed your swollen, puffy clit. Your hips rose before suddenly pulling down, fighting between wanting more and less from him as his fingers glided over it. But he wanted it. He either wanted to make you cum again, or he wanted to hear you say it again. Wanted to hear you—

“Please, Eddie.” You reached down and grabbed his wrist again. Finally, he looked back up at you. “Fuck me.”

“I need to grab a condom,” he said plainly, knowing they weren’t in reach. Not that he would’ve thrown them in the back if he knew this was going to happen. But the only condoms he had were in his backpack since that went everywhere with him. And that was fucking behind his seat. “They’re in my bag.”

“I’m on birth control.” You swallowed hard. “If you wanted…”

Like Eddie was going to fucking pass that the fuck up. He didn’t care about anything else; he was already undoing his belt and kicking his pants down, not even bothering to wipe off his fingers. And, Christ, you laughed. You were letting out a sweet, flirty, adorable laugh as he struggled to get his underwear down past at least his thighs.

“You like that answer?”

Your voice was already raw, and the second your eyes dropped to his cock, he forced himself to wait. Didn’t take much effort with how you looked at him like you wanted to devour him. And as your lips parted into that small o, he wanted nothing more than to see that pretty mouth around his shaft. To see how much of him you could take before your eyes started to water and you began to bob your head.

“Yeah,” he grunted as he shoved his hands beneath your knees and jerked your legs apart. “Yeah, baby, I do.”

He only let go to pump his cock a few times, heat racing as he watched you watch him. Like he was on stage playing, and you were just enjoying the show. And, shit, if that didn’t kill him. You’d seen one of his shows, and he hadn’t even known you were in the crowd. It had to have been one of the nights the bar had been packed, and you’d come in during it. If you’d been there before, he damn well would’ve noticed you somewhere there. You would’ve stood out like a sore fucking thumb. And if you were there after? You’d have to have been swallowed by a crowd for him not to notice. But you had been there. And he’d fucking missed it.

He shivered as his tip pressed into you. Your cunt twitched as he slowly pushed in, teeth gritting as you took him so fucking well. Jesus Christ. His head fell forward a bit, and his hand dug a little harder into your knee. Your mouth was back to hanging open so beautifully all the way until you’d taken every damn inch of him, and he made himself stop. Ten. He counted to ten. Prayed that ten seconds was all you needed to adjust to him as he slowly started to fuck you. If you fucking said anything, he’d pull back, but as he jerked his hips forward fucking bareback, he could feel his restraint slipping. More and more and more until he got to ten, and then he was falling forward, one hand beside your head, and slamming his cock into you.

“Fucking hell, (Y/N),” he grunted in between every huffed breath.

You answered with a squeeze of your cunt and a choked moan. Eddie could barely keep track of everything as his van squeaked as he rutted into you, your arms locked around his neck, and your nails scraped against him. You murmured his name in that sugary voice torn raw at the edges, tits bouncing with every thrust, and he found himself pressing a kiss to the side of your head. You were fucking stunning.

And you felt so fucking good; it was fucking magnetic. He could feel sweat dampening both of you, and fuck—tears pricked the corner of your eyes. It smeared and streaked your mascara, a goddamn good look on you. He was gonna wipe it away, but there was so much satisfaction upon seeing it that he left it. A warmth and twisting shot through him as he reangled his hips and went a little deeper and a smidge faster, his control hanging by a fucked up, frayed, thin-ass string. He was so close, fuck.

He knew he could last longer than this. Knew he fucking could. He wasn’t some kinda fucking porn star and could go all night or some shit. But he knew he could last longer than the wall pushing at him and nearly shoving him over the edge that he was currently at. But then he felt your cunt tighten, and everything inside him burned. A few more tears dropped down your cheeks as you sputtered out his name. You hugged him closer, and he glanced down, making sure he pressed against your clit with every next thrust. He wasn’t a porn star, and he damn well wasn’t some savant, but if he made you cum on his cock on the first try? He thought you complimenting his music was gonna go to his head. Fuck that. He’d ride this high until he fucking died.

“Please, please, please,” you stuttered, following it with a whine that almost made him bust.

God, you looked so beautiful.

You didn’t have to beg; he’d force his orgasm off until you fucking came. Fuck everything except that. He could feel your movements getting more and more desperate as you clung to him, buried your face in his shoulder, reached down and clawed at his back and his ass. You fucking needed him, and it went right through every part of him. Spun in a cloud of some special kind of magic and laid over him like a drug. Then he felt you squeeze his cock, and when your teeth were back to digging into him, he was done. There was no surviving the sob he got from you as you came, your entire body shivering as if you’d just crawled back in from the snow, his shoulder wet from your tears.

He tried not to be too rough with his last few thrusts, but his entire body burned hot and was stretched beyond what he could handle. The instant you came, he slammed in deep and felt every part of him fucking tighten. He’d planned on pulling out just in case. Just to be fucking nice. He could clean that up easily. And when you moaned as he came inside you, it only fucking made his mind completely stall out. The only thing he fucking knew was how goddamn good you felt, how fucking incredible he was feeling, and how much he enjoyed feeling your teeth bite down when you tried not to moan while cumming.

"Oh my god," you breathed underneath him, a sniffle following.

“Took the words right outta my mouth.” Eddie let his head hang down by your neck as you both tried to catch your breath. It was too intimate to do, but he couldn’t stop himself from planting a few kisses along where he’d definitely left a few hickies. And he continued up until he got to your jaw—only then did he finally lift up to really look at you, his cock softening inside you and his heart stuttering in his chest. “Fuck, (Y/N).”

Tear-stained, mascara-stained, half-lidded eyes, a sexy pout, and a gaze that punched him right in the chest. He started to lean down to kiss you, but he stopped himself short. Stop it. That damn well wasn’t what this was, but as your eyes skated down to look where your bodies were pressing together still and a brow cocked, he felt a smile tugging on his lips.

“That was…” You bit your lip and met his gaze, a soft giggle making you shake. “I already complimented you once and saw how that went.”

“Oh, please.” His breath caught as he slowly pulled out, coming back down to lay beside you, not giving a damn about the flowers. “I am a whore for flattery. Keep going.”

Instead, you reached down and grabbed his wrist, leaning into him with just a hint of contact that made him yearn for more. He was a cigarette after sex with an arm around his partner kind of guy when it was something casual. Not wanting to wrap his arms around you and press his face into the crook of your neck so he could get a whiff of that damn perfume again. He wanted to kiss those sweet spots on your neck until you were squirming in his hold and laughing. To curve his body against yours until the burning sensation left his skin, and your hearts caught up with each other.

His watch glinted in the fallen flashlight's beam.

“Sorry. I have to be up early.” You turned the most innocent look and voice he’d ever seen up to him. Even batted your lashes with, dotting some more mascara underneath your eyes. “Maybe next time.”

Oh, Eddie latched onto it way too fast. But those three words fucking hooked him like a damn fish. The bait might’ve been sparkly, pink, and tasted like a tart cherry, but damn did he enjoy it. So he just grinned and swiped his thumb over your cheek, making sure you saw all the mascara staining his skin.

“Next time?”

“Well, you know…” You shifted shyly beside him, and he damn near kissed you. The only reason he didn’t was when your mouth parted, you continued talking. “You still need to complete your project.”

Shit. Right.

Eddie laughed softly as he reached down and fixed your necklace.

“I do.”

“So…tomorrow at six?”

Eddie grinned and reached for his shirt and your bra. He couldn’t help but smile as he tugged it over his head and watched you glance down at your cunt. He hadn’t looked, and he knew if he did, he’d only want to go for round two. Shit. He even felt the blood rushing to his cock as you gasped while sitting up. Christ, he wished he’d looked. He almost grabbed your wrist to stop you from fixing your underwear—he should’ve. He should’ve reached around for some of the napkins he had somewhere in his van to at least clean you up a little bit. But your underwear was already fucking ruined. Knowing there were still about five minutes left in the drive brought him back up to a half-chub as you hooked your bra and bit your lip. Your stomach visibly flexed, and your thighs pressed together.

“Think you’ll be fine until you get home?” He asked, reaching out and playing with the bottom of your skirt.

“Yeah,” you said after a moment, caught like a deer in headlights under his gaze. But after blinking and drawing out a smile, your tone was back to that surefire you could quickfire like a sharpshooter. “But you owe me a new pair of underwear now.”

He jerked his pants up and redid his belt.

