Izuku doesn't have many vices, mostly because he doesn't allow himself to indulge in any. Thinking them more as nasty habits or stains on his perfect PR record than anything else. Like headaches he'd rather avoid or didn't seem worth the bashing he'd receive from fans and haters online.
But that didn't mean he never indulged.
Especially with the weight of being the number one hero pressing down onto his broad shoulders, pushing him further into his sulking as he drapes himself over the smooth bar top. Half finished handle of liquor under his scarred palm, swirling the last dredges of the clear liquid inside as he thinks about ordering another.
Izuku was only here at this tiny lively bar in the small forgotten prefecture of Tokyo because Kaminari dragged him here. The electric blonde wasn't sure if Izuku had a girlfriend or not, he knew his occasional hero partner to be secretive about his love life which was the opposite of Kaminari who often advertised just how single he was. Denki dragged the hulking hero because Izuku needed to “live a little” and it was “cuffing season.”
Izuku didn't know what that meant.
Googling it is how he finds himself on the brink of a spiral with his perfectly white teeth sinking into the inside of his lip before his tongue laps at the metallic tang that floods his mouth.
It doesn't stop his teeth from sinking into tender flesh, it doesn't stop him from swallowing down more burning booze or sighing loudly.
He just can't stomach the thought of having to face his mother without a date during the holidays again this year. Don't mistake this concern for self pity nor vanity. Izuku is not the type of man who thinks he deserves to have people fawning at his feet, hell the man often grappled with feeling deserving of his given quirk on a daily basis more often than not.
But the way his mother looks when she opens the door, how her big smile drops the slightest when Izuku shows up and no one is there under his arm or holding his hand. Or awkwardly smiling as they meet his mom and Yagi-san for the first time even though they'd been dating for a good long while.
Izuku is just too busy, he doesn't mean to be, tried to board his PTO to take a long hiatus or two from work so he could dote on his partner.
But nothing was ever good enough.
He couldn't face that look of worry or concern from his mother, not again.
It wasn't for lack of trying on Izuku's part either, blind dates arranged by his mother or friends, even the agency! Dating app after dating app leading to dead ends or lack of intimacy leaving Izuku to feel hollow, desperate, enough to seek out other lonely heroes that wanted nothing more than sex.
Still he took everything seriously, maybe too seriously, and things just never worked out.
Yet the hopeless romantic in him never wavered and he thought he had one last shot at love when the hero agency set up an arrangement for a PR girlfriend to keep his ratings high. Izuku did everything in his power to make it work, to try to fall genuinely and deeply in love with the pretty woman who he shared his apartment with. Taking her on dates to places like the movies or to see the Sakura. Fucking her on his couch, in his car, over his dining room table after pushing away the dinner she made.
But each action only made him feel empty, more so than before. There was no spark between them, at least not on his end and Izuku couldn't stomach the idea of leading her on. Especially not when Izuku saw hearts forming in her eyes from more than just sex.
It ended in a mess when she confessed she loved him while straddling his lap and he went soft inside her. Fat tears threatening to fall that he blinks away before she gets up to slap him, he doesn't feel anything.
She breaks her fingers.
Breeching her contract that Izuku buys out when the agency threatens to sue her, the only time the commission head ever saw Izuku's bright emerald eyes narrow and darken.
He doesn't understand why he can't keep anyone around, he begins to think he is the problem.
That maybe his expectations were too high? Maybe he didn't devote enough time? Or maybe he really truly didn't feel anything when he was with any of the men and women he dated in the past save for one.
He expected love to be like the movies and of course Kaachan called him a dumb ass for it. That romantic sappy shit, movies that Izuku and Katsuki had watched curled together on Izuku's couch, “weren't fucking real.”
Only for the blonde traitor to move in with a woman he knew for less than six months when Katsuki kept telling Izuku it was too soon to move in with him despite them secretly fucking for a year and knowing each other all their lives.
Izuku finished the second half of his bottle.
His phone demands attention, chirping from the pocket of his jeans as Kamianri’s laugh echoes over the confined space. Izuku reads the banner on the illuminated glass, the text is from his mother.
Is it just you this year, honey?
Before a second one comes through.
Yagi is asking so we know to put the leaf in. We don't mind when you bring extra company. Kaachan and his girlfriend were a pleasant surprise last year.
But I'll be more than happy to just see my son.
Guilt floods his system, heavy in his chest that it forces a groan from his throat. Idle hand coming to clampe and squeeze harshly at the nape of his neck. Finger shaped bruises forming under thick digits in the hairline of his undercut, his emerald curls doing little to hide it. As the pain ebbs pleasantly down his spine he thinks to pat down his jeans seeking out the familiar rectangular outline before he slides off of the wobbling stool.
Pushing open the heavy door to the secluded alley with ease, mind sharp and feet steady as he looks around. Alcohol never had much effect on him due to his large stature and even larger metabolism leaving him to drink an obscene amount of booze before he felt a pleasant buzz. Tonight he hadn't had nearly enough to ease his shattered heart.
Jagged emerald eyes cut through the alley before he lets the tension in his shoulders release but not enough he'd be off guard. He remembers Stain and his legacy, he knows society still remembers the hero killer too. Knows that most heroes don't necessarily die in action but when they're most vulnerable. Throats slit while they were asleep, fucking, or stepping out into a dark alley in the middle of the night for a smoke.
The thought does little to soothe the aching need in his throat, to feel the burn that could dissolve the lump that sits uncomfortably behind his Adam's apple. Pulling out the half crushed pack of cigarettes and placing one between his lips. Dark orange lighter flickering to life as he rolls over the steel and flint before he takes a deep breath.
Only to instantly regret it.
Stale smoke clots his lungs and coats his tongue, still the acrid taste doesn't stop him from pulling another drag. Mind wandering far beyond where he stood, willing the smoke to smother his hopeless heart.
“Didn't you have a campaign ad against those?” You purr, watching the bulky man tense as his head snaps up to face you.
Izuku hadn't seen anything and his danger sense didn't go off when he surveyed the alley but it does now. A tingling in the soles of his feet as he looks up at you shrouded in the shadow of the neighboring building on the fire escape a foot or so next to his head. You jump down with ease and lean against the rough brick wall next to him. Close enough your elbows touch.
Watching the giant of a man fumble over the stick in his mouth making a cruel smile form on your own.
“Number one hero smoking, tsk tsk, what if I'm an impressionable young lady?” You giggle and it clings to Izuku's skin more than the stale smoke, he scoffs.
“You act as if you don't have a vice.” He glances down at you from the corner of his eye before tilting his head up to blow the smoke away from you.
“Everyone has a vice Mr Deku.” Brandishing your cherry tootsie pop you seemingly pull from thin air. Making a grand show of pocketing the bright red wrapper before popping it past glossy lips, eyes glued to the hero hiding outside the alley of the no name bar.
You imagined he'd be in uptown places, where the silverware was gold plated and a shot of patron was twenty dollars. Not here with the ripped leather seats held together with faded duct tape and cloudy glasses.
But here he stands in black jeans, a gray graphic tee with black sleeves from an undershirt rolled up past his thick forearms, smoking no less. The only expensive thing on him is his watch, it makes your fingers twitch.
You roll the sucker around in your mouth, letting it clink your teeth as you watch him, a harsh line for a mouth that smiled so brightly on the news this morning.
Did all heroes do this? Look pathetic in dark alleyways smoking overly stale cigarettes hoping no one sees them? He looks down at you with a calculated, cold gaze, if you were any other woman it would send a shiver down your spine. Especially from how it contrasts to his normally bright gemstone eyes now they looked clouded, jaded with unspoken emotion.
You think it serves him right, yet still your clawed hands bring out a pack of unopened cigarettes from the pocket of your oversized jacket tilting them towards the hero.
“Take these. Those have gotta be at least a year old. They don't make the packaging with the small warnings anymore.” You crinkle your nose at him, his normally doe like eyes narrow as they rove over you harshly before he quirks his brow.
It's kinda cute how bitchy he looks. You swat away the thought and he thinks he's bothering you with his smoke.
“I thought you didn't smoke.” He moves the stick further away from you.
“I don't. I lifted them off the electric blonde you came with. He's a terrible flirt you know.” Cat smile forming around the lollipop sick in your mouth, watching Izuku's eyes flash in warning, it makes you giggle, “Gonna arrest me?”
“Stealing is wrong.” He stubs out his half smoked cigarette, it disintegrates against the brick from its age and not the pressure he applies.
“So’s lyin.” A smiling retort as you shake the fresh pack at him, “I'll even pick your lucky.”
He looks down at his old ragged emergency pack with only the lucky looking back up at him. Bent and half broken from the argument he had with Katsuki almost a year ago about how Izuku couldn't stomach just sex anymore.
Looking up at you but before he can accept the offer you're already gently patting the pack against your palm, pulling the golden plastic that acts as a guide to take off the wrap from the box. Picking his lucky at random and flipping it upside down before you pass the pack to him. He sighs and takes the box, looks down at the fresh pack and looks back up at you. Sees your smug smile.
“Thanks. Going to black mail me now?” He decides he should have another since his first one was so awful. Pulling the dark orange lighter from his pocket to start a good ember.
“No, I think I've got enough collateral.” Flaunting his expensive, classy watch on your wrist. Well about mid forearm for you, “Secrets safe with me.”
Instinctually his broad palms slaps his wrist where his watch should be, as if he doesn't believe his eyes. Glancing back up at you again wholly expecting you to be already at the mouth of the alley but you stay close to him. Well within arms reach and step closer to him still.
He blows the smoke up into the sky again, keeps the cigarette on the opposite side of you.
“I've got more expensive ones in my apartment.” He comments it almost comes off flirty until you see how sad his emerald eyes look. Izuku wants to ‘be a man', wants to take you home and fuck the brains out of your pretty head but his heart swells in agony, he sighs out more smoke.
“Is this you trying to take me home? Ooo so heroes do have one night stands!” A teasing nudge to his ribs, he doesn't even budge, just moves the burning stick up higher so the smoke won't stick to you.
“I don't do one night stands.”
“Then why invite me to see your expensive watch collection hmm? Tryin to get me to steal your heart instead?”
“Maybe I am.” His gaze flickers to you again, holding your eyes as his lids are at half mast.
Did anyone even know the number one hero could give fuck me eyes?
“Steal my heart, be my girlfriend.” He looks down at you, sees what he registers as panic, “Just through the holidays.”
You blink up at him for a moment as he studies you. Drinks in how those black skinny jeans cling to your thick legs, how the fishnets do little to keep his thoughts pure and that little lingerie you wore as a top had his dick twitching. Left fist clenching when his eyes look over a man's leather jacket on your broad shoulders.
He thought about all the jackets he owned so he could replace the well worn garment on your shoulders with his own.
“I'll pay you.” Taking a long drag, feeling desperation claw up his throat competing with the burn of nicotine, “Pay you a lot more than what that watch is worth.”
The idea of it makes you laugh loudly, the pretty sound echoing around the alley as you grip onto his forearm for stability. He had to be fucking drunk, there was no way he was asking a theif to be his fake girlfriend, what was this a shojo manga?
But when you look up at him and see his freckled cheeks flush with embarrassment you swallow down the rest of your mirth.
“Oh you're serious.” Pulling the cherry sucker from your mouth, letting your lips pop around it lewdly, Izuku watches with close emerald eyes his mind wandering down places it shouldn't, especially not with a woman he's just met. Still thick digits twitch as he tries not to palm himself roughly.
“What the number one hero can't get a girlfriend?” You deadpan and this time it's his turn to laugh except there isn't any joy in it.
“Ha. No. Haven't you heard? I'm too much of a ‘fucking nerd.’ Guess Kaachan was right.” He stubs out his cigarette before pocketing the butt since there was no tray in the back alley.
His admission gives you pause, pressing the cherry confection back on your tongue roughly before you pull it into your mouth taking it from manicured nails. Pushing the sucker to poke out your cheek making Izuku's long lashes flutter.
“Kaachan?’ You giggle, looking up as you move the sucker from one side of your mouth to the other with your tongue. Hard candy clacking against your teeth, “You mean Katsuki? That's Dynamight’s given name right?”
Shit shit shit! He hadn't meant to call him that! How did you figure it out so quickly!
“Oh! Oh please don't say anything!” He looks mortified and you watch his cheeks turn as red as your tongue.
“Don't worry Zuzu. Your secret is safe with me.” Crunching down on the last thin layer before the taste of chocolate coats your tongue swallowing the Tootsie roll and Izuku watches your Adam's apple bob while his mind swirls with dirty thoughts.
Thoughts so dirty he almost misses you add,
“Gonna need bigger pay to keep quiet.” Nails tapping his watch, “Sides can't say I'll be a good girlfriend. I hate everything after Halloween. My birthday included.”
“What? Everyone loves the holidays!” He's shocked you've said that and you shake your head.
“No, everyone with good or whole families love the holidays.” You correct and he looks down at you with a frown. Already you pick up on a habit of his, teeth worrying the inside of his lip as he thinks, “I currently have neither.”
“Oh I'm-”
“Don't. I don't need the mighty hero’s pity.” You scoff, sounding a little jaded before you fix your face, turning to a joke as another smile pulls at your pretty lips, “Not when I can take his money instead.”
“Cute.” He scoffs sarcastically, still he can't deny the flutter in his stomach.
“You're kinda bitchy ya know that?” You smile, “The media makes you out to be Prince Charming.”
“I don't look like Prince Charming?” He gestures to himself and you laugh loudly again. He can't help the heat that creeps up his throat.
“Bet you fuck like Prince Charming too. All vanilla and boring.” Struggling to stifle yet another giggle.
“If you accept the offer to be my girlfriend you can find out if that's true or not.” Quickly his demeanor changes, emerald eyes darkening as they slowly drag up and down your body with a sinful gaze. The sight of him looking down his nose at you makes your stomach clench. You shouldn't be considering his offer now from one intense gaze. A hero and a morally gray person never worked out and it was only a matter of time before your thievery caught up with. You really shouldn't but you know what they say.
Curiosity killed the cat
“Fine. I'll be your little girlfriend til new years. When do we start?”
“Tonight.” He leans close letting his large hand slide down your forearm to your wrist til his fingers are lacing with yours, “It's so late, I really should get you home, shouldn't I baby?”
Emerald eyes sparkling with promise that he planned to devour you whole the second the two of you stepped foot into his penthouse apartment.
“Yes, you should. It is so very late."
“Oh my god IZUKUUUUU fuck fuck fuck!” You scream as you grind onto his handsome face, cumming on his skilled tongue for the umpteenth time in the half an hour you've been in his apartment. Mauve nails around his throat as you choke him slightly, shamelessly riding his face to prolong your high, not that he would dare interrupt it. Groaning loudly under you as he slowly yanks at his fat long cock that leaks with pre. Hungry eyes watching him as you let out another breathy moan.
“Fuck and you've never had a girlfriend before?” he laughs in your cunt at your question. Strong hands coming to lift you off his face with ease so you can hear him better.
“I know I said I was a nerd but I never said I was a virgin.” Before he roughly adjusts you back on his cute freckled face, slurping your clit roughly as mock punishment for interrupting him. Your eyes cross and your thighs squeeze his head.
