Summary: you hang out with Eddie on his couch while watching the latest movie he picked up and things go down a path that you've been hoping for forever.
Eddie Munson x fem!reader
notes/warnings: best friends to lovers, candy play, praise kink, hair pulling, grinding, p in v. i was eating Hershey kisses when i thought of this tbh. MINORS DNI
Words: 2515
The smell of weed, popcorn, and that musky cologne Eddie swore wasn't cologne but just his ‘natural scent’ lingered thick in the small living room of his trailer. The couch squealed beneath your weight every time one of you shifted, which was often given how many times Eddie had accidentally elbowed you or kicked your ankle during the horror flick he insisted was so bad it's good.
You were curled up beside him, his blanket thrown loosely over your legs, your socked feet brushing up against his denim clad calves. The old VHS was halfway through its runtime, grainy visuals flickering across the screen while a cheap synthesizer score buzzed through his living room speakers. You glanced over at him, he was sitting lower now, legs stretched out, one arm slung lazily over the back of the couch, the one that just happened to be behind your shoulders. His fingers tapped at the fabric, then slipped back into his coat pocket again, fiddling with something you couldn't see.
“Okay, but seriously,” you muttered, shoving another handful of popcorn into your mouth, “this is actually terrible. Like irreparably bad. I think I'm losing brain cells.”
“Thats the point,” he grinned, slouched low with his boots kicked off and socked feet resting near your thighs. “It's cinema, sweetheart. Not all of us can handle such high art.”
“You bought it at a gas station,” you deadpanned.
“Exactly. Only the finest.”
You rolled your eyes, but focused on the way your knees were brushing his. Being this close to him that wasn't new. You were best friends, grew up half wrapped around each other like cats on a porch. But lately, the warmth in your chest when his hand brushed yours had started to feel more loaded. More on the side of dangerous territory. And Eddie, ever the flirt, didn't help, even if you sometimes couldn't tell when he was joking or not.
He looked relaxed, slouched and half lidded like always, but you knew him too well. The tension wasn't in his face, it was in his hands, the ones he kept flexing like he wanted to do something with them. It was in the slight twitch of his jaw every time you moved. He fidgeted suddenly, like he remembered something, and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket with that signature dramatic flair. “Hey,” he said, turning his wide brown eyes toward you.
“Do you want a kiss?”
Your hand froze midway to your mouth. Your eyes flicked to his. Your brain, maybe broken by the bad movie and a lazy saturday full of his thigh pressed to yours, stalled out. “I-what?” suddenly very aware of the thin stretch of space between you and the way his body heat had been bleeding into yours for the last hour.
He tilted his head slightly, like he was trying not to grin. “You heard me.”
You should've known he was messing with you. Should've seen the twitch in his lips, the way he was clearly waiting for your reaction. But something in the way he looked at you, that low, playful drawl in his voice, made your mouth dry out.
You blinked, unsure whether he was teasing or- holy shit, actually making a move? “I mean… yeah,” you said slowly, heartbeat stumbling. “Yeah, okay.”
His grin bloomed then, smug and crooked. Then he pulled a small foil wrapped hershey's kiss out of his pocket with a magician's flourish and placed it gently in your palm. You stared at it like it had personally offended you. “You asshole.” you hissed, cheeks heating as Eddie cackled, already digging for another.
“You should've seen your face,” he wheezed. “Like I was about to sweep you into some passionate, romantic movie moment-” he was already unwrapping the candy, crinkling under his rings.
“I was confused!” you defended, but you were laughing now too, face warm for an entirely different reason.
“I mean,” he said, voice lower now, shifting closer on the couch until his shoulder bumped yours, “if you really want that kind of kiss…”
You swallowed, smile flattering slightly, heart kicking up again, but this time, he didn't tease. He was watching you now. Still half laughing, but quieter. Like he was holding his breath to see if you'd meet him there. The foil dropped to the coffee table beside the overflowing ashtray, and before you could argue further, he leaned toward you, closer than before, too close, until you could smell the faint chocolate on his breath and popped the Kiss between his lips. But he didn't bite down.
You narrowed your eyes. “Eddie-”
He mumbled with the chocolate in his mouth, voice thick. “Wan’ one?”
The look in his eyes changed then, soft but dark, something unspoken. His eyes lowered just a little, and his mouth curled with challenge. He wasn't teasing anymore. Your stomach flipped violently, and your breath caught in your throat. Still, you moved toward him, slowly.
As if you weren't sure what you were doing or maybe as if you were, and the anticipation was the best part. Your eyes never left his and he didn't blink, just watched you with that steady, burning gaze while the Kiss melted between his lips. The space between you shrank. One second you were half lounging next to your best friend like always, the next you were tasting him.
His lips were soft but sure, a little rough from chapped skin but so warm as they slotted against yours. He kissed you like he was trying to make up for every time he didn't, every joke that came out instead of the things he wanted to say. His hand slid up behind your neck, curling into your hair, and you grabbed his shirt without thinking, yanking him closer until he groaned quietly into your mouth. The movie flickered, forgotten in the background.
The chocolate passed between you warm and melty, your mouths sliding together with sticky sweetness and heat, one of his hands already cupping your jaw to keep you there as long as he could. The candy now melted in your mouth as you bit down on it and ate it fully.
You climbed into his lap like your body had been waiting for the green light all this time. Like the second his hands found your hips, fingers squeezing the fabric of your shorts like he was starving for it, you were done pretending this was innocent. Your kiss turned messy, breathy, his tongue flicking the chocolate off yours as if he could taste the Hershey’s still on you. You moaned into him when his hips shifted under you, grinding up with slow, needy rhythm. That hard line against your core made your thighs clench.
“Jesus Christ, youre…” he muttered against your lips, gripping your hips tighter. “You sit on my lap one more second and I'm not gonna be able to play the ‘just best friends’ card anymore.”
You rolled your hips teasingly, watching his eyes squeeze shut. “Maybe I don't want to be just friends anymore.”
He surged up, kissing you more now, hands slipping under your shirt like he needed to feel every inch of you. You gasped as his fingers traced up your spine, unsnapping your bra with frustrating ease. He pulled your shirt over your head, tossed it, then followed it with kisses down your neck, across your collarbone, down to your chest. His hips bucked under you once, and your gasp made him smirk again.
“Fuck,” he breathed, staring at you like he couldnt believe it. “Youre… youre perfect.”
You huffed a laugh and tugged his shirt off in return. “Shut up and touch me already.”
He groaned as you reached between you, palming him through his jeans, hard and twitching under your touch. “Shit, sweetheart-”
You leaned in and kissed him again, slow and almost taunting, your fingers teasing at his waistband. “Still want me to believe you just wanted to share your candy?”
“Oh, baby,” he breathed, voice wrecked, "I definitely got the candy just to get you on my lap.”
You laughed, flushed and buzzing, as he finally pushed your shorts down and ran his fingers between your folds, groaning when he found you soaked and ready for him. “Fuck,” he whispered, “Can i…?”
You nodded fast. “Please.”
“Still want that kiss?” he asked, voice thick, eyes heavy lidded.
“Yes.” you nodded, flushed.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I've got a lot of kisses to give.”
He didn't tease this time. Didn't make another joke. You realized chocolate wasn't the only thing he wanted to melt in his mouth tonight. He quickly unzipped his pants while you hovered above, watching him, eyes slightly widen at the sight. He guided himself into you slowly, shaky, like he wanted to feel every inch of how you stretched around him. And when he bottomed out, both of you gasped. He kissed you through the first thrusts, slow and deep, hands gripping your waist, dragging you down against him again and again.
“You feel so good,” he whispered into your skin. “Been thinking about this…fuck-for so long.”
You couldn't form a word, only desperate moans as he rocked into you, pace picking up, your hips rolling with his until the whole couch squeaked beneath your frantic rhythm. It didn't take long. You were already halfway gone just from the way he looked at you, like you were everything he ever wanted. And when he brought one of his hands between your bodies and rubbed quick, tight circles over your clit, you came apart with a loud cry. He followed with a broken moan, clutching you to his chest as he spilled inside you, breath ragged.
Silence fell, sticky and sweet, broken only by the sound of the movie's end credits rolling. He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “So…still mad about the candy?”
You snorted into his shoulder. “Yeah. you owe me a real kiss now.”
He grinned. “Thought that was what that was.”
You leaned up, kissed him and whispered. “No, eds. That was just the beginning.” you shifted in his lap, hips rolling slightly, and his breath caught hard against your ear. “Fuck, sweetheart-” his voice was raspy, strained. “Youre gonna kill me.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, flushed cheeks, messy curls clinging to his face, sweat glistening on his chest. He looked like a goddamn dream wrecked beneath you, pupils blown wide and lips kiss swollen. And he was still hard inside you, twitching and sensitive. “You can take it,” you whispered, rocking again, slowly. “Cant you, Eddie?"
His groan was borderline desperate. “Fuck yes i can,” he breathed, hands digging into your hips like he was trying to anchor himself to the earth. “You want more? I'll give you everything, just don't stop moving like that.”
You kissed him, tongues sliding together while you started riding him again, slower this time, dragging him through the aftershocks, making him feel how wet and warm you still were. His head tipped back against the couch. You took advantage, licking a hot stripe along his throat before sucking a mark into the space under his jaw, just above his chain. His moan cracked in the middle, and he bucked up into you like he couldn't help it.
“Shit,” he gasped. “That mouth, that fuckin’ mouth-”
“You love it,” you purred, nipping his earlobe. “Bet you've thought about it. Thought about me on top of you like this.”
He didn't even try to lie. “All the goddamn time,” he gritted out. “Couldnt look at you in those little shorts without getting hard. Had to go jerk off in the van more times than i can count just ‘cause you bit your lip around me.” you clenched around him just from the words, and he felt it.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, hips stuttering. “You like that? Like hearing how fucking crazy you make me?” you didn't answer, just rolled your hips harder, faster, chasing that tight, aching pressure again. His hands flew up to cup your tits, thumbs flicking over your nipples as you rode him like you'd owned him all along. “God, eddie,” you gasped, “you feel so fucking good…im so close…”
“I got you,” he grunted, fingers back on your clit in an instant, rubbing fast circles while you bounced on his cock, your slick sounds filling the air between messy kisses and needy groans. And when you came the second time, back arching, moaning his name like it was a goddamn prayer, he nearly came with you. But not yet, this time, he wanted to drag it out.
Before your orgasm had even fully faded, he gripped your thighs and flipped you onto your back on the couch cushions. You barely had time to catch your breath before he was over you, in you, pounding deep again from above. Your legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper.
“Still want more?” he growled against your lips.
You nodded frantically. “Please…dont stop.”
Eddie bit your shoulder gently, voice going low and mean in the best way.
“You gonna let me ruin you, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” you whimpered.
He drove into you with a brutal rhythm now, not holding back, sweat dripping down his spine as he slammed into that spot inside you over and over until you were shaking. He brought your leg over his shoulder, changing the angle just enough to make your back arch off the couch and your mouth drop open in a wordless cry.
“Fuck, look at you,” he groaned. “So fucking pretty like this…all messy and mine
You scratched your nails down his back, and he hissed, eyes rolling back at the sting. Your third orgasm tore through you before you could even speak, everything clenched tight, muscles spasming around him. You sobbed out his name, voice wrecked, and that pushed him over the edge. With a broken, throaty moan, Eddie buried himself deep and came again, harder this time, hips jerking against yours as he gasped and choked on your name. He didn't stop moving until he'd milked every last drop, collapsing against you, chest heaving.
Silence fell again, save for the wet sounds of your bodies still tangled, the slow trail of his fingers brushing through your hair as both of you tried to remember how to breathe. Then he chuckled. “Still mad about the Hershey’s kiss?“ he rasped.
You laughed weakly, pulling him close. “I dunno. Might need a few more to make up for it.”
“Oh, I got a whole pocket full,” he smirked. “And I plan to feed you every single one.”
pairing: steve harrington x reader
summary: your stress levels have been through the roof for weeks and the only person bearing the brunt of your bad mood is your best friend, steve harrington. after too many coments, steve finally calls you out until finally he suggests a way to release the tension, and it's not in the way you expected.
wc: 3.8k
warnings: +18 (minors do not interact), explicit nsfw, unprotected sex, fem!reader, vaginal sex, oral sex (f receiving), creampie, praise kink, best friend steve, dirty talk, rough sex, mirror sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, masturbation in pool (f receiving), mention of alcohol, big dick canon, reader being a bitch with steve, fingers in mouth, aftercare.
author's note: just wanted to say thanks my girl valeria for the help
college was wearing you out, finals were breathing down your neck, and on top of that, you had extra shifts in your horrible and boring work. and that made you absolutely buried under stress for weeks.
you were sleeping barely four hours a night, and the only thing keeping you awake was the excessive amount of coffee and the occasional nap you’d take without meaning to when you’d fall asleep sitting at your desk.
everything annoyed you. everything was too loud, too bright, and just too much for you. and unfortunately for him, steve harrington –who had been your best friend since high school– was taking the brunt of your whole situation, including your bad mood.
you had been a complete bitch to him the past two weeks, but there was one particular situation that lingered in steve’s mind more than he would have liked.
you stormed into family video. the cool air conditioning hit your overheated skin, but it did nothing to calm the storm raging inside you. your shoulders were tight, your jaw locked, and you hadn’t slept properly in days.
between finals and extra shifts, you were one inconvenience away from snapping.
you just wanted a movie. something spicy enough to distract you tonight when you were alone, trying –and probably failing– to relieve some of this unbearable tension by yourself.
steve was behind the counter wearing that stupid green family video uniform that somehow made his shoulders look broader and his arms look bigger. robin was a few feet away, restocking some tapes, but you could already feel her watching you the second you walked through the door.
you went straight to the small adult section and grabbed the first movie that looked filthy enough. a half-naked couple on the cover with a dark lighting and a title that screamed horny.
you didn’t even read the back, you just wanted something with sex, moaning and heavy breathing: anything to help you when you were alone in your room.
with the tape clutched tightly in your hand, you went straight to the corner, slamming it down. steve was leaning against the register, and the second he saw the tape, his hazel eyes lit up with pure mischief.
he picked up the tape slowly and raised his eyebrows, turning it in his hands as he examined the cover with exaggerated interest.
‘’so… what’s this?’’ he said, his voice dripping with teasing amusement. ‘’you have a date tonight and you’re looking for ideas for later or what?’’
your face instantly heated up with a mix of embarrassment and rage.
‘’shut the fuck up, steve,’’ you snapped, glaring at him with pure venom. ‘’just scan the tape and keep your mouth closed today.’’
steve placed a hand dramatically over his chest, pretending to be deeply wounded.
‘’no, no… you don’t get to say that,’’ he replied, acting completely indignant. ‘’we tell each other everything. everything. since when are you planning spicy nights and not telling me? i thought we had no secrets. i’m… deeply hurt.’’
robin, who was pretending to organize tapes on a nearby shelf, let out a loud snort and walked closer, clearly entertained.
‘’i hope steve doesn’t tell you in detail how he keeps sleeping with half the girls in hawkins,’’ she said, glancing at you with a smirk. ‘’because apparently he’s still very much in game.’’
steve turned to her with a fake smile.
‘’hey! i don’t sleep with all of them,’’ he protested though the little smirk on his face made it very obvious he was lying through his teeth.
he turned back on you, leaning further over the counter, his voice dropping into that low teasing tone that always drove you insane.
‘’but seriously, you didn’t tell me anything. what is wrong with you?’’ your hands clenched into fists at your sides. you could feel your face burning with humiliation and pure anger.
‘’steve, i swear to god’’ you hissed through gritted teeth. ‘’if you don’t shut up your fucking mouth right now and give me the damn tape, i’m going to throw this at your head and walk out.’’
steve chuckled softly, scanning the tape painfully slowly, clearly enjoying every second of your frustration.
‘’damn, you really are wound up today, huh?’’ he said, still smirking. robin leaked against the counter beside him.
you snatched the tape the second it was scanned, practically throwing your money at steve’s chest.
‘’you’re acting like the worst best friend in the entire fucking world,’’ you growled with your voice shaking with anger. ‘’i don’t know why i even bother with you anymore.’’
steve just smiled innocently as you turned on your heel to storm out.
‘’enjoy your movie and your date!’’ he called after you sweetly. the second you were gone, robin whistled.
‘’you’re such an asshole,’’ she laughed. steve stared at the door you had just slammed, a stupid smile still on his face.
after that, the week went on just the same—or even worse. you still were a bitch with him; snapping at his jokes, rolling your eyes when he tried to cheer you up, giving him short answers and telling him to shut up. and steve was patient, really patient.
but he couldn't take it anymore.
it was friday night. steve dropped robin off at her house after closing family video. you were sitting in the passenger seat of his bmw, arms crossed tightly over your chest and your jaw clenched so hard it ached.
you stared out the window like you were offended, and the silence in the car was thick and uncomfortable, almost suffocating. steve glanced at you sideways while his fingers drummed on the stared.
the silence only lasted a few more seconds before he couldn’t hold back anymore.
‘’jesus christ,’’ he muttered while shaking his hand. ‘’you gonna keep sitting there like i ran over your dog?’’
you didn’t even look at him. steve let out a sarcastic laugh.
‘’wow. really mature. you’ve been acting like this for you weeks and now you can’t even speak? what, did i breathe too loud today?’’
that did it.
you whipped your head towards him, your eyes blazing with anger.
‘’god, can you just shut up for once in your life, steve?’’ you snapped with a sharp and venomous voice. ‘’you’re so fucking annoying. always poking, always talking. i’m allowed to be in a bad mood without you making it worse by being a pain in the ass.’’
steve’s eyebrows shot up, but instead of backing off, he smirked.
‘’oh, i’m the annoying one now?’’ he shot back, teasing. ‘’you’ve been treating me like shit for two weeks straight and i’m the problem? come on. you’re being so dramatic.’’
your mouth fell open in disbelief.
‘’are you serious right now?’’ you hissed while you raised your voice. ‘’you’re such a fucking asshole. i told you i’m stressed, i told you i’m tense and all you do is poke at me like i’m so kind of joke.’’
steve’s smirk faltered for a second, but he quickly recovered, still trying to push your buttons.
‘’maybe if you stopped being so uptight and actually talked to me instead of biting my head off every five seconds–’’
‘’pull over,’’ you cut him off coldly. steve blinked.
‘’what?’’
‘’i said pull the fuck over. i’d rather walk home than listen to you right now.’’
steve didn’t pull over. instead, he let out a long breath and softened his tone a little bit.
you let out a long exhausted sight and rubbed your face with both hands, feeling the weight of everything crashing down on you. your eyes burned from lack of sleep and your shoulders felt like they were carrying bricks.
‘’i’m sorry, steve… i’m not mad at you. i swear i’m not,’’ you numbed. ‘’i’m just… really fucking tired. everything irritates me. i’ve tried everything. i went running, took long hot baths, even touched myself and nothing helps.’’
steve stayed quiet for a long moment, driving slowly through the dark streets. the only sound was the low hum of the engine. then, he let out a soft chuckle, trying to lighten the heavy mood.
‘’you know… i did some reading the other day. family video stress the shit out of me and i searched some things.’’ he said casually, glancing at you. ‘’i’ll look into it properly. give me a couple of days. maybe i can find something that actually helps you realise all that tension.’’
you didn't reply. the car fell silent again as he drove you home.
three days. those were the exact days that passed. it was monday night, just past midnight.
steve invited you to his big house. you both had been drinking for a couple of hours by the pool. nothing too strong, just a few beers.
you were sitting on the edge of the pool with your feet in the water, wearing one of steve’s old shirts over your bikini. steve was inside the pool, leaning against the edge right in front of you, shirtless, and with his hair wet and messy.
he looked up at you, water droplets running down his hairy chest and you tried not to make too much eye contact there.
‘’so… i did the research i promised,’’ he said with a soft voice. ‘’i went to the library and everything. looked in actual encyclopedias and medical books.’’
you raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at your lips.