“I can manage that.” He already had more than a few ideas on the kind he’d get. “But yeah, six o’clock.”

He waited until you were fully dressed before he started to gather up the fucked up flowers and his sketchbook. You gave him a small nod for when he could open the back doors, and he hopped out, discarding the flowers and holding out a hand for you to take. He half expected you to swat it away, but miraculously, you took it with an eye roll and slid out. Your slow, careful movements made him want to whisper in your ear, but he’d already been enough of a dick about it. Instead, he dared to lower his hand down past your lower back as he followed you around to the passenger side. As if touching your ass over your skirt was some over-the-line shit after all of that.

But he had to tread the water carefully here. He could still fuck everything up. Bottom line—which he knew was better to think about than anything else twisting together in his head as he climbed into the driver’s seat—was he was going to see you tomorrow for more project stuff. If you wanted to fuck again, great. He’d be riding the events of the night for fucking weeks. Cause you cumming on his fingers and cock in the back of his van? Shit, there was no way to slot that away as just some other one-night stand. Fuck that.

“Can I see it?” You nodded at his sketchbook as he started to reach back for his bag. “I know it’s not the finished product, but—”

Eddie passed it over without a second thought, heart hammering as you slowly opened it and thumbed back through the pages. He almost called you on wanting to look at everything again, but he just started his car and pulled back onto the road.

He had to get you home; some guilt was already sneaking in from keeping you up later than you should’ve been. But he held his breath as you thumbed back to the sketch. Past the attempts from earlier that you hadn’t seen, a smile creeping up when you saw the pose he’d reluctantly done with your arms up, pom-poms in your hands. It was the best of the ones he’d done of you earlier, but you still stopped on all of them, dragging your fingers over what he thought were shit sketches. Yet you were smiling like someone had given you a damn gift.

He was pulling into the apartment complex when you finally got to the flower sketch. It was a large parking lot out front of a stretch of different buildings, and he followed your point back to the far right corner. One of the first-floor apartments had their porch light on—the only one there with it on—and he could see a pink welcome mat sitting outside. A potted plant was beside it, a trimmed bush of roses. What was actually your grandma’s car was parked a few spaces down.

“Eddie, this is incredible.” His heart stopped as you turned to look at him. “I know it’s not done yet, but, really, you’re incredible at drawing this kind of stuff.” You played with the diamond pendant on your necklace and smirked. “And you made my chest look good, thank you. So this idea, is this the one you want to run with for the project?”

He nodded a bit dreamily, taken aback at how genuine your words were. It was a rough sketch, that’s all. And you were holding it like you were going to damage it.

“Perfect. Yeah. I’ll make sure the skirt is washed for tomorrow, and they’re probably not the prettiest flowers, but I have some fake ones I used for a project a little while back we can use as stand-ins if you want. I can bring them with me tomorrow.”

“Sure,” he muttered, trying to wrap his head around it. Around you. “Yeah, sure. As long as you’re still cool with doing that pose.”

“Yeah, totally. I am.” You passed him his sketchbook back. “I’m excited to see the final product.”

You reached down and grabbed your things. Kiss her. Eddie squeezed his steering wheel as you threw open the door and carefully got out. Your keys jingled in your hand while you pointed at the apartment with the light on, then transformed it into a wave. An adorable little wave. Like he hadn’t just debauched you in the back of his van.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Night Eddie,” you whispered, a teasing smile taking over your lips.

“Let’s do it here,” he said quickly. “No way in hell am I making you walk anywhere, and I sure as hell am not making you lay with your tits out in that studio.”

You stopped and cocked a brow. You overstepped. He felt it as you continued to look back at him. Was he supposed to take it back? Should he try to? Should he—

“Okay.” You glanced down at your keys and slowly picked them apart until you got to your front door key. “Come over any time after four, then.”

“Sure.” He canted his head and gave you a once over he was damned determine to memorize. “I’ll see you then, baby.”

Your smirk grew wide as you shut his car door and stepped back. With lingering eyes, you walked backward toward your apartment, sucking in your cheeks in the illumination from his headlights. He caught an eye roll that only made him snort. Especially when you gave him one last wave before your back was to him, and he felt everything in his body go light and hot.

Holy fuck.

Everything was turning on its head, and—fuck it—if Eddie didn’t fucking like it.

Now, as he watched you step inside safely, he just had to deal with three things: getting a canvas for his project, seeing you tomorrow, and fucking being in your goddamn apartment. After all that.

He jerked out of the lot, grinning as he blasted his music, a cigarette already lit between his fingers.

He was fucking pumped.

- a/n: this is not the end of artist!eddie and this specific reader. there will be more :) but, for now, thank you all for going on the first part (or first five parts) of this journey with me. i hope you enjoyed it so far :D thank you for reading it!!

#eddie munson x reader

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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#i have two older stepbrothers but we aren’t close #my mom and their dad just got a divorce last year so ya know #but i’m three years older than my little brother #he’d correct me and say i’m actually 2 years 11 months older

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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show me masterlist

All six parts of my Eddie Munson x fem!Reader friends to lovers story!

Stranger Things Masterlist - Masterlist 2.0 - Ko-fi! - AO3

pt one (nsfw) - You ask Eddie to show you what you've been missing out on after he discovers your boyfriend never went down on you.

pt two (nsfw) - After rushing to work and having a particularly frustrating interaction with Daniel, you start to get in your head about your inexperience.

pt three (nsfw) - The problem with having a confrontation in a public space in a small town is that, odds are, it'll get back to you one way or another. Or maybe your meddling ex will stop by your house and talk to your mother. Then you gotta go confront him again and the dick is just that--a dick.

pt four (nsfw) - Your parents want to have Eddie over for dinner to meet the guy dating his daughter—except you have no idea how it could possibly go well.

pt five (nsfw) - Eddie fucks you outside The Hideout after his show.

pt six (nsfw) - You have some fun with Eddie, his handcuffs, and his bandana.

#eddie munson x reader

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nowgiveusakiss · 11 months

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princess

Eddie Munson x Fem!Henderson!Reader (NSFW)

Stranger Things Masterlist

Synopsis: As Dustin's older sister, you gotta keep your eye out for the good and bad influences in his life. When he meets Eddie Munson and joins Hellfire, it's a damn fight to keep your mouth shut about Eddie's clear reputation. Eddie, though, doesn't hold back from bringing up your perfect, pristine one.

Warnings: nsfw content, lots of fluff and flirting, eddie just being a bubbly fun tease most of the time; eddie calls the reader princess a lot, soft eddie being cute, lots of kissing, mentions of smoking, grinding, nipple play, fingering, and protected sex.

Word Count: 11k

A/N: This is my first ever Eddie fic, please bear with me. I'm still trying to figure out how to write his character and I promise later fics will have substantially more warnings.

(i have also only watched seasons 1 & 4 of the show. im sorry.)

Also a seriously big thank you to @meliapis for giving me this idea!! Go read all her stuff, it's fantastic. Seriously, thank you so much :)

Creating an image of a person was a very conflicting concept when you received drastically different testimonies about who they are as people. A freaky cultist who worships satan—or an imaginative dungeon master who’s the existence of amusing chaos. A few things you knew were true from your own time at Hawkins High: Eddie Munson wasn’t a good influence.

Drugs, alcohol, proprietor of bad grades. Man was on his third attempt at his senior year. Sure, you didn’t outright hate him since he did keep Dustin entertained. And Dustin did give Eddie his Dustin Seal of Approval. But that didn’t mean you had to like the guy.

He was everything you stood against—the three previously mentioned aspects associated with his character? Not you. You had to be as straight as an arrow to help provide a vibrant future for Dustin. Especially with all the shit that happens in Hawkins. You weren’t going to be the reason he didn’t succeed.

Damn well wasn’t going to let Munson do that either.

First time you met him, it was when your mother had instructed you to drop Dustin, Mike, and Lucas off for their first “Hellfire” session. Eddie may have had Dustin’s seal, but she wanted yours too. Walking inside, despite the trio's protests, was…a lot. Lots of mood-setting lighting, a throne made for the king—or, in Eddie’s case, the Dungeon Master. And he was sitting right on it.

Technically, the first time you’d met was back before you graduated, but you were so focused on school you never paid him any mind. He was the kid you talked to in order to get yourself into trouble—so you just…avoided him. It wasn’t like you ran in the same crowds anyway.

His hair was a little longer, but he looked relatively the same. Dark wavy hair, jean vest, leather jacket, probably ripped black pants—he was still sitting down so you couldn’t see—and he probably had the same wallet chain he wore when you were still going there. A new set of rings adorned his fingers, though.