“Fuck.” You whine and he's rewarded with more of your slick as you cum again, Izuku already decided that he loves how you whine curses for him. Feels you start to slump from the pleasure as your body melts, offering you his hand to support you better as you grind into his face before you can't anymore.
Before this insatiable man lifts you with ease, flipping you onto your back when the needle of the record player hits the center of the vinyl. Pressing you into the dark couch with his pelvis as he wets his cock by grinding into your sticky folds, making you gasp out like he wants before he's gently cradling your throat, slipping his tongue into your open mouth as he groans.
“We taste so good together.” He growls, the sound makes you see stars, especially as his fat cock head nudges against your abused clit. Catching your fluttering entrance and it makes you both shudder before he angles himself properly. Slowly sinking in and watching your face for any signs of pain or displeasure. Watching your eyes roll with each passing moment before he rested against you. Giving slow, rough thrusts that grind down into your clit that have your hands shaking at his back as claws struggle to find purchase in his skin.
“And you're telling me these girls didn't stay for the dick either? Fuck Izuku!!!!” Arching your back, if you weren't careful you'd become addicted to him, your question makes him hide his face into your throat.
“Guess sex isn't enough.” He mumbles against your tacky skin.
“That or you're not telling me something.” You gasp at the end, when he keeps hitting that spot and makes you cum each time. Makes a deep tension in you dissipate until you feel as if you're floating, you wouldn't be able to speak much longer.
He thinks you'll pull away but instead you thread your fingers into his sweaty curls to bring his face to yours. To look deep into his eyes even if you struggle before you seal your lips with his. Letting your tongue slide over his until you moan his name into his mouth.
“Oh fuck Izuku, you have to cum in me now. Fuck fuck you're throbbing.” Your cunt clamps down on him at the thought of his warm seed spilling into your milking cunt. He pants over you, still keeping that steady slow roll of his hips but how you squeeze him makes him insane. Makes his hips finally speed up before his pace turns sloppy.
His moans turning into loud grunts as he fucks you with enough vigor the legs of the couch scrape against the expensive hardwoods until he's cupping your throat again but never squeezes. Looking down at you and you don't dare look away as you watch his long lashes flutter, the sight makes the coil in your stomach snap again. Feel him paint your cunt in pearly strings of white before he slowly lowers himself on shaking arms, giving your throat a tender squeeze before he rests his head in the crook of your throat, he hadn't intended for the two of you to fuck already. Hell he didn't even mean to rip off your jeans and set you on his face so he could show you that he really wasn't boring.
And he sure as fuck didn't meant to fill up your pretty cunt with his spend.
“What are you doing to me?” He pants playfully, kissing at your thudding pulse point.
“Stealing your heart, remember?” A breathless giggle as the two of you lie like that until his cock begins to soften. He sighs, slowly gets to his feet before he's lifting you into his arms, it makes your cheeks warm, especially when you look down at the soaked fabric of the sofa.
“I think we ruined your couch.” He laughs at your joke.
“Ts fine, the covers are machine washable.” He nudges his nose into your cheek and you giggle before he's setting you on the edge of the tub as he starts the shower for you.
“Here's how to adjust the water temp if you need it hotter. Most women love it scalding.” He takes a step back, moving to grab for a fresh towel for you. You try not to let your heart sink when you realize he isn't going to join you.
“Oh a real casanova huh?” He rolls his eyes at your playful jab before he steps into his bedroom to give you privacy for the time being. Fishing out a T-shirt and clean boxers for both himself and you to sleep in. Laying yours out on the bed as he smells his body wash float from under the snowy glass door. It makes him smile as he thinks of how you'll smell like him until he takes you to gather your things from your place tomorrow, that or he'll buy you whatever you want or need.
For now he'll relish the idea that you, his fake girlfriend, gets to smell like him, your fake boyfriend.
After awhile you come into the room, clean and pristine, movement catching Izuku's eye of course. When you meet his eyes you smile, give a little twirl.
“It's Chanel.” Letting your fingers adjust the hem of the regular cotton towel and Izuku laughs.
“Is it? Lemme see.” He rises, holds your hand to twirl you again as he looks down at you with a smile, “Perfect fit.”
“Thank you.” You giggle again, feeling shy for the first time under his heavy gaze. Watching the corner of his lips tilt upward before he points out the clothes he left out for you and slips into the bathroom. Surprisingly you don't hear the lock click to the door, Izuku was either far too trusting or he truly did not see you as a threat to his life.
Quick to change into the oversized, old shirt and boxers before you take this opportunity to explore his penthouse now that the six foot four man wasn't pressing himself up against you.
Tiptoeing out of his room even if you knew you didn't need to, whetting your curiosity first with the living room that was adorned with ceiling to floor windows to the left when you first came in. Your breath fogging the window as you look over the cityscape. A snaking inky black cuts through the bright lights, the wide river bed reflecting the lights back in swirling currents giving the scene the stars the sky lacks.
Even this late at night the prefecture is teaming with life, you wonder if it's exhausting for him. To sonder over the lives that carry out beneath his feet. If he wonders if he can save them all.
If he knows he can't.
The needle of the record player bumps against the middle of the vinyl again pulling you from your thoughts.
“Oh.” You squeak, tiptoeing to the old thing and gently lifting the arm. Finding the album cover and slipping the vinyl in with ease before shutting off the player. Eyes quick to find the empty spot on the wall to where the album goes.
Not on the shelves under the player, no those were jam-packed with composition notebooks unlabeled making your curious fingers twitch. The album belongs up on the wall with the rest of them that he organized beautifully. Each piece placed perfectly to compliment each piece of art so that it could be viewed individually or if you stood back you could see it as something whole.
Standing on tiptoes to return its album art facing forward. Taking a step or two back to appreciate it before the notebooks whisper to you.
Slipping one from the shelves, it's filled margin to margin with text about the albums. The notations were meticulously detailed reminding you of placards at museums or art exhibits. Finding the corresponding piece, staring up at the art before your eyes flicker down to the notes.
…when the music swells it squeezes my heart, the lyrics were chosen carefully bringing tears to my eyes. It's haunting how relatable it is to wonder if I'll get a perfect love and if I do that I'm deserving….
You swallow thickly, know you'll get swallowed up by this notebook that you didn't have the time to dissect, especially not with the limited amount of time you had. It felt akin to a diary, something you shouldn't be reading. Normally that wouldn't discourage you, wouldn't have your fingers slowly shutting the book. Normally you'd devour as much as you could with an excuse on why you weren't where you were supposed to be on the tip of your tongue.
For now you return it to the shelf.
Feet carrying you across the cool hardwood to the open concept kitchen that over looks the living room with the album art, expensive couch and the TV. The large waterfall island made of marble, clean and smooth save for a few scattered pieces of Izuku's life he hadn't yet tidied away like the rest of the apartment.
Another notebook, a theme it seems, lying open. A sketch of a hero on the left with text surrounding them before paragraphs of text and few bullet points to the page on the right again in Izuku's slightly messy handwriting. As if his hand cannot keep up with his brain.
Snow Fall - similar to Shouto’s ice quirk…
“Beloved?” Izuku's voice calls gently from down the hall, you tear your eyes away from the notebook and quickly open a few cabinets before you find a glass and fill it from the tap.
“M coming! Just needed water.” Heading back to huge bedroom, smiling devilishly when you find Izuku.
Seeing his body better in the light of the bedroom. Scarred, thick with muscle and soft freckles kissing almost every inch of his skin. The tan spots giving extra attention to his Adonis belt that leads to his fat cock. It makes your cunt throb.
You set the AllMight collectable glass down onto the bedside table, not noticing the fanboy item until you see his flushed cheeks, following his eyes to the PLUS ULTRA cup. The source of his embarrassment makes you giggle again.
“It's cute.” You reassure, jumping on top of the deep viridian duvet, cocking your hand on your hip and pulling your shirt up to show a little skin.
“When's the last time you fucked on this great big bed?” He doesn't answer you right away, basil eyes looking at you before they begin to look through you.
A burning ember gaze sears his memory, he closes his eyes as if that would stop the images from demanding every last shred of his attention..
“Been awhile.” He finally admits, dropping his towel unashamed as he steps into his black boxer briefs. They cup his sac and softened cock nicely, clinging to his thick thighs that have you salivating. The way he ate pussy and fucked was almost good enough to replace the cold hard cash he promised to pay, almost.
That distant look in his eyes made you wonder if there was someone else that held him back from his romantic endeavors.
“Shall we christen this great big bed too then?” A playful tease as you pull up the fabric of his shirt to expose your breasts. He loved the sight, loved how you looked in his clothes, in his bed, underneath him as his emerald pendant swings in your face.
His cock twitches, a tick in his jaw before he's clasping his hands in restraint. Wringing his fingers as he thinks of the last time he fucked in that bed.
He feels the ghost of sharp canines at the nape of his neck, his hand automatically moves to brush over the area. His curls fall over his eyes and he sighs deeply.
“No. I think you should sleep.” He smiles softly, it doesn't reach his eyes and you don't push, “We've got a big day tomorrow. Got to get your stuff and -”
“I don't have a lot of stuff. My outfit was the most of it.”
“You don't have any other clothes?”
“Maybe another pair of pants, some underwear for sure but this is mostly it. So we have time.” You purr, crawling down the bed before you flop onto your stomach. Arching your back purposefully, out stretching your fingers to play with his.
“Then it will be even longer. We'll have to get you an outfit for the party.” He threads his fingers with yours before you let go when his words register. Sitting straight up.
“Party?”
“Yes, baby doll, party. We've got several to go to. Maybe a gala too. Then there's the agency Christmas party oh and…” He bites at his lip as he rest his chin on scarred digits beginning to go off on a tangent as he thinks of all the invitations stuffed in the top desk drawer of his office.
“A gala?!” Oh fuck oh fuck this was a bad idea. When he said girlfriend through the holidays you thought fucking and a private date or two. Not being surrounded by pro heroes you ran from on the daily, identity concealed with a mask.
Not only would you be in the literal lion’s den but you really weren't the most classy type of bitch. You've never really been invited to any big event let alone one that was fucking televised. At least not events you didn't crash to slide priceless paintings off the walls or expensive jewelry off the wrists of the one percent. At least then you'd have your mask to hide behind, the ability to blend into the crowd but now you'd be hanging off the arm of the number one hero.
You'd have to act like a proper lady who definitely didn't crash in vacation homes or half lived in apartments of the rich and the famous while they stayed in their main mansions until they got tired of the same old four walls.
Each gig you promised that this would be your last and each time you found yourself with a new piece of jewelry made from dazzling gems of deconstructed designer pieces hungry for the next heist.
Art and jewelry weren't the only things you've stolen, information and secrets often sold for a lot more but Izuku, pro hero Deku, didn't need to know you had a stash house, more like stash attic, in some rundown home in Kamakura you'd gotten for a steal.
His thighs bump up against the edge of the bed, cupping your cheeks for a moment, “You look…worried.”
“I am worried. Some of these events are televised. Are you sure you want me? I'm not exactly Yaoyorozu or Kendo."
“I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't.” He comes down to press his lips to your forehead. It makes your stomach flutter, it shouldn't, “Besides those will be the easiest ones. The hard ones are the more personal settings.”
He leans back, takes his hands from your face as he heads towards the lights, “I won't let anything happen to you.”
He flicks off the lights, stands by the door for a moment before he goes to shut it.
“You're really going to sleep on the couch? I thought we had to make this realistic.” A final attempt to get him to at least come and enjoy his luxury bed. It was big enough that you doubted the two of you would even touch by accident in the middle of the night. If he was so afraid of intimacy, which was odd, he seemed more the time to fall in love if he fucked. Especially when he did romantic shit like fuck you to music and whisper some of the lyrics in your ear.
You pat his side with sharp clawed fingers, “Come on boyfriend.”
He can't remember the last time he slept in his bed, changing and washing the sheets more out of habit than necessity and as he tries to recall he thinks it's been over a year.
He looks at you for a long, long time, you curled up in his expensive sheets and comforter as you pat the spot beside you patiently but he sighs.
“Maybe another time. Good night sugar.”
“Good night Zuzu bear.”
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𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧
summary eddie munson is super weird. he holds your hand too tight, he has a fascination with your neck, and he can’t give a hickey to save his life. good thing you’re super weird, too. [20k]
warnings two losers falling in love!! vampire!eddie munson, ditzy!reader (kind of), fem!reader, smut mdni (p in v, unprotected sex, oral fem receiving, general heavy petting and kissing, praise), fluff, hurt/comfort, angst (eddie struggling with guilt and grief). canon divergent (the events of volume 2 take place but there’s a mostly happy ending i.e. everyone good lives and everyone bad dies) TW eddie doesn't have suicidal thoughts, but he does think about it briefly. not with intent or anything like that though. requested here for my halloween party <3
(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)
Eddie Munson never wanted to be a vampire, and he wants that on the record.
It's a ridiculous existence. It's embarrassing. It's nothing like all the movies and books promised him.
He's looking at you, Bram Stoker.
In Eddie's mind, Stoker’s nothing less than a liar and a sycophant.
"Who's dick were you bouncing on, Stoker?" he demands to know, kicking fallen leaf mulch under his feet angrily. "Need'ta fucking impress some vampire lover with your over-exaggerated, over-powered, ridiculous descriptions? Great. Hope it was worth it. Meanwhile I'm here, self-esteem half the size of a grain of rice because I can't scale a building with my bare hands."
Eddie would know. He's tried.
He's not genuinely angry with Bram Stoker, but he'd rather take his frustrations out on a guy who's been dead for a hundred years than take them out on the demobats, because he doesn't want to even think about the demobats. They're all dead too. Not before they'd had (see: devoured) their pound of flesh and changed his life for the worse, though.
He shakes his head to drive out the memory like water in his ears. It's easier to pretend none of that shit in the upside down ever happened. (Impossible to pretend. He begs himself to try anyway.)
He’s pissed because science fiction has promised him a lot of things and reality has delivered on none of them. No super strength, no impermeable skin. He is faster, but that's more a reflexive thing than anything else. And being faster doesn't make running fun. That’s impossible.
Sunlight breaks through the treeline and his skin crawls. Science fiction didn't get that right, either. The sun doesn't hurt. It's just really, really annoying.
He covers his eyes, winces at his itchy hand, pulls his sleeve over his fingers and covers his eyes again. "This blows," he says, and means it.
In Dracula, the sun nulls Dracula’s supernatural abilities. Eddie doesn’t have any abilities worth nulling, unless you count echolocation.
He doesn’t.
He walks another five minutes up the road toward Forest Hills when he realises you're behind him. His senses are enhanced now as a bat’s might be, hearing fine-tuned and dialled up every second of the day — which makes living in a trailer park where everyone thinks he's a murderer an acute misery — but he's as prone to distraction as anyone else. Especially when he gets stuck in a memory.
Eddie throws his gaze over his shoulder and finds you thirty or forty feet away, talking to yourself under your breath. He knows you more for your sounds than your appearance. To be able to put a face to your mindless babbling is a mystery solved. Of course you look like that. A skirt made of soft looking fabric bounces over two cute thighs, a pretty lacy corset type of thing that isn't too tight outfits your top half. You look more like a vampire than he does.
"Hi, Eddie," you call.
