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jazzyoranges · 5 months

Note

Can you write a friends with benefits situation Wednesday or Tara has with gp reader? Wednesday or Tara enforces a no strings attach policy but of course reader has to catch feelings and admits their feelings. It freaks Tara/wednesday and causes her to push them away and ghost them effectively hurting the reader who after a while tries to rebound with another girl causing major jealousy from Tara/Wednesday. You can choose the ending I just wanna see some jealous smut and angst mix in there 😩

She’s my Collar

Wednesday Addams x fem!werewolf!reader

Words: 4.6k (whoopsies)

Warnings: gp!reader, definitely ooc Wednesday, heat cycles, unprotected sex, knotting, explicit smut, everyone is 18+, Wednesday calls you a mutt and a puppy, breeding kink, is it really pet play if you’re actually a pet?, italian/spanish pet names and phrases, possessive Wednesday, fluff, angst i think

A/n: so sorry it took so long for me to write this anon who requested 😓 could be read as a prequel to this fic, but not specifically written as one. also i kinda strayed away from the original request, sorry about that too 😭🫶

MINORS DNI!

Wednesday didn’t want to admit it, but she was feeling a certain emotion that was completely undesirable. You’ve been out sick for an entire week. Wednesday hadn’t seen you in the last 8 days, 17 hours, and 42 minutes. But who was counting? Definitely not the Addams girl

Others would say Wednesday looked the same as any other week, but Enid’s roommate senses were tingling. Constantly fiddling with her rings, the very prominent scowl on her face that was meaner than usual, and the common frustrated grunts when Wednesday would make a mistake with her writing. Something was up, and not even god herself couldn’t stop Enid from figuring it out

While Wednesday was smart in every aspect except social, Enid’s people smarts came in useful every now and again. It really didn’t take long for her to piece two and two together. Angry roommate while someone she frequently hung out with was out sick? It was child’s play, really. All she needed to do was have Wednesday come to the same conclusion as her

Easier said that done, really. Wednesday was a knucklehead not so smart when it came to emotions. Any emotion other than creating despair, Wednesday struggled with. Luckily Enid was dedicated and also a knucklehead

Currently Wednesday was seated at her desk, simply staring at a blank piece of paper without moving. On any normal day her fingers would be speeding across the typewriter with ideas constantly coming to her. Now she was met with absolute digital silence from her mind, which proved to be discouraging and inconvenient to say the least

“Alright, Wednesday. What’s going on?”

“I have not a clue what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve been different this entire week. Spill the beans”

“As I’ve just said, I don’t have the information you want.”

“It’s because you haven’t seen her all week, right? You miss her, don’t you?”

“Why would I miss that mutt of a werewolf? I do not miss Y/n.”

“I never said her name, yet you know exactly who I’m talking about. Funny how that works, Wednesday” Enid teases. Her roomie has been caught red handed

“If you want your tongue, I’d recommend you stop talking.”

“Cmon, Wednesday, I’m being serious. It’s not weird to miss a friend. How about you check up on her?”

“First, I do not miss her. Second, she is definitely fine. I do not need to check up on her.”

“She’s been out sick for an entire week. She texted me just today the sickness isn’t showing any signs of stopping”

“Why has she not called the nurse, then?”

“She told me they ran out of the medicine she needs. The sickness is werewolf specific. I’ve gotten it before and it hurt like a bitch without medicine”

“What kind of school clinic runs out of medicine?” Wednesday says under her breath while getting up. Presumably to check on you, Enid assumes

“It’s really high in demand right now. It only infects werewolves, so you won’t catch it”

“I suppose I’ll ask Y/n on the specifics of her current condition. Perhaps it could be a part in my writings.”

“I’m sure it will be, Wednesday. Tell me how it goes!” Enid waves goodbye to Wednesday as she exits, and the Addams misses her roommates wolfish grin

Luckily your dorm isn’t too far away from Ophelia hall but it’s still a considerable walk to and from. The walk there gives Wednesday enough time to really question why she was doing this. She did not care for you, that was most definitely certain. At least that’s what Wednesday kept telling herself when she neared your room

The Addams girl hesitated before she knocked on your door. She could hear you whimpering and whining in pain, your tail quickly thumping against your bed. The shorter girl bit the bullet and held her fist against the door, quickly knocking on it

“Open up, Y/n or I’ll be forced to axe down your door.”

“Go away, Wednesday” Your voice was muffled

“Either I pick your lock or you open this door. Make your decision.”

Wednesday hears your feel shuffle to the door, and you open it just enough for your eye to peek out. Wednesday immediately notices your flushed skin and dark eye bags. You’re only wearing a tank top and boxers, trying to hide your lower body behind the door

“What do you want?” You spit out a bit more aggressively than you mean to

“I’ve come to check up on your illness”

“I’m uh- I’m okay. You can go now, Wednesday”

“You obviously aren’t, you haven’t gone to your classes all week.”

“Listen, I’m not actually sick. If I tell you what’s actually happening, promise you won’t freak out?”

“I promise.”

You suck in a breath to calm your nerves. “I’m in heat. The school clinic ran out of suppressants, so I haven’t been able to come to classes”

Wednesday looked you up and down, and in a split second she felt something she hadn’t before. Something about how your wolfish features came out. Ears were pressed against your head, tail hung low and swaying softly, and Wednesday noticed your fangs poke out when you spoke

“Let me help you.”

“W-What?” You momentarily stoped holding the door, and Wednesday let herself inside. Wednesday was immediately hit with a musk that was so… you. Werewolves weren’t her major, but she could tell you’ve marked your entire room with your own scent. Something about it made Wednesday’s mind think of all the unspeakable things she wanted to do to you

“Uh, sorry for the mess. And sorry for the smell, I know it’s bad…” You shift on your feet, and it’s only then Wednesday notices the tent in your boxers. Quickly mumbling out apology after apology, you move your tail so it covers your growing erection

“Stop apologizing, it’s getting quite annoying. I said I’d help you, did I not?”

“Help me like..?”

“Yes. Help you as in having sexual intercourse”

Your cheeks flush red and you have to actively stop your tail from wagging in excitement. Wednesday takes a step closer, but you take a step back

“A-Are you sure? You’re human, and I’m a werewolf. Your body isn’t designed to handle our heats”

Wednesday takes another step closer to you, grabbing your neck to make you look straight in her eyes. You can’t stop the whimper that escapes your throat

“I decide what I can handle.” The shorter girl firmly gropes at your clothed erection, and you moan at the contact

“Wednesday, I-”

“A dumb puppy is what you are. Why didn’t you tell me you were in heat?”

“I didn’t- I didn’t think you’d care” When Wednesday starts to massage your clothed cock more roughly, she earns another moan out of your throat

“Please, please make it better, Wednesday. It hurts so fucking much” You whimper, and Wednesday wonders if you’d look good in a collar with her name on it. She’d have to save that idea for a different day.

“Puppy.”

“Wednesday?”

“Take everything off. I want to see all of you.”

Wordlessly, you start to strip, which doesn’t take long since you’re barely wearing any clothes. Your mindless obedience made Wednesday happy. You start with your tank top and the Addams chooses to observe every part of you. Wednesday notices you’re considerably more furry than usual, your happy trail showing just above your boxer briefs

“Are you sure?” You ask nervously when you reach your boxers, and Wednesday is getting considerably more impatient

“Do I have to do everything for you?” Wednesday mutters while she takes off your boxers instead. The shorter girl sucks in a breath when your hardened cock slaps against your stomach

Wednesday didn’t expect you to be so… lewdly big. Looking at the size of your erection only reminded her your body was meant to breed. You were designed to reproduce, and the thought turned Wednesday on more than she liked

The shorter girl pushes you onto your bed, and she takes a second to look at the state you’re in

“Please, Wednesday…” You whine

“Be patient, Y/n. You’ll get there eventually”

“It hurts so much, please I can’t wait” Begging harder, Wednesday doesn’t likehow her first instinct is to give you what you want

“You’re lucky I tolerate you. If you were any other person, I’d think this was dehumanizing.” She pushes you further back, licking a stripe up your tip and across a vein. You have to stop yourself from cumming embarrassingly quick

Wednesday keeps giving your shaft long kitten-licks and you’re in heaven when she finally decides to suck your tip with a new type of hunger.

And due to previous attempts at suppressing your heat by yourself, your cock was absolutely raw at how much you masturbated. It only made Wednesday’s tongue feel even better

She hollows out her cheeks, making your tip hit the back of her throat. This earns a groan from the back of your throat. You didn’t know if touching was allowed due to her track record of broken arms and hands, so you decide to play it safe by just holding onto your bedsheets for dear life

“F-Fuck, I’m about to-“ Before you can finish your sentence, Wednesday pulls away from your cock. The look on your face is something Wednesday would like to cherish. Your penis was twitching like crazy. It was drooling with pre-cum and the shorter girls saliva. She couldn’t help but admire how you shook under her

“Why’d you stop?” Whining seemed to be a strong suit of yours

“In me.” Wednesday wipes a bit of her saliva off her chin, and you swear it’s the most attractive thing ever “Now.”

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean. Really, do I always have to spell it out for you?”

“You have to cut me some slack here, Wens…”

“I suppose I could provide an understanding for your view. You’re nothing but a dumb pup, are you not? Your kind is known to follow orders.”

“I think you’re confusing me with a domesticated dog, Wednesday”

“If I were to demand you pluck stars from the night, you would, would you not?”

“I mean I would, but for different reasons…”

“My point still stands.” Wednesday mumbles, sinking down on your erection. You don’t remember when she got naked, but you’re also not exactly complaining

The Addams holds onto your shoulders for support, and you hesitate before putting your hands on her hips. Luckily you made the right choice, your warm hands directly polar to Wednesday’s.

It takes a little effort for Wednesday to completely take in your cock, but the stretch is worth it when she sees your labored breathing like she’s the best pussy you’ve ever had. Which, Wednesday wouldn’t admit she was proud of. She could feel every vein on your cock and every twitch made her spiral into thoughts of you

The sight is funny, you think. The Wednesday Addams is impaled on your cock. The Wednesday Addams that saved Nevermore. The Wednesday Addams that was notorious for being gorgeously scary. That Wednesday Addams was riding your dick like her life depended on it.

Skin slapping together was music to your ears, and the feeling in your lower stomach you recognized well was rapidly building up. Wednesday came with a hitch in her breath, and you reluctantly pulled out before releasing your own cum with a groan. Both of you are left breathing hard.

“There will be a silver bullet in your skull if you so much as think about telling anyone about this.” Wednesday mutters in between breaths.

“Duly noted.”

—

You’ve been in this arrangement with Wednesday for about 4 months, now

The first month consisted of a casual fuck here and there. After a particularly hard week, teachers being annoying, or a hard test. It wasn’t difficult to keep your situation away from your friends. For all they knew, you two were still the platonic match-made-in-hell duo that were strictly friends

The second month was a little harder to keep your situation away from your friends. Wednesday would randomly pull you into any empty closet or classroom she could for a quick orgasm to get her through the day

The third month was rough. You two went on dates as you liked to call it, but Wednesday would call them study sessions or hangouts. Trips to Jericho on the weekend, Wednesday helping you with botany, it was practically impossible to separate both of you. Unfortunately your friends became suspicious

So during the fourth month, a new vampire transferred to Nevermore. You were assigned to give her a tour of the school and her classes. When Wednesday saw you two hang out when you’d usually see the Addams, she suspected the tour went better than anticipated. What Wednesday expected to be a minor inconvenience for one day, caused her many unwanted thoughts. It made a vein pop out of her neck. (not literally, but that’s what it felt like)

Wednesday noticed how you two started spending more time together after and during school. Of course there was definitely a reasonable explanation, you were her only friend. Unfortunately a very minuscule part of her brain is telling her you like the new vampire more than the Addams. The thought didn’t sit right with her

You were supposed to be Wednesday’s. You were supposed to only have eyes for the Addams and not some vampire that doesn’t even make you half as happy as her. You would always be Wednesday’s. When you finally realized the vampire wasn’t enough to satiate your needs, Wednesday would be there. She would be there to catch your fall, and the thought made her uncomfortable.

Wednesday Addams, a feared individual that wore her heart tucked under enough layers of blunt sarcasm and a deathly scary look, yet once glance from you sent her spiraling into something between fear and love. She hated it. She hated you. Wednesday hated you for bringing this side out of her she swore to be kept away from the surface of her character.

The Addams couldn’t afford this. You were her weakness. You definitely knew this as well. Unwanted doubt flooded her mind. Thoughts that ended up with you exploiting her only weakness made her heart ache, and not in a way she enjoyed.

You would end up breaking off your relationship with the Addams, leaving her to be made a fool as you were the only one that could do it. The worst part is Wednesday couldn’t even be angry with you. She knew you deserved someone of your own kind. Another werewolf that would understand and satiate your needs. Wednesday would end the arrangement the next time she saw you.

—

“(L/n).”

“Wednesday?” You open up your door with a smile on your face. A sight for sore eyes is what you were.

“We cannot continue our arrangement.”

“What? What do you mean?” Your eyebrows furrow in confusion. Wednesday wished she could take back her words, but she was doing this to keep herself safe. To make you happy.

“Our late night meetings can no longer continue. I’ve grown uncomfortable with your presence.”

“Wednesday, I-“

“A nuisance is what you are. You’re needy, and you can’t do anything by yourself. You really are just a dumb mutt. You are incapable of doing anything except cling to me like a lost child.” Wednesday spits out, and something akin to regret dawns on her face

Stray tears leave your eyes and you wipe them up as quickly as they fall, but Wednesday notices. She can tell you’re trying to be strong, your quivering lip giving you away

“I’m- I’m sorry you feel that way, Addams.” You say before turning your back on Wednesday, closing the door. Broken sobs escape your throat, and Wednesday brings her hand up to your doorknob. She thinks a little longer before a single tear falls from her eye. She turns to leave instead.

—

Three weeks, nearing four since you’ve last talked to Wednesday. You’ve been out for a week and a half and Wednesday knows exactly why. Since the Addams has been helping with your heats for the past few months, you haven’t needed to request for more suppressants. Neither you nor Wednesday knew why your heats were commonly hell-ish and lasted for weeks without the suppressants you desperately needed

Really, she could picture you right now. You would’ve found the boxers that created the least amount of friction, and you’d be whimpering and whining while your tail rapidly thumped against the bed mattress. Finding the nearest thing to bite, which usually happened to be your bed frame, you’d sink your teeth into the cold wood and find a splinter on your tongue the next time you brushed your teeth. Rinse and repeat until you eventually fell asleep or Wednesday saved you from your own body

It was pathetic how much you constantly needed Wednesday…and consequently, how much Wednesday needed you.

Disgusting is the only word Wednesday can choose when thinking of how much space in her mind you took up. She was seated in the Quad while eating an apple and contemplating her life. Which, was not in an ideal situation.

“I know you want to talk to her, Wednesday” Enid takes a seat near the shorter girl

“I do not.”

“I know for a fact you didn’t mean what you said. Unfortunately, you’re too stubborn to realize it”

“She has that new girl, does she not?”

“For the last time, Wednesday, they aren’t dating”

“They may as well be. The two are practically attached at the hip”

“So were you two, but then you decided to fuck it all up and haven’t talked to her since” Enid groans. This is was going to be harder than she thought

“Wednesday, you know how much I love you, right?”

“Annoyingly so.”

“Not-so-respectfully, you fucked up really bad. I know you didn’t mean it, but would you rather see her kiss another girl, or would you rather be the girl she kisses?”

The question makes Wednesday hesitate, and relief washes over Enid. Did she want to be with you? She mentally scoffs at the thought. The Wednesday Addams uncharacteristically soft for a girl. Outrageous. Disgusting. Absolutely unheard-

“Well, it seems you have your answer. Talk to her right now, ‘kay?” Enid knew her roomie would do the right thing even if it was gut wrenchingly difficult

The shorter girl only responds with a grumble, but it’s enough of an answer for Enid to skip away and continue being the social butterfly she was. Wednesday was going to… apologize to you. Just thinking of the word made her recoil, but it was you she was going to. As much as Wednesday didn’t like apologizing, she didn’t want to admit the thought of being away from you any longer was the worse option

She was almost in the same exact situation almost five months ago. Only this time you were sad, and it was Wednesday’s job to make you feel better (in more ways than one)

It didn’t take long getting to your dorm. She knew all of the correct routes and shortcuts to take. Wednesday was met with a tightly locked door and a knob that had collected dust after the past week and a half. She brought a hand to the door, knocking loudly

The Addams was only met with silence. That is, silence, with the exception of stray whines and whimpers

“It’s Wednesday.” Silence again.

“I know you’re in there. Ignore me and I’ll find other means to see you.” More silence

“You’ve made your decision.” The shorter girl sighs, taking a lock pick from her uniform pocket. Why she had a lock pick? For important situations like these, of course

When Wednesday finally managed to unlock your door, she noticed how you looked considerably worse than the first time the Addams decided to help you with your heat

What Wednesday didn’t expect was you fully naked sprawled on your bed. Bite marks littered your bed frame and a chew toy Wednesday bought to mock you, but it ended up being somewhat helpful. A low quality fan spun, only making your scent waft around the room even more. An air freshener was mentally added to her list of things to buy

“Go away, Wednesday.” You growled. You never growled. “If you’re here to mock me and call me a nuisance, I’d recommend you leave”

“I came to help.”

“You’ve full of bullshit, aren’t you?”

“I’m not lying, Y/n.”

