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fandoms-writings · 6 months

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Now or Never

Pairing: Best-Friend!Bucky x Virgin!Reader (fem intended)

Word Count: 6.2K (it was supposed to be a drabble oops)

Summary: Based off the prompts "You know my door is always open for you, right?" and "You're already wet sweetheart." for my milestone event, requested by nonnie.

Warnings: SMUT 18+ ONLY, mentions of a bad date, explicit p in v sex, oral (male receiving), fingering, swearing, bucky talks a lot in bed, weed and alcohol consumption. (if I missed any, please let me know)

A/N: thank you so so much to @bucksangel and @itistimeforusalltodecidewhoweare for beta reading for me, i love you both so so much.

Masterpost || Bucky Masterlist

You sat in your car, frustration and disappointment rolling off of you in waves.

Another bad date, another guy just obsessed with hearing himself talk and not once allowing you to get a word in. That topped with how he called you a prude at the end left the worst taste in your mouth.

You didn't want to go home to your empty apartment, already sick of the silence filling your car, so you scrolled through your contacts, thinking who would be up for hanging out with so little notice.

Your lip found its way between your teeth as you passed your best friend's name. You weren't sure if he'd be busy or not, or if he'd be in the mood to hang out, but seeing him would help your mood. Plus. . . you blanched at the image that clouded your mind. Maybe he could help with your little problem - if you had the guts to even ask.

You pressed the dial button before you could talk yourself out of it, waiting for him to pick up as you chewed on your nail.

Just when you were about to hang up, giving up for the night, the tone clicked and his voice filtered through the speaker.

"Hey Peach," His voice was gruff and you could feel some of your frustration ebbing away already, "What's going on?"

"Hey, Buck," You sighed, "Are you busy?"

"Not currently, why?"

"Can I come over for a minute?"

"Aren't you supposed to be on a date?" He chuckled. You could hear him shuffling through what you assumed was his kitchen, the opening and closing of cupboards sounding through the little speaker.

"I was." You didn't give him anymore than that, and he was only silent for a small moment before he hummed.

"Alright, get your cute butt over here so you can tell me all about it," He ordered and you couldn't help the heat that grew in your skin at the compliment. "Want me to pack a bowl too?"

You giggled at that before agreeing. "After today, please. I'll pay you back for it."

"How many times do I gotta tell you not to worry about that?" He laughed, "Now get over here. Drive safe."

"I will." You hung up the phone with a sigh before starting your car and heading over to his place, but not before stopping and picking up a bottle of wine on the way.

It wasn't long before you were hiking up the steps to the house he rented. It was small, and not in the best neighborhood, but he didn't have to worry about sharing walls with anyone else and it was bigger than your apartment, so you didn't mind. Plus, you knew he'd never let anything happen to you.

He pulled open the door before you had a chance to knock, giving you a grin that was equally empathetic as it was smug. He liked to relish in the fact that he always knew guys weren't going to be good enough for you, telling you before every date you went on that it'd be a waste of time.

But that didn't mean that he was happy you weren't having a good time.

"Come on," He reached his hand out for you, "Let's get you giggly again."

You chuckled at that before landing the bottle of wine in his outstretched hand, the raise of his eye brows pulling up the corners of your lips.

"Super giggly is the goal then." He stepped away from the door, letting you in before closing and locking it behind you.

"You sure you don't mind me dropping by this late?"

He scoffed at that, leading the way to his kitchen and pulling out two wine glasses, "You know my door is always open for you, right?"

You shrugged, "I know that, but still, you can always tell me no."

"Now, Peach, why would I do that? I'm not going to say no to hanging out with my favorite person." Heat spread through your skin again at his words, and the teasing wink he threw your way.

You didn't mind that he flirted with you, whether flirting was his intention or not, you weren't quite sure. But either way, it made you feel somewhat seen. Liked.

"I thought Steve was your favorite person," You lifted yourself onto his countertop, hissing at the cold that met your thighs. You cursed the version of yourself that decided shorts were a good idea. "It'd be a shame if he heard that wasn't true."

"He knows where he stands with me, don't worry." He handed you a poured glass, clinking his own against it before leaning against the opposite counter. "Now, do you want to tell me what happened now, or do you want to smoke first?"

You chuckled at that, taking a sip of your wine, "How about I tell you while we smoke, then by the time we're good and high, I don't have to think about it anymore?"

He gave you one of his little grins, nodding his head. "You got it."

You followed him outside, getting comfortable in the large papasan chair as he plugged in the string of lights hung over the small porch. He got comfortable in his seat before offering you the bong and a lighter, letting you take the first drag.

It didn't take long to fill Bucky in on what had transpired on your date. How Mark didn't even try to act interested in anything you had to say. How he'd made you meet him at the restaurant instead of offering to pick you up, which in the end ended up being a silver lining because you didn't have to ask him to drive you home.

You'd gotten to the part where your date had called you a prude and what you'd told him to cause that comment, and the words caught in your throat. You'd never told Bucky you were a virgin, not that it mattered, you knew he wouldn't judge you for it. It was just something that never came up.

Maybe it was what happened tonight, the comments and the way your date acted afterwards, that made you not want to tell him. Or maybe it was the pity in his eyes that had grown since you'd started your story. Or. . . or it could've been the rather not small bit of your heart that belonged to him already that stopped you. If others didn't like that you were a virgin in your twenties, and didn't want to be with someone so inexperienced, why would he?

He caught on to your hesitation, setting the bong down as he turned to face you with his brows pulled forward.

"What happened?" He asked, and you looked to your lap, pulling your feet under you and wrapping your sweater around you.

You could tell him, you knew he wouldn't judge you, wouldn't tease you for it. You knew that, so why was it so hard to tell him when you told anyone else without a care in the world? You sighed, barely meeting his gaze.

"Promise me you won't judge me?" You whispered and he leaned forward.

"I'd never judge you for anything. I promise."

You nodded, more to yourself in reassurance to let the words out. "The only thing he either heard me say about myself, or that he decided to pay attention to, was the fact that I'm a virgin," You refused to meet Bucky's gaze as he went still, "That seemed to get his attention because then he started assuming I was going home with him after he pretty much ignored me all night. Like I was some prize to be won. A trophy."

You took a breath taking a small glance at Bucky to see his eyes trained on your face, but no emotion peaking through his features other than his fists clenched in his lap, knuckles white.

"When I told him I was just gonna go home, his attitude shifted again and he proceeded to call me a selfish prude." The words rang in your head again, his mocking tone clear in your ears before you forced yourself to push it out.

Bucky still hadn't said anything, his red eyes locked on your form, tucked into your chair as you reached for your wine glass. It wasn't until you'd taken a lengthy sip and had the cup nestled in your hands in your lap that he spoke up.

"You deserve better than that," He started, "And I'm sorry that he treated you like that, Peach."

Looking over to him, you saw the sincerity in his eyes, the heaviness in them as he refused to look away. You shrugged mumbling that it's fine before looking down to your wine glass again. "I don't really want to dwell on it."

"Okay," He angled his head to catch your eye, giving you a soft smile. "You just let me know when you want me to kick this guy's ass and consider it done."

You laughed at that, clutching your glass in your lap so it didn't fall. He smirked at you, seemingly pleased with himself for getting you to laugh as he leaned back in his chair.

"Can I ask you something?" He asked after a moment.

Your focus zeroed in on him, his arm thrown over the curved back of his chair, one of his legs folded under the other, his free hand resting on his thigh as he studied you. You swallowed around the dryness in your mouth and nodded.

"Is there a. . . specific reason you're still a virgin?" He asked. You could tell he wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable, he was genuinely curious.

"I guess I was scared at first," You started, remembering how you felt in high school when your best friend told you about how she'd lost her virginity. The idea always seemed daunting, like it was something you were supposed to do to 'become an adult.' But it was intimidating. "I didn't want to force it, wanted it to be something natural, I guess."

"And you haven't had anyone to give you that chance?"

You stilled for a second, shaking your head.

He hummed, at your silence, or your answer, you couldn't tell, but he fell quiet after that, staring at the trees in the yard.

You finished your glass of wine and set it aside, you fingers beginning to slightly numb in the cold before you tucked them into your legs, your mind starting to get fuzzy. You couldn't tell if it was the wine or the weed starting to kick in that made you ask, "Is it a bad thing?"

He whipped his head towards you, his brows pulled together in confusion. "Being a virgin?" At your tentative nod, his face softened and he shook his head, "Not at all."

"Then why do people act like the guy tonight whenever they find out?" You muttered and he sighed, shifting so that he was leaning his elbows on his knees.

"Maybe it's intimidating, being someone's first."

Your eyes refused to leave his, your nerves starting to warm as you asked, "What about you?" You asked, readjusting in your seat to angle yourself more towards him, "Would you be intimidated?"

He simply stared at you for a moment before shaking his head, "No." There was something about the way he said it, the roughness of his voice and the confidence in his short answer, that had you trying to subtly clench your thighs together.

You hated to admit it, but you'd thought about it before. Hell, you thought about it on the way over. About sleeping with him. About his rough hands on your skin, what it would feel like to have his lips on yours, his fingers in -

"You okay?" His voice snapped you out of your thoughts, and you looked back to him, heat rising up the back of your neck. You went to tell him you were fine, that you just wanted to get a drink, maybe watch a movie, but a voice in the back of your head grew too loud to ignore. "Peach?"

The voice told you to ask him for it. To ask him to be your first. You trusted him with your life, you'd trust him with taking your virginity too. You know you would. But you couldn't ask that. What if he said no? What if he was mortified? It wasn't something you could just tell him to pretend you didn't ask for, that's not how that worked.

He was still staring at you, allowing you to have as long as you needed before you told him whatever it was that was going through your head.

Now or never, the voice reminded you, and you took a breath, steeling yourself for the inevitable rejection you felt you knew he was going to give you.

"I'm over it," You muttered, and before he could ask what you were talking about, "I don't want to be a virgin anymore." He watched you, unsure if you were finished speaking yet, but when the words died on your tongue, he nodded.

"Okay," His voice was rough and hoarse and dangerously quiet as he waited to hear what you wanted to do about what you'd said.

"I trust you," You whispered, "More than anyone." His eyes widened just a fraction as you stared at him. Your hands gripped your legs as you mustered up just enough courage to get the words out, "Would. . . would you be my first?"

The confusion fell from his face, concern taking its place. He cleared his throat and his voice was dangerously low, “Is this the wine talking?”

Your heart fell, you knew you shouldn’t have asked. You knew. Yet you asked anyway. You let out a shaky breath, moving to stand. “I shouldn’t have asked, forget about it.” You stood, moving to pick up what needed to go inside when his hand grasped yours.

“That’s not. . .” He started and you turned to him, he was on the edge of his seat, eyes wide as he stared up at you, “I mean is that something you truly want? It’s not just the wine?”

You took a moment to look at him, to really look. You’ve held his stare so many times before, but you’d never seen the look in his eyes that was there now. Like it was taking everything in him not to jump up and do what you’d asked.

Like he — like he wanted it just as much as you did.

You faced him completely, placing yourself between his knees and resting your hands on his shoulders, his hands falling to wrap around the backs of your thighs.

“I just don’t want you to regret asking me,” he muttered, his fingers drawing patterns across the backs of your legs, “I don’t want you regretting me.”

Your hands settled at the sides of his neck, the stubble on his chin scraping against your thumbs as you pushed to angle his head up to you again. You leaned down, your nose brushing against his as your breaths mingled between you.

“Bucky. . . " You started, but he shook his head.

"Wait," It was a gasp, like he was fighting himself, "You need to know that if you let me have you," he looked up at you and you were finally able to see how his pupils had blown, the blue of his eyes almost completely swallowed, "I don't plan on letting you go. Ever."

Your body froze in his hold, his fingers tightening on your legs. "What are you saying?"

His eyes softened on you and a small, nervous smile grew on his lips, "That I've wanted you since we met, but didn't want to scare you off." He tugged on your legs, pulling you into his lap, your knees landing on either side of his hips. His hands moved up to your lower back, his thumbs barely moving under your shirt, but stopping before he went any further. "I've been pining after you for years."

It was like you were snapped back to reality, the raspiness in his voice and his calloused fingers brushing against your skin bringing you back from your stupor. But there were no words to convey how you felt, at least not any you could form at the moment. The only thing your brain and your heart were telling you, was to press your lips against his.

So you did.

His fingers tightened against your back, pressing you into his chest as his lips moved in tandem with yours. It was slow at first, the soft nips to your bottom lip and the way his tongue hesitantly slid across your bottom lip. Your lips parted and the second your tongue met his, a groan rumbled through his chest, his hands sliding up your back under your shirt. Your hips ground down of their own accord and he swallowed the whine you let out as your core was met with the growing bulge under his jeans.

Time seemed to slow, and by the time you pulled back panting, eyes locked on his, you weren't sure how long you'd been there. But by the way your heart was soaring, you knew you didn't want to be anywhere else, ever again.