“Sorry, Eddie, our mom has required that my sister scopes the damn place out.” Dustin gave you a bit of an annoyed look, and you just smiled an innocent smile. You weren’t aiming to embarrass Dustin, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t do it. The threat went unsaid, and Dustin laughed mockingly.

Eddie’s dark eyes locked on yours from behind his screen–a sticker of a skull with horns on one section–and there was a flicker of amusement.

“Aw, they sent Princess Henderson down to make sure I wasn’t being a terrible, horrible, no-good influence.” Eddie cocked his head to the side, matching an amused version of your smile.

“Princess?” You raised your brows and folded your arms over your chest. “But yes, they did, Munson.”

“Don’t worry, princess. Henderson’s in good care here.” Eddie pursed his lips and scratched his chin. There was hardly any hesitation before he gave you a wide grin. “Well, so long as his teammates don’t fuck up. Then he is.”

“Haha.” You pointed at Dustin. “Trusting you, alright? Don’t do anything dumb. Hey, you two, too. Mike, Lucas. Make smart choices.”

They waved you off, but you stole a final glance in. The backlighting behind Eddie caught your eye first, illuminating around him like—and you blamed the ridiculous satanic-themed articles and the club's wonderful name—flames. But then your focus shifted to him for just a brief second. He’d managed to shrug off his coat and you could see a bit of ink on his forearm. Eddie caught your gaze before the door shut, and he wiggled his eyebrows, grinning wickedly as he sat back. He rested his chin in his hand as he bit his lip.

You ignored the desire to flip him the bird. You weren't that immature, even if he was being a coy little shit. And princess? He made your blood boil. But so long as he wasn’t actively being a bad influence, you’d give your stamp of approval. Dustin liked him, Dustin had fun. That’s what counted.

So you put Eddie out of your thoughts and let Dustin have the club.

Until the idiot forgot a folder with an assignment he needed for class.

It was a few weeks after he’d joined Hellfire, and in that time, you’d managed to avoid thinking, seeing, or talking about Eddie. Except for the occasional mention of him when your mom brought up the club. You pointedly made no comment—Dustin getting the clear image as to why—but he never pressed the topic.

He already knew the answer: you and Eddie were total opposites, and opposites would never get along.

It’s an ill-timed drop-off. You had to work an extra early morning shift at the diner, but it meant you were able to swing home and grab the folder before Dustin had his class. It did, however, mean you were walking into Hawkins High around his lunchtime. So you had to walk those annoying familiar halls and push through the crowds to find your little brother.

Except Dustin didn’t exactly stand out when he was mixed into a sea of students. Someone else, however, did. And he was sitting at the end of a table with his damn jean vest and leather jacket on, arms thrown behind his head. As carefree as he could be. And for a moment, you contemplated just trying to find Dustin in the crowd. But Eddie’s eyes were scanning the lunchroom, and it took all of a few seconds before they landed on you, and his smile widened.

You bit the bullet.

“Well, princess, what brings you back to Hawkins High?” Eddie lowered his hands and sarcastically batted his lashes. “Aiming for valedictorian this time?”

“Dustin forgot this. Mind giving it to him?” You held out the folder, and Eddie just looked at it.

“You don’t want to wait for dear little brother?”

"You'll have to forgive me. I'm a little tired." You motioned to the uniform you hadn't managed to change out of. "Been up since four. Desperate for a nap. Can you give Dustin the folder, please?"

“Sure, princess.” Eddie snatched it out of your hands and thumbed through the contents. He shimmied his shoulders and scrunched his nose as he looked back up. “Since you said please.”

“Great.” You gave him the most annoyed thumbs up you could manage. “Appreciate it.”

You turned, not caring to be back in the place you disdained so much with someone who made you want to wring their neck. It was a fight not to glance back, though. Eddie’s eyes were scorching on you—a feeling that made your chest feel tight, and you just shook your head. The dick was getting in your head.

So you kept him and his subjectively nice smile out of it.

And that worked all fine and dandy until a storm raged through Hawkins, and your mother instructed you to pick the trio up from Hellfire. You couldn’t be mad about it, considering the thunder was shaking the sides of the car and the rain was making it nearly impossible to see. But it didn’t mean you liked it. You didn’t like anything about having to go pick them up.

They weren't outside yet. That meant the club either wasn't over yet, or it was, and they were hanging out inside until the storm passed, not knowing you were there. You tried the walkie, but as neglectful as you and Dustin tried to avoid being, the batteries were dead. So you stared out the windshield at the door leading inside. Waiting could mean waiting for over an hour, and you weren't about to do that in the car while it stormed.

Getting out during it wasn’t any better. And that meant you’d get wet.

But you really didn’t want to wait if you didn’t have to. Not when the thunder sounded like it was getting louder. It almost seemed like it was purposefully trying to target you–and the walls of the school felt safer than those of your mom’s car. So you made a run for it, nearly slipping on the concrete as you rushed inside.

Somewhat drenched, you dried your feet on a rug and headed towards the room Dustin had brought you to last time. Even if you hadn’t remembered, it was the only one in the hall that had sound coming from it. You hung around outside for a few minutes, waiting to try and figure out whether they were still playing or if they were just hanging around. Another roll of thunder made your nails dig into your palms hard enough that you finally pulled the door open.

Eddie whistled when you poked your head in, a few drops of water falling from your hair.

“Caught in the storm, princess?”

“Dustin.” It came out a little more stern than you intended, and his eyes went to the windows where lightning flashed outside. You made an effort not to flinch.

“Five minutes?” He gave you puppy dog eyes.

“Five minutes.”

You avoided looking at Eddie as you closed the door and pressed your back against the wall. A few deep breaths helped, but only barely. And those five minutes were taking too long to pass, so you went first to the water fountain, then the bathroom to try and judge how horrible you looked from the few seconds in the storm, and then back out to the water fountains.

There was more thunder and lightning as you bent over the fountain, and you closed your eyes. Another slow breath before you got a sip and swallowed. There was a brief calming second before you stood and wiped the back of your mouth. Except where it'd been empty beside you before, a long-haired Dungeon Master was standing there with his hands in his pockets.

You jumped hard and yelped, stumbling back enough to where Eddie had to reach out and catch you.

"Woah there, princess. Just wanted to tell you the kids are getting their things. They'll be out in a sec." His hands lingered on your shoulders for a brief second as he righted you. They were hot through the thin fabric, and you could feel the thick mental of his rings. Rings that must've felt weird when holding hands.

But you pushed that idea out as soon as you had it—holding hands with Eddie? Not for you. Nope. No need to dwell on that idea.

In an attempt to change the subject, especially for your subconscious, you cleared your throat and didn’t wait for Eddie’s hands to move.

“What’s with the princess thing, really?” You couldn’t help but notice that Eddie only moved his hands once you finished speaking. “Haven’t let up on that one since we met.”

"Technically, we did attend school together. Just never crossed paths." He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers while smirking. He leaned forward, close enough to smell the mixture of cigarette smoke, weed, and a hint of whatever soap he used. "But princess? That's 'cause you're Princess Perfect. Everything's gotta be pristine for you. Hawkins' own little goody two shoes."

Your brows pinched–the dick thought you were Princess Perfect? Seriously? Yeah, you aimed for perfect grades and never really strayed from the expected path, but that was for Dustin.

"I'm not a goody two shoes." You were trying to sound stern, but it came off a little defensive, and Eddie leaned back, rolling onto his heels.

“Sorry, princess, you are. Thems the rules. I think I have a pretty decent say as to what qualifies as that, considering I’m—”

“The exact opposite?” You gave him a tight smile. “You’ll have to forgive me for caring about my grades and trying to be a good influence on Dustin. We can’t all afford to be on our third attempt at graduating.”

"Oh, ouch." His laugh was playful, his smile too, and that little twisting was back in your chest. With the added symptom of a racing heart and a pang in your gut. You weren't Princess Perfect. Were you? "You've wounded me."

You were fixing to respond when another loud crash of thunder shook the school, and you flinched, cursing under your breath. Running a hand over your face blocked you from having to meet Eddie’s gaze, one you knew would be mocking. And when you didn’t immediately look at him, he nudged you softly.

“Y’know, I got just the thing to take the edge off if you want. Could really help with the storm.”

“You’re funny, Eddie.”