“Go away, Wednesday, I’m not going to say it again.” The Addams only took this as an invitation to step closer to your bed where you were laying face down and a light blanket to cover your ass

When you only heard footsteps near, something inside you snapped. You were a werewolf. Not a puppy that said please with a tail between your legs. No, you would make Wednesday leave. Also you were sexually frustrated while in heat, so that was definitely fuel to your sour mood

Before she could register what had happened, you pinned the smaller girl to the floor. Your pupils contracted into small circles while there was a permanent snarl on your face

“I said, go away.” Your erection accidentally brushes against Wednesday’s thigh, and she was suddenly aware of how much self control you had for not already relentlessly stuffing the shorter girl full of your cum

“Knot me, cucciola.”

When the words leave Wednesday’s mouth, something in you changes. You’re overcome with sinful thoughts, and your cock starts to drool with precum at the image of Wednesday being full of you. It’s sinful, truly

“Is that why you came here? Just to be bred?”

“No, but it seems my words are working. You’re incredibly hard.” The shorter girl grabs your erection, jerking you off roughly

“Puppy.”

“Don’t… don’t call me that.” You say in between moans. Wednesday starts to sit up, and your back meets the side of your bed frame

“Cucciola wants to breed?”

“F-Fuck you.”

“We’re getting there, mi sol” The pet name accidentally slips, but you’re far too blissed out to notice

“She can’t make you feel as good as me, can she?”

“W-What? Who are you talking about?”

“You know who. The vampire that can’t get her hands off you.”

“Wednesday, we’re no-“ The shorter girl only started to stroke you faster. Her hand barely fit around your cock, but it still felt like heaven

“I don’t- I don’t like her that way” You say in between moans. Your orgasm was nearing and Wednesday knew this. She slowed down her pace, and you whined at the sudden loss of stimulation

“Knot me.”

“Huh?”

“Show me you don’t like her the way you like me.” You only notice your proximity after she speaks. Your noses are only inches apart. Wednesday’s eyes flick down to your lips, and you quickly close the distance

Wednesday was an addiction. Nicotine, acid, weed, none of it compared to how you felt while kissing Wednesday. You’d get drunk off her taste and crave it until she was in your arms once again. It was hell without her

When the shorter girl accidentally grinds on you, a surge of lust runs through your body. You quickly pick her up with your lips still attached to hers and take off her skirt. You couldn’t go another second without being in Wednesday

Sinking her onto your hardened erection, you let out a gasp of pleasure when her velvety walls stretch at your intrusion. You’re holding up her body by her thighs, and Wednesday just wishes you’d go faster.

“Cucciolo, ti amo.” The Addams moans when she looks down to see she’s only taken half of your length in her pussy. The sight is rather lewd, Wednesday thinks. Your cock is absolutely dripping with pre-cum when you push yourself further in her

“Mierda. Más, cachorro. Tan bueno para mi.” Wednesday slips into her native tongue. You haven’t seen her like this any other time she’s… helped you out

Bringing your lips to hers again, you decide to be in control when you push your tongue into her mouth. Eyes half lidded, bangs sticking to her forehead, and hair a bit disheveled, you think she’s never been prettier.

You let Wednesday rest a bit before sinking your cock deeper into her cunt, and the Addams ends up scratching you hard enough small amounts blood start to drip down your back. The sensation takes you by surprise. Accidentally bucking your hips up further into Wednesday, the girl lets out a groan as she fully takes your length in her pussy.

Placing her on the bed, you notice a tiny bulge in her stomach. You decide to be bold. Pressing your thumb against the intrusion, you hear a sound you’ve never heard before

Wednesday whimpers at your touch.

You do it again.

Her cunt squeezes around your cock, making it harder for you to keep thrusting. But you’re a wolf in heat and Wednesday is incredibly horny, so you continue your movements.

“Sh-She’ll never- she’ll never be as good as you, Wens…” An unexpected growl comes from deep within your throat

“No one can take my cock as good as you…” You’re thrusting considerably faster when Wednesday looks back down at where you two meet. The scenario folding out is a sight for sore eyes, the Addams thinks. You, feeding into your primal urges like it’s an unstoppable beast; and Wednesday willingly taking it in however she can.

“Cara mia.”

“Mine… mine all mine. No one else but mine…” You whimper a little pathetically, but the girl below you is only focused on your thrusts. Her cold hands find their way to your back again, leaving a trail of blood behind

“Yours, puppy. All yours.” Wednesday feeds into your possessive behavior. She knows she shouldn’t, but with you thoughts of reason leave her head and are replaced with thoughts of you

“Were you serious about the knotting, Wens?”

“Deathly.”

“Are you- mph~ sure? It’s kinda big…” The girl under you looks down again, and your ever growing knot seems to just be getting bigger and bigger. Even horny out of your mind, you still wanted to make sure your mate was alright.

…you decide to ignore that thought.

Your eyes were trained on how your erection stretched out Wednesday. Her pussy would be yours, and yours alone. Nobody would make her feel as good as you did. You’d make sure she wouldn’t need anyone else’s cock but yours.

A breathy moan erupts from your throat when you start to actively try to push your knot into Wednesday

“Relax for me Wens, it’ll never go in unless you want it too” You feel her tensed under your touch, but your words are enough for her to relax

Every thrust you get closer, until you eventually start to reach your peak. You can tell Wednesday is too. Her hair is messy and both of your bodies are littered with marks of possession.

“I-I’m so close Wens…” Are the last words you say before succeeding in pushing your knot into the Addams girl. You cum inside of Wednesday’s pussy, and the swell of your knot inside her is enough for Wednesday to cum impaled on your cock. The feeling of being full is an experience Wednesday wished she did with you far sooner.

You wiggle your hips to seemingly get more comfortable inside of Wednesday, but the movement only makes her moan. She was sensitive as hell.

“…was that enough proof I like you more than I like her?”

“More than enough, (Y/n).”

#jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega #wednesday addams x reader #wednsday addams #enid sinclair #wednesday (2022)#jenna marie ortega #wednesday x reader #wednesday x you #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x you #wednesday x y/n

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yxami · 6 months

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I forgot this was in my drafts for awhile but 👩‍🍳

desc: yandere chef x gn reader, nothing too yandere just small signs of obsession, nothing weird going on with the food either dw

Yandere chef who whips up the most mouth drooling dishes you’ve ever seen and smelt. It’s almost too good to eat when it looks so delicious. Are you really allowed to destroy this plate with your greed and hunger?

You ponder, staring at the dish on whether to compliment with your words or actions.

While you stared at the beautifully made soup, you make your friend stand in ridden anxiety. He’s wondering whether you like it or not, he’s always cooked for you like this, so why aren’t you eating it?

Maybe it was too ugly to eat, or unappetizing! He could feel his cheeks heat up from embarrassment at the possible answer of you finding his food disgusting. He would’ve ended his career at any second if you found one distasteful thing about his cooking.

He can’t just let you consume something you wouldn’t like, that would go against his morals!! He has to feed you only the most appetizing things, how else would he prove himself as someone perfectly fit in being your future husband who would cook all your meals.

So when his fingers extend to reach for your bowl, he’s surprised with the sight of you slurping a mouthful of the soup, he could tell you enjoyed it by your widened pupils and growing grin.

“Ah, do you like it? I was beginning to think you didn’t…” He mumbled his last few words, flustered that he had mistaken your lengthy pause as a detestable silence against your food.

“It’s amazing!” Your throat bobbed as the liquid traveled down your throat, still tasting the flavors as it sat on your tongue.

He let out a large sigh of relief that he had no clue he was even withholding.

“I’m glad..” The sweat glistening on his forehead showed his stressed mood that washed away a few moments ago, just from your words. Without fail, he paid close attention to you every single moment he was able to use. He’s always desired to be someone that you could rely on to understand you.

If not him then who? He’d rip at every square inch of his skin and let it burn for hours at a time before he’d allow another person to take his place.

“So, do you think I should serve it to my boss? He wants me to make a new dish for the upcoming season, since it’s going to get even busier” He wrapped his digits around the chair before pulling it to sit down on, plopping right next to you where he could view your expression as you ate. His favorite thing to do.

“Yeah! It’s really good, he’s gonna love this, especially since he likes spicy dishes, doesn’t he?” You look up at him for his response, a questioning tone left in the air before he did.

He’s exhilarated to know that you pay attention when he rambles to you about different things, but this was about his boss. Why did you have to remember something about that skeeze? He hates it when you mention other people it makes him so envious, and he knows it’s a bad habit.

“Hm.. yeah, he does.” He dryly responds, leaving your question somewhat discarded with how he hardly tried to respond to it. You immediately noticed his tone and made eye contact instead of looking at your bowl.

“What’s up? You seem down all of the sudden” His shoulders tensed up at your question, not realizing he had been so obvious with his jealousy, how embarrassing…

“Nothing! Just worrying about a few things, you know how I am” He chuckles, trying to distract you from your curiosity by feeding you like he always did at least once throughout your hangouts.

“Are you su—” Your tongue was softly forced to taste beef and a spicy mixture held by the spoon. You cough a bit at the suddenness, leaving him worried if he was too hasty with feeding you.

“Sorry, I probably should’ve warned you” He looks meek at your expression, wondering if you were upset.

“It’s fine, I just didn’t expect it, here you try some, you never eat what you cook” You pick up a spoonful with a small block of cooked meat on it, telling him to open his mouth and he obediently listens.

“Maybe it needed some more lemon juice, but I think it turned out well” He goes on his phone to change a few things about the recipe, showing how critical he was of his own craft.

“I think it’s good, you shouldn’t change anything in my opinion” You slurp up some more, looking at him while he typed on his phone. “Yeah you’re right” He quickly changed his opinion solely because you voiced yours, immediately putting his phone down.

He couldn’t hide away how much he valued your perspective, if you told him that a solid and liquid were the same thing then he’d stupidly nod along like an obedient puppy.

“How about I get started on dinner? You do plan to stay right?”

#yxami’s yam #yandere #yandere x you #yandere x y/n #male yandere #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #pls request #gn reader #yandere x gn reader #yandere x reader #yandere chef #yandere obsession #yandere male #crazy yandere #yandere husband #yandere boy #yandere friend

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ceesimz · 14 days

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Our Sun Is Setting

TW: mentions of homophobia and grief for a parent. It's quite a heavy fic, please keep that in mind.

"I told my Mami about you today."

You didn't think it was possible for a relatively normal, short sentence over the phone to make you feel sick to the pit of your stomach, but it did.

"Oh." That was all you managed.

Your mind was in overdrive as you stood in the middle of the grocery store, buying ingredients for the dinner you were preparing for later that evening when Alexia was going to come over. Any other person would have reacted better, wouldn't have been frozen to the tiles of the shop in the middle of the breakfast aisle, wouldn't have been on the brink of a panic attack from a simple statement.

"She was very happy. And she would like to meet you soon, whenever you like."

Another punch to the gut.

"She also teased me for talking about you so much. I couldn't stop myself." Alexia paired her words with a shy laugh.

The sound of it grounded you slightly as you moved out of the way of an old couple walking in your direction, but your head was still being insistently ruthless as you wandered mindlessly through the rest of the shop. Alexia was still talking over the line, seemingly not noticing your silence, but you couldn't work out what she was saying due to the unbearable ringing in your ears.

You were in shock.

"Are you still there?"

"Y-yeah, sorry. I think the signal went a bit weird, I didn't catch much of what you said." You reply in a shaking voice.

On the other side of the phone, Alexia frowns ever so slightly - she can almost sense something is wrong, but she can't quite figure out what or why. She hopes that when she sees you later, you are perhaps feeling better or if not, at least she's there for you.

"Okay cariño, would it be better if I left you to your shop?" She suggests, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel of her car where she was parked outside of the training complex before an afternoon training session.

"Yeah, probably. Sorry, I'll see you later."

And with that, you hung up.

As you went to slide your phone into your pocket with your shaking hands, you missed, causing it to clatter heavily against the tiles. It earned a few stares from the people around you, only intensifying the jittery dread that surged through you. Pins and needles encapsulated your body as you crouched down to pick up your now-smashed phone, but currently that was the last thing on your mind.

Alexia's statements circled relentlessly around your head - to literally anybody else in the world, hearing those words from someone they had were seeing would be enamouring and seen as a key, heart-warming milestone. But to you, it opened up a dark spot in your mind that you had shunned to the side for some amount of time. It seemed now was the right moment for that unidentifiable problem to break free from its shackles and make itself known, and you were terrified of what those repercussions would be.

You carried out the rest of your shop on autopilot, shoving a handful of notes into the cashier's hand before rushing out without a clue of how much you just gave them. For all you know, you could have massively overpaid them or robbed them in broad daylight. You were so out of touch with the world right now.

So much so, that you were unlocking the door to your apartment before you realised. How long did it take you to get home? Did your phone still work? What time is it? Did you walk, get a taxi, catch the bus, how did you get here? What did you even buy at the shop? Why won't this fucking door open-

A neighbour walked past hastily as you barged a shoulder against the door and almost crashed through it as it finally opened. You sent them an apologetic smile, though there was no doubt in your mind it was more of a manic and unnerving look than anything else, before slamming it shut behind you. The icing on the cake to this whole thing was the fact that the bottom of your shopping bag split open, scattering your groceries across the floor of the entryway. At least now you could see what you had bought.

Whether your legs failed you and buckled or you put yourself on the ground, you kneeled on the floor and gathered everything into your arms to transport it to the kitchen. It was a struggle, your trembling arms barely having the strength to hold themselves up, but you managed to dump your belongings on the kitchen side. Once you'd done that, you rested heavily against the counter, desperately trying to replenish the oxygen that had been stolen from your lungs some point along the way to this moment here.

What the fuck do you do now?

You turned to lean back against the counter and slowly slid down to the ground until you were sat on the floor, head back against the cupboard. There were too many conflicting thoughts and emotions rushing through you that all you could do was sit and stare. Feeling nothing but everything at the same time, thinking nothing but everything all at once.

Seeing Alexia tonight might tip you over the edge. You hope it doesn't end that way. You hope that her presence eases you. You hope she saves you from falling, sinking, spiralling into an irrevocable state of mind, whether she recognises that she's doing it or not. You hope, hope, hope.

Time seems to be a temporary concept for today, because before you've even had the chance to start preparing dinner for tonight, Alexia is at your door. Her voice calls out from behind it, asking if you're in there and if you're okay, because you've zoned out again. You're on the sofa, your cross-body purse still hanging off your shoulder, your jacket still zipped up to your chin, your shoes still on. Your groceries are still strewn on the kitchen counter, and the torn bag is still in the entry way.

"Amor, are you in there? Let me in." Alexia calls out, her voice tainted with concern.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm coming!" You jump up, kick your shoes off, throw your bag onto the small dining table, and open the door. She visibly deflates at the sight of you, her tense shoulders dropping, but her face contorts at your attire.

"Why do you have your chaqueta on?" She asks, and you're beyond grateful to hear it's said in an amused tone.

"Bit cold s'all. Come in." You're not cold. You live in Barcelona, and it's the middle of the spring.

You step to the side and she walks in with a tiny smile on her face. She's glad to be here, you realise. She seems to be in a light and happy mood, carrying no extra stress or other burdens, and, rather selfishly, you're glad.

"How was training?"

You plaster a smile on your face as she takes her shoes off and drops her bag beside them, turning to you and opening her arms. You walk into them with no hesitation, but the feeling isn't as relieving as you desired it to be.

"It was good. I did a amazing free-kick, I will show you the video." Alexia beams, and that does warm your heart somewhat. Her passion for her work, her career, her life, was forever an invigorating thing to witness. It's a shame you weren't in the right mood to appreciate it.

"That's great, Ale." You smile genuinely up at her, more than happy to return the soft kiss she offers.

It momentarily calms and heals a small part of you you'd been hoping she would subconsciously fix, but it wasn't enough and you recognised that straight away. You'd get on your knees, beg, and pray to any higher power that would listen to you just so you'd feel okay for one more day. Except, who do you pray to when you don't believe in God?

"What's that?" She points to the white plastic bag from earlier.

"Oh, the bag for the groceries ripped as soon as I walked in. Must have forgotten to pick it up." You shrug it off, wishing for her attention to be elsewhere for the time being. "I haven't started dinner yet, sorry."

"That's okay." She smiles, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly and kissing your cheek. "How was your day?"

Tough question.

"It was alright, haven't done much." You brush it off, taking her hand and leading her to the kitchen... where the whole area was still a state.

"Oh, what happened here?" Alexia frowns.

If it was just a few items, she wouldn't be so puzzled, but when a good portion of the food left out was fridge and freezer food? Strange.

"I... I, when the bag ripped before, a jar smashed by the door and, uh... I took a while cleaning it and forgot to put the rest of the stuff away." You ramble unusually quickly. It was a blatant lie, but she didn't need to know that.

Except, Alexia was an incredibly attentive person, and she knew straight away that something was amiss. The first sign was that, in her intelligent mind, she knew that theoretically if a jar filled were to smash by the front door, the white bag from earlier would have been covered in its contents - but that wasn't the case. The second sign: whenever you cleaned your apartment, you used a very strong smelling citrus scented spray - she often complained about it and nagged you to get one that smelt nicer. Your apartment didn't smell uncomfortably citrusy right now. Funny observation, sure, but these two pieces of seemingly inconspicuous evidence gave away the fact you weren't right. Oh, and your strange behaviour showcased on the phone earlier and a few moments ago didn't help your case either.

But, she chose not to pressure you about it yet. She wanted to wait until you perhaps opened up to her some point this evening. However, that didn't entirely stop her from speaking up.