His eyes widen, a deer-in-the-headlights kind of surprise. If you notice how he's frozen you don't show it, continuing to push your bike toward him. The tick of the wheels grows louder as you get closer, two hands on the handlebars with wrists draped in bracelets, both silver and fabric.
Besides your jewellery, your arms are bare. You must be freezing.
"Hey," he says.
He doesn't know your name. He doesn't know how you know his, and he’s too awkward to ask.
Your sounds peak as you close the gap. The wet scrape of your dirty black canvas shoes over shining asphalt, the soft puff of your breath, the clinking sounds of whatever trinkets you have in your bag. If he focuses, he can make out the tiniest pinches of fabric. Your short sleeves rubbing against your arms, your bra straps stretching over your shoulders.
Eddie takes a deep breath and tries to diminish his senses.
"Where's your van?" you ask curiously.
"Piece of shit kicked it in the middle of town. Just my luck."
You pause at his side, looking him up and down obviously but without the judgement or irreverent disgust he's come to expect from near about everybody in Hawkins.
"That's not good," you say succinctly.
It's such a genuine response that Eddie can't find it in himself to be sarcastic.
"God awful," he agrees sullenly.
You nod and start to walk again. Eddie falls naturally into step beside you, matching your pace without thinking.
"You should get a bike."
He laughs. Coughs to cover it up. "Yeah?"
"They're way more reliable than a car, and it doesn't hurt the zone."
Eddie squints. "The o-zone?"
"Is there another one?"
You're still so serious that he spares you the ridicule he might dole out to anyone else. If Dustin had said something like that he would've ripped the kid a new one, but you're rather sweet in an odd way. You have a soft manner of talking — each word sounds like you've thought its pronunciation through meticulously beforehand.
He ignores your question and points at your bike, ring catching the sun. "Why aren't you riding it?"
"My chain slipped."
"So much for reliable."
That makes you smile. Eddie feels it like a punch, a flat palm slapped into his chest.
"You can't put the chain on yourself?"
A brisk breeze whips your hair, your earrings. The left kisses your cheek, a silver heart-shaped hoop with pink beads that click together. You lean into it, face tilted to one side as a perplexed smile plays on your sticky lips. "You can do that?"
"Sure, you pull it back around the gear. It's easy." He hesitates for a moment, and then feels guilty about hesitating. "I'll do it for you, if you want."
"The guy in no. 62 has been charging me ten dollars." You don't sound as angry as you should, in Eddie's opinion.
"I'll do it for nothing."
You beam at him. His chest feels like a bruise.
Pretty girls don't like Eddie. Not before Chrissy, not after. He's trying to work out your angle, what it is that you want.
Or maybe you don't know.
As soon as you find out who he is, you'll turn your pretty nose up at him and walk the other way. He shouldn't smile at you, he definitely shouldn't fix your bike.
He can't help it. He's so starved for positive attention that he follows you all the way through the park, westside to east.
He checks the driveway of his own home and smiles mildly when he spots Wayne's new car. It's new in the sense that it's different. It's actually way older than the one he'd had before, the one he'd pawned to pay for Eddie's — well, Eddie's everything. His check-ups, his court dates, his goddamn bail. In the same way that this trailer isn't the trailer, but an older, smaller one as far away from their first as possible.
Kid, if I had the money…
Wayne hadn't needed to finish. If he had the money, they'd leave. Leave Hawkins, leave Indiana. Settle down in some other mediocre Midwestern state with all the same creature comforts and none of the "You were acquitted but literally none of us believe you didn't kill someone," motif.
All they have now is debt, each other, and the Great Munson mug collection.
Eddie keeps his head down as they pass the old trailer. Nobody lives inside now. Only termites.
He can taste blood by the time they reach your home. Far from the metallicity of his human blood, Eddie's blood now harbours a bitter taste. Not quite like coffee but with that same overwhelming earthiness. He pulls his teeth from the bitten flesh of his bottom lip and quickly raises a hand to his teeth, alarmed.
No knife-like points. Normal teeth.
"Are you thirsty?" you ask him.
Eddie flinches and drops his hand. You've parked your bike against the wooden lifts of your porch and are halfway up the steps to your front door, hand clasped loosely on the railing.
His heart fucking pounds.
"I have grape juice?"
"Right," he says hurriedly, "right. Yeah, that would be awesome."
Duh, you meant juice.
You send him another endearing smile and pop up the last of your steps and into the front door. It's not locked. He doesn't follow, thinking you must live with somebody (who's gonna know exactly who he is and tell him to get lost).
He turns his attention to your bike instead. It's easy enough to fix. He rolls the bike so its handlebars are resting against your concrete driveway and covers the top bar of the metal body with his sneaker to stop it from toppling. He rolls up his sleeves and bares his arms, but pulls them back down immediately when he remembers the white-purple whorls of scar tissue lurking underneath.
"Fuck," he mutters. Everything is a reminder, all of the time. He can't escape what happened.
It's everywhere.
He's getting his fingers under the chain when you reappear. You've layered up, bracelets and naked arms hidden by a black hoodie.
The wind blows and your skirt shifts. From his position he can see a ladder hiding in your tights where your inner thighs are pressed together. He whips his gaze up like a high-school perv caught sneaking peeks in the girls locker room and notices the stitching on your chest for the first time.
"You like Dio?" he asks excitedly.
"Who?"
He wilts. "Uh, your hoodie. Dio."
"I got it for three dollars in the bargain bins," you supply helpfully, all pep as you climb down the stairs and offer him a glass cup adorned in dainty enamel flowers. "Is Dio good?"
He waves his hand at the glass apologetically. "Two seconds…" Lifting the chain with the second hand, Eddie tugs and then feeds until the links are lined up with the bumps on the big chainring. The skin on his fingertips get pinched and his eyebrows pull together in pain, but it's a mild irritant at worst and after a moment the chain is back in place.
He pulls his hand away and wipes dark grease down the front of his jacket. "I think I did it."
You're glowing, earrings like a metronome as you ask, "That fast? You're awesome."
He turns the pedal and your back wheel spins in time with his heart. You're awesome. When was the last time somebody who wasn't Wayne said anything like that?
Although Dustin had told him he thought Eddie was a much cooler, more fucked up version of the guy from Van Halen the other day.
You're just saying that 'cos we're both called Eddie, Eddie had said morosely.
Learn to take a compliment, dude.
When they aren't pity compliments, he might.
Eddie lifts your bike back onto the wheels to show you that it's working perfectly. You giggle your evident pleasure. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" you say, super sweet even as grape juice sloshes over the rims of your flowered glasses and drips down your fingers.
"Here, let me," he says, taking the glasses from your purple-stained hands.
You kiss your hands clean which is a thing, a lot to watch. Eddie admits to himself that he thinks you're really pretty, recognises that that is a bad thing to think considering the likely very short life span of your acquaintance. God knows you won't be saying anything as friendly when you find out who he is.
"You're so nice," you say. It feels like you're talking more to yourself than him. "Thank you. It's slipped off three times this month, and ten dollars is ten dollars. Wait, do you want ten dollars?"
"My services were administered charitably.”
Your smile grows. You accept your glass and take a small sip, eyes lit up as Eddie steers your bike one-handed to rest against the porch.
"Do you wanna come inside? I don't have any of the Dio, but I have Blondie."
He holds in a throwaway comment about real rock and roll, astounded that you’d ask him. "Your folks aren't home?"
"I'm twenty-two."
Eddie squints at you. "Seriously?"
"You didn't think so?"
He shrugs. It's not that you don't look twenty two. Or even that you don't act twenty two. But it's been a long time since he met somebody living alone in the park. Forest Hills is where poverty comes to settle.
"A boyfriend?"
"Just me and mister Porterson."
"That your grandpa?"
"That's my pet fish."
He smiles. It's his first real, authentic smile in days. He's genuinely elated by your offer and your attitude, but he doesn't know how to handle it, struck with a sudden nightmare of you, afterward, telling somebody you'd invited him in and he'd tried to hurt you. It isn't fair of him to assume you'd do anything like that. You've been nothing but sweet and sincere this whole time.
Eddie hasn't let his guard down in a long time.
You're giving him this wide-eyed, imploring look that promptly suffocates any fear.
And in a week, when she finds out who you are and feels betrayed, feels tricked? What then, Munson?
"You know what happened?" he asks.
"What happened?"
"Two years ago. Chrissy… Chrissy Cunningham?"
Don't say her fucking name.
Your expression clears as clarity blooms. You take a step. He needs a second to realise you've come forward rather than away, fingers twitching toward his hand.
"I know about it. I'm sorry that happened to you."
He stares.
This is a trick. Two years and he can count the amount of people who believe him on his two hands, and only because they'd all gone through it with him. Sometimes there are outliers, logical people who seem to realise Eddie couldn't have killed all those people, couldn't have been in all those different places without leaving any evidence behind. And sometimes there are people who agree he didn't kill Chrissy, but he's a coward for leaving her to die. (She’d already been dead.)
Eddie doesn't know what he thinks. Wayne sets the record straight every now and then with a clap on the shoulder. You did what every parent wants their kid to do. You lived. I can't ask for more than that.
"You don't believe it?"
"That you hurt her?" You hold his gaze, face practically impassive. "No, I don't believe it."
He pulls in a breath that fills every inch of his chest. "I could learn to like Blondie," he says.
—
You're standing in the driveway of Eddie's trailer with a heavy bag over your shoulder, face to face with a man who kind of looks like him but not really. You assume it's his uncle because who else could he be? If you hadn't seen him here you'd never guess.
"Eddie's mom must've had strong genes," you say. You bring your shoulder up toward your cheek thoughtfully. "He didn't get any of your face. Was she pretty? Eddie's really pretty."
"She was," he says, peering down his nose at you.
"I got sandwiches. Do you want one?"
"What kind?"
"I have ham and cheese, or ham and lettuce and tomato, or I have pumpernickel cookies. Is Eddie a vegetarian?"
"Why?"
"'Cause I only brought one cheese and cucumber, and I have dibs."
He climbs down the last couple of steps and is still taller but definitely less imposing, face covered in scratchy salt and pepper stubble and crows feet deeply embedded into the corners of his eyes. He looks like a man who has been tired for a very long time. You make a mental note to bring him some lavender for his pillow on your next visit.
"You're Eddie's new friend?"
You nod your head briskly. "Yes, sir. I'm Y/N."
He opens his box of camels like a pro, bottom pressed to his chest. He tucks a cigarette between his lips and pulls his lighter out. He doesn't light it.
"It's nice to meet you," he says eventually, voice warming.
You search through the mess of your skirt for the zipper on your bag and peel it open, pulling out your tupperware of cookies and cracking them open to release the fragrant smell of cinnamon and almonds. It's a heady scent, fitting for the holiday season approaching.
You offer Eddie’s uncle a cookie.
"Thought pumpernickel was bread," he says gruffly, taking one.
"It is, but there's this little town in France that makes these every year at Christmas and they call them pumpernickel biscuits," — he takes a bite and winces at the hard snap — "you're s'posed to dip them in hot chocolate."
"You don't say."
You nod happily and he moves aside to let you pass.
"Thanks, kid."
You turn back to him with your fingers curled around the door handle. "Of course! It's really nice to meet you, Mr. Munson, sir."
"Wayne is fine."
You laugh and repeat his name in a similarly rough voice, letting yourself in as Eddie had told you to do. You find him immediately in a man-made corner of the living room, pale and in his pyjamas. The trailer is open planned, a living room they’ve divided by propping a couch against the kitchen counter, a slim hallway leading to a cramped bathroom and the single bedroom. It's exactly like in your home.
You're somewhat surprised to see him in pyjamas. Eddie doesn't wear comfy looking clothes out of the house — you've only ever seen him in jeans and jackets like a real rockstar.
"Are you ready?" you ask.
You've invited him to come and search for bugs with you. Catching any kind of bug, whether beetle or butterfly or spider, is really scary, but you need to be able to catch them to draw them.
You'd expressed this to him over the phone and he'd said, "I can come and help. I have good reflexes."
He rubs his hands over his knees. There's a blanket pooled around his feet, a quilt he must sleep with, and the room is decorated with not a whole lot of stuff but enough to make you take a step back.
"Is this your room?" you ask, enchanted.
"Kind of." He pulls his hair from behind his ear, obscuring a pale cheek. "I don't think I can come with you today, I'm sorry. I meant to call you."
You toy with a dark thigh high sock as you ease out of your shoes, height drastically decreasing. "That's okay, we can stay here. I brought you a sandwich. I brought you two sandwiches," you correct.
He nods. Rather sadly, in your opinion. "Alright. Thanks."
You step over a tented paperback and hand off the cookies before sitting down beside him on the couch he's occupying. It's smaller than the one against the wall and round like a clam, lots of room for your legs to stretch out.
"I feel like a pearl," you say.
You and Eddie have been friends for a little while now. Long enough for you to realise he's either depressed or mentally unwell in some way. You hardly mind keeping him company on his bad days if he needs somebody, so drawing bugs will have to wait.
His hair is limp, not totally greasy but not super clean either. His face looks fresh enough, though the bags under his eyes make you frown.
You pull your purse into your lap, thighs covered by the thin layers of your midi skirt. "I have just the thing for you," you murmur.
"Yeah? Bring me another bracelet?"
You like that he sounds eager. Making his bracelet had been a challenge, lots of knotting and double knotting, three restarts and one small under the breath tantrum. It's not anything special, black and white hearts seven strands wide, but he'd been very appreciative.
"No, but I can make you another one if you want. I mastered the inverse chevron last night."
He hums. You pull a saran wrapped sandwich from the depths of your crowded bag, glad to see it's mostly intact. When you open it up you find that it's the ham and lettuce and tomato one, so you drop it into his lap haphazardly and move onto the next.
"Aha! Here," you pull a cucumber from your sandwich. "For you."
He takes it between two tentative fingers. "Thank you?"
"For your eyes."
"There's cheese on it."
"I'll still work," you assure him.
"M'not putting cheese on my eyes."
You laugh because he probably shouldn't put cheese on his eyes, cucumber adjacent or otherwise. "Okay, don't. I'll make you a hot towel."
He drops his hand on your arm as you go to stand. You like how he touches you, soft but not scared. "You just got here. Stay here." He pats you nicely. "Tell me about work last night."
You settle heavily into the seat beside him, your thigh to his thigh, your hip squished against his hip, doughy flesh separated by nothing more than a strappy tank top and a cotton long-sleeve t-shirt. His heat quickly becomes yours, a sinking transference of warmth.
"Well," you begin, cheek turning into the couch to face him. "It was mostly okay. I dropped another plate, but this time it didn't have a stack of waffles on it."
He smiles ruefully and sinks back as you had. Neither of you eat your sandwiches. "Progress. Taking it out of your pay?"
"Yes, definitely."
"Discrimination."
"That's what I said! I said, Sarah, I was born with butterfingers and you know that."
"She didn't budge?"
"Dishwashing all week next week. Whatever, though, 'cause it's Saturday."
He laughs and shakes his head, his gaze dropping to your neck. He does that sometimes. You can't blame him; you wear a varying assortment of necklaces because you think they're pretty, and you're glad he likes them too.
"See my new one?"
"What?"
"New necklace." You look down at your chest and pull the newest addition from between the cups of your bra. "It's real silver."