‘’wow. you actually went to the library and read? i’m impressed, harrington. didn’t know you knew how.’’
steve grinned and grabbed your waist with both hands, yanking you in the water. you let out a surprised squeal as you both fell into the warm water with a big splash. when you came up for air, steve was right in front of you.
‘’you asshole!’’ you laughed, pushing his chest.
the soaked shirt was now clinging to your body like a second skin, and without thinking, you grabbed the hem and pulled it over your head, tossing it onto the pool deck with a wet slap.
steve’s eyes darkened as they roamed over your body for a second before he forced them back to your face.
‘’well, you deserved that. that was cold,’’ he said, pretending to be deeply offended.
‘’start talking before i leave to drink another beer,’’ you said.
‘’i spent actual hours reading about endorphins, oxytocin, stress hormones… all of it. apparently the fastest way to release extreme built-up tension is through really intense physical activity. multiple orgasms.’’
he was getting more nervous the longer he spoke so his usual cocky confidence cracked.
‘’i mean– you don’t have to… obviously,’’ he added quickly while his voice got softer. ‘’it was an idea. we can pretend i never said anything. i don’t want to make things weird between us. i just hate seeing you this stressed and…’’
‘’are you insinuating something, steve?’’ you asked.
you wanted to hear an answer from him to see if they were just empty words coming out of his mouth or if he really meant it.
‘’yeah… i mean, yes,’’ he admitted. then he backtracked. ‘’no, no, nothing like that! i didn’t mean– shit, forget i said anything. i wasn’t trying to pressure you or–’’
you smiled and leaned a little closer to him. steve took it as a signal, so he cupped your face with one hand and kissed you.
the kiss started gentle but quickly turned deeper. you responded, kissing him back while your fingers thread through his wet hair.
after some seconds you pulled back slightly, breathing a little faster, and whispered against his lips.
‘’i’ll keep that in mind.” you started to pull away, but steve gently grabbed your hand, stopping you. he pulled you back toward him.
you smiled, then leaned in and kissed him again — deeper this time, more sure.
he froze for half a second before he melted into the kiss with a deep groan. his wet hands immediately grabbed your waist.
steve was an incredible kisser. girls weren't lying about that.
he started by pressing his lips against yours, then focused on your upper lip –kissing it gently– then with more pressure. his mouth moved perfectly against yours, slow and deep at first, then hungrier.
his nose kept bumping into yours.
you moaned softly into his mouth as he kissed you deeper, his tongue sliding against yours. his hands grabbed your ass under the water, squeezing firmly and pulling you flush against him. you wrapped your legs around his waist instinctively, grinding against the obvious bulge in his swim trunks.
steve groaned against your lips, one hand staying on your ass while the other slid between your bodies. his fingers then pressed over your bikini bottoms, rubbing slow and firm circles against your covered clit.
‘’fuck..’’ he murmured between kisses. he kept kissing you on the upper lip while his fingers rubbed gaster, pressing against your clit through the thin fabric.
you held onto his shoulders tightly, nails digging into his skin as pleasure built rapidly.
‘’that’s it, pretty girl,’’ he whispered hotly. ‘’grind on my hand like a good girl. you’ve been so tense for weeks… you deserve this.’’
he wasn’t as shy as he was a few minutes earlier.
you whimpered, rolling your hips desperately against his fingers. steve rubbed faster, pressing harder while the water made everything slick and intense.
‘’steve– fuck,’’ you moaned.
‘’you touched yourself so many times and couldn’t cum properly, huh, princess?’’ he growled softly. ‘’look how quickly you’re shaking for me, baby. this pretty pussy is so needy for my touch. that’s cute.’’
your legs started trembling violently around his waist. pleasure built higher as he rubbed fast circles. you were right on the edge, thighs squeezing him.
‘’steve– oh god. i’m so close, please.’’ you whimpered.
just as you were about to cum, he suddenly slowed down and pulled his hand away. you let out a broken whimper, burying your face in his neck.
‘’not yet, baby,’’ he whispered. ‘’i want you in my bed. i want to take my time with you, princess. i want to hear every pretty sound you make when i finally let you fall apart.’’
he kissed one last time before carrying you out of the pool toward the house, water dripping everywhere.
the second you were through the front door, steve pinned you against it, kissing you again like he was starving. you stumbled up the stairs together, and halfway up, steve pressed you against the railing, kissing you deeply again.
you finally reached his bedroom door, crashing through it. steve kicked it shut behind him and threw you onto his bed slowly. you landed with a small bounce, still dripping wet from the pool.
steve crawled over you, his hair was still dripping. then he moved down your body, kissing and sucking marks into your skin until he settled between your spread thighs. he looked up at you with hungry eyes.
he hooked his fingers into your bikini bottoms and slowly pulled them down your legs, tossing them aside. he buried his face between your legs and devoured you like a man starved.
steve was completely pussy drunk. he licked, sucked and tongue-fucked you with messy enthusiasm, moaning loudly against your pussy as two fingers pumped deep inside you.
he licked a long slow stripe from your entrance all the way up to your clit, moaning loudly at your taste.
‘’fuck, you taste so good,’’ he groaned, the vibrations sent you shocks through your body. ‘’so sweet and sloppy. i could eat this pretty cunt for hours.’’
‘’please– don’t stop. don’t.’’ you moaned, rolling your hips against his face.
he dove back in like a man possessed.
steve licked broad, flat strokes through your folds, savoring every drop of your wetness. he sucked your swollen clit into his mouth, humming happily as he flicked his tongue rapidly over your sensitive bud.
then he pushed his tongue inside you, fucking you with it while his nose was pressed against your clit. he was loud, messy and addicted. the obscene wet sounds of him slurping, sucking and moaning against your pussy filled the entire room.
his hands gripped your thighs, spreading you wider as he buried his face deeper.
‘’god, baby… you’re dripping down my chin,’’ he mumbled. ‘’such a messy little pussy. you’re soaking me and i fucking love it.’’
he replaced his tongue with his fingers again, pumping them and curling them perfectly against your g-spot while he focused on your clit again.
‘’fuck, steve… you’re so good at this.’’ you moaned.
‘’you love this, don’t you, princess?’’ he said. his chin was shining with your juices. ‘’love having your best friend eat your pussy like a starving man. bet you’ve been touching this greedy cunt thinking about me every night while you were being mean to me.’’
you moaned loudly, and steve doubled down, sucking harder and pumping his fingers faster. he was completely lost in you.
‘’steve, fuck. i’m gonna cum–’’ you cried out.
he didn’t stop, and you came hard with a loud scream. your thighs clamped around his head as you gusher on his tongue and fingers. steve moaned loudly, refusing to pull away.
he kept licking and fingering you through your orgasm, drawing it out until you were shaking and oversensitive, pushing at his head.
he finally pulled back, his chin and lips shiny with your juices and his eyes glazed with pure lust. steve shoved his swim trunks down his hips, kicking them off, and his thick hard cock sprang free.
steve was huge. way too big.
you’d had sex with other guys before, but you’d never seen anything like this.
you always heard him talk about his sexual experiences. that was the normal thing between you two as best friends.
but you just thought he was exaggerating — that it was just an ego boost.
when robin joked about it, or steve said that girls told him it didn't fit in, you just laughed: you thought they were just jokes.
but apparently, they weren’t.
he climbed on top of you and rubbed the head up and down your soaked folds.
‘’look at me, princess,’’ he ordered.
and you did.
‘’i don’t know if it all fits steve. you’re so big…’’
‘’just the tip first.’’ he groaned, and then he pushed a little bit, the head stretching you open. ‘’relax for me… that’s it, good girl. you’re doing so well.’’
he rocked his hips gently, feeding you another inch. then another, watching your face the entire time.
‘’oh my god…. fuck, steve.’’
‘’taking me so good, baby.’’ he praised with rough voice. ‘’look how your pretty pussy is swallowing my cock.’’
then his control snapped. steve pulled back almost all the way and slammed back in hard, setting a brutal pace. the bed cracked as he fucked ou deep and rough, hips snapping against your ass with loud slaps.
‘’take it, princess,’’ he growled. ‘’take every fucking inch.’’
after a few thrusts, he pulled out, flipped you onto your hands and knees, and positioned you so you were facing a full-length mirror in the corner of his room.
the mirror was tall and elegant.
steve had had it since his freshman year of high school, back when he was king steve: the ultimate jock who spent way too much time obsessing over his hair, clothes and appearance. he used to stand in front of it and fix his hair there, and now, some years later, he was fucking you in front of it.
steve got behind you, gripped your hips tightly and thrust back inside you again.
‘’look. look in the mirror.’’
he grabbed your face with one hand, fingers gripping your jaw firmly but not painfully, and he forced you to look straight ahead at your reflection.
“watch,” he ordered, starting to fuck you hard again. “watch how pretty you look getting fucked by my big cock.”
you moaned loudly at the sight. the mirror showed everything in explicit detail; your flushed face, your tits bouncing wildly with every thrust, your mouth open in pleasure, and steve’s body behind you as he pounded into you mercilessly. his thick cock disappeared completely inside your pussy again and again, stretching you wide.
“steve— oh my god. look at how deep you are…” you gasped, unable to look away. “you’re so big…”
“yeah? you like watching me destroy this tight pussy, baby?” he groaned, slamming into you harder. he kept one hand on your jaw, forcing you to keep watching. “look at how well you take every inch. such a good girl for me, princess.”
he fucked you relentlessly in front of the mirror, hips snapping against your ass as the sound of skin slapped loud and filthy. his other hand reached around to rub your clit in fast giving rough circles.
he suddenly pushed two fingers into your mouth.
“suck,” he commanded, voice low and filthy. “suck my fingers while you watch yourself get fucked, princess.” you moaned around his fingers, sucking them greedily as he continued pounding into you.
“cum for me, baby,” he commanded with a low voice. “cum while you watch yourself get fucked by your best friend. gonna breed you so deep you’ll be leaking my cum for days. you want that, princess? want me to pump you full until your belly swells with my load?”
you moaned loudly around his fingers, nodding desperately as you watched yourself in the mirror. steve fucked you even harder as the same time he rubbed your clit faster.
“that’s it… cum for me, baby. let me breed this greedy little cunt.”
you came hard with a loud scream, your walls pulsing violently around his thick cock. steve followed right after, burying himself to the hilt and flooding your pussy with thick hot ropes of cum.
he stayed buried deep inside you, both of you breathing heavily, sweaty and satisfied. then kissed your shoulder softly, still holding your face so you could see your wrecked reflection.
then his entire behavior softened.
steve slowly pulled out of you, making you whimper at the feeling of being empty. he gently turned onto your back and lay down beside you.
‘’you okay?’’ he whispered. ‘’was i too rough or something?’’ you shook your head, still catching your breath.
‘’i’m perfect,’’ you murmured. ‘’i feel relaxed now.’’
steve chuckled softly, sitting in the bed to put his clothes back again.
‘’let me take care of you now, okay?’’
he got up and walked to the bathroom, returning a minute later with a towel. steve gently cleaned between your legs, wiping away the mixture of your juices and his cum. he tossed the towel aside and climbed back into bed.
after a comfortable silence, steve spoke.
‘’... is this gonna ruin our friendship?’’
you lifted your head to look at him.
‘’no,’’ you whispered. ‘’it won’t.’’
steve let out a relieved breath.
‘’good,’’ he said, smiling. ‘’because next time you feel this stressed… don’t be a bitch to me again. just come to my house. the scientific method clearly works.’’
you laughed, feeling lighter than you had in weeks.
your daddy sticks the strange new farmhand in the small house by the barn, figuring it’s safer to keep a man like that close. it isn’t. remmick spends his nights watching you, and when you finally sneak down in your nightgown to “set him straight,” he bends you over his table and fucks the fight right out of you. (wc: 22k). ao3 link
゛notes ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆ i was mad horny everytime i opened the doc to work on this… this is def one of my fav fics that i have written, and i’m ngl and say i won’t write anything else with this dynamic bc it’s too juicy. beta read by my offline irl bbg (i’m trying to get her to make an acc 😔)
゛ contents ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆ morally dubious behavior. virginity taking. peeping tom behavior / voyeurism (he’s a creep). m!masturbation. size kink. vaginal fingering. very light choking. groping. manhandling. breeding kink if you squint. messy sex. cum play. light overstimulation. rough sex. table sex. unprotected p in v. power imbalance. period-typical misogyny. small talks of purity culture. predator / prey vibes. praise w a little degradation. possessiveness. mdni 18+
Night eases down over the fields slow as molasses, settling in the furrows and fence lines until everything looks dipped in ink.
The porch sits right on the edge of it, a little island of yellow lantern light with you cross-legged in your chair, enamel bowl in your lap, fingers slick with bean juice. Crickets grind away in the ditch, frogs answer from somewhere near the pond, and the heat that pressed on your skin all day finally lets go a little, turning soft and damp and heavy instead of mean.
Your daddy, Joe, stands out by the road with a cigarette, just that small orange coal drifting up and down whenever he draws on it.
He’s mostly shadow, hat brim pulled low, shoulders a dark cutout against the pale strip of dirt lane. The smoke hangs around him in thin gray strands, catching the lantern glow before the breeze worries it apart.
The wagon makes itself known before you see it. A tired rattle carrying over the fields long and low, iron and wood complaining in a way that could belong to any old rig on any old night.
The mule steps out of the dark first, ears flicking, hooves whispering in the dust, harness creaking, then the wagon-bed, then the man riding it, the whole shape of him hunched against the evening like the road’s been sitting on his back.
He climbs down slow, not careless, one boot testing the ground, then the other. He isn’t tall; not one of those long, scarecrow boys you see come through town sometimes. He’s put together closer to the earth than that, thick through the shoulders and arms, weight settled in the meat of him instead of stretched out.
Shirt pulls across his chest where the fabric has been asked to hold too much too often, sleeves rolled to his forearms, muscle and old work written in the dust and veins there. Suspenders run straight over his torso, holding everything decent, but there’s something loose under the neatness, a restless set to the way he carries himself, like he’s got more energy than his frame knows what to do with.
His hat sits low enough to shade most of his face until he steps up nearer and the porch light reaches for him.
“Evenin’, Sir,” he says, voice a slow scrape, low and worn, like it’s been dragged over gravel and cigarettes for years.
The vowels don’t belong to your county, not exactly, but he leans into them like he’s been practicing, trying to make them fit the dirt under his boots.
“Evenin’,” Joe, flicks ash toward the ditch without turning. “You Remmick?”
“Yes, sir.”
He takes off his hat then, presses it to his chest in a gesture that seems to be humble, and in that little bow you see the line of him clear.
Hair dark and close-cropped, stubborn where it’s tried to wave up and been tamed with water and a hand. Jaw rough with stubble that looks more forgotten than stylish.
There’s a hardness around his mouth, something that could tilt into a grin or a snarl with not much provocation either way.
When he straightens and lifts his eyes, they cut toward the porch, and you feel it right away when they land on you, as sure as if somebody laid a hand on your bare ankle.
A limp green bean hangs between your fingers, ends torn and wet.
His gaze drifts, following your calves where your skirt’s ridden up, running along the slope of your shins and the span of your knees pressed together, sliding up the line of your apron and the thin open V between your collar buttons where the night air pushes in against your skin.
He looks like he’s reading you, not just seeing you, taking his time over every line.
You go still, sharp-aware of every place your dress touches your body and every place it doesn’t.
The bean pieces drop into the bowl as you lower your eyes to the boards. The porch wood is dark and warped from years of feet, knot-holes winking like little eyes in the dim.
You fix on those, on the small wet snaps and soft taps of beans piling against enamel. Anything that is not the feeling of a stranger’s stare walking up and down you like a man checking fence.
“Baby,” your father says, voice flat, cigarette smoke curling out on the word. “Say evenin’.”
You wipe your hands on your apron and stand, bare feet quiet on the boards. “Evenin’,” you say, polite as sunday, letting the rest of what you feel sink down where it won’t show on your face.
Remmick smiles like he hears it anyway. It isn’t wide or warm. Just a slow tug at one corner of his mouth, a small, crooked tilt that never quite reaches his eyes.
“Evenin’, miss,” he answers, and there’s a drag in that word miss, the s held just long enough to make it catch.
Miss, when he could have asked for your name, when any decent man might have. Your father hasn’t offered it yet, so you keep it closed up in your mouth.
“Girl oughta be in bed this hour,” Joe mutters, eyes on the yard, not on you. “Ain’t no call for her to be sittin’ out like some boy on watch. Night’s for men workin’, not for women gawkin’.”
The words land on your shoulders like an old coat, familiar weight, old smell. You bite down on what you want to say and feel it burn on the way down.
“I’m finishin’ the beans,” you tell him instead, hands tightening on the bowl till the rim bites into your palms. You don’t bother trying to explain that the dark sits easier on your skin than the hard white noon does, that the night gives you a little space to stretch.
You can feel Remmick watching you still, not with that sloppy hunger you’ve seen from boys in town, all elbows and gawking.
This is like he’s comparing what he sees to something he’s held in his head a long time.
“Don’t reckon there’s any harm in her gettin’ some air, Sir,” he says after a moment, pitched low, as if he’s offering reason and not meddling. “So long as she stays where you can see her.” He tips his head, and his eyes make another lazy path over you, unashamed. “World’s rough for a girl on her own.”
Your daddy snorts, jaw tightening just enough for you to notice. “You just worry ‘bout them fields, son. I didn’t hire you to advise on my girl.”
The almost-smile on Remmick’s mouth doesn’t quite leave. “Yes, sir,” he says. “I’ll give all my attention to what you’re payin’ me for.”
He keeps his words aimed at your father, but his gaze is not that obedient. It flicks back to you when he says attention, and there’s weight in it, promise, something that makes your skin prickle fine all over. Something in you bristles right back, lifts its head like a barn cat whose tail’s been stepped on.
You draw a breath and set the bowl against your hip. “Where you want him sleepin’?” you ask your father, eyes fixed out over the yard so you don’t have to meet either man’s stare straight on.
“In the old place.” Joe jerks his chin toward the smaller farmhouse slumped beyond the well—a squat little shape where the lamplight doesn’t reach, half-eaten by shadow. “Closer to the barn. Got a bed and a stove. Man don’t need more than that.”
Remmick turns to look at it, and the lantern light catches his eyes in a strange way, making them flash for an instant like there’s something slick behind them.
The little house sits there like it’s been waiting, windows dark, door shut up tight, roofline sagged just enough to look suspicious.
“That’ll do,” he says. “I’m a night sort myself. Easier workin’ when the sun’s gone and the air ain’t tryin’ to boil you clear through. Less trouble all around.”
He says it easy, like it’s about sweat and shade and nothing else, but you hear the way he shapes night in his mouth, the soft way he lets it roll off his tongue, and something in your belly curls up smaller and sharper.
“Heard you don’t care much for daylight,” Joe says, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
Remmick’s jaw shifts, a muscle ticking like it wants to answer on its own. He glances at you, quick and bright, before he looks down at his boots. “Sun don’t care much for me,” he finally drawls. “Burns me to char if I let it. Always been that way. Doctor said I got delicate skin.”
The word sits wrong in your ear as soon as it’s out, delicate, dangling over this stocky man with forearms roped up in tendon and dirt ground into his knuckles, hands that look like they were made to break things, not handle them gentle.
It slips out of you before you can catch it, quiet and skeptical. “Delicate,” you repeat, eyes finding his without meaning to.
He catches that and settles into it like a cat into a warm spot. “You don’t think so, miss?” he asks, voice a touch softer now, gaze steady and unblinking.
You ought to let it pass. Ought to dip your head and let the men talk over you, let delicate lie between them like some joke you weren’t meant to get.
Instead you hold his stare in the lantern glow, take your time looking back the same way he did to you, tracing the faint hollows under his eyes, the line of his nose, the mouth that looks used to biting down on words and maybe on other things too.
“No, sir,” you say finally, after a beat that stretches long. “You don’t look delicate at all.”