"Ven aquí, amor." Alexia demands calmly, reaching a hand out to you. Suppressing a sigh, you take it, and she looks down at you with a pressing stare. "Answer me honestly. Are you okay?"

No.

"Yes, I'm okay. I'm fine, Ale, I am." You try to reassure her, squeezing her hand and smiling up at her.

"You promise?" Alexia raises her eyebrows and offers her pinky for you to seal your, rather untruthful, truth. "It's okay if something isn't right."

Pinky promises, as childish as they may come across to some, were never to be broken. Since the start of your relationship, they had been a thing that had been utilised by the both of you to ensure you are telling the truth. Alexia had broken one of her promises she had made to you before in the past, so why couldn't you do one in return? It's only fair, right? Relationships were meant to be equal after all.

"Promise." You smile again and raise your other hand to lock fingers with her. She smiles, though you can see she's not convinced, but nevertheless she kisses your knuckle.

"Can I help you cook?"

"I'm meant to be cooking for you. And you are a bit of a control freak in the kitchen." You tease, desperately trying to steer the night away from the morose direction it could go down, and instead towards the light-hearted, content way you so needed.

"I think I am just a control freak in general." She smirks at you before turning to put away the disregarded shopping. You would also happily accept that direction too, you supposed. "Venga, I am so hungry, I skipped lunch at training for a meeting and now I regret it."

To your relief, you both make peaceful conversation once you've told her what you planned on cooking, and it's so peacefully domestic as you do your individual tasks beside each other. Every so often, Alexia will joke and bump her hip into yours as you giggle, and this version of your girlfriend is exactly what you needed. For a moment, you feel the cloud over your head slither away, until the topic you wanted to avoid came up.

"So, what do you think of me telling my Mami about us? You never gave me a response on call earlier."

You freeze momentarily, Alexia thankfully not noticing from the corner of her eye. With a subtle clearing of your throat, you continue cutting up the chilli peppers on the board in front of you, but your now shaking hands pose as a slight kitchen hazard considering the sharp knife you were wielding.

"I, yeah, it's nice. Nice that you, um... did that." You stutter out anxiously, nausea settling cruelly in the pit of your stomach. Alexia takes in your reaction and laughs under her breath, turning briefly to leave a kiss on your forehead.

"No need to be nervous, amor. We have been together for many months now, it was due to happen soon. And M-"

"Ow- fuck!" You gasp sharply, dropping the knife immediately and cradling your hand as blood began dripping from the middle joint of your index finger.

"Woah, amor, what happened?" Alexia winces at the sight, grabbing a few squares of kitchen paper and pressing it against your cut.

"I- my hand slipped and I obviously cut myself." You grimace, eyes tightly shut to rid yourself of the sight. "It burns too, fuck."

Alexia knew you didn't handle blood too well, so she turned you away from the scene and wrapped one arm around your back, rubbing up and down comfortingly whilst she still applied pressure to the cut.

"It's okay, it's okay, it hurts more because of the chilli. Take some breaths, vale?" You nod hastily, not really realising your cheeks had puffed out as you held your breath. Alexia watches your face closely, eyes still closed as you took deep breaths to calm yourself. "You're doing good, bebita. Keep doing that, so good. Let's relax a bit, hm? We should sit down in case you get lightheaded."

The last sentence is her thinking out loud as she started guiding you towards one of the chairs at the dining table. Resting one elbow on the table whilst Alexia continued to hold your wounded hand, you lay your forehead against your uninjured hand as Alexia crouched beside you. Your joined hands lay in your lap as you calmed down, or at least tried to.

To Alexia, it would appear that you were just mentally recovering from the shock of the incident. But actually, you were trying to dispel the unsuspected horror that filled you to the brim at Alexia's earlier reminder.

I told my Mami about you today. She wants to meet you.

That line inevitably meant you had to tell your family too. Except, you couldn't. There was no way you would, no way you could, not without facing realities you had pressed down far into unreachable and forgettable depths of your mind. It was all too much, it was simply not a possibility for you. You knew what it would lead to, and you weren't ready for that.

For the past months you'd been with Alexia and the time you spent getting to know her before that, you had mostly lived in a bubble that dissociated you from the broken, cracked, ruined, utterly destroyed parts of your brain. It had been perfect so far, and you'd be fucking damned to leave that bubble now. But perhaps it was too late and the damage had been done long before Alexia said what she said earlier, maybe that darkness just needed a catalyst before it submerged you in its wake.

"Amor? Hey, come back." One of Alexia's hands lightly patted your cheek to bring you back into the room. "You scared me there. Your breathing got really bad and you were in a... a weird daze. I was talking but you weren't reacting or anything. Are you back now?"

You nodded wordlessly at her, still not entirely taking in what she was saying.

"The blood... freaked me out." You rasp breathlessly, shaking your head a little to rid the glaze over your vision.

"That's okay. Do you feel a little dizzy? I can get you something to help that. Clear your head maybe." You nod again, and she gently lets go of your hand. Cold shivers immediately burst through at the lost contact, but you had to get over yourself and get used to it.

Cautiously, you take the tissue off of your hand and inspect the damage. It doesn't seem deep enough for stitches, which instantly fills you with relief. If you weren't already in a state of intense dismay already, a trip to the hospital would cause a hurricane of emotions that left a lasting imprint on everything and everyone around.

"Here, some apple juice. To get your blood sugar back." Alexia places a mug of apple juice in front of you and notices your now bare hand. "Oof, amor, that looks painful. I'm not sure if that may need a doct-"

"No! No doctors, no hospital. It doesn't need stitches, it's fine." You rush out, eyes wide in what Alexia guesses is fear as you look down at where she's crouched again. "Please, no hospital. It just needs to be cleaned and wrapped up."

"Okay, if you are sure." Alexia replies, nudging the cup closer to you. "Drink that and I will get the first aid kit."

You do as she says, drinking the half-empty cup of apple juice whilst she searches through the kitchen for the green box of medical supplies. Her eyes hardly leave your slumped form at the table, filled with worry for you. Things weren't adding up now, it was obvious, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could ignore it.

A part of her feels afraid to push you; emotionally she wants the best for you and if subtly, or not so subtly, urging you to do that works then she'll do it, but intellectually she senses a deep, internalised issue that could rip through you if handled incorrectly. It's not up to her to cause that. So she asks a question that's so layered it flattens all remaining atmosphere in the room.

"Cariño, how do you feel now?" She pretends to busy herself with organising the already packed box of medical necessities you kept.

"Better." Phyiscally true, but mentally wrong.

"Why don't we order something for dinner instead?"

As if you weren't filled with disconcertion already, that suggestion signs, seals, and stamps the envelope set to be sent to the fucking psyche ward for your admission. Were you so inadequate now that you couldn't even cook a simple meal? Apparently so.

"O-Okay."

Alexia frowns and comes back over with alcohol wipes, antiseptic cream, and a box of plasters, placing her items on the table and gently tapping your chin to get you to look up at her.

"I love you, you know that?"

The words fell from her lips before she could stop them. Alexia maybe wasn't the most emotionally helpful person ever but she sure did try. She thought her saying that would comfort at least a small part of you, but she couldn't be more wrong. It planted the seed of an unforgivable idea in your head.

The realisation of what you had to do poured over you like cold water, washing away every ounce of the little remaining hope and positivity you had. A feeling akin to mourning settled in your heart, accompanied by the debilitating weight of this twisted entity in your mind seeping into your bones. Your body strained under the heaviness of it all, unable to capacitate for the burden of living life like this, only confirming that the thing you must do was your only solution. Your lower lip quivered as the thought consumed you, the devil in your head chanting it over and over and over and o-

"I do know." Your lips tug into a smile but your throat bobs to conceal the sobs bubbling at the surface. "I know that. I love you too."

For the remaining time you had with her, you would make sure she knew that too.

"Let's get you cleaned up, hm?"

It's silent between you both as she delicately cleans the wound before applying cream and wrapping it up in bandages. It's silent as she leads you to the sofa, silent as she ordered your meal for you from one of the common takeaways you always got together. It's silent as you wait for it to come. It's less silent when Alexia turns on Netflix and opts for a new TV show for you both to watch together. It's still fairly silent even as you sit beside her, back stiff and straight beside the woman whose heart you were soon to break.

Alexia has never loathed quietness more than she does right now. It was an occurrence she valued at any other point in her life; watching football, reading, studying a game, relaxing in a post-match bath, going on a solitary walk to gain some peace of mind. But here, in this moment beside you, her skin crawls at the unbearable stillness of the room. Sure, she did enjoy silence with you too, but it felt like the unavoidable elephant in the room was stomping on her heart with every beat of her heart. There was a hidden agenda in the belly of the beast attacking her, and for some reason it felt like she was running out of time to put out the fire.

Her spiralling was interrupted when the buzzer of your apartment rang through the room, letting you know there was someone outside of the apartment complex without a fob to enter the building. Alexia reluctantly gets up from the sofa to let them in and hovers by the door to wait for the delivery driver to find your flat. She keeps her eyes on you, subtly watching you attentively, but even if she stood face-to-face with you, noses touching and breaths mingling, you wouldn't have a clue she was there. Your senses were incredibly warped and you were so far detached from reality, it felt like you and Alexia were two worlds apart.

What's at stake right now is something that's much bigger than the both of you. The dynamic around you may as well have a 'fragile: handle with care' sticker slapped on it, except, even that wouldn't have stopped the hands of the puppets controlling the world from acting so cruelly. You'd taken constant blows for quite some time now with no respite. Just as you started to recover from one punch, another would come to hit you square in the face.

"Hey." Alexia lightly knocks on your forehead with her knuckle. Every concerned glance from the woman in front of you felt like a jab at your body, slowly working you down until you gave in. "You are here, but you are not here."

You blink gormlessly up at her, your shoulders lifting in a careless shrug before you took back control of your mind.

"Food's here?" You force a smile, taking the paper bag from her hand and walking on shaking legs to the kitchen. You get plates and cutlery out, dishing up your meals before joining Alexia back on the couch, the taller woman now the one seemingly stuck in her head. "Ale, your meal."

"Ah, thank you." She leans in to quickly kiss your cheek when you sit beside her again.

The blonde woman has one more trick up her sleeve to try and bring you out of your shell, and it's one she hardly ever played.

Immediately, she begins to babble on about her day and her teammates and her family and whatever new antics Mapi and the youngsters had got up to, going abnormally overboard with the amount of anecdotes she was spewing out. Everybody knew Alexia was not a talkative person, and she only ever acted like this when she was in a rare giddy mood. And that really was rare.

The Alexia on display so far tonight was not in a giddy mood. She was happy, of course she was, but factor in the concern she'd shown for you tonight and the giddiness she had not portrayed at all even recently, something was off. It threw you completely off-kilter, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why she was doing this.

"I'll tell my Dad about us tomorrow." You blurted out, interrupting another of her rambles. It's kind of the truth, not all of it, and it's not the biggest decision you've made for yourself tonight, but you owed her something at least for putting up with you.

"Que?" She frowns. Out of all things she'd expected you to say tonight, that wasn't one of them.

"You're talking a lot because you want to know why I'm acting weird. It's because I'm thinking about telling my Dad about us, I'm scared to do it but you told Eli so I'll tell my Dad." You explained, pushing your food around your plate as Alexia processes your words for a moment.

"You don't have to do that if you don't want to. I don't mind, I know things haven't been... haven't been great between you both since your Mu-"

"Okay, but he's still my Dad." You cut her off again. You're not in the mood to discuss what she was about to bring up.

"You don't owe him anything, amor. Sure, he's your Dad, but you said it yourself only a few weeks ago; he's an idiot. No one should treat their child the way he's treated you after they've just lost their Mami."

There. She said it anyway.

"Alexia, I know you're just trying to stick up for me, but please don't go there. This has nothing to do with my Mum." Another partial lie.

The subconscious, realistic part of you knows every issue you've had in the last two years has everything to do with... her. But right now, the impulsive side that has been at the forefront of your mind ever since it happened wants to blame everything on the world around you and not your flaws that you've ignored all this time. Anyone could see that your refusal to sit with your grief and just feel was your Achilles' heel.

"Okay. I'm sorry for mentioning it. But I am absolutely on your side, amor, I'm always on your side. So if you want to tell your Dad, tell him. If you want me there next to you or if you want me out of the country whilst you do it, then I'll do it. I will do whatever you want me to." Alexia tells you, her voice pleading as earnest swirled around the eyes that bore down into you.

Well, you thought, that's good to know.

"Thank you." You smile ever so slightly, dropping your fork and placing a hand on her leg. You squeeze her knee three times, one more chance for her to understand the love you held for her.

"De nada, amor. Now eat up, please."

The pair of you spent the rest of the evening delicately dancing around the untamed elephant from earlier whose patience was wearing thin at the prospect of going entirely avoided for the night. Conversation topics were kept light, finally giving you a brief reprieve from the onslaught of your mind, and Alexia kept her arms tight as they wrapped around you. It was as if with each breath you let out or with each twitch of your body, she held on tighter and tighter, every hint of movement from you a reminder of your presence and how much she ineffably adored you.

Yet, the sun began to set, indicating that it was almost time for Alexia to leave for the night. She had to get up early tomorrow whilst you had the day off, and initially Alexia always agreed that when this was the case, you should sleep separately so that you could rest. However, as she collected her bag and slipped on her shoes, she kept her movements purposely slow to delay her departure. The last thing she wanted to do was leave you alone.

"Are you sure you will be okay tonight?" Alexia sighs, a reluctant hand on the door handle.

"I'll be okay." You answer simply, hesitating for a moment to decide on your goodbye gesture, before settling for a lone kiss on the cheek.

"Call me, immediately, if that changes. If you wake up in the night and need me, I will be straight here. If you call me in the middle of training, I will be straight here. Please. Don't suffer on your own."

Oh Alexia. If only you weren't so late.

"Everything will be okay, Ale." You tell her, desperately trying to disguise the emotion threatening to break through. "Te veo pronto, sí?"

"Sí. I love you." Alexia smiles, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead, then opening the door.

"I know." Is all you can say now to that declaration. And fuck, if Alexia hadn't felt so uneasy in her life after that.

Somehow, you managed to sleep that night. Maybe it was your body allowing you to build up all the strength you need for the day ahead, because your life was about to be irreversibly changed. And the worst was yet to come.

"Hi Dad." You murmur quietly from your place in the corner of your sofa, legs tucked underneath you as you pitifully hold onto a cushion for comfort.

"Well, it's been a while since I've heard from you." The man on the other side of the phone chuckles spitefully. "Remembered who I was again?"

"Hm. How have you been?" The best way to deal with such a man was to ignore his behaviour, in the hopes he dropped the act when you didn't give a reaction. Perhaps you underestimated him.

"That's a loaded question, you know that. It's all everyone asks nowadays and I'm fucking sick of it." He grumbled, and for the first time in a while it sounded like his anger wasn't directed at you.

"I do know that." You stated.

"So why ask then? Still as dense as ever, I see."

Okay, well, clearly you judged him too soon.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing." You mumble insecurely, a frown settling on your face as you try to hold back the emotions you knew would spill out sooner rather than later.

"Don't lie to me." He snapped through gritted teeth. "You couldn't give a shit about me if your life depended on it. Be honest and tell me what you want, I have better things to do than talk to you."

"I... I have a girlfriend, Dad. Here in Barcelona, I've met someone." You reveal with a hint of a smile on your face.

All morning, you'd been in over your head on whether to tell him about Alexia. Part of you thought it was futile since you had already decided on your future with her, or rather, the lack thereof. But the naïve and childish part of you painfully thought he could be happy. That wasn't a concept this man had understood as of late, so it was a wonder why you'd thought he'd be happy for you. Especially given his latest behaviour, and his long-standing opinion on your sexuality. If only your Mother was here.

"Wow. Because I couldn't give you the life you want after your Mum left-" he could never say the true reason for her absence out loud, "-you look for it elsewhere? What did I tell you about doing that? A home can't be a person, kiddo, you need to stop looking for that. Your Mother wasn't home, I'm not home, this new 'girlfriend' isn't home, a person cannot be a fucking home! You're just desperate to fill in the love that's absent in the death of your Mother. Get a fucking grip of yourself and get over it, this 'girlfriend' business. You know your Mum would never have stood for this."

Silence.

Of all the words in the world, across all languages and cultures, over all periods of time, there was only one description to be used of how you felt right now. In your little flat in the heart of Barcelona, cowering in the corner of the couch, you felt suffocated. Any semblance of clarity, peace, hope, love - suffocated, by the words of your father, by the events that had changed you for the worse throughout your life, by the burden of simply just living.

Except, the words 'living' and 'simply' could never be used in the same sentence, because that wasn't a possibility. Every aspect of human nature wasn't simple, that's the beauty in it. The thousands of tiny mechanical functions in your body that allow you to breathe, the hundreds of muscles exerting themselves daily for one small step, the twitches and spasms of nerve endings to feel just a little alive. And despite it only requiring thirteen miniscule muscles to smile compared to forty-seven to frown, the latter felt so much easier. The weight of a smile had never seemed so damning, so suffocating.

The promise of life was a unique one, that's common knowledge and yes, life is beautiful, but any glorification of the struggle of living was inefficacious, nothing could extinguish the flame of the fire inside of your mind that was already uncontrollably burning through your self-preservation. No promise of light one day shining in your world again was worth it; you were merely a shadow of the people you loved.

"Okay Dad." You choke out. Even uttering one word was such a fucking exhausting challenge. "I... I planned on breaking up with her anyway. I think I want to come home."

You expected the feeling of verbalising your plans to be freeing, but the gravity of what you were going to do grounded you so humbly it almost almost stopped your heart entirely.

