my name is melissa (everyone calls me melly), i’m 26 and am obsessed with criminal minds! so many tv shows i’ve lost count. you might know me from tiktok, @/garciasfluffypen. or, you might know me as the author of aurora, borealis, the way you make me feel and backflip boy on wattpad. or you might know me as sunlitauthority on twitter.
what do i write?
ROMANTIC: jemily, jemily x reader, jj x reader, emily x reader, elle x jj, elle x reader, elle x emily, elle x spencer, hotch x reader, matt x reader, matt x kristy, luke x reader, luke x penelope.
non criminal minds: jennifer jareau x cassie mckay, cassie mckay x reader, audrey rose x thomas cresswell , eddie munson x reader, olivia benson x reader, amanda rollins x reader, regina mills x emma swan, sara lance x ava sharpe, tenth doctor x rose tyler, ten!two x rose tyler, wanda maximoff x reader
PLATONIC: literally everything in the books
WHAT AM I COMFORTABLE WRITING? smut, daddy/mommy kink, light bdsm (bondage), fluff, angst, more tba.
WHAT WILL I NOT WRITE? jeid (sorry), character deaths, (more tba)
can i request anything from you?
yes!! please do!! i love writing and i would absolutely love to see my ask box filled with requests for one shots <3
important links
wattpad || ao3 || tik tok || carrd || masterlist || fic recs || anon list
Something in her tone made you stop mid-stride, an edge sharp, cutting clean through your attitude, your reserve cracking. The air between you and Wanda shifted, tightening around the disobedience that enveloped your current situation.
“Bedroom. Kneel.” Her voice wasn’t loud, her tone was firm, yet flat. But somehow, it carried a depth, a command woven through her language and speaking, giving you no room for any responses as your mind flickered through a dozen half-formed responses. Excuses, protests, anything that might give you footing in the push and push, not pull, that was this moment. But none survived past your tongue, your self control kicking the inner brat that dared go up against Mommy. And in that second, nothing could save you.
You swallowed hard, the motion stuck thick within your throat, pride sliding down with it. With wide doe eyes, and a slow, reluctant drag of your feet, you moved down the hallway towards the bedrooms. You could feel her stare lingering on your back, assessing you, even the step of your foot, making sure you obeyed. When you risked a glance over your shoulder towards her, eyes flickering to her presence, her expression was carved firmly. Upon meeting her eyes, her head cocked and her brow raised as if this action was an act of defiance. Lips pressed into a firm line, eyes sharpened with purpose, posture steady. You dropped your gaze immediately, focusing on your frilly white socks that kept your feet warm against the cool wooden floors.
She always preferred to undress you herself, a ritual that both of you preferred and had grown to care for more that you thought. You followed the steps engrained in your mind, bowing your head to keep your eyes cast to the floor, letting your shoulders settle and relax as you positioned yourself beside the bed frame. Kneeling. The floor was cool against your knees despite the thick fabric of your sweatpants as you sank down, straightening your back, ignoring the tremor in your movement. Your hands, though shaking with anticipation and nerves, rested obediently on your thighs, palms down, fingers stilling, wanting to scrunch and play with your shirt, but still, they became. Waiting for her.
Summary: Reader has a son who studies and is best friends with Harrison. On the day of their theater school presentation, Cassie has a little problem and Reader solves everything. (And gets a kiss as a thank you.)
WordC: 3.1k
Category: fluffy, Cassie with her ankle monitor, Reader is DOWN BAD
Everything was fine. Cassie had gone everywhere possible, told everyone who would listen to her case, and yet this was still happening.
She should have already removed, as she affectionately nicknamed it, the “fucking thing” from her ankle, but of course the world would complicate her life and the police would drag their feet so much that she wouldn't be able to remove it on the scheduled date.
However, it was supposed to be deactivated by now, completely deactivated, and only weighing down one of her heels. Tomorrow morning she would take care of it, with a lot of hatred, but she would take care of it.
Now she would remain seated watching the play that Harrison had begged her to go to, which coincidentally fell on the day she would be able to take a different route that wasn't just home > work > home.
Harrison was a scarecrow, a very handsome one at that. She had asked Javadi for help with his makeup, and she had never taken so many photos with her cell phone as she did today. She was enchanted by his costume and his animation.
And everything would have gone well, it was perfect, if it weren't for the last 15 minutes when it started beeping. Cassie was sitting in the audience, luckily in one of the last seats in the row, and obviously it was inevitable that people would look, even the children on stage, with the unbearable noise it made, but she quickly managed to get out to any other room she saw in front of her and thought it was far enough away to stop the noise.
Her steps through the corridors and rooms were quick and full of curses. They confirmed that it was already turned off and there was no need to worry, just show up there tomorrow to have it removed, but that in general, she was free to wander around.
And she was grateful that she was alone because she was sure she could punch someone now and get more time.
“They made it clear to me that it was already turned off and I just needed to come back tomorrow to remove it. I don't understand the problem, I had already talked to them!”
You heard her clearly irritated voice from inside the art room. You weren't sure why you ran after her when you saw her leaving the auditorium in a bit of a panic, but you were here now and you were going to do something.
“I can't leave here now and go home, just turn it off, I'm already out!”
This time she sounded more muffled, she seemed very frustrated with the situation. After the commotion inside stopped, you knocked on the door and stuck your face through the crack to look at her.
You and Cassie had an intriguing relationship, your children were friends, good friends. Harrison ended up taking him in when you moved and had to put him in another school. It was an intense change, mainly because of your child's rigidity with socialization and change in general.
But little McKay made his life much easier, and yours too.
Since then, you've been exchanging messages and conversations with Cassie, nothing much beyond parent talk and arrangements to take them out, sleepovers, and things like that, mostly, almost 100% of the time, you were the one to ask to take them to some activity, but it was never a problem. You had already heard from Harrison that his mother worked at a hospital and at first you thought she was just too busy to deal with it.
“I've never heard a cell phone ring so loud,” you commented when you saw her leaning on one of the drawing tables, her hands almost scratching the material with force. She lowered the waistband of her pants as soon as she saw you.
You noticed her discomfort as soon as you got a better look at her face.
“Everything okay here?” you said, closing the door behind you.
“Yeah...” she said, sliding one hand across her face, trying to play it off. “I'm just going to have to leave early, Harrison is going to kill me.”
“I can take him away as soon as we're done, no problem.”
She laughed without humor, not out of disdain, but out of embarrassment at the situation.
“Sorry, I didn't want to have to ask you to do that, you don't have to.”
“It's not like he wouldn't enjoy eating a hamburger after his show.” That had been your main plan from the beginning. Well, in a way, you had already “accidentally” mentioned to your son in Harrison's presence that you would be going out to eat afterwards, the small beginning of your plan to ask Cassie out with you as well.
She gave a real giggle this time, still covering part of her face.
“Yeah, he'll definitely like it.” She sighed again and looked at you. It was strange, the situation itself made your body go limp, the dim light in the art room and the terrible setting for the little romance you had been developing in your head and trying to stop. “Weren't you supposed to be there watching too?”
“Well, my son was one of the yellow bricks in the fifth and sixth scenes.” You tried to hold back your laughter, which didn't help Cassie, who tried to do the same.
“I hope he's happy at least.”
“Oh no, of course, yellow is one of his favorite colors.”
Your laughter echoed through the school, and Cassie tried to pretend it didn't calm her down.
“Please tell him it was a problem at work. God, they changed the date of this performance so many times, and I still managed to mess it up.”
“I'm sure he'll be happy that you watched so much of it.” You smiled slightly, as if you knew things she didn't. It couldn't have been that long ago; you had watched most of the rehearsals for this play, since your son was so keen for you to see him dressed as a bricklayer. “I'll get the recording of the rest for you.”
McKay smiled awkwardly and sighed before getting up, passing you and lightly touching your shoulder.
“Thank you.” Her voice came out lower, and you were about to risk your son's sleepovers there. It seemed like the perfect moment to ask her out, but the question got stuck in your throat. Would it be fair to ruin your son's friendship with little McKay because you can't stop thinking about the boy's mother in every possible way?
But she left, you heard the click of her car keys jingling with each step, and when the door closed behind you, you needed a few moments to calm down to return to the real world.
—
When the applause began and the children took their places on stage to receive cheers and congratulations, you made sure to cheer louder for Harrison too. And of course, record the finish for Cassie.
As you joined the boys, you already knew that Harrison was looking for his mother in the crowd that was talking and passing between you.
“Hey, buddy.” Your voice was affectionate, your hand stroking your son's back, still painted yellow. “Your mom kept talking about how amazing you were, she just had to left for an emergency at work.”
With each word, you noticed that his expression changed meaning, he seemed confused, happy, and a little disappointed at the same time.
“Would you like to join us for a snack? I'll let you have a soda AND a milkshake.”
It wasn't quite enough to make Harrison completely happy, but it seemed to make him happy enough, especially since your son was practically screaming with joy.
With the two of them sitting in the back seat of the car, you wished so much that Cassie was there. You were used to driving with the passenger seat empty, but the situation itself called for her to be there.
You pulled into the first drive-thru you saw, and before you could continue with the orders, you turned to the kids.
“How about we take a snack to your mom instead of eating here, little Harry?”
“But there's no playground at their house,” your son commented with a slight frown.
“But it would be nice to take food to Harrison's mom, don't you think?” You said, turning to look at him while Harrison seemed to think. “She always lets him go out with you, buddy. It's a way of saying thank you.”
You gently squeezed his feet with a smile and he smiled back, you were right. Harrison agreed and smiled too, very happy to think of his mother, he also made it very clear what she liked and disliked in a hamburger.
You sighed with relief after picking up the snacks, your plan already in motion. You thought it was a bit of a low blow to use the kids, but Jesus, you had been waiting so long for this presentation and to see her like this, you had to at least try.
Still in the parking lot, you took a picture of the two of them with the snack packages in their hands and sent it to Cassie, of course, letting part of your face show in the frame. You weren't that naive.
> Ready to eat!
Cassie viewed it so quickly, she was probably still lying on the couch lamenting the situation.
> Cute! Tell Harrison not to overdo it on the sweets tho.
You didn't say anything to Harrison, you just replied to them - who were teasing you to at least start eating the chips before you got to his home - that they could take them and sent another message to Cassie.
> Do you mind if we come over to your place? I mean, are you already there?
This time it took a while, she read it and tapped her fingers on the phone, pondering what to answer.
> No, it's fine, I'm already home.
Your body vibrated with joy, and you had to make up some silly, funny video to answer to the boys when they asked why you were smiling so much at your phone.
“I didn't hear any elephants laughing on your phone,” your son replied, and you almost felt the need to ground him for that.
“It was on my headphones,” you replied as you put your phone in your pocket and went back to driving, this time to the McKay family's address. You had already dropped the boy off there a few times.
“You know it's illegal to drive with headphones on, right?” It was Harrison's turn to comment, but you couldn't ground him.
“I'm not wearing them, don't worry, let's just eat these chips, okay?” Your hand reached to the backseats and made sure to steal some chips from the two children, who protested before you continued driving.
A few minutes later, you were standing in front of Cassie's apartment intercom with at least four takeout bags and two hungry and tired children.
“Yeah?” Her voice came muffled from the intercom, and before you could think of a polite way to respond, Harrison shouted from behind you, “Hi, Mom!”
She chuckled and opened the door. “You don't have to come down, I'll help him carry the food,” you explained and went up with him before she could say a thousand times how it was very sweet, but wasn't necessary.
When she greeted you at the door, she was already in her pajamas, or at least what you thought they were: a worn-out T-shirt with a really cool David Bowie print and sweatpants that had a strange bulge at the left heel. Not that you were paying much attention to her details, like the fact that the makeup she had put on for the performance wasn't completely smudged, how there was still a little red lipstick on her lips, and the eyeliner definitely hadn't come off her face.
Her breathing faltered for a moment, she tilted her head slightly to the side, staring at you.