Something shifts behind his eyes at that, something pleased and sharp that makes your heart knock once, hard, against your ribs. The corner of his mouth tugs just a shade higher.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to live up to what you see,” he murmurs. “Would be a shame to disappoint you.”
Your daddy grinds his cigarette out under his heel, done with this line of talk. “You can unload what you got, then I’ll show you the place,” he says. “Got work waiting for nobody. You ain’t too tired from sittin’ on a wagon all day, are you?”
Remmick rolls one shoulder, hand rubbing the back of his neck. The stretch shifts his shirt over his back, pulls the fabric across solid muscle there.
You feel your breath snag for half a second and hate that it does.
“Wagon ain’t heavy,” he says. “I’ll get settled quick, then you can put me to whatever needs doin’.”
Joe nods and starts toward the dim outline of that little house, his boots crunching through the loose gravel near the well. The lantern light falls behind him with each step until he’s just another moving patch of dark.
Remmick lingers at the foot of the porch. He settles his hat back on his head, brim bringing his eyes into shadow again, but you can still feel them.
“You finish them beans,” he tells you, voice gone softer, aimed up at you like a secret. “Man works better with a full belly.”
There’s nothing in the words you could point to and call wrong, nothing on the surface you could carry to your father and hold up like proof.
Still, the way his gaze drifts down and back up as he says them leaves something slick and uneasy under your ribs. Heat crawls up your neck, hot in a way that has nothing to do with the air.
“I’ll see to what’s mine,” you say, gripping the bowl till your fingers ache. “Same as you should see to yours.”
His laugh is low, a rough little sound that lives in his chest and doesn’t quite make it to his teeth. He dips his head a fraction, like you’ve handed him a dare instead of brushing him off. “Oh, I intend to,” he replies. “You can count on it.”
Then he turns and walks after your father, stride easy, body moving with a loose sort of purpose. His shadow stretches out along the yard behind him, tossed strange and long by the lantern, then swallowed up as he and Joe move past the well.
The small farmhouse waits ahead, black windows staring, door a darker cut in the wall. It looks, for one breath, like it’s swallowing the two men whole.
You stand there with the lantern hissing softly at your elbow and watch the dark take them.
When the yard settles again, when their footsteps fade and the crickets creep back up to full volume, the space between the barn and the house does not feel the same. It’s as if something else has stepped into it and sat down, something you cannot see but can sense just the same, like a pressure change before a storm.
You sit again, bowl back in your lap, fingers finding another handful of beans by habit alone. The wet snap of them breaking sounds too loud in the hush, echoing in the hollow boards under your feet.
Every few seconds, your eyes drag toward that low silhouette out past the well, toward the little house that is not empty anymore.
You tell yourself you’re only minding where your father put a stranger.
The first night after he arrives, he walks the fence line while you wash dishes.
You hear his boots dragging through the loose gravel near the yard, then the softer sound of steps in the grass.
The screen door hangs open to let the air move, lantern burning low over the sink. Your arms are wet to the elbow, suds creeping up your forearms as you scrub at a pan that’s older than you are.
Out past your own reflection in the dark window, you catch a small shape of motion—the swing of a lantern out near the barn, then the shorter, solid outline of him moving along the fence, checking posts, rattling wire.
He doesn’t look up at the house that you can tell, doesn’t lift the light toward you, just keeps on with that steady pace, head bent.
Still, your shoulders hunch like you’ve been caught at something you haven’t done. The glass fogs a little with the breath you don’t remember letting out.
You tell yourself it’s good your father found a man willing to walk the property at night. That’s what you tell yourself as you rinse plates and stack them, as the little yellow circle of his lantern slides back and forth along the edge of your sight.
The second night you have to bring him his supper, because your father ‘forgets.’
It’s late by the time the last of the pots are scraped and put away, your back aching from standing, hair pasted to your neck. Joe leans back in his chair, radio humming low on the table, and says without looking up, “That boy eat?”
You still your hands on the dishrag. “Ain’t seen him at the table.”
“Damn it,” He grumbles, more at himself than you. “Told him come in if he heard me holler and I ain’t never thought to holler. Fix him a plate and take it down. Man don’t work right hungry.”
You swallow whatever you were about to say about whose job it is to feed farmhands, scrape together a plate from what’s left—two biscuits gone hard at the edges, a ladle of beans, a piece of ham with more bone than meat—and cover it with a clean cloth.
The air outside hits your damp skin and feels cooler than it ought to. The night smells like dirt and hay and whatever’s blooming along the ditch.
The smaller farmhouse sits out near the barn with a faint thread of light leaking around the edges of its curtain, not bright enough to spill onto the yard. You walk out there, skirt brushing your ankles, plate balanced careful in both hands.
You knock, knuckles soft on the wood. For a second there’s nothing, then the faint scrape of a chair, the hush of someone crossing a small room.
The door opens only halfway. He fills the gap, shoulder and chest just there, heat and sweat.
“Evenin’,” he says, voice a little rough, like he hasn’t used it since sundown. “You lost?”
You hold the plate out, not stepping any closer than you have to. “Daddy forgot to call you in. Told me to bring your supper.”
His eyes go to your hands first, to the way your fingers wrap the rim of the plate, then to the food, then back up.
He doesn’t reach right away; he lets the moment stretch, his gaze traveling from your wrists up your arms, lingering on the damp on your skin, on the few stray strands that have worked loose at your temple and stuck there.
“That’s mighty kind,” he says at last, taking the plate so slow his fingers brush yours.
They’re not as rough as you expected, just warm and solid, the pads of them catching against your knuckles. “Hope he didn’t drag you out here from your bed on account of me.”
“I wasn’t in bed,” you answer, because lying feels worse than telling him anything true. “Kitchen don’t clean itself.”
He makes a small noise at that, somewhere between agreement and amusement. “No, ma’am. World’d fall apart if it weren’t for everything women do men don’t think about. Least he can do is call me in for a plate now and then instead of sending you.”
You don’t like that it sounds almost gentle, that there’s no clear edge you can grab onto and call wrong.
You nod once and start to turn away, wanting the room behind that door to stay his business and not have to wonder what’s in it.
“Miss?” he says, and you stop even though you don’t want to. “You tell your daddy I’m obliged. To him and to you.”
You keep your eyes on the yard. “He’ll hear you tomorrow.”
“Maybe I like the thought of you carryin’ my thanks,” he says, voice dipping lower.
You don’t answer to that. You walk back toward the big house with your empty hands and you feel his eyes between your shoulder blades all the way to the porch steps.
Another night you pass him by accident at the pump.
You come around the corner of the house with a pail in each hand, too focused on not sloshing well water onto your skirt to notice him right off.
He’s just there suddenly in the lantern’s edge, sleeves rolled high, suspenders hanging loose at his hips, hair damp with sweat or water; you can’t tell which.
The pump squeaks once as he lets go of the handle. Moonlight catches the wet on his forearms, the curve of muscle there, the scar that runs pale along his left wrist like a rope burn that never faded.
You stop short, pails swinging. “Didn’t know you were usin’ it,” you say. “I’ll wait.”
He tips his head, that same little crooked half-smile thinking about showing up. “You scared I’m gonna dirty the water, standin’ too near?” His accent is thicker tonight, as if he’s tired of smoothing them for everybody’s sake.
“I ain’t scared,” you say. Your voice comes out flatter than you mean it to, which only makes him watch you harder. “Just got taught not to crowd folk when they’re at work.”
“And here I thought you were just bein’ polite,” he murmurs. He steps back from the pump, gives you room to pass. “Go on, then. Wouldn’t do to have Mr. Joe’s girl haulin’ from the ditch ‘cause I hogged the handle.”
You move past him, the damp of his skin ghosting near your elbow, the smell of iron and sweat and something like tobacco clinging to him. You set a pail under the spout and work the handle, arm moving in a practiced rhythm.
The pump groans, then warm water shudders up from below, splashing cold over your fingers when you misjudge the first rush.
His gaze sits on your hands again, on the bare forearms you didn’t bother covering because it’s night and there’s no sun to scold you. “You do all that yourself?” he asks. “Water, cookin’, everything inside?”
“Me and Mama,” you say, though your mother’s cough has been bad enough lately you both know it’s more you than her. “Daddy’s got the fields.”
“And now he’s got me,” Remmick says, watching your arm work. “Guess I’m supposed to make life easier ‘round here.”
“Then do it,” you answer, a little sharper than you meant. The second pail fills and you swing it away, careful not to splash your toes. “Don’t stand around talkin’ about it.”
For a heartbeat there’s quiet. Then he laughs, low and delighted. “There she is,” he says under his breath, as if he’s been waiting on that bite.
When you glance over, he isn’t offended. He looks satisfied, eyes bright, lean mouth curled up. “You keep snappin’ at me like that, miss, I might start thinkin’ you’re sweet on me.”
“Or you might start thinkin’ wrong,” you shoot back, lifting both buckets. The weight drags at your shoulders, but you’d sooner drop in the yard than ask him to carry them.
He doesn't offer, just watches you walk away, and you can feel that as keenly as the pull of the water on your arms.
There are other little moments like that, small as splinters. Like, when you cross paths in the barn one evening when you go to check on a cow that lowed funny through your window.
He’s already there when you reach the threshold, one hand on the animal’s neck, murmuring something soft and nonsense in her ear.
She calms under his touch, sides heaving slow, eyes rolling less. The lantern hangs from a nail overhead, throwing golden light over the dust in the air, over his shoulders, over the cow’s hide.
He glances up when he senses you, and for a blink his irises flash almost too light, as if the lantern’s in them and not above him. Then they’re ordinary again, a color you could name if you got close enough, and he’s saying, “She just didn’t like the thunder,” even though the sky’s been clear all day.
You lean on the stall rail, arms folded, watching his hand move in slow strokes along the cow’s neck.
The steadiness of him with animals makes something twist in you, something like reluctant respect and something like fear, because if he can soothe two thousand pounds of nervous flesh with a voice and a touch, what could he do to yours if he ever decided to try.
On another night you fix a tear in one of his work shirts at the kitchen table because your father plops it there and says, “Stupid fool’s gonna walk around with his arm hangin’ out if someone don’t thread a needle.”
You mutter that Remmick has two hands and surely they can manage a seam, but you fetch your sewing basket anyway.
The fabric smells faintly of him, sweat and field and that odd metallic thread that’s been nagging at the back of your senses since he arrived.
You push the needle through worn cotton and wonder how a man gets a rip that clean across the bicep, by snagging it on barbed wire or nail head, without a single bloodstain around the torn edge.
He shows up to collect it before you take it down yourself. Don’t know how he knows it’s ready, but he’s at the door not long after you knot the last stitch, hat in hand like he’s paying a call.
Your father’s gone out back to piss or smoke or both, your mother’s dozing in her chair, so it’s just you in the quiet kitchen with your fingers still sore from the work.
“You didn’t have to,” he says when you hand the folded shirt over. “Could’ve walked around indecent a day or two, see if anyone complained.”
“My father would,” you say. “Don’t like loose things on his land.”
He takes the shirt with his good arm, the other rolling his shoulder like it aches. The lantern throws his eyes into little warm coins.
Some nights you only see him from a distance.
Through your bedroom window when you should be sleeping, you catch the sway of his lantern again and again, marking his rounds. In the moonlight, his stride is compact, efficient, not showy.
He moves like someone who’s spent a long time walking alone, someone who knows better than to waste steps. He never seems to stumble, never misjudges a rut or loose stone.
You watch him slip between the barn and the smaller house, in and out of shadow, and you tell yourself you’re just making sure he’s where he should be, that you are only doing what your father would want.
You notice, too, the nights when the light in his window stays on longer than makes sense. Long after your father’s snores have settled and your mama’s breath has evened into sleep, after you’ve lain there staring at the ceiling until your eyes burn, that far-off square of yellow will still be sitting out there at the edge of your sight.
Sometimes you think you see the shadow of him cross it, head bowed, shoulders hunched, moving back and forth in a tight little path, but when you squint it’s gone.
Once, you step out onto the porch for air and catch him already looking.
You don’t see him at first; you just feel that prickling awareness that has become his signature in your body.
Then your eyes find him where he’s paused near the barn, one hand on the fence post, the other hanging loose at his side. No lantern this time, just moonlight on his face, flattening all the hard parts, making his eyes look too bright and his mouth too soft.
He doesn’t look away when you notice him. He doesn’t call out or tip his hat in greeting. He just stands there in the dark, steady as another post, and lets you decide whether to step back inside or stay where the night can see both of you.
You stay a breath longer than you should, chest tight, heartbeat stepping up loud between your ears. Then you reach for the door, fingers curling around splintered wood, and it feels, for a strange second, like you’re the one retreating and he’s the one who lives here.
By the time a week has worked itself around, his presence has braided into the place.
The horse knows him, ears twitching toward his voice before dawn. The dogs have quit barking when his boots scrape the yard at dusk. Your father has stopped watching him like he might bolt and started calling for him when something heavy needs lifting.
The small farmhouse doesn’t look so empty now; you’ve grown used to the idea of a man’s breath in there, a man’s boots by the door, a man’s shadow on the curtain.
You’re the one still wary, nerves still stretched thin every time you feel his eyes, even if nobody else in the house seems to notice how often that is.
You catch him in little reflections—a sliver of him in the pump’s metal, in the window glass, in any surface that throws back light—and he’s always looking your way.
Not always outright, not always rude, but always aware of you. Always clocking where you are in the yard, whether your sleeves are rolled, whether your hem rides high on your calf or hangs proper at your ankle.
You tell yourself it’s just because there’s not much else worth watching out here.
You don’t quite believe it.
Clouds bruise up toward the horizon, swallowing the moon a few bites at a time. You’re at the kitchen table with mending in your lap when you hear it—one sharp, panicked bawl from the barn that cuts straight through the hum of crickets and the low murmur of your father’s radio.
You’re on your feet before you think about it, thimble still shoved on your finger, needle stuck tight in a loop of thread.
Your father says something about “damned horses spookin’ at their own shadows” but doesn’t move from his chair.
His back’s been bad all day; he’s been walking like every step hurts. Mama’s dozing, her breath a thin whistle.
So you grab the lantern from its hook, light blooming up in a hot bloom that stings your eyes, and head out barefoot into the yard.
The grass is cool against your soles, damp from the thick air. The little farmhouse where Remmick sleeps has a strip of light at the curtain-bottom, but you don’t see him outside. The barn looms ahead, big and dark, door standing half-open like a mouth. Another low, fretful sound comes from inside, not as sharp as the first but enough to hurry you along.
“Easy now,” you call as you slip in, lantern held high. “Hush yourself, girl, I’m comin’.”
The barn swallows the outside sounds. In here it’s hay and dust and the soft shuffling of hooves, the rustle of wings up in the rafters.
Your mare stamps once, snorting, eyes rolling white when the lantern light hits her. You cross the packed dirt quick, set the lantern on a hook so you’ve got both hands, and reach for her halter, stroking her long face.
“It’s just the weather actin’ strange,” you murmur, words more for yourself than her. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurt you.”
She settles a little under your voice, but her muscles are still tight, skin twitching under your palm.
You’re so focused on her that you don’t hear him until he’s already in the doorway.
“Somethin’ wrong?”
His voice slides through the gloom, low and rough.
You jerk a little, head snapping toward the barn entrance. He’s just inside the threshold, lantern in his hand turned down low, throwing more shadow than light. Sleeves rolled, suspenders hooked proper tonight, hair damp at the temples like he’s just come in from a hard walk.
“Lord,” you mutter, heart kicking hard. “You move too quiet. Thought you were a ghost.”
He lets out a short huff of a laugh. “Not yet.” The lantern swings by his knee as he steps inside, setting the hay shadows dancing. “Heard her fussin’. Figured I’d check before she took it into her head to kick through a stall.”
“She just spooked,” you say. “Storm brewin’ somewhere.”
He comes up nearer, close enough that you can see the sheen of sweat along his throat, the bead of something darker at the cuff of his shirt where it brushes his wrist.
His gaze does a quick, automatic sweep of the stall—manger, bucket, the mare’s flanks, your hand on her halter—and then it hooks on you, like it always does, like there’s a string between his eyes and your skin.
“You shouldn’t come out here by yourself at night,” he says, quiet, not rebuking exactly but not gentle either. “Barn full of spooked stock, any one of ’em could knock you right off your feet. Ain’t proper for a girl to be runnin’ around after dark alone.”
“That girl’s got ears,” you answer, voice tight, stroking the mare’s neck to hide your own nerves. “She can hear you fussin’ without talkin’ over her head.”
His mouth does that little tilt again, amused. “Reckon she can,” he says. “Reckon she don’t listen half as good as she ought, neither.”
You’re just shaping a sharp reply when it happens.
Something cracks outside, a dry, sharp sound—maybe a limb breaking, maybe a board settling wrong, maybe thunder grumbling way off where the clouds are thickest.
It doesn’t matter what it is. The mare flinches hard, shoulder slamming sideways. The stall rail shudders under the hit, and you’re standing too close, lantern throwing crazy shadows as the world jolts.
Your first instinct is to get out of the way. You jump back, skirts swishing, hand flying off the halter. You pivot toward the stall opening and catch—not air, not clear space, but the edge of an old nail head that’s been working itself loose from the post for years.
The sound of fabric tearing is loud as a gunshot in the barn.
It rips from just below your hip down the side of your thigh, a long, rude run that opens your dress like a mouth.
Cool air hits bare skin where cotton should be.
You gasp, more from the exposure than pain, and slap your hand down, fingers clutching at the split to keep it from gaping wider.
For a heartbeat you stand frozen, lantern light swinging, breath shallow, your leg half-bared through the torn seam.
You don’t have a slip on under this dress, not a proper one. It’s too hot. You’ve got plain cotton drawers and a whole lot of skin, and you know without looking that the tear has gone high, high enough that if you weren’t grabbing it shut he’d be seeing places no man has any business looking at on you.
“You all right?” Remmick’s closer before you register him moving, his boots whispering over packed dirt. His lantern clanks against a beam as he hangs it up. He reaches for you by pure reflex, hands coming to your arms, steadying you where you’ve stumbled.
“I’m fine,” you snap, too quick, humiliation burning your face, neck, chest. “Let go.”
You twist away from his grip, turning your hip, trying to angle the torn side away from him.
The dress shifts anyway, hem dragging through straw, and there’s a flash of thigh where your fingers don’t quite cover everything. You feel the rush of blood under your skin like you’ve been slapped.
His eyes drop before you can stop them.
It’s an instinct with him just like yours, hungry and automatic. His gaze hits the split, the glimpse of your leg, and sticks. Time slows down around that look. You see it happen, see the way his pupils widen, see the quick, sharp inhale he tries to hide.
“Jesus,” he breathes, almost soundless.
You yank the torn fabric tighter, the motion making the rip strain up higher, edge brushing the curve where your thigh meets your hip. Your whole body feels like a lantern flame, exposed and flickering. “Don’t you look,” you hiss, low and furious. “Turn around.”
One of his hands lifts, like he might actually offer to cover the tear for you, fingers curling as if they want to fit over the place you’re guarding. He stops himself, hand hovering for an awful second near your hip, close enough that you feel the heat of him even through the thin cotton.
“Ain’t my fault you went tearin’ yourself open on every nail in the county,” he says, tone trying for light and landing somewhere rougher.
His eyes drag up slow, from your knuckles clenched in the fabric, up the bare strip of thigh he already saw, up the shape of your waist and the heave of your chest. “Maybe you should let me look and make sure you didn’t cut that pretty skin to ribbons.”
The way he says pretty makes your stomach flip and your teeth set.
“I ain’t cut,” you spit. “And I sure as hell don’t need you inspectin’ me.”
He should look ashamed. Though, he doesn’t. There’s color high in his cheeks now, not from heat, not from work. His mouth’s gone a little slack, like he’s holding back words. His gaze keeps sneaking back to the place your hand guards, greedy, any time you aren’t staring right at him.
