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idksmtms · 27 days

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cowboy like me (David Von Erich x reader) - evermore series

A/N: It was 3am, I was listening to Evermore, and this popped into my head as the perfect title for a David fic. I’m taking some parts of the song for the storyline but not the full thing so Ig try to spot where it pops up!

Summary: He was wearing a cowboy hat and he asked you to dance.

Word count: 4,183

Trigger Warnings: 18+, she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, profanity, heavy angst, major character death, movie spoilers!!!, grief (please let me know if I missed any)

Disclaimer: This is based solely on the portrayals of the brothers, not the real people. I do not own any of The Iron Claw characters. I do not claim to own any of The Iron Claw characters. I do not own any pictures used nor do I claim to do so.

Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)

“Hey, you wanna dance?” There was a tap at your shoulder and you turned around with a mischievous smile.

You knew exactly who it was. He had been glancing at you all night, only the smallest smille of embarrassment any time he was caught. You were waiting to see when he would make his move, when he would finally decide to stop watching and actually speak to you. It had been a while since you actually wanted a guy to speak to you. You tilted your head back so you could meet his eyes, slightly taken aback at how tall he actually was now that he stood right in front of you.

“Oh I don’t know, dancing is a dangerous game, you know,” you shrugged, pursing your lips though that did nothing to hide the shine in your eyes and the tilt to your lips. He just laughed, though it was more like a huff out of his chest and he dipped his head lower so his hair fell forward. It was like locks of sunshine, and you stopped yourself from reaching out and touching it, wrapping it around your fingers.

“I’m ready to take that risk, are you?” He reached his hand out, and your stomach felt all tingly, your hands beginning to shake just slightly. You reached up and hit the edge of his cowboy hat lightly so it dipped forward. His smile widened and he stepped even closer. “I could even request a song if you don’t like this one, I have an in with the band.” He smirked proudly at that and you laughed.

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“Well,” he turned to face the stage and you moved with him. He pointed to the lead singer, a young kid barely out of highschool with a bowl cut and the talent of a true musician. “That, right there, is my brother.” Your smile widened and you turned to him, mouth open and laughed incredulously.

“You’re kidding?! He’s so good! Does that mean you’re a talented musician too?” You asked, though you suspected that really wasn’t the case.

“Unfortunately not,” he sighed in such an exaggerated manner that you pressed your hand to your mouth to hide your giggles. “These hands were not made for the guitar,” he held them up and showed them to you but you were now overcome with your laughter.

He opened his mouth to say more but loud hoots and cheers began to rise from the connected patio and both of you turned to see a young man fall back onto his feet from his position over the keg, beer shining on his cheeks and wetting his shirt. You began to laugh hysterically as he cheered with everyone else, going so far as to rip his own shirt down the middle.

“That is also my brother,” the man beside you sighed and you just continued to laugh, turning back to him and reaching out to gently grasp his hand.

“Let’s dance,” you said, pulling him toward the dance floor. You both wriggled your way to be near the front and you threw your hands up into the air, moving your hips side to side along with the beat. You could feel him press against your back, his lower sternum pressed to your back. His hands slowly rested on your hips, as if trying to give you the space to push him away. You just smiled and threw your head back to rest on his shoulder for a moment. His hold on you tightened and he began to move with you, smooth motions that meant he was surely a practised dancer.

You danced until you couldn’t anymore. You danced until your feet hurt and if you didn’t have something to drink you would die of dehydration. The last song had been a slower one, you had swayed with him to the crooning voice and gentle guitar melody, your head against his chest, arms wrapped around him as his were around you. He lay his cheek against your head, blond hair falling around your face and hiding you from the party. You closed your eyes and focused on his heartbeat, on the warmth of his body that gently touched your skin, like sitting close to a heater that was put on the lowest setting. As the song began to change, you pulled away from him and he smiled at you, gentle and cute, the kind of smile that made you want to pinch his cheeks and kiss him until you couldn’t breathe.

“You want something to drink?” You asked, lips brushing his ear. He shivered in your arms and you moved your mouth without saying anything in the hopes that it would happen again.

“Yeah, I’ll come with you,” he grasped your hand and began leading you toward the table in the patio with all the drinks and solo cups. You glanced toward where his (presumably) other brother had been, and you caught his eye. He was smiling at you, arm wrapped around the girl with him. He dipped his head in a nod and your own smile grew.

Both of you stood in front of the drinks and the crisps and after grabbing the only bottle of unopened club soda, you reached into the bowl and grabbed a handful of crisps as well. He laughed at you as he took a beer from the cooler filled with melted ice. You just shrugged, chugging from the bottle like you had never drank water before.