"We should go inside," he whispered, bringing up one of his hands to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing against your swollen lips. "I don't want the neighbors hearing you."

~~~

You two didn't last long apart once you pried yourself from his lap. The second you both set everything on the counter inside, his hands found their way to your skin again, pushing up the back of your shirt as he pulled you flush with his chest, his feet guiding you to his bedroom.

The edge of his bed met the backs of your knees, and he gently pushed you back, crawling up with you as you nudged your way up to his pillows. His lips attached to your neck, gently biting where it met your shoulder, his breath fanning against your skin and sending shivers down your spine.

"I'll take good care of you," He breathed, pulling back to look at you, "I promise."

You nodded, reaching around to shove his shirt up his back, "I know, I trust you." He smiled at you before pushing your shirt up, over your head and your arms. and dropping his head and dragging his lips across every inch of skin he could reach.

"Arch your back for me?" He asked, only lifting his lips enough to get the words out before they went back to nipping at your skin. You did as he asked, his fingers slipping through the clasp on your bra and undoing it. He helped you out of it, sitting up to pull it up from your arms and throwing it to the side to join your shirt.

You looked up to find his eyes locked on you and you couldn't help the sudden nervousness rise in your chest as he stared at you. His hands caught your arms trying to move to cover your breasts and he shook his head.

"Don't hide," He said, "You're fucking gorgeous."

You giggled, the butterflies in your stomach from his words mixed with the substances in your system making it impossible to fight it off and he smiled down at you.

"There she is," He whispered, "God, I love your laugh."

"Heavy with the compliments tonight aren't you?" You breathily asked, the heat in your skin rising as he removed his shirt, his muscled chest seemingly glowing in the warm hue of the lights.

"I've been waiting to give you some very specific compliments," He leaned over you, "So you better get used to it."

His lips captured yours again as his hands trailed down your stomach, his fingers gently pushing at the waistband of your shorts.

"Can I?" He asked, his fingers stopping.

"Please."

He chuckled at the eagerness in your voice before he pulled away and helped you out of your shorts, pulling your panties with them. He dragged his fingers down your hips and your thighs as he took you in. You could see his chest rising and falling at an uneven pace before he looked up at you.

"You're already wet sweetheart," He rasped, "Can I play with you?"

The fact that you were bare before him and he was still asking for permission sent even more heat to your core and you could feel yourself clench around nothing as your breath hitched in your throat. You nodded sitting up on your elbows to meet his lowering mouth with your own, earning a moan from him as you dragged your teeth along his bottom lip.

His fingers were sure in their movements as they met your folds, brushing up to circle around your clit before sliding back down to circle around your entrance, your hips bucking into his touch. He pulled his mouth away as he slowly slid a finger in, pressing the palm of his hand down into your clit.

"Oh I love this," He said, his head dropping down, taking one of your nipples into his mouth, lightly dragging his teeth across it before swirling his tongue around it. He pumped his finger a few times before slowly adding a second, and growling into your skin as your fingers threaded through his hair, pulling at the strands, his fingers curling up, like he was searching for something.

"What?" It came out as a breath, but you couldn't bring yourself to speak any louder as you tried to keep the noises that built in your chest to a minimum. You knew they were normal, but you didn't want to seem as desperate as you really felt.

"I love that no one else has had the pleasure of seeing you like this, that no one has touched you," He said the words into your skin, his lips brushing against your nipple as he spoke and grinning when his fingers brushed against a certain spot.

"Shit - Do that again," the request broke through your lips in a whine, but you were too focused on him to notice. He grinned, curling his fingers into that spot again, pulling another wail from your throat.

"I love that no one's been inside you, that they don't get to have you," He angled his fingers to brush against that spongy spot over and over as he pumped them in and out, "But I do."

He kept his fingers pace agonizingly slow, to not drive you over the edge so quickly but you couldn't help the movement of your hips trying to get more friction. His other hand came up to your chest, gently pushing you down so you were comfortable.

"I'll go slow at first," He started, his fingers slowing even more, if that was possible, "Let you get used to it - to me, before I ruin you," His fingers began to spread, pushing your walls apart as they dragged across them before coming to a halt. "Do you know the traffic light system?" He asked, and at your nod he grinned, "Tell me."

You swallowed around the breath catching in your throat, "Red is stop, green is go, yellow is slow down." His smile grew.

"Perfect, I don't want to do anything you're not comfortable with, so you use that if you need to, alright?" When you nodded, he went back to pumping his fingers in and out of your cunt, noticing you practically biting through your lip to keep quiet and he tsked, his free hand moving to pull it from your teeth, "Let me hear you, Peach."

The second you let your lip go, a lewd moan filled the air. You went to bite your lip again, to hide the noises that were waiting to get out, and Bucky shook his head as his thumb found its way to your tongue, softly pressing down to keep your mouth open.

"Don't hide those noises from me," He practically begged, "I need to hear you." It was the tone of desperation that took over his calm confidence that had you nodding, promising not to hide anymore. "Is there anything you want to do?"

"What do you mean?" You breathed, trying to hone your focus on him.

"Well, it's your first time," He started, pushing his fingers as far as he could and smiling at the moan you let out, "Was there anything you wanted to try?"

You thought back to the times you shamefully allowed yourself to fantasize about him. How he'd feel on top of you, in you. How his hips would feel driving into yours, the fullness you'd finally experience. How the weight of him would feel against your tongue.

You felt your skin get hot as you looked up at him, trying not to cover yourself with how self conscious you suddenly felt. But when your eyes met his, all you saw was patience and adoration as he watched you, so you swallowed down your nerves.

"I want to taste you," You muttered and he groaned, his fingers stilling in you, "and ride you."

"Shit," He smiled at you, "You're really not that innocent are you?"

He pulled his fingers free of you before you could answer, and you whined at the now empty feeling in between your legs, a whine that dragged on longer as you watched him lift his fingers to his mouth. His eyes rolled back and he moaned as he tasted you.

"Fuck," he groaned, "I knew you'd taste good."

He pulled his body up from yours, ridding himself of the last of his clothes, and you couldn't help but look down, eyeing the length of his cock as it stood at attention. Unable to stop yourself from reaching out, your fingers brushed against the underside and the shiver that clearly ran up Bucky's spine gave you a boost of confidence.

You crawled across the bed to where he stood at the end, fighting the nerves that were tingling through every part of you as you slid to the floor in front of him. The carpet dug into your knees as you kneeled, looking up at him through your lashes. His hand came down to trace your cheek before cupping it.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," He said and you smiled.

"I know, I want to." You eyed him before moving your hand to grip him at the base, holding him still while you dragged your tongue up the underside of his cock before wrapping your lips around the head, the taste of his skin and the precum leaking from the tip flooding your tongue.

"Oh, fuck," He gasped and his hips stuttered, pushing himself past your lips just a bit before he caught himself and pulled back. "Shit - sorry."

Instead of pulling your mouth off of him, you looked up at him and hummed before taking him further, watching his eyes flutter closed and roll back as your tongue slid along his length. His fingers twitched at his sides like they were reaching for you but he was fighting himself. You reached up with your free hand and pulled his grasping fingers towards the top of your head where they hesitantly laced into your hair.

He breathed a heavy sigh as he gently tugged on your hair, the whine you let out around him causing his hips to jolt again.

"Fuck, Peach," He rasped, his voice hoarse as he looked down at you. The sound of his voice and the way he looked at you alone was enough to have you clenching around nothing, but what he said next was what got to your head, sending you into a type of haze you'd never experienced before. "Unless you want me to fuck your pretty face, you gotta stop doing that."

Your free hand reached around his thigh, gripping it as you hummed again, the vibrations clearly running through every one of Bucky's nerves as he shuddered.

"Is that what you want?" He asked, a cocky grin growing on his lips as he looked down at you, your head bobbing, "You want me to fuck your pretty mouth before I fuck that pretty pussy?"

A high pitched whine rumbled in your throat and his hips bucked forward, his hand in your hair pulling your head forward. He was gentle with it, only pushing himself so far back in your mouth, doing his best not to make you gag, all the while a string of curses and compliments showered you as your eyes watered and a mix of your spit and his precum had started to slide down your chin.

He pulled your head back, pulling himself from your mouth, the stiffness in your jaw a welcome sensation when accompanied by the heavy look in his eyes. He took your hand in his, helping you move back to the bed and settling in between your legs as he kissed his way down the side of your neck, his hand wrapping around the other side. His teeth grazed your skin, sending chills through your spine as you reached around to grip at his back.

Pulling his head from your neck, his voice just above a whisper as he asked, "Are you ready?" You nodded, but he shook his head, "I need to hear you say it, baby, you gotta tell me." A bloom of warmth spread through your chest at the care exuding from the furrow in his brows.

You wrapped your hands around the sides of his head, your thumbs brushing along the lines of his jaw, "Fuck me, Bucky," You whispered, "please." He nodded before capturing your mouth with his once before sitting up a bit and reaching over to his nightstand, his hand coming back with a condom and a small bottle of what you assumed was lube.

Once he had the condom on, he popped open the cap of the lube, pouring some in his hand and spreading it over himself, then getting a bit more and looking at you. "It's a little cold, but it's gonna help, I promise."

"Okay," You nodded and braced yourself for the chill that came when his fingers rubbed the lube through your folds, your skin sensitive to his calloused skin.

"Spread your legs baby," he watched your legs open for him, "that's it. . . wider." Your legs spread as far as you could, "Such a good girl all spread out for me." He smiled before lining the head of his cock up with your dripping entrance, slowly pushing in with a hiss.

The stretch burned and your hands shot to cling to his arms, your nails leaving crescent shaped indents in his skin. His eyes locked with yours, "Breathe baby, breathe," He strained, "I'm right here." You let loose a tight breath through your nose as you held his gaze. He kept pushing in, taking his time until he was all the way in, a strange type of fullness taking over you - an addicting kind.

He dragged his fingers across your skin, kneading the muscles in your hips, legs, and arms as he waited for you to adjust, talking you through it with a whole array of compliments. When the burn from the stretch turned into a need for him to move, you shifted your hips and loosed a moan when the head of his cock brushed against that same spot his fingers had expertly found earlier.

A breathy chuckle fanned your skin as he smiled down at you, "Ready for me to move?" At your quiet confirmation, he began slowly rocking his hips into yours, the drag of his cock against your walls addicting - but you needed more.

"M-more. . ." you panted and he smirked.

"More what?" He asked, not stopping the slow drag movements of his hips as if he knew it was driving you mad, which he probably did if you were being honest.

You swallowed your nerves, "Faster," he brushed that spot again, "fuck - harder."

He nodded, moving his hands to the back of each of your knees, holding your legs open, "Can I have my way with you? You can ride me later?" You forgot about that, about saying you wanted to ride him. You did, you wanted him under you writhing for you like you were for him now, but you weren't sure you could handle taking over right now so you nodded. You just wanted him to make you feel good and to fucking move already.

"Yes," You whined, trying to move your hips against his again, but with how he was holding your legs, you couldn't move much. "Just move." You didn't care how desperate you sounded now, you were going to go insane if he didn't do something other than slowly drag himself in and out, stopping just before hitting that perfect spot.

"Say please." You scowled at him. Sometimes you forgot how cocky he could get, though this was the first time his cockiness made you even more needy for him.

"Fuck," You muttered, the pressure growing low in your belly, "please Bucky."

"I got you," He pushed you knees closer to your chest as he leaned over you, thrusting into the base, hitting that spot that made you see stars before pulling out just as quick and doing it again.

It felt like the air had been sucked out of your chest as you held his gaze, his hips unrelenting in his thrusts, the sound of skin slapping filling your ears in between the moans that fell from both of you.

"God," He panted, "You feel so good around me, I always knew you would." He dropped one of your legs, reaching up to palm your breast and taking the pebbled nipple in between his fingers, "Fuckin' made for me, weren't you?"

A loud moan tore its way through your throat as you reached for him, your hand finding his neck, nails raking down to the middle of his chest, his hips driving home even harder. You could feel that somewhat familiar crest quickly approaching, knowing the feeling from your nights alone where all you had were your fingers. But you didn't want this to end. You wanted to stay here, his cock filling you up and hitting that one spot over and over.

Something in your face, or maybe it was the way your breathing became more controlled, told Bucky that you were trying to fight it off as long as you could and he smirked before slowing down just enough to let your knees go and tell you, "Wrap your legs around my waist."

You quickly followed his instruction as he leaned over you, grabbing the headboard with one hand and circling your clit with the thumb of his other. You couldn't hold back the almost scream that erupted from your chest at the sensation and he smiled.

"Don't fight it, baby," He coaxed, "Just let it happen." He quickened the pace of both his hips and his thumb, trying to push you over that edge. "C'mon, Peach," he was practically begging now, "Let me have it."

The thread holding you back was fraying quickly, ready to snap and he knew it.

Your breath hitched and he smirked, still keeping his pace as he muttered, "Give it to me."

The thread snapped. Pleasure crashed into you, a roaring in your ears as your body tightened under his, your walls clenching around him as he continued his determined thrusts. Your hands grasped at his back, your nails raking down his skin. Your legs locked around him.

You were sure you screamed.

"That's it, baby," He panted into your ear, his hips becoming sporadic, "Keep coming - fuck - keep gripping me like that." You weren't sure how exactly to do what he was asking, but in your daze, you did your best, tightening your muscles as much as you could.

He gasped, gripping your hip tight enough to bruise you were sure. His hips stilled and his head buried into your neck as he shouted.

He gently rested his weight on you, pushing you into the mattress and trailing small kisses along your neck and shoulder where his head still rested. He waited until you'd caught your breath and your eyes were clear before speaking again.

"Are. . . are you alright?" He asked, worry replacing the pleasure that had been on his face just moments ago.

You gave him a dizzy smile, nodding, "I'm perfect."

A large smile grew on his face as he chuckled, his hand raising to cup your chin, pulling himself forward to gently press his lips to yours. "Good," he muttered against your lips, "You make such a cute face when you cum, did you know that?"

You felt your skin heat as you tried to shove his now laughing face away from you. "Shut up!"

"What?!" He roared, "It's true!" He grabbed your hands in his, pinning them above you. He was still smiling as he looked down at you, his pupils still blown wide, "I wanna see you make it again."

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pinkrelish · 1 year

Text

𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶"Can I kiss you?"✶

NSFW — smut, blowjob, swallowing, ball worship, cock worship, grinding, dry humping, first kiss, slow burn, flirting, mutual pining, eddie is touch starved, mild angst, 18+

chapter: 10/20 [wc: 25.1k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 10: The Intentional Second Date

Smoke trembled past his lips in stuttered bursts.

It was Eddie’s second cigarette of the morning. Not completely out of the ordinary for him; sometimes he needed a second one when Adrie gave him trouble before preschool, or if he had a bad night’s sleep and relied on nicotine to help delay the impending headache, but that’s not why he was smoking again today. Adrie woke up, got dressed, brushed her teeth, and told him she loved him in the carpool lane. She was a dream. His nightmare, on the other hand, was coming to fruition. Because of course he couldn’t remember where he’d set his wallet if it weren’t chained to his pants on a sober day, but drinking enough to where he should’ve been plastered? He remembered it all. He remembered it all.

Oh, he remembered it all.

And when he heard the front employee door to the auto shop unlock, he held his breath, and counted down the routine seconds for you to pop your head out in the alleyway and greet him, and when it didn’t happen.. He knew you remembered too.

The morning smile did not come. No greeting. No laughter. Just nothing. Nothing happened except for the glass door to the lobby opening, and you going inside.

He fucked up. He fucked up. He fucking fucked up.

He made things weird, and now you were avoiding him, as you had every right to after he tried to initiate phone sex without warning— Consent? Consent. Both of you were inebriated to some degree, and he’d never felt more like a creep.

Oh, God.

His knees went weak.

Anxious bile sloshed in his seizing stomach. His face broke out in a cold sweat. Knots constricted tighter. Heart beating in his throat. Decisions—mistakes—put stars in his vision. His world was ending, and it pounded at his temples. This was it. This was it. He fucked up.

“Good morning, hand—Oh?”

Eddie froze.

You leaned more than your head out the door, and stepped onto the concrete slab. All your tender attention was on him, studying his pale face, and his hunched form. Your eyebrows swooped in worry at how he was crouched to the reedy weeds instead of standing tall with his back against the gray bricks. A frown slighted your smile, insulting your beauty when you saw him bent down, knees to his chest, holding his head while his other hand shook hard enough the cigarette pinched between his fingers fell amongst the rocks.

“Eddie? You don’t look good. Are you okay?”

His lips parted.

Was he dreaming? Was the lift of delight in your tone when you first went to greet him, and then the drop to concern ebbing your voice deeper when he appeared ill a figment of his imagination? Were you about to call him handsome? Was this the second chance he didn’t deserve?

“Eddie?”

“Yeah!” His exclamation helped him stand, and the twitch of your lips battled his nausea. “Yeah, I just had a long night,” he lied.

Lightheaded, he concentrated on keeping balanced in his woozy lurch towards the wall.

Sharp edges of rocks slid against one another under your winter boots. “Aw, I’m sorry.” Your apology was sincere, as was your silly quirk of swinging your arms to point finger guns towards the garage. “I brought donuts this morning, and went ahead and made coffee, so they’re both fresh if you’re the type to dunk.” You mimicked dunking a donut into a mug of coffee. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better?”

Endearing. Genuinely, honestly, so fucking adorably endearing.

“Yeah, that sounds great right now.” The pet names returned to their restricted status for now. He had to know for sure. “Did you, uh, like playing with us Saturday?” It was a coward’s way to dance around the real question burning his esophagus, but it was a valiant introduction.

“I did! It was a lot of fun. I’m glad you invited me. And, hey, uhm, I didn’t say anything weird to your friends, or anything like that, did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” he responded in an even tone, stomping his curiosity from fluctuating his cadence with hopefulness when you chose that of all things to ask him.

“Good! My memory went a little fuzzy after my fourth drink, you know, when Lloyd kept trying to get us to sing along to that adventuring song he made up. I didn’t know if I said anything weird, or rude, or something by accident.”

Salvation reigned upon him.

Eddie’s lungs allowed him to breathe at the kindness alcohol spared him, and finally, he could relax. Your fretting stemmed from making a good impression on his friends, and with his reassurance, you stopped fidgeting at your nails, and the color returned to his cheeks. “You don’t need to worry about that. Seriously, they loved you.” His grin struggled to blossom. “Do you not remember anything else?”

In contrast, your grin was a field of wildflowers swaying under the summer sun.

“Not really, it’s pretty spotty around the time they left, but I do remember a few things,” you said, taking another step towards him. “I remember you throwing a napkin at the back of my head. I remember falling asleep in Robin’s car. I also remember asking her to pull over on the side of the road. I remember waking up in the living room, on her dad’s recliner of all places. And boy! do I remember being hungover.”

Closing the few feet of distance remaining, your confidence was established in your ability to pinch the sleeve of his coveralls and tug at it in a playful, flirty way, coasting your frosted sigh over his embroidered name patch.

You claimed him, heart and soul, “But I remember us dancing, too. I’m so glad I remember us dancing.” Softer, “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“I’m the sweetest?” he repeated in a mumble, complying with the tug to open his arm in a curve, which you fit into.

“Of course you are. You sure you’re not sick? You still look like you’re about to puke.”

As if your grip on his tricep wasn’t enough of an anchor on reality, the backs of your fingers gliding down his cheek were, checking his temperature like he was worthy of being doted on. A fortunate thing, a blessing; having your hand guide him from the river Styx with a simple brush, thumb tracing the edge of his lip.

Yeah, his heart clenched. “I’m okay,” he rushed to whisper, wanting the words to sprint after your fingers falling from his chin. He kept the connection alive by copying the stroke along your spine, over your denim jacket.

The wintry redness returned to his face, he knew. His racing pulse brought it there, splotching warmth to his skin. There was not enough bravery in the world to ask how much of the dance you recalled; whether your memory ended at your head on his chest, or your wrist to his lips, or your foreheads together with your noses smashed to the other’s cheek, but he did gleam one thing for certain.

You beamed up at him with eager eyes, as if those intimacies flashed in the sun’s reflection, and you wanted more of them.

He said, “I think I’ll feel better after a donut. Or three.”

“Or a nap, or three,” you countered.

“Sweetheart,” he exhaled, a rasp present in his throat from smoking, “I’m not gonna waste my time napping when I could be eating donuts with you.”

A wry laugh played at your lips. “How romantic.”

“I’ve been known to be romantic from time to time.”

You hummed in interest, arching an eyebrow. It was a challenge. Oh, really? you asked. Show me, then, you said.

Stepping back, you dragged your hand down his arm and embraced the motion, seeing it through to his elbow, forearm, the heel of his palm. Feeling but a faint outline of his form beneath the thick sleeve of his canvas jacket and light blue coveralls, yet still clinging to him as if he were your heater. Your warmth. Another body laying next to you in a cold bed.

“C’mon, handsome.” You urged him inside by your feeble grip around the stretchy knit cuff covering the plastic bead bracelet around his wrist. “Let's see if getting some caffeine in you helps you look less like a corpse.”

He snorted, and obeyed. “Whatever you say, dear.”

By all means, it seemed you didn’t remember the phone call. No doubt you were stone cold sober for the bad jokes, dorky innuendos, and inappropriate behavior that would be frowned upon at work, but you didn’t bring those up, so he didn’t either. He was in the clear.

Fate forgave him. And now, he could move on with the ‘thank you’ he owed you in good faith.

————

It was days later when your stapler ran out of staples.

You clamped it shut a few more times until you realized, and opened the second drawer on the short filing cabinet beneath your desk. After a cool slide of metal on metal came a rattle. Instead of your extra sticky notes, folders, and office supplies being visible, a foreign object sat on top of them. Perplexed, you reached in and grasped the lime green box. An index card was taped to it, and removing it jolted the waxy candies inside, sliding them against the cardboard in a merry cascade.

Setting the Mike and Ikes aside, you read the thin, angular handwriting on the note, written in red.

DO YOU WANT TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME? (circle one)

YES or NO

ARE YOU ONLY SAYING YES BECAUSE ITS YOUR POLICY?

YES or NO

By outward appearances, your mouth was tugged downwards at the corners, but make no mistake, it was not a frown. No, no. What your expression was overcome with was so sentimental, so empathetic, you had to pout.

Besotted, you hugged the card to your chest, and reflected on the heaviness of his expectant gaze when he passed by your desk this week. The longer eye contact, the anticipatory lift of his eyebrows wrinkling his forehead when you waved at him. He must’ve put this in your drawer days ago, and you had kept him waiting by accident, poor guy.

You weren’t about to keep him in suspense any longer.

(Though, maybe he should’ve put it in the top drawer, which you opened daily for your highlighters, if he wanted a quicker response.)

Pen to paper, you selected your answers, jotted a line, and tucked the notecard inside a manila folder with two invoices he needed to fill out. You pushed your rolly chair away from the desk, and dug through your purse before going to the breakroom where Eddie sat hunched over the round table, shoveling a chicken Rice-a-Roni meal in his mouth (haphazardly) with his left hand while writing in his DND notebook with his right.

You stood at the vending machine with your hip jutted out, sinking to one side with utmost concentration on your pursed lips, perusing the rows of choices. There were just so, so many categories to choose from. Chips, candy, chocolates. How could you ever decide? You crossed your arms, and tapped your chin at the dilemma, taking your time. This was a wise use of your work hours, of course. Flirting with your coworker by passing notes, and watching the side profile of his smirk break through his curtain of curls in the glass reflection.

Finally, you settled on F4, and slotted in your quarters, punching those buttons.

The Kit Kat bar was deposited in a loud clunk.

“Hey, didn’t know if you saw,” you started casually, and held the manila folder out to him with an imposing grimace, “but you forgot to fill out a couple of lines at the bottom of these invoices. Can’t have you slipping up, and not finishing your paperwork before working on your little roleplaying game, now can we?”

Eddie shifted his gaze from the bulky folder failing to stay pinched closed, to your face. Fawning, he arched into an overly apologetic expression to match your performance, and placed a hand over his heart. “Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. Did I forget to do that? Silly me.”

“Better not let it happen again, Mr. Munson,” you warned, placing it on the table and leaving.

“Never, never,” he promised.

Back at your desk, you sat in your chair, calm and poised. And approximately two seconds later, you kicked off the floor into a fierce spin, dizzying the lobby around you. The place was a blur, your stomach swirled, and still, your goofy grin refused to wane. But, you did stop eventually. The antics had to come to an end. You did have work to do, afterall.. Which you ignored when you heard him rip into the foil wrapper in the other room, and you couldn’t possibly concentrate on calling a warehouse to check on an order of headlights when your ears were tuned to the flimsy chair scraping across the tile, and his heavy work boots stomping down the hall.

“Filled out those forms for ya, sweetness,” Eddie said with a wink.

There was a weight to the manila folder when he dropped it on your desk, and tapped twice on his way out to the garage. Not a physical weight, but a gravity that wasn’t there before, now concentrated in his keen eye contact. An invisible significance.

The relationship had changed, just then, in the trade off of boring invoices.

Opening the folder, the index card was deemed more important than the paperwork. Your gaze stalled on the thick circles around YES, and NO. Yes, you’d go on a date with him, and no, it wasn’t because of your policy. Below them, your thick handwriting flowed together.

what did you have in mind?

I RETURNED THOSE KIDS MOVIES FOR YOU.

YOU CAN THANK ME FOR SAVING YOU

THE LATE FEE BY WATCHING SOME

HORROR WITH ME AT MY PLACE

PICK YOU UP SATURDAY AT 6?

Fighting back another sickeningly stupid willowy sigh at his charm, you wrote a lovesick reply.

In usual Eddie fashion, he left the very last box on the second form blank, so you had to go out to the service area, and address the mechanic bent over a car engine. Not that you were complaining. The back of his coveralls hugged the slight curve of his ass, and his hair was not only pulled into a low bun at his nape, but he wore a bandana tied to keep his bangs off his forehead.

“Hey there handsome, couldn’t help but notice you left the date box on this form blank again.”

“Oh, did I, pretty girl?” He spun, and rolled his eyes to mock himself. Wiping the grease from his hands on his coveralls, he took your pen. “It’s my old age, y’know. Things always slippin’ my mind.” Mumbling to himself, he pressed his palm to the back of the folder, and sketched out a sentence into the page longer than a few numbers warranted. During the arduous process, he looked at you with sorrow, and complained, “These dates are just so tedious to write out, it may just take me all night to complete.”

You refused to give him the satisfaction of a smirk at his (possible) insinuation.

All night? He wished.

Eddie surrendered the folder and pen, and smiled at you, stretching the streak of soot on his chin and cheek. “There you go. All filled out. Not a ‘T’ uncrossed, nor an ‘I’ left undotted.”

“Thank you,” you over-enunciated as a goodbye.

The very second the glass door came to a slow close behind you, you sat at your desk with the folder, and threw a subtle glance out the window to the garage to make sure Eddie wasn’t watching you lose your mind over two short words exchanged in quick succession.

sounds perfect :)

YOURE PERFECT =)

For the second time since you moved to Hawkins, you had a date. And judging by Eddie’s sway from foot to foot with his hands laced behind his neck and his head hung back, listening to the traffic outside echo off the cement walls, he was thrilled for his second date, too. He dropped into a steady bob at music that wasn’t playing. A too-large grin teased at his mouth as he paced to the motor he was repairing, and bent over it. His boyish excitement spilled like an overpoured mug of coffee into his unabashed giggle, and glance in your direction.

Eyes locked, he didn’t steal your breath. You gave it to him willingly.

————

Saturday’s setting sun was just another audience member to your date night routine. Robin and her mom leaned in the doorway of the bathroom the entire time you were shaving, and due to the opacity of the shower curtain, you were unable to convey your glare to the degree it deserved.

“Well, why doesn’t she wear this instead?”

There was a shock of laughter mixed with Robin’s scoff. “Mom, if she wore that Eddie would pass out on the spot. What if he hit his head, and they had to call an ambulance? You know she can’t drive him to the hospital. No, this bra still gives sex appeal without causing an injury. And besides, calling 9-1-1 would put a damper on them—”

“Rob,” you groaned.

“—spending a wonderful evening together,” she finished.

The thunk of a walking cane neared, and her dad’s hoarse voice sounded from down the hallway, “My! The rowdy Munson boy is getting lucky tonight, is he?” he proposed in a faux British accent after watching BBC nature documentaries all day. “Do you think he’d have dinner with us tomorrow? We haven’t seen him since Robin threw that New Year’s party years ago, and almost set the roof on fire.”

Oh dear God get me out of here.

Once you were finished with your shower, freshly scrubbed and smelling nice, you humored them by wearing the outfit they picked out. It was pretty much what you would’ve worn anyway. A short black skirt made modest by nylon tights to stave off the chill from Eddie’s trailer, and an oversized crocheted cream cardigan with tiny pink flowers, the hem of which hit you at your waist, showing a tempting preview of your stomach when you raised your arms to fix your hair. The pale lavender bra (the reason for their debate), was covered by the aforementioned sweater, and you weren’t sure if the sheerness of the lace mattered much when Eddie’s daughter may be present, or in the next room over. It didn’t occur to you to ask if he’d have Adrie with him, so, such is life. The bra may stay a secret despite their efforts to doll you up. But the sudden realization he may see you in it tonight clenched your stomach with excitement..

The clock struck 5:55, and an ominous roll of thunder put everyone on edge. It electrified nerves, and stood hair on end, setting forth premonitions of bad weather and foul fortune. Doom, it was; and it came, and came, neverending. Except.. It wasn’t thunder. It was Eddie Munson’s brutal music.

His little black car came flying down the road, and swung into the driveway, screeching to a halt heralded by flung rocks spat by his tires, and a flock of songbirds splitting the sky.

And yet?

Charm bowed before Eddie’s easy strut. Pebbles dodged his stride. Clouds of hellish dust evaded the shine on his laced up boots. His tight jeans flaunted the subtle flex of his thighs, and his belt sloped on his narrow hips with each uneven stride, daring the world to stare at the extra length of stiff leather flopping outside the confines of the belt loops, attracting all the attention he desired to the places he wanted.

You were still in the living room struggling with the buckle on your Mary Janes when the intense, raw screams of his heavy metal music stopped, and the muffled guitars faded away. He showed up, shockingly, on time, and you shot out the door before the heavy slants of sun breaching the leafless trees could beat down on his trademark jacket rattling with dainty chains.

“Hey there, sweetness.”

“Hey!” you blurted in a huff, racing down the steps. Flustered by his punctuality, you made the first move of the night by snatching his hand and dragging him away.

Slighted by your absence of drooling over how cool he looked, Eddie grunted in objection, but let himself be steered away. He glanced over his shoulder at the three faces peering at him from the window, and spared them a tentative wave. They were nosy, but not in the unkind way he was used to, and for that, he was thankful.

You apologized at a hurried pace, “Sorry, but if you step foot on the porch, they’re gonna ask you a bazillion questions, and never let us leave.”

“Ah,” he said, short of a laugh, “but let me get the door for you. Wanna impress them.”

“Impress them?” Dregs of sleepy sunlight highlighted the twist of your lips. “You come in here like a bat outta hell, blaring your music loud enough that I’m surprised you’re not hard of hearing, and you’re worried about impressing Bobbie’s parents?”

Refusing to let your fingers slip from his when he felt your grip go weak, he tightened his hold, and opened the car door with his other hand, sidestepping awkwardly to avoid the wide swing, towing you around him.

“Is that so strange?”

“It’s a little strange.”

“Good.” He established the bond of your palm cupped to his until you sank into the red plush passenger’s seat. At the groan of the hinges, and a hard slap on the metal, he finished, “I like being strange—” Punctuated by the door slamming shut. His cackle was far away. Shrieking silence filled your ears, interrupted by your elevated pulse pounding in your chest, and the tink of a pebble pinging the bumper when one was unfortunate enough to come into contact with his boot as he strode around the front of the car with his hands in his back pockets, stretching his shirt over the curve of his stomach.

What a lovely thing he was, truly. To lord the power of sheer captivation over you, and still ground you with a humble gaze and tender smile through a windshield flecked with dirt, as if stealing one of your five senses was a normal feat and returning it to you wasn’t an act of benevolence.

He folded himself into the seat beside you and staggered his legs until he could relax fully into the position, and turned the key in the ignition. His music took residence in the sense he stole. You tensed in anticipation, but it wasn’t offensive. The previous song was ending, and with you being boxed in with the speakers bullying your ears from every angle, you heard the animalistic screams as something more haunting, more beautiful. They were organic. Emotional. Conveying a longing which flowed into the next track; a restrained piece laced with sweltering lines, where each croaky utterance heated your cheeks fiercer and fiercer. Carnal of a different nature.

Intentionally avoiding eye contact with Eddie, you twisted enough to see the carseat behind you was empty. “No Adrie?” you asked to confirm a suspicion.

“She was invited to a sleepover for one of her friend’s birthday parties tonight,” he said.

You reeled at the information, but not for the reason you assumed. “Wait, what? There’re people out there willing to have a hoard of five-year-olds running around their house? Like, with the screaming and everything?”

“Crazy, right? Some people still have their sanity, I guess.” He stamped the gas and clutch, revving the engine with an amused answer poised on his plump lips. “Or enough downers to get them through the night.”

The guitars increased in ferocity, drowning out his wistful reminiscing on such substances helping him through the day, pre-Adrie.

It was then you noticed an interesting detail about his compact car you didn’t fully appreciate last time you were in it: there was no center console. You didn’t need to check. The lack of separation was confirmed by the heat radiating from his heavy palm draped over the gear shift, and the blunt edge of his nails skimming your tights when he clicked the stick into a lower slot, dragging it along your leg. The armrests were raised, and they too touched at the base. It was no surprise when his long hair swept your clothed shoulder as he twisted around to look out the back window and put the car in reverse, avoiding the Buckley’s dented mailbox, and lurching you against the seatbelt.

The lyrics peaked in sultry aggression.

So, no Adrie. “Am I meeting your uncle, then?” Oh, how your question was thin against the strong note the singer held. His wavering timbre penetrated you in waves, releasing a ripple of tingles from head to toe. Creating a change in the tension existing between you and Eddie when he answered in a deeper register.

“No, he’s uh, he’s gone for the weekend,” he said, drumming his rings on the steering wheel, squeezing his fingers over the gear stick to shift it into drive. “Out playing poker with his friends. So, uh, it’s just you and me. S’that cool?”

So, no Adrie, and no uncle.

“Yeah—Yeah, that’s cool,” you replied. Whereas his voice went lower, yours went higher at the acknowledgement. Fainter, wispier. Fluttery with the nerves in your stomach. Restless like butterfly wings beating on gusts at the explicit implication matching the subject matter pumping through the speakers.

Tonight was your first real date with Eddie, in his trailer, alone.

Soon, the dense thicket of rural Hawkins was replaced by houses and population; gone were the fields of deer, and approaching in a blur were stout brick buildings, and stop lights swinging in the slight breeze.

He slowed at the intersection where Family Video’s neon sign struck red over the black pavement, and stopped. Eddie, being an opportunist, saw the boring wait for the light to turn green as fortuitous. It granted him the ability to gaze upon you as he wished, ready to take you in after your rushed greeting. You had robbed him of the movie-esque scene where he’d walk up to your door, knock three times, greet you with a stunning grin and compliment you until you were giggling and swooning in his arms. It was only fair he drank you in now, in the low liquid blue of the early night.

Beyond bewitched, he didn't register how methodically he traced his eyes over your body; devouring details the generous neckline of your cardigan allowed him, reaching the narrow channel of shadow where your bra assisted your chest, and the small gaps the tiny pink flowers woven into the yarn created in the chain loops, gifting him a charitable preview of the delicate lavender beneath. Appreciating how below that, your skirt wrapped your legs snugger than his arms had ever been privileged, and your tights graced skin he’d never felt. Perhaps he even lingered on the strap of your Mary Janes draped around your ankle, wondering if he’d be lucky enough to circle his fingers there one day, too.

Flattery raced your heart. You’d never been the subject of someone’s study to this degree, as if you were artwork to be admired. Not from any of the dates you’d been on, anyway. Not in a meaningful way, consumed wholly by someone you considered a close friend. And not while a man sang about vulgar acts in a gorgeous way.

Eddie remembered to breathe when green flashed in his periphery, and his gaze evened the playing field when he caught you dedicating entire prayers to the indecent crease at his hip and inner thigh where he rested his large palm.

“Baby, you’re beautiful,” he exhaled.

Not you look beautiful. You are beautiful.

Meeting him head-on, you smiled. “I don’t have the lexicon to describe you.” His expression faltered to a confused pinch between his brows, and you reassured him, “Handsome isn’t good enough anymore. Never was. No words are. They need to invent new ones.”

Leaning in, he scrunched his nose, and teased, “You can just call me hot.” Which would’ve been a decent line; imposing himself so near his words caressed the gloss on your lips, and finishing the hard plosive—Hot—with the bite of his charismatic wolfish grin. But the aggravated honks killed the mood.

Two cars behind him laid on their horns, and he was startled into the reality of holding up traffic. You openly laughed at his change in demeanor, at how he scrambled to get the car going before they got angry again, all flustered and stomping too hard on the gas, sending you both slamming backwards in your seats.

“Yeah, real hot stuff you got goin’ on,” you teased in return.

He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he checked the rearview mirror, speeding to put distance between him and the other cars. Dangerously, he slid his gaze to you once more, prioritizing you over the road. “Are you really gonna deny I'm the hottest guy you’ve ever met? Even with all your city boys, actors, and freaks who’ve been on bigger stages than me? Guys who took you to fancy sit-down restaurants in a suit and tie? Men who drone on about finances because they chose a viable career not covered in grease? Are they really hotter than me?”

His tone was flat, and his face neutral, cracking a cavern of curiosity wide within you.

Your instinct was to treat the insecurity as genuine, but the moment you opened your mouth to restore his confidence, he smirked.

“Just kidding, baby,” he broke the act. “I know I’m the favorite.”

Glowing with confidence, he took his hand off the gear shift to jab at your ribs, but he underestimated how thick the crochet was. Instead of tickling you, it was more of a soothing stroke along your side. And he didn’t stop. He kept up the intimate gesture, brushing the fabric with his curled index finger three times. Giggling, himself, at nothing other than his own thoughts.

Gone was the swell of empathy clogging your throat. “My favorite idiot,” you corrected in an exasperated mumble, yet leaning into the shy affection.

The cassette played static, then began a new song. Angsty still, but not quite as on the nose as the last. This, along with another dig at each other, eased the pressure preventing you two from relaxing into the evening. The awareness revealing itself in nervous glances and dry swallows digressed into your normal dynamic as friends with the benefit of flirty innocence without the stress of expectations. Those motives could stay locked between your clenched thighs, and aching against his jean’s zipper. Tonight was the first foray into real time together, and if you watched movies and it ended there with no moves made, or romantic elements explored, then so be it. There wouldn't be any unnecessary impatience, or snap decisions made to cross those final platonic boundaries if one of you chickened out. This date would be perfect, regardless.

Right?

You could endure another day of him acting confident in front of others, only for him to buckle under the pressure and pussy out before kissing you, right?

..Right?

Whatever. The night was young, and oh, how Eddie’s giddiness for spending time with you emerged. The instant he arrived at the trailer, he jammed his thumb into the seat belt latch and commanded you to stay put. Naturally, this didn’t go without a snort from you, but it escalated to true laughter when he stumbled out of the car, and sprinted around the front in a flustered jangle of chains beating on jeans, only to play it off as cool once he reached your side and opened your door for you. “You’re silly,” you commented. His chest rose with a panting breath, and his lips jumped into a playful smirk at his own oddities. He stepped back, and swept his arm in a classic bow.

The friction burn from the seat belt slipping through your grip was balmed by the chilled leather beneath your fingers when he offered his elbow to you. You set your heeled shoes on the uneven ground, and wobbled on the deep tire tracks scoring the dried mud, and again, he was twisting this way and that, trying to figure out the best gentlemanly way to help you balance. Not that his brave palm on the small of your back wasn’t warranted in the treacherous battle of shadows in the underripe evening, but even you couldn’t stop your snicker when he, too, met you with a side-ways glance.

“Nervous?” you asked, bringing attention to the situation for what it was.

“Me? Nervous?” He arched his eyebrows up, then brought them into a swift furrow. “Nah, never. I’m just making sure my girl doesn’t twist her ankle before I get to cook for her on our second date,” he ended with a suggestive tone, canting his head to yours. Foreheads near.

Ah, the buzzing of springtime bees was trembling your fingers again, gripping him when the hive in your stomach fed honey to your hungry heart, pumping, pumping a sugar rush.

Acknowledgements. His girl. Cooking. Second date.

He was sweet. And you were trapped in the sticky nectar thrumming in your veins. It was a futile effort, after all, to convince yourself you two could act as normal friends do around each other. Truly, you lost that war when you inclined your head to his, and divulged in the same grin he wore.

“Cook for me?” you repeated in a voice of ambrosia, which he partook.

“Mhmm,” he hummed amongst the drone of television programs filtered through bug screened windows. “I wanna watch movies with you, cook you somethin’ nice, and remind you that I’m not the guy I was at the movie theater—” He flinched at the last part, accepting your weak slap to his chest. Pleased with himself for finally swooning you, he trained his gaze on your giggly sway, and squinched his eyes with mirth.

“Eddie, I’m well aware you’re not that guy.”

“Oh?” he lilted. “But aren’t I? Still got the outdated haircut, stick in the mud attitude, and leather jacket.”

You slipped a finger beneath the jacket, and poked at the macabre skull on his tee. “Got a different shirt, though. Last time you were wearing a rattlesnake, now it’s..?”

“Metallica,” he finished. A softer expression deepend his dimple. There may have been a particular meaning behind it you were missing, but he didn’t share. “Good memory, but may I also bring to your attention that it’s fucking freezing out here?”

Overcome by a shiver, you retracted your prodding, and he removed his hand from your lower back. The warmth was sorely missed. You agreed, it was fucking freezing and pantyhose were not a replacement for snow pants.

Eddie jostled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door for you to enter first, trailing behind you with a welcome to his humble abode, as if you hadn’t been there several times before. But you supposed the circumstances were different when he showed you in, and a certain coziness defrosted your cheeks. The trailer was lit by a singular lamp in the living room and the nightlight from the bathroom. An electric radiator generated heat near the armrest where his pillow stayed, and at the other end of the couch was a messy pile of blankets in varying textures and thickness. A stack of three VHSes sat on the coffee table near a collection of never-used cork coasters. In the kitchen, a spread of groceries occupied the counter, along with a page from a magazine, but Eddie stole your attention before you could puzzle together the ingredients he laid out.

“So, which one do you wanna start with first?” Eddie asked, drawing your gaze to the VHSes fanned in his palms, fingers stretched wide to contain the movies.

Subtly, he wiggled the one on the end. The green HORROR sticker on the cover appeared new; unblemished, without creases or dirt. You recognized the drippy blood stylized title as the same one printed in the local newspaper warning mothers of its gore and perversions. Less subtly, he darted his eyes to it, and made encouraging noises while presenting it closer to you. It's not like you cared what order you watched his surprise selection in, so you went with the new release he was most eager for, as opposed to the other schlocky B movies.

“Sweet!”

Adorably, he told you to make yourself at home, and you both found yourselves bumping into each other in the entryway. You bent to unbuckle your shoes, and he shrugged off his jacket. Maybe you swung your knee into his shin, and he flopped the leather sleeve atop your head in retaliation. And when you stood, he jabbed his elbow into your arm before kneeling to untie his boots, and you picked a long, curly auburn hair off your sweater, holding it out and away from you as if it were revolting. “Is this what it’s like living with you?” you asked with an excessive amount of mock disgust.

“‘Fraid so,” he consoled, looking up at you as he worked the knot out of his laces. “At least—until I go bald.”

You tilted your head as you tried to picture him without his wild haircut, and after some consideration (and curious fingers kept laced tight to discipline yourself from running them through his curls to test the tamability of such rowdy layers cut without rhyme or reason), you concluded, “I think you’d still be the most attractive person I’ve ever met.”

His expression widened at your honesty. Pushing himself upright, he rocked side to side as he toed off his boots, and stepped beyond them, narrowing the distance between his ego and your lifted eyebrow. “Most attractive? Yeah?”

Before his head swelled to hot air balloon status from a compliment he pried out of you, you stopped him.

“Bald or not, you’re still Eddie,” you expressed. “And that’s what I like about you the most; your Eddieness. Regardless of your hair, you’re still that guy that’s willing to trip over his own feet so he can open a door for me.. and cook for me, apparently.”

You drove your gaze to the ingredients on the counter, but he distracted you from venturing into that part of the date.

“Uh-uh-uh,” he tsked. “Movie first, then dinner. I’ve been wanting to see this one, so make yourself comfortable. Get some blankets too, I know the radiator sucks.” The warmth it gave off rarely brought circulation to his toes when he was sleeping, much less kept him from shivering on the windy nights. “Lemme get us something to drink, and I’ll put on the movie.” He chose to fill two bright red plastic glasses with water and bring them to the coffee table. They were the type of textured cup one would find at a pizzeria, and he set them directly on the wood, because why bother with coasters when most of the varnish had been worn away over the years.

Water itself shouldn’t be a surprise, but the fact he chose it over beer stood out.

Interesting. You made yourself snuggly as instructed, and sat in the middle of the couch where two cushions met. Amongst the pile, you picked the thick blue and white striped comforter, and draped it over your not-quite-numb legs. He crouched in front of the TV, and popped open the VHS case, brushing his calluses over the frosted plastic cover, and shut the case with a satisfying snap. Lining the movie up with the VCR slot, he pushed on the flap, and it was accepted into the mouth of the machine—kuh-chunk, slide, whirring reels, a fuzzy high-pitched noise—staticy snow played, then the first commercial started, flickering a woman’s face mid-scream across the screen.

Eddie turned off the lamp, and in the sudden darkness, he slid his socked feet in timid steps across the carpet to avoid a pinky toe colliding with the coffee table, and he fell into place next to you.

The cushions sank with your combined weight. The seams separating you clashed. Hip, thigh, shoulder. Layers of clothing blazed from the heat of his proximity, setting fire to your cheeks. You weren’t touching, not really, not yet, and you both stared at each other with lips slightly parted.

Your voice went unnaturally airy as you offered him the blanket, “Want some?”

And his voice was lost to the sensation of his bare arm making contact with your sweater.

He nodded.

Predictable for the genre, the next commercial advertised a pair of tits before the camera cut away, and the woman was assumed to be brutally stabbed by a masked serial killer.

He shifted. You shifted.

The comforter slid across your lap. He stole the warm pocket of air you were generating for yourself, and replaced it with the cold half of the blanket. It may have been an innocent movement, but him yanking it caused you to press against him more than you already were. His arm went rigid with tensed muscles the further you sloped into the crevice where the cushions met, stiffening against your soft body like a brick wall you had no choice but to lean on. You tried to help the situation by breaking the silence between the next commercial.

“Do you want to know another Eddieness I find endearing?”

During the first part of your sentence he didn’t react. He watched the TV; jaw tight but not clenched; it was only on the last word did he turn his head, and set those big eyes of his on you.

You went ahead and answered, “It’s how shy you are.”

The hint of a deeper emotion eased from his gaze when he closed his eyes in a slow blink, and raised his brows, processing what you said. “’M not shy.” His smile grew at that, stretching half his mouth in shadow, making his nose appear larger, rounder.

“And awkward.”

“I’m not awkward,” he complained, tone soft and playful.

Lit by the soft grain of the movie starting on a scene of a young boy running inside pitch-black house, Eddie’s eyelashes clung to the remnants of light, curling longer, and longer. His lips lifted at the corners, testing a sneakier grin at the idea of you finding him both shy, and awkward. Words he hadn’t heard in years. Descriptors he would’ve called himself when he was still in high school and dipping his toe in the dating pool, but not since then. Not since he dabbled in liquid courage at parties and gained some experience from the confidence alcohol afforded him.. and lost when he discovered the consequences of acting impulsively, and his casual assuredness was ripped from him when his daughter was born.

Or, yeah, maybe he was always shy and awkward as you presumed, he just didn’t care about people’s opinions when he wasn’t invested in starting a future with them. Which was fine by him, you could call him dorky if you wanted, because here he was in the midst of a boyish rush of adrenaline when the lack of stressful music coming from the TV became ominous, and the excitement of his plan working vibrated in his chest.

“Oh! And you’re—” Whatever adjective you were about to use was bitten short.

Paying more attention to him than the movie, you missed the build up of the masked killer’s reflection in a mirror, and were caught off guard by the boy’s sudden blood curdling scream trilling above the heart-racing violin screeches. It wasn’t even a good jumpscare—totally predictable—but you still jolted from it.

Eddie lurched into a devious smirk. “Movie getcha, pretty girl?”

It was your turn to be defensive. You pouted, “No. It just surprised me, is all.”

“Aw, come on,” he implored in a gravelly urge. Under the thinning comforter, between the mountains of compacted cotton from overwashing it, there was movement, and the unmistakable contact of the back of his hand on your nylon tights. He bumped you once. “Here, if it’s that scary, you can hold my hand, okay?”

As snarky as his teeth glinted, as teasing as his words were, both of your chests rose with a mutual suspended breath.

This was the line. The barrier. The emotional boundaries were dust, only the physical ones remained. He invited you over them as gingerly as a grown adult man could when on his first true date in years, and the fresh fear of making a move on his crush spiked his rejective-sensitive nerves.

“Yeah, you’re right,” you exhaled. Holding his gaze with the same fondness which existed in your heart, you found the edge of his hand after some sightless venturing. At the graze of skin on skin, you dropped your head to the side, and appealed to him, “It’s so scary.” Across the room, the TV played a calm, serene daytime scene with birds chirping in the background. “So terribly scary,” you repeated, facetiously pitiful. “There’s no way I’ll get through to the end all on my lonesome.”

But rather than hold hands perfectly between the both of you like the pious churchgoing teenagers you’d felt yourselves become, you went in for the kill.

Drawing back, you wedged your fingers between his arm and his ribs, and after a beat, he understood and lifted his elbow. You snaked your hand along his forearm, and down to his awaiting palm. His jeans were rough; his palm was too, torn asunder by his trade to ensure a roof over his and his family’s head, but the spaces between were softer. Love gentled the joints digging into your bones. Your fingers had to stretch to accommodate him, and the wintery dryness pulled at your unlotioned knuckles, but the twinge was forgotten when you focused on your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand.

You dragged your attention away from the entanglement of your selves finding a missing half under the blanket, and searched his face. His eyes flicked from the same knot stirring under the comforter, and the wrinkles in his expression flourished. He thinned his lips into a tight smile. His cheeks were never that full, but there was a roundness there you’d give anything to discover by touch. You’d been closer to him before, like in the kitchen when you counted his freckles after your painfully geeky dagger innuendo, but if you leaned in any further, your vision would blur.

An obvious awkwardness dwelled in the intimacy of your entwined arms, and tensed bodies.

“So, so scary,” you promised during the exposition dialogue taking place on a sunny morning between the characters eating cornflakes at a large dining table. “I’ll probably have to cling onto you the entire time with my eyes shut.”

His voice cracked high pitched, “Yeah?” Feathery soft, on the verge of disappearing altogether. “Guess I’ll have to be the brave one, then.”

“So very brave,” you said, sweet as sugar.

He snorted whereas you giggled, converging with heads together, and a laugh shared, hands held so very bravely. A breakthrough. One second at a time, you melded into his shadows, as you belonged. You angled yourself toward him and tucked your legs onto the couch, freely huddling your knees against his thigh. Your joined hands were nudged onto his leg more, and the clasp became sticky from perspiration. That was okay. There was a thrill in being the reason each other sweated. He curled in his fingers harder, nesting them between the peaks of your knuckles, and you returned the honor by hooking your fingers between his, lightly squeezing him back. One second at a time, he sought your sunshine, as he belonged. He made sure the pressure of his arm and elbow boxing yours in against his side wasn’t painful, slouching a bit so the top of his leather belt wasn’t digging into your forearm. He was thoughtful that way. Concerned for you and your comfort. Didn’t matter if his lower back would be killing him by the end of the first movie, you were wrapping your free hand around his bicep and rubbing your thumb under the short sleeve of his shirt, back and forth. Back and forth. Then, you were resting the side of your head on his shoulder.

He heard you—felt you—inhale deep. Why? Was it to fill your lungs with the scent of his deodorant, the cheap cologne he spritzed at his chest, the drip of Old Spice aftershave on his shirt collar? Was any of that better than oxygen?

Curious, he tilted his head as if something in the movie had him stumped, and he put his nose to the top of your hair, and took a small breath.

A different shampoo than usual hit him first, but below that, clinging to your clothes, was the smell of Robin’s home. He was struck with the thought of what his home smelled like. Was it good? Bad? Could, over time, over months, over difficult questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask, could maybe by the end of summer your two homes combine to make one unique scent?

That would be the dream. And a dream, it may remain. But what a lovely reality it would be; you staying, and your scents mixing to create a new one.

So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t predict the fake-out jumpscare of a murder of crows taking flight after an eerie bout of silence, and he was the one to flinch.

“Aw, movie too scary for ya, big guy?” you cooed.

Eddie sealed his lips in a frown, and tucked his chin to create the maximum amount of wrinkles when he looked down at you. “Maybe a little. Good thing I have you here with me, though. Right?”

You nodded most ardently, squishing your cheek over his scorpion tattoo—just another place on his body you made your home—and grinned up at him.

“Of course, babe.” You called him babe. He smiled so fucking hard. “I’m here if you ever need me to hold your hand.”

You squeezed.

He squeezed back.

Scenes went by on the tiny TV across the room beyond the condensation pebbling on the plastic cups threatening to fall on the coffee table where Adrie’s box of crayons spilt into her coloring book. A story unfolded in the flash of blade, a clatter of piano keys, and a quiet neighborhood who knew no better. The movie played, but neither of you paid attention.

Your gaze was keen to the way his lips stayed parted after he licked them. His gaze was invested in your expression, how you viewed him with such kindness he was seldom shown. A tenderness he was rarely given. He tried to show you the same sincerity, but your eyes were fixated on his mouth.

Self-conscious, he asked, “Is there something on my—?” He rubbed the back of his wrist over lips.

You answered him with a belittling pat on his chest. “No, big guy. You’re good.”

Your tone didn’t sound ‘good,’ but you pulled the blanket up to your chin, and laid your head on his shoulder again, wrapping your other hand around his bicep until your fingers were stuffed between his arm and side. He interpreted your change in mood as a signal the conversation was over, and put his eyes on the movie. Though, his brain was busy toiling over why you were staring at him, and wondering if the pats on his chest were still echoing beneath your ear, or if it was simply his heart threatening to strangle him from the angst of not understanding if he did something wrong already.

At least he was holding your hand like a real boyfriend would. That had to count for something.. Right?