“If you say so,” he murmurs finally. “Wouldn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
You hear the echo of his earlier lie in that word, delicate, and decide if you stay here another minute you might do something you can’t take back, like slap him or cry or both.
You shift your grip to catch more fabric, bunching the torn side up in your fist so nothing shows. It makes walking harder; you’re hobbling, half-skipping, desperate not to let the skirt fall. “You see to the mare,” you manage, chin up, eyes burning. “I’ll fix my dress.”
He steps back enough to let you pass. As you squeeze by him in the narrow space, your shoulder brushes his chest, your bare calf bumps the hard line of his boot.
“Careful,” he says, voice quiet, right by your ear. “Would be a shame if the rest of that dress gave up and left you standin’ in nothin’ at all.”
You don’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. You duck your head and hurry out, every step measured so the torn seam doesn’t pull, one hand clamped between your thighs, lantern bumping at your knee.
The night air on your exposed skin feels wrong, every stray breeze finding its way up under the rip.
You keep your eyes fixed on the glow of the house, on the square of the kitchen window, on anything that is not the barn behind you.
You slam the kitchen door with more force than you mean to, startling your mama awake, mumble something about a nail catching you and make straight for your room. You don’t light your own lamp; you don’t want to see what he saw. You stand there in the dark with your back to the door and your dress torn open under your hand, heart hammering, ears roaring, shame and something hotter and uglier twisting up together in your belly.
Down by the south fence, in the smaller farmhouse, Remmick sits on the edge of his narrow bed with the easy, humming satisfaction of a man who’s been saving something up.
He lit the lamp as soon as he stepped in, not out of any real need for light but because he likes the way it throws shadows, likes the way it paints dim gold over bare wood and gives him something soft to look at while his mind runs back over the evening.
The room is small and warm from his own body heat, close enough that every breath feels shared with the walls. Old wood, dust, a curl of tobacco from the roll-up he finished outside, and under it all the ghost of you clinging to his clothes—soap and starch and sweat—make a thick little stew in the air.
He shrugged out of his shirt as soon as the door shut, tossing it over the chair without bothering to check if the seam you mended had held.
The rip in the fabric is nothing next to the rip in your dress that he can’t stop savoring. He works the buttons of his trousers loose without hurry, fingers moving with the contented patience of a man about to sit down to a meal he’s been smelling all day.
He doesn’t try not to think of you. That would be a waste of a perfectly good night.
He leans back against the wall, boots kicked off, pants open at the fly, and lets the picture come as easy as breath.
You in the barn with your hand clapped between your thighs, dress split wide, that slick little strip of thigh flashing when the cloth slipped. The way your eyes flared when you realized he’d seen, outrage and mortification and something bright under both. The sound of your voice when you told him not to look, like you already knew he was going to anyway.
“Hell,” he mutters, half laughing under his breath as his cock swells heavy against the thin barrier of his briefs. “Ain’t nothin’ on this earth I’d rather think on.”
His palm drifts down over his belly, fingers tracing a slow path to the bulge at his groin. Even that light touch makes him suck in air through his teeth.
He presses his hand over the outline of himself, feeling the hot, solid weight of his cock straining upward, and a low, pleased sound curls up out of his chest. He palms it once, a lazy roll, enjoying the way it kicks against his fingers like it’s eager too, then he slides his hand inside.
Warm cotton gives way to hot skin. He wraps his fist around the thick base of himself and exhales like he’s been holding that breath since the barn, relief and hunger tangled up in it. His cock sits heavy in his grip, veins standing up, the head already wet where precum has gathered from how long he’s been walking around hard on the memory of you.
“Look at that,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, thumb smearing that slickness over the swollen tip. “Worked up over one little tear. You’d laugh yourself sick if you saw me now, wouldn’t you?”
The thought of you seeing him like this, spread out on his narrow bed with his trousers open and his cock standing full in his hand, only makes him harder.
He drags his fist down slow, savoring the drag from head to base, then back up again, the friction sharp and sweet all at once. The first few strokes are measured, a man settling into a rhythm he plans to enjoy, not something hurried and guilty he has to choke down.
He lets his head tip back against the wall, eyes slipping shut so he can see you better behind his lids.
Not the church version, not the good girl with the hem tugged just so and the buttons done up high.
The barn version. Lantern light sliding over your bare thigh, the tremble in your fingers when you clutched at the rip, that split second when your hand wasn’t fast enough and he got the clean, unearned look he’s been replaying ever since.
“Shit,” he breathes, hand tightening, the slide of skin on skin picking up a little speed.
He drags his fist down again, slower, getting a feel for every inch, for the way his cock swells harder in his grip with each pass. Arousal slicks his thumb, gathers at the crest of the head, and he spreads it with an easy, greedy little twist, working it around until the slide turns wet and smooth.
His hips lift into his own hand without much prompting, body eager after nights of walking around with you on his tongue and in his teeth and under his nails.
“Bare leg,” he mutters, watching his hand move now, eyes half-lidded, lashes throwing shadows on his cheeks. “Goin’ about your business like you ain’t got that tucked up under your skirt. Like I ain’t seen it now.”
He remembers exactly how the tear opened, how the cotton gave and the seam surrendered, how your thigh flashed in the jumpy lantern light.
That first raw glimpse lives in his chest like a hot coal. Skin smooth and soft-looking, the curve of muscle under it, the sweet thickness where it met your hip.
He remembers your drawers too, plain white cotton clinging to you, riding that line between demure and lewd when the fabric shifted wrong.
His hand moves faster at that, instincts catching up with memory. He curls his fingers a little tighter, pulling from the heavy base up to the slick crown, milking a fresh bead of precum up with each stroke.
“Bet you went home and stitched that dress up neat as a Sunday virtue,” he says, voice roughened by breath. “Head bowed, lips bit, pretendin’ that leg ain’t still there underneath, smooth as cream and just as soft. Bet you can’t stop thinkin’ about me seein’ it neither.”
He can picture you at your little table, lamp burning, needle in hand, fingers trembling just enough to make the thread snag. Your face hot, your mouth set, your thighs pressed together under the cloth as you sew shame into every stitch. He imagines you tugging that seam tight, that same hand that clutched the torn fabric now working the needle, every pull a memory of his eyes on you.
His free hand slides down his belly, fingers pressing over the flexing muscles there, holding them tight as he fucks up into his own fist. The bed creaks under him, wood complaining, but he doesn’t slow. He spreads his legs wider on the mattress, giving himself more room to move, and the extra slack lets his strokes lengthen, his hips roll, everything turning into a slow rhythm.
“You know what I see when I close my eyes?” he asks the ceiling quietly, dragging his thumb across the slit. “Not that pretty little mouth tellin’ me not to look. I see that hand of yours slip. I see that dress fall open just a little more.”
The picture in his mind sharpens: you, back against a stall post, hand too busy clutching at rough wood to hold your skirts closed, light catching on the full line of your thigh as the rip edges skid higher.
He imagines the flap of cloth falling aside, full view of your leg from knee to hip, drawers pulled tight over the mound between your thighs, a faint darker patch where heat and sweat have gathered.
His cock throbs in his grip at that. He grits his teeth, pushes his palm down hard, and his hips jerk, chasing the pressure.
“Yeah,” he growls softly. “That’s it. Dress up around your waist, showin’ all that sweet flesh. You holdin’ on to that wood like it’s gonna save you, eyes full of righteous fury while your body’s tellin’ on you.”
His fingers slip lower on the stroke, pausing to cup his balls, rolling them in his palm, feeling the tight, heavy pull there. The sensation punches another sound out of him. He goes back to his cock with renewed urgency, arm working harder now, hand pumping.
He lets himself wander further than any real moment has gone. Lets the memory of that tear turn into something else, something he can taste.
He imagines stepping in close before you can bolt, one hand catching your wrist, the other gathering your torn skirt up and out of his way. Imagines your gasp, that little sharp intake he already knows, your bare thigh hitting his hip as he pins you to the stall. Your panties stretched tight over the soft swell of your cunt, his fingers pushing up against the dampening cloth, feeling how hot you are through the barrier.
“Pretend you don’t want it,” he murmurs, throat rasping. “Try to act like you ain’t gettin’ wet for me while you fuss.”
The words sound vulgar and right in his mouth. His cock swells at it, the head aching now, sensitive with every pass. He squeezes at the top, thumb pressing just under the crown, and his whole body shudders, pleasure rushing up his spine.
“Be a good girl,” he hears himself whispering to the woman in his head, the one pressed to barn wood with her dress in tatters. “Spread ’em for me, let me see what you’re hidin’.”
His hand flies now, finding a quick, dirty rhythm. His breath comes rough, each inhale catching, each exhale spilling out in curses and half-formed praises.
“You’d flush right up to your hairline,” he pants, head rolling against the wall. “Act all offended while your thighs tremble and that pretty thing between ’em throbs. Might even cry a little, wouldn’t you? All sweet and scared and soaked.”
The image of you crying—eyes bright, lashes wet, lips bitten—while your body betrays you sends him right to the edge. His balls draw up tight, cock jumping in his fist, veins standing out under his skin. Heat coils at the base of his spine, that familiar pull gathering everything in, ready to snap.
He spits into his hand for more slick, doesn’t even bother wiping his mouth. The added wetness turns his strokes into something obscene, the sound echoing in the small room. His forearm snaps, muscles burning, chasing the crest bearing down on him.
“Come on then,” he grits. “Show me.”
He imagines hooking a finger under the edge of your drawers and pulling the cotton aside. Imagines the first sight of you bare between your thighs, folds swollen, maybe already glistening, all that heat finally out in the lantern light instead of tucked away in shadows and good manners.
“That’s it,” he rasps, voice breaking, hips jerking harder into his fist. “Knew you’d be pretty there. Knew you’d be soft.”
The wave hits with no ceremony; it slams through him like a mule kick. His whole body locks, stomach clenching, heels digging into the thin mattress, head thumping dully against the wall.
A groan tears out of him, rough and strangled, half-swallowed behind clenched teeth. His cock jerks in his hand, once, twice, then again, spilling hot over his fingers and across his stomach in thick, pulsing ropes.
He rides it out, hand still working, strokes shortening but not stopping, milking every last drop. Cum coats his knuckles, drips over his fist, slicking his grip until his palm slips on the softening length.
“Fuck,” he breathes when he can breathe again, voice low and wrecked.
His strokes slow, then ease off altogether, fingers loosening their grip.
For a moment he just sits there, chest rising and falling, wrist slick and heavy, cock giving a few last, half-hearted twitches in his hand. Sweat cools on his forehead, a bead sliding down along his temple.
He looks down at the mess on his belly, streaks shining in the lamplight, dripping off the side of his hand. There’s no disgust in the way he examines it; if anything, there’s pride. A crooked smile tugs at his mouth, lazy and satisfied.
“Look what you pulled out of me, and you weren’t even here,” he murmurs, more pleased than ashamed.
He wipes his hand across his stomach, smearing instead of cleaning, fingers drawing idle patterns through the stickiness before he drags them off onto a wadded-up shirt at his side.
The cotton takes the worst of it, darkening where it soaks, but he doesn’t fuss about the rest. Let it dry on his skin. Let it sit there as a reminder.
He tucks himself back into his briefs, though he doesn’t bother fastening his trousers all the way, leaving the fly gaping a little for air.
His body feels loose and heavy now, bones sunk deep into the thin mattress. The edge is blunted, that sharp hunger dulled to a warm, low thrum, but it’s not gone.
He leans his head back and lets his eyes drift half-closed, the lamp still burning low.
In the quiet, he can almost hear you tossing under your own quilt up the rise, feel the echo of your indignation, imagine the way your fingers might trace absent circles over the mended seam of your dress while you tell yourself you hate him.
He runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, savoring that thought as much as any touch.
“Gonna see it torn again,” he says softly, not quite a promise, not quite a threat.
The lamp flickers, a tiny flame fighting sleep. Outside, crickets scream and something small scurries through the grass.
The little house settles around him with soft creaks and sighs. He closes his eyes fully at last, the picture of your bare thigh and your furious face smoothing together into one sweet, ripe ache he’s already wondering how soon he can taste again.
Most nights Remmick does his rounds like he’s supposed to, lantern swinging at his knee, gate latches checked, fence wire plucked and listened to like strings.
But once he knows the map of the place in his bones, once he has counted every post and measured every path, his feet start wandering off the straight lines your daddy would like him to walk.
He learns where the shadows fall thickest under the pecan tree by the side yard, where the dark under the eaves hides a man from anyone glancing out through lamplight.
He learns just how far back he can stand and still see into the kitchen window when you’re up late, sleeves rolled, forearms wet to the elbow, talking to your mama while you scrub a pan.
He learns that when you think everybody’s settled, you lean your hip against the counter and tilt your head a little while you dry your hands, and that little shift of weight does things to your dress you’d never let it do in town.
He finds out you like the back porch at night even more than you like it at dusk. That when the work is done and your parents are loud in their sleep, you slip out with a glass or a cup and sit with your legs stretched, ankles crossed, toes tracing idle circles on the board beneath them.
From the fence line he can see the shine of lamplight on your bare shins when your hem rides up, can see the loose, tired way you soften back into the chair.
He watches you tilt your face toward the dark yard like you’re asking it questions it hasn’t answered yet, listens to the little sounds you make—half-sighs, half-hums—that never show up when anyone else is awake.
He leans on a post with a cigarette hanging from his fingers and looks until he’s had his fill, no hurry in him, nothing but a lazy, steady satisfaction in knowing you have no idea.
He learns your bedroom window, too. Where it sits in relation to the oak, how far up the slope he has to stand to see its square of light.
The first time he notices the curtain isn’t quite shut, it’s by accident; he’s walking back late, boots slow on the path, when a slice of movement catches his eye.
Curtain gapping, lamp turned low, you moving around your room in that soft circle people make before bed.
He stops in the shadow of the tree without even thinking, shoulder to rough bark, the leaves above him murmuring in a wind that doesn’t get down into the yard.
From there he can see you in fragments—an arm as you reach up to unbutton, a brief glimpse of the side of your neck, the line of your shoulder as fabric slips.
He tells himself he’ll move when you’re done, that he’s only making sure you got in safe. He stays until the lamp goes out.
The night he sees you in the bath, there’s not even that thin excuse.
It’s late enough the frogs have worn down to a sleepy chorus and the crickets sound drunk. A low, warm fog sits over the fields, pressing scents in close: damp earth, animals settled in their pens, soap drifting thin from the open kitchen window where somebody forgot to latch it right.
He’s finished his rounds early, all the work of the night sitting behind him instead of ahead, and he feels that restless itch under his skin again, that soft, prowling urge that has nothing to do with fences and everything to do with you.
The house is a square of softer dark against the sky, only a couple of windows holding light.
He knows which is which now without having to think about it. Kitchen, front room, your parents’ room. The little back room off the side where the big galvanized tub sits when somebody’s been lucky enough to haul enough water.
Tonight it’s that one glowing gentle behind its thin cotton curtain, lantern hanging somewhere just out of sight, making the fabric look like a pale, breathing thing.
He circles wide, slipping along the edge of the yard where the grass meets the packed dirt of the lane, where the shadows from the trees throw him one more thin cloak.
The bath window is low, glass fogged a little from steam. The curtain is drawn but not all the way, left a thumb’s width open on one side—enough for light to leak out in a narrow spill. Enough, if a man stepped in close and angled himself just right, to see inside.
He comes up under the sill, breath slow, boots quiet, and lays his palm flat against the siding to steady himself. The boards are cool and rough under his fingers. He leans his shoulder into them and tilts his head, lining his eye up with that careless little gap.
Heat hits him first, a wet, sweet breath rolling out into the night. The lantern inside throws shadows high on the wall, flickering over the curve of the tub, over the length of you in it.
You’re sunk down in the water with your knees bent, one leg drawn up just enough for him to see the shape of it under the surface, the other stretched straighter, foot braced on the far side.
The water glows around you, gone cloudy with soap, clinging in beads to your skin where it’s out of the tub.
Your shoulders show above the rim, bare and slick, drops running down in slow trails.
Steam curls off your chest, off the slopes of your breasts where they rise from the water, soft and heavy, nipples pebbled tight from the heat or the air or both. The lamplight loves them, catching on every curve, laying little gold crowns on each peak.
Your head is tipped back against the rolled towel you’ve wedged between neck and tin, eyes closed, lips parted just enough for breath. One arm drifts along the tub’s edge, fingers dragging lazy patterns through the thin scum of soap there, the other resting across your stomach.
He watches your ribs move with each inhale, the slight swell and fall of your belly under your palm.
You're so unaware of him that it feels almost holy.
He drinks it in like it’s what he came here for all along, no flinch in him, no apology. His gaze roams where it will.
From the line of your throat down to the hollow between your collarbones, where a small puddle has gathered and overflowed in slow rivulets; down over the slick, shining hills of your breasts, the way they shift just a little with every breath, the way the waterline cuts across them. Lower, to where the curve of your stomach disappears under the opaque water, hinting at more, promising everything.
You shift, lifting one arm to drag the washcloth over your shoulder. The washcloth trails over the round of your shoulder, down the outside of your arm, across the swell of your breast, nipple tightening even more when the rough cloth skims past.
You don’t seem to notice the way your own body responds; you’re too busy chasing day-dirt away, lifting your arm to scrub your neck, tilting your head to give yourself better reach.
From his vantage, he sees everything. His hand tightens on the siding, knuckles going white, that buzzing hunger flaring up bright and hot behind his eyes.
He stares, not making a sound.
You work the cloth down your arm and set it aside, then slide both hands into the water, scooping and pouring over yourself.
You lift your leg a little, knee rising higher, water spilling off in sheets, showing him the smooth length of your thigh all the way to the place where it vanishes back under the cloudy surface. The muscles there flex as you shift, your toes stretching, calf defined a moment before settling again.
For a brief second, the water thins enough he can see the shadowed shape where your thighs meet, softened by the haze but there, real and mouth-watering.
His eyes go dark on it, pupils swallowing light. He leans in a fraction more, cheek almost touching the glass, breath fogging the edge of the pane where it meets the frame.
Every small move you make sends little waves across your body, playing light over the parts he can see, hinting at the parts he can’t.
You sigh, the sound faint through the wall but clear. Your head tips a little to the side, cheek turning toward the window without quite facing it.
One hand skims over your sternum, following the center line of your body until it disappears under the water.
Your fingers paddle lazily there for a moment, moving along your own stomach, over the soft give of your lower belly.
He imagines exactly where they’re drifting, what warm, slick places they’re brushing, even if you’re not thinking of it like that. Your face gives nothing away but relief, a tired little slackness, the expression of someone finally easing aches out of their bones.
“You ain’t got a clue,” he breathes, lips ghosting the words against the flaking clapboard. There’s satisfaction in it, not cruelty. “Bathin’ like Eve in a picture book with the curtain open and the devil on the outside lookin’ in.”
His hand, the one not braced on the wall, shifts restlessly by his side, brushing the front of his trousers.
He doesn’t touch himself proper, not yet; this is looking time. He wants to be empty enough of the last time to fill up on this one entire.
His fingers flex anyway, his palm pressing for a moment against the growing bulge, acknowledging it. His cock swells quick and eager, remembering the barn, welcoming the new fodder.
You lean forward to reach the soap, and the angle changes.
For a breathless few seconds he gets the long line of your back, the way it curves from nape to waist, the hollow above your hips, the dimples that show when you move just so. Water slides off you in glittering trails, trickling down along your spine, pooling in the small of your back before spilling lower.
As you sit back again, that same water slips over the round of your ass where it breaks the surface, catching the light along the curve, then vanishes under the cloudy bath.
He closes his eyes briefly, just to fix it, then opens them again. He doesn’t want to miss a thing.
You lather your hands, work the soap into your skin, fingers massaging into your shoulders, down along your collarbones.
The more you scrub, the slipperier you become, water beading and running, foam clinging in thin streaks before melting away.