“That seems like a lot of food for one child.” Her voice didn't sound disapproving, even though the sentence seemed to imply it.
“I thought the child's mother might enjoy a snack too.”
She opened her mouth slightly, her eyebrows raised as if thinking about how to respond. You were very prepared to have a moment with her today, even if it was in the middle of a silly dinner with your children.
“Well, then, thank you.” She said as Harrison walked in with one of the packages under Cassie's arm, and yourson followed him.
“Hey, hey—” You started, about to call your son back. You weren't going to walk in without being invited, of course, but this just ended up helping your side.
Cassie laughed as she watched the boys come in and head straight for the couch with the snacks in their hands. She bit her cheek, pondering what to say or do.
“Would you like to come in and eat too?”
And she didn't need to ask again.
You both sat down at the small kitchen table, which had a clear view of the living room, where the two boys were watching cartoons while eating their snacks, clearly unconcerned with the events of the presentation now.
Cassie turned to look at them and then turned her attention back to you.
“Thank you, you didn't have to bring me anything.” She waited for you to take the food out of the packages.
You began to eat in silence, not exactly uncomfortable, but you felt the heat on the back of your neck, your mind almost begging you to do something.
“Come on, I insist, Cassie.” Her name sounded so beautiful in your voice. “Harrison made it very clear what you like and don't like, so I don't think you'll be disappointed.”
“Oh my god.” She put one hand on her forehead, smiling awkwardly. “He made me sound very demanding, didn't he?”
She smiled and took a sip of soda while looking at you, her gaze complicating things a lot at the moment.
“Don't worry, I was already looking for an excuse to buy you dinner anyway.”
She smiled awkwardly again and you felt too direct for a moment.
“Well, hamburgers aren't exactly the dinner I had in mind for a first date, but I guess that's what we have for now.” There was silence after you spoke again, and you weren't sure if you had screwed up or not.
She got up with one of the boys' leftover potato chip plates in her hands and went to the kitchen counter. After putting it in the sink, she turned to face you, her hip leaning against the counter.
“You know my problem earlier was because of...” She didn't finish the sentence, just lifted the hem of her pants, revealing the electronic in her ankle.
You looked down at it and back at her, too quickly.
“I know.” Cassie's face looked so confused that you almost laughed. She thought it was something that was really hidden from everyone, or well, from most people.
“And yet you're still standing here with me?” There was so much doubt in her question, so much uncertainty. She was smiling nervously again, as if she were embarrassed by that type of attention.
“Harrison once briefly mentioned something that hinted at it, it wasn't hard to connect the dots.” You explained and tilted your head slightly as you looked at her.
You put your snack on the table and stood up, your hands resting on the table behind you, the soles of your feet touching lightly against hers.
“It turns out that their presentation took so long to get a definite date because I was trying to guess from Harrison's terrible hints when your domestic torment would end.”
You pointed to her ankle after speaking, and she remained silent for a long time, staring at you in a way that you couldn't tell if it was appreciation, disbelief, or something else more profound.
“Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn't I?” The answer came out of your mouth very automatically because the reason seemed so obvious.
She didn't respond, still somewhat incredulous.
“Harrison was really excited for you to go.”
“Just like all the other kids and parents, it is- it is normal, I-” She didn't know what to say exactly, still somewhat incredulous.
“I wanted him to see you there.”
It was easy to use the kids as an excuse again. Not that it was a complete lie, you wanted him to see her there, but you also wanted to see her there. Jesus, you would make up any excuse to see her in person for more than 10 minutes.
“Not just him.” You moved a little closer to her, your hands in your back pockets, leaving a gentle distance for her to leave, but at the same time enough so that if she decided to stay, you would understand.
“I see.” She smiled slightly, one finger going to her mouth, as if she were embarrassed, and she was, her ears clearly red. “So this was all your plan then?”
“Well, you complicated part of it, but it worked out in the end.”
“Oh, so it's over then?” Cassie said with greater confidence this time, as if testing you and now very interested in it.
You felt your cheeks burn and moved closer again, one step closer, more tense now, one of your hands resting at the side of her hip, leaning on the counter.
“I mean, unless you don't mind continuing...”
She sighed and laughed, shaking her head.
“My God, just stop with these allegories.” It was the last thing she said before moving her hands to your neck and pulling you close, leaving a kiss on your lips that made you melt.
Your free hand went to her hip, pulling her closer, you could feel her warm breath against your face and a little of her skin sliding through your fingers as you caressed her waist.
It was only when she pulled away a little that you realized how much air you were missing and how immersed in the kiss you had become.
“You should have focused on the plan to have dinner alone if you were going to come with all this excitement.” She smiled, still close to your face, you could feel her warm breath against your nose.
“Yeah,” you murmured, still a little dazed. “I guess so.”
You two were so focused on the moment that you didn't even notice when the two children stopped near the table and stared at you both, saying “Ew” in unison.
I personally think that the best part about Legends is the fact that they all actually care about each other. Have you ever noticed how you're watching a movie or show centered around a group of heroes and none of them actually care about each other? It's different with Legends because they go around to different time periods where a majority of the team probably isn't welcome and as soon as anyone starts being racist or misogynistic or homophobic the whole entire team is defending them.
Gif by the lovely @loveu2themoonandtosaturn, dividers by @/cursed-carmin
Eddie Munson x Cheerleader!Reader
Summary: It was a normal day for Eddie. Arriving at school late, getting to class late, leaving lunch late. But then an anonymous note, inked in glittery pink gel, fluttered from his locker. And he knew whose it was. No doubt about it. Because it was the same handwriting as the short message on the last page of his junior yearbook. Carved in glitter, color faded from the amount of times his thumb had traced every curved letter, every dotted ‘i’ and crossed ‘t’. It was yours. It was you. Calling him to the forest behind the school. And he had never been so early.
Or
You seek Eddie out, maybe for a little herbal relief, maybe for something more. And who is he to turn down such a pretty girl? But how will he fare having to skirt the edges of your loose-lipped truths?
Word Count: 11.1k
Warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, PiV unprotected sex, semi-public sex, cream pie, virginity loss, dirty talk, nipple stim, fingering, oral (f rec), mention of masturbation (m), insinuated hypothetical pregnancy, virgin!Reader, semi-experienced!Eddie, fluff, mild angst, very mild dubcon (both R & E are high), Eddie’s POV, drug usage (weed), feelings, insecurity, fem pronouns, if I missed anything lmk!
Song Recs: Evie by Shoe, Palomino by FINNEAS, I Want Somebody Badly by Jeff Buckley
A/N: Everyone say thank you and kiss this anon’s forehead for the idea. Also, it’s been a minute since I’ve freshly written a full fic and not just posted a draft from the summer, so be nice to me.
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“You’re pretty.”
The words catch Eddie off guard. Especially since you haven’t spoken in two minutes, utterly transfixed by the sky above. Or maybe it was the falling leaves that stole your attention; scarlet and gold floating on the autumn breeze. Delicate. Pretty.
Either way, he hadn’t expected to hear such a sentiment from the Hawkins High cheer captain.
Although, he hadn’t expected to be here with you, at all, as a matter of fact.
Not in the woods behind the school.
And definitely not alone.
It’s unnatural.
You, laid out on top of the picnic table. Him, hunched on the seat below, straddling the old plank of wood. Too close.
Closer than he’s ever been.
It’s aberrant, really.
But maybe, just for today, everything is topsy-turvy.
Maybe it will go back to normal soon. You in your bubble, him in his. Two separate worlds. Two separate planets orbiting the same rust-bucket town. The same miserable high school. At least for a few more months.
Then he’ll get the hell out of this place. Just drive and drive and drive until the scent of manure no longer singes his nose hairs. Until the cornfields turn into beaches. Or mountains. Or shit, even swamp lands. He’s not picky.
And you’ll be off at some college, probably.
Find a braincell-deficient jock and pop out a couple of kids. He’s picturing a picket fence somewhere there, too. Possibly a station wagon with that dumb wooden interior. He hates that wooden interior.
And you’ll forget he ever existed.
And he’ll—
“So pretty.”
It’s lower this time. A whisper. Like it was only meant to stay inside your head. Like you weren’t even aware you said it.
And maybe you aren’t aware. Maybe the weed is hitting you hard. Too hard. It’s only your first time.
So maybe he should pretend like he didn’t hear. Just continue to act like the metal box in front of him needs reorganizing.
Re-reorganizing, even.
Whatever it takes to not notice the way your pleated skirt has ridden up, bunched at the tops of your thighs.
Because he hasn’t noticed.
No, he’s not aware of how smooth your skin looks, or how the cherry blossom scent of your lotion seems to intoxicate him more than the shared joint, now forgotten, smoldering between your fingers.
He has no idea what color panties you’re wearing, and absolutely no clue what powder blue fabric looks like when it darkens.
Baggies to the left. Try to prop them up against each other. Bottles to the right. Line them up. Shit, the baggies won’t sit upright. Maybe lay them flat? Then, if he moves the tin—
“Do you think I’m pretty, too?”
Fuck.
Your heavy-lidded gaze is directed at him now, and he finally feels the high. Or maybe it’s just your effect; the kind of haze that leaves him wondering what new strain has him seeing a real life angel. The kind of feeling that sends his heart away at a dead sprint and his mind swimming in a tank of molasses.
Everything is muffled. And there’s only you. And those eyes. Waiting.
“Y-Yeah,” he chokes, hoping you don’t see the heat blooming beneath his cheeks. “You’re pretty. ‘S kinda your thing.” He shrugs. “Popular and pretty.”
It’s a deflection. It’s bitter. It’s crashing through the bubble with an unceremonious pop.
Because yes, you’re pretty. Everyone knows it. Everyone.
Him noticing isn’t any different.
You blink. “But do you think I’m pretty? Just pretty.”
He pauses, wondering, for only a split second, if this was all some kind of elaborate rouse to incriminate him. If, any minute now, Andy and Jason are going to step out from behind one of these trees, itching for a fight. Because Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson is tainting the precious queen of Hawkins High. His no-good, low-life, burn-out presence might as well stain your skin like black tar.
But he nods, nonetheless. A calculated risk; it’s shaky, not insincere.
And that seems to be enough because your painted lips twitch into a small smile. It’s a breath of fresh air. If only his heart would stop pounding against his ribs like it’s trying to get out. To get to you.
“I told my friends, once, and they didn’t talk to me for a day and a half.”
Your smile is gone now. And your gaze is empty as you turn back to the tree tops.
Eddie shifts in his seat, feeling more and more like he’s fallen through the looking glass.
“T-Told them what?”
He’s not sure he wants the clarification. Not sure he wants to understand. Because it doesn’t seem like it’ll work. Like he’ll never truly understand if you say what he—
“That I think you’re pretty,” you mutter, turning to him again, a simple pout weighing your features down.
Fuck.
“We were talking about crushes, and they said theirs. And they were so…excited…. And Heather was trying to convince Jackie S. to tell Patrick how she felt. And I wanted to feel it too.”
He can barely breathe, so he stays silent, just letting you speak to no one in particular. Because he’s not here.
Not now.
Not on this planet.
Not in the same reality as the girl he’s pretended not to watch since the middle school talent show. The girl whose perfume somehow lives in his mind, though he’s never bathed in it longer than a shoulder brush through the halls. Not that girl, not in this reality.
Not you. Telling him he’s pretty. No way—
“—wanted to hear what they’d say. Like if they would tell me we’d look cute together, or they’d say they’ve seen you looking at me, or something, and maybe there’s a chance.”
Fuck, he’s low on E.
And these damn baggies don’t organize well—he should really label them. And Reefer Rick has probably laced this new, stupid supply with something because there’s simply no conceivable way—
“But they just looked at me like I said something insane. Asked me if I was joking. They didn’t believe me at first—”
He snorts, twisting the skull ring around his finger until the skin underneath starts to heat. You’re silent now, and he almost doesn’t want to look. But he has to. So he does.
Your polished nails, the lipstick stained joint, thousands of wool fibers bending and yielding to the curves of your body. Then that pout, your eyes. A frown.