“So, what exactly is your name?” He asked, and you spluttered, water dribbling down your chin and onto your top. You coughed and laughed, choking and giggling as he smiled and began patting your back.

“My name, heh, guess we never did tell each other,” you huffed after the burning in your nose finally subsided. “Y/n, you?”

“I’m David, David Von Erich.” He said his name with pride, shoulders lifting slightly and you nodded. He reached out and gently wiped the water from your chin and the edge of your bottom lip. Your entire body began to tingle, your lips especially.

“So, David, what are you studying?” You shoved some of the crisps into your mouth and then offered him your hand. He gently pried one from your grip and popped it into his mouth as he shook his head.

“I don’t go to school, I’m a professional wrestler.” You raised an eyebrow before stepping back and eyeing him up and down. You pushed out your lips and furrowed your brows, nodding as if you were appraising a piece of furniture.

“I see it,” you finally said, putting down the soda to pinch at his arms and lightly tap his stomach. He just laughed, tipping his hat with a ‘thank you ma’am’.

“You study here then?” He asked, taking a swig from his bottle.

“Yup,” you nodded, “second year nursing student, so call me if you need someone to patch you up after a match.” He laughed again and you couldn’t help but smile as well.

“I’ll do that then, though expect a call every weekend,” he raised an eyebrow but you just nodded, eating more crisps to hide your smile.

He was the most jovial person you had ever met. Even his voice, all deep and southern, still sounded so happy any time he spoke. A dimple appeared in his cheek and you reached up and poked your finger into it.

“Sorry,” you blushed, cheeks burning, “I just wanted to feel how deep it went.” He only smiled and grabbed your hand, bringing your pointer finger back to his face and pressing it to the dimple. This time you laughed, moving to grip his cheek in your palm and falling forward to press your forehead to his chest.

“I have never met anyone like you, David,” you mumbled against his shirt and you felt him sigh, leaning down as you moved your head back. He wasn’t smiling, just staring into your eyes, and then he was kissing you. His lips were so soft, like marshmallows covered in butter. You pressed harder against him, wanting to meld into his skin. He tasted like beer but you didn’t mind. He kissed you like he would never kiss you again, like your lips held the antidote and he would die if you even tried to move away. Your hands slid into his hair and he groaned, gripping your waist so tight that the waistband of your jeans began to dig in.

He slowly began to pull away, but it seemed like a struggle as every time his lips almost detached from yours, he began to kiss you again. Finally, when your chest was heaving and you couldn’t stand on your own legs, he pulled away, eyes fluttering open. You gazed up at him as if he was the first human being you had ever seen and he felt his entire body flush with pleasure.

You could see that the crowd had begun to dwindle and one of your friends was standing by the door, a clear signal that she wanted to leave but had no one to go with. You sighed, gently banging your forehead against his chest a couple times before smiling up at him sadly. He was about to ask what that smile was for, about to pull you into another kiss to wipe it from your lips, but you quickly reached up and plucked his hat from his head. He blinked owlishly, and you just deposited it onto your own head, pulling it down at the back so the front didn’t dip into your line of sight.

“So you have a reason to try and find me,” you winked, and then spun on your heel and jogged toward your friend. He was left standing there, statue-still, watching after you. Just as you were about to step out of the door, you turned back and winked, tipping the hat in his direction before disappearing.

+++

It was three days later when he finally saw you again. The day after the party, he had gone back to the college and asked around for the nursing building. He had walked around the entire thing, peeking into lecture halls and classrooms to no avail. The next day he stood outside the building from nine am to three pm, watching every student that walked in and out, but you weren’t there then either. On the third day, he did the same thing, slowly losing hope as the minutes ticked by.

This would be the last time he would try. He was already skipping out on helping his dad and brothers put up fencing, and they were all asking about what exactly he was doing going to the university every day. He was desperate to see you again, hat be damned. Then, just as he was standing to walk back to the truck, a group of girls came walking out of a building next to the nursing one. They turned and took the path that went by the bench he was sitting on. Someone in the group laughed, a loud sound that echoed off the buildings and he watched the group as they got closer. A girl near the middle was the one laughing, and in her arms, she was carrying a cowboy hat. His heart leapt and he jogged closer, squinting in the sunlight.

There you were, head thrown back in laughter, a bag over your shoulder, and your arms wrapped around his cowboy hat, pressing it closer to your chest. David’s smile almost broke his face and he almost ran over to you, forcing himself down to a jog so he wouldn’t be out of breath when he met you again.