When you finally slide your hands under the water, scrubbing lower, your elbows move in a rhythm that makes something low and obscene curl in his gut.
He knows you’re only washing, just doing what needs doing, but to him it looks like a preview, looks like a rehearsal of things you haven’t yet learned to want.
He watches until the waterline creeps lower on the lantern as the bath cools and you sink down, chasing warmth. Watches as you finally let yourself relax fully, shoulders sliding under, just your face above the surface, eyes closed, breaths slow and even.
Only when you sit forward and reach for the towel hanging on the peg beside the tub does he ease back from the window.
He knows if he lingers another second, if he sees you stand, water sheeting off every inch as you step out, he’ll plant roots under this sill and never leave.
There will be other nights, he tells himself.
He peels himself off the wall, body humming, and slips back into the darker yard, breath still measured, strides easy.
By the time he’s at the edge of the light, he has his lantern in hand again, held low, the picture of a man just passing through on his way to some small piece of work.
He doesn’t feel a lick of shame. What would be the use of it, when the memory of you in that tub is already lodged in his body like a polished stone, something he can roll under his tongue whenever he chooses.
You’ll go to bed clean and soft, thinking maybe about chores and storms and the seam you mended this morning.
He’ll go back to his little house with your wet skin behind his eyes and no confusion about what he plans to do with it.
The day’s been long, the kind that starts with a rooster and ends with your back feeling twice your age.
By the time supper’s put away and the kitchen wiped down, your father’s in his chair with his boots off, socks so full of holes you don’t know why he bothers wearing them, radio mumbling low out of the corner. Your mother’s gone to bed early with a headache, door cracked just enough that you can hear her cough now and again.
You’re halfway through folding the dish towels when you remember.
Mama’s good jar of salve.
You can see it plain in your mind’s eye: small tin with the blue lid, the one she guards like treasure.
She sent you looking for it just after dinner, when she noticed the raw place on your father’s wrist from rope burn and the darkening bruise on your own hip from where the stall rail caught you days ago.
You’d gone to fetch more wood for the stove first, meaning to get the salve on your way back, and somehow it slipped right out of your head, chased off by smoke and scolding and the rush to get biscuits off the fire before they burned.
Your father’s already grumbled twice about the barn nail and told you if you’d been paying mind you wouldn’t have torn your dress, wouldn’t have bruises, wouldn’t have needed fussing.
You can hear him in the morning if he finds that wrist still angry and your hip still tender. Can hear that disappointed click of his tongue.
You’d seen him hand the tin to Remmick earlier in the week, mumbling something about “keep this on hand, boy, in case you tear yourself up,” and watched the new hand tuck it into the pocket of his coat before heading down to the little farmhouse.
“That’s where it is,” you murmur, more to the quiet kitchen than to anyone. A little knot between your brows loosens when you place it. “Down there.”
You glance at the clock. It’s late enough the newsman’s gone off the air, early enough the world hasn’t quite tipped into the dead hours where the dark feels thickest.
Outside the window, the yard is quiet, the barn a heavy shadow, the smaller house beyond it just a darker square against the field.
“Where’s that boy?” Your father mutters around his cigarette, not really expecting an answer. “Ain’t heard him come in for coffee. He out checkin’ fence or sleepin’ on my dime?”
“Out, I reckon,” you say, folding the last towel with a sharp little snap.
Truth is, you haven’t heard his boots either. You haven’t seen his lantern bob by the window. It’s been a soft, blank stretch of night, no sign of him.
You tell yourself that means he’s at the far end of the pasture or walking the ditch line. Exactly where he’s supposed to be.
“I’ll fetch Mama’s salve,” you add, already untying your apron, tucking it over the back of a chair. “She’ll want it first thing in the mornin’.”
Joe nods, smoke curling out of his nose. “Don’t you linger,” he says, not looking up. “Get what you need and bring your tail back in this house. I don’t want you down there visitin’ like it’s social hour.”
You bite back the urge to say you’d sooner visit the pig pen. “Yes, sir,” is what comes out instead.
The night air catches you on the porch, damp and soft, smelling of cooling dirt and a hint of something sweet blooming out by the fence.
You step down barefoot, skirts whispering around your calves, the boards’ splinters familiar against your soles. The big house’s light spills just to the bottom of the steps, then gives up, letting the yard roll out into dark.
The little farmhouse sits a ways off, past the well, past the worn track where the wagon turns. All its windows are black. No orange seam under the curtain, no silhouette rising and falling against the glass. The barn is quiet too, doors thrown shut, only a thin line of moon-silver along the roof.
You latch onto the sight of that dark little house like proof. He’s not there. He’s out somewhere with a lantern and a bad attitude.
You’ll be in and out before he knows you’ve even left your room.
You wrap that thought around yourself like a shawl and start across the yard.
The grass is cool and a little slick with dew under your feet, clinging between your toes. Crickets saw at the edges of things, frogs mutter down in the low spots. The well’s stone lip rises out of the ground like something old and patient; you ghost past it, keeping your eyes on the squat shadow of the farmhouse.
Up close, it looks smaller, somehow meaner. The door is shut, the porch bare save for his boots lined up neat off to one side. You take in that detail with a little flick of relief—boots off means man in bed, not loose in the yard—before another thought slides in behind it: or just inside.
You hesitate only a heartbeat.
The want to not get scolded in the morning, the want to have Mama’s salve where she can lay hands on it, outweighs the whisper of sense telling you this is foolish.
You lay your palm on the door and push.
It gives with a small, tired creak, the smell of the place rolling over you in a warm wave: wood, straw, tobacco, sweat, and that faint metallic thread you’ve started to think of as his alone. There’s a lamp turned low on the table just inside, wick pinched till the flame is barely more than a coal in a glass throat, enough to lay out the shapes of things and nothing more.
“Remmick?” you call, voice barely above a whisper, more habit than hope. When nothing answers—not a word, not a shift of boards—you let your breath out slow and step over the threshold.
The door eases halfway shut behind you, not latched. You don’t bother with it; you don’t plan to be here long enough to worry about what’s open and what isn’t.
The room is small and spare, just like your daddy said it was. Bed against one wall, blanket rumpled from someone sitting, if not lying. Chair with a coat thrown over the back, shirt draped careless on top. Table with the lamp, a chipped cup, a folded knife. A shelf holding a few tin plates, a jar of coffee, the heel of a loaf.
You move quick but careful, eyes trying not to linger on the smaller things that say a man’s been living here—his belt coiled on the chair seat, his hat hanging from the peg, the empty space on the floor where his boots were.
You head straight for the coat, remembering your father’s hand dropping the salve tin into its pocket.
You pinch the fabric between your fingers, easing it aside, but the weight you expect to tug at the hem isn’t there. The coat hangs light. You pat the pockets; they’re empty, save for a wadded rag and a stray button.
“Damn,” you breathe, annoyed, under your breath.
Maybe he moved it. Maybe he took it out so the tin wouldn’t fall and get lost when he shrugged the coat on.
You cast your eyes around the room, searching high shelves, low boxes, any place someone might set a small, important thing.
The table catches your attention next. You circle it, gaze skimming over the knife, the cup, the lamp.
There, near the edge, half in shadow—a squat little tin no bigger than your palm, blue lid dulled with age.
You smile in spite of yourself and reach for it. “Got you,” you murmur, closing your fingers around the cool metal.
You pop the lid just enough to see the salve inside, pale and thick, smelling faintly of herbs and camphor, then press it back down with a soft click. The job’s done. Simple as that.
You turn, already thinking about the path back to the house, about slipping this into Mama’s hand and letting yourself be proud she won’t have to wonder where it is in the morning.
You don’t make it two steps.
There he is.
Standing in the doorway that leads to the small back room, shoulder braced against the frame like he’s been leaning there a while, like he grew right up out of the wood.
He’s shirtless, skin slicked faint with sweat, the rise and fall of his chest slow and easy. Suspenders hang loose against his hips, clipped to his trousers but fallen off his shoulders, framing the cut of his torso in dark lines.
The lamp’s low light paints him in gold and shadow both, dipping into the hollow between his collarbones, skating over the plane of his stomach, catching on the trail of hair that runs down from his navel into the waistband of his pants.
His arms cross over his chest, veins standing faint along the backs of his hands where they rest against his biceps.
His feet are bare. His eyes are not gentle.
“Find what you was lookin’ for?” he asks, voice soft, too soft, the scrape of it wrapping around the words like a touch.
Your heart gives one wild jump, slamming up against your ribs hard enough to hurt, then starts to run.
You hadn’t heard him come in. Hadn’t heard the back door, hadn’t heard the floor protest, hadn’t heard anything but your own little fussing search and the tiny pop of the salve lid.
For a foolish second you think about hiding the tin, tucking it behind your back like a child caught in a pantry. You don’t. There’s nowhere to put it he wouldn’t see, and you refuse to give him the pleasure of watching you scramble.
Instead you hold it up just enough that he can see the blue lid glint in the lamplight. “My mama’s salve,” you say, surprised at how even your voice comes out. “Daddy gave it to you. He forgot where he put it. I came to fetch it.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at the tin for more than a passing glance. His attention stays on you, heavy as a hand between your shoulder blades. He rakes his gaze from your face down to the salve, then lower, slow as a man looking over a field he’s about to plow.
You suddenly know exactly how your dress is sitting—where the fabric pulls across your chest from turning too quick, where the skirt clings to your thighs from the damp in the grass, where your collar gapes just a breath more than it should because you didn’t bother with the top button in the heat. Your skin prickles under each place you picture his eyes touching.
“You always just walk yourself into a man’s house without knockin’?” he asks after a beat, one brow ticking up.
“This ain’t a house,” you reply, chin lifting a shade. “It’s a shack my father stuck you in so you’d be closer to the barn.”
Something like amusement flickers across his mouth. “Still mine for now,” he says. “Door was shut, wasn’t it?”
“You left the lamp on,” you shoot back. “Anybody with decent sense would take that as invitation in case of emergency.”
He uncrosses his arms then, letting them drop to his sides. The motion makes muscles jump in his chest, the lines of his shoulders shifting under skin. “And what’s the emergency, miss?” he asks. “That your mama’s medicine was sittin’ ten yards farther than you like it?”
His tone isn’t mocking. It isn’t kind either. It’s something in between, something testing. Like he’s poking at you with words just to feel where you’re soft.
You swallow, the salve tin suddenly heavy in your hand. “I said why I came,” you answer. “I’ll be goin’ now.”
You move to head toward the front door, the one you came in, but the room is small, and he doesn’t move. One pace brings you close enough to smell him. Another pace would put you near enough to brush him if you misjudged your route.
He shifts his weight to fill the doorway more fully, one hand lifting to rest on the frame to the side of him. It leaves his ribs bare, that patch of hair under his arm catching the lamplight. There’s a faint scar along his flank, pale against the warmth of his skin, old and ugly, like something tore him open once and he lived anyway.
“Seems a shame,” he says, looking at you. “You comin’ all this way just to snatch up a tin and run.”
Your pulse hammers harder. “It ain’t far.”
“For you,” he agrees. “For me it’s a long, lonely walk most nights. I might be grateful for a little company.”
“You got company,” you say, words a little sharper than you intend. “You got every cow, every dog, every fence post on this land. You don’t need me.”
He lets that roll over him like water off a duck’s back. “Maybe I’m tired of talkin’ to things that can’t talk back,” he murmurs. His eyes flick down to the salve again, then to your hand, to your wrist where your pulse beats visible in the hollow. “You tore yourself up any today, or you just borrowin’ this for show?”
“Bruise on my hip,” you admit before you can remind yourself you owe him nothing. The words come out stiff. “Ain’t your concern.”
“Everythin’ that happens on this farm’s my concern when it means workers showin’ up busted in the mornin’,” he says. “You do work, don’t you? Or are you just here to keep the place pretty.”
Heat flashes through you, quick and mean. “You've seen me work,” you say. “You've seen me at that pump, at that stove, out in the yard. Don’t you stand there half-dressed and ask if I do my share.”
His mouth twitches at half-dressed. He doesn’t bother to hide the way his gaze drops, quick, down the front of himself and back up, as if to say he knows exactly how much he’s wearing and how much you’re seeing. It’s deliberate, that small, shameless acknowledgement of his own body.
“Believe me,” he says, voice dropping lower, “I’ve seen you.”
The words land between you, heavy and thick. They mean more than they say. Every peek he’s stolen presses into the space they open up: your bare leg in the barn, your shoulders shining in the bath, your tired posture on the back porch, one strap slipping careless down your arm before you hitched it back up.
You don’t know about most of that. What you do know is enough to make your throat go dry.
“I ain’t supposed to be down here visitin’,” you say, trying to wrestle the conversation back onto some ground that feels steadier. “My father told you that when you got here. Told me too.”
His eyes gleam at the mention of your father, some dark amusement sparking there. “He told me to show you respect,” he says. “And I have. Haven’t laid a hand on you that you didn’t walk too close to yourself.”
Your mind trips over the memory of his fingers catching your arm in the barn, steadying you when your mare spooked. The way his hand hovered near your torn dress, heat just shy of your hip. The way he stood in the yard with his eyes on your mouth and called you miss like it was something he wanted to lick.
You draw yourself up as tall as you can manage in the little room, salve tin tight in your grip, refusing to yield the step he’s trying to take without moving his feet. “Then you’ll move,” you say, voice low but steady. “So I can go on home and keep livin’ my life with all that respect you’re so proud of.”
For a moment, you think he might laugh in your face. His lips part, teeth catching on his bottom lip, eyes glinting.
Instead he just looks at you.
It’s worse than if he’d laughed. He looks like a man deciding how honest he feels like being tonight. Like he’s weighing whether to keep playing at politeness or lay something sharper on the table between you.
The lamplight flickers, shadow jumping along his jaw as he tilts his head. “You walk out that door,” he says finally, nodding toward the porch, “and I’ll let you. I ain’t gonna drag you nowhere you don’t step first.”
Relief and something colder flick through you at the same time. “Good,” you start to say, but he isn’t done.
“But,” he adds, and that one little word lands heavy, “you come walkin’ into my place after dark again, all alone, dressed like that, lookin’ at me like you don’t know whether you wanna slap me or cry on me—well.” His gaze drops to your mouth and back. “That’s you steppin’. And I’ll take it as such.”
Your heart stutters, one hard misstep in its rhythm. “You overestimate yourself,” you snap, even as your fingers twitch on the tin.
He smiles then, slow and wolfish, the expression finally reaching his eyes in a way you haven’t seen yet.
“We’ll see,” he says.
For a long, tight second, nobody moves. The walls feel closer, the air thicker, the lamplight too intimate. You hear the frogs outside, the creak of the house settling, the little wet sound of your own swallow. His bare chest rises and falls, steady, like he’s got all the time in the world.
Then he steps to the side.
The doorway opens up behind him, a narrow slice of night visible over his bare shoulder. It’s more space than you expected him to yield, less than you’d like.
You duck past, your shoulder nearly brushing his chest, the heat pouring off him making your skin prickle. You feel his eyes on the side of your face, on the line of your throat, on the way you have to hitch your skirt just a little to keep from tripping as you step over the threshold.
“Goodnight, miss,” he says softly, right by your ear, breath warm as it ghosts over your neck. “You be careful now. Dark’s full of things you don’t know about.”
You don’t trust your voice not to shake, so you don’t give him the satisfaction of hearing it. You just walk, bare feet hitting the packed earth hard, fingers biting into the salve tin so tight the metal cuts a little crescent into your palm.
Rough wood presses into your hips, edge digging a little where your nightgown’s ridden up, breath catching in short, shallow pulls because he’s got one big hand flat between your shoulder blades, holding you there, and the other is on your ass, fingers clawed into the thin cotton, bunching it up and away from your thighs.
The lamp in the corner throws a low, mean light over the kitchen, just enough to show you the knot in the tabletop and the chipped plate someone left on the shelf, just enough to catch the shadow of his arm when it moves.
You came down here hot with it. Anger, mostly.
At him for looking at you how he does, for crowding doorways and talking low in your ear. At yourself for feeling anything besides disgust when he does it.
For weeks that feeling has sat under your skin like a burr under a saddle, rubbing everything raw—every brush of his eyes, every sly comment, every late-night glimpse of his lantern out in the yard when you should’ve been sleeping.
Tonight it tipped over. Tonight you lay in your bed and stared at the ceiling and saw his bare chest in that little house instead, heard his voice saying we’ll see, felt your own body answer in a way that wouldn’t quit.
So you got up after the house went quiet, barefoot on the boards, heart in your throat.
You didn’t bring a lamp. You told yourself you were just going to tell him off, to say plain that you didn’t want him looking, didn’t want him speaking to you sideways, didn’t want the innuendo and the smirks and the way he made you feel peeled without ever laying a proper hand on you.
That was the story you wrapped yourself in as you crossed the yard, nightgown clinging to your knees.
He opened the door before you could knock, like he’d been standing right on the other side with his palm on the handle, listening.
You remember the way his eyes moved over you, slow, no shirt, just those loose trousers hanging low on his hips, lamp behind him making his shoulders look broad and his face unreadable.
You remember his mouth forming your name, quiet and satisfied, like he’d been waiting to say it like this.
You remember the way all that anger and want surged up together in your chest, wild and tangled, and how you said something too sharp, voice shaking, about him needing to keep his eyes to himself if he wanted to stay on your daddy’s land.
Now here you are with his hand on your back, pressing, holding you down exactly where you came—over his small scarred table in his small farmhouse kitchen—your own fingers gripping the edge in a white-knuckled clutch.
“Thought you weren’t supposed to be down here visitin’,” he drawls above you, breath warm near your ear, words rolling over your spine. “That what you told me?”
You glare at the knot in the wood like it did you personal harm.
Your face is hot, your body even hotter, a slow, heavy throb deep between your thighs that started halfway across the yard and hasn’t done a thing but grow.
“I ain’t visitin’,” you say, the words a little muffled by the way he’s got you folded. “I came to talk sense into you.”
His laugh is low and pleased, hand on your back sliding a little, fingers spreading, thumb settling along your spine. He presses down just enough to remind you who’s holding you where you are.
“Is that what you call it,” he says, “showin’ up in your bed things after dark, sneakin’ through my door with your hands empty and your eyes wide? Talkin’ sense?”
His other hand cups your ass through the thin fabric, palm wide over you, squeezing like he’s testing a piece of fruit at the market.
The nightgown has twisted up, hem caught high over your hips, leaving the bottom curve of you bare to his touch, only the cotton of your drawers between his fingers and your skin.
Heat floods that spot, a sharp, shameful pulse that makes your breath catch.
“You been walkin’ around twitchy as a cat for days,” he goes on, hand kneading, thumb digging into the give of your flesh there. “Snappin’ at me, snappin’ at your daddy, gettin’ that look on your face every time you see me like you don’t know whether to spit or spit somethin’ else.”
“Shut up,” you hiss, mortified at how true it feels in your bones.
You shift your hips, trying to wriggle away from that hand, and all it does is grind you back against his palm, soft cotton dragging over the swell of you, catching on the seam that runs right over the place you’re trying not to think about.
He makes a sound at that, low in his throat, rough and appreciative. “Yeah. There she is,” he says, words coming a little thicker now. “All that fire. You walked your own self down here, girl. Nobody dragged you.”
“I came to tell you to stop,” you manage, though the way your voice climbs at the end takes the bite out of it. His fingers curl, grab a little handful of your ass cheek through the cloth, and you feel the ache spike hotter. “Stop lookin’. Stop talkin’ like that. Stop—stop–”
“Stop makin’ you feel all twisted up?” he supplies, not unkind, just plain.
His hand on your back softens, spreads, rubbing along your spine like he’s soothing a spooked animal even as the other keeps kneading at you.
“Stop remindin’ you there’s more to be had in this world than hymns and beans and mendin’?”
You suck a breath in through your teeth. “You ain’t the only man alive,” you snap. “You ain’t special.”