"It's nice."
"It's surprisingly heavy. Wanna feel?"
"That's okay," he says, slightly strained.
Right, you think. I'm talking a lot.
You press your lips together in a mild pout and look at him through appreciative eyes. He's a very pretty boy, all soft and pale and sweet dark curls.
"Do you want me to put your hair up?"
His lips part before he talks. "I don't know if you should."
"Sure I should. It's getting in your eyes, right?" You take his hand where it's laid unsuspectingly in his lap and slip the hair tie from around his wrist, his fingertips tickling the inside of your palm. "Sit forward, Eddie."
He takes a deep breath, holds it, and sits up. You twist and then realise you need some more height, pushing a leg under yourself to kneel next to his lap.
You weave our fingers softly into the hair at the front of his face and rake away in lieu of a brush. After it's mostly tamed you pull it all into one hand and wrap the tie at the base of his head. You hum to yourself as you go, pleased when his lovely curls behave.
"Voilà," you announce, moving back on your haunches.
He breathes out. "Thank you."
You reach for a curl you'd missed at the very front and encourage it behind his ear. He has subtle indents in his cheeks today like he's in need of a good meal, and his skin is colder than it should be when you flatten your palm.
"You need something to eat," you fret. Your fingertips stroke under his eye, your thumb his smile lines.
He moves away slowly.
You pull your hand back into your lap. "Maybe we can go out and get something, if you don't like the sandwich?"
"What?" he asks, pale lips taut as he simpers at you. "Are you kidding? This is about to fix everything that's wrong with me."
His enthusiasm emboldens you. "It so will! There's ham and cheese too, if you prefer that one."
"Get it! I'm gonna eat both of them." S
Eddie eats both of his sandwiches and you eat your own, the two of you with your heads dropped back against the couch as you watch TV. There's a guy you've never seen before running around the streets of Chicago city centre looking for people to be in his play. Eddie's seen it before. He repeats dialogue in time with the characters, performing each line. Impressive, what with how tired he looks.
"What did he just say?" you ask, mouth full of cucumber.
"He said he's gonna throw himself off a bridge," Eddie informs. "Poor guy. I know the feeling."
You swallow harshly.
"Seriously?"
Your sad tone surprises him.
"I- No, I'm kidding," he says, scratching the base of his throat, friendship bracelet his only adornment.
His nervous itching makes you even more worried.
"If you did wanna do that, you can talk to me-"
He baulks, tongue poking out past his lips as he licks the corner of his mouth. "Thanks, sweetheart," he says, pet name like a kiss. It sounds silly but it really feels like one, right in the centre of your chest. "But I'm fine. Promise. It was a bad joke."
"Okay," you say, letting your suspicion shine through. You hold his eyes.
You haven't known Eddie long. It feels like you met yesterday, though really it's been two or three weeks. You fit together in a way you hadn't expected and adore more than you can articulate, two funny puzzle pieces.
"Well, I just wanted you to know. I like being your friend, I don't want you to disappear."
He laughs and licks his lips, a rough, chesty sound. "I don't want you to disappear either."
Tires crunch outside, a shushing sound and then the sharp shriek of a jeep being put into park. Eddie perks up considerably, his shoulders straightening.
"Hey, Chief," Wayne calls.
Trailer walls. Basically made of cardboard.
"Hey, Wayne. Where's the kid?"
You can't hear what Wayne says after that, words stolen by the TV.
"Is that Chief Hopper?" you ask, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the mostly shuttered blinds.
"Yeah, he- He's friends with Wayne."
"Why's he wanna know where you are?"
"'Cause I got into so much trouble."
You bite your tongue. His tone is hard, not stern but almost, and you realise you've overstepped as you usually do. You want to apologise but you don't want to pick the wound, eager to gloss over and make him smile again.
"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" you ask him.
"What?"
You spread your legs wider to slide onto your thighs and make him the taller one again, legs bent in a 'W' shape. "Coming back from the dead! First Will Byers, then Hopper."
Something surfaces in his expression. An irony.
"The undead," you croon, aiming for a smile, a laugh.
He cracks. "The undead," he agrees, smiling in bemusement. His eyes are a funny shade of brown.
—
Eddie shoo’s you home early that night but tries to do it kindly. He feigns exhaustion, a facade that's difficult to uphold when his entire body is thrumming with want. If there's one thing Eddie hates about being a vampire (there are literally hundreds of things he hates, but this one's special) it's that he wants to hurt the people he likes a thousand times more than the people he doesn't.
He can't explain it. Your blood is more appealing than any lonesome stranger's. Your pulse is practically music to his ears when you sit beside him. He'd kill himself before he ever hurt you, though. Or that's what he likes to think. Whether he has that amount of control is debatable.
No. He would kill himself before he hurt you, or Wayne, or any of his friends.
Steve can see the way that he's feeling on his face.
Hopper's delivery set to one side, a tall glass with blood congealed in a sticky ring at the bottom, Eddie curls under his huge quilt and tries not to pass out. Blood sate feels the same as a thanksgiving food coma. It's awesome.
He hates how good it feels.
"Stop feeling guilty," Steve says.
"He doesn't look guilty to me," Dustin says beside him, taller than the last time Eddie had seen him but still miles off of Steve's tall stature. He's changed his hat again, this one a garish green. It's not a good look.
"He looks like he's napping," Robin says, delighted.
"Can you guys go home?" Eddie asks.
"Shithead."
"What Steve means to say," Robin corrects, grinning her huge, catching smile, "is that no, we aren't going home. We brought games."
"I don't wanna play games." He does. Eddie needs the distraction, because eventually the blood sate will fade and all that will remain will be self-revulsion and a cruel desire to do something awful.
"I do not care even slightly," Steve says, deadpan, as he sits right there next to Eddie where you'd been sitting before. Steve's nowhere near as soft and he doesn't smell as nice, but Eddie's honestly glad someone is willing to sit next to him at all.
"Ouch, what the fuck?"
Dustin looks up from where he's sat himself on the floor. Robin giggles in her seat on the coffee table.
"Munson, are you fucking shedding? I just got stabbed."
"They don't work like that. They retract."
Eddie feels at his broken gums with his tongue. There's a clean incision where his fangs come out and then snap back inside after a time. They're remarkably thin, fitting in front of his natural incisors neatly.
Steve grumbles, hips lifted and hand searching under his butt for whatever it is that jabbed him. He retrieves exactly what Eddie had been expecting but hadn't had the forethought to prepare a lie about with a shocked gasp.
"Is this an earring? You don't have your ears pierced."
He swallows, knowing it's a very guilty gesture, and meets Steve's eyes straight on.
Funny how Steve's hair speaks as much as his expression, bobbing as he nods his head to emphasise each word, "Munson, do you have a girlfriend?"
Silence.
"...Not really."
"Holy shit," Dustin says, sounding extremely pleased. "No way."
Robin tucks her short hair behind her ears, hands paused in disbelief at her neck. "Actually?"
"I have a friend," Eddie admits.
"Thank god," Steve says, dropping your heart earring onto Eddie's thigh. The silver feels extremely hot over his pyjamas, like it's been held in the centre of a blistering hearth.
"I really thought Steve was gonna have to take one for the team and give you a pity handie," Robin says agreeably, scratchy voice coloured by genuine awe.
Eddie groans, "Harrington, get this shit off of me. You know I can't touch that."
"I forgot," Steve lies. "Can you wait? My hands are busy."
—
He has Steve put your earring between two pieces of kitchen towel and holds onto it. He doesn't see you for a week, and he keeps your damn earring in his pocket that entire time worried it's gonna slip out and brand him at any second.
Finally, you call him. He pretends he wasn't waiting.
"Hello," you say, like you're announcing something.
"Hey. How are you?"
"Eddie, I need your help. Badly."
He flinches up where he'd been leaning casually, hard enough to make Wayne jump. Eddie smiles at him placatingly and mouths a poor sorry, turning away to pretend there's a semblance of privacy to be found in such close quarters.
"Are you okay?"
"I gotta find a rainbow leaf beetle. Do you have a torch?"
"...What?"
"They only come out at night, so I'm gonna go look but I don't have a torch that works."
He relaxes, the lilting cadence of your voice enough to make his whole night. You sound so pretty even through the phone. He suspects you could hold any pitch, deep or high, and you'd still sound nice.
It's all in the way you — he says this with love — perform the words. You speak like each word you're saying has equal importance, and it's calming.
Even when you say stuff that's nonsense to him.
Right now, you don't sound upset or even worried about not having a torch, simply curious to know if he has one. If he focuses hard (and he's been trying not to, as you deserve your privacy) he can hear you all the way across the park, shifting from foot to foot in your bedroom, carpet crushed under your heels.
The action makes him think this might be more urgent to you than you'd first admitted.
"I have a torch." He also has amazing night vision. Like, impeccable. "Can I come help?"
"You want to?"
"I'd love to. Are you going out tonight?" He leans back to glance out the window. "The rain is finally stopping."
"Yeah, tonight! Is that okay for you? We could go tomorrow if you can't."
You're willing to change your plans now that he's asked to go with you. It's a gesture as lovely as you are. Eddie doesn't think you'd ever think it of yourself; your kindness is so intrinsic you don't notice it, like the fine stitching of a leather bound book. Integral and widely unappreciated.
"That's perfect."
Wayne raises an eyebrow when Eddie relays the conversation. "You're going out in the middle of the night with this girl to… look for bugs."
Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. "I swear."
"Be honest with me, kid."
"I am!"
Wayne swirls his coke can around in his hand as he thinks, a reluctance evident in his scowl. Eddie knows he's way too old for a guardian's oversight like this but he lets Wayne have a say because Wayne loves him, and Eddie doesn't ever want to put his old man through the turmoil he went through when he ran away. If that means a curfew in his twenties, Eddie's okay with that.
"If you're going to have sex with this girl, I'd prefer you did it here. You have to treat women with respect."
Eddie shivers, full body. "Wayne," he groans, covering his face. He can feel his cheeks pink under his palms, that's how quickly his embarrassment rises.
"I know you're more responsible these days, and you're a grown up. If you want a girlfriend and you want to do adult things with her-"
"Jesus Christ."
"- then that's alright. You don't have to fool around outside."
He drags his hands down on his face, pained. "It's not like that. You met her, you know she's…"
"Strange?"
"Alternative."
"No, you're alternative. She's cooky."
"Don't," he says. He knows his uncle isn't actually being cruel, so he lets it lie and fights for his own cause. "We aren't messing around. She genuinely wants me to go find these bugs with her. And…" He hates himself. "She has her own place, you know? If we were going to-"
Wayne seems stricken by the same mortified embarrassment as Eddie, raising a calloused hand in surrender. "Spare me."
"Thank you," Eddie says, spinning on his heel to hide in the bathroom for a while. It's only when he's sitting on the closed toilet does he realise Wayne hadn't mentioned his more dangerous ailment. For a time, he'd been a normal (debatable) person having a normal (horrifying) conversation with his dad. Not a vampire. Not somebody who ruins everything he touches.
—
"It's so quiet," you whisper.
For you, Eddie thinks.
You're in the forest surrounding the aptly named Forest Hills trailer park, wielding your borrowed torch carefully into the dark. Eddie's following in your footsteps, trying not to smell everything that's on you today and failing.
You smell like a person as everybody does. Over that is your soap, a faint hint of milk and honey that sticks to your skin even after you've washed it away. Over that is your deodorant, 'unscented', and over that is your perfume, which he likes most. It's a mix of smells, some Eddie doesn't know and some he does. There's lavender, though that might be down to the bunch you'd brought for his uncle wrapped in newspaper, and there's something fruity he can't quite put his finger on, all of it wrapped up in a cloying pairing of vanilla and coconut.
"Eddie?"
"What?"
"Are you okay? You're almost as quiet as the trees."
If only you knew the trees aren't quiet.
"I'm alright," he says quickly, catching up to you where you stand a few feet ahead. "What are we looking for?"
Best change the subject. How to explain he'd been smelling the notes of your perfume?
"They rest on tree trunks. You have to be careful, any sudden sound or light will scare them away. But if you flash the torch on them, they shine like oil stains."
He loves when you talk. "Where'd they come from?"
"Place called Snowdon. They're so rare, they think there's only about a thousand alive there."
"Well, how did they get here?"
You laugh under your breath, so quiet he would've missed it if he wasn't enhanced. "I don't know. How do beetles get to different places?"
"They fly?"
A twig crunches under your shoe.
Eddie tips his head to the side, thinking. "If there's only a thousand, how-" He stops, your circle of torch light growing further and further away. "Are you sure that they live here?"
"No, but if they do we'll be the first to find them."
"So they've never found any out here? In- In the midwest?"
"Not yet. Where'd you go?"
He shakes his head in an affectionate disbelief. "Right behind you."
You search in silence for a while. Eddie wishes he could say he was mad, or even mildly annoyed, wishes he had even the slightest regard for his own time, but really he thinks any time with you is time well spent. Especially if it's helping you do something you want to do. Whether you find your rainbow leaf beetle or not, he feels better knowing he's out here with you to keep you safe and in company.
Conversation is sparing. He doesn't mind. Your footsteps fill the sound and he finds even that stupid detail charming, the crunch, the pick up. His own are silent, a rare advantage to his terrible affliction.
"Any other beetles you want me to keep an eye out for?" he whispers.
"I'm not sure…" You turn to face him, torch pointed at your shoes. Rubber toes touched together, you lean in until you're all he can smell. Perfume. Blood. "If you see any cool spiders, too."
"You have the mason jar?"
"You know I do."
More than you realise, he thinks. The glass clicks in your bag.
There's enough light reflected to see the most minute details of your face. Your nose, the circle of your irises but not their colour. He suspects Eddie from early '86 wouldn't have been able to see hide nor hair, and it wouldn't shock him if you were technically blind right now.
"Thanks for coming out with me. I was gonna ask you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, but I didn't want to come on too strong." He can sense your smile even though he can't see it. It's in the way your breathing deepens. "I know I can be a lot to deal with."
"Who told you that?"
"What?"
Eddie doubles down.. "Who told you that?" he sounds heartbroken.
He kind of is. Yeah, you're weird — Who cares? Who isn't? — but you're not a lot to deal with. He doesn't 'deal' with you.
"Everybody tells me that. All the time."
"Everybody's stupid." To say it so loudly, scathingly, is sweet. It's therapeutic. "They are. This whole town is stupid."
Your fingertips touch his thigh. He's willing you to turn the torch up and see his face, because he has a lot of feelings on display that he isn't brave enough to say out loud.
"You never make me feel stupid," you say softly.
"You're not."
You giggle breathily at his vehemence, fingertips pressing in with a touch more pressure before you pull away and shine the torch deep into the trees.
"This whole town is stupid," you mumble. "But not you."
He thinks of his friends who are definitely stupid, but he loves anyways. He's about to add them to the not-stupid (subjectively) list when he remembers Steve's discovery: your earring burning a hole in his pocket. He'd been carrying it for long enough now to forget all about it.
"Hey, I have something for you."
"You do?"
"Don't get too excited. It's not a gift."
He digs in his pocket for the tissue paper wrapping and hisses in shock as the silver plating of your hoop graces his index finger. You shine the torch at him. His eyes ache like he's been stabbed and he slams them closed, hand pulled to his chest.