You noticed him approaching and your cheeks began to hurt, lips pulling up and eyes squinting with glee. Your heart was running though you weren’t, and you began to walk even quicker, leaving your group behind. You stopped just when he did, not barely two feet away. Your friends called your name but you ignored them, holding the cowboy hat by the rim and moving closer to him until your chests brushed together. You reached up with both hands and settled it on his head, shifting it from left to right until it was centred but still stayed leaned back so you could look into his eyes. His beautiful, beautiful, eyes that you had dreamed of for the past three days.

“You found me,” you breathed out, voice slightly higher than usual.

“Took me long enough,” he chuckled, reaching out to cup your cheek. He didn’t wait another breath, just leaned down and kissed you, nose pressing into your cheek. You laughed into the kiss but wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself as close to him as you could. You could hear your friends gasping and whispering in the background, clearly so could David as he began chuckling into the kiss, but neither of you pulled away until you had had your fill.

“So that means you’ll let me take you out on a date, right?” He asked as soon as you had detached yourself from him, and you began to laugh though you were breathless. You nodded vigorously, pulling out a notebook from your bag and ripping out a piece of paper from it. You pressed it to his chest and wrote your number on it, scolding him to stay still as he giggled about the sharp tip of the pen feeling ticklish. You folded it up and pressed it into the chest pocket of the jacket he was wearing then reached up and quickly kissed him again.

“Call me and maybe we can play that dangerous game again,” and then you walked back to your friends, dragging them away from where he was standing as they giggled and squealed questions at you.

David stood there for a few moments just staring at the spot where you had stood and smiling like an idiot. He reached up and touched his lips, pressed his finger to his dimple, then yelled a ‘WOOHOO!” into the air, pumping his fist up before walking back to the truck, with such an aggressive spring in his step that he was almost skipping.

+++

David turned onto his back in the bed and groaned. His stomach had been hurting randomly for the past few days and he couldn’t understand why. But then his eyes landed on you, curled up around a pillow beside him but with your back pressed into where his chest had been moments before, and any other thought went out of the window.

You had this thing about being close to him, even in sleep. You loved hugging a pillow, but you had to have your back pressed to him in some way. Sometimes, if he moved onto his other side during the night, he could hear the little snuffles you let out in your sleep before shuffling back until you could feel him again. It might be his favourite thing about you.

You had been dating for half a year now, the best six months of his life, and last weekend he had gone and bought a ring. Kerry had said it was too soon, but still came along to help him pick it out. Kevin and Michael had come too, each one pointing out different rings they thought you would like. He mostly ignored them because he knew you, he knew exactly which one to get, and they were mostly just there because they had jumped into the truck before he could peel out of the driveway.

It was sitting in his left cowboy boot under the bed right then, just waiting for the perfect time to be pulled out and presented to you. He was thinking about doing it after he came back from the match in Japan, that way if he won, you could marry a champion, and if he lost, this would be the perfect thing to console him. He knew you would say yes, you seemed to love him enough, but doubt was the brain’s best friend, and he knew he would worry about your answer until you finally gave it to him.

David turned back onto his side as a pang of pain shot through his stomach again and he wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling himself close to you until he could press his nose to your hair and breathe in your smell. You seemed to purr or hum, snuggling further into the bed and him, and he closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

+++

“How’s Japan?” You asked him excitedly. You were in his room, on his bed, the phone sitting on his side-table and the handset sandwiched between your head and shoulder. You were painting your toenails a beautiful sunshine yellow with red accents to match his costume.

“Bright,” he chuckled, “Tokyo is all lights and people, nothing like home.” He seemed to sigh at the thought and you wanted to reach through the phone and kiss him. “How is home by the way? How’re the brothers?”

You basically lived in their house now, had done for the last month or so. David never wanted you to leave and living there was better than a cramped student dorm anyway. He drove you to the university for all your classes and you came along to watch his every match. You helped his mom cook dinner, ate with the entire family every night, and then you went to sleep in David’s bed. Well, your bed too considering that the sheets now had small flowers on them.

The rest of the room was beginning to look a little more mixed as well. His dad had moved the old vanity from storage into David’s room by the window so you had somewhere nice to get ready. His cologne and your perfume shared the windowsill, and your different craft projects now took up any random free space. A second side-table had even been added and you kept a framed picture of you and David on it.

“Same old, same old,” you sighed down the phone, sticking your tongue out as you tried to paint right to the edge without getting any nail varnish on your skin. “Kerry’s been practising and working out like crazy, He caught his hand in the wiring of the fence yesterday so I got to practice my stitching skills,” you could almost see the smile on his face.

“He’s ok though, right?” He asked, and the urge to hug him was almost paralysing.