“Never said I was joking, princess.” He gave you a curious look, obviously seeing if you’d take the bait. But you’d gone this long without getting high—you weren’t about to be a hypocrite and break your rules now. A little softer, he added, “really, it’ll help.”

The halls of the school were barely lit, but somehow his eyes looked soft. Tender would be too kind of a word—you and Eddie weren’t close enough for tender. You only knew his last name because you went to school together. Plus, it was kind of hard not to when Dustin was throwing it around at home more often lately.

Granted, you knew him from his reputation. And it wasn’t like you were Princess Perfect.

But that didn’t mean you were going to let Eddie off the hook from one strange attempt at being sweet.

"Gonna have to pass, Munson." The door behind him opened, and you heard the guys start to exit. A small ache in your chest pushed the next words out a tad unexpectedly, "I appreciate it, though."

“Hey, if you change your mind?” He shrugged and took a few steps back, eyes dropping down over you from head to toe. “You know where to find me, princess.”

“Unfortunately,” you murmured, watching him leave.

Dustin had to call your name to kick you into gear, making you jingle the keys at him before heading out. He unlocked the car for you before you went, leaving you to stand next to Eddie as he watched the guys scramble in.

“Got a whole system for it?” He nudged your arm with his elbow. “Dustin’s a good dude.”

“Just get home safe, Munson. The guys will be pissed if you don’t.” Once your car door was unlocked and you gave half a second for thunder or lightning to make an appearance, you sprinted out to the car.

Silently praying you wouldn’t fall on your ass with Eddie watching, you jumped into the driver’s seat and shook your head, feeling the rain drip off you.

“Alright, let’s get you guys home.”

Saying the next few days went smoothly would be a lie. You couldn't get Eddie's stupid face out of your head. His words, too. Stuck in there like glue, sneaking to the front of your thoughts when you least expected. Like when you were working, and you were refilling a cup of coffee–those damn brown eyes all soft and that devilish smirk sneaking in without warning.

Or the little lean he did towards you in the hallway. The feeling of his hands on your shoulders was also frustrating. He was frustrating. He wasn’t even there and he was frustrating. That dumbass.

You were spared having to see him for a total of two days before your shift was accidentally switched with a coworker's. So instead of working mornings—like you had specified when applying—they had you coming in for the night shifts. Granted, the place didn't stay open past midnight, but working closing was not the crowd you enjoyed. Serving drunks and delinquents wasn't your thing. You could handle the early risers who called you sweetie and honey and reacted to your perfected customer service smile with their own semi-genuine one.

The night crowd was the opposite. They grunted when you asked them a yes or no question.

And some of the delinquents ended up being Eddie and his band, his eyes widening and brightening the moment he saw you in uniform. He wasn't even trying to hide his smile, sauntering and sitting down at a table his friends had chosen. Right in your damn section—although that didn't matter much. In about an hour, it'd all be your section after the only other server left.

“My goodness, what is pretty little Princess Henderson doing here so late?” Eddie leaned forward, dropping his chin into his hands. “Miss us so much you started working nights?”

"Yeah, Dustin's the one who's into your club and hanging out with you guys. I'm just the driver." You opened your notepad. "So, drinks?"

Eddie gave you a look that said boo, but otherwise kept silent.

Each sounded off their order, Eddie's head canting to the side as he watched you scribble down on the little notepad. You looked at him expectantly when he hadn't said anything to you. Instead of answering, he perused the menu like he'd never seen one before.

"I do have other tables, you know. Drunks or not, I gotta serve them, Munson. Pick a drink, or I'm picking one for you."

Eddie's eyes shifted up and he grinned wide. "Oh, I'm very curious what that would entail. Go on, pick for me."

“Fine.” You grinned a tight grin and turned on your heels. “Gets me outta the conversation faster anyways.”

You gave him a mixture of sodas. Wasn't too bad—somewhere along the line Dustin had made you try it while he was creating different concoctions. But it was definitely a shock to the system when you weren't expecting it. And it was just that with Eddie, making him cough a bit as he took the first sip, a slight hue of pink covering his cheeks.

Now that was a sight you weren’t prepared for: Eddie blushing while letting out a burst of proud giggles.

“Unexpected. Nice, princess.” He nodded at the cup. “Question, if I came in the morning, would you have served me that?”

“No, the managers actually care in the morning.” You rolled your shoulders and clicked your pen. “It’s more relaxed at night. But doesn’t matter—what are you guys going to eat?”

It took about twenty minutes for their assortment of dishes to come out, making it easy to bring to the table since each one was staggered. The fear that you'd drop the food in front of Eddie simmered away and being replaced by dropping just one of the plates because of those nerves. Somehow you managed, deciding to purposefully avoid Eddie's table as they ate. Instead, you tended to the rest of your six customers, two of which were passed out drunk with a cold cup of coffee in front of them.

Eddie lingered when his group eventually finished, watching you clear the table as he leaned against the side of the booth. He held up a ten-dollar bill, and you looked at him skeptically.

"I'd say it's for the wonderful service, but I'm still in awe you'd break the rules for me."

“What are you talking about?” You still snatched the ten from him, pocketing it as he chuckled.

"The drink. Such a small thing but still unexpected." He folded his arms over his chest and tipped his chin up. "I see why you avoid me now. Just a few interactions, and I'm already corrupting Princess Perfect."

You wiped the table down and dropped the rag in the bucket. Pushing your shoulders back, you stepped a little closer to Eddie. He smelled like the coffee his friend had gotten, pancakes and syrup too. He didn’t blink as you leaned in to whisper.

“Munson, you couldn’t corrupt me even if you tried.”

That constant amusement that Eddie always had in his eyes deepened and he cocked his head to the side.

“That a challenge, princess?”

The unsaid words he held in his gaze threw you, and you realized you hadn't responded. Nor had you stepped back. Only a few inches stayed between you as Eddie waited, but you were too fixated on too many things at once to formulate a clever response. The way your breathing had increased, your heart rate too. The way the blush slowly faded from Eddie's cheeks but his smile had widened. How your focus accidentally, for just a hot second, dropped to Eddie's mouth.

That’s when you turned, praying that he hadn’t noticed.

“No, it’s a statement. A fact.” You cleared your throat, your own cheeks burning hot. “Can’t do what I’m not interested in.”

"Mhm." Eddie nodded. "You work any more nights after this?"

“Why? Trying to figure out when to come and bother me?”

“Something like that.”

You peered back over at him, and he looked serious—about as serious as you'd ever seen Eddie look. He was still smiling a little teasing smile.

“Next four days,” you responded for some unknown reason. Even Eddie looked surprised by it, too.

“Then I will see you later, princess.”

"Yeah. Uh-huh."

You stole a glance as he left, sauntering out to his massive car. There was no way Eddie was going to come back the next four days. Three of which were school nights. And Eddie may not have been as responsible as you, but he looked like the type of guy who liked to sleep. Although he also seemed like the type to choose sleep over school.

You made absolutely zero mention to Dustin about Eddie showing up at your work. And when he didn't say anything about it after school the next day, it meant Eddie hadn't either. Which was either a potentially good thing—Eddie knew you weren't his biggest fan and him showing up to bug you could cause a weird thing with his relationship with Dustin. Or it could mean Eddie was actually concocting ways to try and, as he said, "corrupt" you. And telling Dustin could interfere with that.

Probably the latter.

It was the latter.

Eddie was back the next night, his friends there again too. Same table, same drink order. Down to Eddie telling you to bring him another new drink mix. You brought him water—that of which he was sorely ashamed of and booed you as you left to top off someone else’s coffee.

When you came back, Eddie had lit up a cigarette and handed it to you.

"Care for a puff?" He held it out, and you really hated that your first thought was how Eddie's lips had been on the thing.

“Take it outside, Munson.” Your restaurant was openly okay with smoking indoors. Didn’t mean you were.

“Will you take a puff then?” He stood up, not giving you time to back up, and your chests nearly touched. “C’mon, princess, just one.”

“There’s absolutely zero incentive for me to do so, you do realize that? Simply offering me something out of my comfort zone has absolutely no appeal to me.” You clicked your pen. “Do better, Munson.”

He couldn't—at least not for that night. He left with a promise, though. When he came back, he'd have something. He gave no clue as to what it'd be, but he'd have something.

Technically, it wasn't him who had the idea when he and his friends came back the next night. You groaned when they came in, all smiling and waving at you. Even the cook gave you a knowing look, and you just shook your head.

"Eddie has promised that he won't say a word the whole time if you'll break a rule," one of them said.