"Wow, I mean, if I had known that you would listen to my opinion and follow my advice so quick, I would have given it more often." He laughed maliciously, his way of celebrating your fall from grace.

"Can I come home?" You can't stop yourself in time from asking that question in such a begging tone. Another victory for him.

"I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart. If you're that desperate, maybe stay with your grandparents. Perhaps they'll want you." He sighed as he said it as if he was in a rush, acting like speaking to his daughter was such a chore. "Listen kiddo, you done now? I've gotta go."

"Yep, I'm done. Can I see you if I come home?" The question was paired with a hasty swipe away of tears as if the man hundreds of miles away could see them.

"Oh honey. You fascinate me. You're at danger of almost being interesting now, you know that?" He laughed once more at his own words before hanging up.

Silence again. Such a plaguing thing.

The weight of the conversation you just had collapsed down on you, a whirlwind of emotions surging through you as a result of it. Each beat of your heart served as a reminder of every word spat at you from the man you once thought held all the love you had to give, the thump against your chest echoing his disappointment and distaste for you. A daughter's love for their father was undoubtedly one of the most dangerous things to themselves, proving that point yourself as you mentally scrambled to find a way to mend the fractured bond, yet each time coming up empty, feeling powerless and minute in the face of your father's disappointment. Every response from that man carved deep wounds of guilt and regret into every crevice of your mind.

Behind a facade of stoicism, a torrent of emotions fulminated throughout your body - a spiteful mix of every insecurity, every doubt, every shattered dream, it all coming together to form the final piece of the puzzle that was needed to make the decision to break out of your life. There was no other choice.

Outwardly, there wasn't a hint of such breakage shown anywhere on your body. And that's how it had to be, that's how you had to be. Completely numb to it all until you had escaped this turmoil.

By 2pm, everything was different.

Flight booked. Every suitcase you owned bursting at the seams, waiting by the door. Apartment tenancy ripped up. Your resignation handed in to your work. Every bit of furniture, every little trinket, all of it ready to be left behind. Despite it all, the most heartbreaking symbol of your new start, was the cardboard box of Alexia's belongings sat in the passenger seat of your car as you drove, waiting to be dropped off discreetly outside her door.

Your life was the perfect image to sum up how quick things can change. Twenty-four hours ago, you were walking to the local supermarket to pick up the stuff to make a perfect meal for you and your girlfriend to eat and have a quiet, relaxed evening together. Now? You were driving to said girlfriend's apartment, equipped with the words to tear your lives apart.

Oh, how things change.

In the blink of an eye, you were parked up outside her apartment building. You had the key to her apartment in your hand and the code to enter the complex memorised for one more use. You failed to notice her car parked in her usual space as you walked through the car park. The heaviness of the box was nothing compared to the heaviness in your chest of what you were about to do.

Ears ringing, eyes blurred with unshed tears, throat burning and constricted, your bones aching under the weight of purely just existing, all of it immensely overwhelming. But you were numb still. Numb and out of tune with your feelings, because you had to be. Otherwise, all of this couldn't happen. There was no way any of this would be possible if you just listened to what your heart wanted. No, that devil on your shoulder had gotten its way once again.

"Oh, what are you doing here?"

Fuck.

You had truly done it this time, because here Alexia was, standing in the doorway of her apartment as you froze at the sight of her.

"What are you doing here?" You ask frantically, desperately praying for her attention to be anywhere but the box of her stuff in your arms.

"Well, this is my apartment, amor. I just got back from training but I left my phone in my car." Alexia answers, an eyebrow raised down at you. Of course she'd catch on that something was wrong. She always did. It was one of the things you loved her for. "What's this? Are you a delivery driver now?"

She laughs to herself as she says it, taking the box from your arms and placing it on the floor. You're still stuck to the spot, eyes wide in fear at what she was about to find, and your heart thumps angrily against your chest in protest, trying to get you to react in some way. But it's too late. Alexia has already opened the box and began to read the letter in there before you could stop her.

The smile on her face immediately dissipates at the first line.

"To Ale, I'm sorry... what do you mean?" She asks, glancing up at you briefly before continuing to read it.

That's when your body finally decides to react. You slowly back away from the woman in front of you, but Alexia grabs your wrist tightly to stop you from running away.

"No, you will not leave my sight right now. Explain this fucking letter, what is going on?" Alexia attempts to sound commanding, but there's a certain glisten to her eyes and a lump in her throat. "What is going on? Tell me, now, please."

"I... I'm sorry, Alexia." You croak out, rushing to wipe the tears already falling with the sleeve of your sweater. "I am sorry, you have to know that."

"Sorry about what!?" Alexia shouts, then takes a deep breath to compose herself momentarily. "Come inside, sit down, and please can we talk?"

"Everything I have to say is in the letter, Alexia, I-"

"No, no it is not. This letter is hardly a whole page. You've come to my apartment with a box of my stuff and a letter that starts with the words 'I'm sorry', I'm not letting you leave." Alexia says, and you have no choice but to listen to her. However, she softens for a moment, and the lost look on her face tugs on every one of your heart strings. She takes one of your hands and squeezes it three times, resulting in another stream of tears from yourself. "Please. Whatever is going on, give us a chance to solve it. I need you to explain what's happened so I can help you, amor. Please."

You relent easily, forever at her mercy, and follow her into her apartment. She leaves the stacked box by the front door, completely unbothered by it - in fact, she doesn't ever want to look inside it if this conversation goes the way she thinks it'll go. She's kicking herself mentally, her mind already skimming over every interaction she's had with you recently, desperately trying to plot a point in time where your attitude had changed. It's easy for her to do so, the moment jumps out almost immediately. If only she hadn't been so scared, so cautious, maybe she could have solved this before it was too late.

"What do you want me to say, Ale?" You sigh exasperatedly as you sit on the edge of her sofa, eyes fixated on your fidgeting hands.

"What do I want you to say? Amor, I want you to be honest and explain why you're sorry, why you've come over with all my stuff, why you've written me this letter. It's all come out of nowhere, I have no idea what's going on and I just want you to clue me in. Yesterday we were laughing together and having a nice evening, and now you're... I don't even want to say it." Alexia laughs nervously as she speaks, her shoulder stuck up in a shrug as her hands gesture eratically.

"It's okay, I'll say it for you." Your false facade takes over, body armoured with a hard exterior. "I'm leaving, Ale. I'm leaving Barcelona, leaving Spain."

To hear you say those words were perhaps the greatest pain Alexia has ever felt in her life.

"Leaving... leaving me?" She whispers quietly, the question punctuated with a gulp as she swallows her emotions.

She sounds eerily similar to a young, innocent child who's just lost all they've ever known. It makes you wonder for a brief second if you're a sick individual for causing such pain, but you shun those thoughts away for a later date, because right now you need all the feigned courage you can muster up.

"Yes." The ease with which you say it sends shivers down her spine. It's the hardest sentence you've ever had to say, and it's just one word - once more an example of how life can never be conformed to simplicity.

"Why are you being so cold? This is not the woman I know." Alexia practically pleads, inching closer to you on the sofa. Her hands land on your knees, but you're too far in to back out now.

"I don't know who I am anymore, Alexia. I need time and space to figure my shit out, that's what is best for me right now and that's why I have to go." She scoffs in your face once you've finished, and that's the moment this conversation goes far more downhill you could have expected.

"What about me? What about what's best for me? You're leaving me behind!"

"Leaving you behind? You're acting like a sad dog that I've just abandoned in the middle of nowhere! You were perfectly fine in your life, your very successful and established life might I add, before I came along and you'll be better off without me!" You snap back. This is not the direction you thought this would go. "Why can't you accept the fact I need to leave?"

"Because I fucking love you! I love you and I don't want to live a life that doesn't have you in it! But maybe I should grow out of that opinion since it seems so easy for you to turn off your feelings for me, so easy for you to be so selfish at the flick of a switch."

"Selfish? I'm being selfish?" You repeat her words back to her with an outraged laughter that sounds all too familiar to you. Is this who you've turned into? "I'm being selfish for choosing what's best for me? I'm being selfish for wanting to take time on my own to figure my life out? I'm being selfish for wanting to take time to grieve my own, dead Mother?"

Alexia's face falls as soon as those words come out of your mouth. Never in her life had a sentence caused such a visceral reaction from her because it feels like someone's just plunged a dagger right into her heart. She'd been too panicked, too focused, on her own feelings to even wonder why you had made this decision. She had been the selfish one for jumping to conclusions and now her lethal arguments had completely tanked the conversation. The possibility that there was no coming back from her vicious assumptions instilled a deeper, darker fear in her than she had ever felt in her life.

"No, no, I didn't-" She begins to dig herself out of the hole she finds herself in, but you're in no mood to entertain her begging.

"Good one. Really funny, that." You stand up and go to walk away, but not without one last attempt from Alexia to stop you.

"I didn't mean that, I swear, I am just so confused and scared and-"

"Do you not think I'm scared too? This will be the second time I've uprooted my life and regretted everything I have ever done. I'm terrified to leave, terrified to find out what's waiting for me at home, terrified to figure maybe this is all I am and that there's no better side of myself to find." Your voice trembles with a mix of fear and fury. "I've realised that throughout our whole relationship, from the moment I stepped into this country, I've been someone that I'm not. Losing my Mum was losing the biggest part of myself, and everything I've done from then 'til now has just been a poor attempt at filling in the hole in my heart-"

"S-so, what, you're saying our relationship was fake?" Alexia splutters out. You pause at her words, completely caught off-guard by her utterly stupid and inept fight back.

"That's what you caught from all that?" You ask, dumbfounded. "Right. Because it's always about you, Alexia, isn't it? This whole conversation has just been you talking about yourself. Have you even properly heard what I've said? Have you read more than the first line of my letter?" The guilty look on her face says it all. "That's what I thought."

"But I... I know what it's like to lose a parent, amor, I can help you!"

"Wow. For the sake of us both, don't go there, Alexia. Don't." You fix her a warning glare, shaking your arm out of the grasp of her hand.

"You can't leave. You can't, I won't let you. It's not right." She speaks sternly again now, a final plea for your relationship.

"Oh, fuck off Alexia. You have the emotional maturity of a teenage boy. I'm done with this now. Good luck at the World Cup this summer."

You walk out and slam her door shut without looking back.

Alexia's life had just taken a nosedive, because a breakup was absolutely not on her agenda for the day. The hand that had grabbed your arm earlier tingled with the stain of your touch and certain areas of the room were tainted by the lingering scent of your perfume. One conversation and you had vanished from her life - an excruciating result caused by her own incompetency to act like a decent human being.

For some time after you had left, she had been stuck rooted to her sofa, her mental temporarily ruined by the events of the day. A traumatic event had occurred, this was a natural reaction, to go into shock. To be so damaged by something that all she could do was sit and be consciously unconscious to the world around her until her body and mind could recover.

There was one phrase that ran circles around her mind. It isn't fair. What that defiance was directed at, she wasn't so sure yet. At first it had been you, but as the clouds cleared a little, it was obvious that it wasn't. Despite her words earlier and how accusing they came out, she didn't blame you. Not one bit. No, her anger was aimed at the so called 'fate' bullshit that everyone championed so often. How can people praise such a phenomenon when it had brought so much evil into people's lives? It felt like everything came at the price of something, and that's not fair.

For Alexia? It felt like her career came with the price of her Father. Everything she had done was because of him, and he couldn't even be here to see it. No, because fate or destiny or whatever other nickname it had, had taken that opportunity away from her. It isn't fair. For you? If anyone asked you, in the future when you're in your rocking chair, a knitted blanket draped over you and the waves of the ocean lapping away in front of your eyes, you'd say that in this period of time you had gained the world for the price of your soul. This dichotomy of good and evil sometimes felt like it wasn't worth the fight because in cases like this, it just wasn't fair.

The realisation of it all left a sour taste in Alexia's mouth. But something seemed to snap in her, some higher power finally giving her a backbone, and she sprung into action. You didn't deserve any of the stuff that had happened to you, and she sure as hell wasn't going to be another name on that list. One of her worst fears, a view shared by all of humanity, was to remember someone she loved in such a gut-wrenchingly awful way that it tarnished her entire memory of them. That's something she couldn't do with you. If you were to end this, it had to be on good terms.

So, she grabbed her keys and headed down to her car, where her phone still was. Alexia was a determined woman; when she put her mind to something, she got it done. This would be no different.

Call after call, after call, after call, came through on your phone from the one woman you probably least expected. There was only so long you could hold her off because, after all, you were once in a relationship with the woman, meaning you got a front row seat to her persistance.

"Hi, uh, Alexia. What do you want?" You say when you answer, finally.

"We have to talk more." Alexia rushes out quickly, for lack of better words and composure.

"I don't know if I want that after what happened earlier." You state in a defensive tone. But secretly, you craved nothing more.

"I know, and I am so so sorry for all that. It was so selfish and awful of me, I regretted every word that came out of my mouth the second I said it. I just... can we talk again? Please?" She begs, her hand fidgeting against the steering wheel of her car as tears silently rolled down her cheeks. "I would hate myself if I didn't at least try for this, amor, let me try."

"The decision is final, Ale, you can't change it. I'm sorry. You said yesterday that you would do whatever I wanted you to do. Well, this is what I need you to do, Alexia. I need you to let me go."

"Okay." Alexia squeezes her eyes shut, tears spilling out the corners, and her clenched fist comes to rest against her forehead. "Can I see you one more time? So I can properly apologise? I have no other intentions than that, I promise. I just... I can't remember you that way. I can't remember us in the way we left it. It doesn't give us as people any respect and it does not do justice to the beauty of our relationship."

That was the tipping point for you. There's the woman you love.

"Okay." You smile and sit up in your bed where you previously lay in a cocoon of your own pity. "How about we meet on neutral grounds this time?"

"Let's do that." Alexia responds, and you can hear the smile in her voice.

Some time later, you found yourself walking along the promenade of the beach, looking for where Alexia said she was seated on one of the benches. It was a chilly evening with no help from the sea, so you had your hands tucked into your coat pockets and your chin hidden under the zip of your coat. Alexia had spotted you long ago, a content smile on her face at the all too familiar sight of you and your distaste for the cold. You recognise her soon after, taking a deep breath before approaching her.

"Hi." You mumble, muffled by your jacket and the wind whipping around you. Alexia hears it of course.

"Hi. Sit down, please?" Alexia taps her hand on the wooden slats of the bench beside her, and you quickly follow suit. "I, uh... got you this."

She hands over a takeaway cup of hot chocolate. Your favourite.

"Thank you. Something to keep my hands warm." You say, happy to see her laugh quietly and nod.

"Exactly why I got it."

The pair of you sit in silence for a while, encapsulated by the serenity of the sky and the elegance of the ocean. Strangely, you realise, the two things resemble you and Alexia. Two things of beauty that never quite meet, never quite mend, just a parallel that reflects each other. You can't tell if that's a horrifying allusion or a calming one.

"So, what's this then, a... a post-mortem of our relationship?" You joke, giggling when Alexia scrunches her nose at the suggestion.

"I mean... you could say that." She shudders as she says it, not quite at peace with the new revelation. She's not sure she ever will be.

"I have to go, Alexia. I... it's so hard leaving you behind. It's the hardest decision I've ever made, but it's one I have to make. I hope you know that."

"I do. I do know that. I want you to know I understand. I'll never be... content with it, but... it's a necessary evil." Alexia has her eyes cast down on her coffee cup, fiddling with the lid. You notice and take hold of one of her hands, intertwining your fingers perhaps for one final time.

"It is. I've got no energy to fight anymore. I need to sit with my emotions and all that shit," You pause as you sigh dramatically, making her laugh once more. "So that I can figure out who I am after all this. Doing that whilst in a relationship isn't fair on either of us. It'll only lead to something more soul destroying, no matter how hard this conversation is."

"I know." Alexia purses her lips and nods, finding the strength to look at you. A genuine smile breaks out onto her face. "I had a feeling something was wrong a little while ago. I guess I'm just... angry. That I can't solve it."

"I'm angry that I can't solve it." You repeat, a sad smile on your face. "There's just a lot wrong with me, I think. And I can't burden you with it all. I have a lot of baggage I drag along and there's an awful lot of cracks in my mind-"

"There's cracks in everything, amor, that's how the light shines in."

You had half a mind to berate her for interrupting you again, but you find yourself at a loss for words. Why were you leaving this woman again?

"I'll value you forever, Ale. Nothing could make me change that, even if we left things at what happened before. You're the most astounding person I've ever met, and even when I'm breaking your heart, you still treat me better than anyone else. If we forget what happened at your apartment." You tease, the both of you chuckling lightly.

"It's hard to hate you when you're breaking my heart so gently." Alexia states. "I'll always love you. It's probably not the right thing to say but it's the truth."

"No, I... I'll always love you too." You respond, absolutely certain. Despite the predicament you both find yourselves in, Alexia finds every bit of relief and closure she could ever need in that one simple sentence.

"When do you... when do you leave?" She asks with a sniffle.

"I fly out later tonight." You answer quietly.

"Will you come back one day?" It's the one thing she knows she probably shouldn't say, but she can't resist. She has to know.

"I don't know, to be honest." She turns away and nods slowly. You squeeze her hands three times.

"If you do, will you let me know?"

You can't promise her that, and she knows it.

"I will." You smile softly up at her.

You both fall into silence once more. This one feels a little less suffocating than those of the past. There's still so much more to say, but as your head falls to rest on Alexia's shoulder and you both look out at the view that had been the background of your relationship, neither of you can name a reason to interrupt the peace that's settled. It's perhaps more peace than either of you had felt in a long time.