His grip tightens, a hard squeeze that makes you gasp. “No,” he agrees easily. “But I’m the only one you marched down here to cuss out in your bare feet and nightclothes, so I’d say I’m doin’ something right.”
You hate how your body answers that, how something low in you liquefies at the thought of it, at the truth you don’t want to name. You hate the way your thighs press together of their own accord, seeking pressure, seeking relief, even as you hold yourself rigid under his hand.
He feels it. His palm slides down, fingers curling under the heavy curve of you, thumb dragging along the crease where your ass meets the top of your thigh.
You’re hyper-aware of every inch, every callus on his skin, every place the old wood digs into your hips. When his hand moves inward, fingers bumping close to the center of you, you flinch.
“Don’t—” you start, panic and want knitting together, but the word thins out when his touch presses just a little firmer over the damp cotton there.
“You’re soaked,” he says softly, no mockery in it, just raw, hungry wonder. “Walked through my door mad as sin, all full of pretty speeches, and your cunt’s already cryin’ for somethin’ to hold on to.”
Shame scorches up your neck. “Don’t call it that,” you choke, mortified, the word hitting you deep and low and making everything worse.
He hums, thumb tracing a slow circle over that swell, pressing right where the cloth is clinging. The pressure is perfect, unbearable.
“What you want me to call it, then?” he asks, voice brushing the shell of your ear now.
“Your virtue? Your purity? That sweet spot between your legs that ain’t nobody touched?” His thumb moves again, firmer, and your hips jolt against your will. “’Cause I see it all over you, darlin’. You came here wantin’ me to stop, but your body came here wantin’ somethin’ else entirely.”
You shake your head, even as your toes curl, even as your lungs drag in another sharp breath that tastes like him and the lamp smoke and the hot, close air of this little house.
“You’re—you’re foul,” you say, but it comes out thin, breathy. “You been lookin’ at me, watchin’ me, talkin’ to me like—”
“Like I know what to do with you,” he cuts in, a hint of impatience threading through his heat. “And I do. You think I don’t see what’s eatin’ at you every time you glance down at my hands, or my mouth, or lower?”
His fingers slide along the seam of your drawers, finding the little ridge where cloth meets cloth and pressing right there.
It sends a jolt through you big enough you can’t muffle the small sound that drops out of your throat.
His hand on your back pushes down, keeping you bent, letting you grind into that touch without rising off the table.
“Listen here,” he says, voice roughening, patience fraying. “You came. You’re here. You can tell me to stop and I will. I ain’t gonna take what you don’t hand me. But don’t stand there in my house, drippin’ on my floor, and try to lie about what you’re feelin’.”
The room seems to shrink around those words.
You know he’s right. You also know how far you are from where you were supposed to be, from the girl who said she’d never let a man like him get close, from the girl who swore she’d keep herself intact till some tidy, respectable husband came along with a ring and a house and his hat in his hands.
You think about those men. Faces you’ve seen in church, in town, men who look at you when they think you’re not noticing with a hunger they don’t know what to do with. Men who’d apologize if their fingers brushed your wrist too long.
Then you think about this man, bare-chested behind you, hard and unashamed, his hand pressed between your shoulder blades, the other on you like you’re his to handle.
You think about his eyes in the barn, on your torn dress. About the words he said in this very room, about stepping. About how you’ve been walking around with your jaw clenched and your thighs pressed together ever since.
“Tell me the truth,” he says, thumb pressing a little harder, his other fingers spread wide over the swell of you. “You want me to let go of you and send you back up that hill with your temper, you say it. I’ll move. You can go pray extra loud come Sunday.”
The lamp crackles softly, a tiny sound in the heavy dark.
“And if I don’t?” you hear yourself ask, voice small but steady. “If I say I don’t want you to move?”
His hand stills on your back for one beat, then both of them tighten—one pressing you down, one grabbing a handful of your ass like he’s staking a claim. A breath leaves him in a long, shuddery exhale that ghosts hot over your neck.
“Then I’m gonna take real good care of what you brought me,” he says, tone gone hoarse and thick, the restraint in it the only thing keeping you from shaking. “Gonna give you somethin’ to think about next time you lay awake in that bed of yours. Gonna fuck you on this table till you don’t remember what you came down here mad about.”
The word fuck lands hard in you, a punch and a promise all at once.
You grip the edge of the wood like it’s all that’s keeping you upright, though you’re already bent, already braced.
“Say it,” he murmurs, leaning in until his chest brushes your back, bare skin hot where it touches the thin cotton.
The admission sits in your throat like a hot stone. It feels enormous. It feels like stepping off a ledge.
“I want—” The word catches, but his thumb flicks over you again, sharp and sure, and your hips roll without permission, a little helpless grind that betrays every fight you’ve been waging with yourself. “I want you,” you gasp, shame and relief crashing together. “I want you to—to do somethin’ about it.”
He lets out a sound that’s almost a groan, almost a laugh, almost a curse, his body crowding you tighter, his weight a solid wall of heat at your back. “That’s my girl,” he says, and the possession in it makes your knees wobble, makes that core of you clench hard around nothing.
His hand leaves your back long enough to grab a fistful of your nightgown at the hem, yanking it up in one rough motion that leaves it bunched around your waist.
Cool air hits your drawers, the bare backs of your thighs, the soft part just under your cheeks, and then his palm is there, skin to skin at last, cupping you hard.
His fingers dig in, thumbs pressing outward, spreading you slightly, mapping the give.
“You’re shakin’,” he says, sounding pleased. “Ain’t even touched you proper yet.”
“You’re takin’ your time,” you manage, though the words shake too.
He chuckles, low. “First time’s never good when a man rushes,” he answers, matter-of-fact. “And I know you ain’t had nobody in you yet, feelin’ the way you do under my hand.”
Before you can answer, his fingers hook into the waistband of your drawers and tug. The fabric resists for a second, elastic biting into soft flesh, then slides down, dragging over your hips, over the swell of your ass, down the backs of your thighs until they tangle around your knees.
He leaves them there, trapping your legs just enough you can’t kick or close up, just enough that you’re open and vulnerable and aware of it.
Cool air kisses you everywhere the cloth just left.
You feel filthy, bare from waist to mid-thigh, bent over his table with your nightgown rucked up, your cunt exposed to the room, to him. It makes your head swim.
Then his hand is back, and there is no room for anything else.
He cups you from behind, fingers sliding through the slick heat of your folds, and you hear a sharp breath hitch out of him. “Oh, hell,” he says, reverent.
You make a broken, helpless sound that doesn’t sound like it belongs to you.
No one’s ever been there before, not like this, not with fingers spreading you, rubbing through you, middle finger catching on that aching bud you’ve only ever touched in the dark with guilty hands.
The sensation is lightning-bright, stabbing up your spine.
“Easy,” he murmurs, palm flattening across your low back again, his body curving over yours, caging you. “I got you. Gonna make it good for you before I stretch you around me. Don’t want you too scared to enjoy your first fuck.”
The way he says first fuck, like he’s staking a flag there, like he’s carving his name into it, makes something fierce flicker through you, a strange pride knotting up with the fear.
You push back against his hand without meaning to, chasing more.
He feels it. “That’s it,” he encourages, fingers pressing deeper between your lips now. “Ask for what you want with that pretty body. Tell me where it hurts.”
“Everywhere,” you pant, honesty ripped out of you on a wave. “It hurts everywhere.”
He laughs, breath hot against your neck, mouth close enough you feel the shape of it. “That ain’t hurt, girl,” he says. “That’s need.”
His fingers finally find your entrance, slick and hot and clutching, and he presses the pad of one inside, just the tip, testing. Your whole body clenches around that intrusion.
“You relax for me,” he tells you, tone sliding into something commanding. “Breathe.”
You suck in air, lungs burning.
He slides the finger in a little further, thick and probing, opening you.
The stretch is sharp, uncomfortable, but there’s an undercurrent of relief in it. He works it in and out slowly, letting you get used to the feel, letting your body learn the shape of him.
“That’s good,” he murmurs when he feels you soften around him, the praise lighting up something small and hungry in your chest. “See? You take my finger just fine. Gonna take my cock too when I’m done with you.”
He adds a second finger before you can brace, and this time the stretch makes you gasp loud, muscles clamping down. It burns, a deep, insistent ache, like you’re being pried open.
“Shh,” he soothes, his index finding that little bundle of nerves again, circling steady, sending sparks to chase the hurt. “I know. I know. We gotta loosen you up some or you’ll split yourself on me.”
The blunt truth of it makes you squeeze your eyes shut, face hot against your forearm.
You can feel him behind you, solid, his chest glued to your back, his arm moving between your legs. When you manage to breathe past the initial shock, the burn eases, replaced by a full, pressurized feeling that fills your head with nothing but sensation.
He moves his fingers, slow at first, pumping them in and out of you in short strokes, stretching, coaxing.
Your body starts to answer despite itself, hips rocking back in tiny motions, seeking that deep, sweet drag.
Every thrust brushes against something inside you that makes your legs tremble, makes your breath hitch.
“Listen to that,” he says, voice thick, and it takes you a second to realize he means the wet sound loud in the little kitchen as his fingers work in and out of you. “You hear yourself takin’ me in? That’s you wantin’ it.”
It’s filthy and true and you can’t deny it.
There's a coil tightening low in your belly, every nerve in your body funneling to where his hand is. Your grip on the table edge goes slippery with sweat.
“Remmick,” you gasp, not even sure what you’re asking for, only that you’re strung too tight.
“There you go,” he groans, fingers driving a little deeper, curling just right.
It hits without much warning. One second you’re climbing, the next you’re over the edge, everything snapping.
Your body seizes around his fingers, clenching so hard it almost hurts, that coil unspooling in a rush of pleasure so intense it blanks your mind.
A breathless moan tears up your throat. Your thighs shake, knees nearly buckling, if it weren’t for his hand on your back and the table under your palms you’d be on the floor.
“That’s it,” he groans, riding you through it, fingers still working, still moving until you’re whimpering, too sensitive, twitching with each little aftershock.
You sag against the table when it finally lets you go, chest heaving, sweat cooling on your neck. He eases his fingers out of you slow, gentle for the first time since you walked in, his hand sliding up to rest on your hip. You can feel his other hand at your back again, rubbing small circles, keeping you grounded.
“First one’s always a little wild,” he says, sounding almost fond. “You doin’ all right?”
You nod, or try to. Your head feels full of cotton, floaty and heavy all at once. “I—” Your voice comes out hoarse. You clear your throat. “I’m fine.”
“You’re more than fine,” he says, and there’s a smile in it. “You’re perfect.” He shifts behind you, and that’s when you feel it, really feel it—his cock pressed up against the back of your thigh through the fabric of his trousers.
He’s been hard this whole time, you realize dimly, all that while he was working you open. The blunt head drags over your skin when he adjusts, the thickness of him obvious even through cloth.
Your stomach flips, fear and anticipation knotting together. “You’re really—”
“Oh, I’m really.” He sounds almost amused. “You wanted me to take you on this table, remember?”
His hand leaves your back and you hear the soft, familiar sound of a belt coming loose, a buckle clinking, the rasp of leather through belt loops. Then buttons, quick and practiced, fabric shifting.
You suck in a breath, every sense straining.
A moment later, something hot and slick—not his fingers this time—nudges against your entrance. He slides the head of his cock through your slick folds slowly, up and down, coating himself in you, bumping your clit on the downstroke, making you twitch.
“Jesus,” he mutters, more to himself than you. “You feel that? How you’re grabbin’ at me already and I ain’t even in?”
You do feel it, and it’s terrifying. Your body recognizes him as something it’s meant to hold, meant to take, even as your mind stumbles over the size of him, over what this means.
“I—wait,” you say, panic flaring for a second, the reality of it looming. “Remmick, I’m—”
“I know,” he says, and for once there’s no teasing in it. “You listen to me. It’s gonna burn at first, then it’s gonna feel like you never should’ve gone without it this long. You trust me?”
You hesitate. He feels it in the way your muscles tense around the head of him. His hand comes up, fingers wrapping loosely around your throat from behind, thumb tipping your chin just a little. The touch sends a different kind of shiver through you, sharp and grounding.
“I ain’t gonna break you,” he says quietly, close to your ear. “I want you comin’ back to this just as bad as I want you right now.” His hips roll just enough that the blunt tip presses hard against your opening.
The hand at your throat, the tone in his voice, the memory of his fingers and the way your body just came apart on them thirty seconds ago—they all crash together, and you find yourself nodding before you know you’re doing it.
“Go,” you whisper, the word trembling, but there.
He makes a sound then that’s half-growl, half-groan, all man. His grip on your throat tightens just a hair, his other hand clamping down on your hip.
“That’s my girl,” he says again, rough with need. “Hold on.”
The head of him breaches you with more resistance than his fingers ever met.
Your body tries to clamp down, to keep him out, muscles fighting the stretch. He doesn’t slam in, but he doesn’t baby you either. He works himself in slow, steady pressure, teeth gritted, hips driving forward inch by thick inch.
The burn is real. It’s sharp, like you’re being split open from the inside. You gasp, nails scraping at the wood, whole body bowing. For a second it’s too much.
“Breathe,” he grunts through his own strain, hand at your throat sliding up to your jaw, thumb pressing at your cheek. “Breathe through it. You’re takin’ me. Look at you. You’re takin’ me.”
He isn’t wrong. Beneath the pain, there’s this breathless awe—at the size of him, at the way your own body yields, at the feel of being filled in a way you never have before.
You force yourself to inhale, exhale, again, again. Your muscles flutter around him, protesting, then slowly easing.
When the broadest part of his head passes the tight ring of your entrance, the rest slides in easier, still stretching, still burning, but less violently.
He sinks deeper, stopping only when his hips are flush with your ass, his pelvis pressed to your backside, balls snugged up against your cunt. You can feel him everywhere, heavy and solid in your core, pulsing faintly.
“Christ,” he rasps, the words hot against your neck. “I can barely think straight. Sweet girl, you just swallowed every inch of me.”
You exhale shakily, overwhelmed. Full doesn’t begin to cover it. You feel stuffed, stretched to the point of coming apart, and yet under the ache, something else is already starting—a low, thick pleasure that moves like honey, spreading outward from where you’re joined.
He holds still for a long moment, breathing hard into your hair, chest rising and falling against your back. His hand at your hip rubs little circles, the one at your jaw softening its grip.
“You tell me when it stops hurtin’ so sharp,” he says. “I ain’t in no rush, even if my cock’s yellin’ otherwise.”
You try to focus. The worst of the burn ebbs, leaving a throbbing soreness, but the sense of him—deep, impossible, yours—is starting to bloom into something almost good.
“Move,” you whisper, surprising yourself. “Just a little.”
He laughs, breath short. “Greedy already,” he says. “Alright.”
He pulls back, just an inch, maybe two, dragging that thick length along your walls. The friction is intense, raw and tender and electric all at once. Then he pushes in again, slower, watching for any flinch.
Your fingers dig into the table, but you don’t cry out, don’t tell him to stop. Your body clutches at him on the way out, sucks at him on the way back in.
He does it again. And again. Each shallow thrust smooths the hurt a little more, replaces it with deeper sensation. The initial sting fades into a deep, stretching fullness that makes your knees weak, that makes heat lick up your spine in waves.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, hand sliding from your jaw back down to your throat, wrapping around it more firmly this time, not cutting your air, just pinning you, reminding you where you are and who’s holding you. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”
He lengthens his strokes, pulling back farther, pushing in harder. The wet slap of his hips meeting your ass starts up, quiet at first, then louder, the sound of skin on skin obscene in the still night.
Every push drives him deeper, nudging at something inside you that makes your breath jump, that sends little shocks through your belly, like he’s bumping the edge of something tender and secret and his.
Your body has learned the shape of him, stretching you from the inside.
You can feel every ridge, every vein, the way the fat head spears through the tight clutch of you and then disappears into that deep, hot place that was empty your whole life and now is nothing but him.
His hand at your throat tightens, just a little. Not enough to cut your air, but enough to make each breath a thing you have to pull for, chest heaving against the table edge. His palm is broad and warm, thumb resting under your jaw, fingers curved along the side of your neck.
Every time his hips snap forward, that grip reminds you he’s there; it pins you in your own skin so you can’t float away from what’s happening, can’t pretend it’s anything but what it is: you getting fucked open on a man’s cock in his kitchen like you were meant for it.
Then his hand drops. It slides down the column of your throat, over the dip of your collarbone, fingers spreading wide as they drag lower, rough palm grazing the top swell of your breast through the thin cotton.
He cups you from behind, big hand wrapping around the weight of it, lifting, squeezing. The nightgown bunches under his fingers as he kneads, thumb rolling over your nipple until it stiffens hard, the fabric rasping just enough to make you whine.
“There,” he mutters, voice gone thick, like he has to taste every part of you. “Knew these’d feel good in my hand.”
He squeezes once more, harder, the pressure sending a sharp line of sensation straight down to where he’s buried in you, your nipple trapped between his thumb and the heat of his palm.
Your back arches, pushing more of your tit into his grip even as his cock grinds deeper.
For a second you’re caught between the drag inside and the rough, greedy hold on your breast, pleasure ricocheting between the two.
Then his hand is moving again, leaving your aching nipple peaked under the cotton, skimming back up over your breastbone, returning to your throat like it owns the place. His fingers curl back into their collar around your neck, thumb settling under your jaw, holding you where he wants you while his hips keep driving.
“Listen to you,” he groans, and you realize he doesn’t just mean your voice—wrecked and breaking on every inhale—but the wet, filthy noise your body’s making, the slick drag of his cock pulling out of you, the obscene squelch when he pushes back in, the slap of his balls hitting the curve of your cunt. “You hear that? That’s this pussy lovin’ every inch I’m givin’ her.”
The word makes your stomach flutter and your cunt clench down around him so tight he curses, hips stuttering.
There’s no room for modesty now; everything between your legs is wide awake and telling on you.
Every time he pulls back, your inner muscles chase after him, hugging, clinging, like you’re frightened of losing that fullness, like your body’s praying he’ll push right back in—and he does, like he’s answering a call.
He adjusts his stance, feet shifting on the rough floor, and angle changes. The next thrust lands different, deeper, the thick head of him driving up and forward to grind against a spot inside you that makes your vision white out around the edges for a beat.
You jolt, a strangled noise ripping out of you, fingers scraping along the tabletop as your whole body goes tense.
“There it is,” he pants, catching that reaction, chasing it.
He does it again on purpose, hips rolling instead of just snapping, driving that same path, making sure he hits that spot with the crown every time.
“You feel that? Right there? That’s what you been needin’, girl. That ache way up high you ain’t never had a name for.”
He's right on it now, relentless.
Each stroke is a steady assault, steady enough your body starts to learn the pattern, tension building with every collision. The soreness from taking him the first time smooths into a deep, hot throb that wraps around the pleasure, one feeding the other.
Your toes curl, your thighs tremble, your stomach ripples around the intrusion like you’re trying to swallow him even deeper.
He slides the hand from your hip back around your front, into the slick heat between your thighs, and finds your clit like he’s been doing it all his life.
His fingers are slick with your own mess, rough pads moving in tight, ruthless circles over that swollen bud. It sends lightning directly up your spine, straight to the base of your skull.
You choke on a sound that isn’t quite a word and jerk against his hand; his arm around your throat holds you in place.
“Goddamn, you’re twitchy,” he groans, grinding his hips down so the bone of him presses your ass, so his cock bruises into that soft spot inside while his fingers roll your clit. “You gonna fall apart on me again? You gonna let me feel you squeeze all over my cock proper this time?”
Your answer is a breathless, broken, “Please,” your voice ragged, half sob, half prayer.
The table shudders under the force of his thrusts now, the legs complaining in small creaks that match the rhythm of his hips. The lamp flame jumps in its glass, throwing wild shadows against the wall—a tangle of your bent body and his frame hunched over you, shoulders rolling as he works inside you like he’s plowing up hard ground.
Spit slicks your lips; you realize at some point your mouth fell open and just forgot how to close, breath dragging in ragged, wet pulls.