The baggies of pills, the weathered wood; carved initials giving way to new grain.
“You don’t believe me, either?”
It’s so broken sounding, he has half a mind to lie and say of course he does. Of course he believes you, resident queen of Hawkins High—the girl who prances through school with five guys, minimum, trailing after her, lovesick and delusionally hormonal—are telling the God’s-honest truth. That you have somehow taken a liking to the town pariah.
The people’s princess has woken up this day and decided she’d like to bestow upon him, of all people, the greatest charity he could never repay, nor even begin to deserve.
And you’d say this exact thing stone-cold sober. Sure.
He could say that.
“Um—” he clears his throat, repeatedly dragging a dirty Reebok on the ground until a pile of curled leaves starts to grow, “I believe…uh, we’ve probably had enough.”
Before you can make a move to stop him, he plucks the joint from between your fingers, ignoring the shock of your touch.
The faint sizzle of embers being extinguished on old wood is the only sound that fills the air. That, and the rustle of wind through the trees.
He can feel your eyes on him as he licks his fingers and pinches the end of the roll. It may very well be laced, but he’s not the wasteful type.
And anyway, he’s got plans later. A date with his right hand and the well-loved porno mag he’s made some…changes…to. All while he pretends not to remember how your lips wrapped around the very same joint he hopes will last him long enough.
You sit up suddenly, swinging your legs over the edge of the picnic table. He nearly knocks his metal lunchbox off the seat, scrambling to avoid the brush of your skin.
“Do you not like me?”
The words are filled with accusation, woven by insecurity, and Eddie feels insane. Clinically. Terminally, even. That’s not a thing, but given his luck, he could be the first man, ever, to die from a hot chick coming onto him.
Because what the actual fuck? You’re looking at him like his very existence is a puzzle to you. As if you can’t imagine why in the world he’d be second-guessing your confession.
He clears his throat, again, but chokes on his breath the second you slide down next to him, your skirt creeping impossibly higher before settling properly. And he’s up in a flash, like only the heat of you near him is all it takes to burn. And God, does it burn.
“N-No! No, I, um, I—I just don’t know you.” He shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. “Basically just met you today, really.”
He could almost kick himself, the way his voice jumps an octave he’s certain only liars can reach. And you seem to hold the same belief, your eyes all but say as much as you stand to follow him.
Leaves crunch under his shuffling footsteps, and you pause, as if realizing the space between is carefully set.
It’s a choice he’s fighting to make, just as he’s fighting not to look at you. Though, one is admittedly easier than the other.
“I mean, not really. We’ve been going to the same school since, like, sixth grade—”
He shakes his head, correcting, “Your sixth; my eighth.”
Bewilderment overtakes your frown, and he understands the semantics appear meaningless to you, but they keep him up at night. When the hours tick by and delusion creeps into the edges of his foggy mind, thoughts of fate start to sound more and more sane.
“My mom even made you that casserole when your uncle was sick.”
Oh, yeah.
That.
He remembers that day. Thinks about it when the delusion turns sour and his conscience wants to remind him what an embarrassment he is.
He remembers perfectly how he heard your heels clicking from down the hall. How he took one look through the small hospital window, saw you in your Sunday best and booked it to the en suite bathroom.
How he left Wayne to fend for himself in a state of utter confusion, never having seen his nephew move so fast. How he hid in the small space, surrounded by porcelain and that chemical smell that still makes his skin crawl. Just so he wouldn’t have to face you.
So he wouldn’t have to watch you charm his uncle, lift his spirits like you do everyone.
No, he only had to listen and imagine what shade of lipstick you chose to match with your outfit. Because that was way easier than seeing the cruel fluorescent lights fail to hollow you out like it did everyone who entered that godforsaken room.
Yeah, hearing the raspy laugh of his uncle, followed by your airy giggles through the surprisingly thin walls was a cakewalk compared to what it would have been had he been forced to smile and nod along.
Act as if you and he lived the same kind of life. As if one wasn’t a plunder and the other a jaunt through the daisies.
Eddie paces, unable to let his twitching muscles rest. “Yeah, but what does it really mean to know someone, you know? Uh oh! I’m gettin’ philosophical now!” He chuckles, but it’s strained, and your frown comes back, unmovable this time. “Probably the weed.”
His words are stilted, and you seem too aware of this performance, but he will press on with forced amusement until you believe him. Or at least until you let him be; go on back to your bubble. Leave him to suffocate in his.
“Are you high? I’m high. I think we’re both really high. It’s so funny, it’s like I don’t even know what I’m saying— Blah!” He flails about, already planning on checking himself into Pennhurst after this. “This is so crazy! We probably make no sense right now.”
You cross your arms, trudging back to the picnic table. The breeze lifts your skirt as you plop down, and Eddie turns away. Because he has to.
“I’m not that high and neither are you.”
It’s that damn pout that’s going to do him in.
Curls twist around his fingers as he tries to hide behind his hair. “No…no, I’m pretty high.” He nods. “‘Miss Hawkins 1982’ is sitting here, tellin’ me she’s got, like, what—a crush on me?”
“‘S more than a crush,” you mumble petulantly, but for his sanity, he elects to ignore it.
“I mean, shit! I didn’t think weed had hallucinogenic properties, but you know.” His shoulders shrug in defeat, and he still can’t look at you. “Learn somethin’ new every day!”
Your head cocks to the side. “So you don’t believe me?”
Eyes wide as saucers, he wonders if this is what it would feel like to explain the sky to a mole.
“Of course I don’t believe you! You sound crazy! I mean you’re…” He searches for the words, but how does one sum up almost a decade of watching? Of wanting— “You. …And I’m me.”
It’s softer. Lower. Just where he should be. Because really, you’re the sky. And he’s just a burrower. Too afraid to leave the caverns he’s carved in his mind, even for warmth. For light. For a smile that doesn’t shine—
“Right…” Your mouth pulls, dim, and the huff of breath sounds derisive, like you can’t possibly pass it for a laugh, but still, you try. “You’re you, and I’m me—”
He nods along, internalizing the sound of his own words on your lips. If you believe it, that will be enough. It will be enough.
“Just boring…me—”
The sentence drips with resignation. As if it’s a truth you’ve cuddled up to long enough for the feelings to subside. Roommates with your own distaste. A years-long relationship molded into resentment. He feels sick.
“What?”
You resituate yourself, pulling inward, and if you could transform the atoms in the air, Eddie thinks there’d be a wall already reaching above the highest branches.
“No, I just— It makes sense.” You tug at your sweater until your hands are almost hidden, and regret nips at his bare skin, colder than the breeze. “It’s totally true; you’re so cool—”
He swallows the words, but they catch in his throat. Unusual and untrue. And despite his quiet, “Cool?” that slips out, coated in disbelief, you carry on, adding brick after brick.
“You’ve got your band, and that game you love to play—”
Now that’s just strange.
“D&D?” he mutters, blanching at the sentiment. Because, yeah, he thinks it’s cool. But he can count on one hand how many other Hawkins residents think the same.
You perk up a bit, and he feasts on the split-second of sunlight. “Yeah! That’s the one. And you literally run a club for it. That’s, like, the definition of cool.”
It’s the high. It’s the marijauna in your system. Either that, or you and he have vastly different definitions of cool—
“And your music taste! I hear you drive up to school all the time; you’re always blasting that metal stuff! It’s so…” your eyes wander, as if searching for the right word and his mind fills in the usual blanks: loud, shitty, annoying, satanic. “unique!”
You’re too good. He’s decided it. Not because of the popularity, like he had chalked it up to before. This is different. It’s pure.
And he’s tar.
“You know, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me my music taste was…unique, I’d be broke,” he huffs, crossing his arms like the act will protect against your budding smile, growing back like the first bloom of May flowers.
“Well, I’m sure they just haven’t tried it yet.” And you’re so sure. He can hear the optimism in your voice and it’s deafening.
But then, it’s like time reverses, and in comes the April shower to drown the delicate bud; you retreat into yourself, again. Smile fading, insecurity rearing.
“I’ve never… I mean— I’ve never really tried it before, either.”
Now you won’t look at him, and the insinuation of your words alone is enough to haunt him.
With a sigh, he closes the distance, sitting beside you on the bench. For a moment, he only listens to his own pulse. The rushing in his ears. He waits for the confidence to speak, unaware it’s a bus that will never come.
But impatience gets the best of him, and he decides to walk it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel— It’s just— I just—” He groans, watching the thoughts pass him by while he fails to hang onto even one. His skin feels too tight and he’s certain the only solution is to peel it off his miserable bones. “I don’t know why I am the way that I am.”
The admission rings out like a shot in the autumn air, and the silence that follows lands like an atom bomb, breaking the sound barrier in a mushroom cloud of mortifying truth.
He doesn’t know why he said it.
Why he thought cutting himself down while you’re bleeding makes some sort of difference. How it could possibly count as some kind of balm to your wounds.
But you wear your wounds well. And truth leaks from you without loss. It pools without inhibition. Not yielding, but seeping. Filling the cracks in him—the tunnels that quake—with something malleable and pure. Not viscous and sticky. Not like tar.
His head hangs low, eyes following the way your thumb smooths over your wool skirt. Then his gaze tracks downward, and he wishes it wouldn’t. But your skin looks so soft, and he traces the curving terrain until he sees your pearly-white Keds digging into the dirt.
You could probably make it to China before he finds the right words to fix this.
“You know, I’ve never had to convince a girl not to like me.” The quirk of his lips doesn’t change the tone, despite his best efforts.
You cross your ankles, old wood creaking under you. “No?”
It’s simple. Gentle. You’re humoring him. And it’s a kindness he can’t afford, but you give it to him anyway, charity case that he is.
“No.” He huffs, something like a snicker but without the joke. “Usually, it’s the opposite.”
More atomic silence. And he starts to wonder if he ever actually learned how to behave properly. If he fundamentally misunderstands how to have a conversation.
Or maybe he was just swapped at birth with an alien whose sole purpose is to elicit discomfort. And maybe there’s a human version of him out there, travelling among the stars, charming and suave, dripping with bravado. Yeah, that’s probably it. That’s what he’ll—
“What’s the argument then?”
His brows furrow, and he swings his head to look at you. But the second his eyes meet yours, he has to force himself not to flee. Not to make a coward’s retreat.
“What?”
“The argument,” you respond coolly. “How are you gonna persuade me not to like you?”
God, he wishes you’d stop saying it. Maybe it’d be easier to hear if it didn’t sound so earnest. If it didn’t sound like it came from a well of truth.
His foot taps on the ground as he thinks, hands flexing restlessly. “Well…I guess I kind of thought the everything about me was argument enough.”
You stare silently, and his flesh might as well be made of a cellophane the way your gaze seems to expertly track the gears turning in his mind.
“But clearly not,” he murmurs.
Your lips quirk. “Nope.”
The glint in your eyes should scare him. Should shake him to his core. Because there’s something about this particular glimmer…
With the determination of a predator poised to attack, or a vulture itching to pick him apart, you watch. Quietly. Waiting. It’s the kind of look only the helpless are on the other side of. He should be terrified.
But he’s not. His hands aren’t shaking out of fear, and his stomach doesn’t flip out of nerves.
No, it’s something else entirely.
Your chin tips, and your smile curls around the words. “To ensure a fair hearing, the court must consider all evidence; Mr. Munson, you may proceed.”
His grin stretches, and he turns his body the slightest bit towards you.
“Okay,” he nods, pondering the laundry list of reasons he has locked and loaded, ready to go. Who’s the lucky winner? What’s the bare minimum he can share without mortally wounding his pride—well, more than it already is. “Alright, well, sometimes I forget to wear deodorant, and I end up smelling really bad.”
Before he has a chance to regret his choice, your laugh drowns out every doubt. It cracks through him with an unbearable weight, leaving behind splintered shards of bone instead of prison bars. His heartbeat sounds louder now.