The thing is, about the ocean and the sky, is that they do meet. They're one and the same in their own essence, and in the distance, they do eventually meet. And the sun will rise again. Two inevitable occurrences that form at the hands of a little thing called fate. Or destiny. Or whatever it is.

#alexia putellas x reader #woso x reader #woso #alexia putellas #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas one shot #woso community #woso imagine

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luveline · 2 years

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𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

part one | part two

summary you're a single mom living three trailers down. eddie thinks you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen. now friends, you, eddie and junie take a trip to the city. queue oreos with double the cream, a sock related mishap, a display of strength, storybooks, matching pajamas, a velveteen rabbit and a tray of cupcakes to eat on the drive home [15k]

warnings teen mom!reader, fem!reader, r is junie's birth mother, fluff, hurt/comfort, eddie being a total girl dad (<3), mutual pining, yearning etc, tw for not having much money, general mom struggles :(, slowburn friends to lovers, eddie’s mom implied to have passed away, mention of past falsely presumed self-harm (not graphic, just baby eddie scratching a rash and wayne worrying), hair tourniquet + intense panic

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Eddie doesn't mean to come knocking. He's staring at the ceiling with an open tray of Oreos on his chest, chewing through the boredom of a Monday evening and the pain of an aching back when he thinks of you and Junie.

Toddlers like cookies, right?

He shoves his socked feet into poorly laced converse and turns out all the lights as he leaves. The door slams shut behind him, a rattling of metal ringing into the crisp night while he takes his steps two at a time.

He starts up the street to your trailer and slows as your home comes into view. The lights are on, the curtains open. You stand in the middle of the room with your eyes closed, stretching to one side with your arms held high above your head. He can see the moment your back pops, see the tension of the day slip away just slightly. The exposed stretch of your tummy shines in the light.

You say something to Junie. He decides to stop acting like a stalker and bumps up your steps, hesitating at the door with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

What the fuck was he going to say? Hey, guys, I brought a half-eaten tray of cookies. Um. Because I missed you both? Sorry if that's weird?

"What kind of loser…" he scathes. He doesn't finish, bringing his hand to the door and knocking with a haphazard explanation waiting on the tip of his tongue.

You open the door a short few seconds later. You smile wide, wide enough to open the yawning gap in his chest all over again. Tonight when he goes home he'll have to close it like he has to so often lately after seeing you. Pretend his feelings for you – whatever they are – are smaller, less terrifying.

"Eddie," you say, and the gap stretches with how you say it, fond and warm and breezy. "Hey, where's your jacket? It's too cold to walk over here without one."

He doesn't have to explain himself at all, as it turns out. You open the door and step aside to let him past.

He grins at you. "Thought I'd brave the great outdoors without any armour."

You nod like it isn't all nonsense to you and maybe it isn't, maybe being friends with him is clueing you in to all his fantastical lingo. He likes you more for it either way, especially when you say, "You need a healing potion. It's freezing."

You're embarrassed at your attempt. Eddie can't believe how cute you are, lost for words and flailing. His chest warms with affection.

Junie saves you both, whizzing down out of the nest of pillows where she'd been buried on the couch and across the room with surprising speed and accuracy, barrelling for his knees. He grins as she wraps herself around them and starts talking.

It's mostly unintelligible until she says, "Hi! Hi, Eddie!"

He hugs her back with his hand. "Hi, Junie. Good evening."

"Good," she manages in return. She's all but mastered good morning and afternoon but evening continues to elude her.

"What were you watching? Your Muppet Babies?" He looks at the screen to find Kermit, the green frog, singing a song. "Been doing some singing practice for the band?"

"You want coffee?" you ask. Aforementioned healing potion. "I have decaf."

"I brought cookies."

"Warm milk it is," you declare, disappearing behind one of the kitchen cabinets.

Your bravado makes him laugh.

He finds his attention stolen once again by your lovely daughter when she complains, glaring up at him fiercely and coveting his hand. He balances the Oreos on your table by the door and offers her both, naked of their usual rings bar one.

Junie drags him over to her pillows and tries to climb back up. She refuses to let go of his hand, making it an insurmountable feat. Eddie awes at her efforts and helps her back into the nest, hands closing around her small waist and lifting.

He drops her into the pillows with just enough roughness to garner a laugh. "Sorry, my hands slipped. Hey, what's going on here, junebug? This isn't your usual hangout."

"I felt bad because she's always on the floor," you call from the kitchen. He can see your hands and your torso through the gap of countertop and cabinets. You pour milk into a pan on the stovetop and tap your fingers against the handle frenetically. He wonders if you're anxious about something.

Junie whines until Eddie sits next to her. As soon as he's situated she takes his hand again insistently and turns her attention to the television. He rubs the soft, small back of her hand with a less soft thumb and peers down the way at you.

"She loves the floor,” he says.

"I know," you mumble ruefully. A tad theatric. He must be rubbing off on you. "I had to bribe her into sitting on the couch."

"Yeah? What's the tab?"

"A few dozen kisses and all the pillows from my bed."

"Shame it wasn't half a tray of cookies."

"I think those might help me out."

After you've poured the milk into two tall glasses, you admit to him in a smaller voice that you're not sure if Junie likes Oreos.

"'Cos they're bitter?" he asks.

Milk in hand, you sit in the free seat next to Eddie and try not to sound as embarrassed as he knows you're feeling when you say, "She's never had them."

"I'll bring chocolate chip next time."

You shake your head vehemently. "You don't have to bring anything, ever."

"I like sugar."

You smile at him like you know he's trying to make you feel better, a touch shame-faced. He smiles at you in return and hopes it shows how much it doesn't matter – bringing snacks with him when he visits is hardly a generosity. You're friends.

He keeps trying to have that conversation with you, about sharing and money and all that terrible, embarrassing hardship that isn't embarrassing whatsoever but the words taste like chalk in his mouth.

Instead, he offers the hand that hasn't been stolen by Junie to you for a glass of milk. "One of those for me?"

You pass it to him.

"Why'd you feel bad? You're not forcing her," he says as he takes a sip.

"You don't think it looks cruel?"

"No way. She's one of the happiest babies I've ever met, who cares if she lies on the floor?"

"How many babies do you know?"

"One."

You're laughing when you say, "I don't know. I think it's a habit. But we have a couch, so she should sit on it."

Eddie retrieves the Oreos. Junie watches curiously as he peels open the tray, four rows, two empty and two full of black and white cookies.

He takes one and passes it to you without looking at you. Eye contact gives you the opportunity to reject it.

When he's heard the soft crunch of your first bite, glass of milk between his knees, Eddie holds an oreo up purposefully and twists. "See, Junie?"

He licks a big stripe over the vanilla cream. The cream spreads edge to edge as he pushes both sides back together. Softened by a generous dip in milk, he eats the cookie in one vagabond bite.

"You wanna try?" he asks when he's done.

Big hands over her small ones, Eddie shows her how to twist an Oreo open. She brings the cookie with the least of the cream to her mouth and bites it. Her pout wobbles in mild disgust. Eddie tries not to laugh.

She has to like Oreos. They're a staple.

"Let me show you," he says gently, taking the cream heavy side out of her hands. Dark crumbs stain his fingers as he holds it up to her face. "You gotta lick it."

She doesn't want to, evidenced by her wrinkled nose and untrusting gaze.

"You'll have to do it for her," he tells you gravely.

Moving to kneel in front of him, you take the oreo out of his hands and lick it before stealing back the half of the cookie Junie had been munching on and squishing them back together. You dunk her sandwich in milk and press it to her lips until she deigns to take a small bite.

"Yummy?" you ask.

She takes the cookie back, a mess of dark black mush collecting at the corners of her mouth as she eats it.

You gaze up at him from the floor. Your eyes look damn pretty, more so when he offers the tray to you, your smile a beacon. "I haven't had Oreos since I was a kid," you say excitedly.

"Do they taste like you remember?"

You rest your hand on his knee and lean in. "They need more of the filling," you say secretively.

"Yeah?" Eddie's in motion, twisting one oreo apart and then another. He takes the halves with the most cream and pushes them together.

One oreo, twice the cream.

You giggle as he passes it to you. "Oh my god." You're giddy, arm heavy on his thigh.

You eat it like it's something crazy expensive, all smiley and indulgent. You look so pleased that he immediately starts to make you another.

"Eddie," you protest, covering your mouth, "don't, don't waste them."

"I won’t waste them. I like the cookie more than the cream,” he lies.

"Oh."

You finish your oreo. Eddie can’t find it in himself to be modest about it; you’re smiling and it’s his doing and that fills him with pleasure.

He watches you mistreat his jeans as you chew the second, your fingers pulling distractedly at the rips. You tuck your hand underneath, white threads tensing over your knuckles and fingerprints brushing over his kneecap, your entire face cringing as a thread snaps from the pressure.

Eddie looks away quickly. He can feel your eyes on him and has to bite back a smile as you assess if you’ve been caught.

You could ruin them completely for all he cares.

Junie makes happy noises beside him. She’s realised the middle of the Oreo is the sweetest and has split one open in her hands. A terrible mess ensues, cocoa powder fingerprints smattered over the pillows she’s buried in and vanilla cream marring her nose in a sticky line.

“Could you make any more of a mess for your poor mom?” he asks. The rhetoric is lost on her; she says something cheerful and holds her hand out for another cookie.

Her face — expectant, small, cute, all of it evokes an uncontrollable urge to do whatever it is she wants him to do.

“Is that, like, a kid thing?” he asks.

You pull your fingertips away from his skin and cock your head. “What?”

He splits an oreo and offers Junie the cream-heavy half, clarifying through a mouthful of dark cookie, “Following her every command.”

You sit at full height. He instantly misses the heat of your front to his knees, the way you’d draped yourself over him familiarly, and is wondering how he might begin to convince you to do so again as you think it over.

“I don’t know. Maybe. It might just be a Junie thing, but I guess that’s immature to think. S’pose it’s hormones or something. Like when cats meow.”

He giggles at you. Hormones? Cats?

“What?” you ask, half defensive, half sheepish.

“I just- I love it when you talk like that.”

“Like what?”

He shrugs and takes another pull of milk to think of a way to say, Well, when you’re tired you get nonsensical, and it’s charming how confident you are but hard to follow without offending you. Is there a way to say that without offending you? Or worse, without revealing every wretched feeling he has for you?

“I sounded pretty stupid,” you summarise.

“No! Never. I love that you think like that. That you’d think about cats meowing.”

“They do it to manipulate us,” you explain.

He can almost see the heat of an embarrassed flush radiating off of your cheeks, the press of your lips so endearing he almost leans forward to feel it. He can imagine it, his thumb over your mouth, the pad pulling down your bottom lip.

There’s an arrogance in thinking you’d let him.

“Jungle cats, tigers and lions and stuff, they don’t meow,” and you’re still going! He has to cover his mouth with his hand to stop from bursting. “Because they don’t need to. They have no idea what a baby sounds like, and they don’t need us to take care of them so they’ve never learned how to meow. Babies are like that. We hear them crying and we want it to stop.” You have a smile on your face that says, I don’t know if what I’m saying is true, but I’m gonna pretend it is. Pretend with me?

Eddie’s all about pretending. “Cats are master manipulators,” he eggs you on, "but you realise not everyone wants babies to stop the way you do? Some people just don’t like babies.”

“That’s okay. More babies for me.” You lean out to tap his forehead. “Touch wood.”

“What?” he asks.

“Touch wood,” you repeat. “I don’t actually want more babies right now, don’t wanna jinx myself by saying it, so I had to touch wood. You don’t have that superstition?”

“Are you saying my head is made of wood?”

Your sudden laugh is stunning; he can’t bring himself to be offended.

When Junie's had more Oreos than she should've and the milk's all gone Eddie stands up before you can do it yourself and takes the empty glasses with him, putting them on the kitchen counter with a click.

He grabs an almost empty pack of wet wipes off of the top of the refrigerator and sits down next to Junie, talking fast in hopes of distracting her.

"I got a call last night," he begins, pulling a wet wipe from the pack and taking Junie's wrist into his hand. He doesn't use the wipe at first, tryimg to convince her that this is all affection. "The phone went ring ring," he rolls the sound around, "and I was thinking, who the heck is calling me so late?"

He plays up his outrage but keeps a huge smile in place as he works his thumb into Junie's palm, tickling in circles.

"So I answer the phone, and I say, who is this? And you know who it is?"

Junie waits, looking like she might be close to laughing. And he's just getting started.

Eddie takes a deep breath. "Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here! Is this Junie on the other end?"

What his impression lacks in accuracy it makes up in enthusiasm.

Her little mouth opens. He wipes the corners with the wet wipe and then her chin. "So I said, no, Mr. Frog, I'm Junie's neighbour. I'm Eddie.

"Kermit said, you can call me Kermit, thank you very much. Mr. Frog was my father."

You snort beside him. He tries not to look at you because he knows your happy face will stop him in his tracks, your laughter enough to make him smile and break character.

He squares his expression and begins again. "I need to talk to Juniper, it's very important." He wipes down her sticky hands, her stained fingers and palms, worse than smug when she doesn't complain and pull them away. "I said, I'm sorry Mr. Kermit but I can't put her on, she's all safe and snug in bed with her mom. And Kermit said, oh, okay. Well, please tell Junie this."

Junie's looking up at him, surprised, very pleased, practically wiggling in her seat. She's lovely. Just like her mom.

He doesn't want to do the voice for this part, struck with a sudden sense of awe. "She is… the smartest, most prettiest, loving little girl in the whole world."

Eddie beams at her and drops her damp hands. When he impersonates Kermit this time, he's trying as hard as he can. "I'd only like her more if she were green!"

You're clinging to sanity.

It's Wednesday, it's washing day, and you haven't managed a single load of clothes since you got home because Junie won't stop crying. This isn't new; babies cry constantly and toddlers aren't much different. But, it's been three hours. She's too old for colic.

Junie has screamed, she's sobbed, she's slapped her tiny hands into your chest. You know she doesn't mean to hurt you, she's just communicating her panic. That doesn't stop the growing distress.

You're terrified.

You've found yourself in tears, too.

"Just tell me, baby," you plead.

It's useless. She screams so loud her voice cracks, and you decide that nows the time. You have to go to the hospital.

You don't think you can let her go long enough to strap her into her car seat. Immediately, you think of Eddie. You don't even lock the door. The small walk to his house feels a block long.

He must hear her crying as you approach because the door swings open just as you mount the first step. You backtrack.

"I'm really sorry," you say quickly, knowing this isn't something he ever signed up for. "I don't know what to do, she won't stop and I think there's something wrong." Your voice wobbles.

There's a huge flash of something akin to the panic you're feeling over his face but he pushes it away, descending the steps two at a time. His hand immediately comes up to your shoulder, fingers curled into your shirt.

"Chill out," he says, more stern than you've ever heard him. It’s surreal to see him turn like that. Almost like he’s become one of his characters, the voices he does for Junie’s story books.

You take a ragged breath.

"I'm serious. You need to calm down. You understand?"

Junie gives a blistering shout and your face crumples. "Eddie," you say.

"Can I hold her?" he asks, softer.

You can see in his face that he isn't sure, that he's out of his depth, but you're so desperate for a life raft that you nod and squeeze your eyes closed, passing her into his waiting arms. Everytime she cries – every wicked intake of air and every subsequent bellowing sob makes your chest ache. You have a splitting headache. Honestly, you're worried you might fall over.

"How long has she been crying?" he asks, looking over her face and shoulders with a perplexed frown.

"Hours. At first I thought she was tired or- or hungry but I've tried everything, Eddie, everything."

"She was like this when you picked her up?"

You nod.

He pats her back, the other hand rubbing down one of her legs soothingly. "Did she hurt herself?" He's looking at you without an ounce of judgement.

"Not- not that I know of." You'd looked under her shirt and trousers already. She doesn't have a single bruise.

He starts to walk back towards your home. You don't follow at first and he reaches out to grab your arm, pulling you along as he says, "Come on, sweetheart. We'll go down to Hawkins general, yeah? Just to be safe."

"Yeah."

Junie screams. "It's okay, sweetheart," Eddie says, again and again and again. He doesn't hesitate, his voice velveteen.

His hand stays on your arm until you're by the car. He's never done a car seat before and you can tell: he tucks her into it with infinite care but can't work out how to do the buckles. You laugh wetly and then feel very guilty. wiping your face with one hand before ducking down to do them yourself. Junie glares at you as you do, still very much crying and now incensed at being strapped in.

You stand back to take her in and push your thumbs across her wet cheeks and under her snotty nose uselessly, feeling so sorry for her, so guilty. Why can't you work out what's wrong? Why can't you fix it?

Eddie stands by your side, waiting.

“You got it,” he encourages as you pull back. "You're okay."

You smile weakly and then narrow your eyes, the two of you seeing it at the same time – Junie reaching desperately for her sock.

You peel it off with shaking hands and feel another hot shock of tears. There, around one of her toes, is a tourniquet. The skin is swollen but looks unbroken, darkened by blood

You smile because Oh my god, this is what's wrong, and then you panic twice as much as you had before, because Oh my god, her tiny toe.

"Eddie, I need- I need something. I need a- a nail scissors or-" You drag your hands down your face, in the thick of it. Adrenaline or cortisol or something must race through your veins, your hands shaking with it.

Eddie pulls you back by the hem of your shirt. "We can't cut it away. You'll never get the blade under that- What is that? A hair?"

"Yeah. A hair."

A lightbulb moment. You brush past him and almost fall up the steps back into your trailer.