You couldn’t be bothered to care if you tried; everything is narrowed to the hot place his cock is sawing through and the bright, brutal pulses from his fingers on your clit.
He can feel you climbing, feel your body drawing in tight around him, feel your channel starting to flutter. He growls, low and guttural, the sound pressed against the back of your neck. “That’s it. That’s it, squeeze me.”
His hand at your throat tightens a hair more, narrowing the world to his breathing and yours, the rush of blood in your ears, the drag of wood under your palms.
The smallest bit of pressure makes every sensation hit harder; your body goes light and heavy at the same time, limbs tingling, cock-deep pull inside you the only thing that feels solid.
He pistons into you now with a steadier, punishing rhythm, cock dragging from the fat base at your entrance all the way to that deep end that makes your belly flip, then back again.
Your ass jiggles from each impact, flesh rippling under his grip. His fingers at your clit don’t falter.
You can hear yourself now, high and ruined, begging without even knowing what for. “Don’t stop—don’t—Remmick, don’t—oh—oh God—”
“Mhm, use my name,” he hisses, hips crashing into yours, the wet slap echoing off the close walls. “You say it when you can’t hold yourself together no more.”
He leans forward, the sweat on his skin slick against the thin cotton of your nightgown bunched at your waist.
His mouth finds the side of your neck, teeth scraping over the delicate skin there, then biting down just hard enough to make you gasp. He sucks, draws blood closer to the surface in a hot sting that only makes your cunt flutter harder around him.
Between the choke of his hand, the sharp pinch of his teeth, the relentless grind of his cock, and the ruthless attention on your clit, you don’t stand a chance.
The orgasm slams into you hard enough your knees buckle, your body trying to curl in on itself while he holds you stretched over the table.
Everything constricts at once—your throat around his hand, your belly around the deep ache, your cunt around his cock. You clamp down on him with startling force, walls seizing, milking, clutching like you’re trying to suck him straight out of his skin.
You cry out. There’s no pretty word for it. Sound rips out of you high and raw, your voice cracking on his name.
Your vision goes fuzzy with white at the edges, the kitchen shrinking to the rough wood under your hands and the thick, unyielding length splitting you and the brutal roll of pleasure ripping through you in waves.
“Fuck—fuck,” he grunts at your ear, the feeling of you spasming around him cutting through every ounce of control he has left. “That’s it, that’s it, girl, grip me—Jesus—”
He doesn’t stop moving, not really; he grinds through it, forcing his cock to keep sliding, short, deep thrusts, using the vice of your orgasm to wring everything he can from you.
You’re shaking all over, thighs trembling so hard your feet skid a little on the floor, toes digging uselessly for purchase.
Another rush of slick gushes around him, soaking his cock, dripping down over his balls, sliding warm along the inside of your thighs.
Your body keeps clenching in pulses, the pleasure cresting and breaking over and over until it tips toward something sharp, too much. You whimper, the sound small and shredded. His hand leaves your clit finally, stroking shaking skin instead, but his hips don’t stop.
The rhythm goes ragged, less measured, more frantic. His thrusts turn into short, hard ruts, like his body’s the one begging now. His fingers flex around your throat, then loosen just a little, thumb stroking your jaw instead as his breathing unravels.
“Gonna fill you up,” he groans, voice pitched low and rough. “You want that? You want me shootin’ deep in you, huh? Want to feel me leakin’ out you all the way back up to that house?”
The words, filthy as they are, punch right through your oversensitivity and light up something molten in your gut.
Your sore, flooded cunt tightens around him involuntarily at the thought of carrying him inside you, his spend rolling down your thighs later when you climb into your own bed.
You can’t shape the answer into full words; what comes out is some strangled mess that sounds like y-yes and a choke.
“Yeah, you do,” he snarls like he heard it. “You greedy little thing, comin’ down here pretendin’ you just wanna talk when your cunt’s hungry as hell.”
He drives in hard, once, twice, three more times, each thrust bottoming him out, pelvis grinding against the round of your ass.
The slap of his hips is loud now, sloppy, wetter, your combined mess making the impact slick.
Then his whole body locks.
His stomach clenches tight against your back, jaw clamped against the side of your neck. A sound tears out of him, not quite human, something between a growl and a groan. His cock jerks inside you, swelling even thicker for a heart-stopping second, and then you feel it—hot, heavy spurts of him spilling deep, pounding against your cervix, flooding that space that’s been empty your entire life with a hot, liquid fullness.
He curses low and hoarse on each pulse, hips rocking in tiny, helpless movements as he empties himself, his own climax dragged out by the way your slick, oversensitive walls keep squeezing and fluttering around him. Every time your cunt milks him, another rope of cum kicks out of him, painting you inside.
“God—damn—” he grits, shuddering, one hand sliding from your throat to slap down next to your own on the table, fingers splayed wide, knuckles white on the wood. “You feel that? Feel me givin’ it to you?”
You do. You feel all of it. Every pulse, every twitch, every deep throb of him lodged inside, filling you, staking a claim. Your whole body feels stuffed, weighty, like he’s poured something molten into your bones.
The shakes take him then. You feel them where his chest is plastered to your back, quivers running through him in waves as his orgasm tapers off.
His cock softens a little inside you but doesn’t slip free; your swollen entrance and the spent thickness of him keep you plugged together. Each small movement sends a slow, slick ache radiating outward.
For a long moment neither of you says anything.
He slumps more of his weight onto you without meaning to, and you sag under it, cheek pressed to the tabletop, breaths coming in harsh, uneven pulls.
Sweat has glued your nightgown to your ribs where it’s still covering your upper body; where it’s bunched around your waist, the fabric clings damp to your skin with a mixture of your own wetness and his.
Eventually, he finds his voice, though it’s wrecked, scraped raw at the edges. “Jesus,” he mutters, words ghosting hot over the shell of your ear.
For the first time since he pushed into you, he eases his hips back.
You gasp, a little shocked moan slipping out as his softening cock drags along your raw walls.
When his head slips past your entrance, your muscles clench on instinct, reluctant to let him go, but gravity wins. He slides free, leaving you empty in a way that feels sharp, unfinished, even with his cum already starting to seep down, warm, from inside you.
Something thick and wet trickles out immediately, a slow, viscous roll that slides over your swollen folds and down the curve of your inner thigh. You feel it clearly, a hot trail in the cooler air of the kitchen. The knowledge of what it is, whose it is, makes your face burn and your belly tighten all over again.
He sees it too.
“Look at that,” he says softly, voice full of rough, satisfied awe.
His hand leaves yours and slides down, palm cupping the underside of your ass, thumb catching one of those white streaks, spreading it lazily over your sensitive skin. You flinch, a little gasp escaping before you can stop it.
“Too much?” he asks.
“A little,” you admit, breath still stuttering.
He makes a pleased sound at that, thumb dragging one last lazy stripe through the mess before he rubs his hand off on his own thigh.
He straightens slowly, the absence of his weight making you sway for a second. His hands, empty now, come to your waist, smoothing down the bunched nightgown. He tugs it back into place over your hips, hiding what he’s done as best cloth can hide it.
Then he crouches a little, fingers catching the waistband of your drawers. They’re still tangled around your knees, sticky with your slick.
He coaxes them up, guiding the cotton over your tender flesh, covering your cunt, trapping his spend where it is.
The pull of the fabric against your oversensitive skin makes you hiss and bite your lip, but it also feels lewd and intimate in a different way—his cum pressed up against you, soaked into the cloth that sits right over your entrance.
He knows exactly what he’s doing, sealing you up like that. It shows in the way his thumb lingers a second too long at the gusset, pressing lightly, as if to make sure the material is snug, as if to feel one more time that he’s right there even with clothes between you.
“Gonna be walkin’ home with your panties stickin’ to you and a piece of me tryin’ to leak right back out,” he murmurs, voice a dark purr. “You’ll be thinkin’ of me every step.”
You make a weak noise, somewhere between a protest and something softer. Your legs feel unsteady when he finally helps you pull them fully into place, when he urges you upright with hands at your waist.
When you stand, it’s like your bones have gone wrong—heavy at the hips, light at the knees, a deep, interior throb that makes you aware of your own body in a way you’ve never been.
He turns you gently, so your hip leans back into the edge of the table instead of your chest, so you’re facing him. His hair is damp and rumpled, a curl fallen low over his forehead, chest and stomach slick with sweat.
His gaze sweeps over you, taking in the mussed nightgown, the bite marks blossoming at your throat and shoulder where his teeth worried your skin, the slackness of your mouth, the glassy shine to your eyes.
Confidence sits easy on him; he looks like a man who’s put in a long night’s work and is proud of the job he’s done.
“You’re gonna cuss me tomorrow,” he says, voice low and a little smug. “When you sit down. When you walk. But you ain’t gonna regret it.”
You swallow, throat thick, his words settling warm and heavy between your ribs.
“No,” you admit, even quieter than before, and there’s no sense lying now. “I don’t… regret it.”
His mouth curves. “Good.”
You look away, suddenly aware of the time, of the silence of the big house up the hill, of how your mama and daddy are sleeping through something that’s gone and rearranged their daughter from the inside out.
“I need to go,” you say, voice small but steadying. “Before my father wakes up for water, or Mama starts callin’ and finds my bed empty.”
His hands fall from your waist, though not without one last, slow sweep along the curve of you, like he’s committing it to memory.
“Go on,” he says. “Before I talk you into layin’ down on that bed in there and not leavin’ till the rooster screams.”
Your body responds to the image with an exhausted throb, a clench around nothing.
You push off the table and take a careful step. Your thighs rub, slick, the damp cotton of your drawers pulling against you; you feel a fresh little leak of him inside you, a warm ooze that soaks into the fabric and clings. It makes you stutter a little, the soreness set deep in your core.
Remmick watches the way you move, jaw flexing, something like pride and hunger both tightening his face.
He reaches for his trousers, tucking himself away, but he doesn’t bother with a shirt yet, doesn’t bother pretending he’s anything but what he is: the man who just fucked you on his kitchen table and filled you til you’re walking crooked.
You make it to the door on legs that still shake. Your fingers land on the frame as you pull it open, the cool breath of the night spilling in.
Before you step out, you glance back. His eyes are on you, unreadable now, dark and steady in the lamplight.
“You come down here again,” he says, voice quiet, sure, “don’t pretend you’re just here for salve or scoldin’. You knock on my door after dark, I know what you’re askin’ for.”
You hold his gaze, the soreness between your thighs, the fullness inside you, the ache in your muscles all speaking louder than any denial you could muster.
His eyes follow you out into the dark, low and pleased, and as you cross the yard barefoot, nightgown brushing your knees, his cum warm and sticky between your legs, you know he’s standing there in that doorway shirtless, watching you go with no shame at all, already planning just how he’ll take you the next time you come scratching at his door.
summary: Stranded in rural Indiana, Hopper finds help at a farm.
tags: Hopper x Reader, explicit smut, outdoor sex, farmer’s daughter trope, age gap
word count: 1.8 k
A slurry of expletives was sent floating into the atmosphere above the tall fields of corn. Jim Hopper was hungry, tired, and not in a great mindset to troubleshoot his faulty Chevy Blazer. He lit a fresh Camel and leaned against the truck.
“Son of a bitch.”
The sun was setting. Digging in, he wandered down the country road on foot and rounded the corner. Relief washed over him as he spotted a house in the distance.
“Hi, there!” Hopper called out to an older fellow sitting on the wraparound porch.
“Can I help you?” the man inquired. His skin worn by the sun.
Hopper approached. He dug out his police badge to show the resident.
“I’m stuck about a quarter mile that way. I think it’s the—“
Hopper stopped himself. He thought it was the transmission but he wasn’t actually sure. As a teen he worked on cars but he wasn’t a mechanic by any stretch and mostly just did it to show his dad he wasn’t totally useless.
“Well, something’s up with it and I can’t get it going. Chevy Blazer. Not that old. Could I use your phone?”
The older man stood up form his seat.
“Lionel Lowry.”
“Jim Hopper.”
“You a policeman in Indianapolis?”
“Oh, no. A little town about two hours from here. Police Chief.”
“I don’t have a Chevy but I’m pretty good with engines. I don’t mind takin’ a look.”
The screen door to the Lowry home swung open, and you stepped out hastily. On your body was a long blue dress with little yellow flowers you had stitched into the fabric yourself.
“You okay out here?” asked Lionel.
“Yes, darlin’, this guy just has some car trouble down the road. Tell your Mother I’ll be right back.”
“Chief, this is my youngest—“
You interjected with your name, extending a delicate hand for Hopper to shake.
“Hi.”
Hopper couldn’t help but eye you up and down, glancing at the long hair that fell onto your breasts. You appeared soft but something about your eyes felt magnetic to him. Hopper broke his train of thought.
Lionel grabbed his rusted old toolbox and a flashlight before heading to the Blazer with Hopper.
“How many kids do you have?”
Lionel cleared his throat.
“Uh, well— my daughter is twenty. Our boy ain’t around here anymore. John.”
“How old is he?”
“Would’ve been twenty five last Sunday. We buried him two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We took it hard but you know, one day at a time. Good Lord still has the rest of us here, you know?”
Hopper remained silent.
“She wanted to go off to nursing school. She’s real smart. But after John, she just got off her course. I love having her around but I hope she tries school again soon.”
“I’m sure she’ll come around.”
-
Jim was a tall man, taller than your brother or father. His eyes were as blue as the Indiana sky. Dangerously handsome. Daddy said that he had to stay the night and wait for the Jenson’s down the road to help out with some automotive part. They left town every other weekend.
For supper Mom made a beef and vegetable casserole. Pastry dough coated the top. There was blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. All of which Jim initially refused but then happily cleared off his plate. His hands were big and warm looking. You daydreamed about how they would feel on the soft flesh of your body. He kept catching you staring at him, and you would quickly dart your eyes away to avoid blushing like a beet. You took a sip of your water and started scheming.
-
Crickets chirped their routine symphony outside all night. Summer was approaching. Hopper laid on the guest bed, staring at the ceiling. He missed his bed. No matter where he slept, stressful dreams and nightmares followed him around. Pale blue moonlight filtered through the curtains, revealing shadows throughout the small room. Hopper squinted at his watch. It was almost four in the morning. He didn’t want to close his eyes again. Too many troublesome dreams. His mind drifted to you. Sweet girl. Young.
Hopper lifted himself up and found his jeans and shoes. He switched on a lamp to look for his cigarettes before heading outside.
His footsteps were careful, he didn’t want to wake your family. One particular creak in the floorboards alerted you, though. Nobody else was awake. Mom and Daddy wouldn’t be up for another few hours. Now was your chance to pounce on that house guest. He seemed lonely enough. Worst he could say was no, right?
You got up, still in a sheer white nightgown, and slinked behind Hopper. What was he up to? You followed him until he stepped outside. For a moment you watched him through the kitchen window. The lighter in his hand clicked. Ah, a smoke break. With his gun on his hip? Policemen were strange.
As you crept out the screen door, you startled the handsome man.
“Jesus.” He muttered, not expecting anyone to be awake at this hour.
“Can’t sleep?” you asked, walking right up to him.
Hopper quickly noticed how much of your body was revealed in your nightgown. His eyes dipped to your breasts before he pretended to look past you.
“I could help you relax.” you whispered, reaching your hand to his belt loops. Precariously close to his—
Hopper’s hand gently grabbed yours and directed it away.
“Maybe if you were a little older, hun. Go back to bed.” he gave you a smile. It was clear he was holding back. You could feel it.
“May I?” you asked, gesturing to his cigarette.
He gave it to you, letting you take a puff. His eyes stared at your curves again. Godammit. He extinguished the smoke on a nearby ashtray that was filled with other butts.
“Nice gun. Can I hold it?”
“Why?” he asked, allowing you to enter his personal space again.
“I want to see how heavy it is. I’m used to shotguns and rifles but not those, really.”
Hopper reached for the Python revolver. His eyes locked with yours as he handed it to you.
“I like the handle.” you whispered, touching the walnut grip.
You inspected the barrel as Hopper watched. Lifting it near your face, you teased him.
“What is this? Like six inches?”
Hopper nodded, watching you place your pink tongue on the cool metal and lick upward. Fuck. His own cock twitched at the sight. Extending his hand, he waited for you to place the firearm back.
“Hmm, might take a little more than that.” you muttered, taking off on foot.
“Hey!” Hopper called out in a loud whisper.
He followed you in the moonlight beyond the crop field and around an old tractor. You were headed to the worn-looking barn. Thank God it was a full moon, he would have busted an ankle on this gravel in total darkness.
You were faster than Hopper, but his long legs made it easy to catch up to you. Placing the gun down on a wooden crate, you put your hands up. He grabbed your arms and pulled you into him from behind.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, a little out of breath.
“Guess you’ll have to arrest me. Punish me.”
Hopper glanced back at the house in the distance. No lights were on. Suddenly it became very hard to think clearly. He pushed you over another stack of crates. You yelped a little.
“Be quiet.” Hopper ordered.
His hand slipped under your nightgown and discovered your lack of panties. Of course. Fingers teased at your hot, slick hole. Probably a tight little cunt, too.
“Bet your parents don’t know what an easy slut you are.” he muttered.
Your hands gripped onto the aged wood beneath you as he inserted two fingers, testing your tight walls.
You whimpered as he played with your folds, making you sloppy wet. He withdrew his hand, and you heard the zipper of his jeans become undone behind you.
“Fuck, kid, see what you’re making me do?”
He slipped the straps of your white gown off your shoulders, and your tits fell out with a bounce. Hopper couldn’t stop staring at them earlier.
The hot tip of his cock pressed against you. His hands wrapped around your small body so that he could grasp the soft flesh of your breasts. Shoving himself into you with a groan, he started fucking you like the whore you desperately wanted to be. He was large, bigger than that gun barrel. A man. You weren’t a virgin but Hopper’s cock nearly made you feel like one. You couldn’t hear the crickets anymore. Involuntary moans escaped your mouth as your pussy stretched around him. Louder.
“Shut up.” he breathed, squeezing your breasts firmly.
The weight of his thrusts were driving you insane. You couldn’t control yourself and continued to make sweet noises. Hopper couldn’t get caught. He didn’t want to alert your father and find out what shot guns your family owned. He released your tits, which were now swaying about, and placed a hand over your mouth.
“You are a naughty little girl, huh?” he asked rhetorically.
His other hand gripped your ass, pulling you into his hips as he pounded away. He had full control.
He was strong, and easily could force himself into your tight ass if he wanted. Could spill his seed into you and fill those plump tits with milk. With your mouth covered, you freely whined and moaned into his hand. You felt your thoughts fall out of you as his cock dominated your helpless, horny body.
“Oh baby, you feel so good on my cock. So tight—“ he grunted.
A dog barked somewhere in the distance, but Hopper was too preoccupied with your young and willing pussy to give a damn who was around. You came around his shaft, and he felt your gummy walls contract and clench around him.
The thought of using your pussy as a cum dump was hot, but he kept thinking about your breasts. He pulled out of you, and yanked your torso off the wooden crates. He pushed you onto your knees below him. The rough gravel pushed into your skin. You grabbed at his thighs as he stroked himself and held the back of your head.
“Fuck—“ he groaned.
His hot ejaculate coated your chest, dripping slowly onto those tots he adored. Some of his salty cum landed near your mouth, and he watched intently as you took a dainty hand and took a taste of it onto your tongue. It tingled. You fed yourself another helping right off your chest.
Hopper was still trying to steady his breath as he helped you up and fixed your straps. He placed his revolver back on his hip.
“Come on. Before the others wake up.”
You took a hold of his hand and led him back to the house.
summary: Plotless montage of Hopper f*cking your brains out everywhere and anywhere because he’s determined to make you his little MILF.
tags: impregnation & breeding, praise, implied age gap, daddy!, car sex, morning sex, rampant f*cking idk
word count: 1.4k
In the Evening
Hopper tossed you over the arm of the sofa, not bothering to let you undress. Not even bothering to put out his cigarette that continued to smoke in the ashtray. Your tight little skirt and ass were propped up for him to fuck as he pleased. He frantically undid his belt and unzipped his jeans, letting them fall to his ankles.