And for a moment—only a moment—he forgets why he said anything at all. He forgets the point. He forgets that the melody floating from your lips doesn’t belong in his dysfunctional orchestra.
But the urge is there. To hear it again. To be the cause.
Your eyes squint from the size of your smile. “Shut up.”
Locked in your gravitational pull, he moves closer—minutely, and he wouldn’t if he could help it.
“No, I’m serious! It’s bad! That’s why I gotta leave school early sometimes, I start to smell like vegetable soup by 2 p.m.”
His grin is stuck as he watches your head fall back, the melody growing stronger, lodging somewhere deep in his brain. Between cobwebs and old, out-of-tune earworms. He imagines bottling the sound and building a shelf just to hold it.
“You’re an idiot,” you huff breathlessly, the word not carrying the same sting it usually would if it came from anyone else. Because there’s no bite to it. No teeth, even.
He leans in before he can stop himself. “Ah, see, that’s a good one, too! I’m an idiot!”
But the melody quiets, and the violins screech a nasty response as your smile starts to fall.
“No, you’re not.”
It’s firm and final, like you truly believed it even before it slipped from your lips.
“Yes, I am,” he says, soft yet steadfast. “I’m a three-time super senior army crawling my way to a ‘D’ in Mrs. O’Donnell’s class. And I’ve had two full tries at it.”
You cock your head, eyeing him closely. Then—
“Well, practice makes perfect. Plus, I think it’s totally your year.”
Your smile is back and so is the warmth in Eddie’s body. If he had any sense, he’d steer the conversation elsewhere, because somehow, you’ve managed to flirt with him over his tragic academic history. You’re too powerful. You and your honeyed words, so sweet and thick, he could choke if he’s not careful.
He shifts, but can’t bring himself to move away. “Okay…what about this—I wanna do music.”
Your brows raise and he can tell you see through his pitiful attempt.
“Well…you’re in a band,” you shrug. “I kind of already knew that—”
“No, like, professionally. That’s what I wanna do. I wanna go to L.A. and, I don’t know, like, get a record deal and shit, and just make music.” The light still shines in your eyes and he knows you’re not getting it. “No college for me, no office job, no suburbs—no picket fence kind of life.”
Your gaze never strays from his. “Eddie, that’s not a bad thing. That’s—that’s inspiring.”
God, you’re making this hard. Especially when you look at him like that—like he’s something to be enamored by. Something worth looking at. Something pretty…
“No,” he shakes his head, clinging to the reality where you aren’t leaning closer to him, where your soft, perfumed skin doesn’t brush against his rough, bargain-bin jeans. “No, it’s a pipedream. It’s basically me begging to live in a van for the rest of my life because you and I both know it will never—”
“Eddie,” you cut in, grabbing his hand, “let me save you the energy. There’s nothing you can say that will stop how I feel. This isn’t a new thing. I’m not going through a phase. It’s not just a blip or a crush— I like you, Eddie Munson.”
His heartbeat slows, skipping every third thud like an old record, and he now knows the weight of your hand in his.
And for the first time since his fingers brushed yours while passing the joint, he can’t look away. No amount of self-control or misplaced willpower can drag him up from the depths of your imploring gaze.
“I like you a lot. You’re sweet,” and his face must’ve twitched because you grin and add, “When you’re not trying to act all tough and broody.”
Cellophane. He’s complete cellophane around you. Weak and pliant and see-through. His posturing means nothing, and he wonders if you always knew that.
If every snide comment to the jocks came with a footnote in the smallest print only you could read: I’m jealous they get your time. They don’t deserve it.
If every breezy look elsewhere gave him away as you’d walk past his table in the lunchroom, swaying skirt billowing in the winds of his repression.
“—and you make me laugh, and you’re honest.” Your hand squeezes his and he can’t quite bring himself to hold it yet. To open up. To keel over and admit defeat. “I just feel like everyone here…pretends to live the life they think they should live. But you don’t do that. You just live. And I think that’s beautiful.”
Your chin tips low and he has a near physical reaction from losing the heat of your attention.
“I think you’re beautiful.”
His mind whirs, sirens blare, but they’re silent. Unhelpful. Useless. Exactly what he feels like in the wake of your confession. And the only thought he can hold onto long enough to realize it’s just as useless is: he should buy a lottery ticket, or something.
“I—”
He watches you shift, doesn’t hear you breathe.
“I…think you stole my line…”
The pitiful excuse for a chuckle comes too late. Too weak to sound genuine, but just strong enough to deflect. Because that’s what he’s good at, right? Deflecting? Distracting?
Rejecting, apparently. At least that’s how you seem to take it, the way your hand slips from his so easily. The way your shoulders hunch and your legs squeeze together.
Small. You’re making yourself small for him.
And he’s just too unsteady. He’s not firing on all cylinders, not since you clipped his wires a ways back. Somewhere around you’re pretty and I like you. Just left of I told my friends and down the street from you’re cool.
“Sorry. That was…a lot. God.” Your frown is back and you turn to say something, then give up before you even start. A beat. Then, “I—I’m sorry if I scared you off with all of that.”
You say it as if the moment’s done. As if he’s not still clinging to your words with a white-knuckled grip.
And you retreat.
Not in any real way.
No, you’re still sitting next to him, still closer than ever before, but now, chipping away at your nail polish seems to be far more interesting than anything he could offer.
“Well…I’m still here…” he tries, unsure.
“Yeah…. You’re still here,” you echo quietly.
Showing mercy to your manicure, you shove your hands into your lap, twisting your fingers up. He recognizes the movement. The attempt to banish the need. The need to touch. He’s felt it too. Feels it now.
The bricks stack higher as your wall grows; a structure never meant to be scaled.
But he’s a burrower.
“You know…” he ponders, forcing the humor from his tone. “I’m starting to think maybe it’s not the weed…”
That gets you.
He hears the melody again, sees your wry smile.
“Shut up,” you whine, shoving his chest.
He moves fast and with grace as he traps your hand with his, holding your palm just over where your first laugh torpedoed his ribcage. Where the prisoner waits.
“Your heart’s beating so fast,” you whisper, voice full of awe—the kind that quickly begins to carve away at his weakened flesh.
He huffs, low and earnest. “Yeah…. The prettiest girl in Hawkins just told me she likes me and there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re lucky I haven’t gone into cardiac arrest over this.”
You smirk, and he thinks it might just kill him. Like actually.
“Hm, well, now I feel like I’m kind of missing out on that…”
He snorts, his grin stretching wide. “Oh, yeah? You want me to keel over right here, right now?”
Your smile turns demure and he knows it’s a lie. Then, you give an innocent shrug that can’t even fool him.
“I mean, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be extremely flattered—”
He jolts suddenly, grunting and groaning, curling his fingers tighter around your hand as he falls back against the edge of the wooden picnic top.
You gasp, turning to prop a knee on the bench as you lean over his stiff body. “Oh my God, medic!” Your empty call echoes in the air, amusement bubbling just beneath the surface. Then, your voice falls to a low mutter. “Ohh, what do I do, what do I do? Damnit, I should’ve paid more attention in First Aid.”
Eddie convulses some, really driving the near Oscar-worthy performance home. Then he peeks an eye open, choking out, “M-Mmm-mouth.”
Your mask slips as you smirk, leaning closer. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch it over all the dying.”
He slumps even more, the table digging beneath his shoulderblades as he sputters, “Mmm-mouth-to-mouth—”
You sit back, chewing the inside of your cheek and leveling him with an assessing stare as he twitches. “No…that can’t be it…”
Both eyes open as he brokenly utters, “No, it definitely is— With tongue! The tongue helps—”
You snicker, “Oh, yeah? It’s a necessity?”
He squeezes your hand. “Yeah, big—big necessity.”
You lean in, so close, and his mind turns to static as your perfume invades his senses.
This is it. It’s going to happen. Almost a decade of dreams that left him waking up in sticky discomfort, and he’s going to know the taste of—
“See, I just don’t remember that in the course,” you shrug, pulling away abruptly. “Mouth-to-mouth, sure, but adding tongue?”
One last shot, he reaches into the sky dramatically, convulses, then slackens in a lifeless heap, accented by his best death rattle.
He hears you call out, some half-assed plea that wouldn’t convince a soul, but then everything stops. Your lips slot against his, soft and plush and timid, and you might as well have used the paddles, the way his system shocks into action.
His hand finally releases yours, but you don’t move it, and he settles a gentle grip on the back of your head. Heavy enough to beg for more, soft enough to leave room for an escape, if you so choose.
But you don’t. Instead, your tongue glides along his top lip—a teasing kind of sweetness he accepts gladly, thankfully. He responds in kind—in hunger.
He can taste your cherry lip gloss, hear your surprised hum. It’s a tiny sort of sound he swallows with a groan of his own.
Then the pressure is gone. The taste, the noises—all gone. The music has stopped and the dizzying dance comes to an end with a blinding grin.
“Oh my God, it’s a miracle,” you pant, smoothing your palm up his chest until you reach skin.
He sits up, dazed, and you don’t move away, just letting him hover close like the proximity isn’t debilitating.
His next words slur out before he has a chance to think of a smoother line— “Have you ever considered becoming a doctor?”
And you laugh. And he’s learning that maybe you don’t want smooth. Because if you did, he certainly wouldn’t be your first call, and you wouldn’t be so quick to serenade every dumb comment of his.
So he thanks whoever rents the big house in the sky that you have a thing for burnouts and tries not to choke as you slide onto his lap, your pretty skirt splaying out across worn fabric.
Your lips find his again, your fingers get lost in his hair, you don’t bother hovering, and he starts writing a mental Last Will and Testament.
Jeff will get his Sweetheart, Mike will get his D&D manuals, Dustin will get his cassette tapes, and Gareth will finally get those twenty bucks he’s been whining about since last summer. He’ll leave it to Grant to dispose of his stash, and in payment, he can have the stack of porno mags under his bed.
Though, he might just give them away whether he dies or not, because he’s pretty sure, with the way you’re pressing down on him, they’ll soon be rendered useless.
Goosebumps rise along heated skin and something prickles up his spine as your nails rake through his curls. His mouth works against yours, a mind of its own as its aim widens, and he’s suddenly nipping down your jaw, tasting the tang of perfume on your neck.
Your chest racks with heavy, panting breaths and noises that sound like earnest attempts at his name. It’s intoxicating. His lips swell from struggling to keep up with his greed, but he can’t stop. There’s a burning kind of ache deep within him, and it’s growing.
His hands find their way to your hips, and he can’t tell if it’s you who moves freely, grinding down like you’re searching for something, or if it’s him and the ravenous need he’s not certain can be controlled.
“Fuck—”
“Eddie,” you call, tightening the grip on his hair until he groans. His cock flexes, straining against the oppressive zipper of his jeans and missing a kind of warmth he’s itching to know.
“Hm?” he grunts into your neck, barely aware. He’s pretty sure he could devour you whole. But then again, he’d much rather savor you, pick you apart and feast on your supple flesh for ages. The smallest little bites until your sweet noises grow louder and louder; scratchy and desperate like the mindless roll of your hips against denim.
“E-Eddie—”
Your voice pitches up, his name breaking on the crest of your movements, and you hunch toward him like the pleasure is a weight your shoulders can’t possibly bear.
And something twists in his gut then, something raw and hungry.
He wants to hear that again. Hear his name shatter on your tongue as his hands explore beneath your dainty skirt. He wants to feel the vibrations of your moans as he kisses every inch of you.
“Mm, yeah, baby?”
“I want— Want you,” you grit out, like the words take effort you can barely muster.
“Fuck— I know, I wan’ you, too. So bad. So fuckin’ bad.”
If it were any other time, he might feign control. Might deepen his voice with a confidence he doesn’t have. But this is not just any other time. It’s you, in his lap, whispering needy little pleas into the air like it’s obvious. Simple necessity. Like he’s not just a warm body and you’re not picturing someone else.
His fingers curl into the waistband of your skirt, and it’s as if you remembered there was more to be said because your hips stall and you press against his chest.