"Stay there," you say without any explanation.

You step over the mess you'd left behind and barrel into the bathroom, clipping your shoulder on the bathroom door and slamming onto your knees.

You're lucky you have it, a tiny pot of hair removal cream in an old makeup bag under the sink. Resisting the urge to kiss the lid, you rush back out to the car where Eddie holds one of Junie's hands in his. He looks an impossible mixture of worried and relieved when you reappear.

You elbow digs into his chest as you lean over, opening the cream and smearing a line over Junie's swollen toe. She whimpers and shouts and tries desperately to get out of the carseat and, to your devastation, away from you.

"What is that?" Eddie asks from behind you.

"A hair remover."

You wipe the delapitor clumsily into your only good jeans so you can take both of Junie's arms into your hands. She doesn't want to be touched but you need to be holding her, at least a little bit.

"How long does it take?"

"I'm not sure… Not long. If it doesn't work we'll still have to go to the hospital."

Eddie pushes his hands into the top of your back in answer, his fingers curling either side of your neck like he might give you a massage. You shudder as he pulls you against him, as his fingers trace an invisible pattern.

Junie looks up at you both. Her wounded expression loosens. Maybe she's realised that you've figured out her problem, maybe she's just glad to be looked at. Either way, she subdues.

The hair removal cream's acrid smell tickles your stuffed up nose. You sniffle and Eddie's fingers work into your neck lightly, a silent and unwavering It's okay.

You don't see the hair snap so much as you see the pressure wean. You smother a sob, your relief palpable as you pull your shirt sleeve down to cover your hand and wipe it away. Junie shrieks.

You take the hair between your nails and pull.

"Oh my god," you say, holding it up between you.

Everything feels a little bit hazy after that. Eddie rubs your shoulders placatingly before encouraging you away from the door so he can unclip Junie and pull her out of her car seat. He guides you away from the car and back into your trailer, over the mess and into the kitchen.

You sit heavily in a battered kitchen chair. Eddie stands in front of you, Junie on his hip and a frown warping his pretty features. She grizzles, less when he sets her down in your lap carefully.

"Is that okay?" he asks softly. Then, when you nod, "Are you okay? You look like you're gonna pass out."

"I don't feel well."

"No, I bet you don't. Take it easy."

You pull Junie's leg up to examine her foot. Her toes are covered in hair remover still. "Could you get me the baby wipes, please?"

"Sure can. It'll cost you, though." His joke falls a little flat. You try to smile anyhow, your little huff forcing a last tear. You blink until it's gone, aggravated with yourself.

After all, her toe looks better. Sore, still swollen, but better. Though you could just be seeing what you want to see.

Eddie tries to pass you the baby wipes but your hands are shaking too badly to take them. Without a word he opens the pack, kneeling on the floor in front of you to wipe down her foot tenderly. His eyebrows pinch together when she whimpers, and he murmurs a sorry, "I know, I know."

You're trying very hard to calm down.

"All done," he tells her, parentese in play. "You are so brave, junebug. You're the bravest little girl I've ever met. That's why me and your mom decided you were Juniper the Brave, and you proved us both right."

He taps the tip of a ring-heavy finger under her chin. You watch from over her shoulder. "Really brave. You did a good job, the best job ever," he praises, tilting his head to catch your eye as he says it.

You smile at him the best that you can. He holds your gaze for a weighted second and then drops it back to Junie. "Do you feel better?" he asks.

She doesn't answer, only tips her head against your chest.

Eddie pulls off her remaining sock and waves it at her. "Don't need this."

"Do you think she'll throw up if I make her some dinner?" you ask, the kind of question you don't usually get to ask someone else. A luxury to defer judgement.

"Maybe. Does it matter?"

"I don't want to clean up puke," you say pathetically.

Eddie softens. "I'll clean it up if she pukes. Don't worry about it."

You don't have to, you want to say. Of course he doesn't have to.

"Thank you," you say instead, feeling like you could burst into an entirely fresh wave of tears.

Again, he looks up at you. His smile fades from a cheesy exuberance to something sweeter, a melty-warm thing that has your breath catching.

"I'm really sorry for just showing up like that," you say tentatively, flushed with heat as you realise what you've done. ��

"Don't be."

"No, because she's- I know you never-" She's mine alone. You never signed up for this. You can't make yourself say it, distracted by his ever-growing smile. "I should've handled it on my own."

"Your mom really doesn't understand how much I like her," he tells Junie humorously, wiggling his eyebrows at her. "She doesn't have a clue. How much I like you," he adds, hand on your thigh, his finger stroking a line down the length of her leg.

"You didn't have to-" You try, stopping again as he huffs out of the side of his mouth.

His hand closes around your thigh. You can feel the heat of each of his fingers, the bulk of every heavy ring.

"It's okay. I promise," he says seriously.

"I got so freaked out, I just…" You give up. Whatever. He knows what you're trying to say. Hopefully.

Eddie leans forward to kiss your knee. His eyes close, his fingers tightening almost imperceptibly over your thigh.

You blink to yourself in a vain attempt at processing what's just happened when he asks, "Do you still feel sick?"

"No.” Your chest burns.

"In that case, I'll make dinner. A feast."

Things start to feel better. Details sink in. Your heart slows. What was only Eddie behind the stovetop becomes his dark hair scraped up and wrapped in a hair tie, his sweatpants and unlaced shoes, his white t-shirt with sharpie writing all over. Sounds filter in; the spoon scraping the bottom of the saucepan and his frenetic humming, the sound of his rubber-bottomed cons squeaking over linoleum.

Junie doesn't cry so much as whine. You press kisses that are more for you than her into her hair and on her forehead, jogging your knee. She's fine. She's okay, and she's here in your lap, and there's nothing to panic over now.

You try to push away the lingering worry. In the moment, a million thoughts had coalesced into only one. What if she's dying? Meningitis, an aneurysm, cancer. Anything. And now those thoughts fall away, leaving behind only the sharp smell of the hair remover and the salty stick of tears.

"Do you think I have time to give her a shower before dinner?" you ask softly, clearing your throat for what feels like the twentieth time today.

"You got it. I'll simmer. You could have one, too, if you want."

"Do I look that bad?"

"Worse." He grins at your expression. "I'm kidding. You look beautiful as always, sweetheart."

You carry Junie into the bathroom. There's no tub and she's too big for the kitchen sink, so a shower it is. You stand her up under warm spray and turn her back so the spray misses her eyes. She smiles at the warm water running down her back. The relief to see her happy can't be understated. You hop in at the same time and clean her off, wash her hair, and bedeck her tiny features in big big kisses.

Wrapped in her baby towel – a pink poncho type thing with a hood – you walk her to the bedroom and dry her off as fast as you can.

"Which ones?" you ask, holding up two pairs of pajamas.

Junie points at the pink shirt and bottoms printed in bright red strawberries with light green tops, letting you dress her and plonk her at the end of the bed without any fuss.

"No socks for you," you say lightly, sitting beside her in your towel.

"No socks," she agrees.

Even though Eddie's been good to you, you can't help wishing that he wasn't here. What you want more than anything in that second is for Junie to be asleep and for your head to be wedged firmly under your pillow, the sheets to your shoulders, dead to the world.

Not truly dead, of course. But a minute of silence.

Junie doesn't seem to know what to do with herself, sitting in companionable silence and stillness with you. Her head falls onto your arm.

"Are you tired?" you ask quietly, too exhausted for bubbly talk.

She sighs. You sigh too.

Eddie hums from the kitchen.

He kissed my knee.

You think you might have imagined it, if you're honest. It could've been anything against your stockings, the brush off his palm or the back of a warm knuckle, but you'd seen it. His lips, his face turned toward your thigh.

"I think he likes me," you tell Junie.

She doesn't say anything. When you look down at her she's already looking up, eyes wide with confusion.

"He kissed me," you whisper, leaning down. "I don't know about you, junebug, but I only kiss the people I care about. For a long time, that's been a really short list." You bump your nose against hers.

You've just finished getting into your own pajamas when Eddie calls out, "Girls? I know ladies like yourselves need longer to get ready but the mac and cheese is acting weird."

"Weird?" you mumble, hooking your hands under Junie's armpits. You'd let her walk if you weren't worried for her foot.

Eddie has created a working man's feast, three identical plates heaping with food. Hills of mac and cheese topped with bacon bits take up half of each plate, fried broccoli and collard greens the other. They're golden, almost red with spices.

"You can cook," you say, surprised.

"Don't sound so shocked," he says defensively. He can only hold his facade for a moment, deflating. "I really can’t. I tried to copy what you do, I've seen it enough times…" He shrugs and flops down into his usual chair. "Don't tell me if it's gross."

"I doubt it's gross."

You can't be bothered for the high chair. Junie looks like she might be too tired to move so you take the chance and sit her between you and Eddie behind the smaller portion (though using small at all feels like a lie, he's made a lot of food). She can barely see over the table.

"Did you use two boxes?" you ask, picking up Junie's spoon.

It's all the perfect temperature for a baby, maybe a little cold for an adult. You're so happy to have somebody else cook for you that you'd die before you complained.

He taps his nose. You pass Junie her spoon.

"What do you mean?" You tap your own nose in imitation. "I'll know when I look."

"So don't look. Eat."

You eat. Without asking him too – because you wouldn’t, you never do – he starts to feed Junie.

He might be the nicest boy on this whole damn planet. You look at him thoughtfully. How come we always end up here? At the kitchen table?

He looks right. Too right. He looks like he’s meant to be here, smiling and talking to your baby in hushed, fond tones, airplaning roasted broccoli towards her mouth.

“You’ll stay to watch a movie?” you ask later, trying to hide how lethargic you are with your hands deep in dishwater.

Eddie wipes a fleck of water off of your cheek with a rag. "Duh."

On the couch, Eddie sneaks a glance at you out of the corner of his eye. You’re pretending to watch the TV and doing a bad job, your attention stolen over and over by Junie where she sleeps in your lap. Your hand rubs over her small, distended tummy, the other holding her foot carefully. You keep glancing at her toe, much less swollen now and with a healthier complexion, though a cruel line remains from where the hair had cut into her skin.

You don't touch it, only looking. He worries as a wrinkle appears between your eyebrows.

Listening intently as he is, he can hear the hitch in your breath. Eddie doesn’t want you to cry again — the first time had been awful enough. Your face covered in tears, coming fast and panicked. It was like you’d hardly noticed you were crying. You’d been so scared that Eddie, despite knowing close to nothing about babies or how to make them feel better, had clung to his calm. He’d stomped down every flicker of panic that had surged and tried his damn best to keep a level head.

Now, with your sad face and the crisis averted, Eddie feels a pang of terror. Just one. You are completely out of your element, Munson.

You’re definitely the kind of friends now that can sit on the couch together and not care too much about personal space. Eddie uses this to his advantage and spreads his legs just enough to brush his thigh against yours. You look at him and hide your lingering upset with a small smile. It’s a far cry from the genuine happy grin he’s become familiar with, but you're still beautiful.

Eddie shuffles across the couch toward you until he can push his hand under your arm. He pulls it to his chest, beware of your tenuously sleeping daughter, and hugs it.

“I was thinking,” he starts casually, looking down at you.

Your eyes crease with a playful smile. “Oh yeah?” Like you can’t believe it.

“Yeah, I was,” he says, quiet so as not to wake Junie but extremely passionate. “What’s that supposed to mean, sweetheart?”

“Nothing." You laugh under your breath.

He glares, faux-offended. Any real offense is swallowed instantly by the sound of your laugh.

“Hm. Anyway, I was thinking,” he begins again, hand running down your arm in what he hopes is a soothing gesture, “that I’d head into the city this weekend. Go to the bookstore ‘n’ the big goodwill by the bus station. I was hoping you’d wanna come with me.” Is he pushing his luck? Maybe.

You look like you want to say yes, but, “Eddie, I don’t really have the money.”

“I’d pay.” He tries to sell it before you can protest. “I’m asking you to come. Stealing your Sunday. We’d leave early, get breakfast on the way. I don't want to go alone.” I want your company.

He tries not to show how terrified he is that you’ll say no.

“I can’t- I couldn’t let you pay for us,” you say, eyes on his chest.

“Can I tell you something?” You nod. “It would make me… really happy if you did.”

He doesn’t know how to explain it. He doesn’t think there’s a way to tell you that won’t involve unveiling his new and shiny feelings for you, feelings that don’t seem to want to slow, or abate, or moderate themselves. Honestly, he doesn’t want them to.

He wants you to be happy. He wants to take care of you.

It's embarrassing in its intensity.

You reach over Junie to wrap your hand around his bicep, though you still don’t look like you’re going to say yes.

He leans in close, tracing the details of your face with a greedy kind of curiosity. “You wouldn’t let me give you anything for the haircut,” he says. “It’s the same, you know? Doing things for the people you care about."

He says it like the idiot he is, all rough and insincere, like caring about people is dumb. You smile anyways and finally, finally, give him a nod. So small it’s near imperceptible.

“If you’re sure,” you say.

“Positive.”

Eddie looks good behind the wheel of your car. The wind whips at his hair, curls that had been neat and pretty only an hour ago now starting to frizz. You think the chaos of it suits him.

He’s singing along to the radio and it’s a song you don’t know. You don’t think Junie knows it either, but she’s signing it like she does, hands flailing in the air and Mr. Bear bouncing in her lap with the force of her dancing. Eddie looks at her in the rear view mirror, beaming brilliantly.

“Yeah, sing it, junebug!" he encourages. Her voice peaks.

You laugh and stretch your hands out in your lap, knuckles brushing the sandwiches you’d packed. You’d let Eddie pay for gas, you might even let him buy Junie a book from the bookstore if he’s feeling generous, but you’re really trying to keep his expenses low. Hence, sandwiches. Even now, the idea of him spending money on you makes you feel guilty.

Deep down – deep, deep down – you want him to. You’re hoping he’ll pick up a book for you, and that fills you with so much shame you have to look away from him, your face to the window. The highway blurs past, the early morning sun lighting the blacktop and bouncing between cars of all kinds coming into the city for a Sunday outing.

Eddie turns down the radio a tiny bit and reaches across the seat to squeeze your shoulder. “You alright?” he asks without looking at you.

You tip your head toward his hand. His rings bite into your cheek.

You’re in the car on a nice day with a nice boy and your pretty baby listening to the radio, the sun at your side and the breeze kissing your warm skin.

You’d even managed to find a nice shirt to wear. Today is a good day. You won't weigh it down with silly feelings.

“I’m great.”

He gives you that smile like he doesn’t believe you and his eyes go back to the road. “Can a guy get another sandwich or does he have to beg?”

You imagine what it might be like to lean over and kiss his cheek. He deserves a good kiss, you think, and then wince as heat blooms from your chest up to your cheeks. You can’t hold in a pleased smile as you click open the Tupperware.

“Do you want PB&J or bacon and lettuce?” The tomatoes have already been accosted by a ravenous Junie.

“I’ll have half of whatever you’re having.”

You weren’t going to have one, and you both know that. You offer him half the PB&J and he takes it, eyes flitting between you and the road. You take a showful bite to release him. He gives you a grateful smile in turn.

Chewing, you take half of the bacon and lettuce sandwich into your hands and pull it apart. You divide the contents and tuck half into one slice to make a quarter sandwich before leaning over the seats to offer it to Junie where she waits in her car seat. She accepts it hungrily.

One-handed, Eddie pulls the car off of the highway. “There’s a parking garage somewhere around here,” he tells you.

Once he's found it he jumps out to go pay. You turn in your seat and smile at Junie. She's mauling her sandwich, face smeared in butter.

"Are you ready for some fun?" you ask.

She looks at you curiously.

You try again, really smiling. "Are you excited? We're gonna go find a book, something fun like Red Cat, Blue Cat, and we're gonna see the stores and the people and maybe mommy can get you a new teddy."

A spark of something. She gets happy when you're happy and today's no exception, her tiny features soon plucked up with joy. When you round the car and open her door to wipe down her greasy fingers and face she barely cares, and she receives your loving kisses with a big smile.

Eddie returns with the parking ticket and slides it onto the dashboard. You leave Junie's door open now he's back to pop the trunk and unfold her stroller. The sound echoes through the parking garage and the sun struggles to find a way in, your arms wracked with goosebumps.

"Hey, junebug," you hear Eddie murmuring.

He messes with the buckles on her car seat until they pop open, his triumphant laugh almost as pretty as his face. Junie's is prettier, your daughter laughing up a storm as Eddie scoops her up and sits her on his hip.

He looks like he had when you first met but with ten times the confidence in holding her and a clear affection. Her hands are in his hair like usual, petting and pulling gently.

"Brush out the tangles for me," he tells her seriously, bumping the door shut.

She hums like she's agreed to his task and continues her exploring.

You hang the baby bag over the stroller's handlebar and Eddie sits her in the padded chair.

"Junie, have I told you how pretty you look today?" he asks, pulling the straps over her shoulders and from between her legs. He uses parentese like you would, distracting her as he locks her in. When the lock click, he plays affectionately with her hair. "You're like a princess. Your mom has talented hands, huh? And a good eye."

Pleasure from his compliment drips in thick and fast. You bite back a smile and squeeze the clean baby socks in your hands, waiting for him to stand so you can fight them onto Junie’s feet. Ever since her ordeal you’ve been waiting as long as you can before putting on socks and shoes. The first thing you do when you pick her up from daycare is take them off.

If Eddie thinks you’re overzealous in your fretting he hasn't said anything. He holds his hand out for the socks and you give them to him, nonplussed though you shouldn’t be as he bunches them up and pushes them over her wiggling feet with patience and bemusement.