~~~

The credits rolled, and neither of you moved until you pointed out a name scrolling by, and a laugh so akin to a man being punched in the gut wheezed out of him, it caused you to erupt into your own embarrassing goose honk laugh, causing you to both double over in a fit.

Somehow, his nose was nuzzled to your hair. His inhale was cool on your scalp, and his words were a humid huff. “Bart Horsedick,” he said, “Whatta name.”

“You should name a character after him in DND.”

“Mm! You know what? I will. He’ll be a local legend with all the ladies, and tries to charm his way into the party by constantly making passes at the girls. Erica will kill him for sure.”

With a groan and a wince, he sat up straighter, and you lifted your head off his shoulder, making similar complaints about your neck. It was tough work being brave during the scary parts for each other, regardless if neither of you were paying enough attention to care about the reveals.

He asked, “How’d you like the movie? Even that last scene kinda got me.”

“Yeah, it was good,” you answered in the same tone, searching for anything to say that wasn’t, If you don’t kiss I’m going to fucking scream. “I wasn’t expecting the second killer to be the news reporter. That was kinda cool. And that final death was super gory, with the guts ‘nd all, but uh, I’m starving, and ready for something campy.”

Heeding his lady’s request, Eddie dashed around the room, turning on a few of the eclectic lamps, and jabbed the backwards arrow button on the VCR until the movie was playing in reverse at a hilarious speed. “Be kind, rewind, y’know.” Once it clicked, he took the tape out, and put the next one in.

You followed him into the kitchen where the groceries were laid out on the counter. Some were things he already had, like the half-empty bottle of olive oil, and two government supplied cans of vegetable stock, but from the fridge he added an unopened tub of butter, a container of mushrooms, and a wedge of parmesan cheese. He put them beside the onion, fresh sprigs of parsley, and special bag of rice. Ingredients he bought specifically for a meal he didn’t know how to make, but knew it was impressive, and wanted to try cooking it for you.

You picked up the magazine clipping and raised your eyebrows at the recipe.

He fidgeted, spinning his rings. His voice was hesitant; falling back on self-deprecating humor as a crutch, “I know you’ve probably been to France, or, uhh, Italy or whatever,” he guessed, “and’ve learned from experts on how to make it perfectly, but I thought maybe I’d give it an attempt and hope it turns out edible. Just forgive my shit knife skills, and if I pour too much broth, or don’t stir it the exact number of rotations, or some pretentious bullshit like that,” he finished, gaze solidly on the floor, toeing at a scuff on the vinyl to occupy himself. “‘M not exactly a chef outside a can of Boyardee, so..”

Some of his mumbling was lost on you as you read the bottom of the page. Narrowing your eyes at the title printed beside a number in the corner, you put your fist on your hip. “Edward Munson.” He snapped out his worrying at the use of his full name. “Did you rip this out of one of my lobby magazines at work?”

He rolled his lips inward to curb his grin. “No, no, of course not, dear,” he promised, finding it the most opportune moment to turn away, and organize the ingredients in no practical order.

“I swear if I go to work Monday and find Better Homes and Gardens missing page 57—”

“Okay, okay—I’ll tape it back in, but give me some credit, will ya? I didn’t rip it out like some animal.. I cut it out neatly with scissors.” He eyed your harmless smirk, and plucked the mushroom risotto recipe from between your fingers. “Now, if you’d like to get out of my hair, you may,” he said, gesturing at the TV with a knife. “Skedaddle. Go watch the movie.”

“You don’t want me to help? Or at least to keep you company?”

It wasn’t often he was tripped up on what to say, so when his mouth hinged on a mute excuse to get you to leave, you registered what he was going on about earlier, and shook your head.

“Wait, Eddie, I worked in kitchens prepping vegetables when the cooks were too drunk to come in on time because they went home with some random woman from a bar, and were too hungover to know what day it was. That’s why I’m like, okay-ish with a knife. You don’t really think I’d judge you for how you chop an onion, do you?”

A few words were stammered. You shushed him from bothering.

If his confidence had trouble surfacing when everything was out in the open and not hidden under a blanket, then you’d give him another nudge; a single stroke of your knuckle along the monster tattooed on his tricep. The muscle reacted to you, flexing the wyvern’s clawed feet. You did it again. And again. Pinching his sleeve and tugging at it, doing all the cutesy, flirty things you’d learned over the years, including dropping your gaze to his pretty pink lips. Employing your best strategies, you laid it on thick; swaying your hips, and bringing in your arms to frame your chest. “You could heat me up a can of Chef Boyardee, and it’d be the best meal I’ve ever had, as long as I got to share it with you.”

Shy, shy, shy. He brought his shoulder up and ducked his face from your view, giggling at your heavy adulation. “You don’t have to flatter me like that,” he mumbled, sounding not unlike he was wrapped in a ball of lovesick yarn. Overly smitten, ooey gooey with the warm fuzzies in his chest. So very, very adorable, sneaking a glance at you with an unbelieve amount of precious crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

How sweet.

It’d be sweeter if he could take the hint and share those kinds of things with you, but you could be patient and wait until he was ready. Again..

Just.. keep making everything so obvious for him, and try to ignore the sting of rejection when the guy you’ve liked for months finally invites you over for a date, and still won’t kiss you.

At least you were saved from the worst of your downward spiral by the bad B movie and its body melting scene.

“Ooh!” Eddie pushed the cutting board away. “That effect was really cool!”

Since he was already making his way to the TV, you trailed at his heels, and crouched beside him, sinking to your knees while he pressed the rewind button, and clicked Stop/Play twice. The lead up to the moment played again. You sat in anticipation, wholly aware you’d just watched this interaction between the college girls putting their best effort into delivering their lines, only for them to fall flat when their acting was off the charts horrendous. Eddie regarded them with the same sort of awkwardness, rotating his hand in hurried circles until one of them got obliterated into a goopy pile of human remains, and you began to dissect the undulating puddle of sludge.

“How do you think they made that one?” he whispered, mesmerized. “The way it pulses like that?”

“I think it’s from a balloon inflating beneath it. Watch the way the flesh cracks, and the blood oozes out. I think it’s something like that pushing it up from under.”

He hummed, and rewound the tape a few seconds. “Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean,” he said, tapping his finger on the thick curved glass. “And look at that bone. It actually looks like a charred, brittle skeleton instead of those cheap femurs everyone gets at the party store for Halloween.” You also agreed with him in a hum. The extra touches of effort were impressive for a low budget film like this.

The movie continued inches from your eyes. You rested on your calves, flattening the plush carpet under your shins. The harsh fibers were dulled by your pantyhose, and if this was a spot Eddie had to scrub clean after Adrie spilled juice, you weren’t aware of the stain; you were only aware of the hair-raising sensation of being watched.

You directed your attention to Eddie’s pointed stare on the side of your face, about to ask if there was a reason behind his adamant inspection when—

He dropped his gaze to your lips.

Sparks ignited behind your ribcage. Hopefulness latched onto each long second wherein he resisted flicking his eyes back to the screen. Each passing breath a choice to follow the gentle curve of your mouth, and stay there to revel in the simple pleasure of studying the unspoken language evolving between you two, sinking into his own warm grin for you to decipher. He was still crouching on the balls of his feet, and you had to wonder if he leaned over to kiss you now, would he lose his balance and cause you both to fall to the floor? Would he catch the back of your head in his palm to soften the crash? Would his hips fit perfectly between your legs? Would his jeans drag along your inner thighs? Would he whimper when you held him? Would he grind down on you at the first sign of reciprocation? Would he already be hard?

Your thigh muscles ached at the racing thoughts, clenched so tight in response to the needy throb between them.