How embarrassing.
"Eddie, what happened?" you question loudly.
He winces at the sudden overstimulation. Slowly, he blinks, and finds you staring at him in a worry that softens every feature, even your nose. He doesn't know the logistics.
"It's okay. Stabbed a paper cut on the back. Your earring's in my pocket, the heart?"
"The hoop? I thought I lost it." Your worry turns to confusion and then melds into joy. You step forward and fish in his jacket pocket for your earring.
"Steve found it."
"'The hair'?"
"Yeah, the hair."
You both laugh and yours heightens when you find the earring, pulling it out like a knife to be brandished. "Yes."
"I meant to tell you a dozen times that I had it."
"You're the best."
There's a crunch of wood somewhere to the left like something heavy falling over.
The forest sprawls in every direction and the trees tower, their presence looming as skyscrapers. The wind ruffles the topmost branches and their trunks groan with pressure. It's enough to freak Eddie out super sense or not, feeling suddenly like he couldn't protect you. He could hear the individual droplets of drool dripping from a lynx's bloody maw, and he can sense each twig underfoot before he takes his next step, but none of that is going to keep you safe in the face of real danger.
"Maybe we should head back," he says tentatively.
"Okay. Do you want to come over?"
His breath catches. "You want me to?"
"Yeah, we can watch movies, I have leftover pasta."
That sounds more like what he should've been thinking. "I don't wanna keep you up."
"What kind of pasta?" he asks.
The torch flickers. "With the tiny tomatoes. You'll like it, super creamy."
"How do you know?"
"You like Alfredo," you say astutely, hitting the torch into the palm of your hand. It flashes weakly, the shadow of the trees flickering and so dark they're violet.
"Try tightening the handle."
You turn the barrel of the torch and the light switches off completely. You try to undo what you've done to no success, the sound of plastic rubbing plastic almost as loud as your heartbeat. Your pulse falters and then grows to racing when the light fails to come back on.
"Eddie," you say, sounding unsure. It's a new sound on you. "I don't know where we are. How are we gonna get home?"
Your admission is like a dousing of ice water over his head. "You don't know what direction we came from?"
"No, do you?"
Eddie wouldn't know if he couldn't hear the sound of the electricity pylon buzzing somewhere to the right. But how can he explain that? "Uh, we were turned around."
You creep to his side and grab his arm with both hands. "Are you sure?"
"Hey," he says gently. "Hey, it's okay. I know where we are. We'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" you ask again.
"I'm positive."
You take a deep breath that doesn't erase your shakiness, a failed attempt at self-soothing. "I really don't know where we are."
"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"
"Not really… I don't wanna get lost out here."
"You won't. I know how to get back. C'mon," he prompts, pulling his arm to encourage you forward.
You let go of him and navigate a few steps by yourself. He weaves through the trees, waiting for your heartbeat to slow.
It doesn't. He opens his mouth to reassure you again when you gasp, kicking your foot against a root and tripping. You barely fall, catching yourself on the trunk of a tree, and Eddie remembers himself. You can't see the trees. That's why you're worried. You can't see anything.
Then the smell of blood hits him like a freight train.
—
Your hand stings where you caught yourself, palm scraped down against harsh bark.
"Shit," you mumble.
You're panicking badly, and you're confused as to why Eddie isn't. Not only was it fucking stupid of you to come out here with only one torch, it was stupid of you to assume you'd remember what way was home. It was stupid of you to come here tonight for that stupid beetle, and stupid of you to drag Eddie along. You're an idiot, and now you're bleeding.
Your eyes sting with tears, pain like a popped seal. I'm so stupid.
"Hey," Eddie says, his tone silky soft, "you're okay. Let me help you up."
You hold your hands out.
"Eddie, this is weird." Hopefully he understands that weird means scary.
He takes your hands, fingers closing slowly over your bloody palm. His breath is loud as he pulls you up toward him like he's panicked but his grip stays kind, and you abandon the notion when he rubs over your knuckles with his thumb. "It's alright."
He doesn't sound the same.
"Eddie, we can't see."
"We'll go slowly, okay? I'll put my hand out and we'll walk around anything that gets in the way."
"Yeah," you say hurriedly, heart bump-bump-bumping against your ribcage.
He keeps one hand, the injured one, and starts to drag you slowly through the trees. His grip tightens as you go until it starts to ache, until it feels like it might bruise.
"Ouch, Eds. You're hurting me," you say, going for a lightly teasing tone and missing the mark.
Instantly, he eases off. "Sorry, sweetheart. You hold onto me, alright?"
You do as he'd asked, hand clinging to him as he leads. He doesn't squeeze you again, walking slowly as he'd promised, and the closer you get to the edge of the forest the clearer it becomes. Light pollution from the centre of town leaches through the trees like water trickling from an overflowing basin.
His second hand is in his pocket.
"Here," he says after you've traversed to the very edge of the forest. "There's the park. We're bona fide explorers."
He looks out toward the park and you look at the side of his face. Something isn't right. Something uncanny.
You drop your gaze from his face to your joined hands. They come apart, blood smeared in both your palms like two halves of a dripping heart.
—
There is something weird about Eddie. As a residential freak of Hawkins you think you're an authority in this, and you don't feel guilty for judging him. Your brain can't stop going over your night in the forest. For days you play the scenes back and for days you lose the details. You forget how the wind had tousled his hair, how he'd smelled, what he'd said.
You remember the way he'd squeezed your bloody hand. You remember the way he'd spoken, strained.
Not strained like he didn't want to comfort you, he had, but strained.
Restrained.
You're poking at the shallow cut half-healed now in your palm at work when a dude walks in, very tall, handsome, and gunning straight for you.
You straighten your badge and hide your bracelet heavy wrists behind your back, receding slightly as he approaches. He slows in front of you.
You have a light bulb moment.
"The hair," you say.
He scowls. "He told you that, huh. Typical."
"You're Steve?"
"That's me." Steve crosses his arms across his chest, his back to a booth, your back to the diner bar. "You're Eddie's new friend."
"What counts as new?" A month and a half doesn't feel so new to you.
"Trust me, you're new."
He has the strangest patch covering the outside of his left wrist, the same peculiar scarring that you can see on Eddie's waist when he reaches for a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. You don't ask because you're not a dick no matter how curious you find yourself, but it makes your heart skip. What is that? You'd assumed Eddie's was road rash. Now you're not so sure.
He tucks it under his arm.
You meet his suspicious gaze.
"You want coffee?"
"No."
You kick your foot, shoe sliding over the shiny waxed floor with a squeal. "Is Eddie okay?"
"Did you want to come to a party next Friday?"
"No," you say honestly. "Like a cult?"
"What?"
"Are you initiating me into your cult?"
He finally smiles, eyes creased with amusement. "I'm inviting you to our club."
"Club where you chew on each other?"
You look pointedly at Steve's wrist.
"No. Club where we play board games and drink jiffy pop. Come or don't, doesn't matter."
"If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?"
It's a strangely intense conversation to have this early in the morning. Patrons chatter about work, coffee gets poured. The diner smells of syrup and sugar and bitter cold-press. You're both in work apparel, both refusing to move back. If this is some kind of shovel talk then that's fine, and if it's a test you're determined to pass, even if Eddie's been super weird lately.
"I'll come if you promise not to eat me," you say.
"It's really not that kind of club."
—
"I had the weirdest visit in the entire world today," you declare, stopping in front of Eddie's porch with a smile.
"Yeah?" he asks without looking up, guitar in his lap and pen scribbling over a lined notebook.
You wait for him to stop before you continue, leaning forward with both arms braced on the porch by his feet. "Steve Harrington came to see me, and he was super mean. You said he was nice."
He frowns at you. "I told you he was a dick."
"You like him when you tell me stories."
"How mean?" Eddie asks, patting the seat beside him.
You climb up onto the porch and plop down onto the couch, worn leather cold with the weather and damp in the seams.
You take a strand of his hair and curl it around your finger. "Not really super mean, but he was, like, acting like I killed a baby."
"He's like that."
You sigh and lean your cheek against the couch cushion, watching Eddie's stubble move as he tamps down a teasing smile. "He invited me to a party next weekr."
"It's not a party- Sweetheart, what are you doing?"
You tickle his cheek with the end of his hair. "Nothing."
"M'gonna sneeze."
You tickle him again, fine dark strands brushing over his pale cheek. He's a very ashen guy, you've found. Likely because he barely goes out in the sun and he doesn't eat enough. You draw circles around the apple of his cheek and grin softly at his growing smile, a sweet, silly thing.
"I'll tickle you back," he warns.
"Promise?"
He steals the curl back and tucks it behind his ear.
"You're not a cannibal, are you?"
Eddie chokes on air. You startle at his coughing and move to pat his back, palm slapping a steady rhythm into his shoulder. When he calms down you run your hand down the length of his arm, long sleeve t-shirt soft beneath your touch. You linger at his wrist and decide to hold it.
He drops his pen and your hand travels until he's caught your thumb. He kneads it in his fingers.
"I'm not a cannibal. Why would you think that?"
"I don't, but you and Steve are in your club, right?"
"Hellfire wasn't like that," he says heatedly.
"No, not- Not that one."
He doesn't say anything.
"You have… He has this scar, on his wrist. Like something bit him, or-" He turns to you and he looks formidable and upset and himself, not mad at you but raw emotion in his expression anyhow. It's gone as quick as it came.
"When all that… stuff happened," he begins quietly, "we got hurt. A couple of us."
You drop your head, ashamed at having pried. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me anything else."
"Don't be sorry…" He squeezes your hand and lets it go. "Don't worry about it."
"Okay."
"We usually call ourselves a party, these days. Not a club."
"Do you really play board games and drink jiffy pop?"
"Sometimes we get really crazy and order a pizza. You should come."
You realise as he says it how much his wanting you to go had mattered to you. Eddie's your friend, and you don't think that you're going to stay friends much longer.
"You think your friends will like me?" you ask, voice descending to a new kind of gentle.
He puts down his guitar and his notebook. His full attention is something you've come to really enjoy, not because of the hunger you often see flitting across his face — though that's neat —, but because of the inklings of adoration clinging to his smile when he looks at you. His blinking lashes. He smiles at you and just slows. A usually frenetic boy calmed.
"Maybe not Mike. Mike doesn't like anybody. Except for Will," he muses.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Who do you like?"
"I like all of them." He juts his cheek toward his shoulder, conceding, " I think Dustin's my favourite. He's funny. He's funnier than I am, and he's the smartest kid I've ever met. And he knows it."
Your eyes focus on the pink outline of his upper lip as he speaks. It's a pleasure to be this close, and see him in this kind of crazy detail. When you go home tonight you might try to draw him. You'll probably forget.
It's the kind of smile that deserves to be immortalised.
"I really like your smile," you tell him, hoping it'll last a little longer.
It stretches. The pink outline turns white. "Shut up."
"I do. I've seen a thousand different smiles but I've never met someone who smiles like you do."
"How's that?" he asks, edging toward you, face a mirror in which you can see your own charmed expression.
"Like you," — you shake your head with your lips parted — "know a secret. Something you won't tell anybody."
His smile abruptly ends.
You've nothing if not a talent for saying the wrong thing.
"A good secret," you amend.
He picks up his acoustic and gives it an experimental strum. "Maybe one or two," he agrees.
Relief catches you. You nibble at the inside of your lip and watch his fingers work over the neck of his guitar, tipping your head so you can read the words he's markered over the body.
"This machine slays dragons," you murmur to yourself. "Yeah? How many?"
"Just the one."
"Save any princesses?"
"Not yet." He plucks at the strings, lost in thought, before turning to you with eyebrows raised. "Can you play?"
You exhale out of the corner of your mouth as he pushes the guitar into your lap, an arm coming around your shoulder, the other reaching to guide your curled forefinger to the strings. You turn to face him, watching him talk with a growing fondness.
"It's easy, I swear. We'll do Call Me. Blondie's basic, even a baby could play it."
He realises you aren't listening and raises his gaze, shiny brown irises stuck on your lips. This close, it would be worse if he didn't look at them.
You glance at his, an obvious thing, half a wish. If he only lifted his chin.
Your breath mingles.
"It's easy," he says again, a murmur of his usual volume as his gaze pulls back up to yours. "I'll show you."
You wonder if he can hear your heart pounding; it's deafening. You wait, and you wait, and you turn your eyes back to his guitar and clamp your fingers down against the struts so he can't see them shaking with adrenaline.
—
Eddie sits beside Steve and tries not to admit to himself that Steve Harrington is, horrifyingly, his best friend (along with the rest of the party, obviously). Steve is the closest in age and Eddie can't make excuses (though he tries and tries and tries), Steve understands how much Eddie doesn't ever want to talk about anything that's happened to them, so he talks about literally everything else instead.
"It was the weirdest pawn shop I've ever been in. They had, like, a wall of combi's playing the same video at the same time but all slightly delayed."
Eddie blinks.
Steve turns his head from the TV, having expected a response. "Did you say something?"
"No." Then, because he's not a dick. "Sorry, Harrington. Want me to sit on your other side?"
"What for?" Steve says. Not because he denies how he's hard of hearing, but because he denies having conversations with Eddie.
He does end up moving to Steve's other side with a pathetic excuse. "I can't see the TV."
Steve doesn't say a word until he's sat down again. "Sorry I was mean to your girlfriend."
"Yeah, what was that about?"
"I was cranky because it was early and I don't want her to damage the integrity of the party." He gives equal weight to both reasons.
Eddie snorts at him. "Since when do you care about the integrity of the party?" Steve barely acknowledges that they are a party. He thinks that's a very nerdy way to say friends.
"Since always, dipshit."
"And inviting her to join the party was the solution because…?"
Steve drinks the rest of his coke and pretends to really care about what's on TV. "If," he begins after a minute, refusing to look at Eddie, "something happens with her, and something happens to you, that damages the integrity of the party."
"Steve," Eddie says, jaw dropped down to his chest, "do you have a crush on me?"
"Oh my god," Steve mutters. "Oh my god," he says louder. "I can't stand you."
To prove his point, he gets up from the couch with a wrinkled nose, stops to tap his shoe gently against Max's where she's sitting in the armchair across from the coffee table, and disappears into his kitchen.
Steve Harrington cares about me enough to give Y/N the shovel talk.
He feels kind of great about it.
But he's not sure your the one who needs warning.
That night in the forest, Eddie had almost snapped. There are rules to follow if he wants to keep people safe, self-imposed, Hopper-imposed, and he's broken too many with you already, the most important being no close proximity when he's hungry. Eddie doesn't even realise he is hungry half the time. He'll be standing by you and he'll want to touch you, and suddenly it's like he's three weeks in to the month without sating.
He thinks about kissing you and suddenly he's thinking about biting you, and hurting you, and it's literally tearing him up from the inside out.
How can he want to do that to you?
"You look so depressed and pathetic," Dustin says out of the blue.
Eddie pouts and falls back into the couch, Steve's fancy throw falling onto his shoulder. "I used to like you," he says, taking in Dustin's outfit with a kind of parental approval. He's getting older and it shows, slightly more handsome than he had been — he's kept all his baby weight and it suits him, his full cheeks surrounded by the softest brown curls Eddie has ever seen. The outfit stays immature, a funny t-shirt and ill-fitting pants.