“Yeah, he’s all good, keeps trying to train with the punching bag and I have to stop him every damn time,” you huffed and this time when he laughed you stopped painting your nails to press the phone a little harder to your ear. You wanted it to be as close as possible, as if he was sitting right next to you, just laughing by your ear. “He’s gonna rip his stitches David! He refuses to listen to me, and it’s not like your dad is any help, he just wants Kerry to keep training.” You huffed again but there was no malice in it.

“You know what they’re like, he’ll only learn his lesson once he’s ripped them and feels the pain,” David pointed out, and you knew he was right. “How’s Michael?”

“He’s ok, but I do feel a bit bad for him. Now that you’re not here to focus on, your dad has a lot more time to try and push Michael to wrestle, and the poor kid just wants to play guitar or go practice with his band.”

Since David had left earlier in the week, you had made sure to be the one to pick Michael up after school so you could take him to practise with his band. You did whatever you could to distract their dad so Michael could even practise in his room. Last time you asked Fritz to go into extreme detail about his gun collection and even though he could clearly hear Michael playing, your acting was convincing enough to make him keep going until the last gun.

David didn’t say anything for a few moments, and you knew he was struggling with his feelings. He never quite knew how to feel about his dad and brother’s constant conflict. His dad was his mentor, the reason he was where he was, but he could also see how his dad hurt his brothers, how he had flipped on Kevin like it was nothing, and refused to even acknowledge that Michael might not want to wrestle.

There was a muffled groan from his end, like he had bit down on something to stop the sound but it hadn’t completely worked. There was a cough, wet and ragged, and your heart began to pound. You sat up straighter, disregarding the clink of nail polish bottles.

“David? You ok?” You asked hurriedly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just have a little cough,” he brushed it off but he sounded more tired than before.

“Are you sure? You don’t sound great,” you clutched the phone with both hands, trying to listen to a sign of anything else.

“Seriously, I’m alright, just a little cough, I promise. It’ll go away soon, I already got some cough syrup for it.”

“Ok, ok, good, you’ll tell me if it gets worse, right?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” he placated, and you could hear the smile.

You were both silent for a few minutes, just listening to each other breathe. You wished you were there with him, to do all the little things you know he would ignore when he was on his own. You wanted to check his temperature, pour out the cough syrup for him and force him to drink it. To run your hands through his hair and wrap him up in a blanket. Instead you stayed quiet until a few more minutes had passed.

“I miss you,” you whispered, and you heard him take a deep breath.

“I miss you too, but soon you’ll be able to say you’re dating a champion,” he joked but you didn’t laugh.

“I already do.”

+++

You were at home when the news came. You were sitting on David’s bed, hugging his pillow and trying to figure out the time difference so you could stop worrying about why he hadn’t called yet. The bell rang from downstairs and you began to wonder who would come visit in the middle of a workday. You waited for any indication that you were needed but you couldn’t hear anything, just murmurs. Something dropped and hit the floor, like a stack of papers or a phone. It was quiet for a few moments, the air almost sterile of sound, then the main door opened and closed and you heard a car engine slowly begin to fade away. Dread settled on your chest, like an anchor slowly being pulled back onto a ship, heaving and heaving slowly onto you. You ran down the stairs, almost slipping on the wood in your socks. You came into the dining room where Fritz was sitting at the table, the phone in front of him but the handset on the floor.

“Is he okay? Is he hurt? What’s the-”

“He’s dead.”

It was quiet for a full minute. Then someone hit a gong right next to your ear. It rang, over and over and over. It wouldn’t stop ringing. One of your hands came up and began to claw at your ear, bending the shell and pressing it down but the ringing wouldn’t stop. There was gauze over your eyes, you stared at the phone, at the handset on the floor, but you only saw bits and pieces, flashes of white.

“A ruptured intestine,” he continued, “they found him in his bed, must’ve passed in the night.”

It echoed in your brain, bouncing around in the spinal fluid. You heard ‘a ruptured intestine’ over and over and over. You sat down on the floor where you were, the skin on your legs rubbing uncomfortably on the rug. You pressed your hands to your head, hoping if you squeezed it enough everything would stop. But it kept on.

‘A ruptured intestine, a ruptured intestine, a ruptured intestine.’

+++

His boots were still under the bed. You had gotten on your knees once, and looked at them, just sitting under the bed, waiting for him to return. You had to look away, had to stand and move, because you knew that if you didn’t, you would have just stayed on the floor and cried for the rest of your life. You couldn’t even touch them.

Every night you lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. Some nights you cried so hard Doris came in and lay next to you, shushing you like a baby. Other nights you just stared. Stared and stared and stared. Some nights you whispered to yourself, and it was always the same thing. “I’m never gonna love again.”

@tourturedfolkloredepartment

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