Was the unspoken language shouting now?

Eddie’s throat bobbed on a stuttered exhale; his chest shook at fractions of his inhale, as if he was experiencing the same tightness there from the rosy desire blooming so greatly, struggling to cope with the oxygen in his lungs when there were far sweeter things they’d rather be filled with. “I—” He stopped. “I read a review on the back of the box that said this movie was scary too,” he informed you in whisper, right when a godawful green alien appeared and shot the worst CGI laser you’d ever seen from your peripheral vision. “Better hang out with me in the kitchen, where we can keep each other safe.”

You urged your yearning away from his mouth to the neon colors of a spaceship glancing off his cheeks, to his large nose, to the tips of his bangs skimming his eyebrows, to the bags under his eyes, and finally, you caught the last moments of him roaming your features with utmost care before your gazes locked.

The floor beneath him creaked.

Briefly, you considered closing your eyes.

The carpet flattened in a muffled rustle.

Briefly, you considered uttering his name.

The dry air in the room vanished with his humid huff coasting over your forehead.

Briefly, you considered begging him when he pushed off his knees, stumbled slightly towards you, and stood, offering you a helping hand.

He said, “Gotta make this dinner for you before I starve, sweetness.”

Kissless, you fought against your inner bitterness, and accepted his fingers. To hide your wilting resilience, you put a swing of vigor in your voice, and happiness on your face. “Yeah, watching hot blondes perish into goo really makes one hunger for sloppy rice with mushrooms.”

Well, at least you could always make him laugh.

~~~

Onion skin crunched under Eddie’s heavy chop. The papery layer was discarded. Laying the halves on the textured cutting board, he dragged the knife in long slices out from the root, then rotated to dice it into cubes. He blinked away fresh tears, and beside him, you scraped the sweated mushrooms into a bowl, and placed the pan back on the burner for him to sweep his prepped vegetables into. They sizzled on impact. You stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, and made sure nothing seared to the bottom.

Steam rose from the bowl of cooked mushrooms. Slippery oil slicked their surface, adding to the smells of onion and garlic. Condensation fogged the tiny window above the sink. The rice began to toast. A burnt popcorny, yet pleasantly floral fragrance mixed with the sour note of cheap white wine bubbling down to nothing, and salty splashes of broth.

Mostly, the continuous stirring was done passively because you were both watching the movie from across the room. When it was your turn at the stove, you grasped the skillet handle and moved the spoon around in some sort of pattern, but your upper body was twisted towards the TV. When it was his turn, you took his place at the wrap around counter, bending over to rest your forearms on it, savoring his body heat baked into the surface under your palms before it faded and was replaced by your own.

The last VHS was inserted. No commercials on this older tape.

You grated the last of the cheese into the rice, and tipped in the mushrooms. Behind you, there were two metallic latch sounds followed by two loud bangs. Eddie sucked in a hiss, and apologized. You were too busy portioning out the risotto to see what in the world he was doing, but the sharp clicks of his lighter were distinct, as was the notch turns of the unnecessary lamps being turned off, casting you in dimmed ambiance.

Garnishing the meal with parsley, you scooped up the bowls and turned.

“Ta-da,” he said meekly, opening up his arms with weak pizazz.

You were stunned at the effort.

The collapsable ends of the green table hung by their hinges, making the surface area impossibly intimate. On top, there were three lit candlesticks to set the mood, and underneath, the seats of the chairs almost touched. The whole thing was incredibly sweet. Thoughtful. Endearing. He had trouble meeting your eye.

Eddie glanced at the unscented candles burning bright for practicality’s sake. The first wet drip of wax joined the others melted down the side since the last time he used them when the power went out. Not exactly romantic. “Has, uhm, anyone made you risotto before?” he asked, and tacked on, “At home?” when the fear of not being the first smacked the words out of him.

“No,” you stated. “No one's ever done something so sweet for me.”

His lower lip twitched, and he ran his tongue over his teeth to quell the giddiness from exploding. And to stop himself from celebrating too soon.

As you carried the bowls towards his attempt to recreate a fine dining experience, he tried to push aside the thoughts of inadequacy—the candles, the fact he couldn’t take you to a real restaurant, the flowers he decided against because he no longer had a vase, the nagging voices in his head that told him this whole idea was stupid—and instead, he focused on anything else. Anything, anything else.

“Here, lemme help you, sweet—Ow, ow, ow, ow—Jesus, do you have hands of steel or somethin’?” The candles wobbled when he dropped the bowl on the table, and you both froze as they teetered back and forth, praying your second date didn’t go up in literal flames.

When they came to a rest, you both sighed.

“Hands of steel, huh?” you mused. “I think they feel kinda soft compared to yours.”

Quickfire, he picked up on the age-old flirt you used on him months ago (back when he was dumb, and genuinely thought he was the one flirting with you by suggesting you come back to him when you found a spider as big as his palm), and he concurred, “Maybe we need to compare them again. Y’know, really get in there and make sure I have the toughest hands in the Midwest.” Adopting a southern drawl, he stuffed his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, and puffed out his chest. “Can’t let a lil’ lady who answers phones with ‘Yellow?’ have stronger hands than me, now can we?”

You pinged him with a wry expression twinged with cringe, and sat down, scooting your chair in, and looking up at him still standing. “You are so pitifully dorky.”

“I sure am, sweetheart,” he said proudly, falling into the chair across from you.

Your knees collided under the table; bone on bone due to his inability to wear jeans without holes in them. They knocked painfully, and while he did remember to apologize when you winced, he was distracted by the silly notion that his bare knees were the second body part to make contact with your tights. The back of his hand during the movie didn’t lend much to his senses, now he had a better feel of the texture, and how it rubbed against his skin. A strangely marvelous thing. And he was getting ahead of himself, sure, but he wondered how your tights must feel under the same rugged palm he was offering to you upturned on the table while below, his thoughts were erring away from respectful visions of circling his thumb over your knee cap while you were stretched across the couch with your legs in his lap, to something he felt unworthy to ask for.

Oh, but how he ached to be the one who was trusted to keep you warm when you were undressed..

Your chair squeaked. You changed the position to where your legs were bracketed by his wide spread. Perfect, because he brought in his stance and crossed his ankles behind yours, locking your thighs and calves between his, as if you were his possession, unable to escape. Indulging him, you giggled, and squirmed to the edge of your seat, taking his hand. His right, your left. A polite union of criss-crossed fingers. Mountainous calluses mapped against rolling hills of satin. Flickering candlelight dancing off the silver band of his ring. Kind, and sweet.

He gripped his spoon in an unnatural way, dragging it through the risotto, and bumping the ceramic.

“I can hold your other hand,” you offered, motioning at where you could link his non-dominant hand in the space between your bowls.

His voice was made of mushy tenderness, but his clipped tone left no room for argument, “Nah, I like it this way.” If you didn’t understand why yet, you did when you traced his gaze to his wrist. The beads had shifted from where they dug into his flesh. Squares from the blocky letters left indents in his skin, as did the corners of star beads interspersed throughout the round ones. Opposite D-A-D-D-Y, your sleeve was bunched up from cooking, baring the precious nickname M-O-U-S-E.

Your eyelids fell half-closed. The fondness on your lips wasn’t a result of the risotto—as delicious as the first bite was—no, the sentiment was much too darling. Almost as if you could hear the dormant vocabulary you awoke running hot in his veins. My girl, my girl, my girl is wearing the matching bracelet my daughter made for us, and I’ve never wanted anything more than another excuse to call you my girl out loud; I want it so bad I could cry.

“You did such a good job on this,” you complimented the risotto after taking another bite.

Fate. “It only tastes good because I had my girl’s help.” Under no circumstance was he about to make eye contact after saying that. In fact, he avoided sound altogether when he angled his spoon so he wouldn’t scrape it along his teeth a second time, and blew on the porridge-like rice before sliding the richness over his tongue, alighting his mouth with mellowed complexities for such unassuming ingredients. As he ate, he listened to you eat too. As he glanced, you glanced too. As he embellished his grin with a secret, you snuck in one of your own through the mysterious sharpness in your eyes boring into his too. He didn’t question it, didn’t breathe, didn’t make a sound above the panicked yelling happening in the movie in the other room; for now, he was content with holding your hand and calling you his girl.

The pressure to continue conversation waned.

He squeezed.

You squeezed back.

~~~

Dinner was finished in cherished bites. The movie was in the process of concluding, as most of the cast had been killed off by the time Eddie uncrossed his ankles and released you. He blew out the candles and stood, already regretting the act when the imprint of your body faded from his between his legs.

While he filled the sink with soapy water, you put away the forgotten ingredients, and wiped up the counter with a wet rag in absentminded circles, thoroughly invested in the slasher’s “forest chase scene” probably filmed in someone’s mom’s backyard.

Once the frothy bubbles sloshed to the rim with each dish put in, and the clammy air was brightened by the scent of blue Dawn liquid soap, Eddie rolled the stretchy bracelet up his forearm and began dunking the glass cup used for measuring the broth. He ran his hand around the inside to rid it of the gritty residue left behind. Dipping the thin washcloth, he submerged his hands up to his wrists in skin prickling hot water, and brought the cup out, exposing his chafed knuckles to the sting of cold air. He washed it, rinsed it under even colder water, and handed it off to you. You toweled it dry, and put it in the cupboard next to the fridge.

Over and over, he washed, you dried. He washed, you dried.

Routine, monotonous, robotic and quiet.

Outer input died away. No more movie, no more hot water, no more spoken conversation, no more meaningful glances, nor more intimate nicknames, no more inappropriate touches stolen under the guise of a drunken night. Just his thoughts, insecurities, anxieties, and hopes and the instant foreboding stress wrenching his stomach with fear of those hopes never coming true.

The air was thick with awareness.

You were in his home. The date was coming to an end, and so was his bravery. This was his chance, and he was letting it slip by him. Again.

He’d run out of excuses. Or rather, he reasoned with the excuses, and now he was facing the real problem. All the stuff from months ago about him not knowing if you liked him, your flighty lifestyle, the dynamic of being coworkers and worrying if it’d make things weird, the conversation he never had with Adrie; forgoing divulging his hobbies, his music, or his past with you because he didn’t see the point; those things he conquered. Those things no longer bothered him. Those things had answers putting them to rest.

Now, there was nothing keeping him from pursuing you except his own inhibitions..

Sad, how even when he had the courage to get this far with you, the differences in your lives served as a reminder he was just a poor boy from Indiana whose greatest aspiration was owning a trailer of his own so his uncle could have his room back. You had a drama degree—hell, you went to college in the first place. You had real dreams, and achieved semblances of those dreams before coming to Hawkins. A star as bright as you shouldn’t have to peter out in a town in the middle of nowhere. You needed the city to thrive, to perform on stage again. It was your calling, wasn’t it? Munson wasn’t calling you like your previous life, was it? You spoke of your accomplishments so highly. Would you ever learn to speak of him that way? Would he, one day, become one of your stories? A memory you moved on from?

Or did he deserve to ask you to give up everything you loved and earned to settle down in a dead-end shithole that hated him, and help him raise a child that wasn’t yours, tying yourself to his reputation forever?

What if he asked those things of you? Would you say ‘yes’?

Shit.

While the sea of doubt churned in his head, he rinsed off the ceramic bowl you used to eat from, and blinked the sting from his eyes after staring off into space for too long. He waited to hand it to you until you had put a pan away in the lower cabinet under the wrap-around counter, and accepted the bowl, drying it off and ping-ponging to the other side of the kitchen to the upper cabinet above the toaster. You didn’t have to guess. You knew exactly where it went. You were familiar with the precise drawer the spatula went in, next to the cutlery one where you tossed in the spoons. There was a beautiful domesticity to it all; washing dishes with you as if it were a nightly occurrence. Like you lived here. Together. You, him, Adrie, and his uncle—preferably not in that arrangement, and not in this trailer, but the vision.. the vision was there. You and him rejecting the bullshit small town mentality, and creating a life in Hawkins you could both be proud of, free from strife. A do-over, in a way, with you at his side, and his daughter on your hip.

The pit of self-loathing in his stomach yawned.

Those idyllic fantasies were too much to ask for. Too much to even risk speaking out loud. He could feel the rejection welling up behind his eyes as it were, wobbling at his bottom lip. The crushing reality of being a lonely single dad with nothing to offer—

You slammed the cabinet door shut, and tossed the towel aside. “So, are we gonna pick up where that phone call left off, or not?”

Eddie stilled under your loaded stare.

You remembered you remembered you remembered—

“If you adore me so much..” you added.

Jolted into action, the last dish slipped from his fingers, splashing and bouncing sluggishly off the bottom of the sink. Adrenaline hit him in droves. Frantic stings of want pushed him forward. Chores were forgotten. Mind blank. The soft thuds of his stride thundered off the thin walls. Pace quickened. Pulse beating in his throat. Vice grip on his heart. Months, weeks, days, hours of keeping his starvation alive through longing looks and inside jokes and hands brushing hands in fragile innocence, denying the vital comfort he craved to experience with the one person who made him feel special; the yearning reached its peak.

Predatory hunger rushed color to his cheeks at the remarkable sight of his dearest dream going slack with surprise.

He secured his fate with his arm wrapped around your waist, sweeping his hand upwards and dragging your cardigan with it. Water dripped to his elbows, cooling the wicked fever igniting his skin. He poured his strength into bringing you into him at the same time he stepped into you, forcing you back, back, back until the distance keeping you apart was eliminated, caging you where you gave him his final nudge beyond the brink of composure. His hips coaxed you side to side. His legs boxed you in where he commanded. Each motion pressed his strong, needy body to yours, driving the edge of the countertop into your lower back. Sway by sway, a dance of insurmountable patience built over months met its breaking point. You went pliant for him. No fight, only a small noise when he engulfed you in his aggressive embrace.

You gathered the hem of his shirt in your weak fists. His sudden leap over the platonic line broke goosebumps across your exposed midriff, tightening your nipples against the delicate lavender lace. The tremble in your knees was juxtaposed by his steady hand tilting your face up to his.

Sudsy bubbles burst on the peach fuzz beneath your ear from where he cupped your jaw. Droplets trickled to the base of your neck, curving over your breasts, and beading on the surface of your cardigan. He swept his fingers in an untamed stroke over your cheek. He tested a deeper angle, fitting his broad grasp to your chin and compelling you to lean in with the heel of his palm guiding you, drawing you forward, supporting the pout of your bottom lip with the base of his thumb.

His nose whistled when he took a shallow breath. The wet, soapy trails left in his hand’s wake went cold against his sigh coasting over your skin. Again, he tried another breath. Deeper; initiating the unadulterated intimacy of his stomach filling out and pushing against yours. More. The great expanse of his shoulders squared with confidence, and his muscles braced under your tender exploration. Your weak grip left his waist to climb up the confines of his arms, passing over his ribs and the flat plane of his pecs to place the lightest touch at the base of his neck. Closer. The serious glint in his eyes blurred as he neared.

The tip of his nose butted the apple of your cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” he spoke aloud for the first time, words breaking on the whisper.

You answered him in a faint, insatiable, “Yes.”

He imposed himself more. Frame on frame. Unyielding body leaned and curved around your softness, channeling every repressed feeling he’d had since you met into pinning you against the counter. Gradually, he dropped his head into a better angle; grinding forehead on forehead, tracing his perfect nose along yours, tilting so his mouth hovered fractions above a decision.

He teased, “Are you only saying that because it’s your policy?”

You smiled against the edge of his thumb after spying his sly grin through your heavy lashes. “No,” you stressed the single word, speaking through the mild irk of impatience building like an itch that could not be scratched in the marrow of your bones.

Anticipation clung to the prolonged gossamer blinks before they lulled into closed eyes, and slow swallows of air until lungs were poised on a held breath.

Every syllable of his next question dragged his lower lip across yours. “Are you my girl?”

“Eddie—”

The whine. The beg. The genuine plea of his name.

Organically imperfect, he smashed his mouth to yours. It was a harsh collision of teeth to lips, and a startled grunt at the abrupt impact, but neither of you cared. Reservations were off. You clung desperately to his shirt, stretching the cotton around his neck and biting the ball chain necklace into his throat, striving for a needier kiss; sparking a heady rush of awareness to the oversensitive areas reacting to the animalistic push and pull of him gaining control, advocating for his own fight in the flex of his thighs driving you into the creaky doors of the cabinetry. The fervency spurred him on. You combed your fingers through the downy curls at his nape, and he did not hesitate slipping a hand under your sweater to smooth his palm to your bare waist. And fuck, how you arched your back on instinct.

Nasally grunts of pain descended to pleasant hums from the throat.

Unable to divide his attention, the kisses went sloppier. Rushed. Awkward, and clumsy. He slotted his mouth to yours with too much force, to the point of bruising your spit slicked lips, and the wet smack pulled a submissive whimper from the places he’d yet to take. The flush blotching his throat ran hot like flames, heating the Old Spice aftershave on his skin. The scent aided the dizzy lurch in your head, lost to the dull lamplight beyond your eyelids, rocking you onto your toes and falling back on your heels in the swirling give-and-take of his unstated needs reaching levels of crisis only you could solve. A pain you could cure as you crammed your nose to his cheek, spread your fingers firmly against his skull, and kissed your friend harder than he kissed you.

Hums lowered into a depraved moan.

The intensity of your reciprocation fueled his ego. Seeking, he moved his chivalrous hand from cupping your face, downwards. Grabbing, seizing, squeezing. After refraining from so much for so long, he was mesmerized by the curve of your shoulder, the sway of your lower back, the waistband of your scratchy polyester skirt. He roved until he found your ribs, and he molded his fingerprints there, branding you with the sensation of his thumb beneath your underwire bra. It was a messy exploration. His excitement had him bearing his weight down on you, and when your strained feet failed to steady him, your ankle gave. Knees bumped; he stepped on your toes. He fell into you and matched the pain of the counter prodding your tender flesh with the bulk of his leather belt scraping your stomach. No apology. Not with words. It was the safety and protection of his arm crooked between you and the laminate countertop which rescued you, and as a reward, he dropped his forearm from the cusp of your hips and feasted his thick fingers on a handful of your ass, rocking you into him.

There was no other way to react to the blunt suggestion.

Heavy, uneven breaths were panted across the other’s sore lips as you both withdrew to gauge the next step. He scoped your features with urgency, darting from your relaxed brows, to your keen gaze. There was an etching of insecurity marring the honey in his gentle brown eyes when you were too dazed to remember to smile, jumping to conclusions in his worrisome ways.

He really did worry too much.

Bringing your hand out of his curls, you grazed the strained tendon on the side of his neck, and worked your way up. You trailed your knuckles along his cheek, swept them under his wispy bangs, and put your fingertips to his temple, triggering a shivered sigh and fluttering lashes at the new touch.

You answered him as you combed his hair away from his face, “I’m your girl.”

The instant sincerity of his red, swollen lips kicking up into an uneven grin invoked a raw tenderness to his pink nose scrunching in playfulness, and the corner of his eyes going tight with happiness.

“Yeah?” he asked, voice hoarse from the exertion of kissing you senseless.

“Yeah,” you promised in another caress.

For a moment, he held your gaze with the importance of someone understanding what it meant to be by his side and to be seen with him out in Hawkins public; as if he were on the verge of crying from the sheer gratitude of your policy landing you here, in his arms, on this night, wanting to be his.

Eddie peered into your eyes again. His wide pupils and dusky cheeks spoke of the nature of his body, but behind that, lurking beneath his fibrous sinew was the same innate marrow telling him this was okay. This was right. Just let go.

Just let go.

He listened.

As wild as he took you minutes before, he was ready to luxuriate in the nuances of affection. He pressed his mouth closed in a dry swallow, and raised his hand from your ribs, beckoning your cheek into the stifling heat of his palm. The throbbing pulse in his neck beat a rhythm to his chest, rising and falling in a quick cadence until he was able to discipline his attention away from the obvious snag of his zipper on your skirt.

He relaxed into another kiss. It may have been the hundredth of the night, but it was pivotal. Something changed. The frantic clashing lessened, and the cravings heightened.

Consistent as he was in taking things slow, he knew how to make you feel cherished. He took your bottom lip between his and dragged it as he broke the chain from one kiss to the other, as if the extra second he claimed a part of you was crucial to his survival. Truly indulging in the full potential of someone witnessing the many bad days of his life and still wanting to cook dinner with him. Someone enjoying the harmonized hum of your lips converging while you scratched small circles on his scalp above his ears. Someone willing to hear his shameful complaints about fatherhood, and not judge him when he took his lunch break in his car, cranking the seat back to rest his blood-shot sleepless eyes, instead of sharing a coke with them in the breakroom. Someone he’d come to rely on; a constant in his life.

He poured his coffee pot’s worth of trust into you, and you answered him with the blissful endeavor of your fingers scaling his forearm, brushing through the thin hair growing like wheat and pushing the beaded bracelet up to his wrist, cupping your hand over his on your cheek. D-A-D-D-Y. M-O-U-S-E. In turn, you drank his insecurities and added your own, overflowing with the mutual truth that neither of you had been in a stable relationship lasting longer than a month, and this whole thing should’ve been very scary.

But it wasn’t scary.

It was slow and steady.

The heaviness of his body returned. Hands wandered aimlessly. Arms entwined, untangled, confused themselves on who was where. Attentive fingertips glided over woven yarn and cotton, following the dips and curves and slopes; basking in the reverence of married threads and validation. Legs shuffled, spreading and accommodating. Jaws went slack. Languid tongues merged, lazy and hot. He palmed your ass in a lax grip, easing your hips flush against his. You answered with a purposeful roll intending to earn some friction, but you couldn’t reap the benefits on account of one problem..

Your skirt was stretched to the fabric’s maximum allowance, creating a taut buffer keeping him at bay. Any motion was nullified by the hindrance. Noticing this, he shifted to be better cradled by your thighs, and a delicious gift was granted with the tandem action of your bodies joining.

He flattened his hands on the countertop behind you and blessed you with a proper long drawl of his hips; pausing in an open mouthed kiss because the noise you made—the noise you made—the noise the noise the noise you made—

Your quick inhale faltered, flattering the hard press of his cock with a shameless gasp.

Eddie halted at the top of the motion from your involuntary praise, and locked eyes with you. Just like when he made you laugh, he wanted to witness your pleasure, soak in your reverent stare and pride himself on the way you asked for more—by sinking back and away and rutting upwards, instigating a filthy tension on the layers separating you; panties, nylon, polyester skirt, seams on seams on seams of harsh denim, and his choice of boxers; and God, you thrived on the bulk behind his zipper caressing you for the first time where climaxes were born. Your moan hinged on his satisfaction, and in a dare, you pivoted the descent of your roll towards the right, capturing between you his stiff length tenting towards his pocket. And when you arched into a slow grind on the base—sliding him along the curve of your clothed heat—he released his own pretty noise.

“Mm—fuck,” he groaned into your mouth.

Gravitating elsewhere, he left messy kisses on your jaw and brushed his nose over the peach fuzz on your cheek to put his love-bitten lips to your ear. Gravelly with want, he asked, “When did you remember what happened that night?”

A dirty throb pulsed where he buried himself between your legs, striving for the angle which had you grasping at his narrow hips as a silent plea for him to drive into you harder.

“Oh,” you panted into his hair sticking to your mouth. Answering casually as you could despite your face running hot, and your voice straining light with a joke, you answered, “I never forgot. I lied when you asked me.”

“You—?” The word was a quick huff of air against your neck. He pulled away enough to look at you, but not divorce your stomachs from touching. Two deep creases formed between his brows, shadowing his squint with incredulity. “You lied to me?”

A pang of doubt weeded its way into your insecure hands around his waist, forcing you to question if he was really mad at you for pretending you didn’t remember the exact details of last weekend in order to bolster his confidence into asking you on a date instead of wallowing in silent guilt for thinking he did something wrong and end up pushing you away, sabotaging himself from ever acting on this.

You were about to speak your mind—that is, until his lips crooked up, and he invaded your space with his big eyes, big nose, and even bigger grin.

“You lied to me,” he said with a snap of wolfishness, tonguing his sharp canine after the bite of his words; hosting an overabundance of admiration in his half-lidded gaze raking over you, alighting every sinful nerve in your body.

Time to pick up where that phone call left off—

“Yeah, I did.. But you didn’t.” You sank your hand between your bodies, and flattened your palm to the front of his jeans.

His breath hitched.

Skimming, teasing, playing with him, you strung his lust taut, tracking your fingertips over the hardness and sweeping them to the very end, circling an outline around his head like a Siren’s call to his fiery blood. His biceps flexed against your arms. The laminate counter squeaked from his sweaty grip on the edge. Vinyl flooring creaked at his antsy rut into your hand, and you gave in to your own curiosity.

Wrapping your fingers as best you could through the thick denim, a spike of cold excitement washed over you at the sheer girth you struggled to handle—much less the long, long drag of your palm from base to tip—sending an ache to your cunt begging to be stretched by him.

Slightly over seven inches, indeed.

Lacking poise, you blurted an unintelligible word, and his smirk underscored his heavy kiss.

“Told you I didn’t need to overcompensate,” he taunted.