“Oh, Munson,” you cooed, leaning towards him as he pinched his mouth shut and smiled. “Now that’s a good one.”

You grabbed a chair—which was already breaking a rule at the diner—and Eddie cocked his brow as you sat down in it. You leaned forward and put your hand on his shoulder, giving him a little shake.

"That's the best possible incentive you could come up with. I love it." You slapped his cheek playfully—warm and soft under your palm. "So I'll break policy just this once. I’ll comp your meal, Munson. But they get to pick it.”

You could see the dread in his eyes as you turned your attention to his friends. And boy did they have fun with it. They got the ill-famed steak that was never cooked well, drizzled with raspberry jam and the gravy served with the biscuits. A side of overcooked hash browns and a mixture of every single soda you had available to drink. But Eddie held his tongue, looking at you like he was plotting your demise. Even if this had been his whole idea.

The look deepened when you plopped the plate onto the table and the whole group—minus him, of course—recoiled with different disgusted reactions. Eddie drummed his fingers on the table a few times before picking up his silverware and cutting at the tar-like steak. You almost felt bad—no, you did feel a bit bad—but the immediate reaction to the first bite was worth it.

It was a visible effort not to spit it out. And then he had to chew it a little too long. The crunch of the hash browns that followed was the cherry on top of the sundae. The sip of the horrible drink mix like a sprinkle of jimmies.

He slammed his hand down on the table as he swallowed his bite.

"Taste good? I'll let the chef know it's your favorite. He can serve it to you each time you come in. You don't even have to remember the order—he's got a good memory like that." You leaned over Eddie, hand on his shoulder sliding back under his hair and down his back. "Say nothing if you want me to tell the chef."

Eddie just sighed. And dropped his head back, looking at you with narrowed eyes.

"Great. Well, enjoy your meal, guys."

You left, once again feeling Eddie’s eyes on you. A feeling you were getting strangely used to.

They finished before the end of the hour, and you earned a hot tip from all of them. Even Eddie, who looked like he was going to linger until he remembered your deal. He licked his lips when you smiled teasingly over at him, and he sucked in his cheeks, clearly plotting.

But there was too much guilt knowing he had barely managed to stomach half of the dish, so you called his name as he turned, and he came to a halt.

You handed him a paper to-go bag, and he cocked a brow as he took it.

"Something actually edible."

When he pursed his lips before giving you a slight bow, you figured that was his silent version of thank you. But then he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you into a hug.

It wasn’t a long one, but it pulled you flush against him, his arm wrapping around your waist. So sudden that you softly yelped as he pulled you in, and you could really smell his…pine scented, maybe…soap under the hell that’d been the food he’d been served.

But he moved back as soon as he'd pulled you in, shooting you a quick wink as he backed out the front door, holding the bag up as a final silent thank you. He left you standing breathlessly in the middle of the diner as someone grunted out for a refill on their coffee.

Eddie Munson just hugged you and you liked every second of it.

And you damn well couldn't stop thinking about it.

When he and his group came back the next night, you were too wired for any sort of game. His group offered to do it again, but you felt like if you said yes, that meant comping another meal—and you’d already done that twice with both of Eddie’s last meals—because that was the easiest rule to break. And if you did that, it meant Eddie wouldn’t talk to you, so if you felt guilty again and gave him another meal, he’d hug you again.

And he could catch on that you didn't hate the hug if you let that happen. So you didn't. Making it easier, you decided to keep it professional as you did during your morning shifts. Still playful enough that the group wouldn't notice, but you barely let the conversation drift to anything besides ordering when you talked to Eddie.

He picked up on it quickly. And he followed you back to where you had to go behind the counter to help another customer. Standing just outside the small gate, his smile a dangerous threat that he’ll follow you back there if you don’t give him a few moments of attention.

“Go back to your table, Munson.” You frowned at him, keeping the inch and a half of gate between you. “Employees only.”

“I get you in trouble with that stunt yesterday, princess?”

“No.” You leaned against the thick plastic. “But if I comp two more meals, I will get in trouble. And as much as I’d love to shut you up when you’re here, I can’t risk that.”

“Two meals? You telling me you’d feed me again?”

“If your friends made another horrendous meal, yes. I do have a conscience, you know.”

“Oh, I am well aware of that fact.” He put his hands beside yours on the gate and leaned forward. His thumbs brushed your pinkies and it sent a bolt of electricity through you. One that doubled in power when he leaned forward, close enough to feel his breath on your cheek. His tone was cheeky, but his whisper drew out a bit of hoarseness in his voice. “Wouldn’t be such a good girl if you didn’t.”

You lingered like that for a few seconds longer than either of you should’ve. It was another customer calling you over that pulled you away, back down at the other end of the counter. But when you started towards her and peered back at Eddie, he was still standing there watching you, mouth pressed into a tight smile.

Eddie didn’t stay after they paid this time. Just gently nudged your arm and thanked you for the service. With an added princess tacked onto the end, of course. As he went out the door, he called, “see you tomorrow.”

The thing about Eddie was even if you put your own skewed idea of who he was aside, he was still Dustin's friend. And if your feelings towards Eddie got even remotely complicated, it could complicate his friendship with your brother. You weren't going to fuck that up for Dustin—not when he looked up to Eddie so much.

But your feelings had already gotten a little complicated. So you had to get rid of them. Shove them down, ignore them, pretend they weren't there. Which was fairly easy to do when you were able to distract yourself with chores before the day started. Drop the car at the shop for its routine service, tidy your room, pump up a tire on your bike before going into work. Completely forget to check the weather and cursing the humidity as you locked your bike up outside.

It worked well. Until you got to work and the minutes ticked down to when Eddie and his gang might show up. Except those minutes ticked and ticked away, continuing to do so as the end of your shift got closer. And you started to worry the scene you kept playing over and over in your head of you two standing at the gate, hands just barely touching, mouths dangerously close, wasn’t just plaguing you. And just because it made your heart race and a coil in your stomach tighten, didn’t mean it did the same in Eddie’s.

Then he walked in an hour and a half before closing. Alone.

“Hey, princess,” he cooed, sitting down at the counter.

You turned around, biting back the excitement you felt when you saw him sitting there.

"No gang today?" You sat down a mug and poured him a cup of coffee—a subconscious habit from everyone else who sat at the counter at night. He didn't turn it away, though.

"Nah." He drummed his fingers, and you watched the lights flicker on his silver rings. "Just me tonight, princess."

You plopped the notepad onto the counter and leaned over it, head in your hand. You hovered the pen over it and glanced up at him with—and you tried not to—a semi-flirty look. It was really hard to not do it when he was looking at you with his big brown eyes and had that cheeky smile. Or when all you could hear on repeat was him calling you a good girl and there was the phantom feeling of his hands next to yours.

“Well, then. What can I get you to eat, Eddie?”

Pancakes, eggs, sausage, toast, and hash browns. Two cups of coffee. Unlike before with his friends, where he could inhale the food, he took his time eating. Staying for around forty minutes, stealing you away from customers to insist that the food was delicious, even offering you a few bites.

Each time you turned him down and reminded him that you did, in fact, work there. You knew exactly how the food tasted. And it wasn’t that good. But you let him have it. You let him linger around for a few minutes at the end, entertaining him just sitting there and watching as you picked up his plates and wiped down the counter.

“You know you paid, right?”

“Shit, that must be why my wallet feels so much lighter. Genius, princess, genius.” He leaned forward, not caring that the counter was still damp. “Just wanted to say goodnight.”

That got you directly in the chest and you almost dropped the rag.

“Night, Eddie,” you said softly, cheeks burning as Eddie smirked. He tapped the counter twice before jumping up and sauntering outside, his hair bouncing with each step.

You barely heard the thunder as the door shut, heart hammering just as loud in your chest.

It was pouring by the time you clocked out. Downpouring, heavy, frustrating rain. With stupid thunder and lightning. You bit your lip as you glanced outside the windows. You had two options: bike home—which was the only viable one—or ask the chef for a ride home. And you weren’t remotely close enough with him to do that.

You winced as it thundered again and it cracked along the sky as a bolt of lightning followed. The idea of riding a metal bike home in the storm was the least appealing thing you could think of. But you couldn't even delay the inevitable. You were rushed out the door with the chef. At least the building had awnings covering the sidewalk to the back of the building, where you managed to stay somewhat dry.

You stopped cold in your tracks when you rounded the corner, spotting a familiar jean vest and dark jacket combo as he puffed on the end of a cigarette.