He swallows the disgruntled whine, and accepts your direction. Doubt creeps into the fog of his mind, but you don’t leave him time to get lost when your thumbs smooth over the stubble on his jaw, the worry in your eyes outweighing his.
“Eddie, I, um, I want—you,” you finish stiltedly, looking at him like you’re waiting for the penny to drop. “But, I, uh, I’ve ne—” It spins. “I don’t really—” And spins. “I mean, not that I’m, like—” And spins. “I’ve just never really—”
It drops, a metallic clang bouncing off the walls of his skull, and suddenly he feels like he shouldn’t touch you at all. His hands hover over your hips and the something-molten deep in his gut turns out to be much more familiar than he thought. Hot, bubbling, careless and incessant in its need to stain. To contaminate.
“Never?” His brows furrow, trying to decipher the discomfort on your face. If it’s him—if it’s the tar—he might just leave town now. Screw graduation. Screw a diploma— “Like never ever?”
Stupid question. At this rate, he should look into surgically removing his foot from his mouth before he tries to speak next—
“Guess I was just…waiting,” you shrug, thumbing the hem of his shirt. Then your movements become less innocent as your nails trail against his skin. So light, if he weren’t acutely aware of everything you do, if his stomach didn’t twitch in time with his restless cock, he wouldn’t have caught it.
“Sweetheart,” he almost warns, feeling like he misconstrued this moment for something serious, when clearly, you’re toying with him, spreading your palms along his waistband like you can’t see him shiver. Like you can’t feel his length straining beneath you, flexing against its jean prison, reaching for the warmth of your core.
“S-Sweetheart,” he repeats, the endearment sounding more and more like a plea as you rake your nails through the wiry curls just below his navel.
You go on, apparently undeterred by his fraying control. “I’ve been on dates—”
He doesn’t care. His eyes track yours and the glide of your tongue along kiss-bitten lips.
“Guys have tried—”
Okay, he cares. What?
“I’ve just never really—wanted to.”
Fuck.
You grind down, passing the motion off as adjusting your position, but Eddie doesn’t trust that gleam in your eyes. And you confirm it in the way your palms smooth down his arms until you press his hands to your hips. Making him touch you. Contaminate you. You encourage it, even. Wrapping your grip around his wrists as you guide his hands beneath your wool top.
“But it’s different with you.”
He shudders.
“Sweetheart.”
It’s certainly a plea, now. A cry for mercy as your fingers return to the sensitive skin just above his waistband, travelling up, up, up until he’s entirely covered in goosebumps, and he worries you can feel the pitiful call of the convict in his chest.
“I don’t want to. That’s not what it feels like—”
God damnit, he’s so confused and all the blood rushed from his brain long ago. There’s nothing up there anymore.
“‘S not like that. ‘S like,” you lean in close, letting him feel the words against his lips before he ever hears them, “a need. Like there’s something missing right now.” You roll your hips and he chokes on the breath he was holding. “And I think— No, I know, if I could just—feel you…inside me—I would be okay again. Better.”
“Oh, f-fuck,” he groans, thrusting up with the coordination of a muscle spasm. He lets his forehead fall against yours in an attempt to gather control. “You—you can’t just say shit like that.”
You peck his lips and he chases the small affection. “But it’s true. I don’t wan’ anyone else. Just want you. Inside me.”
“Jesus Christ,” he grits out, trapping you in a kiss that borders on consumption more than anything sweet.
He can feel you everywhere: on top of him, in his hair, under his shirt, sinking claws into his sides; your touch is kindling to the fire raging low inside him.
Suddenly, he’s reminded of the foiled condom he removed from his wallet just the other day. The old thing was practically useless, worn down and crumpled from years of sitting idle in between the folds of cracked leather. But something is better than nothing, and now he’s cursing his past-self for his terminal case of realism.
The clink of metal draws his attention back, and he hadn’t noticed your lips leave his or how your hands have grown eager, already past his belt and now fiddling with the button on his jeans.
“Wanna feel you, Eddie. I need to,” your honeyed whines wash over his body, sending a buzz through his veins. But then the purring sound of his zipper sliding open reminds him—
“Shit,” his hand wraps around your wrist. “Wait, I don’t— I don’t have anything,” he admits lowly, miserably.
You smile, kissing around his mouth like you’re drawing the shame out, and him in. “It’s okay…. I just want you,” you repeat, firmer this time. “All of you.”
And something inside him rumbles, something sick and starving. Once-weak, but now growing in strength. It’s mean and sharp, with teeth that can cut through steel and an appetite that can devour innocence whole.
It’s not unfamiliar, this beast. He’s known it for ages. It’s an old friend. A confidant. Something to speak to in the darkest moments, but never to trust. Something to surrender to during the sweatiest nights, when his hand cramps but the need still aches. Still hungers.
It’s got an imagination, too. Twisted as can be, it preens at the thought of possession, of staying. Of skin stretching and bones shifting, of curly-haired children that have your eyes and his smile. Soccer practice between label meetings, the sun beating down on hot sand as little feet kick at his back. A ring with weight and a necklace to match.
It’s like a plague on his thoughts. But it’s not. Not really. Because he doesn’t have to fear the lies anymore. The want. The bubbles are melding, his world is clashing with yours. And the beast tells the truth, now.
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he mutters against your lips, the words sounding more like a warning than anything.
“Mmm,” you hum, trailing your affection down his neck. “Been there, done that. I’d rather keep you alive for this.”
And you’ve crossed his wires so expertly, he’s practically sparking beneath your touch.
Imbued with a new kind of power, he slides you from his lap before shucking his leather jacket off and swinging it onto the table’s surface. His shirt follows with, finding a strategic home among the layers.
You seem to catch on because you climb onto the table, laying yourself out just like before. He grins, helping you out of your top, only to fold it up and leave it where your head can rest.
Both of you pause, taking just a moment to stare. Openly.
He tracks your gaze as it trails across his chest, noting each tattoo. Then his eyes widen as you distractedly remove your bra like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t fucked his fist to the thought of this very moment.
The material slides down your arms and you settle back, pretty as a picture, laid out all for him.
“Jesus…Christ, sweetheart, fuck.”
You smirk, and there’s that gleam again. Evil and conniving and he’s a willing victim, first in line, and hopefully last.
“See anything you like?”
He gulps, kneeling on the bench below, itching to touch you, but holding onto manners with a white-knuckled grip. “Yeah. See a whole lot.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” You grab his hand, guiding it to your breast with a squeeze. “This isn’t a museum, you can touch.”
“Oh, s-shit,” he stutters, losing all decorum as his other hand joins in, kneading the supple skin. Your sighs possess him, and before he can overthink it, his mouth closes around your nipple, tongue circling and laving at the tightening peak.
“E-Eddie!” Your hand flies to his curls and he groans, parting his lips wider, needing to feel more of you in his mouth.
You writhe beneath him, a victim of a fiendish kind of gluttony as he moves to your other breast, tweaking the wet peak he left behind.
He explores your body zealously, taking his time tasting and nipping every bit he can reach until you start tugging at the roots of his hair, forcing him up.
“Need you,” you huff breathlessly, yanking at his jeans. “Now.”
“W-Wait—” his hands land on yours, slowing your movements.
Your mouth parts as you look up at him, wide-eyed and completely desperate, and he feels his control unspooling like flimsy yarn.
“No, Eddie, I already told you—”
“It’s not that,” he shakes his head, kissing you quiet. “I just— We can’t just…”
You watch him patiently, clinging onto every half-thought he struggles to produce.
“I gotta— No, I—want to make this good for you…obviously,” he grunts, cringing at the lack of suavity. “And to do that, um, we can’t just…”
You nod, encouraging him as his face grows hot. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell he’ll be able to explain the concept of foreplay to you right now. Not when you’re looking at him like that, bare and ready for him.
So he sighs and kisses you once more, this time slow and careful. Full of things he can’t quite say, but he hopes you understand.
“You trust me, right?”
“Of course,” you respond instantly, eyes shining so bright.
He swallows, rubbing a thumb along your cheek. “And you’ll let me take care o’ you?”
You lean into his touch, almost shy as you nod. “Yeah. Yes…please.”
And a piece of him breaks off, then.
Splintered by your soft words, the plea that landed like a hammer on his scuffed lacquer.
One single chip in the barrier, and the beast rises in a crashing escape.
His lips find yours—messy, needy.
Wanton greed curls around every cracked rib, reaching out like smoke unfurling. Searching for something to envelop, to take. To take and take and take. Your breath, your taste, you. It wants it all.
He wants it all.
The words tumble out too easily. “Such pretty manners, huh?”
You shudder, hiding your face in the curve of his jaw.
“Pretty manners in a pretty girl,” he practically purrs, letting his hands slip down your body until his fingers invade the waistband of your pleated skirt. “Gonna let me take care o’ you, hm? Gonna let me get you all nice and ready?”
Your breathy sigh warms his neck as he shimmies the fabric down your legs, laying you back, gently.
You squirm beneath his gaze, squeezing your thighs together. “Eddie…”
“Shh, patience, pretty,” he murmurs, trailing a finger along your curving terrain until he’s toying with the powder blue fabric. “Gotta be good for me. Think you can do that?”
“Mhm,” you hum, choking on the note as he softly pushes your legs apart.
“Ohh, look at you…” His eyes darken and he thinks he could get used to this. To seeing you all laid out for him like a meal. A feast that could last him forty days and forty nights.
You shift, almost imperceptibly, as he drags your panties down, but he noticed. He always does with you. “Be good,” he warns lowly.
“I’m trying.”
Your whine falls to static as he watches a single string of arousal cling to the blue gusset with a fragile strength he aches to snap.
The trees rustle overhead and the sun peeks through, lending a perfect spotlight to your wet folds, and he groans, pocketing your underwear with little consideration.
“Fuck, you’re so god damn gorgeous, baby, think I’m losin’ my mind,” he mutters, kneading the fat of your thighs.
“Eddie,” you call, wiggling into his grip, and he’s never been more certain that you’re a temptress put on this earth to destroy him and everything that he tries to be. Controlled. Polite. Genetlemanly.
Every stuttering breath, every twitch of your hips, every slow blink—you’re chiseling away at the lacquer, unaware of all that lies beneath.
“Eddie, pl—ease!”
His middle and ring fingers glide through your folds while his opposite hand holds your hips down as you try to grind onto him.
“Knew you’d make the prettiest sounds. …Pretty sounds, pretty manners, pretty girl,” he chants the words like a mantra, entranced as he raises his fingers up to watch your arousal glisten in the evening light. “Pretty.”
You whimper, and suddenly it feels like he’s been pulled from the depths as he stares down at your face, pinched in pleasure. You’re waiting as patiently as you can and he has to reward that.
He spreads your folds once more, listening intently as he slips a finger inside. Your broken moan speaks almost directly to his cock, and he can feel a stream of precum soaking his boxers.
You call his name again, your chest moving in perfect time with the pulse of your warm walls. He responds to your plea for more with a second finger, and your nails sink into his wrist.
“Doin’ so good for me, baby. So good,” he utters restlessly, leaning closer to your soaked cunt. He glances up, notes your closed eyes, and decides to feed the beast.
With one stolen moment, he breathes deep, cataloguing the scent. Your perfume, your cherry lotion, and now you. The most intimate of all. And he can’t stop now.
He knows your touch, your heady scent; he wants to know your taste, too. The real thing. Not just your lip gloss or your languid tongue in his mouth. He needs to know you deeply, fervently.
His fingers drag inside you, a slight curl every time you buck your hips. He hears your whines, sees you dripping down his hand, shimmery and inviting.
Then he pulls out, much to your loud chagrin. And before he can scrounge up any last attempt at control, his fingers are in his mouth and he’s groaning at the taste—so sweet, he could choke.
“Oh, fuck,” he grumbles, mouth full as you stare at him. He almost feels the need to apologize. He robbed you of the friction you were so desperately seeking just so he could be selfish. Though, he feels like he might never stop being selfish around you, so maybe he’ll allow the precedent.