His newfound smugness was allowed. Encouraged, even, by your firm strokes, again and again, creating a damp patch on his pants at every pass of your thumb. You were fascinated by his ability to engulf you in another tender union of lips when your senses were overwhelmed by the impressive size filling your palm. Intoxicated by the gentle glide of his considerable tongue along your bottom teeth. Dazed by his pitiful groan when you increased your pace, building and building the wicked friction burn from his jeans on your soft skin, tending to the flames of your arousal, sensitive nipples peaked and receptive to the warmth of his lean chest pressing down on you.

Needing him, you closed off the kiss and played into your appeal with a saccharine pinch to your expression, and a cloying sweetness to your tone. “You do so much for your family,” you murmured. “You work so hard to provide for them, always staying late at the garage, covered in grease and dirt, fixing cars until your hands are torn and your back aches. Making sacrifices without a second thought. Always putting their needs first.”

Stroking his hard cock, you asked, “When was the last time someone put your needs first?”

Eddie screwed his eyes shut and fit the bridge of his nose to your forehead. When he spoke, his embarrassment influenced his mumble, “S’been a long, long time.”

“Sounds like you need me to take care of you, handsome.”

He tensed to suppress his shiver from your sultry tone, and withheld his whimper at the prospect, meeting your gaze in a nervous flick. “I don’t, uhm.. have..” His assured demeanor ebbed to stuttering shyness. “I didn’t, uh, buy any condoms, and all the stores are closed by now..”

Your face fell flat.

You threw your exasperated stare to the ceiling, and searched the series of events which would lead to him asking you on a date, at his home, at night, without anyone else present, and somehow not think to buy condoms. “Why didn’t you buy any?”

He shrugged, frustration evident in his tone. “I was afraid of being a dumbass and leaving them out in the open where you could see them—like with the groceries or some shit—and give you the wrong impression, like my goal was only to invite you over for that reason, and, I don’t know, think I’m coming on too strong, or something, and make you uncomfortable.”

You gripped your beloved dumbass by the chin with your unoccupied hand, and put an end to his fretting. “Or, I would get the right impression, and we’d have that box opened within ten minutes of me walking through the door.”

He blinked dumbly.

Before he could ask if you were serious, you steered the conversation to its original topic with a gentle squeeze where the dark spot on his jeans bloomed, and said, “We’ll worry about condoms next time.” He throbbed in your palm. Next time. “After all the romantic stuff you’ve done for me, I want to show you my appreciation.” You slid your fingers through his belt loops, and leaned up, nosing your way through his frizzy waves to whisper a fantasy in his ear. “I want you in my mouth.”

You put the power of suggestion in your aggressive tug, snapping your hips together.

Ripples of electric pleasure stood his arm hair on end. The alertness in his expression glazed over. He lazed in the feeling, hardly able to open his eyes to follow the bounce of your eyebrows and the deep cut of your smirk; matching with his own goofy smile going lopsided with enthusiasm.

Since his birth, there were few instances where he felt wanted, or loved, and for his dream girl to waltz into his life and be so brazen about her attraction to him with no hidden motives, empty sweet-talk, or ill intentions—

For possibly the first time in Eddie’s ostracized existence, he felt desired.

Each low tug on his jeans was another boost to his self esteem, guiding him step by step further beyond the platonic line. Deeper, and deeper into new territory. Crossing the threshold from cracked vinyl to plush carpet, and with it, entering the fear of the unknown he wasted countless hours resisting. There’s no going back after this. Acquaintances was a laughable notion, coworkers was a tricky dynamic left to be dealt with on Monday, and friendship was the foundation of him opening up to you.

Every decision persuading you to the edge of his bed was made in careful consideration. Choices were presented and chosen without impulse. Nothing about him was casual. Not anymore. The slow crawl towards this relationship was impeded by his past, and instead of giving up, you stayed true to him. Because you saw him as worthwhile.

Eddie sank to the couch, and before his back made contact with the cushions, he had his fingers cupped to the backside of your thighs, proposing a bend to your knees. In a fluid motion, he dragged his rough palms up your tights and coaxed your legs on either side of him, running his heavy hands over your skirt and up to your waist. He relaxed into the sitting position with an arm crooked around your ass while he treated himself to a handful, gathering you as close as possible until he was satisfied with the places he could reach. Not once did his eyes leave your face. He tipped his head back to watch you go from standing at the end of his knees, to straddling his lap. Wholly enamored.

Blue cast from the TV’s standby mode contrasted the dim glow from the old lamp on the kitchen counter, highlighting his blushy cheeks in eventide colors, and cleaving a defined shadow down his bobbing throat.

Earned muscle and bulky denim and seven inches of bliss prodded the delicate meat of your inner thighs. You sat high on his lap, releasing the tension in your body in increments, settling yourself on top of him. He kissed you. Short and sweet; a brief encounter compared to before, but with your senses amplified by the deeper connection you two fostered for one another, it was the best kiss of your life. And it served as a chaste prelude to his next devotion.

Taking the lead, Eddie moved on from your lips, working downward in a dreamy, drunken daze, reveling in skin-on-skin. Want—more—please. When he couldn’t access the vulnerable underside of your chin, he urged your head up with a determined bump of his nose to your jaw, and continued to praise you in stray kisses and greedy palms. He showed you what he wanted by dragging you forward in his lap, and you didn’t need to be told twice by his white-knuckled grip.

You grinded down on him, and your mouth went slack with a fragmented moan.

“You’re so pretty when you do that,” he slurred, voice husky and low.

The bulge behind his fly parted your aching cunt. With your legs spread wide, you found your perfect middle and worked the stiff seams against your need. Each rut glided him along you, slipping over the nylon and stretching your pantyhose taut. You beared down harder, obeying the faint throbs of desperation, and turned them into inadequate stirs of pleasure, fleeting at each pass.

The first stitch of nylon broke. Then, another.

His generous kisses went wayward, favoring your jawbone as a means to end, tucking his teeth into the pocket beneath your ear and nipping at your vulnerable pulse. You swallowed under the threat, and dropped your head back, revealing the neglected expanse for him to cherish.

Cascades of euphoria flowed down your neck. Teeth grazed, his tongue tasted, the cold tip of his nose drew sentiments on your throat. For every dull sting of his untamed bite, he apologized with a softer, and softer affection. Lessening in aggression. Soothing your sweltering skin with cooling breaths on the streak of spit he left behind. You shivered despite the sudden break of sweat in the humid entanglement and embraced your urges, squirming against his jeans and circling your hips in measured thrusts, tilting into the motion for your own sake and blanketing your thigh over his achingly hard cock by chance. “Christ, sweetheart.” His muffled moan set your blood on fire. Your fingers went tight on his shoulders, digging into the muscle shifting beneath your nails, wrinkling the fabric of his favorite shirt.

More nylon stitches popped.

Too lost in your own efforts, you hadn’t noticed the loss of his possessive hold on your waist until your hard nipples brushed two solid objects.

Yarn fibers tickled overtop the sheer mesh cups of your bra.

Eddie nuzzled at the base of your neck and rested the slope of his broad nose there, moving his lips on your skin when he remembered, but otherwise his attention deviated elsewhere. At his leisure, he thumbed the top button of your sweater through the loop, and drifted to the next. Another, and another, exposing the sheen of perspiration on your chest to the stagnant air in his living room. His deft fingers undressed you with undue ease. Each loosened button raced your heart, and you repaid him by widening your knees and sinking fully onto his lap, laying your plush inner thigh on top of his length in a satisfying squish, and staying there.

A weak whine tinted his pretty, “Feels—good.”

Feels good played off the thin walls stacked with ceramic mugs. Feels good joined the sporadic pitter patter of raindrops on the tin roof streaming to the grassless earth outside. Feels good warmed you like the oil filled radiator at the end of the couch, popping and crackling when the heat droned higher. Feels good manifested in your cardigan slipping from your shoulders and falling to the floor in a mute drop; rooted itself in his ringed fingers dipping into your waistband; was proven by his other palm molding to the curve of your hip as if it were shaped by the same artist; and confirmed by the unambiguous focus to your right side.

Feels so fucking good burst forth in his hand’s unyielding snatch on your waistband and decisive jerk forward, ripping through the last of the strained seam trapped against your satin underwear.

The pantyhose split at the gusset, and your plump pussy spilled out, perfectly framed by the gaping nylon hole presenting your wet cunt to the thick denim. You draped him sweetly. Curved over the immense rise behind the creased zipper, creating a stiff peak before sloping to the soft give of his stomach. It didn’t take more than a single experimental thrust for your thin panties to slide into your sticky need, working them snug to your heat and inciting the first true tug at your core. Whispers of relief roused at your center, but it wasn’t until your second try, when you tilted your hips and Eddie guided you down onto him, genuine satisfaction was achieved.

The low rumble from the bottom of his chest filled you with oozy pride.

You concentrated the friction on your clit, and Eddie concentrated on anything else.

He stopped sealing his kisses, letting the envelope of his lips fall open, slack, and inarticulate, never beginning nor ending the ode to your neck. His mouth hovered wherever his head hung, and in his stupor, he could do little more than use his tongue to cut a fat line through the luster beneath the hollow of your throat, letting the salt sit in his mouth before swallowing, grateful. With each movement, the scratchy grain on his jaw from that morning’s shave buffed your sensitive skin, and he lapped at the rawness he caused in apology. The higher you rose over the swell of his cock, the lower he prized you in sloppy drags of his ample lips. He cupped his ringed fingers to the underside of the lavender lace and used his heavenly tongue to lick the top of your breast, accentuating the curve for his teeth to savor you in a lovebite. Your nipples begged for him, and your back arched for him. Your mouth fell open with a gasp—”Eddie”—drawing out the last set of vowels before they devolved into a whimper. Soon, his head was a heavy burden between your tits, and you wrapped him in your naked arms, cradling him there with your fingers in his hair. Spit from his sloppy kisses smeared on your cleavage, wetting the stubble on his cheeks, and he remained smitten, moaning into them with each bounce on his lap.

He was so wrecked on intimacy.

Loading your lungs with another sigh of his name, you rocked your hips in whichever way felt best, not paying attention to the way your inner thigh rolled over Eddie’s fat cock, again, and again. Satin on denim; faster, and faster, tensing your leg muscles and releasing them like a quick stroke down his length. You embraced him with your chin to his hair, panting over the frizz sticking to your lips. Tender, always. Committed to lauding gentle kisses to his scalp even as you chased the one thing on your mind. Grinding in quicker thrusts. Listening to his muffled praise, but not hearing him go quiet, or noticing his body go still when his thighs edged into a hard flex under your ass. You were oblivious to his hand falling from your bra, and his fingers anchoring onto your waist. You were too engrossed in the act, rutting like animals do. Lurching towards the inevitable one desperate grind at a time, quicker.. quicker.. Heeding what your body wanted. Racing, faster.. faster..

Abrupt pain bloomed where he shoved his palm into your thigh to stop you.

“You’re gonna make me cum,” he panted in a ragged breath.

A new heat rushed to your cheeks. The dirty word spoken from his mouth engulfed you. It tingled and danced over your skin, firing signals of excitement in pulses. With clarity, you realized the few direct strokes during what was supposed to be foreplay had him tensing and trembling, trying to keep his release from arriving too early and making a mess of himself before getting to the real deal. Your nipples tightened at the knowledge, and your legs clenched on instinct. You almost made him cum his jeans. What a compliment.

Your puffy clit was sore from the brief friction, and you felt every centimeter of space he put between you and your reward, but it was like a switch flipped in your brain.

The sharp throbs of his fingers clamped onto the meat of your thigh and his thumb jammed into the soft muscle were forgotten when you looked down at the man who shied under your observation; his face aflame with the awareness he ruined your release as well and his, and his bashful eyes worried with remorse. He was the reason you craved the early dawn, and weekday nights. He was the reason your heart crowded your throat when you woke up and your first thought was to reach for the bracelet on your bedside dresser. He was the reason you took a liking to heavy metal and board games. He was the reason your body reacted to wafts of earthy tobacco in the air, only to be disappointed when the person behind you at the grocery store was just another smoker who hand rolled their cigarettes, as if they had the right to smell like Eddie Munson.

You looked down at the man who lived an isolated and thankless life, who found joy in the small things and loved with his whole heart, who had few outlets to express himself and receive love back, and nothing mattered to you more than giving him a reason to look at you differently come Monday morning.

You thumbed the edge of his jaw with a promise. “I’ll go slow, pretty boy.”

He made a choked off noise in response.

Eddie’s eyes followed the nuances of your movement as you rose from his lap and planted your feet on the carpet. His stance widened to make room for you, chest falling with a silent exhale; peering at you with a question between his brows, as if he were contemplating his luck. When you bent over and placed your palms on his thighs, you stole his gaze from the intimate way your cleavage shifted under gravity, and honored his lips a last time for the foreseeable future, about to show him how fortunate he really was.

You sank to your knees, dropping dry kisses onto his shirt in a path to his belly as you went, and lifted the hem. The bottom of the inked sword and dragon greeted you. Sparse hair fanned as you raised the shirt above his tattooed navel, and pushed it to the crease where his sternum and belly met. His stomach wasn’t as flat as when he stood, giving him a slight curve where it pushed past the edge of his belt—a roundness when he sat relaxed. You laid your elbows on his thighs, and avoided touching the large subject in your peripheral, instead shaping your hands to his hips, and bowing your head.

His muscles jumped under your lips.

Finally, you knew his ticklish spot.

He sucked in a breath, and squirmed at the scattered kisses to his sides. You applied more pressure, mashing your mouth to him with a giggly hum, and teased your wet lips through the thick curls leading downwards. The hairs grazed the sides of your mouth and nose. The warm metal from his belt buckle brushed your chin. You’d never guessed you’d come to know these sensations when you first met him and he made it clear your enthusiasm for life was not appreciated, but here you were, stroking your thumbs up his leather belt, bordering your grin with his happy trail.

Eddie skimmed his fingers over your wrists. “I’m not gonna last long,” he warned.

“That’s fine,” you assured him in a quick peck to the significant outline you’d become obsessed with, feeling him twitch beneath your lips. “We have all night to work on that.”

“What—? Jesus Christ, uh—okay.”

Sitting back on your calves, you held his gaze while you pulled the extra length of his belt through the loops in a smooth rush, and worked it through the handcuff buckle. You tightened the slack and loosened the pin with a nimble finger, undressing him with the ease of an expert.

Asking from a place of your own curiosity, you wondered, “How often do you jerk off?”

His eyebrows disappeared behind his tousled bangs.

Not yet used to you being so forward with him, he stammered on his tongue, but held his composure, much to the surprise of both of you. “Not that often, I guess.. Uh, a few times a month.”

You snorted. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know that, right? You can tell me if it’s everyday, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m gonna judge you.”

The two halves of his belt flopped to either side of his waist. With it out of the way, you pinched at the stamped button at the top of his stupidly tight jeans, but you had trouble getting a good grip on it. Here, let me—he mumbled in a small voice, lifting his hips off the couch to undo it himself, popping it through and revealing the waistband of his forest green boxers.

It was with great determination you aimed your gaze above his obvious grandeur when he started talking.

“I’m not lying,” he said during the sturdy grind of the zipper being tugged down. “Not exactly like I have a door to lock when I need some alone time around here, sweetness. Plus” —he grunted at the freedom his unzipped jeans granted him, pushing them lower on his hips— “I’m usually too worn out after work, and just wanna crash on the couch. Not to mention taking care of everything around here is exhausting. Just don’t have the energy most days.”

Reading the precious draw of sympathy between your brows, he sat on the edge of his bed, and reached into the fly at the front of his boxers. “But, uh, there has been a recent change in my life that’s motivated me to.. take better care of myself. More often.” A certain motivator who sat between his legs with her hands in her lap, piqued and obedient. “Lot more often than a couple months ago, before she started working with me.”

He wrapped his fingers around himself and stroked upward, moving his knuckles against the fabric. He’d been rambling to ease the anxiety from his nerves until only the adrenaline remained, and with his pretty girl biting her bottom lip at his impure thoughts, his stalling came to an end.

Out came his hand—broad palm and thick fingers stretched full—and you stared in silent awe.

The back of his pale wrist and rosy knuckles were the first to show. Prominent blue veins led to his crooked hand, thumb and foremost fingers grasping his base while the last two struggled to collect the rest. His wet tip grazed the top of his boxers, peaking the fabric and dragging it along in a mouthwatering sweep towards the opening, and out it bobbed in flushed hues of pink and needy red. Below, he used his other hand to lower the fly, and cupped his palm to his heavy hanging fruits. They slipped out one plump roundness at a time to display their greatness against his dark jeans in a weighty sway.

Eddie’s cock leaked a bead of anticipation for you.

Starting with a lazy tug, he stroked himself. The arousing sheen smeared around his tip glistened, shining anew with the pass of his fist. As predicted, he curved to the right, and the fact he could hardly overlap his thumb to get a good hold on himself spoke of his size. All of him was beautiful, and you felt beautiful when another drip of precum swelled from his pretty head, threatening to fall before your very eyes.

He was thrilled by your shock. “Want it?”

“Need it,” you responded in a faint exhale.

With a smirk deepening his smoky tone, he kept moving his hand up and down, and granted you permission, “It’s all yours.”

You snapped your attention to his face, and inched forward until you were snug against the couch, eager and motivated by the lustful stretch in your thighs exposing your soaked cunt to the air. Good and pleasing, you clasped your hands politely in the folds of your bunched up skirt, and framed your arms around your chest.

Dipping your head, you lolled out your tongue for his approval.

His expression was the highest compliment; revering you with crinkles at the corners of his heavy-lidded gaze, lips stretched into a genuine smile which emphasized the elusive dimple on his cheek, and defined the bags under his eyes. Strands of his finger-swept messy curls stuck out at odd angles after you had your way with his hair, grazing his high cheekbones, and thick neck.

His heart pounded louder in his chest the longer he stared at your offering.

Weight pressed down on the plush middle of your tongue. It left, then happened again, again. Again, he tapped the fat head of his cock to the sticky wetness, mixing his salty taste with your spit. Bestowing you the gift, and taking it away. Teasing you. He slapped his heaviness down in a dull throb of owning you, and lifted it off to run his fingers over his own length, jerking himself off at an easy pace he wouldn’t cum from before putting his weeping tip to your tongue once more for you to admire, but not indulge. It was the cruelest, and hottest, thing he’d ever done to you.

When he next rubbed his head along the supple muscle and took it away, you tempted him into giving you mercy.

His lungs stuttered at your first demure kiss to the underside of his cock. You listened to his shallow breath on the second, released in a short ahh on the third. On the fourth, you vied for privilege to spoil him. He relented. How could he not?

To give himself a better angle to watch, he propped one of his hands behind him, and dropped his cheek to his shoulder, where his hair poured in a mass of tangles. The broad grin he wore waned to a subtler emotion as you hummed for the silky skin thrumming against your lips, feeling him shift when he lifted his thumb from taming his hard-on down.

Eddie marveled at how you balanced his cock on your pout. Amusement—and an unending amount of tenderness—gentled his features. He was sweet on you. You were sweet on him.

Treating him how he deserved, you rolled your tongue around your mouth to gather spit, and pushed it past your lips to wet his slick head, making your kisses slip against him in a smooth glide. You showered him in small pecks at first. Short kisses with the cutesy sounds pressed to the sensitive ridges which earned Eddie’s involuntary moan; low and thick, drawing from the months of pining for this moment. Venturing into more, you darted your tongue out to test his reaction when you licked the valley between the halves of his plump tip, and you winced. His cock kicked up, and fell in a smack. It was painful, probably bruising the delicate inner flesh of your lips when it smashed them against your teeth. You thanked him in an acquiescent whine.

It was addictive—a daze. With nothing but gravity to keep him in place, you cherished your favorite mechanic’s cock openly and honestly. You flattened your tongue to him in a loving lap, and chased it with a long drag of your lips up the underside to the round head, struggling to keep your eyes open from the bliss of tasting his reward, and suckling noisily for more.

Eddie accepted defeat in a sudden, disappointed grunt, “Yeah.. I’m not gonna last long.”

He fell backwards in a dramatic flourish.

Sprawled almost flat, his shoulders hit the cushions, and his body melted into the position with his fingers laced over his eyes as a shield. A groan of despair reverberated in his throat. Poor Eddie, can’t last long with his favorite receptionist’s mouth around his cock. A giggle bubbled from your chest, and you were about to repeat your promise to go slow, but the words wouldn’t form.

Your mouth had other plans than wasting their time on reassurances.

In his melodramatic moping, his dick left your lips and flopped onto his belly—which was a loss you felt in your soul—but with how he slouched into the cushions, a fruitful endeavor presented itself. Swung, and bounced, actually.

You leaned in, and became acquainted with your hand around his girth; familiarizing yourself with the naked warmth in your palm, and his airy whimper when you did.

The top of his boxers brushed your knuckles as you drifted your hand up in a single stroke. One fluid glide on the cock which belonged to you. He did say it was yours, after all. And though the thought alone had you wishing it was stretching your tight cunt in a blend of pain and pleasure, you had a yearning for what else moved up and down when you pumped your fist.

“Eddie?” you called. He peered at you from the shadow of his fingers. Innocently, you traced the bottom of his sack, and oh so carefully settled them into the nest of your unblemished palm. “Are these mine too?”

A croak broke his speechlessness. “Y-Yeah, those are yours, too. If you want them.”

Please was written in your grateful lurch towards his cock. Thank you was expressed in your lush moan when he entered your mouth.

“Baby,” he whined in a docile sigh.

You sank his cock into the wet heat he needed, but only for the purpose of curving your tongue to his begging tip and bathing him in your spit, using your hand to work it down his shaft. Except, you got carried away. A few strokes in, and you put your lips tight around his head, and already there was a warning forming between his brows.

You backed off. His face went lax in relief.

“Feels too good, sweetheart,” he praised from the depths of his gravelly voice. “Gonna make me cum like that.”

Your pussy ached to be spoken to that way.

Moving your attention away from how pitifully empty you felt, you loosened your grip and twisted your wrist to massage the base of his slick cock; not exploring upwards, just giving him enough friction to keep him on edge without spilling over. A perfect amount of pleasure, you guessed, from his red face emerging from behind his hands, raising them to comb his bangs off the fine layer of sweat beading on his forehead, and blinking himself out of his haze just in time to see you lower your face between his thighs.

You tended to him first with a kiss. An opening, or introduction, to your lips finding the spot beneath your working thumb where the hardness ended and the velvety skin began. He tensed. His legs flexed around your shoulders, bringing his knees in all shy like, like he was self conscious to have you down there. And maybe it was one thing to have his balls cupped in your palm, but it was another to have you nosing around the opening of his boxers when he hadn’t gone through with his plan of trimming back the hedges.

All he could do was stare when you inhaled his scent after he spent the day cleaning his home, running errands, driving across town to pick you up, and sitting next to you during scene after scene of horrors playing on a screen directly across from the terrifying event of holding your hand while trying not to out-sweat his t-shirt.

His bewilderment was apparent, but so was your enjoyment.

You burrowed your nose at the narrow opening of his fly, and tilted his cock to the side, finding the thick thatch of curls growing around his base, and admiring his heavy musk breaking through the perfumed Dove soap. A heavy purr of pleasure rumbled in your throat, coming out as a nasally moan against the wrinkled skin you kissed. So enraptured by his body, you couldn’t hold back anymore. You had to part your lips, and run your tongue along the seam of his sack. It was with a dire urge you stopped at the bottom, and flaunted how big he was by snuggling your nose to the heft and lifting.

You draped his balls over your mouth.

It was silly to him, and you didn’t mind the tss of laughter, but to you, earning his baffled smile while your giggle was buried under his sack was vital to your design. Their ripe heat enveloped you. The stripe you licked was wet on the tip of your nose. His natural scent swaddled you. Both corners of your lips were encumbered by the wonderful weight hanging on either side, brushing your cheeks as you swallowed the taste of his tangy sweat. You kissed up into the excess skin stretched over your face, and they rolled to your chin when you changed the angle you were teasing his cock, disciplining him towards his stomach so you had more room to worship the pome.

Warming him to the idea, you flattened your tongue to one side and ran it along the fullness, curving up, and dragging down in a long caress. In a breath, he placed his hand on his stomach where his shirt gathered, and skimmed the other over his body until it laid on top of his jeans, in the crease between his hip and thigh. You could see his fingers work themselves into the loose denim out of the corner of your eye, and heard them relax when you traced the other side of his sack, ending with a murmur to the textured skin.

“Too much?” you asked—he shook his head before you could finish the question, still hanging onto a suggestion of his fascinated squint at what you were doing to him.

With his approval, you indulged.

The gentle licks evolved to sloppy circles, eager to prize and polish, ensuring there was no part of his balls gone neglected. Lapping at, kissing at, making out with another spot on his body out of a necessity to fawn over every inch of him. Willing to nuzzle your way between the plumpness and have your drool drag wetly across your cheeks in his name. Fully content with messier and messier affections, cozying your nose to the base of his curls until he understood how little it bothered you to be smothered by his nature.

Unable to resist satisfying him how he deserved, you dropped an open kiss to the squish of his sack, and suckled on a small section, checking his reaction.