“Hey, princess,” he whispered, pushing up from leaning on the building. He stomped the cigarette out and peered up at the sky. “Want a ride home?”

When you didn’t answer right away, Eddie turned his focus to you. He slid his hands into his pockets almost shyly and stepped back, making himself comfortable against the building. Exactly how he’d just been.

"How'd you know?" You took a step forward and motioned towards your bike, very aware that you hadn't said no.

“Didn’t see you parked in your usual spot. Bike out back was new, too. Took a guess.” He shrugged.

“You finished your meal like an hour ago, Eddie.” There was no way he stood outside waiting for you this whole time. It was either that or the alternative—he came back for you. Both of which were way too much to handle as thunder rolled again.

“Really like to savor my smoke breaks.” He tilted his head to the side. “So, what do you say, princess? Biking back or risking being seen with the town freak?”

“You already know the answer, Eddie.” You nodded towards his car and Eddie smirked.

Eddie shrugged off his vest and coat, throwing the latter your way as you unlocked your bike.

“Makeshift umbrella,” he said as if you should’ve immediately known what him giving you his jacket meant. “Now stay here a sec.”

He yelped playfully as he pulled out his keys and ran into the rain. His car wasn’t parked far, but it was raining hard enough that he was already getting soaked. He opened his hatch, first, then his passenger door. Once that was wide open, he waved you forward and you bit your lip before sprinting towards him.

His hands went to your waist as he helped you in, closing the door firmly behind you.

As you got situated in his very interesting smelling van, he went back for your bike and chucked it into the back of his car. He cursed as he jumped into the driver's seat, shaking his head like a wet dog and grinning madly, taking out the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket and wiping his face. His grin stayed as he peered over at you, curled up in his coat, only half as soaked as he was, and he nudged you.

“C’mon, princess. Let’s get you home.”

It was cold. And it should've been hard to be cold as Eddie blasted his music and nodded his head to the beat. His hands banged against his steering wheel occasionally, just as occasionally as when he stole glances your way. But his AC was on and it was blowing freezing air on you. Even wrapping up in his jacket didn't do much, and it took you nudging him and pointing at his AC for him to get the gist.

You did get to learn something from that, though. Even with the rings, it felt really damn nice to hold his hand.

As soon as he flicked the AC off, he muttered an apology you couldn't hear over the music and his hand went over to yours. An ill attempt at warming you up, but for all intents and purposes, it worked. As soon as his fingers laced through yours—and he made it abundantly clear he wasn't going to let go until you stopped shivering—your body flushed with heat.

Although even when you did stop shivering, Eddie didn't move his hand. It stayed there until he pulled into your driveway, and he flicked off the music before he turned the car off.

"Go open the garage. I'll get your bike."

You did just as he said, sprinting from the car and getting the garage opened as fast as you could. Above you, a light flickered on and Eddie came running in from the storm after slamming his hatch shut. He shook his head again, still grinning, soaked all the way through his clothes as he sat your bike to the side.

“Thanks,” you murmured, eyes dragging over how his shirt stuck firmly to his body. “I appreciate the ride home.”

“A thank you for the food after the awful steak you guys fed me.” He shook his head, face twisting in disgust. “Worst thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“So worth it on my end. Shut you up for a bit. Didn’t have to hear you call me princess.” You shrugged his jacket off and tossed it to him.

“Come on, you love it.” He leaned forward, slightly closing the gap between you. “Don’t yah, princess?”

"Yeah, sure, Eddie." You should've turned to go inside, but your feet were glued in place. It was kind of hard to take your eyes off Eddie when he looked like that—soaked to the bone, smirking madly, eyes glinting. "You got me. I love it. Totally."

“You would’ve told me to fuck off already if you didn’t. Same with the rule breaking, too.” His hands slid into his very tight pockets. “Come on, admit it, breaking the rules a bit was fun.”

“Wow, look at the time. I should really be going to bed.”

Eddie didn't contest it. "Well then, goodnight my little goody two shoes."

Eddie backed up a few paces before he turned, throwing his coat over one shoulder. Goody two shoes. He was right, though. It had been a little fun breaking the rules. Granted, it was significantly more relaxed during the night shift, but it was still fun. And it was directly linked to him, whether you wanted to realize that or not.

You did. Everything linked to Eddie was a bad idea sprinkled with fun.

And you had a hankering to break the rules again.

Half to prove you weren’t this perfect little princess. Half because you couldn’t take your eyes off Eddie or ignore the way you wanted to feel his hands on your hips again.

“Eddie,” you muttered, already closing the gap.

He was just about to step out of your garage when you caught him. He turned, taking a staggering step back as you grabbed a fistful of his damp hair and jerked him towards you.

His mouth was soft against yours.

Eddie took a full ten seconds before he registered what was happening, pulling back and staring down at you with wide eyes. But it clicked, the gears in his head slowly turning, and he beamed. His hands went to your waist, mouth back on yours, pushing you back into the garage. Away from the storm raging outside.

He tasted a bit like smoke, but the way he aimed to devour you, you didn’t give a single damn. Especially not when your back pressed against the wall beside the door and Eddie pressed himself against you. He was hot under his damp shirt, the vest heavy under your hands as you moved it aside.

“Would you look at that, princess,” he murmured, breaking the kiss to kiss along your jaw. “Letting me corrupt you after all, hm?”

He dropped, hands going underneath your thighs and hoisting you from the floor. You gasped as he pressed you back against the wall, mouth back on yours, swallowing whatever sounds slipped out.

You didn’t answer, too intoxicated by his kiss. Your hands, though, they skimmed down his chest, and you broke the kiss to glance down. Where you stared at his wallet chain then his black belt and then, as he moved back and followed your gaze down, the very apparent appendage his jeans did nothing to hide.

He just about whispered your name as he looked back up, but you shut him up with a kiss. A deeper one, hands going down and fingers hooking between his belt loops first, then toying with his belt.

He went ridged enough that you thought he was going to pull back, but after a beat, a hand was coming up to your jaw and he returned the kiss with fervor.

Seemed you both were getting a bit drunk on it. And Eddie had no shame of it, moving your hands and pressing his hips firmly against yours. He rolled them a few experimental times and by the fourth one, you were tightening your thighs around him at the friction he was giving you.

The skirt of your uniform provided zero walls between him and you—all that was there were your underwear, his jeans and whatever he wore underneath. And as Eddie pushed your skirt up, he dropped his head into the crook of your neck. Just until he got the skirt up and he stole a glance down.

“Aw. Pink for the pretty princess.”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“Make me.” He grinned, his cheeks a bit pink. But the friction he was giving you with each roll of his hips shut you up.

And you were going to, you really, really were. Except in Eddie's attempt to readjust his hold on you, he managed to lose spacial awareness. And when his arm moved, he managed to hit your bike, which, when it fell, knocked over a rake, shovel, and broom. All of which clattered very, very loudly on the floor.

You both froze, and it took less than thirty seconds to hear Dustin inside the house call, "(Y/N), that you?"

“Shit, shit, shit.” Eddie sat you down, already knowing it’d be really bad if you both were caught. Dustin would be better than your mom, but Dustin would never let either of you hear the end of it.

“Eddie,” you hissed, adjusting your skirt. “Eddie, you dumbass, your jacket.”

You ran forward and picked up the leather heap, aiming to throw it at him as he skidded to a stop and nearly fell turning around. He knelt down with you to pick it up, one hand going for his jacket, the other for your cheek.

“Night, princess,” he whispered against your lips, stealing one final knee-weakening kiss.

"Night, Eddie," you breathed back, staying on the ground as he ran back out into the storm and pulled away.

Dustin opened the door to the garage just as you were standing and walking towards your fallen bike.

“Oh, good. It is you.” He nodded, half asleep.

“Go back to bed. I’ll be inside in one second. Kay?”

Dustin waved a hand before going back inside, closing the door softly behind him. You picked your bike up, then everything that had fallen in the domino effect. With your hand on the doorknob, you let out a very slow and careful sigh.

You kissed Eddie. And he more than kissed you back.

Shit, maybe he had corrupted you.

You had the next day at the diner off, and since the car wasn’t ready for pick-up yet, you spent the day mostly helping out at home. Aka, mostly replaying the whole last two hours you had with Eddie. The diner, the drive home, the kiss, his hips.

Dustin had seemed a little suspicious before school, but you were also only running on about six hours of sleep, so you could've misinterpreted it.