He’ll blame the beast. It’s not really him.
It’s not him who wants to drown in you, force you to ride his face until he passes out. It’s not him who wants to leave bite marks along your quivering thighs until salt coats your cheeks and you beg him just to fuck you.
It’s not him who wants to live in your sweltering heat, carve out a place for himself. Make your walls know the shape of his cock, feel you milk him dry until something takes and you’re his and a part of him is yours.
It’s not him, it’s the rotted want.
The need that grows hot, like a wound that has festered long enough. A gash you cut into him sometime ago.
Bleeding for years and he never even knew it.
The infection has driven him mad.
But he’s beginning to think maybe you’re suffering just the same. Fevered skin and heavy limbs, weak from the wait. Like him. Withered and hungry. So long watching the have’s, resolved to be a have not—
“Eddie, please, I need you.” Your hips search for him, for pleasure, for friction, and he drops lower, his breath spreading over your fluttering folds.
“I know, sweets, I know. But I gotta get you all ready, gotta make it good for you,” he whispers, staring as fresh arousal glints in the golden rays. It’s like you’re trying to entice, to coax.
“‘S already good,” you slur, and it sounds like the words are burning to ash on your tongue. He can feel you overheating. “‘S so good, please, just—”
“Said you trust me, right?” He smooths a hand up your body until he finds your breast, kneading it some more.
“Yes,” you huff, scooting closer to him.
He licks his lips, and the lie comes quicker than he’d like. “Just a little bit more. Wanna make sure you’re all re—”
His voice becomes muffled as he presses his face against your cunt like a starved, rabid thing. Your fingers thread deep through his curls—a knee-jerk reaction—and he laps at you with open-mouthed kisses and agonizingly precise flicks of his tongue.
You squeal and your thighs threaten to close around his head, but his fingers sink into the supple flesh, prying you open as his tongue breaches your slit with pointed thrusts.
Your back bows, arching high off the table and he pulls you closer to him, finally satisfying what has felt like an insatiable ache.
Because it’s different with you. He’s never felt this…full. Every pulse, every lewd slurp, fills him; he gorges himself on you. On your taste, on the way your moans crash over themselves like waves trying to drag you both under.
His fingers slip in once more and your body goes rigid—the perfect picture of marbleized ecstasy. His tongue circles your clit and pleasure carves into your every curve, sculpting a release that courses through you like rolling thunder.
His name dies a thousand times on your parted lips, and your hips begin to flee.
“O-Oh, God!”
He slows to a stop, smoothing a thumb over your twitching muscles. “Fuck, you taste so good— Knew you would,” he pants, sucking his fingers clean. He settles over you, whispering against your mouth. “Knew you would—”
“Tell me I’m yours.”
It’s sudden. An order.
Every syllable hammers into him, shattering something fragile. Shards of control—of disbelief, of belonging—bite at his skin. He’s paralyzed by it, a nerve punctured somewhere deep inside.
And you look worried, like that simple sentence wasn’t meant to land so heavy, but you don’t take it back. Instead, “Tell me I can be yours.”
He swallows hard, nearly choking on nothing.
He has wanted. Longer than you, he thinks.
But it’s all been in vain.
Then you show up, move mountains and shift worlds with only your audacious honesty and a quarter of a joint for courage. He could really learn a thing or two from you—
“Yeah,” he whispers, staring into eyes he never thought he’d see this close. “You’re mine.”
With a shuddering breath and a kiss so gentle, he’s almost certain reality falls away, his mind latches onto the moment your hands blindly find his jeans, urging the material down his thighs.
He helps you, watching intently as you take him in—all of him—his cock weeping and flexing, reaching for something he never imagined asking for.
You don’t speak, but he sees a reflection in the shine of your iris. It’s familiar. It commands. It guides as you drag your fingers along corded muscle with a level of reverence that leaves him dizzy.
Peering down, he holds back every sound, his chest heaving from the marathon of your touch.
You’re pacing yourself. Exploring—testing, in a way, like you’re figuring out what makes him tick.
Confidently kneading here, a delicate brush there.
Sinew twitching, his length jumping, stomach flipping.
Your nails rake through the dark curls at his navel and you follow the trail until it grows coarse, an observant hum at his body’s reaction.
“Pretty,” you mutter lowly.
His frame trembles, the single word falling from your lips like a ton of bricks.
As your hands wander, you don’t bother with permission and that almost makes him double over.
There’s no question of can I? There’s only the surety of being yours, like an apodictic artifact you’ve excavated from a shallow grave.
Because he did lay it to rest.
So many times.
Every morning his head lifted from his pillow, he buried it again. Every time your skirt caressed his desk, he threw roses. Every laugh he never caused, he said a prayer.
But he could not abide an eternity of peace.
Darkness would fall and he’d dig and dig and dig, the dirt already loose and the trees whispering their greetings. He’d drag up old ghosts—truths only meant for the moon—and dance with them all night.
Then, like clockwork, golden light would send him reaching for the shovel; the sun would rise and he was resolved to live without.
Now it’s you who has disturbed the holy ground and it’s freeing. To be exposed. To be known.
Your gaze settles on his face, and he wishes he could understand the thoughts in your mind, the ramblings behind your eyes.
For a second, he thinks he recognizes the quiet curve of your lips, but—
“So pretty.”
He chokes, his body jerking as your hand circles his cock, firm, yet gentle. Possessive.
Your unwavering attention and innocent smile turns the blood in his veins molten. His hips buck into your grip, unintentionally coating your soft palm in the sticky precum dribbling from his tip.
“S-Shit, sweetheart—”
He hunches over, weathered wood scratching against his knees as he tries to warn, to caution you on just how easy he is. How little effort it’d take him to lose it, to let himself fuck your hand like a poor, desperate slip of a thing.
“I’m ready,” you say, leading him down. “Please.”
He allows your thighs to hitch onto his hips, allows you to hold him, and he allows himself to be this close. To find purchase between your legs, to indulge in the heat of your core.
He memorizes your features—the determined furrow of your brow, the flutter of your lashes. The version of you before him.
He so badly wants to tell you what he sees.
“God, you’re— Fuck!”
Your breath hitches as you press his cock to your folds, and he tries for coherence, but it all falls away when he feels you. Soft and wet and so inviting; you’re killing him slowly.
“Please, Eddie,” you huff, your hips rolling like you mean to catch him. “Need to feel you, I swear to—”
The sentence shatters on a sharp moan the moment he takes control, letting his length glide against your slit. He’s coated in no time, practically drowning in you, but he doesn’t stop.
It’s like a trance, the way he moves, watching fresh drops of precum mix with your arousal. He wants to taste that, too. You and him, together. He wants to know.
You don’t seem to notice his paralysis, instead focusing on bucking your hips just right, and when his tip catches on your entrance, something shocks him into motion.
Your body wraps around him shallowly, sucking the blunt edge of him in. He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t ignore your babbled pleas for more.
For once in his life, he allows himself to take. It’s not begrudging permission, not shameful resignation to his more selfish nature. It’s enthusiastic, it’s encouraged, it’s accepted.
He pushes into you slowly, meeting your parted lips with ragged breaths, and your walls cling to him in a joyous welcome. Your pulse drums against his length, squeezing him in a sudden clench; he thinks he mutters advice, something about relaxing, but he’s not sure.
Reality is bending and he’s thought about this so much, imagined this very moment countless times, and yet, nothing could have prepared him for how your nails take a chunk out of him, how you’re trying with all your might to pull his hips closer, huffing in impatience and cracking under the need.
You’re just like him.
He hadn’t realized it until now.
He saw shadows, heard the strain of your voice.
But he hadn’t looked in your eyes, hadn’t been near enough to hear the call.
The call of the hungry and withered. Of the wanton and greedy.
He hears it now. Loud and clear.
Responding in a bellowing groan, he sinks into you fully. His lips flutter over your face, savoring your once-delicate features as they warp in pleasure.
“F-Fuck! Ed— Eddie, more,” you cry, squirming for friction.
“More,” he echoes mindlessly, latching onto the order. A real kiss, sweet and loaded like a gun soon to go off, then, “More. The pretty girl wants more— Gets what she wants.”
The words fall from his tongue with little thought—little care. Static whirs in his brain, blocking out everything but you.
Drawing back steadily, he steals one more glance at you—checking in—then drops down in a sudden snap, guided by your fingers digging into the taut muscle of his ass.
Sweat beads at his spine as his skin sticks to yours on every impact. His arms hook under your knees, changing the angle just to hear that shrill whine he’s quickly growing addicted to.
All you manage to say is his name, over and over again like his thrusts are evicting every syllable from your chest.
The shadows rise, spreading rapidly, and it feels much like possession coursing through him.
He shudders, his stuttered breaths syncopating with the pulse of your cunt, choking him on every shove in. Your eyes have rolled back now, and your body moves with him, pliant, as if his to mold—to inflict upon, however he sees fit.
A malleable offering of sheer innocence, laid at his altar.
And it was your idea.
The lamb’s idea to come to slaughter.
“F-Feels good, huh?” he grits, watching you surrender to him so beautifully.
Your response catches, snagged halfway up your throat, clawed back by a resounding whimper as you nod.
“Yeah, it feels good,” he parrots, fighting back the raging fire deep in his gut—the one that threatens to engulf you, too. Because he’s not done yet. Not nearly.
His hips pound into you, cock dragging along your walls at a punishing pace. The beast hums and he smirks as you try to form sentences.
“S-So— Agh! I— Mmmph!”
He nods like he understands every unspoken word. “Now you see why I had to get you all ready? Hm? You were so cute, thinkin’ you could just take it. So brave, comin’ here, all sweet on the freak.”
“Eddie!”
You have the audacity to paw at him, to pull, to try to meet his strokes in crumbling desperation. He drops your legs, shoving your hands above your head as he presses down onto you, pinning you against the picnic table, the structure rocking with the movement.
His long, rhythmic thrusts dwindle to swift, sharp ruts, the action bordering on animalistic.
“But now look at you. All mine,” he huffs, dark eyes roving over your trembling body. Then his gaze travels lower, where his cock burrows into you—where you take him so easily, opening up like he said the magic word a thousand times over. “Practically made f’me, fuckin’ look at you. Stretched full and so damn pretty, too. We fit real nice together, don’t we, baby?”
You whine and he maneuvers your wrists into one hand, helping to prop your head up with the other.
“Look at you,” he repeats, firmer this time. “So wet, you’re drownin’ me, sweetheart.”
Something splinters on your face and he follows your eyeline, notices it fixed on the milky ring that circles the base of his thick shaft and the matted down curls you couldn’t stop admiring earlier.
“Oh,” he drawls, a wicked, wolfish grin stretching his lips. “You like that?”
You nod and he practically preens. You are just like him.
“Like seein’ me covered in you? Marked?”
Your response is nothing more than a brittle whimper and he can feel you clench around him, already so close to falling into the after—the space in time where you will know what it feels like to be thoroughly picked apart, to be undone. By him.
“You’re markin’ me,” he growls into your neck, leaving open mouthed kisses along your jugular, trying not to bite. “Think it’s only fair you let me do the same, hm? What do you say, pretty girl? Gonna let me really fill you up?”
“P-Please! Oh, God, please, Eddie—”
His thumb finds your clit, rubbing tight, practiced circles on the swollen bud and you freeze, arching into his chest, searing your sweat-soaked flesh to his. Your cries fall silent as you gape, convulsing at every third swipe he makes.
Your walls trap him in a vice grip, fluttering and milking rope after rope of cum from his flexing length. He shivers uncontrollably, feeling his warm spend flood the tight space until it leaks, shoveled out by his now-pitiful ruts.
He tries to prolong it. Tries to steal the moment from time itself and live in it; play house with the present. But then his body finally gives out, muscles slackening, and your arms are there to catch him, welcoming the iron hold he traps you in.
Raspy whispers are muttered into your neck, tattooed by the heat of his breath; quiet sentiments he’s not certain you hear over the noise of two settling souls. And maybe it’s better that way. Maybe they’re things to hoard—at least for a little while longer.