"Sad. You have a sad face," Dustin says.
"Go play with your nerd squad, please."
He doesn't listen, collapsing in Steve's still-warm seat like a cheap tent and crossing longer, thicker arms over his chest. He smiles at Eddie genuinely. "Where's your girlfriend?"
"No."
"Where's Y/N?"
Eddie tips his head so he can see past the coffee table and points to where you're almost hidden, sitting with Robin on the floor by Steve's sideboard. You have a basket of tapes in front of you, the two of you trying to choose what's going in the stereo. Eddie prays for anything but Blondie.
You will most likely choose Blondie.
"What does she like?" Dustin asks curiously.
"Everything, kind of. Why?"
"I wanna know what to say when I talk to her."
Eddie smiles at his friend's face, a soft, surprised thing. "I don't know if she knows anything about the radio but if you're happy about it she'll be happy too. She's a good listener."
Dustin picks at a piece of lint on his t-shirt bearing a white and black print of a dog wearing sunglasses. "So you talk to her?" he asks without looking up.
"I mean, yeah. What else do you do?"
"With a girl that likes you? Huh, let me think." Dustin laughs and ruins his own sarcasm, pointer finger laid against his chin in a show of thoughtfulness.
"It's not like that," Eddie says lightly.
"It could be."
"Could it? I mean… I don't even know if she'll stick around. And I feel bad 'cos I can't be honest with her."
"Why not?"
"Hopper said he would literally put me in the hole if I even thought about it." There's no need to expand. Dustin would know better than anyone what he's talking about.
He cringes at the thought, self hatred a hot poker down his throat. He must've said it to Dustin a hundred times when he finally came around from his coma (that wasn't a coma, but a death, and then a rebirth). I can't believe I put you through that. I can't believe I put you through that. I'm so sorry.
I'm just glad you're alive, Eddie.
And for a while, Eddie hadn't felt the same. The world he'd woken up to was hard. There had been lawyers and grief and guilt and becoming. He doesn't have the words to describe how it feels to become something new, something that needs to hurt people to live, something that will hurt people to live, whether Eddie wants to or not.
The loss of choice is suffocating.
Though moments like this with his friends– they don't make it 'worth it', they're just how it had to happen. There isn't a scenario where Eddie could give up. He can't leave Wayne, and he can't leave Dustin. He can live with the grief of what he is if it means other people don't have to live with grief of what he isn't.
"Eddie, are you okay?"
He's missed something. Dustin isn't the only one looking at him.
He curls a hand around his forearm subconsciously. "I'm fine. I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom, actually. Gotta piss real bad."
"Eddie-"
"I'm fine, Henderson." He puts on a good show, patting Dustin's arm. His heart, usually so slow these days, has enough life in it to ache.
He can't have been in the bathroom for five minutes when somebody knocks on the door aggressively. He's expecting Steve, pissed at his disappearance and likely preparing a speech on attention seeking behaviours and how they're hurting the youth of America, so he opens the door with a tired glare.
He finds you, beaming and pretty, dressed ridiculously nicely for his idiot friends.
"Hi," you say. He can hear something from Blondie's Parallel Lines playing from the living room, familiar because it's your favourite album. "Any room for me?"
Eddie moves back. You close the door behind you. The bathroom becomes a vacuum of your sounds and smells.
"They didn't have any Dio," you say with a smile.
"I honestly wouldn't expect any different."
"You could've brought some tapes, your mix from the van," you suggest. "I love that one."
"Which one?" he asks, and he can't help it, whenever he's with you his voice crops to a dulcet murmur. The urge to speak to you as you speak to him is unconquerable.
"One with the winking smile on the slipcase. I really like it."
"You can have it."
You lean against the sink. "I can?"
"Mm. Whatever you want." Especially when you look like this.
You smile at him, your 'thank you' smile, all sticky fondness and mischievousness. He has no idea what you're thinking.
"'S a small bathroom in a huge house," you marvel. Your voice echoes "Where does he shower?"
"There's an upstairs bathroom."
"Two bathrooms? That's-"
"Audacious?"
"I was gonna say overkill."
Your candidness has him shaking with laughter. He clutches at his sides, arms crossed and leaning forward. You visibly take in his appearance, eyes panning slowly over his clean hair. He'd taken care to look like somebody you might want to look at tonight.
"Why don't you sit down, Eds?" you ask, eyes creased with an unreadable emotion.
Eddie feels blindly for the toilet lid and pushes it down so he can do as you ask, wondering why you're asking.
"You look very handsome today."
He hugs himself. "As opposed to every other day, when I don't?"
You take a step forward, a second, hands playing with the hem of your shirt. Your outfit today is delightfully simple, a pressed black t-shirt long enough to cover the waistband of your pleated skirt. There's an expanse of thigh that makes his heart beat spin out, one longer than the other where your thigh-high is falling down.
He wants to pull it up.
"C'mere," he says.
You take that last step between his shoes and he reaches out, getting his fingertips under the elastic of your sock and tugging it upward over the soft fat of your leg. Your hands come up to his shoulders for balance, and you say, "No, you look handsome every day. Today you look very handsome. I made the distinction."
He covers your thigh with both hands, looking up into your face as you look down. "You look really pretty today," he says boldly, fingers spreading behind your knee.
"Thank you. Do you like my t-shirt?"
It's a screen print of Debbie Harry. Eddie tries not to roll his eyes. "I love it, but your dedication to Blondie is seriously worrying, sweetheart." He gives your leg a short squeeze and pulls the most giggly smile out of you yet.
"Like Madonna."
"No!" he bemoans.
You laugh and grow closer, arms on his shoulder, a hand threaded into his hair. "Cyndi Lauper?" you suggest.
He puts a hand on your waist as you move in for a hug. Your arms wrap around his neck and the tops of his shoulders, cheek crushed to the top of his head.
He'd ask if you were okay if he thought you weren't. You're not upset or seeking comfort. You're affectionate. You've been getting more and more touchy for weeks, as he has. Stolen touches, your almost-kiss on the porch last week.
"No, not Cyndi Lauper," he says, his hand skirting around your back to pull you in properly.
"R.E.M?"
"God, no. Where are you hearing all this junk?"
"The radio."
"Tuned into the wrong station."
You pet the back of his head. "Yeah," you say softly, "I think I was."
The hug is shorter than Eddie wants it to be. You make one of your happy sounds and pull away to get your hands on his face, stroking curls from his cheeks with a protective touch. "Handsome," you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek with your knuckles. "Pretty. You have really big eyes, Eddie, so brown, and so…" You tilt your head to one side, face inching forward.
He turns his face to suit, to fit, breath held as you close the gap.
"So pretty," you murmur, and kiss him.
His hands are limp and then alive, one clutching your hip, one splaying against your chest. He can hear the thud of your heart clear as day — you're bumping with excitement as you kiss him. It's a delicate, tender thing, the party suddenly far away, the music drowned by the sounds of your breathing. You kiss as you talk, as you move, gentle but with bursts of ardency. Your lips are a blissful heat, the tip of your nose smushing into his as you part your lips over his.
He lifts his chin higher, his neck craned to receive you. He's savouring every movement. Each pause for breath that you take. The feeling of your inhales over his quick-bruising lips.
Your hands play in his hair so sweetly it makes his eyes burn with an embarrassing amount of emotion. He screws them closed and squeezes up your waist, steadying himself as you feel along his bottom lip with the tip of your tongue.
You don't get much further than that, seemingly pleased with your own brazeness or perhaps his touch, eyes glowing with mirth as you pull away.
"Sorry," you breathe, not sorry at all. "You just really looked like someone should be kissing you."
You're flushed. Eddie can practically see the heat emanating off of your cheeks. He can feel it.
He stands up, your pulse a ringing in his ears. The wet valves of your heart opening and closing.
"Eddie?" you ask quietly, lifting your head to meet his eyes as he walks you back into the door.
His gums sting. A click.
It's a compulsion.
His hands curl around your elbows, holding you in place. Your eyes are wide with confusion, your lightly swollen lips parted. He can see the tiniest slip of your pink tongue.
He holds your gaze as he leans in. Your eyelids flutter closed. You wrap your arms around him as he descends, totally trusting.
He's a meaner kiss than you are. He starts slow but swiftly loses a handle on it, kisses short but insistent, hot presses like little crescent moons against your barely open mouth.
His hands move up your arms, a near vice-like grip until he finds your sleeves. His fingers slip underneath, hands hungry for your warmth.
You make the worst sound anyone has ever made as he moves back, like something has been ripped from you. A gutted gasp, near silent.
He placates as he wades back in. Thumbs rubbing your arms, lips mouthing damp kisses down your face. The corner of your pout, the hill of your chin, the skin under your jaw. Your head tips back against the door with an audible thud. You exhale hard.
Eddie can't feel his hands.
Your pulse hammers under his lips. He kisses it once. He can't think. He can't breathe.
"You're always cold," you whisper, your hands drifting lazily under the fabric of his t-shirt. Your fingertips trail up his spine. "But your lips are warm."
He kisses your neck, his lips parting slowly, a hair's width a second as he sucks your skin into his mouth gently. It's barely a kiss. He does it a second time. A third. You start to laugh, a golden sound.
The point of his fangs touch your skin and you stop.
Eddie closes his mouth abruptly. His hand leaps to your neck and he feels your heart skip as he holds you still. "I'm sorry," he says, nose rubbing over the damp spot he's left behind, your teased skin.
Your heart hikes again.
"I'm sorry," he repeats. He pulls away, an agony.
"It's okay," you say. Your breathlessness says otherwise.
Eddie takes as many deep breaths as he can stand, wanting to clear his head and filling it with you instead. Your everything; your smell, your skin. Your limp hands against his back.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks when he gets a look at you, your unreadable expression. He takes care to keep his head angled down so you can't see the lower half of his face.
"I don't think you could."
You cup his cheek in your hand and he leans into it, his weight against yours.
"I wanted to tell you something," you confess.
"What-" He licks his lips, wincing when his fangs slide into his tongue and scrape grooves across his taste buds. "What was that?"
"I know you…" You pause, fingertips rubbing at his cheek.
Does she know? Eddie thinks, horrified. He hadn't realised how scary waiting could be. A thousand worries condensed into a handful of seconds. Does she know?
How could she not?
You press your palm to his cheek with more insistence. "I don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me. I know you have scars," you say, fingers sliding into the soft baby hair at the back of his neck. "You don't have to cover up. You don't have to cover any of it."
"I won't hurt you," he says, trying to convince himself.
"I know."
-
You stay a while longer. Eddie's friends pretend that you hadn't been alone in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time together. You thank them all silently and less so, trying to talk to as many of them as you can.
There's Lucas, who's really, really nice, and his girlfriend Max, who's less so. She gives you an unimpressed look through her thick-lensed glasses, but you compliment her crutches and she comes around.
There's Mike, who actually isn't anywhere as bad as Eddie had described him. He's not frosty or standoffish, he's sweet and he asks questions. There's a girl with him that you don't catch the name of, and a boy on her other side.
There's Dustin, who you adore immediately, Robin, who you adore more, and then there's Steve.
Steve offers you a pretzel like you're more than familiar. He strolls right up to you with a bowl of them in hand and doesn't leave until you've eaten half of them.
There's a couple of people you don't manage to talk to at all, and you feel guilty about it all the way home.
"What if they think I'm rude?" you ask, tired eyes locking onto the stereo system. The time blinks analog in the dark, 12:59AM.
"They don't, don't worry about it. You have lots of time to get to know them, anyway."
You hum and turn to his face, indulgent because you know he can't look back. "You're not too tired to drive, are you?" He's spent. Yesterday had been one of his bad days.
"I'm fine."
"You say that all the time," you observe, dropping your cheek into the passenger seat's headrest.
"I'm fine all the time."
"Liar."
"Nuisance."
You huff a laugh through your nose. The strands of his friendship bracelet, the small beads at the ends, swing like pendulums in the gap between his arm and the steering wheel. You can see the rough skin of a scar creeping out from under his sleeve.
"Mike was really nice," you say.
"He has a bleeding heart."
That feels accurate. "He reminds me of you."
Eddie rolls his eyes. You feel for every detail, the strange tension between you like a gaussian filter over everything. He's gorgeous in a horrific way, heartbreakingly pale, eyes dark as pitch, hands restless. They squeeze alone the wheel, thick fingers curling tight until his knuckles are stark white. Running down the back of his hands are veins like rivers. They're more purple than green.
"Eddie," you say, playful, a tiny bit insecure.
"What?"
"Wanna stay the night?"
His hand moves forward on the wheel like he's revving a motorcycle, the tendon in his wrist rising to the surface. He clenches. "Not sure it's a good idea."
"Just to sleep. It's late."
"I don't know if I can sleep next to you."
You don't wanna say please. You don't want to ask Eddie to do anything he can't or doesn't wanna do.
He pulls up outside of your house with his mind already made up. He gets out of the car and you follow his lead. He locks it, shoves the keys in his pocket as you join him on the path up to your porch.
He's been in here enough times to know what it looks like, but for some reason you find yourself checking his face, worried about what it is he thinks of your things, all your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in. He ducks through the beeded curtain into your bedroom wary that they'll get tangled in his hair like they sometimes do.
"Do you wanna call Wayne?" you ask, gesturing to your telephone on the right hand side, nestled between a stack of books and a cup full of coloured pencils.
You pull your knee up to your chest and unlace your shoes one at a time. Eddie punches the number into the phone and holds the receiver to his shoulder to do as you're doing. It takes him less time to pop his sneakers off than for you to get out of yours. He's just taken the phone back into his hand when Wayne picks up.
"Wayne?" he asks softly. "Didn't wake you up, did I?"
You can't hear his response.
"I'm gonna stay with Y/N tonight. Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah…" His eyes drift to you as you peel out of your thigh highs.
"Yeah, I'm still here. What?" He meets your eyes and it feels accidental, because he throws his eyes to your bedsheets and turns his face to the wall. "No," he says firmly.
You scrape together something to wear for bed and some fresh underwear and leave for the bathroom, telling yourself that nothing is gonna happen so don't get your hopes up but not wanting to get caught out if it does. You freshen up, brushing your teeth and washing your face.
You stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you should've left your face-powder and your mascara on. Maybe even the skirt. You'd looked nice and pretty for the party. Now you look like yourself, still pretty but without those extra touches. Will he care? Does it matter?
You debate your pyjama pants considerably.
There's a lot happening.
Eddie is… Eddie is something else. He's different, you'd known that for a long time, and his kiss had confirmed it.
He's something out of a science fiction book.
Well, nobody's perfect.
Whatever he is, he'd kissed you. You'd kissed him and he'd responded, he'd come back for more, and now he's sitting in your bed when he could've gone home. You bring your hand to your neck and crane to one side, fingertips poking at your unbroken skin. His hickey's haven't even bruised.
You screw the pants up and drop them into your laundry basket. You take off every piece of jewellery on your person.
"Do you wanna use the bathroom?" you ask from behind the beaded curtain. "I left a new toothbrush for you on the sink."
"Yeah, desperately, I…" He takes you in as you emerge. Fresh-faced, bare-legged. As naked as you've ever been in front of him, physically and otherwise.