“Stay still… Do you want frostbite? Or gangrene?” he asks her.

“Eddie.”

“Sorry." He looks at you guiltily. “In my defense, she doesn’t know what gangrene is.”

“It’s weird, though. To hear you say it like it’s a good thing. S’creepy.”

He squeezes the sole of one of her small feet and stands, much too close to you as he whispers cheerily, “Gangrene. Septicemia. Pneumonia.”

You laugh and push him away from you. “Shut up.”

“You first. Where’re her shoes?”

You procure them with a smug smile. “You’ll never get them on.”

His fingers brush yours as he takes them, his eyes blazing at the challenge.

“Will you sulk all day?” Eddie asks you.

The sulking is for show. You frown like you’re really angry and tighten your grip on the stroller, the wind ruffling your clothes. After a moment the facade falls away and you smile at him, unable to hide your reluctant affection any longer. “How did you get her to sit still like that? You vex me.” Said with equal parts envy and pride.

“I vex you,” he says, voice coloured by good humour.

He’s fallen into step beside you, your jacket tied around his waist.

You should bring your jacket. In case you get cold, he’d said.

I don’t want to carry it, you’d said.

Don’t patronise me.

You glance over the top of the stroller to make sure Junie’s blanket is still in place. She’s quiet. You’ve decided that she’s in shock to be somewhere that isn’t your home or the daycare.

“Yeah, you vex me. Infuriate me. I’ve been a mom for two years and I can’t get her shoes on without a fight, and you’ve been-“ You stop dead, stutter, and quickly adjust what you'd been saying like it has been a slip up of the tongue rather than a thought you shouldn't entertain. “You’ve known her for what, three months? And-“

“Four months,” he corrects, sounding much too proud.

“Four months,” you amend. “And you can do all this stuff that took me years to work out.” You’re a little bit vexed for real.

He nods like he’s considering what you’ve said before tipping his head. “But…”

You wait. He doesn’t further his point. “But what?”

“Well.” Eddie brushes something off of your arm. “I guess I have a great teacher, right?” His voice hikes up high and he steamrolls, “I just copy you. You didn’t really get to copy anyone.”

You feel something melty hot in your chest, another affection for Eddie to add to a growing list. “Oh.”

He takes your shoulder into his hand and you draw to a pause, his other hand pointing off into the distance. “There’s the bookstore.”

You follow his finger. Across a landscape of cobblestone, situated firmly between a Domino’s pizza place and a cafe with a peppering of metal wrought tables stands Morgan’s Books. To your surprise, it’s a glass-fronted building with a big clean sign made up of red, yellow, and blue. It's a children's bookstore.

Eddie has obviously tricked you. You turn to glare at him and find him very close. He doesn’t shy away and you try not to in return. You try, but something about his pretty mouth so close sends shocks like pins and needles to your hands and you have to keep walking lest you embarrass yourself. His hand falls from your shoulder and trails down your back. You swear you can feel even the last millimetre of his fingertip before it falls away.

You get a good look at the landscape ahead and your eyes narrow. Eddie almost bumps into you when you stop abruptly.

“What?” he asks.

"There’s, like, a thousand steps.”

“Gross hyperbole," he argues. A gap of quiet furthers your point; while you had been exaggerating, there are a lot of steps, and he needs time to take them all in.

“Is there a way around?”

“Don’t be dumb, sweetheart. You’ll grab June and I’ll carry the stroller.”

“It’s really heavy. Heavier than it looks.”

He grins like a fiend. “I’m strong.”

Junie’s more than happy to be released, less when you take her into your arms and won’t put her down. You help Eddie snap the stroller back up, indicating which lever to pull with the rubber toe of your converse. He kneels down to guide it into place and looks up at you swiftly afterward, self-satisfied and much too happy considering the task afoot.

“Maybe we should find another way.”

“Y/N,” he says, like your name is inherently funny, like a joke rolled around over his tongue, “I’m starting to get offended.”

You blow air out of the side of your mouth.

Eddie slugs the stroller under one arm and holds it tight with the other, giving you a very determined smile. “Ready?”

You balance the baby bag over one shoulder and start on the stairs. Junie's heavy but she’s a heavy you’ve grown used to, and she doesn’t complain enough to warrant any stress.

You’re impressed when Eddie takes each step at your pace and doesn’t break a sweat. “I thought you were a bus boy. What do you bus? Weights?” you ask incredulously.

He laughs. “I don’t bus weights, but amps are heavy, and I’m not a big shot. I don’t have any roadies to carry them for me.”

You feel terrible then for forgettting. Right. He plays music, you think. You’ve never once seen him play any music, on stage or at home. You’ve seen him play guitar over Junie’s leg to tickle her and tap out a rhythm when he’s heating up desserts in your kitchen, but you’ve never seen him play guitar for real.

“Is that going okay?” you ask, ignoring the small burn beginning to grow in your arms.

“Bussing? Sure. Why’d you ask?”

“Not bussing, music. I never ask- I’ve never asked you how it’s going.”

Eddie winces as the stroller starts to open and pulls it tighter under his arm. It takes him a few seconds to calibrate what you’ve said, and he’s quickly reassuring. “What? Why would you worry about that? You have enough to think about without adding my moonlighting at the Hideout.” He says the Hideout like it’s something to be looked down on. You almost trip up a step and Eddie can’t do anything but watch. “Careful," he begs.

You keep your eyes on your footing until you’re at the very top, worried you'll fall flat on your face and get Junie hurt.. Eddie comes up two behind you and puts the stroller down, wiping his hands together dramatically.

“Conquered. Great job, team. Especially you,” he says, poking Junie’s cheek.

She puts her arms out, vying for his attention now she’s had a taste. He raises his eyebrows at her and offers his arms. You hand her over eagerly, arms aching. You can’t imagine what his feel like.

“I care about it,” you say firmly. It rather than you, but it rings the same. “I want to know, Eddie, I swear. I’m sorry for not asking.”

He looks up from where he’d been making playful faces at Junie to stare at you. It’s not a mean stare, but it unnerves you all the same.

She pushes a hand into his hair like she always does and starts to try and pull her fingers through it. It’s knottier than usual because of the wind, and she struggles to make sense of it. His eyes fall to her tugging.

“Sweetheart,” he says slowly. You know it’s meant for you, even if he’s not looking at you. "If there was something worth telling you, I would’ve told you. I don't doubt that you care.”

You don’t feel better. “No, ‘cos-”

“Why are you so upset?” he asks genuinely.

You hadn’t realised your face revealed the extent of it. “Because we’re friends. You’re the- the best friend I’ve ever had.”

He smiles, sudden and wide. “I’m your best friend?”

“Like we’re twelve?” you deflect.

“Yeah, like we’re twelve.”

You ignore him and try to cool down. A hot flush attacks your skin as you stretch out the stroller and click the supports back into place, shucking off your baby bag to hang over the handlebar with a relieved sigh.

Eddie moves Junie to one side. You anticipate his touch before it happens, his free arm behind your back and pulling you to him. “We’re totally best friends. I’m your best friend,” he says smugly, hand curling around your shoulder. It’s a good hug, friendly and warm and heart-racingly close; you can feel his chest on your back, the curve of a pec through thin fabric.

You turn toward him indulgently but keep your head down. It’s so nice to be hugged that you can’t make yourself move away.

He rubs the top of your arm, the bump of his rings biting into your skin. “You don’t deny it?”

“No. I don’t deny it.”

“Hear that, June?” Again, he calls her June. Not Junie or junebug, June. You like the way he says it. “I’m your mom's best friend. I win.”

You nod happily, warm under his touch.

Wait. “What?”

“She likes me more,” he teases her childishly.

“Eddie!”

“What? Am I wrong?” He leans away from you and feigns confusion.

“Yes! Of course you’re wrong! That’s my baby. Give her to me right now." You join in on his melodramatics, grinning even as you continue, “How could you say that? Sicko."

“That got frosty quickly,” he grumbles, holding her away from you.

You move in to plaster Junie in kisses. Not apology kisses because you didn’t say anything wrong, but kisses all the same.

“Can I get in on one of those?”

You huff at him. He bursts into boyish laughter and holds his hands up. “Kidding!”

“Should we go?” Before you say something stupid.

Eddie carries Junie and you push the empty stroller until you're all looking up at the store's bright sign. "This is where you wanted to come?" you ask him, eyes falling to the window where a sign brags a children's reading nook and their Read Before You Buy promotion.

He shrugs. "Bookstore's a bookstore."

"No, this is for kids. We're never gonna find what you wanted in here. I doubt they have King of the Rings between Red Cat, Blue Cat and Pony Girl."

"King of the Rings," he repeats jovially.

"Whatever it's called."

He pulls a squirming Junie higher up the length of his chest, the fabric of his shirt rides up with her. You pull it down. You're flustered enough, his naked skin is the last thing you need.

"Sweetheart, I'm sure they'll have what I want," he says flippantly, pushing the door open with his elbow.

"If you're sure…" you say, following him in

The bookstore smells fancy. You breathe in the scent of plastic wrap and paper, your eyes searching over floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and pyramids of craft kits. Box sets of Enid Blyton and A. A. Milne sporting classic, whimsy spines are stacked in a towering and precarious looking arch. Signs on either side promise a children's wonderland inside. You follow Eddie around pen displays and jigsaw puzzles, ducking under the archway with an awed, "Oh, wow."

"Watch out," he warns quietly, taking a step down into the kids' reading nook.

You bump the stroller to the bottom of the steps and have to stop, amazed.

Junie is a picture of you as Eddie sets her down, gazing around the room in shock. There's a lot of older kids scattered throughout on big circle pillows with books in their laps and a guardian beside them, but the real wonder is in the decoration. The walls are bedecked in murals; Kermit and Funnybones, The Very Busy Spider and the mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Junie sees Kermit on the walls and gasps, running up to the painting with wide eyes.

Eddie follows her without saying anything. When he catches up to her, he offers her his hand. She takes it. She's practically shouting, their joined hands restless as excitement courses through her in waves.

You find two big pillows and a couple of books for Junie to look at. The three of you take to an empty corner and sit, looking over a big picture book full of stills from The Muppets Take Manhattan. Junie makes a lot of excited sounds and nonsense words, talking very confidently though half of it's lost on you both.

"Kermit," she says, pointing at the page passionately.

You wrap your arms around her tummy to keep her comfortable and hum. "Yeah, baby. Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo. They're going to New York," you start to describe the page.

Eddie leans in, his arm pressed to your arm, his skin a heat where it rubs into you as he helps hold open the book.

The further you read the closer he gets.

Junie gets bored quickly, like toddlers tend to, and wants to go look at the walls again. Eddie stays with the stroller and you pick her up to let her touch her hands to the characters.

"That's Spot," you tell her quietly, her fingertips brushing over flat fur. "Spot the doggy."

Junie's never read anything Spot before. He's a popular character. There's three picture books to choose from. You pick up the first, Where's Spot? and offer it to her.

She likes the look of him. You carry her back to your pillows and struggle to sit back down in the tight gap between the wall and Eddie's knee. He stretches his arms out to take her. .

"What'd you find, sweetheart?" he murmurs as he balances her on his thigh.

He reads to her. He has the voice for it, soft and sweet.

"We had sandwiches," you argue, two hours and what feels like fifty stories later.

Eddie had known before he suggested it that you were gonna fight him on this. He’s managed to end up behind the stroller, weaving between unlucky bystanders as his eyes search for somewhere to eat.

“And they were awesome."

“Eddie,” you complain softly.

He peeks at you by his side, grinning at the plastic bag full of books you’d insisted on carrying where it dangles from your fingers.

You take his smile for teasing and sigh. “Come on. I’ll make dinner when we get home.”

“Sweetheart, as much as I love your cooking that’s hours away. We don’t have to go anywhere fancy. Look, there’s a McDonald’s right there,” he says, pointing toward the yellow ‘M’ sign where it flickers, breaking up a white sky.

“I’m not hungry,” you say. He senses your proposition before you offer it. “But if you wanna get food, that’s fine.”

“You don’t like McDonald’s?” he asks.

“I’m really not hungry.”

“Just think of it like- like using the bathroom before a long car ride. You might not need to, but it’s never a bad idea.”

Inside of McDonald’s, Eddie can tell how unhappy you are, your eyes drifting to the menu and your fingers squeezing both handles of the plastic bag.

He parks Junie’s stroller next to a low table and you slide into the booth beside her. He doesn't sit right away.

“You remember what I said?” he asks quietly, leaning on the table with one arm, head inclined to yours.

Your eyes flicker between his face and his arm. You measure his gaze “Doing things for the people you care about,” you say, equally hushed.

Eddie reaches out to squeeze your wrist. “Exactly.” He tries not to squeeze too hard in case his rings dig into your skin.

When you smile, he grabs the high chair and transfers one unhappy toddler into its constraints. There's a little basket of crayons and colouring papers near the registers that you plunder while he orders. By the time he gets back with a greasy tray of food and drinks Junie's made a masterpiece.

"Is that supposed to be me?" he asks brightly.

Of course it isn't – there's a shock of blue and a red blob almost shaped like a heart next to the dark printed outline of Ronald McDonald. It's worth the risk of sounding like an idiot because you start to laugh so hard you can't scold him for the desserts.

After wiping down the highchair's tray with a baby wipe, you peel open Junie's cheeseburger and start to break it into small pieces, blowing on each one vigorously before passing them over. You're about to start on fries when Eddie flicks your hand.

"Eat," is all he says, swiping her fries out of your reach to copy your process.

Tray laden with an abundance of bite-sized fast food, she grabs a cheesy looking slice of burger and screams loudly.

Eddie gawps. "What was that? Is it too hot?"

You swallow a sip of your drink and the cup sheds condensation like a spattering of raindrops when you put it down. "I think she's having a really good day," you say..

"Well fu-" he amends his cuss word quickly, "-dge, me too, junebug. Best day out ever. We got books, burgers, and I'm with my two favourite girls."

It might have sounded more romantic if he hadn't said it around a mouthful of big mac. You look almost as happy as Junie does anyway,

When Junies just about finished you carry her off into the ladies to change her diaper and freshen up. You have a baby in one arm and a bag full of diapers and bottles and onesies in the other, and you stare into the mirror and can't work out Eddie's angle.

Eddie is loud and crude and clumsy. He smells like his close friend Mary Jane half the time and he doesn't know how to style his hair. He laughs loud, sings louder. Almost everything about him is unapologetic and brash, his dark looks and ripped up clothes, his van, his smile.

And he's nice. He's so nice. Down to the bone, maybe down to his soul, there's a kindness that floors you every single time. He smiles and he squeezes and he says sorry for things that aren't his fault. He helps without being asked. How many times now has he knocked the door, found you kneeling on the living room floor folding clothes and thrown himself opposite you? Bet you I can do double what you've done in five minutes flat. Or stationed himself at Benny's for lunch to check you're having a good day? Here's five for the pretty waitress I saw earlier, make sure she gets it, won't you? How many times has he, hair limp and clothes rumpled, burst beaming into the kitchen with enough dessert for a family of five and a gallon of juice? Why wouldn't I get a gallon? Junebug'll have drank half by the time you sit down, sweetheart.

You look at yourself in the mirror and you can't work out why.

"Hi, girls," Eddie says when you return.

He's cleared off the table, leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest. Like this, the lean trim of his waist is emphasised, as is the slight curve to the tops of his thighs.

"Hi," Junie says. You echo her greeting.

"D'you have fun? Powder your noses?"

"Can't you tell?" you ask. You did not powder your nose.

He straightens up and peers at you assessingly. "Definitely. S'like you got prettier, and I thought it was impossible." His voice is sugar sweet by the end, attention on Junie. She's aching to be put down and writhing in your grip, but his voice catches and holds her attention until you're back outside.

It's cooler. The air cleaner. You put Junie down and clasp her hand firmly in your own, bending at the waist to tell her face to face, "No running off, alright? You hold mommy's hand tight." You squish her little fingers until she giggles. "Okay?"

"Okay," she says.

"Okay, thank you." Then, because she looks so sweet and this has been one of the best days of your life, "I love you."

You kiss her cheek.

Eddie won't let you push the stroller. "You concentrate on little miss trouble," he says mildly, kicking the brakes with a frown. "I got this. Maybe."

Half a block to the goodwill. It's not as big as you'd expected but there's a fun furniture section that draws Junies attention. You're reluctant to let her climb on the furniture in case anything is dirty or infested, though you do sit her in a wicker chair for a tree swing and a huge velvet loveseat like she's goldilocks, asking, "How's that? Comfy?"

Hidden away, there's a bookshelf painted green and pink that threatens to topple over hiding a grandfather clock still ticking. You lift Junie up so that the three of you can look at the clock face, a small silver disk with illustrations on either side. A gorgeous swelling of purples and melty blues in a ring behind the man in the moon. The sun, a buttery yellow buffeted by white-blue clouds.

"Grand," Eddie praises.

"What did you want to come here for?"

He grins at you and nods his head to the left. "It's over there."

'It' ends up being a clothes rack longer than your trailer home partitioned by size. Every t-shirt different but bragging the same premise – band merchandise. A riot of rock bands peppered in popular duo's like Tears for Fears and the occasional Cyndi Lauper tour shirt, each one sticking out like a sore thumb; a rainbow array besides faded blacks and slate greys.

"Why'd they have so many?"

Eddie shrugs, though he tries to explain his theory anyways. "There's a venue maybe… four blocks away? That has these vendors outside all the time shelling knock-offs."

"So these are knock-offs?"

"Most of them. They're usually in good condition though."