He trails kisses up your jaw, blindly searching for your lips, only to find them unresponsive. Worry fills him immediately.
Maybe he was too rough. He did notice the half-moon marks scattered along your thighs.
Maybe he was too mouthy. He can never think straight when it comes to you.
Maybe he was just too much—
“Eddie,” you call gently, pulling him from somewhere deep and dark.
He meets your eyes, surprised to see them wide and wanting, shining with that honest gleam that makes him feel so exposed.
“You are mine.”
So you heard.
He wasn’t cautious and he said the words meant for an empty bedroom out loud. And you heard.
Your fingers thread through his curls, dragging his wavering attention back to you.
“You are mine,” you repeat, softer but no less confident.
He wonders how something so delicate could detonate something so sturdy. Years and years of denial, blown to smithereens in three words.
And you make it look easy.
Make it sound plausible.
That he could be yours, just as much as you want to be his.
He nods, hanging onto you like a lifesaver as debris from the wreckage floats by. He swallows and his voice barely forms around the letters, breaking under the weight of it all.
“O-Okay.”
And he surrenders.
He believes you.
A/N: For the love of god, please be sweet and talk to me about this fic. I think I looked at it for too long and now I don’t know if it’s maybe the worst thing I’ve ever written or if I’m just too close to it rn, I’m being so for real.
summary: Steve catches a glimpse of his future while at your wedding reception and doesn't want to waste another second without putting his baby inside of you.
pairing: husband!Steve Harrington x wife!f!Reader
warnings: explicit sexual content MDNI, unprotected piv, breeding kink (obv), use of the word 'daddy' but like...not the way you're thinking, oral f!receiving, semi-public sex, praise, big dick!steve, riding, lots of kissing, fluff, traditional gender roles, set between seasons four and five so spoiler free, but canon divergent because max isn't in a coma but i would literally never have a wedding without my ginger baby there with me, no beta
wc: 4.6k
note: i've only read over this once so sorry for any mistakes! i wanted to get this out into the world. i hope you enjoy, let me know what you think!! <3
[masterlist] [AO3]
Sometimes, Steve thinks that loving you is an integral part of his DNA.
He’s never been happier than he was this afternoon, standing up there at the altar in the church beneath stained glass windows. He’d chosen to recite the vows he’d written for you in the back of his biology notebook in tenth grade. You were so beautiful and so strong, even back then, that he’d known no matter what happened, you were going to be the absolute love of his life.
Steve proposed with a plastic ring in Mike Wheeler’s basement that he’s pretty sure had teeth marks in it. Everyone was there, and Steve knows he should’ve planned better. Waited for a time that was more romantic, waited until he had an actual ring.
But he’d seen you fold your arms around Will and Lucas at the same time and promise them pizza next weekend and all Steve could see was the future mother of his children.
And so much had been taken from the two of you already; innocence, peace, time. He didn’t want to waste another second.
So he’d picked up the ring from the sienna colored carpet and got down on one knee and spilled his guts in front of everyone.
And when you’d said yes, it had felt like a breath of fresh air. Felt like reclaiming what had been stolen.
Dustin had screeched in excitement like a wild animal and Max and El started jumping on the couch and started planning the party before the tears had even dried from the corners of your eyes.
There’s a lot of things that went wrong from then until now. The caterer had bailed at the last minute and Mrs. Wheeler had borrowed every roaster on the block to make enough roasted chicken to feed everyone.
Steve couldn’t do his hair like he wanted that morning, could never do it quite the way you could, so he’d sat with his eyes closed tightly while you used that Farrah Fawcett hairspray and styled his hair in your wedding dress.
He hadn’t peeked, though he wanted to. But Steve had felt the brush of both silk and lace and knew the smell of your perfume from memory.
The strap of your heel broke, so Joyce had glued it to the side of your ankle with liquid bandage and after the church ceremony, you’d spent the rest of your time in those beat up sneakers you always wore.
And on top of everything else, there was still the looming question about Vecna’s unconfirmed death that hung like a dark cloud in your mind.
But still. Even with all that had gone wrong, the Harrington wedding had turned out perfectly.
There isn’t a single thing about it that Steve would change.
Not when everything leads him here. Standing off to the side of the dance floor, finding a moment of quiet to himself for the first time all day.
There’s a glass bottle of beer in his hand and he clinks his ring finger against the side of it, hearing the ting it makes and reveling in it.
He watches you and sees the rest of his life.
You’re in the middle of the dance floor. The glittering pins in your hair sit a little askew now, and the bottom seam of your white dress has grown dusty. But Steve thinks you’ve never looked more beautiful than you do at this precise moment.
You’re dancing with Max and El. Swaying your hips and twirling them in circles. They’re smiling hard with exertion-reddened cheeks and giggling so loud that Steve can hear them over the steady thrum of music.
A widespread grin stretches across your pretty mouth. Finding just as much joy in the moment as the two girls who idolize you.
There’s this light behind your eyes when you look at them. A soft adoration, a maternal instinct deeply ingrained.
It only serves to reassure Steve impossibly more that you’re perfect for him.
He feels giddy with excitement, thinking of what’s to come. Thinking about how ten years from now he’ll be coming home from a long day at work to see you dancing just like this, except you won’t be on a dance floor.
Instead, you’ll be in the middle of the kitchen in the home you share with him. There will be soft music on the radio and food on the stove and you’ll be spinning two little toddlers that hopefully have your eyes and your nose and your smile.
He wants to fill the house with your children, truthfully. Wants to lay awake at night hearing giggles from boys who are up well past their bedtime and trip over princess dresses in the hallway and spend Saturday afternoons at the ice cream parlor. He wants to argue about bath time and eating peas with dinner and why the pink cup is no better than the green one.
Steve wants it all. And he wants it with you—his beautiful, sweet girl.
His wife.
Something shifts inside him. Something equal parts desire and devotion.
He sets the bottle in his hands on the nearest table, and makes his way to you. His suit jacket is long gone, and he’s got the sleeves of his dress shirt pushed up to his elbows.
You have your back turned to him as you and Max try to demonstrate a terrible example of salsa dancing to El. But as he nears, you smile at him over your shoulder. As if you’d known he was coming, as if you could feel him like a secondary part of yourself.
Steve holds his hand out to you, palm up and open. “You guys mind if I steal my bride back for a little bit?”
Both Max and El make sounds of irritation. “But we just got her!”
He laughs, unable to control his mirth. “I know, I know. She’s a wanted woman, what can I say? I’ll bring her back, alright? I promise.”
Max places your hand into Steve’s with a glare on her face. “Don’t hog her, Harrington. You got that?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” he says, pulling you away from the dance floor. Steve conveniently waits until Max is out of earshot before he grumbles, “Monopolizing my own wife. God. Ridiculous. And did you hear that? Her tone?”
Your giggles are music to his ears. “She was just having fun, that’s all.”
Steve pauses. Slides one hand around your waist and uses the other to gently cradle your cheek. He smiles softly when you lean into his touch, the bustling crowd around you fading into nothing but background noise. “She loves you,” Steve says. “Believe me, I get it. I know exactly how she feels. And you wanna know what else I know?”
“Hm?”
“I know that you’re the most beautiful woman on Earth.”
You scoff and roll your eyes playfully, but Steve just pulls you closer.
“What? It’s true. And I mean, like—every version of it. In every alternate dimension that exists, you're just as perfect as you are right here and now.” Steve’s voice lowers. Just a fraction, almost undetectable. “My perfect, beautiful girl.”
The flush that crawls up your cheeks is nothing short of breathtaking. He loves seeing you like this. All soft and bashful because of him. “God—Steve. There are people around, you know.”
Your words make him laugh. “Sweetheart, they just watched us get married. Like, literally—all of them. I don’t think anyone will be very surprised if they overhear me calling my wife beautiful, Mrs. Harrington.”
“Yeah, I know. But you’re talking like…you know…”
“Like what? Am I–I’m talking weird?”
“No, not weird. Just…” Your face flames as you lean in close, voice lowered. “Kinda like you do when we’re alone. Like we’re about to…”
You don’t have to finish for Steve to hear your unsaid words. “Oh, I see,” he said, feigning innocence. “You mean the bedroom voice?”
With a turn of your head, you sweep your eyes across the space around you. But no one’s listening, all too caught up in their own joy. “Yeah. That.”
Steve just laughs and wraps his arms around you fully now, pulling you close and kissing the top of your head. There’s a teasing tone to his voice as he says, “Aw, babe. I’m sorry. C’mere.”
He’s certain you can feel the stiffness between his legs, even through all those layers of tulle and silk. Your eyes widen just a fraction as you look up at him with your lips parted, likely to chastise him in that spirited way he loves.
But Steve doesn’t give you the chance. He just leans down, presses his mouth to your ear, and whispers an admission. “Seeing you with the girls just…” Steve sighs all dreamily and shakes his head. “I dunno—it’s just got me thinking about the future, you know? About our kids. About how great a mom you’ll be. How pretty you’ll look with my baby in your belly.”
You hide your face in the crook of his neck, but Steve can feel the wide grin that stretches across your face.
“And I was also thinking about how I…I don’t wanna wait anymore,” he confesses.
When you tilt your head back to look at him, you’re still smiling but there’s something else in your eyes now, too. Hesitation, almost. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s the point? Tomorrow isn’t promised, we both know that. And I know we’re not really prepared but we could be by the time it’s…you know—time. And who’s ever really ready to become parents, anyway?”
“Steve,” you say, voice quiet.
“I just can’t stop seeing it in my head, you know? I even dream about it. They’re the only good dreams I have anymore. And I just…I don’t know. I want that. I want it with you. And I don’t want to wait for a day to come that isn’t promised.”
Your stare is heavy, really listening to his words even though he’s stumbling over them. It makes him feel seen in a way that only you have ever given him. Makes him feel understood.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m ready. I mean…if–if you are, too.”
He pauses. The words are out now and there’s no taking them back. And Steve tries to tell himself that he’ll be happy with any answer you give him. Whether you want to start now or a year from now or five—as long as it’s with you, he’ll be happy.
But he can’t deny the relief that floods through his veins when you giggle and nod your head and say, “Okay. I’m ready, too.”
Steve smiles so hard the apples of his cheeks tinge pink. “Yeah?” He holds your face delicately in his hands and presses his forehead to yours.
“Mmhm. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, don’t we? Might as well start now, right?”
Desire swirls low in his abdomen at the idea alone. Steve thinks you're right—you should start now. “C’mon,” he says, lacing his fingers through yours and tugging you through the crowd of people.
He heads for the room at the back of the venue where you’d been tucked away to get ready for the ceremony. You pass the boys all laughing together at some solo cup-stacking competition they’re having, making a big mess and being rowdy as usual.
Steve claps Dustin on the shoulder as he walks by and says, “You better clean that up when you’re done, Henderson,” he says. And then he points his index finger at him and says, “You hear me?”
Dustin just nods through his laughter, too wound up for a proper response as Will’s tower clatters to the floor.
The moment he pulls you down the back hallway, everything becomes much quieter. The sounds of the reception can still be heard but it’s muffled, especially once he ushers you into the small room and closes the door behind you.
There’s makeup products and hair brushes and your casual clothes from this morning strewn across every viable surface. Opened duffel bags and unzipped backpacks sit propped up against the vanity in the corner, and the sofa in the center of the room is made from crushed velvet.
Steve’s shoulders drop and he smiles wide the moment he looks at you.
“They’re going to notice we’re gone, you know,” you say, the sound of your voice much clearer now that you’re alone. “What’re we doing all the way back here?”
He smiles wide and crowds you against the door, using one hand to lift your chin. His mouth is less than an inch from yours, his eyes all starry when he looks at you. When he speaks, you can taste the heat of his breath. “I want you,” he explains. And then even clearer, voice low, “Want you to make me a daddy.”
Your lips part, and Steve reaches behind you and clicks the lock on the door into place. “Now?”