Eddie meets you where you're standing. He's ditched his jacket, and for the first time since you met him you can see the full length of his arms.
"You're not wearing your bracelets," he says, looking between your bodies. His hand twitches toward yours.
"You have tattoos," you say.
"They were better, before."
There's a misshapen mess of black splodges near the crook of his elbow broken up by scar tissue. One arm is less scarred than the other, an almost perfect flank of white skin.
"Is that a puppet? He's super spooky."
"Mh-hm."
You bring your hand to his tattoo and feel over the skin. It doesn't feel like it's there. Eddie holds your wrist and the two of you move together, your fingertips stroking up until you're wrapped around his bicep.
Eddie brings his free hand to your collar. His index finger straightens, encouraging your chin up so he can ease forward and kiss you. He's firm, eager, and your lips curl up into a smile underneath it. He turns his head to the right and you fall left, smile worsened when you feel his own start to form.
He nudges your nose. You take it for a telling off and laugh. "Sorry," you apologise, kissing his top lip.
"You're making this difficult," he chides.
Despite any sternness, Eddie loosens his grip on your wrists to slide his fingers between yours, pressing your joined hands to your chest. He leans back down and he's careful, almost methodical in the way he kisses. Chaste pecks, hot and precious as tiny stars.
You reach for his waist.
Eddie kisses you a final time and steps back. "I'll be back," he promises.
You lower your chin, flustered and perplexed by his sudden departure.
Walking around to the right side of the bed, you click on your bedside lamp — a beautiful glass and foiled contraption that throws dainty stripes of stars and hearts over everything close in the dark — before climbing in. You sniff one of your pillows experimentally, trying to remember when you last changed the bed. You decide they're acceptable even if they really smell like your hair oil and flip them around to be safe, plumping them up with your hands.
You've curled up on your side and almost succumb to your fatigue when Eddie returns, bringing with him the smell of spearmint and a fuzzy feeling in your stomach as he shuts off the light and sits on the opposite side of the bed, facing you. The hair around his face is damp with water, baby hair's limp.
"I'm sorry I don't have anything for you to wear, I-" Youre cut off by your own gasp as Eddie kisses you, his hand on your neck, his nose bridge sliding into your own. You hadn't been expecting it, and it's no less dizzying than any other kiss he's given you today.
"It's okay," he murmurs lowly, lips pressed to your lips, "have to wear you, is all."
You huff a laugh into his mouth. "I swear I'm always laughing when I'm with you," you muse as Eddie dedicates himself to your bottom lip. You cup the back of his head. "You're amazing."
Eddie groans and eases back. "I'm not good with words, sweetheart. To tell you how I feel about you."
You push one of your legs toward his knee. "...You can show me."
He shifts in the bed until he can lean over the entirety of your chest, hands cupping your face and lips poised hovering over your own, a millimetre of space between your mouth and his. "Okay," he says quietly.
He dips down. You can feel his bottom lip tremble, and then he's kissing you too hard to feel it anymore. You wrap loose arms around his back.
"Are you sure?" you whisper to him.
He rests his nose against your cheek, eyes closed, drawing the tiniest left to right. "I want you," he reassures.
"And you're okay?"
"Yeah, sweetheart. I'm okay. Do you want to?"
"Yeah. More than anything."
Another loving kiss against your cheek, Eddie moves down, down, down. "Tell me if I do something you don't like," he murmurs, top lip dragging and leaving a line of dampness to the base of your throat.
He adorns the canvas of your neck in half-moon contusions, big hands caressing your shoulders, your chest. You hold your breath as his fingers pass over your nipple, fighting to keep in any embarrassing sounds.
Eddie disagrees with his plan of action. You shiver as he brings his lips to a close and his bottom teeth scrape upward, as he pulls his head up and says, "C'mon, angel, breathe."
He follows his command with a manipulative touch, a circle over your nipple that makes you shudder. He kisses you and it feels like a thank you, pressure, a heat as his palm smooths over the bump of your tummy to your thighs. He squeezes the outside of one and for a while you can kiss him back, and then he pulls your thighs apart and you break away. Eddie follows, kisses you even when your reciprocation is weak.
He pushes your thigh flat to the bed.
You feel the heat of your excitement start to grow. Your stomach aches with the want to be touched.
"You're like a space heater, you're that warm," Eddie says, hand coasting down the inside of your thigh. He squeezes until fat melds under his fingers. "Are you scared?"
His whispering in your ear, his hand as close as it is to where you want it, it winds you up like a coil. You sigh as his thumb strokes the edge of your panties, sound coloured by an awful, devouring desire.
His face presses further into yours in reaction.
His touch is like the tide. He wades in, away. His thumb strokes inward over something soft and then his whole hand moves back to your thigh.
"Teasing," you utter.
"A little… Why, is there something you want me to do?"
His clueless whispering is infuriating and exciting at the same time. Your heart races and you can't discern if it's more lust or love.
"Touch me," you plead, pouting, knowing he's a pushover.
Anticipation stabs like a needle in your tummy as he slides his palm over your cunt completely. He rubs a careful, almost casual rhythm into your panties with the breadth of his fingers, lips kissing a lazy stripe up to your forehead, where he rests his face. You both watch his hand move past the valley of your rising chest.
"M'gonna pull these off, yeah?" He sits up, fingers pushing under the sides. "Lift your- yeah, thank you, sweetheart."
You buzz with his pet names, his soft voice, the feeling of your panties sliding up to your knees and his gentle exhale. You swear you can feel it fan over your slit. "Shit…" he moan, pulling at your spread cunt.
He looks like he's in pain, eyebrows pinched together and murmuring curses as he circles the wetness gathered at your entrance. You turn your head searchingly as he starts to ease his index finger inside your heat, a gentle probing.
One becomes two. He muffles your sighing with firm kisses, amorous praises, "That's it, baby, relax," as he works you open, fingers wet with slickness but not enough. He changes his position, pushing his middle and marriage finger inside and curving as his thumb slides up your slit looking for the bead of your clit.
Slow, slow circles. "There, huh?"
You shiver as he pushes in deeper, fingers as far as they can go. He spreads them wide, drops reassuring kisses all over your face when you keen. It's so new to have him kiss you at all, and to have him touching you — you're melting into nothing right there in his hold.
"I got you. Tell me if it hurts, okay?"
"Want you to- I want you to fuck me," you murmur, arms wrapping around him so you can hide your face in his neck.
"Fuck. Fuck, baby. Gonna fuck you just as soon as I can fit," he murmurs back, sinking three of his thick fingers into your snug cunt. He pulls wetness out with every thrust, a line of slick dribbling down onto the sheets underneath. He wipes it upward and pushes it back inside, his chest heaving. "Y'so tight, gotta take my time. Take our time." He rubs his nose against your head until he can kiss the highest point of your cheek. "Make sure you can take it."
"I can."
It doesn't bear repeating how quietly you're speaking, a mouthing inaudible under the wet, rhythmic thud of Eddie's pinky finger slapping your sticky cunt as he ups the pace of his finger-fucking.
"I don't think so," he coos, pulling his fingers from your cunt and making a show of spreading them wide. Your slick ribbons between them, almost invisible in the dark. "Ruin your sheets before any of that, maybe."
Eddie sits up and gets his hands under your armpits. You laugh as he tugs you up so your shoulders are on top of the pillows, but you don't have time to be confused. He quickly moves to kneel at your feet and pulls your leg over his shoulder, your back lifting unevenly from the sheets.
He starts with a sweet kiss pressed to the skin closest to his mouth, your lower thigh, and then works his way up, open mouthed, barely kisses at all until his hair whispers against your sensitive cunt and he's nipping at the stripe of skin between your thigh and the place where you most want his attention.
"Pretty," he says into your damp skin, lips shining. You reach down to stroke his hair behind his ears, worried he's gonna get it dirty.
He looks at you from between your thighs, his eyes dark in the dim light, their lashes long and soft where the outermost flutter into your skin. He's lovely.
He holds your gaze as he pulls back to your inner thigh. "Pretty everywhere," he says salaciously.
His lips part over your skin and you think he might bite you, a bruising hickey, but he pushes you down flat to the bed by your hips and kisses your clit, a simple kiss. Your fingers weave deeper into his hair. Your fingernails scratch lightly against his scalp, every tiny lick or kiss reflected in the minute tightening of your hands.
He goes slow, mouths down, kisses wetter and wetter as he reaches your entrance. "Poor girl," he murmurs, hands pulled down to further scandalise. He sinks two fingers inside and laughs into your cunt. You squirm.
"What happened? You're dripping on my fingers." Your thighs draw closed around his head as he curls his fingers against a soft spot.
"Eddie, can you-" You swallow. "Please. Please."
He pries your thighs open and rubs them soothingly, lapping at the heat of your cunt in face of your pleading. His tongue appears broad and flat up the centre of you until he's kissing on your clit, fingers pumping in rhythm. Your fingers work into his hair and he groans, the vibration enough to make you whimper under his mouth.
He laps at your clit messily and you tip your head back, breath coming in tight pants. You don't know what you say, only how you say it, desperate "please,"s and keening "Eddie,"s.
His thrusts grow in enthusiasm, fingers rubbing eagerly against something sweet. You pull your legs up and nudge his face to your cunt insistently, thigh shaking as you hold it up. Eddie doesn't need any more encouragement, his pretty pink lips suckling at your clit until you see stars. You make a pained little sound and try to move away from his kissing, startled at the intensity of your high.
Eddie lets your clit pop out of his mouth with a lewd, slick sound, his hands moving under your thighs and pulling you closer. "Good girl," he says, rubbing his wet face against the inside of your thigh. He inhales hard as you are, though he pauses to kiss your kneecap and pat your leg. "Good girl, sweetheart."
"I'm sorry," you say breathlessly, hands pulling his hair from his face. Pleasure rolls through you in hot waves.
"For what?"
"Tugging on your hair," you explain, shoulder pulled up to your cheek.
Eddie kisses your tummy lovingly and climbs on top of you to do the same just under your chin. "It’s okay, sweetheart, I like that shit. That was good, huh?" he asks, lips dropping down to yours all wet and warm.
He's not bragging, he's genuinely asking.
You nod into his kiss, your hands coming up to his sides. You swear your ears perk up as he unzips his jeans and eases them down, a hand disappearing into the mess of fabric. He moans quietly at the first touch.
You move his hair out of the way to watch. Eddie tugs at the length of his cock with a cruel hand, a short dribble of pearly precum sobbing down the tip and under his fingers. He spreads it as it goes, the slickness emphasising the ridges and veins of his cock. You can see it throb, if you look close enough.
He sits back and eases his jeans and boxers down enough to reveal a thatch of curls that brush his hand with every pump downward.
"You okay?" he asks, smirking.
You pull your shirt over your head and your chest warms at his adoring smile. "Will you take off yours?"
He doesn't hesitate like you worried he might. He sheds his t-shirt, pulling the fabric over the back of his head and dumping it off the side of the bed.
You take in his chest and it's abundance of ragged scarring still purpled with newness. He has a tattoo over his heart, a black whorl of legs and eyes. Fine dark hair crawls from the middle of his chest down his navel, joining with the thatch of coiled hair surrounding his aching cock. You shuffle forward and wait with two tentative hands held aloft until he says, "It's okay," before you touch him. You run your hands down the soft slopes of his waist.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore."
"Can I kiss it?"
He snorts. "Prefer you kiss something else."
That really makes you laugh. You dot a kiss against his jaw and can't make yourself stop, dropping them all the way to the skin behind his ear. Your hand creeps lower as you go, held to the curve of his tummy. His skin is hot to touch the lower you go, and his stomach feels solid, a heaviness you know all too well.
"Can I touch you?" you whisper into his ear.
"Please."
You drop your forehead against his chest and he brings his hand up to cup the back of your head. His cock pulses as you wrap your hand around it, skin smooth and slick as you palm slowly up and down. You watch in awe as a bead of precum wells at the tip, Eddie's rough breathing loud overhead.
"Lie down, Y/N," he says, hand moving behind your naked shoulders.
"What way?"
"How do you want it, sweetheart? We'll do it whatever way you want."
You think about it. Whatever way you want. No matter how indulgent, you know he means it.
"Will you spoon me?"
He pushes you gently and follows behind, dragging your body into his front and angling your hips, cock hot and prodding your back. He gets his hand under your knee and pulls it up, splaying your cunt. You jump in surprise as he pushes his cock through your folds, tip rubbing against the still sensitive bead of your clit.
Eddie wraps his arms around you, hugging you from behind. "You wanna put it in for me, baby?"
You reach between your bodies and take his sticky cock into your hand, shifting until the head nudges against your hole. He sinks in inch by inch, arms tightening around your waist and grinding you down onto his cock until you're whimpering.
You grab at his arms with your hands and tether yourself to him as he starts to rock his hips, his thrusting tender and his face turned into your neck.
He presses his hand flat to your abdomen, an anchoring point as he moulds your weepy cunt around his length, each slovenly movement into your heat spreading you that little bit wider.
"Fuck," he says finally, sounding seconds from a black out. "Oh, fuck- You're tight. Gonna fuck you open slow, okay?"
You're pretty sure you'd let him do just about anything. You bring his hand to your mouth and kiss every white knuckle, every freckle you can see on the back, and when he bottoms out your cover your lips with his stolen hand to smother a tearful gasp.
Eddie's thrusts are spearing in their steady rhythm, a dirty slap ringing with every punching thrust forward. You curl in on yourself and hide your mouth in the sheets, wet pants smothered by fabric. Eddie's grip falls to your hip, where he pulls your body back and forces your cunt open even deeper.
His cock pushes into your sweet spot sudden and emphatic. You moan and he stills, rutting into that same space without pulling out until you're babbling his name, body knocked forward with every thrust.
Eddie turns your face toward him as much as he can without hurting your neck, your moans echoing in time with each thrust. "There you go," he says, "wanna hear how good it feels."
If he cares that you can't answer him he doesn't show it, arm coming up under you arm to grasp at your chest, your breaststroke soft and aching under his hand as he squeezes tenderly. His cock kisses at the sweet spot inside you intermittently; you're dizzy with it.
Eddie can't keep quiet either, his moans breathy, his breath hissing between his teeth when you clamp down around him. "Fuck," he begs, dragging his cock out of your heat, "fuck, Y/N."
He says your name like the syllables alone are appraising.
You can tell when it gets too much for him. He slows. His face drops into your shoulder, and he matches his pace to the wet kisses he leaves behind. Your wetness feels stickying, each of his thrusts snug.
His breath hitches, ragged pants accompanying every slow push of his hips. "Where's my girl?" he asks, eyes still closed as his hand abandons where it'd been squeezing the bump of your tummy to search further downward, fingers disappearing into your folds, short curls wet with slick. He can't find any purchase. You roll your hips, chase his touch and the pleasure that comes with it.
He groans into your shoulder. It sounds more pain than pleasure.
"Are you okay?" you ask, trying to turn in his arms. He holds you in place. "Eddie?"
"Yeah, fuck, I'm okay." He grinds up into your cunt. "Fuck, you're perfect."
"Will you kiss me?"
He does. It's nowhere near the bruising press you'd wanted. It's too careful.