Not an ounce of protest glimmered behind his lashes, eyes falling almost closed at the intimate gesture between two people who were never supposed to be more than coworkers.

You parted your lips, and accepted a mouthful.

Eddie whimpered.

His toes curled into the carpet at the novel sensation. There was an incredible amount of trust required to fight the instinct to pull away. Even his fingers strained the denim when you drew your lips around one of his balls, and slackened your jaw. It was with great respect you brought him into your mouth, and cradled the weight on your tongue, cheeks stretched full and soft. You held him there for a long second. The rain was a steady noise of the roof, but your exhale was loud in the space between his thighs. Quiet suspense followed your hand climbing his shaft.

You wrapped your fingers around his hopeful tip, and fitted your thumb to the valley on the underside. In perfect sync, and with your eyes steady on his face, you hollowed your cheeks and squeezed each of your fingers at the same gentle pace.

“Fuck, baby—”

At once, Eddie’s unabashed groan inspired you, and his balls jerked in response to the direct touch in the places he needed it. From pinky to index, you massaged his fat head in a smooth pulse—matching the strokes of your thumb—and though your grip was light, he was already kneading his hand along his inner thigh and clamping it down close to your face. You soothed him on your tongue as best you could, and eased him into having more pressure from your lips, sucking harder on the most sensitive part of him.

Concentration stressed a shadow between his brows; chest braced on a held breath.

The telltale sign of his skin tightening in your mouth, along with his clenched stomach and abnormal silence, had you testing his limits. But it was too fun feeling his legs squirm at the effortless flow your fingers performed, coaxing him closer to coming undone and still daring to smear the swells of precum over the pleading edge of his tip, again and again, but slower. Slower. Memorizing the metallic slink of his guitar pick running along the ball chain necklace when you released him, and his chest sank with a sigh.

His voice cracked a notch higher, “Jesus, you’re really into this, huh, sweetheart?” he asked, but you couldn’t answer.

Before committing to his other ball, you spat into your cupped fingers, and put them to his cock, adjusting how you held him until you could look past and see the handsome glint of respect in his eyes, and he could gaze into wealth of adoration in yours.

“Love being on my knees for you,” you mumbled sweetly, kissing your way to the other side of his sack. “Love your cock, Eddie.”

His name, spoken where it was on his body, brought out a smugger twist to his already prideful grin. “Yeah? You like it?”

Rushing at the chance to compliment your man, you straightened your spine, and punctuated your words along the thick vein leading up to the drips of seed. “Love it,” you promised in a syrupy yearn, swallowing the bitter salt. “Love your cock; love it so much. It’s my favorite.”

“Is it the best?”

The question was tonally rich with confidence, but just in case there was any doubt woven into the wording itself, you regarded the man who went to work early on a day he had off for the purpose of leaving flowers on your desk, and smiled.

“Yeah,” you confessed, recalling a memory from the earlier months, after your first failed date, when he shared his can of Coke with you at lunch because the vending machine was out, and two sets of chapsticked lip prints were left around the metal rim. “It’s the best.”

You hugged his cock to your cheek, and nuzzled the warmth as you would any other part of him, humming a sunshiny hum, and parted ways to return to your true calling further down.

This time, Eddie groaned in relief when you settled his other ball in your mouth—”That’s it.”

With your newly slick hand, you slipped your palm over his desperately purple tip with ease. His thighs jumped into a flex, and his stomach fluttered with tension—almost like he was going to lose himself right there—but he exhaled hard through his nose, and became better at existing in the mutual pleasure. This was as much for you as it was for him.

There was a scrunch of determination above his nose, and a strong edge to his jaw, but otherwise, his fingers were gentle on your temple.

“You always know how to make me feel good,” he said, tracing his knuckles downward, lacing multitudes of meanings behind the sentence. Physical, and emotional.

He prodded his thumb into the hollow of your cheek, feeling how full you were of him; how his calloused fingerpad rocked in the same rhythm of your lips sealing around him and sucking; and you leaned into the tender gesture of his open palm, to which he cupped your jaw with a sentiment tantamount to what you were baring.

A sweet man through and through, even as he trembled in your fist.

You curved your tongue around the tight skin in your mouth, and moaned prettily for him. Frequent moans, ardent moans, moans appealing to his ego, moans you’d hear on a tape rented from the backroom of a competing video store with a black curtain separating it from the wholesome movies up front. Performing for him, finding what he liked. Which lick, which whine, which speed had his cock leaking over your fingers. Which trick made the creases between his brows mature, and his mouth fall open: the answer was two fast pumps over his throbbing head, and back down to his base for a respite, prolonging his release with a thank you on his heavy eyelids.

Prolonging, at least, until two fast pumps became a naughty blur of more—Oh, fuck, baby—and his brushes along your cheek went rare, and he licked his dry lips in the fog of his ramping high, and he hung his head back to the dense cushions, and his question escaped his throat in a hoarse huff, “You wanna—?” and it wasn’t a question at all.

You pushed your lips in soft goodbye to his sack, and his fingers under your jaw communicated his wish, aiding your chin up with a light pressure until your mouth was tasting the result of his aching lust. Slow and steady, you lavished his head in tame licks, building into a long sweep over the top. Warming yourself up to the painful stretch your lips were about to endure while his kind fingertips coasted over your hair, and found themselves at the back of your neck. Drawing out the seconds he tucked his thumb behind your ear, and rubbed circles. Sitting in the moment of something delicate, before things changed, and the platonic line became a horizon.

You drove his tip past your lips, and channeled all your appreciation into sucking Eddie’s cock.

He whimpered in surprise. A different whimper than before; not a drowsy noise he may make when rolling over in bed, but a sputtered note expelled in bursts of heavy breaths, singing a hymn to your blood.

The pace was not shy.

You descended to meet your fingers wrapped around his shaft, and reached your temporary depth where his hardness caressed the back of your mouth, and your throat clenched. Pulling back, you focused on his head, wetting his length with the sudden drool, and busying your other hand with his balls, cupping and stroking them in gentle passes.

“Ri–Right there, yeah, God, right there, sweet girl.” The syllables were mashed and dropped and disconnected on his whine.

Flicking your gaze up, you thrived on his fixated stare, bobbing your head on his tip only. Sliding your lips back and forth over the luscious ridge which had his tongue pressed against his bottom teeth. Massaging your wet heat around the center of his pleasure; encouraging a pinch in his expression as if he were in pain when he was in anything but.

Being higher on your knees meant your tits could be seen, and what a delicious sight it was for him to covet. Braced by your bra, your cleavage bounced as you pumped your fist along his cock, grazing your nipples above the opaque floral applique, cresting them beyond the sheer lace. It was enough to make his stomach squeeze, and his fingers tremble in the baby hairs at your nape.

His cock twitched twice in your mouth, conveying a message.

You welcomed him to the back of your throat, gladly this time, accepting the overfulness making it hard to breathe and the soreness surely to come, using your hand for the rest you could not take. No amount of uncomfortableness would make you shy from showing him the recognition he earned. For years he didn’t see the value in himself, and knowing the person who saved a Laffy Taffy wrapper to tell you the joke on the back didn’t prioritize his own happiness compelled you to take him deeper, faster. You shaped your tongue to the outline of his cock, and chased your lips with your fist, hollowing your cheeks at the top, teetering him on the cusp, rousing him until your skin buzzed from the friction and his hips pitched. Bringing him so close to the edge that when you broke away to catch your breath, his muscles shivered, and the shadows between his brows lessened as they arched higher from the mounting pleasure, where every touch on his body felt better and better and better than the last.

In the brief seconds you wrapped both your hands around his length, he made a pleading noise with the added weight of his warm palm at the back of your head—an urgency in his disheveled state, but not without the option of choice.

At once, he was at home in your throat.

In a union, your fingers wrenched his waistband into your damp palm, and he laid his hand across your knuckles. The control was yours, but the pace was his. He fucked himself into your pliant mouth in short, quick thrusts; ever attentive to keep his thumb strokes on your cheek unquestionably loving.

“Gonna make me—” He found the angle to cant his hips so you could watch him unravel; eyes falling closed and face tipped to the ceiling. “—Make me cum, baby,” he finished, voice light as air.

Throat flushed bright pink, cheeks dark red. Eddie panted into a shaky moan of true relief, and your core craved to be the one to take care of his needs, but there was something special about proving your attraction to him in every way you could.

The ridges of his greedy tip found where they were best brushed, and his hips lost their tempo. His stomach sank and stuttered in pulses. A dear emotion clutched your chest, letting loose when he crashed into his climax.

His knees closed you in, crowding you to his lap. “I’m gonna—” he gasped, rough and breathless; presented as a warning for the shot of bitter taste at the back of your throat, filling your mouth and spilling over your tongue with each throb of the thick vein pumping over your swollen bottom lip.

Something undeniable feathered the vulnerability of the position.

You swallowed.

And when more remained after it slid down your throat, you steadied his twitching cock over the offering of your tongue and jerked him off, stealing more drips to satiate you, swallowing with your lips pressed in a kiss to his overstimulated tip. “Baby,” he begged with his head thrown back, legs shifting restlessly around you. He sucked in breaths. Squirmed. Bit his tongue. Tugs of laughter played at his screwed up mouth, so desperate to resist giving in to a true grin when you rode out his high until he was beginning to soften, and the euphoria wore off to a dozy tingles, and the tingles dissipated into you giving him mercy, and mercy gave way to the aftermath.

In all the awkwardness of reality, you unceremoniously wiped your hands on his jeans, and right as he properly tucked himself back into his boxers, he beckoned you with open arms, gripping at your hips and bringing you onto the couch in a clumsy tumble; straddling his lap with his eager kisses seeking your jaw, your neck, your mouth which worked so hard for him. “Fucking amazing, baby,” he mumbled at the corner of your lips. You didn’t need the words—you’d heard them all before—but the reassurance of his arms locked tight around your middle, and the golden rays of honey shining so bright in his eyes allayed the tiny ball of worry at the pit of your stomach telling you he’d next follow it up with an excuse to send you home, as did every man before him.

“‘Mazing, ‘mazing, ‘mazing,” he mushed together on his way to your slack lips, bringing you out of your thoughts and into a kiss. “And dare I say, ‘amazing?’”

His ability to make you giggle when your bare stomachs were pressed together was the sort of tenderness you sought, and he provided.

You rubbed the tip of your nose along his, so very aware of his broad grin, and sweet nature. “You’re silly.”

“That I am!” he stated proudly.

Dipping to complete your gentle smile with his, you sank into the acceptance of him wanting to take your bottom lip between his, and flatter himself with the knowledge of where it’s been, what parts of him it became intimate with, instead of avoiding what was only human. He noticed your cold skin beneath his hands, and ran them along your back and upper arms. There was a motive behind his fingers slipping under the hem of your skirt, and palming you forward—where your heartbeats hammered together, and heat stirred in the lack of layers separating you—but still, there was one more affection you thought he deserved before the night moved on to your own.

Shivers chased his thumb braving the roundness of your breast, edging closer to the sensation of due pleasure yearning to be released. He spoke straight to your needs by putting the suggestion in your hips, “It’s your turn now.”

You stopped yourself from toppling to the cushions, and upheld your decent balance through your grip on his shoulders. “Wait,” you complained without malice, forgiving him for not reading your mind, “I’m not through with you yet.”

The word choice sparked intrigue across his face, then it cautioned to curiosity at the ominous roll of thunder rumbling through the trailer, clanking the mugs on the wall behind him.