“Why not? You said it yourself. Got a lot of work ahead of us.”
“I hadn’t meant it literally,” you say lightheartedly. “People will come looking for us.”
“Let them,” he says, and means it. He only cares about you and him and this exact moment.
Steve waits for you to respond. Tries to find hesitance in your eyes or apprehension in your body language. But he comes up empty, and when you sink your teeth gently into your bottom lip, he knows you want him just as badly.
And then you lean forward, pressing your mouth to his hungrily. You taste like mint and ambrosia and home. Steve slides his tongue into your mouth and drinks you in, his cock already painfully hard in his dress pants.
He slides one hand to the nape of your neck and the other to the small of your back, hauling you impossibly closer.
Your hands are faster than his, tugging his dress shirt out of his slacks and working at the buttons. You whimper into his mouth and Steve sighs at the beautiful sound.
He pulls away only long enough for you to push his shirt off his shoulders, and you use the opportunity to say, “You’re going to be such a good daddy, Steve.”
And Christ, he’s fucking done for. Just like that. His cock throbs painfully, his pupils dilate, and suddenly the urge to be inside of you is absolutely unbearable. His voice trembles, but he’s smiling wide as he asks, “Oh, yeah?”
Steve drops to his knees before you and slips his greedy hands beneath your fluffy white dress, wrapping desperate fingers around each of your ankles.
“Mhm.” You grant him some reprieve by gathering the fabric in your hands and pulling it up.
He climbs beneath your dress and lets out a slow, shaky breath when he sees the pretty lace you’ve chosen to wear all for him. White, matching your dress and the garter around your thigh. Steve leans forward and presses a kiss to your pubic bone, an affectionate caress that’s more appreciation than lust.
“I know you will be,” you continue. “Can see it in the way you treat the kids in our lives now. Can even see it in the way you treat me. Always taking such good care of everyone around you. Always一”
You inhale sharply as he parts your thighs and runs his flattened tongue against your seam, over the lace that still covers you. Steve licks you again, relishing in the faintest hint of your taste, breathing in deep. “Keep going, baby,” he mutters.
“Always…God, Steve.” Your hips tilt, giving him more access, asking for more without asking. But it’s okay, because you’re right. Steve knows just what you need, and he’ll always take care of you.
He hooks his fingers at the edge of your panties and carefully pulls them down your legs and over your sneakers, slipping the soft fabric right into the pocket of his dress pants.
“You’re such a hard worker,” you say. “And I know you’ll always make sure our little family will never want for anything. I think about一”
Steve spreads your knees wide and places a wet, open mouthed kiss on your clit, groaning low in his chest at the taste of you. You’re so warm and wet already. “What do you think about, pretty girl?”
You hike your dress further up so you can grasp his shoulder for support, eyes fluttering closed. “About you taking care of scraped knees and signing homework assignments and—”
He sucks your clit into his mouth and flicks his tongue. It pulls a moan from deep in your chest and has your head thudding back against the door.
Steve reaches between your thighs and gently strokes his fingers over your entrance. Once, twice—teasing in the way he always is, before finally pushing them inside.
“Steve—”
He hums against your cunt, the vibration rocking inside you, reverberating all the way down to your curled toes. He releases your clit from his mouth only long enough to say, “Don’t stop, baby. M’takin’ mental notes. Keep talking.”
It takes a minute before you speak up again. Because once he hooks his fingers inside of you and kisses your clit all wet and sloppy, all sense of rational thought empties from your brain.
Still, you try. You try because it’s Steve and you want to make him happy. Want to make him proud. Want to be as good for him as he is for you.
“Piggyback rides in—in the kitchen, and ice cream on the weekends and—fuck—that feels so good. You’re so good, I—”
He can feel you getting close. Can feel your velvety walls clamping down tight around his fingers, squeezing him desperately, all but begging for more.
Steve resists. Lets you get close enough to taste the edge, and then he pulls back. Slides his slick-soaked fingers out of you and licks them clean. His breath is shallow and filled with need, but he goes back for just one more taste of you. Flattening his tongue and sliding it through your syrupy folds, savoring it.
When he climbs out from under your dress and stands up to face you, there’s a flush on your cheeks and a big smile on your face. Steve’s not sure he’s ever seen you look this happy.
And he doesn’t need to ask why, because he feels it, too.
In all the chaos, in all the uncertainty, you have become home to him. His lone place of solace.
And now you’re his, undoubtedly, with his ring on your finger and his last name and a big smile, and Steve’s heart pinches tight.
It feels like something out of his wildest fantasies. Something he’s only conjured in a dream until today.
There’s only a single dream that would ever compare to this one. One he knows you want just as badly.
And Steve’s about to give it to you.
He cradles your face in his hands and kisses you softly, every movement filled with devotion. He takes your hand in his. “C’mere,” he says, leading you to the couch.
Steve takes a seat right in the center and pulls you down onto his lap. The tulle of your dress makes the position a little awkward, fluffing up between you. You and Steve both laugh, but it’s manageable with only a little maneuvering.
You press your hips against his and Steve groans low, feeling the heat of you even through his dress pants. He kisses you hard, drinking in the taste of you, his hand holding firm at your jaw.
“All mine now,” he murmurs against your lips. “My sweet girl.” He reaches beneath your dress and finds the buckle of his leather belt. It clinks as he undoes it and shoves his slacks down just enough to pull his cock out, already so hard for you it throbs in his hand. “Tell me you want it,” he says.
Your answer comes quick and desperate. “I do. Please, Steve. I want it. Want you.”
He lines himself up at your entrance, but doesn’t push inside. When he speaks, it’s with that voice again. Low, intentional, dark. “Yeah? S’that right?”
“Yes一!”
“Then take it, baby.”
You lower yourself onto his cock, rolling your hips in a way that has his breath stuttering on an exhale. A pained sound comes from someplace at the back of your throat, but Steve knows you’ll be okay. Knows it's big but knows, too, that you’ll work through it. “Oh, god.”
“I know. S’okay. Breathe, sweetheart.” Steve leans in close, brushing his nose against yours affectionately. “Yeah, there you go. Good job, baby. Doing so good for me.”
He kisses you softly this time, lips moving gently against yours. Encouraging you to take all of him. And when you do, Steve lets himself sink deep into the feel of you around him. Soft and warm and so fucking wet your arousal drips down onto the dark hair at the base of his cock. “Feels…”
“Does it feel good, baby? All full?”
You nod and a whimper leaves your mouth when he shifts beneath you, angling his hips so he’s just a little bit deeper. Touching parts of you that only he ever has, that only he ever will.
Steve reaches beneath your dress and splays his palms wide on the sides of your thighs. “Gonna look so fuckin’ pretty with a baby in your belly,” he mutters.
His words spur you on enough to roll your hips against his. Careful at first, testing the feeling. But it doesn’t take long for you to find a good rhythm.
You feel like heaven around him. Perfect friction that has his toes curling inside his shoes. He fits so perfectly inside you he thinks he could fucking live here, just like this, with your pussy wrapped tight around his cock like it’s where it belongs. “Fuck, baby. Yeah. Just like that.”
You ride him with your hands braced against his broad shoulders, fingernails leaving crescent moon shaped indentations in his freckled skin. Your whimpers quickly turn to moans and the thought crosses Steve’s mind that someone could hear, but he doesn’t care. Not when you say, “You’re so big. Want you to fill me up ‘til一hmm一’til it sticks.”
Steve slides his hand further up your thigh, his thumb finding your swollen clit, still slick, coated in his saliva. “Kiss me, baby. Wanna taste you.”
You press your mouth to his and it’s like heaven to him. Steve can’t think or see or feel beyond his perfect, pretty wife and the way you beg so fucking prettily for him to give you his baby. To fill you up with his cum until it’s spilling out of you and sliding down your thighs.
He licks into your mouth and sucks on your tongue, unraveled by you completely. “So fucking beautiful,” he muses.
Your walls pulse around him, and Steve circles your clit with his thumb a little faster, ratcheting your pleasure higher and higher.
“Did some research a little while ago,” he says between kisses, lips red and spit-soaked. “Better chances if you cum first.” He’s breathing fast, his own release coiling tight at the base of his spine the longer he’s inside you. Steve knows he won’t last.
Not like this. Not with you in this fucking dress and with his last name. Christ.
“So you gotta cum for me, baby,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to yours. “Cum for me so I can make you a mama. Hm?”
Your hands on his shoulders tighten, and a wide grin spreads across his face as he feels you twitch around his cock, clit pulsing beneath his thumb.
“Yeah, that’s it. There you go. S’fucking…so good for me, baby. Jesus fucking一squeezing me so tight. M'gonna be the best daddy, okay? I promise.”
He thinks he can hold off long enough for you. Thinks he can fight release until you’re all twitching and sensitive in his arms. Thinks he can do what the textbooks say to give you the best chances, thinks he can do this right.
But then you look him right in the eye and say, “Cum with me, cum with me. Please, Steve, please.”
And Christ, he’s weak for you. Putty in your hands. And you sound so pretty, begging for him like that. What on Earth is he supposed to do except exactly what you ask?
His release hits him hard, darkness clouding his vision, his skin tingling in every place he can feel your warmth. “Love you so much, baby.”
You slide your hands up the back of his neck and thread your fingers through his hair, kissing him in that way you do. The way that makes him feel like the most cherished man on the planet, leaving him aching to be impossibly closer.
His orgasm fizzles out, but Steve stays buried deep inside you until his cock softens. And even then, he lifts his hips a couple more times, thrusting up into you, making sure his seed reaches your cervix.
You take a second to catch your breath before slowly easing off of him, wincing in the process.
Steve sort of feels bad…but there’s another part of him, too, that likes seeing it. Likes when you walk a little funny because of him, likes knowing you can feel him even when he’s gone.
He helps you right your dress and tucks a stray piece of your hair behind your ear. Steve buckles his belt and the two of you laugh as you try to help him with the buttons on his dress shirt.
The party still thrums loudly on the other side of the door. “Max is definitely going to kill you,” you say, reaching for the door.
Steve chuckles and lets you take his hand and lead him back towards the rowdy crowd in the front of the reception hall. “Oh, for sure,” he agrees.
Just before you make it out of the shaded hallway, Steve pulls you back. Spinning you into his arms, delighting in the sweet sound of surprise you make. “Wait,” he says. “One more for the road.”
You smile and press your lips to his. Softer now, but no less heated. “I love you,” you tell him, and Steve wonders if that nervous, giddy feeling he gets hearing those words from you will ever go away.
“I love you, too, baby. Gonna love it even more when there’s two of you.”
Dustin calls his name from the other end of the room, louder even than the music, and there’s a massive pile of paper towels on the floor between him and Mike as they scramble to clean up some mystery green liquid.
He turns his head to find Max behind the DJ booth now, playing some Madonna song and giving the actual DJ a hard time.
Steve shakes his head. “We were gone for ten minutes. Ten minutes!”
You laugh, and the sound brings him so much happiness of his own that he can’t help but smile even with his frustration. “I’ll see you on the way to the honeymoon, husband,” you say.
The word sends a tingle down his spine. “Double the attempts mean double the luck,” Steve teases. “I’ll be seeing you later, wife.”
You both begin to back away in opposite directions. Steve towards Dustin while you move towards the soundbooth. But your fingers stay intertwined until the very last second. And only when your hands drop fully do either of you turn away.
Steve knows then, no matter what happens, that he’ll be okay.
As long as you linger with him for the rest of his life.
also i firmly believe that jj and hotch have one of the most underappreciated friendships in the whole series because she's essentially his sidekick in s1 in the same way that spencer is gideon's sidekick, but unlike gideon & spencer, hotch always trusted her & treated her essentially like an equal who was totally capable and competent. and what really cemented it for me was that one scene in season 1 where hotch tells her cases with kids are hard for him since having jack and that it's okay if she has trouble with the fact that most of the cases that come across her desk have victims just like her. there's just a mutual respect there that i really love