He's right. You find all kinds of shirts in varying qualities. Some obviously real, thick fabric and perfect prints. He picks up a Judas Priest tour shirt that he claims to be the real deal, a Metallica long sleeve that most certainly is not. There's a Twisted Sister shirt with a mysterious brown stain and a Ghoulie Girls muscle tee that's almost completely split down one side.

You shuffle through the things in your size, absent-minded. Junie's not interested in the slightest and is starting to complain. You fend off an oncoming tantrum with a pack of fruit snacks, offering them to her one at a time.

Eddie whistles where he's standing a short distance away, "Oh, fuck."

He unhooks a hanger and holds it out, amazed. "Oh, shit."

"Eddie," you chastise. Not because you care, but Junie saying either of those words at daycare would suck.

"Sorry, sorry. You like these guys, right?" He holds up a t-shirt for The Mamas and The Papas, a group from the sixties. It looks new.

It's the only cassette you own where you can stand to listen to both sides all the way through. "Yeah. Like Cass Elliott's stuff more."

"Who's that?"

You point at Elliott on the shirt. "Her."

"Guess how much they want for it," he demands.

You think. Junie whines for another snack and you give her the packet. "Ten dollars?"

"A dollar." He passes the shirt to you so you can see it for yourself and leans down to bundle up your sighing daughter. She can't decide whether she's enjoying it for a good few seconds, her annoyance at being somewhere this underwhelming for so long clear but fading as Eddie shushes her gently. "Isn't that sick?" he asks you.

"It would be sick, if you liked them."

He shrugs. "I'll wear it as pajamas. A dollar for a shirt? You can't steal it that cheap."

You laugh and drop it into his basket. He bumps his shoulder into yours until you move down the rack, his fingers searching for something with focus. You're in awe at how he's handling it, a basket heavy in the crook of his elbow and Junie on his hip trying to share her fruit snacks with him unsuccessfully.

"Ah-ha!" He pulls out a black t-shirt. The back to you, you can't tell what's so interesting about it until he flips it around. "What do you think?"

It's the same The Mamas and The Papas shirt.

"You want?" he asks.

You check the price tag before answering and find yourself laughing gleefully, almost smug. "Hey, this one's fifty cents."

He gasps. "What?"

"I can afford that one myself."

He pulls it out of your hand, quick but not cruel, and tucks it into the basket. "Don't care. Wanna see if they have one in Junie's size?"

"They won't."

"What about a small and we cut the excess off? She can wear it like a dress. We'll all match."

Eddie picks up a bunch of t-shirts for you, some funny, a lot plain bad. You wonder if you're being made fun of but from the gleeful expression on his face you know he's just having a good time. It's sweet, really, how he seems to pick the more feminine looking ones for you. You try your best to calculate how much he's spending on you – it feels tacky and silly, but urgent – and end up losing the thread. He must've passed ten dollars by now. It makes you feel sick.

You see your saving grace across the way.

"Oh my god!" you feign surprise. Both Eddie and Junie look up at you, startled. "You know what mommy just saw?"

Junie perks up.

"What did I just see? What did mommy see?" you encourage.

"What?" she asks.

"I saw… teddies!"

"Mr. Bear?" she asks.

You beam at her. "Mr. Bear's brothers and sisters, I think. Should we go look at them?"

She says yes and then something else you don't catch, squirming aggressively to be put down.

Eddie says, "Sorry sorry sorry," and lets her down gently.

She snatches your hand and starts to tug you away. You glance over your shoulder to make sure Eddie's following you and he is, a melty-warm smile on his face. You navigate the store floor and almost knock down a bucket of hats with the stroller on the way to the teddies. There's a few of them, all lined up in a row next to jigsaw puzzles and old board games.

"I didn't think this through," you say, watching as Junie picks through the teddies with a huge smile on her face. She starts to hug them towards her and you try not to cringe.

"You can scrub her when we go home," Eddie assures you leaning against the stroller, hair behind his ears.

You grab the end of a curl and pull it back in front of his face, messing with it until it falls the way you want it to. He stays very still. "I might need to de-flea her."

He laughs and it's a shock, an abrupt sound that makes your chest ache with fondness.

"You might. I got some tea tree oil lying around somewhere if you need it," he says.

"And if she gets dermatitis?"

His grins turns embarrassed. "I don't know what that is."

"It's like-" You tilt your head to the side to mimic his own and drop your hand from his hair. "It's gross. Like a bad rash."

"Oh, then we'll give her a tomato soup bath."

You burst into laughter and have to grab his arm to stop from toppling over, or at least that's what you tell yourself. "That's for skunks," you manage to tell him, giggling loudly.

"Shit, really?"

You nod at him, wanting to kiss the sheepishness straight off of his lips. "You're thinking of an oats bath," you say. "Oats are good for the skin. And milk."

"So we just rub her down with oatmeal. Case solved."

Your hand rubs over the curve of his forearm until you reach the cold bite of his chain bracelet. It brings your attention back to what it is you're doing. You pull your hand away.

You have enough money to get Junie any teddy she wants. You'd made sure of that. You'll just have to hide the train in your tights and wear your waitressing skirt low on your hips for a week or three until you can afford a new pair of pantyhose.

You move to kneel next to Junie. She's pulled every teddy off the shelf and sits half-buried in them, talking a hundred words a minute. You think she might be make-believing, catching the slightest difference in her tone as she shakes one bear and then the other.

After checking the price tags stuck sloppily to each ear, you realise you can afford two.

Best day ever.

"Junie," you say with intent, heavy so she'll look at you. "I want you to pick your two favourite bears. Yeah? Pick which ones you like the best. And we're gonna take them home, okay? Give them a bath, brush out their fur, get them some jammies."

Watching the way her expression changes as she realises what you're saying is confirmation. This is the best day ever.

She decides eventually on one too many. There's a pastel green-blue rabbit with floppy ears and a ribbon tied around his neck, half a face of whiskers that make him quite charming and a worn tail. Next to him is a classic teddy bear who could be Mr. Bear's younger brother who seems in very good condition. Last, a bigger, softer golden teddy with an enamel nose and eyes lies over her lap.

You can't afford all three.

You've barely opened your mouth to tell her, a weak smile on your lips ready to placate when Eddie says, "The rabbit is classic. You'll have to let me get her that one."

"Eddie," you say, looking up at him as you shake your head, "you can't. I can't let you."

"She'll have to share him with me, obviously. He's punk rock."

It's the least punk rock plushie you've ever seen.

"Eddie," you say again, quietly.

He scoops the hair away from his face like he's going to tie it up. "Y/N." He says your name expectantly. When you don't budge he lets his hair fall back to his shoulders and turns serious. "You can pay me back, if you want to."

"Really?"

"Only for the rabbit."

You purse your lips to fight a smile.

Junie throws herself into your lap with her new treasures. "For the rabbit," she parrots factually, gazing up at you with eyes full of content. Her small smile means everything.

"He's a bunny," you murmur, fingers brushing his rough ear.

"He's sweet." Eddie crouches in front of you. He smells like something nice though you can't think of what it is. Cologne, something dark and deep hiding under a woody scent. Maybe sandalwood. His knee taps your thigh and his hand wraps around your shoulder for balance. "Got a dirty nose though. Who does that remind you of?"

You giggle and tap Junie's nose. "I wonder."

Down what feels like a thousand steps and back into the parking garage, your legs are hurting in the best way and Junie's half asleep in her stroller. You'd reluctantly let her keep the blue-green rabbit in hand, and she snuggles him close to her chest.

"I'm actually genuinely worried she's gonna get something from him," you confide.

Eddie weaves his arm through yours. "Like rabies?"

"A rash."

"I'm allergic to gain detergent tablets," he says, his hand slipping away from you so he can put both on his hips. "When I moved in with my Uncle Wayne he didn't know that, obviously, not at first. We didn't notice for a while. One day I'm scratching my chest and he says to me, boy, what are you doing always itching like that? You ever take a shower?" He impersonates his uncle's disappointed frown.

You laugh. "Poor baby."

"I mean, I probably wasn't showering." He laughs. "I was like, wow, thanks Uncle Wayne, I love you too.

"He lifts my shirt up in the middle of the kitchen and we both just stare at this rash. It was the first time I'd really noticed. I didn't… I was a skinny kid, I didn't really find any pleasure in looking at myself. And- He got so serious. Asking me if I was okay, if school was stressing me out."

"He thought you were hurting yourself?"

"In a way… It wasn't the first time he tried to get me to talk about how I was feeling, but it was the first time I thought- I mean, the first time I realised that it was permanent. That we were-" He cuts off with a laugh. "I'm being weird."

"No weirder than usual," you tease. Your expression softens.

You slow, trying to convey how much you want to hear it with a smile. You don't want to say something that'll weigh on the impossibly light mood you're both in; the ground practically glows yellow under your shoes, the two of you walking on sunshine or something remarkably similar.

"I guess I realised he was gonna take care of me. I told him all about school, stuff I'd been lying about, how the Walton twins kept taking my lunch money, how I was failing algebra. How much I," he licks his lips and then smiles, "how much I missed my mom."

"Do you still miss her a lot?" you ask, though you know the answer.

"Yeah, I do. I don't remember everything, but I remember the way she talked sometimes. I don't remember her voice," he concedes, "just… the way she moved. She would lean back whenever I was getting into trouble, and she'd get this look on her face like I was the funniest thing on the planet."

You grin at him. Your cheeks ache from what must be a hundred smiles today. It's a really nice memory to have.

"You are pretty funny," you say.

"What was that? You think I'm pretty and funny? Baby, you spoil me."

You stop altogether and press your fists into your eyes, defeated. "I should've seen that one coming."

"Yeah, you should've."

Soft snores, so quiet you almost miss them. By the time you've got back to your car Junie's sleeping with her chin to her chest and the rabbit's ear held tight in her small hand.

"Will she wake up?" Eddie asks quietly.

"Not if I'm very, very careful," you whisper.

You scoop her up and tuck her into her carseat, holding your breath all the while. Eddie tries his best to fold down the stroller.

You emerge from the backseat and make a soft pitying sound. "Stuck?"

"I can do it," he promises, head and face hidden behind the padded seat. His hands fight with the metal bars holding it in place. Again, you tap the right strut with your shoe to help him out.

He says thank you but refuses to look at you. You swear you're gonna kiss his cheek this time for real because he deserves one and you really want to give him one, but he puts the stroller into the trunk and touches your waist as he opens the driver's side. Any bravery gets turned into mush.

He rolls down the window and sticks his head out, ever amused. "Are you coming?"

You pause at the door and get closer than you mean to, close enough to find yourself distracted by the beauty mark along his jawline.

"You want me to drive?" you ask.

"No, sweetheart. You're good."

You smile at each other. It's a strange sort of smile, strange to be taller than him, strange to have your faces this near. There's a lot to say but maybe now isn't the right time to say it, or maybe now is exactly when you should, and his face lifts up just a touch and your hands feel heavy at your sides.

"Eddie…"

You close your fingers over the door, braced as his body turns to yours. You get the sense that he's waiting for you to say – or do – something. To lean down. To take the leap.

He's the prettiest boy you've ever seen.

You waver.

"You know," he says lightly, blinking his long lashes at you in a way that has your heart skipping beat after beat, "if we hurry, I think we can get on the highway before the work rush. We'll be back in Hawkins before dark."

You bring your hand to his cheek. A sorry and a thank you at the same time. "I don't want to be back in Hawkins before dark." I really want to spend more time with you.

"I'll crawl."

You press your lips together, tongue in your cheek to stop from giggling like a loser as you walk around the hood and climb in. He turns the key in the ignition and switches off the radio before it can wake up Junie. True to his word, Eddie goes what must be a half a mile an hour out of the parking garage. The car behind you beeps aggressively.

Your eyes flicker between the rearview and his grinning face. "What are you- oh."

"Crawling," he murmurs smugly.

The sun starts its slow descent. You use his knee for leverage and pull down his sun visor, then your own, blocking the light. Eddie says, "Thank you," very sweetly and you get comfortable and clip yourself in, anticipating a long drive home.

The stores turn on their neon, fast food and take out restaurants open for the night. The smell of warm oregano and olive oil is strong as you drive through the side avenue past a pizza place with its door thrown open.

Eddie asks if you're hungry and you decline. He takes it with grace and doesn't say much besides passing commentary until you realise he's going the wrong way.

"Eddie," you start.

"I know. Just- one last thing. Let me get one more thing and then we'll go home and you never have to let me spend money on you ever again."

You look over his pinched, pleading brows and his slight pout for any insincerity and find it in droves. "Until Friday," you say, dejected.

"Now you're getting it."

He pulls up to a small bakery and weasels his way inside. You wait, car idling, hands rubbing over the cracked leather of your seats wondering what sweet treat he's going to emerge with.

You have a nightmare – a heaping bag of donuts and shortbread and pastries, things you could never pay him back for, more to add to the impossible pile of things he's given you.

Doing things for the people you care about, you repeat to yourself wearily.

You hadn't expected anything for the haircut, but this is more than a haircut. It's difficult not to think of every dollar as an attribute of every hour he's worked. What makes you deserving of his literal physical labour?

I didn't force him. He likes me.

He certainly looks like he likes you as he appears again, shoving his wallet into the back pocket of his black jeans and wielding a flat looking plastic platter with an exuberant expression. He almost drops them trying to show you. Your heart shoots into your throat.

He's still chuckling when he throws himself into the driver's side. "Shit, did you see that? Almost lost 'em. Here, sweet thing. Hold the sweets. Makes sense, right? Sweet thing holding sweet things."

You accept the tray of what looks like a rainbow of blobs and go to peel off the lid. "Can I?" you ask.

"Of course you can."

You pull off the lid. Twelve cupcakes of all different colours in rows of four. The first four are chocolate cupcakes, one with green icing shaped like a frog, one with a white rabbit, one with an orange fox and one with a blue fish. The second row seems fancier. By the third and fourth row there's no pattern, just an assortment of flavours and decorations, chocolate curls and glitter, a half a strawberry, a smattering of mini marshmallows.

"What flavours that one?" you ask, pointing at a golden cake topped with multicoloured icing, a swirl covered in little crystal like sprinkles.

"I don't have a clue. I picked the first four and then realised it was taking too long. Told 'em to give me whatever."

"Eager to get back?"

"Eager as a cry for life. Try it."

"You don't want one before you start driving?" you ask.

"I'll try that one after you."

You peel back crisp, metallic shiny paper and take a cautious bite. It's a bourbon vanilla cake with a coffee flavour buttercream to cut the sweetness. You can't tell whether you like it or not at first, so you take another bite.

"Leave some for me."

"Sorry!" you say through a giggly mouthful. "Here."

He has both hands on the wheel. You don't know what possesses you – though you're starting to wonder if it can be called possession at all, more like a hunger that won't let things lie – to do it, but you bring the cupcake up to his face and hold it so he can take a bite.

He licks a big dollop of icing as it threatens to fall down his chin, head tilted high. "Oh my god. What is that? Is that coffee?"

"I think so."

"Okay, awesome. Let's try another one."

"What?"

"Let's try another one. There's still eleven left! We can save the cute ones for Juniper the Loveliest, but that's still a ton of flavours. C'mon, let me try the one with the chocolate curl. If I remember, it has white chocolate melted inside."

"If you remember?" you ask, peeling back the paper of his requested cupcake. "You've had these before?"

"A long time ago."

You tilt your head toward your shoulder and watch his lashes kiss. "Here," you say warmly.

He accepts the proferred cake and takes a good bite. His eyes roll back into his head dramatically and he goes stiff, shoulders tense and then suddenly not. You watch the muscle of his bicep flex as he tips his head back in pleasure.

You chortle and you're so happy you don't care how silly you sound, nor how unattractive you might look as you hit him in the arm. "Stop! You're enjoying it too much!"

"I'm enjoying it the right amount! Try it, try it," he says quickly. His eyes flick back to the tray. "I wanna try that strawberry one next."

"Watch the road, Munson, god! I'll pass you whatever one you want, just don't crash the car!"

You forget yourselves. Laughing, eating icing with your noses scrunched up, you don't remember to stay hushed, and soon Junie's awake and annoyed.

You worry for a second that her crying will dampen the mood, but Eddie beams wider still. He's more smile than boy.

"Junie baby! What cupcake do you want, sweetheart?" he asks her, watching her in the rearview mirror.

"Cake?" she asks.

"Cupcake! Yeah, baby, what one do you want? There's a froggy and a fishy and a bunny-" He stops to take a turn onto the highway. The road evens out underneath, the plastic tray stops crinkling. "And a fox," he finishes. "All for you."

You twist in your seat, bunny and fish held in your hands. "Fishy or bunny?" you echo.

"Fishy and bunny," she says clumsily, eyes widened with excitement.

"Just one for now, baby. Let's pick the bunny," you say gently.

There's no hopes of her eating it cleanly. You don't bother with any precaution. It's your car and her seat and her clothes and if she wants to cover it all in soft fondant you don't mind, anything she wants if you get to see this look on her face. Pure happiness, her eyes closing in bliss as she takes her first bite.

"Good, huh?" Eddie asks, speaking glances at her.

"Good!" she says loudly, cheeks plastered in white icing and fluffy golden crumbs.

Then, like the good girl she is, she tries to offer up the cupcake and almost drops it.

"S'that for me? Aw, you keep it. You keep it. Mom's gonna share hers with me." He grins at you. "Isn't that right?"

You share that entire tray of cupcakes right there in the car. By the time you get home, back to Hawkins, it's dark, your stomach hurts, and every cupcake bears two missing bites.

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