He turned his head to the side, eyeing you. “What does that mean?”

~~~

“God, that feels so good.”

“Yeah, right there.. A little to the left—Oh fuck, right there.”

“So fucking good, sweetheart, keep going.”

Perturbed, you asked him, “Do you ever shut up?” and kneaded your knuckles harder into the knot of muscle between his shoulder blades, earning a louder groan than when you had his dick in your mouth.

One of the horror movies played on the TV, volume turned high for the alien’s gargled dialogue to be heard over the storm. Eddie’s lanky body was limp with sleepiness, melting under the smooth strokes of your palms starting at the base of his neck and gliding downward over his shirt, dragging another grunt out of him when his voice was hoarse from shameless use, not tempering it for a late night where he’d employ his range outside of singing for Corroded Coffin. He mumbled another praise, but his face was smashed to his pillow, rendering what he said unintelligible. His strong back rose with a shallow breath, and you moved with it. The couch was crowded, but you insisted he get comfortable, even if you had to straddle the curve of his ass with one knee fallen to the alarm of crayons and crumbs stuck between the cushions, and your other leg hung off the edge. This worked for him, though. It gave his hand a place to hold you, fingers clasped to your calf and thumb tending to you in little sweeps of truth. I need to touch you. The room was smothered in darkness, save for the brighter scenes highlighting the glossy line of his eye fighting a losing battle one massage of your thumbs into the pockets of soreness at a time.

You worked at the tense muscles with his comforter draped around your shoulders. It slipped down to greet the chafing air, rushing goosebumps over your skin. After the fourth time adjusting it, you left it gathered at your waist. Making sure Eddie was taken care of was more important. And the college girl turning into goo occupied what was left of your attention.

Though, soon, your tendons ached from effort, and staying-up-late stole the water you yawned from your eyes, and the comfort of being with someone who appreciated you wore heavy on your bones.

You grabbed the blanket, and leaned forward.

Brushing back the mess of curls covering the side of his face, you combed through the strands of hair stuck to his stubble, and found his chubby cheek smushed to his shoulder. You kissed him. “I adore you.”

He put a weak squeeze in his palm behind your knee, and spoke through the grog, “I adore you too, baby.”

Adore. Using the endearment in place of another word, and still, the weight was understood by the both of you.

Housed in the cozy heat of his body, sheltered from the rain lashing the windows in sheets, and the howling wind whistling past the corrugated metal roof in gusts, you sighed. Thunder vibrated from the floor, to the couch, to him, to you.

“You’re too sweet to me,” he said, sounding more awake.

“I’m exactly as sweet as you deserve.”

Instead of using his words to express he wanted to turn over, he just started rolling beneath you, forcing you to rip yourself from his divine warmth, and settle upright on his lap.

You were reminded of the reason you were cold when his eyes trailed over your naked skin, not afraid to show their appetite for your chest. The hunger in his hands returned, scaling the plush expanse of your thighs, and feasting his thumbs higher on the sensitive inner haven he’d yet to pay tribute to.

A smirk cut across his mouth. With a slow breath, he rocked his hips, grinding his half-hard cock against your neglected need, now attuned with the perfect tilt to achieve that pretty noise from your mouth which riled him like nothing else.

Oh, he was very awake.

Eddie exhaled with a pitying sound with attentive eyebrows, almost like he was mocking your moan. “You look so good up there, sweetheart,” he admired through his teasing. “Could get used to it..”

“Yeah?” you questioned. Reaching between your joined bodies, you held no qualms about circling your fingers over his cock, and honoring just under his head, ending your stroke just before he could reap the benefit.

He tipped his head back to gain his wits, finding his answer in the darkness behind his eyelids. “But you keep forgetting this night was about you, and thanking you for everything you’ve done for me. And then you go and add that on top of it.” Private fantasies took hold of him, influencing his heavy moan and thumbs climbing higher, higher. “Gotta thank you for so many things, sweetheart. So many.. However many you want,” he said, alluding to his way of showing gratitude. Fresh lust rushed to your soaked heat hugging his length. “Gotta get you out of these, though.” He scratched a nail over your pantyhose.

You snorted, accidentally ushering humor into what was a sexy exchange. “Why bother? You already ripped them.”

“I what?” Plain confusion marked his face.

Treating it like an ordinary thing, you bunched your skirt up to your waist, and drew his gaze to your mismatched black panties. You gandered at them as well, second guessing if you should’ve taken the extra time to find the lavender pair somewhere at the bottom of your drawer.

“Yeah,” he groaned; as his chest fell, his cock swelled. “I’m gonna show you just how thankful I am, again, and again, and again,” he trailed off, each word fluttering the heartbeat at your core—

Lightning struck, and the phone rang.

Jolting, Eddie stared at it from a long moment, breath held as if that alone would will it into submission from ringing a second time. Spikes of prickly anxiety stabbed at your chest, frightened out of the moment worse than any jumpscare.

It rang a second time.

He took the initiative and sat up, consoling you with his hand on your back and a kiss on your cheek. “I’m sure it’s nothing, just stay put and make yourself comfortable, sweet girl. I’ll be right back.”

Use your pet names all he wanted, his voice didn’t instill confidence when it went flat and wavered.

He got up from the couch and you were left feeling exposed, nestling into the blanket as the rain picked up, and the buzzy feeling he left imprinted on your skin faded.

“Hello?” he answered, rubbing his stomach above the open fly of his jeans.

As he listened to the man’s voice on the other end, he dropped his hand, and his shoulders sagged at the information.

Turning away, he huddled the receiver to his ear, and asked, “Is she okay?”

His question didn’t have the direness a parent should have if someone were hurt, so you stood up and padded softly to the kitchen, straining your ears, listening intently and discerning a few sniffles. But one little girl’s cry rang above them all. A shrill call for her Daddy to save her from her greatest fear.

Thunder rocked the trailer.

“Yeah.. Yeah, I’ll come get her.”

The phone clicked into its holder on the wall, and like that, the illusion was shattered. It was no longer just you and him spending a night together, carefree. Responsibility took precedence, and when Eddie faced you, his mood was tainted by all the things he explained about being exhausted from just existing his thankless life, judged by all.

He stared into your optimistic gaze knowing this is when you’d get a dose of his reality as a single father.

Fatigue and dread haunted his expression: this date is over.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie munson smut #mechanic!eddie #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #the yes policy

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ghost-1-y · 6 months

Text

Sacrifice

Surtr!Kyojuro x AFAB!Worshipper!Reader

Content Warnings: MDNI, explicit sexual content, penetrative sex, oral sex (f! receiving), fingering, masturbation (Kyo), getting caught masturbating (Kyo), knotting, Kyojuro is in heat, Kyo has a massive breeding kink, lactation kink (Kyo loves your titties), size kink, pregnancy kink, pregnancy (at the end), using horns as handles, implied belly bulging, mommy kink (reader referred to as both “mommy” and “mother”), love confessions at the very end, douma being an asshole, incorrect interpretation of norse mythology, reader is given as a human sacrifice to Kyo, mentions of animal sacrifice, reader referred to as “pretty girl” sometimes, please lmk if I missed anything!

Summary: The legends stated that the mighty fire giant would one day bring about the beginnings of Ragnarok and engulf the world in flames. You had been told of these prophecies since childhood and were a firm believer in appeasing the proclaimed Ruler of Fire through worship and sacrifice – just as you had been taught by the village elders since you were a mere child. What you didn’t expect, however, was for the village to turn their back on you and suggest that what would be needed would be a human sacrifice to appease the giant once and for all.

Word Count: ~6k

Divider Credit: @/benkeibear

A/N: So sorry this took so long!! I've had a mess of a week so far. I hope the fic is worth the wait! Apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors (I tried my best).

A fire blazed in the heart of the village, crackling with embers floating gracefully and smoke ebbing above the tallest of houses – its heat a sharp contrast to the bitter cold of the autumn night. Members of the village surrounded the bonfire, sitting with their families as they feasted, bellies full with the meat stew that was provided for them. A single bowl was left untouched amongst each family – a welcoming invitation for the dead to engage in the festivities that were part of Vetrnætr.

As chieftain, you engaged with the families, wishing them good health and happiness as they did the same for you, before engaging in sumbel with them as you poured wine onto the grass below.

“Freyr will be most pleased by your worship.”

In a way of parting from families, you’d praise their good faith before moving on to the next family. The smiles were abundant amongst the villagers, and, once you’d made your way fully around the bonfire, you removed your sword from your scabbard and raised it high into the air.

“Today we celebrate, and are thankful to the god Freyr for a wonderful harvest. Please join me in this sacrifice, in order to show our thanks to the deities of all the Nine Realms.”

However, before you could commit to the sacrifice – the poor lamb that was before you – a cold hand gripped at your shoulder, which made you turn in confusion.

“Perhaps I should tell you, before you engage in such an act, that the priest has some… concerns,” the man – Enmu you believed his name was – whispered. You sighed and sheathed your sword once more, your blood beginning to boil as you’d wondered what he could possibly want in the middle of the village’s celebration.

You trudged your way through the temple that resided on the outskirts of the village. The door creaked open as you walked through, and before you sat the village priest, who sat on a cushion made of feathers and animal skin. He upturned his lips upon seeing you, yet it wasn’t a true smile.

You knew he didn’t know how to, after all.

“Ah! My lovely Chieftain,” Douma drawled, “such a beautiful night to celebrate Vetrnætr, isn’t it? Although, I doubt that Freyr will grant you the beauty or fertility needed to continue your lineage this upcoming year, truly a shame,” he said, faking a pout.

You fought the urge to ball your fists. The village elders, and, apparently now the village priest as well, had been pressing you for a child – particularly a son – however, despite many suitors attempting to lay their claim to the throne, and therefore you, none had been successful.

Despite this jab, you maintained composure, “what do you need from me, Douma? You’ve interrupted the sacrifice.” You stared him down, and he forced a small laugh.

“Oh my, a harsh tongue doesn’t suit you, dear Chief” he sneered, “You see, I have become aware of some rather concerning events – ones surrounding Ragnarök in particular,” he paused, observing you for any kind of reaction, “unfortunately, it seems Surtr has traveled from Muspelheim to Midgard.”

Your eyes widened, “how would he be able to do such a thing? He isn’t a deity–”

“–ah, but he is a jötunn, and therefore would have the ability to travel between the realms,” Douma countered, “did you never pay attention to my lessons during your youth?”

You rolled your eyes, “you speak as though we do not dedicate sacrifices to him with each solstice. You know appeasing his anger is one of my most steadfast beliefs.”

Douma hummed, “well, it appears that you did not follow through with this past solstice, my dear Chieftain – rather dedicating it to Freyr than to Surtr – and, to be completely honest, I am quite disappointed in that fact.”

The door shut behind you, and two warriors stood on either side of you. You grabbed the hilt of your sword, sensing distrust in the air.

“Do you know, Chieftain, what would be required to adequately appease the Ruler of Fire?”

You pulled out your sword and swung at the warrior on your right, an attack which was quickly blocked by his own weapon. You landed a kick to the left one’s stomach, only for it to be trapped in an unwavering grip by the warrior’s arms. You attempted to swing your sword at him in retaliation, only for your arm to also be grabbed by the one on your right.

Douma stood up and walked towards you, gripping your chin – the cold of his skin causing you to wince.

“A proper, human sacrifice.”

A blow landed to the back of your neck, and your vision faded to black.

—

You awoke to a chill that laid upon your skin, feeling as though you were made of ice rather than of flesh. You were completely bare, lying on a wooden floor of what you presumed to be the priest’s sacred temple, as your vision was fully obstructed by a cloth which wrapped around your eyes. Upon moving your arms – which were thankfully in front of you and not behind, you noticed that your wrists were also bound by rope to prevent you from making any potential escape from Douma’s clutches.

Outside, you heard footsteps approaching, and the door swung open – causing you to flinch at the loud creak that sounded from it. A rough hand grabbed at your arm and pulled you up to your feet, forcing you outside where you heard murmurs of villagers on either side of you. Your cheeks flushed deep with embarrassment, the idea of your beloved villagers seeing you in such a state bringing tears to your eyes in pure shame.

“All of you, please say your final goodbyes to our beloved Chieftain – for she has volunteered to become the sacrifice that will appease Surtr and end his threats of Ragnarök!”

You couldn’t hear the cheers of your people over your pulse pounding in your ears, completely helpless as you were all but dragged along the dirt and gravel pathway before being placed on a horse. A faint rustling could be heard before you felt a rope tied around your neck.

“Be careful not to fall off, my dear Chieftain, lest your neck snap as you’re dragged along the rugged terrain by your horse,” Douma whispered to you before saddling himself onto a separate horse, and you could only assume that this rope was also tied to the horse in some way, thus forcing you to go wherever Douma led you.

You begrudgingly held tight against the horse’s mane as it went into a trot, the wind blowing harshly against your naked skin as the voices of the villagers slowly faded away, replaced by the clopping of hooves as you traversed to a place unfamiliar.

The horses did not stop, and you could only tell the passage of time as the cool of night gave way to the blazing heat of the sun that seared itself into your back. Hours must have passed, and your muscles grew sore the longer you traveled.

At some point, the horses slowed, and the sun’s heat was obstructed by a shadow which loomed above you. Again, a faint rustling could be heard before you were taking off of the horse’s back – yet the rope stayed wrapped around your neck, yet it was no longer taut if you tried pulling away from the horse’s body. You were dragged into the cool shadow, before a hand gripped at your hair.

“Such a shame you never produced a son,” Douma muttered into your ear, “you wouldn’t have to die if you were nice and fertile, my dear Chieftain.”

You could only imagine the nasty grin on his face as he pushed you forward, causing you to lose your footing and fall what could’ve been roughly two meters before hitting solid rock. You heard laughter above you before it started to fade away.

Luckily, the fall seemed to loosen the cloth which covered your eyes, allowing you to see out of one of them, yet you doubted it would be of much help as you got your bearings and realized that you were indeed alone in a dark cave, being left to starve and rot as a form of sacrifice to Surtr.

You decided, that if you were going to die anyway, that you’d at least explore the cave you were pushed into.

It was dark, yet not damp, the stone beneath you as dry as the walls that surrounded you, and you wondered if the sun somehow reached its way into the depths of this cave to evaporate the moisture. There was no life, not a single lizard or insect to be seen – although a few animal bones would be strewn about here and there as you continued your descent further into the cave.

You traversed further, being careful to not trip over any rocks or pitfalls. After what seemed to be an hour of exploration, you saw the tiniest spark of light in the distance.

Perhaps a way out? You thought, and walked closer to this flickering light, and the rather narrow tunnel you were in gave way to a large cavern – with a large bonfire in the middle, one much larger than the one in your village during the celebration of Vetrnætr.

Unlike the blazing heat of the sun from earlier, the warmth of the bonfire was comforting, with its orange hue flickering along the walls of the cavern.

As you got closer, you heard the slightest shifting from the other side of the cavern, followed by what could only be described as a low growl. You froze, unsure of how to proceed in front of a potential predator with nothing to defend yourself with. You slowly crouched and walked towards the bonfire, and, despite your hands being tied, managed to pick up one of the smaller logs on the outer ring of the fire before dousing the tip of it in flames – a weapon, should you need to use it.

As you slowly walked around the bonfire, you found a rather peculiar sight – realizing that the growl did not come from the likes of an animal.

But who– or what was before you was certainly not human.

The being before you was huge, possibly even a jötunn. You were never one to doubt your beliefs, but the idea that a creature from another realm was before your very eyes was difficult to swallow. However, from what you could remember from your religious texts, a jötunn is the only creature you could bring yourself to categorize it as.

The creature had large, curved horns that were sizable in their girth, and its tusks – not fangs – emerged up from its lower jaw. What’s more, it had pointed ears on either side of its head which emerged through hair resembling that of fire, locks that matched the finest gold and ruby gemstones that would cost a fortune in your village.

Unlike the face, its body looked quite human – although its very naked form boasted large, dense muscles throughout its entire body, and a cock that made you swallow absentmindedly from just how threatening its size was.

The creature was stroking its girth, thumbing itself over the leaking slit – a slight shudder escaping from its throat. It started to fuck itself into its grip, thrusting quickly as though chasing its release. Its other hand was fondling its balls – which looked heavy and full of seed, before having its hand move slightly upward towards the slightly swollen base of its cock, softly massaging it to seemingly ease the tension it caused.

Fully flushed with embarrassment, you backed away from the creature before you, each step seemingly calculated in order to escape this situation.

Is the creature sentient? It seems to be humanoid– does that mean it can think like a human? What if it’s a predator and kills me?

Thoughts rushed through your mind, seemingly going into a frenzy as you worried about potential outcomes of this situation.

Crack!

In your panic, you managed to step on a stray twig that managed to stray from the center of the bonfire.

The creature stopped its movements, and immediately turned its head to the source of the sound.

Its amber and crimson eyes opened and glared into yours.

“F-Fuck—!”

With one glance over your naked form, the creature before you released its seed, spilling it all over its fist and shaft, with the remaining drops dribbling onto its lower abdomen. It continued to slowly rub its fist up and down its length, closing its eyes as it played with its tip up until the last of its cum dribbled out from the slit, before tensing and looking back at you, eyes widening in shock – as though it couldn’t believe you were actually there.

“I’m sorry!” the creature exclaimed, a blush so red blooming across its cheeks that it seemingly felt the same amount of embarrassment as you. It hastily wiped itself clean on the furred animal skin it was laying upon. “I– I can explain, really– just– who are you? Why are you here?”

You were in shock, so much so that you couldn’t even eke out a full sentence. Your eyes drifted down to its cock once more, which – much to your surprise – was still standing incredibly tall and proud as it curved up towards the creature’s stomach. Heat prickled across your cheeks and down your chest as the fiery-haired being used its hands to cover itself up in front of you – sensing that you might be uncomfortable from bearing witness to such an event.

This is ridiculous, you thought, you are the Chieftain of your village – compose yourself!

“I am Y/N, leader of my village and child of a family of famed warriors,” you introduced yourself.

The creature raised an eyebrow to you in response.

“And what exactly brings a village leader into my cave?”

You hesitated, humiliation flooding your veins even more so than before.

“I– I was overthrown by the village priest and have been made a sacrifice to Surtr, the Ruler of Fire.”

You expected laughter from the jötunn before you, closing your eyes to hide whatever dignity you had left from what Douma stripped from you. However, instead of hearing a cacophony of hearty noises from the creature’s throat, you instead heard the thud of footsteps approaching you.

Slowly, the jötunn reached forward and removed the bandages which obstructed your vision, loosening and pulling them away with his large fingers, careful to not touch you unnecessarily in the process.

Your eyes widened as you looked up at the giant, his eyes surprisingly kind as he looked down at you. He bunched the bandages in his hands before tossing them to the side, then continued untie the ropes that were digging into your wrists and cast them aside as well.

“If what you say is true, please inform your village that I do not take human sacrifices.”

Your heart seemed to have traveled up to your throat, its beats both fast and fluttery.

“That would imply that I could go back– wait, what are you talking about?”

Then, the creature did finally let out a laugh – a small chuckle that rose from his chest and was deep and bassy as it rose through his throat.

“My dear human, I am the one you people refer to as Surtr.”

You stopped, instinctively stepping back – away from the creature that just claimed to be the harbinger of destruction – the one to bring flames that will engulf all nine realms and Yggdrasil itself.

You did what you believed best, and forced your body to the rocky floor of the cave, bowing in absolute submission and respect for such a being – nearly cowering in the presence of such raw power presented before you.

“Stand up, please, there’s no need for that here.”

You looked up at the being before you, rather confused by his words.

He sighed, “you humans have beliefs of me that are so far from the truth, it’s saddening.”

A pause, the only sound in the cavern being the crackling of the wood against flames.

“My real name is Kyojuro, the name ‘Surtr’ is a title bestowed upon me that I did not wish to receive. I am not going to harm you or your village, I do not wish for such evil. Whatever “priest” thought that a human sacrifice would appease this nonexistent will of mine is, to put simply, a fool.”

You let out a shaky breath, and he reached out his hand – one that dwarfed your own – toward you.

“Stand up.”

He was smiling as you took his hand, with a gaze that was comforting and kind as he sent sparks through your skin with his touch.

The prickling heat returned to your cheeks.

“I’ll help you get back to your village,” he promised.

You froze, your heartbeat quickening once more as you registered his words.

“I can’t– please, I can’t go back, not after what they did to me,” you started, preparing yourself to beg and plead this god-like creature for mercy.

Kyojuro frowned, “I understand, but I can’t keep you here. You need to leave, I– I can’t have you stay.”

You knew it was selfish, to leave your people in the hands of Douma, but after what he did to you– after how he humiliated you.

Where the fire in your village was scalding, his was warm. Where those treated you with indifference or malice, he had been nothing but kind.

Was it really worth going back?

“I’d like to stay,” you decided.

Kyojuro stopped, each and every second becoming more and more difficult for the jötunn. Every passing moment he ignored his very obvious problem, he became this much closer to just bending you over and taking you like a wild animal. His blood was hot in his veins, and fire licked at his lower abdomen, pleasure bubbling once more to the surface as he continued to endure his heat.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me, human,” he warned. He was using every ounce of his willpower in order to maintain his composure. His heat was going to near its peak soon, and he needed you away from him before that happened. He came to Midgard to weather it alone in his cave, and you were only making it all the more difficult.

“Kyojuro,” you uttered softly, and the creature before you let out a low growl, “will you let me stay if I…help?”

His cock twitched, precum dribbling slowly out of the tip, with the base of it swelling up once more.

“I don’t want you to try and sell yourself to me as though you’re a piece of meat. I–” he swallowed, “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t allow you to do that.”

“Kyojuro, I want to help you. I want this,” you assured, and he balled his hands into fists, as though the rope holding him together was about to snap.

“Y/N–” he warned, and you rolled your eyes.

“Please, fuck me, Kyojuro.”

The jötunn grabbed your arm, “if– if we are to do this, you must know that I am in heat, and I–” he swallowed, “I may not be able to control myself should we continue.”

You took your hand and brushed your fingers across his tightened grip, causing slight shivers to flow down his spine.

“Lose control, Kyojuro, I can take it.”

He groaned, and with his strength, picked you up and collided his lips with yours. Your hands sought either side of his face, kissing back with fervor as he moaned into your mouth. His tusks surprisingly didn’t obstruct your access to his mouth, and every once in a while he’d nip at your bottom lip, before laving his tongue over the swollen skin and pushing it into your mouth. You let out a small moan at the intrusion, and wrapped your arms around his neck, your fingers finding purchase in his wild, fiery hair.

His grip on your body moved from your hips back towards your ass, cupping and massaging the muscle with his hands. His cock was stiff against your inner thigh, the precum spreading along your skin with each small movement. You wrapped your legs around his waist, moaning as his cock slipped between your legs and along your slit – the sheer girth of it a little worrisome as it pressed against your heat.

“Shit– so big, Kyojuro, hah–” you panted, and he growled.

“Never had cock this big before, have you? Don’t worry, dear, I’ll get you nice and ready to take me.”

He shifted your weight onto one of his arms, the muscles flexing as he shifted his other hand beneath you. Two of his fingers started rubbing along your clit, making small circular motions as his other hand groped at the fat of your ass. He lifted you up a little more so his mouth was in line with your breasts and pursed his lips around one of your perked up tits, sucking at it and licking broad stripes with his tongue. He groaned around your tit as he played with your pussy, reveling in how wet you were for him already. The mini vibrations sent electricity down your spine, and you moved your head to rest on his broad shoulder, giving small kisses to his neck as you whined from his ministrations.

“Lips feel so good, dear, love it when you kiss me like that,” he sighed, giving kisses to each of your breasts, “want to apologize for my earlier…release, you were just so beautiful…seeing you all naked ‘n presenting for me like that…made me want to breed you, pretty girl,” Kyojuro confessed, causing you to shiver as he softly whispered such filthy thoughts into your ear.

“Mmh– don’t apologize, Kyo– liked watchin’ you,” you admitted, and he let out a light chuckle, which made you lightly slap his rocky chest. He responded by giving a small bite to your breast, before licking it better with his skilled tongue.

“Yeah? You like the idea of me wanting to breed you? Getting you pregnant with my young?” he asked, his fingers moving from your clit down towards your entrance, where he inserted a single thick digit into your heat. You whined as your pussy clenched around the intrusion, and nodded in response, licking a stripe up his neck before kissing back down it again.

His finger thrust into you, curling against that one sensitive area inside of you as his thumb reached for and played with your clit. The moans that you let out echoed throughout the cavern, with the only other sounds being the shlick of Kyojuro’s finger deep in your cunt and the crackling of flames. After a while, he added a second digit, and slowly but surely worked you towards your peak, the tension slowly building up in your gut.

With one last swipe against your clit with his thumb, you came undone, your orgasm causing you to shudder and whine in his hold as he worked you through it, curling his fingers and rubbing your clit as you rode out each wave.

“Kyo–” you moaned, trying to grind your hips down on his fingers, and he smiled before meeting your lips in a heated kiss. He continued thrusting his fingers up into your now weeping cunt, prepping you nice and good to take his much thicker cock.

He walked back toward his makeshift bed – a pile of furs and animal skins which he must’ve collected prior to his heat – and gently placed you down on top of them. His large hands moved down your thighs, rubbing softly up and down your plush skin as he stared at the slick between your legs. He lowered himself between your thighs and inhaled deeply as he tried desperately to memorize your scent. He licked a stripe up your slit, causing you to jolt at the sensation, and moaned as your taste spread over his tongue like honey.

You squirmed underneath his touch, which made him hold your hips in place as he started to devour you. His tongue flicked over your clit before collecting more of your juices on his tongue. Your hands found his horns and gripped them tightly, pushing his head further between your thighs, earning a groan from Kyojuro. He pursed his lips and sucked at your clit before licking at it in circular motions, moving his hand between your legs again and pushing two digits inside your cunt once more, thrusting in and out of your hole with his fingers. After adding a third finger, he started curling his fingers into that one spot again, his movements quick and deft as he brought you to your second orgasm.

You moaned loudly as you came undone, legs shaking as your grip on his horns tightened, trying your best to buck your hips up into his face as he lapped up all of the juices that seeped out of your pussy. Only when you were able to open your eyes once more did you look down to see Kyojuro humping himself onto the fur pelts as he messily gathered the rest of your release onto his tongue.

“Kyo– please, I need you,” you whined, and he looked up at you with a fire ignited in his eyes. He got up, stroking his thick cock as he looked down upon your much smaller form.

“Get on all fours for me.”

Without hesitation, you rolled over and got on your hands and knees. Kyojuro kneeled behind you and placed his cock in between your wet folds, rubbing the tip up and down as his precum mixed with your juices. He shuddered before slowly pushing the head inside, causing you to tense slightly from how big the intrusion was.

“Relax for me, won’t you?” he asked softly.

You tried your best to relax, and he started to push more of his length inside of you, filling you up more than you ever thought possible. For a moment, he stayed like that, relishing in the feeling of your cunt tightly wrapped around his throbbing cock, his hips flush against your ass as you whined for him to move, please.

“Let me have this moment, dear, I– I haven’t felt something this wonderful in centuries,” he confessed, and you let out a soft mewl before complying with what he wanted.

After a few more moments, his cock dragged out of you slowly before thrusting back in. He rocked into you, slowly at first, which was most likely for the better considering how huge he was. He growled as he thrust into you, his heavy balls slapping against your clit as he reached underneath you to hold your stomach, pressing up slightly as he fully fucked his cock into you.

“Shit– you feel that, pretty girl? Feel my cock deep inside you?” he groaned, and you nodded helplessly, letting out a whine as he continued his movements. “Feel so good wrapped around me, so fuckin’ tight f’ me.”

You choked out another moan as he started increasing his speed, his groans becoming more frequent with each thrust. Kyojuro took his hand and gently tilted your chin up so you could look at him.

“Won’t last much longer, pretty girl,” he leaned down and kissed you, “gonna pull out, promise.”

You whined, “no– please, need your cum, Kyo– need it inside.”

He moaned loudly, “you have no idea what you’re asking of me, pretty. You’d end up taking my knot–”

“I want your knot, Kyo! Please give it to me–!”

Kyojuro thrust even harder into your sopping cunt upon hearing that, “fuck, you want my knot? I’ll get you fucking pregnant, fill you up with my young ‘n get your belly all swollen, you sure you want that?”

“Yes! Please Kyo–! Please–”

With a couple last thrusts, Kyojuro shot his seed inside of you, thick ropes painting your insides white and filling you up to the brim. You moaned as you felt the warmth spread deep inside of your cunt, and, before his release could begin to seep out of your pussy, a burning stretch began inside your abused hole. Realizing this is what Kyojuro meant by his knot, you tried to look behind you to catch sight of his cock seemingly expanding inside of your pussy, keeping his cum nicely plugged inside of you.

Kyojuro was panting, his voice rough as he pulled you up onto his lap.

“Good fuckin’ girl, taking my knot so well.” He looked down at your chest as you sat in his lap, his cock still rock hard and throbbing inside your wet cunt.

“Can’t wait to see these breasts filled with milk, gonna be such a good mommy, aren’t you?” he said before taking one of your tits in his mouth and sucking at it, as though he were trying to get you to produce milk already for him, and eventually his young, to feed on.

“Kyo, I– I’m sorry, but I’m not fertile, I– I’ve never been able to produce an heir with another man,” you sighed, and his eyes looked up to meet yours. “I’m really sorry, it’s why I was thrown down here in the first place” you continued, hoping your words wouldn’t anger him.

Instead of becoming angry, he simply placed you back down on the fur pelts and brought your legs up towards your shoulders so that you were folded completely in half. He then crouched over you, keeping you locked in a mating press with him.

“I’m no simple man, my dear human,” he kissed your lips, “if I say I will breed you and fill you with my young–” he paused, thrusting deeply into your cunt.

“–I mean every single word.”

Kyojuro started fucking into you with renewed fervor, his stamina seemingly having increased despite already releasing inside of you once. His cock reached deeper inside of you, and you could swear you felt him all the way in your throat. Every single thrust of his hips had you a whining mess, taking his knot until your pussy molded into the shape of his cock.

“Fuck, that’s it, take it all,” he groaned before pressing his mouth to yours once more. His tongue plunged past your lips – prompting you to suck on it, causing him to fall over the edge again, his hips stilling as he pumped a second load of cum into your needy cunt. You whined as he didn’t stop – continuing to fuck into your abused cunt despite cumming twice, his cock still stiff and leaking with every thrust. You felt his seed sloshing around in your womb, feeling so incredibly full by both his cum and his fat cock.

“Mine,” he growled while pumping himself into you, “you’re fucking mine.”

You could only nod and whine in response, having been completely fucked dumb by his cock.

“Pregnant.” He pummeled his cock deep into your cunt, “getting you pregnant. Fuck. Gonna have a round belly filled with my young, tits swelling with milk, I’ll keep you here – gonna be the mother to my children, gonna treat mommy so well, hunt for you, protect you, everything you could ever want.”

You moaned, your cunt clenching around his cock upon listening to his promises.

“Wan’ it,” you managed, “wan’ to be a good mommy so– fuck– so bad.”

Kyojuro groaned, his cock twitching inside of you as it swelled even more. “Can’t stop thinking of my young suckling on your breasts, tits producing so much milk that all of them have their fill– shit, gonna cum again, gonna fill you up– fuck!”

He spilled into you once more, filling your cunt up completely with his seed, ensuring that it takes, making good on his promise. His fingers flicked at your clit and your own orgasm came crashing down around you, pure euphoria flowing through your veins as you let out a silent scream from the seemingly endless waves of pleasure addling your mind.

Kyojuro rolled over and had you collapse on top of him, his arms reaching around your torso and holding you close.

“Did you mean what you said? About wanting to stay?” he whispered, slight insecurity being carried through his tone.

You gave him a quick peck to his lips, “yes, Kyojuro, you– you’ve been so kind to me, much more than anyone else in that damned village. I’d love to stay with you.”

He smiled softly at you, his eyes glowing with warmth as he cradled your head into his neck, petting at your hair as the two of you fell asleep next to the flickering bonfire.

—

A few months had passed, and you were waiting for your lover to return from his hunt. He had promised a large meal today, and you were excited to see what he had planned for the two of you.