So you helped, you cleaned, you thought about Eddie's mouth. You cooked, and ate, and napped, dreaming about Eddie's hands and body and hips and how good you felt with each little movement of them. You took a cold shower, rearranged the garage, remembered how sweetly he'd kissed you when he came back for his jacket.

“Fuck.” You threw a towel aside, staring at the last clean dish.

You couldn’t get Eddie Munson out of your damn head.

So you shamefully let anger take over, and it lingered once Dustin got home. He asked you what was wrong, but you brushed him off. Told him to do his homework. You helped your mom cook to try and channel the frustrations, but it only ended in a quiet dinner on your behalf. Listening to Dustin and your mom talk about their days. Eddie's name came up once or twice and that was the final nail in the coffin.

You took another quick freezing shower, changed, and told them you were going out for a quick bike ride. Your mom immediately started to worry, but you just gave her your best innocent smile and said you'd be back soon. You just needed to clear your head. Dustin gave you a curious yet accusatory look, and you answered him by flicking him off.

It wasn't a far ride, but getting to Max's trailer on a bike wasn't exactly fun. It was harder to recall the directions outside of a car—at least it felt like that. But you knew Eddie lived across from her, and since he wasn't playing at The Hideout tonight and it wasn't their Hellfire night, odds were he'd be home. Felt a little weird technically knowing where he lived but not knowing a number to call, but you'd know whether or not he was there if his car was.

And if it wasn’t, well, you could still check in on Max.

But his car was there, and the lights were on inside the trailer.

You threw your bike down, marched up his steps, and banged on the door.

He opened it with expected confusion that very quickly morphed into confused amusement.

“Hey there, princess. Didn’t know you knew where I lived. Wanna come in?” He stepped aside, throwing the door closed behind you.

“A friend lives in the neighborhood. Would’ve called, but didn’t feel like asking Dustin for your number.” You folded your arms over your chest and looked around the messy trailer. Eddie just stood there smiling, holding his hands somewhat out as you studied the place.

“I feel like I should inquire why you biked all the way over to see me. But with the angry look on your face, I’m a little scared to, to be honest.”

“I don’t know which to be angry about.” You finally looked at him and he just tilted his head to the side. “Should I be pissed at myself because I broke my rules for you because you fucking goated me into breaking the rules at work? Or should I be mad at you for pushing me to do it in the first place? I’m already mad at myself for kissing you, but I’m mad at you for kissing me back.”

Eddie's eyes were wide, and he just stayed quiet.

“But I can’t be mad at you because I wanted you to kiss me back. And I can’t be mad at myself because I wanted to kiss you. So you know what, fuck you for being so likable.” You stepped closer. “You’re the worst.”

Silence rang out in the air and Eddie smiled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I don’t know whether I should be offended or complimented.” He nodded and crossed his arms. “I prefer flattery, so let’s go with that.”

“Insufferable. You’re insufferable.” You ran your hands over your face. “Okay. That’s all I came to say.”

“(Y/N),” he cooed, hanging his head a bit as he stepped forward. “Straight answer: do you want to pretend last night didn’t happen?”

He raised his eyebrows, peering at you through his lashes, teeth capturing his bottom lip.

"I…don't know." You pressed your mouth into a fine line.

Eddi

e lolled his head from side to side and nodded.

“Okay, different question. Did you enjoy what we did?” He laughed a little and smirked, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Actually, I already know you did based on how you were reacting. Instead, let’s try: do you want to do it again?”

“I…” You glanced away, looking at Eddie made it too difficult to answer the question. “Don’t know.”

Eddie laughed and stumbled back a bit, shaking his head and causing some of his hair to fall into his face. He pushed the sleeves of his shirt up and it was only then you realized he wasn’t wearing his jacket or vest. He peered down at his feet then over at you, his smile growing as he clearly caught you staring at his bare forearms.

“If I wanted to kiss you right now, would you let me?”

Your eyes shot up to his, and he just gave you an expectant expression. When your mouth parted, he took a step closer. Another one when you didn’t say anything. Until he closed the gap just enough for you to feel the sudden urge to have his mouth back on yours and you blurted out the answer. Even if you’d wanted to keep it to yourself.

“Yes.” You swallowed hard. “I would.”

You half expected him to just nod, turn around, and say something like, "then there's your answer, princess." But he didn't. Instead, his hands went to cup your cheeks and he pulled you into a kiss.

It wasn't as heated as the one from last night, but it damn well got there. It didn't take long for the slow, teasing kiss to spiral into gasps and moans as you pulled Eddie back towards where you were fairly certain his couch was. He guided you down, a knee between your legs as your back dropped against the cushions. An arm hooked around your waist, jerking you close as Eddie's hair tickled your neck.

He let out a little sound of surprise as you tugged his shirt up and over his head. He pulled back, looking at you like he was about to call you a minx or something, but he didn't. He just sucked in his cheeks and stripped his shirt the rest of the way off. Then he was back on you instantly, mouth trailing along your neck until he found the spot that made you dig your nails into his back.

But your hands only stayed here momentarily. Your body was burning and Eddie fucking knew it, the way he moved his hips against you told you just as much. You grabbed at him, reaching desperately to unbuckle his belt, and Eddie panicked, pushing up and giving you a different look. One that almost looked a little foreign on him.

“Hey, now, easy princess.” He smiled a little nervously. “We aren’t going to go too far with this, alright? I don’t want to make you go too fast.”

You blinked up at him, and for the first time in weeks it felt like you finally had an upper hand against him. One that was more than a poorly made steak with ill-chosen toppings.

He thought you were a virgin.

The slow smile that crept onto you gave him pause and he narrowed his eyes sharp.

“Eddie Munson,” you whispered, continuing to undo his belt. “Do you think I’m a virgin?”

It dawned on him so visibly, so viscerally that you thought he was going to sit back on his knees. But then his cheeks turned a stark red and he gave you a lopsided grin.

“There’s no fucking way you’re not.” He studied your expression. “Not little miss princess.”

“Senior year boyfriend. Broke up when he left for college.” You tilted your chin up and undid Eddie’s button and fly. “Not a virgin, Munson.”

His breath hitched as you did your best to jerk his pants down and Eddie was on the verge of laughing. Not at you or your attempt, but it was like he couldn't process the information. And damn did it feel great to watch him struggle with it.

Eddie's response ended up being a kiss. A slower one, almost teasing. He kicked his pants off, the chain jingling as they fell to the floor. And his hands were on you, untucking your shirt from your jeans, and taking his sweet time undoing your them. Not so silently relishing in the way you were staring to squirm and pant underneath him.

"Then tell me, princess, how far do you wanna go tonight?" When you lifted your arms, he pulled your shirt over your head, immediately sucking in a harsh breath before leaving kisses over your chest. He was clearly trying to show some semblance of restraint, but the lower he kissed, the heavier he was starting to breathe. His eyes were sharp when he looked back up at you, mouth hovering over your bra and he looked fucking desperate to hear your answer.

You stared at Eddie. This was breaking your rules far beyond last night. You could put a kiss behind you, forget it ever happened. You couldn't pretend you hadn't biked over to his trailer and slept together. But that created another set of questions because you really didn't want to stop. His hands skimming over your waist, toying with the band of your bra, a knee between your legs. It felt too good.

Your eyes scanned over his tattoos, thoughts raging in your head. Desire raging through your body.

Insufferable, sure, but damn it. You liked him. A lot.

So you threw a critical hit and pulled him down to whisper in his ear.

“I want you to fuck me, Eddie.”

The breath he let out was ragged, and he immediately pulled back to look at you. To make sure he'd heard you right. When he said nothing, you threw an arm around him and yanked him down, pressing him against you as you trailed your own kisses along his jaw. And that made Eddie melt. For approximately fifteen seconds before he was scooping you off the couch and carrying you into his room. It was a flash of different objects. One being his guitar. Another an amp. Then a stereo and then his mattress.

Your back was on it and Eddie was nudging your legs open with his knee.

“Who would have thought you had such a dirty mouth, princess?” He grinned before, without much of a warning, tugging the cups of your bra down. And it was only when Eddie’s mouth closed around a nipple that you realized Eddie had his mouth on your nipple.

His hair tickled as his tongue swirled, an arm around your back holding you close. Over and over, his tongue swirled and licked, and he gently sucked. Eddie Munson. Eddie Munson was touching your chest. An understatement of a sentence, but he was. And it felt fucking great.