"Listen," he murmurs, "I'm gonna get you on your front, okay? Gonna make you feel so good," he promises, waiting for you to nod before he pushes your shoulder away from him and climbs up behind you. You lay flat on your stomach and Eddie settles on your thighs, a heavy weight.
He pushes into your cunt with two fingers first, the new position allowing for a new pleasure. He pumps in and out and swaps his fingers for his cock quickly after, bearing the full weight of his body into your back as sinks to the hilt.
You both moan in time, hands fisted in the sheets.
He kisses your neck, lips parted, and his teeth feel so sharp that your heart sinks as it had in the bathroom.
"Eddie-" you start.
He pulls away, stops every movement.
"Eddie," you say again. What are you supposed to say? You both know what he is.
There's a lull where neither of you knows what to do filled by your too-fast breathing.
"I won't hurt you," he says, hands rubbing up the length of your back and then under. He holds a hand over your heart. He drops his lips to your back. "Do you want me to stop?"
He must feel your pulse calm under his touch, but he still asks again when you don't answer. "Do you want me to stop? It's okay if you do. You're okay, baby, I promise."
You steal a pillow from against the headboard and rise up on elbows. Your admission comes weak but completely honest. "Fuck me, Eddie, please... I want you. I want you-" Your murmuring's interrupted by a sharp breath as Eddie starts to move again, the head of his cock pushing into your cunt, a slick, perfect feeling.
He moans from the back of his throat as his cock pushes into you again and again, hips smacking the dough of your ass as his pace quickens. You hug your pillow tightly, tears popping up in the corners as he ruts deep.
"Being so good for me," he groans, clamped down on your hip with a vice-like grip. "Fuck, you feel so good. Fucking clinging to me every time I pull out, baby, Christ." His blasphemy is punctuated by a thrust that has you sliding up the bed, sheets wrinkling under your arms. You spread your thighs and wetness pools at your clit as his pelvis thrusts into you, driving pleasure so deeply it aches in your hips.
You moan pathetically and reach back to hold his hand, wiggling your fingers. He takes it in one and presses your arm against your lower back with the other, struggling to maintain a steady pace as he gets close to cumming. You're a babbling stream of sounds as he fucks in deep, swollen sweet spot tapped against mercilessly.
He throws himself back on his haunches, cock dragged out of your heat.
You pull your legs out from underneath him and curl onto your side to watch, eyes wide as white spurts of pearlescence jump out of the head of his reddened cock and drip down the bumps of his fingers. He leans back, his stomach and thighs tensed with every pump.
He groans through a smile, moan's coloured by a happy, relieved laughter. "F-uck," he drags, fisting his cock dry.
He meets your eyes as the last of it slides down onto his stomach.
You smile softly. "Fuck," you mumble.
Eddie wipes his hand in his jeans like a fucking hooligan and tucks his cock back into his boxers with a wince, and then he collapses on top of you. He's sort of nice about it, his arm over your shoulder and his face behind your ear.
"Fucking beautiful," he praises, dropping his head back on the bed so you're face to face. "You're so fucking pretty. So perfect." He kisses you. "You're perfect," he repeats, staring intently into your eyes.
You pull a hand from between your legs, smelling of sex. Eddie literally couldn't care less if he tried, and he lets you take his face into your hand without complaint.
He gets his arm under your arm and starts to rub your back. "You want me to take care of you again?" he asks, eyebrows raised gently. "Yeah?"
And you would let him, you would, but you need to see them for yourself.
You touch your index fingertip to his lip.
"Can I see?" you ask.
He loses his boisterous joy, tamps it down. He realises that he can't lie, that he hasn't been lying, and he nods. You tremble as you pull his lip up over his canine tooth, excited and scared.
A sharp, exceptionally white tooth pokes out of Eddie's gums. You're taken aback, though you'd known exactly what you'd find.
A fang.
Blood oozes at the gums.
"You're bleeding," you worry aloud, touching your finger to the dark beading at the base of his tooth.
Eddie's eyes rove over your face thoughtfully. He pulls your hand away from his lip and sets it on his neck instead. "They always do that. The gum heals, breaks when they wanna come out."
"How often do they come out?"
"A lot more since I met you. Whenever my adrenaline spikes, they seem to think it's… feeding time."
That is a dizzying thing to learn.
You're not sure how you feel, but you know one thing: he's Eddie. "It's too bad," you say, forcing a lightness that turns real more easily than you expect. "I really want to kiss you right now."
He strokes your cheek with his thumb. "I really wanna kiss you too. Maybe a small one?"
You find yourself leaning forward, unafraid.
He kisses you once, twice, three times, the two of you holding each other's faces and covered in mess. Slick and sweat and blood. The hearts and stars from your lamp spray over his hip and paint him with pinks, greens, oranges, a rainbow cutting over his trim waist. You rest your hand overtop, feel his keloid scars like hills under your fingers.
"My boyfriend's a vampire," you mutter, bemused at fate.
Eddie blinks at you. "I'm your boyfriend?"
"Yeah, I think so. Don't you?"
Eddie pulls you into his chest and doesn't let you go for a long, long time.
-
Your first time watching a blood sate is weird.
For one, Chief Hopper is firmly against it. He's got his kid with him, the boy from the party that Mike had been so heavily doting on, and if he didn't you might think he was a pretty scary guy.
"I think this is stupid," the chief says plainly. "I think this is stupid, I think you're stupid," — he points at Eddie where he's sitting sickly in the round couch — "and I think you're plain crazy, kid." He points at you last.
You beam at him. "People have said that about me."
His kid laughs.
"Will," Hopper says tiredly, "go sit in the car."
"Look, Chief, I know I messed up, okay, but she kind of stuck her hand in my mouth and I didn't really have a choice."
Wayne looks at you with new eyes. "You did?"
You nod at him faux-seriously.
"And what gave her the inkling that you might have had something in your mouth worth looking at?" Hopper says, which is hilarious. You laugh behind your hand.
He gives you a disapproving look that you completely ignore. If you'd taken notice of disapproval you would've stopped having this much fun years ago.
"Uh, well, she might have… felt them?" His pitch rises.
Hopper looks like he's about to blow a gasket when Will says, "What was he supposed to do? Never talk to anyone new ever again?"
"He did a lot more than just talk to me," you say. There'd been a fixed bike, phone calls, lots of sandwiches, bug hunts, an entire sketchbook full of drawings.
"I told you to wait in the car," Hopper says.
Will grins and raises his hands in surrender. "Bye," he mouths. You wave.
Hopper waits for the door to close before he continues. "I get it, when you're a teenager you think your hormones are the end of the world-"
"I'm almost twenty three."
Hopper pinches his hand closed. "But you do not understand the danger that you are creating here."
"Like a stake-ing," you whisper, very very quietly. Eddie's the only one who can hear you, and he laughs so hard he snorts.
"I'm glad you find this funny." Hopper's tone could not imply the opposite any more.
He hands Wayne a paper bag that audibly sloshes and stalks out, his anger a palpable cloud of steam rising off of his shoulders. Eddie seizes up beside you at the sound, lips parting as his fangs come through. You don't touch him because you value your blood inside your body, only slide away from him and smile. "You okay, handsome?"
"Kid, maybe the chief is right. We don't know how Eds is gonna act with you here," Wayne says.
You nod respectfully. You like Wayne, and he knows about all of this stuff more than you ever could.
"No," Eddie mumbles, putting his hand out for you across the couch.
You take it without thinking.
Wayne sighs. You can hear him grumbling as he disappears from view into the kitchen and puts a pot on the stove. There's the sound of a bag being punctured with a knife, a wet slosh. Eddie's grip on your hand tightens.
You're still fascinated that he even drinks blood in the first place. That's wickedly sickening. Wicked, because it's cool that he's a vampire, with his impressive hearing, senses and smell. But sickening, because if you had to drink a pint of blood every couple of weeks you'd throw up.
"I read about a new blood-sucker."
Eddie raises his heavy head. "Another bug?"
"No, a finch! A vampire finch. They're really pretty, Teddy. They're small and brown with long beaks and they drink blood because there's barely any water on their island." You give him a loving smile. "They aren't parasites. S'just how they had to change to survive."
He squeezes your hand, this time on purpose.
"Are you gonna come and have it in here, Eddie?" Wayne asks, one last shot at separating the two of you.
"I'm okay," he says loudly. His eyes trace your smile. "Really."
It can't be fun to have two people watch you drink a warm mug of blood, but Eddie finds it funny. He keeps laughing every time he brings the rim of the glass to his mouth.
"I can't do it if you're looking at me," he says.
Wayne rolls his eyes and looks away. You cover your face with both hands and part your fingers to spy on him through the gaps. He makes it look easy, draining the mug basically in one long pull, though his hunger turns violent as the cup empties. He chokes. Blood trickles down from one corner of his mouth.
You automatically want to reach over and wipe it away. Wayne grabs your arm before you can and gives you a fatherly look that says, I wouldn't do that if I were you.
"Shit," Eddie says, slamming his now empty mug down on the coffee table. It makes a grating sound like a ground mortar and pestle. He sits as far back on the couch cushions as he can, nausea clear on his face.
"Deep breath," Wayne says.
"Fuck, Wayne."
"You're aces. Deep breaths."
Your heart hurts watching Eddie like this. He covers his mouth with eyes closed tightly and breathes hard through his nose. Already there's colour coming back into his face, not a lot but anything is an improvement. He'd been practically grey.
When Eddie pulls his hand from his mouth blood has spread over his lips and jaw. Your eyes widen.
"I'll get the shower running," Wayne says, slapping his knees as he stands. He stops before the hallway. "Good job, Eddie."
The boy in question slouches into a ball on the sofa and nods into a cushion. You wait for the sound of Wayne pulling the shower cord that turns on the hot water before you stand up, head tipped to one side.
"You okay, handsome?".
"Tired."
"You want a hug from me?"
"Is anyone else offering?" He opens one eye to peek at you and grins at your distraught expression. "I'm joking, I'm kidding. C'mere, before I start bawling." You sit and then flop onto your side, pulling your legs up next to his. "Such a frowny face." His voice is adorably tired.
"Better than yours. You look like someone from Night of the Living Dead, baby."
Eddie's arm lies limp like a dead fish over your waist. "Lemme nibble on your brains," he says, words thick as dark honey, eyes closed. "Just a snack."
You're waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under your feet. No way your boyfriend, your cries at the end of every movie, brings you flowers because he felt like it, won't step on cracks in the sidewalk boyfriend just skulled a glass of O-negative like it was a milkshake.
You feel guilty as soon as you think about it. He's not confined to all his softest parts and he never will be. He's snarky and angry and loud. He plays guitar like a real rockstar and he doesn't take anyone's shit. He's a survivor. A glass of blood every now and then was never gonna stop him.
You keep wondering if you should let him suck your blood. It could be hot. It could also probably be the worst idea ever, a relationship faux pas up there with proposing after a month or saying I love you on the first date.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks.
You brush the hair out of his eyes with your ring finger. "Embarrassing relationship fumbles."
"Oh yeah? Like letting your girlfriend watch you drink human blood from a mug shaped like Woodstock?"
"Least it wasn't Snoopy."
"God forbid."
"Is it always like this?" You stroke your hand down his face and rub along his jaw with your thumb. "D'you always get sleepy?"
"Yeah." He turns his face so your hand covers his mouth.
You've stopped wearing silver jewellery, your wrists bare besides the endearingly awful friendship bracelet he's constructed for you. Not a friendship bracelet, he'd corrected. You're not kissing other friends, are you? Because that's really gonna put a downer on this whole thing.
You dip your forehead to his chin and the two of you lay there in silence. You can smell blood, a thick, metallic stick permeating every corner of the room. It's especially strong between the both of you.
"Do you wanna bite me right now?" you inquire without opening your eyes.
"Not really. Blood sate kicks in quickly. It's the worst for, like, the first ten seconds after. Now I wanna sleep, but Wayne's gonna make me shower."
"Maybe I can shower with you."
"I'm sure he'd jump for joy if you suggest it."
"Really?"
Eddie kisses your hand. "No," he says with a giddy laugh.
"I'll pretend I'm gonna sit on the toilet. Keep watch."
"How will you stop your hair from getting wet?"
"I'll lean out."
Eddie laughs even more than he had been, peeling laughter that warms you from the inside out as he kisses your hand again. "That'll definitely work."
Wayne clears his throat.
"Shower's hot. I'm going out. For an hour." Eddie perks up. His uncle looks him dead in the eye. "Don't make me regret this."
And while Wayne had been under the impression you and Eddie were gonna have some grown up fun together in the shower, what you really do is an innocent act of affection: you wash Eddie's hair.
"You have to lean your head back," you chide.
"I am."
"More than that."
"There's no room."
You're lucky you both fit. You're freezing standing behind Eddie, the only relief the warm water that trickles down from your hands to your elbows as you draw circles in his scalp, working the shampoo into a fine lather.
"How did you get blood here?" you ask, scratching rusty flakes from the hair behind his ear.
"I don't know. It gets everywhere. Like eyeshadow."
You push your chin over his shoulder. "You wear eyeshadow?"
"For shows."
"Really?"
"Is it hard to believe?"
You encourage his head under the water and rake your hands through his curls, encouraging the soapy water down to the ends with patient hands. "Lip gloss too? Hey, can I do your makeup?"
"Maybe tomorrow," he bargains. While the shower has helped to wake him up, lethargy remains thick and unshakeable as adamant.
You kiss the wet ridge of his shoulder blade, picturing his pretty face decked out in dark liners and sticky balm. "Thank you."
"I haven't worn any in a long time. Haven't played a show in a really long time."
You wring the water out of his hair and search in the steam for his conditioner. It's mostly empty. "You could put on a show for me. I never got to see you play," you say, shaking it really hard. A dollop collects in your hand and you work the dregs through the ends of his long hair.
"You want that?"
"I think you're the best guitar player in the world."
You're not joking. He's the best, and he plays guitar. And he's pretty good, semantics aside. You love sitting out on the porch with him and listening to him play old rock songs off the top of his head. You could watch his hands move over the strings for hours.
"If that's the case, I can definitely put on a show. Make-up, costume, stage dives. The whole nine yards. Anything for my girl."
You roll the ends of his hair between two coated palms and step back. "There. You have to let it soak in for a couple of minutes."
Eddie turns with a grin, angling his chest and hair forward, away from the stream.
"Whatever will we do?"
You wipe an escaped streak of blood off of his bottom lip and smile. "I have no idea."
You kiss. Eddie leans down and you move up, damp noses glancing off of each other. You're used to short kisses, never enough to make his heart race in case it prompts an unnecessary appearance of his fangs, so when Eddie encourages your lips apart to wade in deeper you pull back questioningly.
"Blood sate. I'm 'sated'. They won't come out."
Your jaw drops. "For real?"
He shakes his head with a pleased smile. "For real. Kiss me sick, sweetheart."
You throw your arm around his neck and drag his face to yours, kissing with an ardency that both surprises and amuses him. He laughs into your open mouth until suddenly he's not laughing at all, only breathing, pushing against you with the same urgent force and the same adoring smile.
"Does this mean you can give me a hickey?" you ask enthusiastically. Eddie has yet to give you a proper love bite.
He leans back under the show spray and pulls you in with him, laughing when you dissolve like rice paper in his arms, finally warm. There's never been a sweeter sound.
/\^._.^/\
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