You rubbed your baby bump as you cozied up next to the fire, resting in a heap of animal furs which acted as bedding for the two of you. You were surprised to find out that you were pregnant, but Kyojuro had sensed it about a month after you two had first met, and proceeded to treat you as though every step you took turned the rocks beneath your feet into gold.

The bump was rather large for only being a few months in, and your breasts were already swelling and leaking with milk, but Kyojuro had told you that it was normal – considering that his young would be half-jötunn. He quelled your fears of labor, saying that he would help you in every way that he possibly could when it came time to have the baby.

After a few hours, Kyojuro came back to the cavern, carrying your meal over his shoulder.

“How is my love doing?” he asked with the biggest smile on his face, causing you to giggle as you attempted to get up to greet him. Kyojuro rushed over to you, ensuring that you don’t so much as lift a finger while carrying his young. He leaned down and gave you a soft kiss before dragging your meal to the bonfire and beginning to cook it.

“Mmh– Kyo? Could you help me a little bit, my tits feel so swollen,” you pouted, and his ears damn near perked up at your words.

“Oh? Does mommy need some relief?” he asked teasingly, and you nodded. Kyojuro walked over to you and knelt down, his hands reaching to massage your breasts slowly. He kneaded them and licked at the milk which dribbled out, letting it coat over his tongue. His lips wrapped around one of your tits, and he sucked slowly, moaning as he drank from you. You whined when he moved to the other tit and performed the same actions, relief sinking in the more he suckled the milk out of you.

“Taste so good, pretty girl,” he whispered before getting up again to cook the meat he brought in.

You pouted again, “need you, Kyo, please,” and he laughed.

“You can have me after we eat, does that sound okay?” he compromised, and you sighed but nodded in agreement.

You laid back and rested upon the pile of furs, smiling in contentment as you looked at the two meals that were set out before you.

“I love you, Kyo,” you admitted, unashamed by your feelings as they echoed throughout the cavern.

Kyojuro froze, glancing back at you briefly before continuing to prepare the food, trying his best to hide the blush that traveled across his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

“I love you, too, my little flame.”

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brairslair · 4 months

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just self indulgent eddie filth i wrote while sleep deprived, ur welcome

18+ ONLY (minors dni)

a/n: i love the opposites attract shit idk smth abt it is just sooo

cw: one use of the word “slut”, eddie running his mouth as per usual, light exhibitionism, kinda hinted at a corruption kink but barely, shitty writing

don’t forget to like, reblog, and comment to support my work! mwah <3

“gotta keep quiet for me, princess”

Your parents were right downstairs preparing a lovely dinner, which you had invited your sweet boyfriend to. Soon after you had also invited him on a house tour, leading him right into your pretty pink bedroom, where you may or may not have left out some of your best lacy little panties for him to see, which got you to where you are now.

“Shhh, you gotta keep quiet for me, princess.” Eddie reminds you, gravely and hot in your ear, chest leaned down to press against your back, “Wouldn’t wanna get caught now would we?”

You bite your lip hard, forcing down a whine as you shake your head. Manicured nails tug at your dainty floral sheets and your arms begin to shake from holding yourself up. Your eyes dart over to the door to make sure it hadn’t magically unlocked itself, head spinning.

Every thrust sparks the ebbing fire in your belly, the head of his dick rubbing just right against your spongey walls. A particularly hard thrust pulls another soft moan from your lips, your arms collapsing beneath you as your face falls into your pillow. He’s doing it on purpose.

You whine his name out, long and desperate, muffled by the fluffy mass beneath you. You can’t decide if it’s too much, or not enough, but your hips push back against his.

He rubs his thumbs soothingly on your hips despite the way his hips pick up in pace, cooing out an “I know, baby, I know.” and “It’s all too much, isn’t it?” hushed words dripping with faux sympathy.

Your nails claw deeper into your sheets, getting dangerously close to ripping them. You can feel the pleasure building up rapidly, getting dangerously close to release but still needing more, more, more.

“Eddie-“ your whole body is trembling, and your stomach tightens with restraint, “Ed- I’m gonna-“

“Oh yeah? Gonna cum for me, sweetheart?” you clench around him in response, panting with the effort to stay silent. “Gonna make a mess on my cock in your pretty little bed, baby?” Tears start to form on your lash line, and your chest aches with a suppressed sob.

You don’t notice when a hand slides its way off of your hip, and suddenly his finger is on your clit, rubbing it cruelly and making your brain go completely blank.

Before you can make a sound, his hand is in your hair, pulling you flush against his chest and muffling your pretty noises with his lips. You can feel his breath getting heavier and his thrusts getting sloppier.

His lips migrate down to your jaw, leaving sloppy kisses along your flushed skin, “Come on, pretty girl, I know you can do it.” His kisses on your sweet spot, and his fingers circling your clit, and his cock buried so deep inside you, and it’s all too much.

“Go ahead. Be a good little slut and soak my dick for me, sweetheart.”

His hand clasps firmly over your mouth as you fall right over the edge, stifling your screams and sobs of his name as your vision hazes over.

“Attagirl”

asks are open!

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eureka-its-zico · 8 months

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Chaos in Their Bones Ch. 2

Ongoing Series

Synopsis: All your life you’d listened to your friend, Usopp spin wild tales about pirates and adventure. Pirates weren’t a thing that came often to Syrup Village, but one straw hat pirate and his crew changed all that the day they arrived. Now, you aren’t so sure if your sleepy little village was always pirate-free or if no one had been paying attention.

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Genre: friends to lovers, frenemies to lovers, slow burn (I hope y’all like aching) eventual smut

Words: 6k+

A/N: For this chapter, I played with the idea of having Zoro’s POV. It felt necessary for the story progression that I had in mind. This chapter was a tad fun to write, and I hope that translated well into the story. Originally it was going to be longer, but I realized I wanted to save the dinner to go with all the action to end the Episode 3-4 story arc. Thank you guys so much for the love you’ve given this little story. I hope it continues to be one you enjoy 🖤 Much Love, Jenn

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This place is a maze.

That thought rang true with every hallway you entered and the endless number of rooms within. With every step you took inside Kaya’s large estate, those words kept echoing through your head. How many guest suites could one house possibly hold? But also, why would you ever need so many?

You’d been wandering the halls for what felt like an eternity. Your head poked into each room after a brief knock. Yes, a brief knock before plunging head-first into someone’s private space wasn’t much of a warning but at least you were knocking.

And all of this just to find Zoro who may or may not help you expose whatever metaphorical skeletons this butler had stuffed in his metaphorical closet. Or an actual closet. The possibilities felt endless.

You weren’t even sure how you were going to explain to him exactly why you were searching for him without sounding like a creep. You would just have to cross that bridge when you came to it.

You were about to give up trying to locate him because you were pretty sure you’d just passed that same exact clock for the second time in a row. You let out a raspberry as you placed your hands on your hips. Was it plausible you were lost? Inside a ginormous house like this? Yes, it sure as shit was. Maybe you should’ve been dropping breadcrumbs to find your way back to your own room when this was over.

Rolling your tongue around your mouth, you looked down to your right and realized there were only two more doors left. What could it hurt just to look? You were already down here anyway.

With a shrug, you moved towards the second to last door near the end of the hall. You weren’t in a rush to check what was behind either one, but you were also not leaving any stone unturned and all that. If your earlier dozen room checks were any indication of what to expect, you were willing to bet that you were going to find absolutely nothing waiting for you. The joy of joys.

You were just a few feet from the door when you heard the lock click. The sound caused you to stop dead center, facing the door like an absolutely terrified rabbit caught in the headlights. What were the chances that whoever opened that door was going to be Zoro? And what were the chances that he would be willing to listen to what you had to say?

The possibility of your questions being answered ebbed the panic in your chest down just a tad. Enough that when the door finally opened and Zoro was, in fact, standing before you, you silently thanked the universe for your suddenly award-winning luck.

That was until you realized he was just standing there. In a robe. A silk robe with his swords slung over his shoulder and because of his current hold on his swords, said robe in question was flashing a peak of his chest. You immediately wanted to take back your previous thank you letter to the universe.

This should be illegal.

The worst part? You were pretty positive from the way Zoro was staring at you - his eyes taking you in from top to bottom lord HELP you - he did not seem as impressed with you as you were of him. Why in the hell couldn’t you say a word? Yes, he was attractive - stupidly so - but he was also just another guy.

A guy in a thin silk robe and hair still damp from a bath.

You watched as Zoro’s body began to relax, or relax as much as someone like him could. It was when he let out a sigh as if your very presence was keeping him from something important, that you felt your feet remove themselves from their spot in the carpet and spring you forward.

There was a split second when Zoro’s eyes registered your movement. His eyebrows raised up in surprise as the almond shape of his eyes widened just a tad before he braced for whatever you were about to do. Zoro was planning on an attack and his body was primed to force you back. Instead of violence, he was met with your hands shoving him back inside his room with your foot kicking the door swiftly closed behind you.

Once you knew you were both securely back inside the room, you stopped shoving him. You waited for your eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the room before you looked around. It would be embarrassing if you’d done this and someone else - Nami or Luffy or anyone else really - had been inside with him. The only thing you noticed, however, was his previous clothes strewn across the room.

When your eyes ventured back to Zoro you found his earlier shock replaced by what you could only guess was his usual stonewall expression.

“Look,” he began the timber of his voice causing you to jump. “You seem nice and all, if not a little disturbed, but I’m not interested.”

You looked up at him with your confusion knitting your brow together.

“Not interested?”

You weren’t sure why it took you that long to realize what he meant, but it was dawning on you at warp speed and your confusion was quickly replaced with horror.

“Oh my god! No, no! I was not trying to like, do anything to you like that.”

The disbelief in his eyes told you plainly he didn’t believe you, and by the tick in his jaw something was bothering him about your statement.

Shit! He thinks I’m a perv

You wanted to crawl under the nearest rock and die there. You followed his eyes as they trailed down his chest to find your hands were very much still attached to him, practically groping him.

“Then why are your hands still on my chest?”

A small squeak of surprise left you as you dropped your hands down to your sides and shook them like it would be enough to get rid of the feeling of cupping his very pronounced…chest. You took a step back from him in hopes that giving him space would save the entire interaction.

“Sorry about all the ugh…touching,” you mumbled. “But I did come here to speak to you about something.”

“This is going to be good. Is it to convince me you weren’t trying to grope me?”

“God, you aren’t going to let it go, are you?”

Closing your eyes you took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. When you finished, you opened your eyes again and gave him the best smile you could muster.

“Okay, let’s start this again. I,” you motioned towards yourself, “have come to ask you if you noticed anything weird.”

Zoro cocked an eyebrow at you. His arms moved to lock his arms across his chest somehow exposing the peek of flesh from the robe even more.

“You mean weirder than right now?”

You purse your lips together tightly as you try to exhale all the annoyance from gathering in your body.

“Let’s just move on from this moment, ok,” you began. “I came to talk to you about the butler.”

Without warning, Zoro rolled his eyes and dropped his arms from his chest. His swords clanging against his leg reminding you that he wasn’t making any move to set them down anytime soon.

“Here we go again about the butler,” he groaned, and the very sound shouldn’t have sounded as enticing as it did.

Focus!

“Oh, save it!” You snapped. “I saw you, okay? The way you looked at Klahadore before you followed your friends inside. You looked at him like you recognized him. Like you’d seen him before somewhere.”

Zoro regarded you coolly. The hardness that had disappeared while he’d teased you earlier slid back into place until he was as unreadable as stone.

“I’ve never seen that butler before in my entire life.”

“Why are you lying?”

You couldn’t keep the exasperation from your voice or how your desperation was starting to creep back in. Could you have been wrong about Zoro this whole time? Did you just see what you wanted to see?

No. You know what you saw and you were not going to be called crazy. You took a step towards him and weren’t surprised when he didn’t move back. Instead, he tilted his chin, his full pouty lips still very much pouting, as his eyes carefully watched you.

“You know, that I know, that you looked at that guy and went, ‘hmph, something’s not right there’.”

Yeah, that felt like a solid argument.

You waited under Zoro’s cool gaze for him to reply. For him to show any sign of anything, really. He was literally the most unmoving person you’d ever meet, and you were starting to wonder if he was even real. The shitty part about waiting in silence, besides the uneasy commentary your brain was beginning to make, was the smell of the vanilla and sandalwood that wafted off him in mini waves that assaulted your senses.

You were so intently transfixed by trying to match his unblinking gaze that when he finally moved his head down to be eye level with you, you’d almost jumped out of your skin.

“Is everything okay with you? Do you suffer from any brain damage?”

You wish you could say you handled the next few seconds with grace and poise. Things that all upstanding future doctors did when faced with adversity. However, that was most definitely not you, and you weren’t able to keep an exacerbated yell of frustration from cairning past your lips.

“Oh! You are literally the most infuriating man I have ever met!”

“And you are the most perverted woman I have ever met,” Zoro shot back, this time taking a step towards you.

If he was trying to intimidate you, he should’ve tried back when you weren’t ready to tear him limb from limb.

“I beg your pardon?!”

“Who just pushes a semi-naked man into a room so they can grope him?”

“I wasn’t trying to grope you! I was trying to interrogate you for information!”

God, that sounded so much worse.

“That sounds a lot worse, actually.”

Of course, Zoro would state the obvious, and was he - was he smirking? Your eyes rapidly blinked as you tried to make sense of what you were seeing because as fast as you’d noticed it, that devilish smirk had disappeared. Now Zoro once again looked as serious as before. You began to move back towards the door with your hands up in mock surrender.

“You know what - fine! If you don’t want to help me, that’s your choice, but you know I’m right. And I’m going to prove that something is wrong here with or without your help.”

You shot one last look in his direction before turning on your heel and giving him your back. You were at the door, your hand on the doorknob when Zoro surprised you with a question of his own.

“Why ask me to help you?”

Glancing over your shoulder, you expected to see that smug smirk on his face or to get the cold shoulder. What you found instead were eyes so intent on you - waiting for your response - that it caused your lungs to collapse. A million replies played over through your mind, but only one of them mattered.

“Because out of everyone here, I thought you would believe me the most.”

It didn’t matter if it was the answer he’d been looking for or the one you thought would win him over. You meant what you said and you hoped he’d felt your admission genuinely. If Usopp didn’t want to believe you, and if Zoro, who you still believed knew or at least felt something was off here, wasn’t going to be able to help you, you would just have to do it yourself.

Did you know what that entailed? Hell no, but Naan didn’t raise a quitter, and you weren’t going to roll over and just give up just because it was hard. Not when someone’s very life depended on you.

——————

After your incredible failure of finding a co-conspirator to help you on your quest for answers failed with flying colors, you weren’t exactly sure what to do with yourself. Usopp no doubt must have snuck in by now to see Kaya - sans your “gift” - and the others were probably in the ridiculous closet looking for dinner attire. While you could’ve gone just to socialize with everyone else, Kaya had sent a dress to your room.

Sham had looked absolutely miserable dropping it off and that was a joy all on its own.

You considered heading to the closet just to see Luffy again. Luffy radiated optimism like sunshine; at the moment, that sort of unyielding optimism was the mood booster you needed.

Unfortunately, you knew Zoro must have made his way there by now and you weren’t necessarily ready to face him again. The disappointment was clinging to you and that’s what you hated the most. You didn’t understand why you’d seemingly put all your eggs inside the Zoro basket. Just because he’d looked at Klahadore weird didn't mean he’d sensed something off.

Shit, Klahadore was weird and deserved every side-eye glance he got.

All it meant for you was going back to the drawing board for a new plan. One that was going to be able to get you next to Kaya. At least long enough so you could perform some kind of assessment.

You rounded the corner to what you hoped was the hallway your room was down. The earlier thought you’d had about getting lost turned into an accurate one. You’d spent just as much time trying to get back to your room to get ready for dinner as you had searching for Zoro.

Zoro.

Even just thinking about him made your jaw clench with fresh irritation. What was more infuriating than your most recent conversation was the fact you could still feel the strength of him in the hollows of your palms. The sharpness of his jaw and the high sculpt of his cheeks-

No! Absolutely not, you chastised yourself.

It was maddening how little he believed you - mocked you - and yet, here you were acting like some lovestruck teenager. He wasn’t that handsome.

You were lost in your thoughts to the point you weren’t aware of your body's attempt to warn you. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and a sickening feeling began to rot in your gut and made sure all the imaginary - very imaginary - butterflies disappeared.

The goosebumps that rose along your exposed skin informed you that the grand hallway, filled with all its riches and fine cherry woods was as ice cold as the dead. Has it always been this cold and you just never noticed? Or the eerie silence that made the manor feel more haunted than alive.

Your feet involuntarily came to a halt in the middle of the hall. You couldn’t explain the panic that was building in your chest, but it felt like you were being watched. Your heart rate sped up until you could practically feel it thundering against your ribs.

“You are being silly,” you whispered to yourself. “It’s just an old house.”

“Old houses do have their quirks, don’t they?”

You wish you could say that when Klahadore spoke from behind you, you’d reacted with grace. With dignity. What actually happened was you screamed sharp enough it could raise the dead.

The whiplash you gave yourself as you turned to face him was dizzying. You wanted to kill the fear that widened your eyes and pressed your brow into your hairline. Your mouth was painfully dry as you took in his presence and the absolute shit-eating grin he wore.

He enjoyed seeing you afraid.

“Oh dear, Doc, did I give you a fright?”

Klahadore gently tipped the frame of his glasses with the edge of his palm. You wanted to smack them off his smug face.

“What do you want, Klahadore?”

You struggled to regain your composure. You refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing you afraid. It was what he wanted after all and didn’t take much to notice. He was already trying to close the few inches your retreat had given you.

“I was simply wondering why you were wandering around the manor. You’ve been showing highly suspicious behavior ever since you and your friends arrived.”

Your eyes narrowed in on him and as you held your head high.

“Have you been following me?”

“Oh, come now, don't be silly. To have someone followed means you’re worried about what they’ll find, and you? You are the last thing I would be worried about.”

Klahadore dropped his head down until he was eye level with you, but somehow used his size to remain imposing. A thinly veiled threat to remind you exactly what he thought of you; nothing.

The first time you’d ever received an insult from Klahadore had been just like this. Alone and away from anywhere Kaya could hear him. He’d made sure that Usopp and you were together just so he wouldn’t have to repeat the insult twice.

“I know you two must feel exceedingly special having Miss Kaya ask for you to come keep her company, but I’m afraid this will be the last time you ever come over unannounced or not. We can’t allow her image to be tarnished from being seen with unwanted children.” “Unwanted?” Usopp had been so confused - he knew he was wanted; wanted by Kaya and you. Klahadore saw in that confusion an opportunity to place doubt in his mind and completely tear him apart. “Yes - unwanted. So unwanted that your father never returned, and your mother chose death as a final way to be rid of you.” “You son of a bitch!” You’d snarled and snapped. You were only kids. The world had taught you early on about hardships and fairness; how the world and the people in it could lack kindness. But Naan always made you look for the good in the world, and in the people who sometimes allowed the ugliness of others to warp them into someone they weren’t. It was a concept child you never understood. Teenage you were barely beginning to grasp it, but when Klahadore spoke those words so full of hate and venom at your best friend: there weren’t enough flames left in hell to cover up your rage.

The memory of that day left a black mark on your soul and you find it replaying at the most inconvenient of times. A harsh reminder of the first time you’d ever considered murder as a means of healing. The world would have to be a better place if someone like Klahadore wasn’t in it. Right?

Naan, as always, talked you down from doing something rash. From allowing someone like Klahadore to have the last laugh and ruin all the plans you had for your life.

But Naan wasn’t here to talk you off that ledge or to remind you who she knew you were. Your rage shouldn’t define you. Looking at Klahadore’s retreating back, you weren’t all too sure if it wasn’t you because if he ever showed up needing any form of medical attention, you weren’t so sure if he’d leave on his own two feet.

A body bag would suit him nicely.

You watched him until he completely disappeared leaving you alone once more inside the hallway. It felt weird to take those first steps back towards your room. To go inside and see the dress Kaya had sent to your room and know you were going to put it on and share dinner with that man standing in the same room.

There had to be a way to show everyone here exactly who Klahadore was, and you would spend the whole dinner trying to do just that.

———————

He’d been searching for a drink since his interaction with you back in his room. Zoro wanted to call you crazy - hell you acted crazy enough, but you’d done something he hadn’t expected.

You’d surprised him.

He didn’t want to admit it then but he did get a weird vibe from the butler. The minute his eyes landed on Klahadore it had sparked a nagging feeling of a memory he just couldn’t quite place.

And you’d noticed.

After you’d left his room, he couldn’t shake the conversation you’d forced him to be a part of. Teasing you had been easy. He’d expected you to be a bleeding heart, but as you’d turned to leave, stomping your feet and spitting back words that stung for just a second, it had been Zoro’s turn to notice something about you.

It was the fire of your determination that piqued his interest.

While Zoro wasn’t sure why you held such a stick up your ass exactly about the butler, he was positive you had a reason. Besides the fact he couldn’t seem to pull up a clear memory of why the same butler piqued his own interest, and that was beginning to piss him off.

What was even more annoying was the fact you’d brought it up enough that he’d asked Nami and Luffy if the butler seemed familiar. He didn’t know why he’d asked. If it had been more for him or for you.

That pissed him off more.

You seemed to be good at that. Pissing him off and getting under his skin.

When he came downstairs, Zoro expected you to be there already. A quick glance around the room informed him you weren’t there, but a row of flutes filled with what he hoped was alcohol most certainly was.

He carefully set down his strap of swords and moved closer to the drinks. No one else made a move towards them and, for a split second, Zoro was worried maybe the flutes were nonalcoholic. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the delicate crystal and quickly brought it to his lips.

The smell of the liquor hit him first and his muscles relaxed instantaneously.

God. This was exactly what he needed.

“Zoro! You gotta try this!”

Zoro didn’t bother looking because he’d seen the appetizers being served when he came down the stairs. He wasn’t impressed. Plus, if he was going to make it through this evening, he was going to need way more booze than what was inside these little Crystal flutes.

“I got all I need right here,” he replied and brought the glass up to his lips.

The first sip erased all the tension that had been binding up his muscles. The next pull from the glass relaxed him completely, and he downed what was left in one giant gulp. He placed the now-empty flute back down on the tray and swiftly grabbed another.

Zoro was vaguely aware of all the chatting going on around him. The sound of Usopp and Luffy sharing stories and Nami doing whatever it was Nami did during fancy dinner parties. He meant what he said - he did have everything he needed to make it through this dinner inside these glasses. At least, that’s what he thought until the sound of a heel echoing off the step brought his attention to the top of the stairs.

He was sure the new flute with his latest drink was at his lips. Zoro inhaled the sharp scent of liqueur with every breath he took. He just couldn’t seem to make his elbow bend enough to drop it from his face.

You were making your way down the staircase, oblivious to the world around you as you came down with a hand carefully placed on the railing.

The dress you wore was covered in article flowers; all of their small bold colors were bright against the backdrop of black chiffon. The top of the dress left your shoulders exposed, and the style you’d chosen to wear your hair, with beads of pearls intricately placed within each strand, made you seem ethereal.

You looked like moonlight inside a garden; soft and wild and for the first time Zoro forgot that breathing was important.

Once you reached the last step, your eyes finally moved up from the safety of your feet. Zoro was vaguely aware the rim of the glass was still resting on his bottom lip, and that he’d yet to take a drink. He felt frozen - helpless - until your eyes found his rooted frame - helplessly waiting - and the smile that curved your lips brightened up the room.

It was in this second that he realized he was fucked, and the annoyance of that realization was enough for him to finally upend the glass in one large gulp.

——————

Zoro had looked at you for less than a millisecond before he’d upended the contents of his glass in one large gulp. His disinterest was evident enough throughout his entire body. With one last glance in your direction, he turned back to the waiting tray of glasses.

Well, that wasn’t the reaction you’d expected.

The disappointment scraped raw across your chest as you watched Zoro take up another glass. His gaze was steadfast at the wall as he downed whatever was inside. What felt more disappointing was the fact you’d cared.

For all intents and purposes, Zoro was an asshole. So, it begged the ever-present question: Why did it bother you so much?

Yes, you’d painstakingly gotten ready around the dress Kaya left inside your suite. Was it your usual taste? You weren’t all that sure, to be honest. It’s not like you’d ever been invited to any fancy dinner parties before. You weren’t sure if this was the proper form of dress or if you’d gone overboard with your hair.

At least Nami had a feather inside her hair and it looked as if she’d given her blood-orange hair some curls. She looked absolutely gorgeous and you made it your mission to tell her.

“Wow, Doc you look-“ Usopp began.

You turned beaming towards your friend as you waited for him to acknowledge your hard work. Maybe at least Usopp, of all people, would say something nice.

“Different.”

You could practically feel your smile deflate at the edges.

“What did you put in your hair?” Luffy asked around a mouthful of meat.

“Oh yeah, I was wondering what looked different. It’s the hair,” Usopp confirmed with Luffy.

The both of them smiled and nodded at one another as if they just solved world hunger. Your tongue rolled around your cheek as you debated on what to say. Maybe you’d expected to much out of a bunch of men.

“They’re pearls,” you huffed.

“That’s silly,” Luffy chuckled. “Why would you ever put pearls in your hair?”

“It’s to look nice.”

“I never knew hair needed accessories,” Usopp offered before taking a bit of his appetizer.

“Nami put a feather in her hair,” Luffy offered before taking another bite. “Maybe you guys can talk about putting random stuff in your hair.”

There was no way this conversation could be real, and yet…

Luffy was still wearing his genuine smile while he and Usopp continued to enjoy the appetizers Sham passed around. This evening was turning out to be the last time you’d ever consider wearing anything like this again. What was even worse was that out of the three of them, Zoro was the only one properly dressed.

While Usopp went with his usual no shirt underneath his jacket, Luffy was wearing just a petty coat and miraculously found dress slacks that didn’t even reach his ankle. They looked like their usual selves, just dressed in black.

But Zoro…

No! Absolutely not.

“I’ll go look for Nami so we can discuss…putting things in our hair.”

“That’s great! I’m sure it will make her happy. She seemed frustrated earlier when she asked for help.”

“I can’t imagine why,” you mumbled, as you turned to find Nami speaking to Merry.

Well, it looked like that was going to be a bust too. Man, she really did look very pretty, though. You were considering what your options were. You weren’t comfortable just injecting yourself into whatever conversation Nami and Merry were having, especially not when she was rubbing his arm like that.

Luckily for you, the sound of Klahadore announcing Kaya’s entrance kept you from having to go with your final option, which was to get a drink. Next to Zoro.

You all collectively turned to watch as Klahadore helped Kaya make her way down the stairs. You couldn’t help but smile up at her and her current choice of attire. While she’d made you look like a garden, you could only assume she was the sunshine that hovered above it. The only problem you had with the golden silk material was that it somehow made her sickly pale skin appear paler.

She must have picked the color in hopes it wouldn’t do that, but all it did was raise the alarm bells in the back of your mind. You’d allowed a pretty dress and a fancy meal to cloud the real reason you’d come in the first place. Instead of being a doctor, you were playing dress-up.

You were still scolding yourself when Kaya finally made it to the end of the staircase. Her smile was bright and happier than it had been in a long time, as she regarded Nami and the dress she’d chosen. It hadn’t even registered that any of the clothes you currently were wearing belonged to her deceased parents. You made a mental note to make sure to take extra special care not to ruin the dress with any droplets of food.

“Oh, Doc, I’m so glad I picked this,” Kaya breathed. “You look absolutely magical.”

You couldn’t help but look down at the dress again. It was an incredibly delicate dress. A work of art to be worn on the body. Maybe that was why you felt like such an imposter wearing it.

When you looked back at her, you tried to give Kaya a convincing smile. One you could even make yourself believe you felt worthy to have it on.

“Oh, Kaya you are too nice,” you replied, only for her to shoot you down with a wave of her hand.

“Nonsense. Usopp is always telling me about all the good you do for everyone. It’s time you let yourself be appreciated.”

Your earlier response to Kaya’s welcoming smile was one of your own, but at the mention of your supposed good deeds, you felt it tighten into a grimace.

It means nothing if I can’t even help you.

Up close, her color wasn’t pale - it was ashen. The whites of her eyes were devoured with a yellowish tint and -

Like the parasite he was, Klahadore was there pulling Kaya gently by her elbow to lead her back to the conversation between herself and Merry. Your eyes followed him as he made sure to plant her a few feet in front of you; her back excluding you from following to join.

Once he made sure she was safely away from you, Klahadore stationed himself a few feet away next to the penguin pillar at the base of the stairs. He thought he was sneaky and that he had stopped your trained eyes from being able to do a quick evaluation.

Unlucky for Klahadore you were quicker than he thought.

You were getting ready to head over to him when you caught Zoro walking back over to the tray. He was doing his usual of placing down an empty glass only to grab a fresh one, except this time he was talking. To Klahadore.

What a fucking liar!

You couldn’t think straight as you watched the exchange. The way Klahadore overplayed the flabbergasted victim. You didn’t have to be close to them to know what Zoro was asking him, because just like you’d suspected, he did seem familiar to Zoro.

It felt like you could breathe fire, you were so pissed.

At some point, Klahadore ended the conversation by interjecting himself into someone else’s conversation. You didn’t care what it was. They could’ve been discussing flying pigs for all you cared. Your eyes were still honed in on Zoro who regarded you for a split second before he sat back down in the parlor’s middle seat.

You started making your way towards him when Klahadore called out it was time to eat. You suddenly weren’t hungry.

Zoro must have sensed you coming for him because in one swift move, he was out of the seat and standing. The strap that held his katana’s back over his shoulder as he followed Sham behind the double doors.

“You son of a-“

“Doc!” Usopp whisper-shouted as he nervously took your hand in his. “Sit next to me. Please.”

You were still seeing metaphorical red. Your brain firing rapidly on only one main thought and that was to get a hold of Zoro and throttle him.

It wasn’t Usopp’s fault that Zoro was a dick, and he looked genuinely terrified. Stuffing your current bad mood as far down as you could muster (you were about to see said moss-haired reason for your fowl mood in t-minus two seconds), you planted on a smile and gently took Usopp’s hand.

“What kind of wingman would I be if I didn’t?”

“Oh, thank god,” he laughed.

The both of you followed closely behind Merry and the others as you were all escorted inside the dining room. Merry quickly took his seat at the end of the table, and you noticed rather quickly Zoro had claimed the seat closest to the door.

Without thinking, you took the seat beside him and motioned for Usopp to take the last one. The one directly beside Kaya. For a moment, Usopp looked at you wide-eyed and uncertain. You did your best to make him comfortable.

“You got this, Usopp,” you whispered. “Don’t overthink it.”

His response came in a small nod that did little to erase the terror that shined in his eyes. You gave his arm a light squeeze for reassurance before you straightened up in the chair. Glancing over, you watched as Zoro poured what looked like a freshly opened bottle of wine into a glass.

You waited patiently for him to finish and when he went to set the bottle down you made your move. With a slight lean to your right, you swiped your hand out to grab a hold of the glass. Zoro caught the movement too late, but you now had his full attention. His nostrils flaring the only indication that he was irritated by your sudden drink stealing.

Good.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He questioned.

His dark eyes never left your face as he waited for you to answer.

“Being petty.”

To bring the point home, you tilted the glass in his direction in a silent salute. You made sure he watched as you brought it to your lips and took a sip of the blood-red wine within.

Zoro’s jaw ticked in irritation as you gave him a devious smirk, and when Sham came by Zoro waved her over.

“I need a new glass.”

Now the smile that graced your lips was genuine and you made sure Zoro was aware of it. It was time to have a little fun of your own and that included hogging as much of his alcohol as humanly possible.

------------------------

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