His hand skimmed down your stomach as he turned his attention to the other side of your chest. He toyed with the elastic of your underwear as he swiped his tongue over your nipple, humming as your eyes clamped shut and you bit back a moan. But he wasn’t exactly happy with that outcome, fingers dipping down over your underwear and swiping over the damp spot that’d formed.

Eddie whistled, glancing up at you from your chest. His grin said everything he could’ve possibly conjured up. And his fingers finding your clit kept you from saying a smart-ass remark.

Eddie was a guitarist. He was good with his fingers. That translated magnificently to what he was doing between your legs. And it was a shorter amount of time than you ever wanted to admit to get you from squirming under his hold to clutching onto him, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, whimpering in his ear.

“Eddie, please.” You pressed your head back into his pillows. You were getting close and you were still partially dressed. “More. Want more.”

Eddie, at the very least, wasn’t a dick. So the only time he left you wanting was the amount it took to get you stripped bare. And the brief pause he took, kneeling back in his blue boxers, gawking at you naked on his bed. His blush went from his neck all the way to, you imagined, the tips of his ears hidden beneath his hair.

He laughed, head tilted to the side as he bit his lip.

“Yeah, baby, I’ll give you whatever you want.” He nodded frantically before he was back on top of you.

His fingers pressed against your entrance and he swallowed your moan with a kiss, gently working you with lazy thrusts. You almost thought you had to remind him you weren’t a virgin until he found the spot in you that made you break the kiss with a loud gasp.

Eddie smirked against your cheek, fingers moving fast enough to chase the orgasm he’d gotten you close to before. But slow enough to still draw every little wave of pleasure out of you. His left hand came up beside your head to prop himself up and you caught the rings glittering in the yellowing lighting.

“You know, when I first saw you, princess,” Eddie murmured against your jaw. “This was not how I expected our relationship to turn out.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Eddie’s teeth grazed against you. “Didn’t think you’d ever fall for a freak like me. Thought I’d be stuck pining forever.”

You would’ve reacted to that sentiment had Eddie given you the chance. But it seemed to be his time to shine, with his hands and his words. He worked his fingers a little faster, and you hugged him closer. You wanted more of him inside you, but you also desperately wanted to cum. If he stopped now, you’d throw something across the room.

“I’m really glad I took that smoke break last night. Heard that thunder.” You could feel yourself squeezing around him and it was closer—leaving you right on the edge as you started to shake. “Never thought myself as the kinda guy to drive a girl home in the rain like that. Real, real glad I did.”

You choked out his name as you came, and Eddie let you bury your face in the crook of his neck, kissing the side of your head as you came around his fingers. It was like Fourth of July fireworks erupting through your veins, making your muscles tense and shake. And you didn't like the concept of comparing this to the few times you'd done stuff with your last partner. But he never made you feel like this. Not even remotely.

You were panting when Eddie pulled his fingers out and wiped them off on his boxers. His nose nudged yours and you could sense what he was already going to say. But you weren’t going to give him the chance.

"Condom." It was a demand, and Eddie grinned. "Not joking, Munson. Condom. Let's go."

"Jeeze," he breathed, reaching into a box near his bed. "For someone who just came, you're very bossy.”

You pushed up on your elbows, still hyper-aware that you were completely naked.

“Eddie.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” He was back on the bed and opening the foil. “Hold your horses, princess, alright.”

“Eddie. I told my family I’d be back before dark.” You pointed toward his window where it was starting to be exactly that. “Now, I don’t want to rush you, but it’s only a matter of time before Dustin connects the dots and figures out where I am. And I think we both can agree it’s not the smartest thing for him to know what you and I are currently doing together. So I’m going to need you to—”

"Hurry up, yeah, yeah." He sounded a little more panicked. "Finding loopholes in the rule-breaking to avoid consequences. Got it. Get it. Now open your legs, princess, so I can fuck you.”

Eddie pulled his boxers down and you followed his dark line of hair south to his erection. The tip was red and the rest of him was thick. He gave you a semi-nervous and awkward smile as he rolled the condom on. But he kicked his boxers aside as soon as he finished and put a hand on your shoulder to push you back down.

"Time crunch, sure, but princess? Let me savor this." He nudged his nose with yours again. "Don't know if this'll happen again so please, let me fuck you nice and slow."

You licked your lips as Eddie gave you the sexiest version of puppy dog eyes you’d ever seen. You nodded and Eddie smiled softly.

“Thank you.”

He had a hand on your thigh as he guided himself between your folds, coating the condom before pressing his tip to your entrance. It was a slow thrust to start, him cursing as you gasped, going until you’d taken every bit of him. Then he paused, a hand slamming down on the bed a few times and he practically seethed.

“Tight,” was all he said.

Only when you whined his name did he move his hips. Slowly and carefully, making sure to gradually hit deeper each time. He wasn’t exaggerating—he was gonna fuck you nice and slow. And even when you glanced over and the setting sun was throwing oranges over the sky, you didn’t rush him. Each thrust felt too damn good—Eddie felt too damn good.

You’d never felt this good before.

And he kept it up until you were feeling even better. Legs closing around his back and nails digging into his skin kind of better. You tried to kiss his neck, but his slight adjustment in angles was almost brutal, hitting the same spot he’d hit with his fingers. It made you have to go back to muffling yourself against his shoulder.

“Shit, (Y/N).” Eddie hung his head and cursed under his breath. “Goddamn.”

“Eddie…I…”

“I know, baby.” He moved his hips a little faster and you could feel that coil tightening in your stomach until it felt like you were going to burst.

You came before Eddie could say whatever else he was going to. Your heels dug into his lower back as those fireworks went off again. Erupting through you, the sparks igniting your skin. All until it felt like you were going to combust. And you felt pretty damn close to it as you came, holding onto Eddie like your life depended on it.

Eddie lasted only a little while longer, cursing as he stole another kiss, his hips stuttering. He groaned, slamming his hand down on the bed again and grabbing a fistful of the sheets.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed. “Shit.”

You grinned underneath him, body shaking as you laughed. He chuckled, shaking his head and pulling back to peer down at you.

"Hi there, princess." He pressed his forehead to yours, a few pieces of his bangs sticking to it. "Guess I should stop calling you that considering you're not that much of a goody two shoes, huh?"

“Nah.” You bit your lip, smiling up at him. “I kinda like it. It’s grown on me.”

"Oh, thank god, because I had zero intention of stopping." He gave you a quick kiss and moved off, giving you a view of his back flexing as he tied the condom off and pulled his boxers on. He glanced over his shoulder and smirked. "Getting dark out, princess. Trust me, I want you to stay more than anything, but avoiding suspicion is job number one."

“Ouch, trying to get rid of me already. I see how it is, Munson.” You pushed up and grabbed your clothes, Eddie stepping out to give you a moment of privacy. When he came back with your shirt, you were already dressed.

“My band plays—”

“The Hideout, every Tuesday.” You laughed when he gave you a crooked grin. “Dustin told me.”

“Come. Would finally be someone worthwhile in the crowd.”

You licked your lip and glanced out his window. You really needed to leave.

"I'll think about it. I'll have to see if I'm working or not." You started towards the door, but Eddie stopped you, hands on your waist and pulling you close.

“I look forward to seeing you there, princess.”

He gave you a quick final peck of a kiss and you gave him your best annoyed stare.

“Night, Eddie.”

“Night, (Y/N).”

It was just after dark when you pulled into your driveway and entered your house. Your mom made a comment about starting to get worried but you just walked past her and Dustin, heading directly towards the shower.

It was fine—everything was going to work out. They didn’t know—they weren’t going to know—and whatever you and Eddie were experimenting with could continue on the down low.

Super easy, super relaxing. No stress about it. You’d just see Eddie whenever he came into the diner, whenever you could get over to his place, and when he played with his band. Easy.

“You were gone for a while,” Dustin said, standing in your doorway with his eyes narrowed.

“I was.” You glanced up from the book you were reading. “Had a lot to clear from my head.”

Dustin nodded, walking a bit into your room and he dropped a hand to your shoulder. You cocked a brow and smiled. But Dustin just said nothing, and kept looking until he turned and started towards your door. You were about to say something, to question Dustin’s only semi-weird behavior compared to his usual antics when he stopped, hand on your doorknob.

"See, I was right. Joining the Hellfire club was fun." He pulled the door closed behind him. "Next time, you may want to shower at Eddie's before coming back. You reek of weed."

You sat your book down and stared at your closed door.

Well, shit. That complicates things.

#eddie munson x reader #my toes are CURLING #GOOD GOD

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