His thick cock was already swollen and dripping with precum. The only thought in his mind was filling you again and again. Hopper reached up into your skirt and tugged at your baby pink cotton panties, which were thoroughly dampened.
“Just dripping wet for me, hmm?” His gravelly voice was low and brutally seductive.
Your tight pussy was lousy with natural juices, making you the perfect breeding whore Hopper needed right now. His rough fingers rubbed at your slit, teasing the stretching to come. You writhed your hips, impatient for his cock to enter.
“Please fill me up, Chief, please!”
He pulled his fingers away and pressed the tip of his cock against your begging hole. His hands adjusted your skirt and found their grip.
“Oh I’m going to breed this little pussy. Make you a young mama. Is that what you want?”
“Please, please fuck me however you want.”
Hopper stuffed his cock into your tight flesh. Your body clenched around his shaft, adjusting to the sudden intrusion. He wasted no time pushing himself as deep as he could, as fast and hard as he could. You squirmed and loudly whined into a scrunched up blanket on the couch. Hopper gripped tighter, his hands pressing your hip bones through your clothes.
“Fuck! Your pussy feels so tight. Take this cock until I’m finished with you, bitch.”
Helpless, all you could do is let him pound your body into submission. His cock beat at your tender cervix, making you writhe and moan for him louder. It felt like your hottest fantasy finally coming true. You were his submissive, breedable cocksleeve. Your entire body was flooded with the thought of being knocked up by him.
“Use my little hole—use me, use me Daddy, oh God use me—“ you pathetically begged.
Hopper’s groans were louder than usual. He was incredibly turned on by the primitive, instinctive urge to dump his hot seed into your womb.
“I’m going to put a baby in you, fuck— oh fuck, I’m gonna cum inside you.”
His thrusts were forceful, fast, and merciless. Your pussy was making a sticky mess all over his bush and thighs.
“Yes, Daddy, oh- oh- fill me up, don’t pull out.”
You felt Hopper’s body tense as he released an uncontrollable groan of pleasure. He held you tightly so that you couldn’t escape being bred. His cock pulsated and throbbed as he shot his cum into you. He softly thrusted in and out, absolutely drunk off the sight of himself leaking out of you. It was the perfect lube that he used to keep fucking you that evening.
During the Day
Hopper thought you had been such a seductive little brat when you met him for lunch. How could you tease him like this when he still had hours left in his shift? Before he let you drive home, Hopper took you for a ride in his Blazer. It was midday, and while most townsfolk were at work or school, he had to make sure you weren’t seen getting fucked like a slut by the Chief.
His erection pushed against his tight fitting khaki pants, aching to get inside of your fertile pussy instead. After parking, it wasn’t long until you were slipping onto his thick, veiny dick in the backseat. Hopper tossed your top and bra aside. He kissed on your breasts and played with them as you rode him.
“I can’t wait until your tits are just swollen with milk.”
“Might leak on you.” you smiled, stroking at his soft beard.
“God. You’re gonna be such a hot little mama.”
Hopper’s thickness pushed against your clit, adding to your pleasure. The truck probably looked like a bouncing mess from the exterior. You felt yourself getting closer to an orgasm. Wet and horny, excited by the thought of Hopper impregnating you.
“Good girl. Oh yes, baby.” Hopper praised as you ground into him, reaching your climax.
Cumming all over his dick was one of favorite sensations. You couldn’t help but scream and moan his name and other involuntary noises. His cock just felt so good.
“Don’t be so loud.” He ordered.
He took his hand and guided his thumb to your mouth. You started to suck his finger, still moaning as he continued thrusting into you. Louder, louder…
“Poor little slut, you can’t help yourself can you?”
He withdrew his thumb from your mouth and used his hand to forcefully cover your mouth. Your sexy noises were muffled. This only turned you on more.
“Everyone’s gonna see that you got fucked and bred by me anyway.”
You writhed, but he held you firmly in place. You were overstimulated by his big cock and bold words. His intense eyes were taking in the sight of you.
He fucked you harder now, taking control from underneath you.
“Good girl. Take it.”
Hopper himself couldn’t take it anymore. He bursted deep into your pussy. His hot ejaculate flooded you, adding to the sticky mess. Your hair was a mess and hips hurt, but you wanted to be pinned down and fucked some more.
He had to go home to change his pants before heading back to the station.
First Thing in the Morning
You and Hopper both slept late into the morning. Some teenagers vandalized the library downtown and the Chief was out late dealing with it. As morning sunlight bloomed on the wooden panels of the bedroom, you stirred awake. Your dreams had been filled with wet fantasies about the man sleeping next to you.
Already nude, you knew it would be easy to get Hopper turned on right away. You cuddled up next to his soft, warm body. His cock was rock hard in his tight boxers. You loved how stiff and big his cock became during naps or in the morning. Your hand rubbed against him.
Hopper stirred awake. He didn’t say a word, only nudging harder into your little hand with his pelvis.
“Good morning.” you whispered.
“Hey.”
“Jim, I’m just so so wet for you. I woke up needing to be bred.”
Hopper let you straddle him, kissing his plush lips as you rubbed your wet slit over his boxers. It wasn’t long before he pushed you off and onto your back. His heavy cock sprung out, and he pinned you down for more kisses.
You reached down and guided his cock to your entrance. It hurt a little as he pushed in, stretching your walls that had been sore from being used all week. Hopper wanted to be a bit more gentle this morning. He cared about you, after all. Wanted to knock you up with his children. He was so much taller than you, and your head rested more against his chest as he moved in you.
“Mmmh you feel so good.”
Your body relaxed around him. He slowly yet fervently stroked in and out of your pussy. His heavy body held you down into the mattress, shielding you from the chilly November air. Your legs wrapped around his hips, ensuring he wouldn’t pull out. What a slut, letting an older man impregnate you as he pleased.
“Daddy, fill me” you whimpered.
Hopper’s breathing got louder. His thrusts became more urgent. Morning romps normally drained him pretty fast.
“I’m going to cum—“
You clung onto him as he released his load deep into you. Even as he came down from his orgasm, his cock remained hard. Hopper kept pumping into you, picking up his pace now. Fucking you in his own sloppy seconds.
“Again, fill me again.”
Hopper was folding you in half now, your hips were getting tired from being held down like this. He readjusted himself so that he could make eye contact with you. His blue eyes locked with yours, and you felt more vulnerable than ever.
“I love you, baby”
“I love you”
You felt pleasure rush over your body from your head to your toes. Your legs trembled as you gushed around his cock. Hopper continued to look into your soul as he spurted yet another load of semen into your pussy. He kissed you and held you as his cum made its way deeper into your body. Withdrawing from you, he laid on his back to cool off.
“Well, good morning.” He chuckled in his rough morning voice.
summary: an ordinary day winds down into an unordinary offer, where both you and steve realise the history between you needs to be confronted sooner rather than later
warnings: bullying, emotional distress / anxiety
series masterlist
The station feels good today. Warm vinyl crackling just beneath the music as it rolls through the speakers. You’re leaning back in your chair, one foot hooked around the rung, shoulders loose as you bop along to the beat.
You lean into the mic again, grin audible in your voice.
“Okay, I know, I know—you’re all thinking it,” you say lightly. “Yes, Talking Heads absolutely knew what they were doing when they made this, and no, I will not be apologising for playing This Must Be the Place again.”
You swivel slightly, glancing through the booth glass at the empty station beyond.
“Now, I am going to be signing off in just a minute,” you continue, softening your tone. “But before anyone gets dramatic about it—deep breaths, everyone—we’ve got our very special guest sliding into her regular slot.”
You pause, letting the moment linger.
“Rockin’ Robin will be with you shortly, bringing excellent taste, commentary, and—statistically speaking—at least one tangent that goes absolutely nowhere. You’re in good hands!”
You’ve listened enough to her show to know that this was very much the case.
You ease back, flick the switch, and let the music continue.
The ON AIR light clicks off.
You tug your headphones down around your neck and glance up at the clock on the wall.
Five more minutes.
Steve and Robin should be here any second now. However, you weren’t entirely sure how to navigate them yet.
You hadn’t talked to Steve since fixing the cabinet, and you’d been careful not to touch the number he’d left behind “just in case.” Even knowing it was there—a scrap of paper weighing down your bag—felt surreal.
You never would have bet, not in a million years, that his number would exist so casually in your world.
Shoving the thought away, you begin to stand. Gathering up a few records you’d been using, tucking them under your arm as you step out of the booth. You let the door shut behind you as you head for the shelves.
Still impeccably clean.
Their effort hadn’t wavered—nothing out of place, nothing disturbed. It felt deliberate, and you noticed it. The office remained off-limits, too, another boundary left intact. From what you could tell, they had made a point of keeping that one.
All things considered, they were close to ideal colleagues: tidy, quiet, and rarely underfoot. Except, of course, in emergencies. And lately, you’d been careful to make sure there were very few he could insert himself into again.
You slide the records into their sleeves as you hear motion over near the entrance. Letting out a gentle sigh as you round the corner, ready for some extremely uncomfortable small talk to ensue.
The glass door opens, and your body stills as you see a silhouette poke its head through.
Robin.
She peeks around the frame, clearly trying not to announce herself. It looks comical to you, considering you’ve heard her loud and clear on air, chattering into the void at an impossibly fast pace, like the four walls surrounding her were perfectly fine for conversation partners.
She spots you to her right and immediately lifts her hand in a small wave, string bracelets shifting on her wrist. A tentative smile tugs at her mouth as she slips fully inside, shutting the door behind her.
Steve doesn’t follow.
Huh.
You note it, but force yourself not to linger on it.
She heads toward you, Docs squeaking on the clean floor. Her movements are uneasy as she tucks her hands into her jacket. She looks nervous. Still bright, but careful around the edges.
You’d hate to be the cause of that—for her to be caught in the crossfire of old history and buried landmines that weren’t hers. You had no issue with her at all; if anything, from what you remembered, she’d always been kind. A little on the outside.
And if there was one thing you refused to be, it was the reason someone felt uneasy or unwelcome. You want to make a point of meeting her halfway, of letting the bond form. Not to blur the past, but to make it clear: whatever existed between you and her friend was not hers to carry.
“Hey,” you say brightly, making the first move.
She blinks, clearly not expecting you to speak first.
“Oh—um. Hi.” She clears her throat, then adds quickly, “How—uh, how was this morning?”
You smile politely, a soft chuckle slipping out before you can stop it. She really does look nervous—shoulders a little tight, hands fidgeting in her pockets.
Yeah, that tracks. You can only imagine what Steve told her.
Or what he didn’t.
“Not too bad,” you say easily. “Lots of annoying callers today.”
Her attention snaps fully back to you. “Huh?”
You smile again—she clearly hadn’t been listening.
“Callers,” you clarify, keeping your voice light.
She looks faintly taken aback by the ease of your tone, and you almost feel the urge to apologise—not aloud, but all the same—for the way things had started between you.
“If I have someone call in one more time to request Cyndi Lauper,” you add, dry but amused, “I think I’m gonna have to quit.”
A small smile crosses her face as she catches your intention to keep things positive. Her shoulders ease back without her realising it, posture loosening as she settles into the conversation—no longer braced for you to snap the way you had with her friend.
“That bad, huh?” She tries.
You fix her with a look. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’d be happy hearing True Colours three times a day. Minimum.”
She pauses—actually considers it—then breaks, laughing as she lifts her hands in surrender.
“Okay—no, yeah,” she says quickly, shaking her head as if the thought alone is exhausting. “I thought I had it bad with Time After Time. Like, every station, without fail. You’d hear the first note and just—” she makes a vague, helpless gesture, “—resign yourself to it.”
“Right?” you laugh, a little breathless now. “It wasn’t even that bad—it was just everywhere. You couldn’t escape it.”
She nods eagerly, already onto another thought, mouth opening before she’s fully finished agreeing with you. Her whole face lights up, like the memory has grabbed her by the collar.
You don’t interrupt. You don’t need to.
You let her go, watching as the energy bubbles back up into her—the same bright, restless spark you’ve heard crackling through the radio speakers so many times before. Only this time, it’s right in front of you. Somehow even better.
God. She really is like this all the time.
“But honestly,” she says, words spilling faster now, “I’d take anything over the mall soundtrack from a few years ago. I was working there when Holding Out for a Hero was on the charts, and they played it constantly. Like—constantly.”
She gestures, as if the song itself is still hovering over her shoulder.
“Multiple times a day. Every shift. You could set your watch by it.”
You grin, already picturing it. You can’t help thinking she doesn’t strike you as a Bonnie Tyler person. Too much. Too dramatic for someone who seems to survive on sharp edges and humour.
She shakes her head, laughing at herself, but there’s still genuine horror in her eyes.
“I nearly lost my goddamn mind,” she admits. “And I mean, no offence to Bonnie Tyler, really—but I don’t think working hospitality is ever dramatic enough to justify that level of intensity. Like, nobody needs to feel that heroic while restocking napkins for god’s sake.”
You let out a laugh and slap a hand over your mouth, her energy infectious. "That's awful."
“I even started timing it at one point,” she continues. “Like, ‘Okay, cool, twenty-seven minutes since the last time I heard it.’ That’s when I knew it was bad.”
Something about the way she talks—fast, a little scattered, filling the air because silence might swallow her whole—feels familiar.
Then something clicks.
“Wait,” you say slowly. “You worked in the mall?”
She stalls mid-thought, like her brain has to reverse course.
“Oh,” she says. “Yeah?”
“Since when?” you ask.
She shrugs, like it’s no big thing. “Since it opened. First week, I think.”
Huh.
The last you heard, it burnt down within a single summer.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “I mean, it was new, it paid, and I was around. A job’s a job, right?”
You hum softly. “I guess that makes sense.”
She studies you for a second, head tipping to the side, curiosity flickering across her face.
“Did you go there?” she asks.
“Not much,” you admit. “Once, maybe. Over the summer before college.”
You’d wanted out of town almost immediately. That whole summer before college had been spent packing and repacking your bags, counting down the days, wanting nothing more than to leave and never run into another familiar face.
The mall was exactly where that would happen, so you stayed well clear of it.
“Oh,” she says. Then—hand to her chest—“then you completely missed my humiliation.”
You laugh despite yourself. “You’re what?”
This was going to be good.
“There was this ice cream place,” she says, already warming up, words starting to tumble. “And I mean, don’t get me wrong, the ice cream was fine, but the uniforms?”
She shakes her head slowly, like she still hasn’t recovered. You narrow your eyes at her, sceptical despite the way she’s clearly enjoying herself.
She grins.
“It was torture,” she says, already leaning into it. “Full costume commitment. Sailor uniforms. Every. Single. Day.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. “Sailor?!”
She nods hard, like she’s been waiting for that reaction.
“Sailors. Actual sailors. And I mean, I kinda get wanting a theme, but this was—” she makes a helpless face, “—a lot. Like you weren’t just serving ice cream. You were signing up for an acting role at that point.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “That’s insane.”
“I know!” she says, clearly delighted that you’re right there with her, misery and all. “I still get flashbacks whenever I taste mint choc chip! To this day.”
You laugh again—properly this time—and you’re faintly surprised by how easily it comes. It’s been a while since anything here has felt this light.
“Please tell me you kept the uniforms,” you ask between giggles.
“God, no.” She wrinkles her nose in exaggerated offence. “Steve and I got rid of them the first chance we got! Swore we’d never work anywhere that required a full get-up ever again.”
The name lands sharply.
You feel it—the instinctive pause—but she doesn’t notice, too caught up in the memory. And you don’t want to ruin it. Not when you’re actually enjoying yourself. The first conversation with someone your age that you wanted to have in this town.
You refuse to derail it.
“Steve worked there?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Curiosity sneaks in, persistent. You’d never seen them together in high school—polar opposites, different orbits entirely. Maybe this is the missing piece. The start of how they became a team.
“Yeah,” Robin says, settling a little as she shifts gears. “Yeah, he did.”
There’s a flicker of awkwardness, but she pushes past it, following your lead and leaning into the story instead.
“He had it pretty rough,” she adds, lips twitching. “The hat situation really did a number on his ego.”
Now that you can work with.
The image hits you instantly—Steve Harrington, hair immaculate, forced to cover it up. His most prized possession. You can’t help the smile that pulls at your mouth.
“Not the hair,” you giggle.
“Oh, you should’ve seen him,” she says, delighted. “He was convinced it was what was killing his chances with the ladies.”
She scoffs, rolling her eyes.
“Not the rest of the sailor outfit?” you tease.
“No,” she snorts. “Clearly, he thought he could make that work for him.”
“Ew,” you laugh, shaking your head.
“Ew, exactly,” she agrees.
The conversation falls to a gentle lull as the laughter dies down, and you feel the urge to keep it going, to smooth the moment rather than let it slip back into silence.
You clear your throat lightly.
“Um… so,” you say, casual, like it hasn’t been hovering at the edge of your thoughts, “where is Steve anyway?”
Robin’s hands still.
“Oh—” she says, then adjusts her grip on the strap of her bag. “He couldn’t, um… come in today. Headache or something.”
You nod along easily, not clocking the hesitation for what it is. People get headaches. Steve Harrington seems like the sort who’d complain loudly about one.
“Oh,” you say simply. “So… a whole show to yourself, huh?”
She exhales, a little laugh escaping her.
“Yeah. Kinda daunting without my, uh—” she gestures behind her, “—my sound assistant.”
You snort quietly.
“But,” she continues quickly, straightening like she’s psyching herself up, “I’m sure I can handle it just fine.”
You tilt your head, studying her. The confidence is there, but it’s thin—stretched tight over nerves you recognise all too well.
“Are you sure?” you ask gently.
She winces. “Uhh… kinda? I mean, Steve usually just sits at the back and pushes the buttons, but I might have to do a quick recap before I go on.”
Her gaze drifts, and instinctively yours follows—to the manuals stacked on the desk. Thick. Over-explained. Unforgiving.
You feel a pang of sympathy so sharp it almost makes you laugh.
God. Those manuals.
It would be cruel to make her go through those again. You’d done that to them the first night—handed them over like a test and watched them scramble.
They’d done well, all things considered, but you remember too clearly what it was like at the beginning for you. A book balanced awkwardly in your lap, mic hovering too close to your mouth, tapes slipping through your fingers as you tried to sound calm and competent all at once.
Your first few shows had been clunky. Messy. You’d talked too fast, hit the wrong buttons, panicked in the quiet gaps.
It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier with someone beside you.
Though—not Steve.
Definitely not Steve.
But Robin?
You glance back at her—standing there, trying so hard to look unfazed—and the decision settles before you even realise you’ve made it.
You turn fully toward her.
“Hey,” you say. “You can totally say no. Like, absolutely not. No pressure at all.”
She looks at you, wary but curious.
“But…” you continue, “I could fill in for Steve today? Just for the show.”
Her eyes widen instantly.
“No—no way. I couldn’t ask you that.” She starts talking faster, words tumbling out. “I mean, you have a day off, right? And you’ve already been here since this morning, and you barely ever take time off as it is, and I’m sure you have—like—plans? Or errands? Or—”
You giggle before you can stop yourself and lift a hand. “Hey. Shh.”
She freezes, then laughs softly, embarrassed.
Damn it. You really like this girl.
“It’s really no problem,” you say honestly. “I don’t have anything big planned. And—” you hesitate, then shrug, “—your music taste is actually stuff I’d play in my spare time.”
Her face lights up like you’ve handed her a medal.
“I knew you were listening!” she says, delighted.
“Well, yeah!” you grin. “I had to see if you were gonna blow up the place.”
“Hey! Have some faith!”
“I do, I do,” you laugh. “I still enjoyed the show.”
She squints at you. “You listen often?”
“Every time you’re on,” you say without thinking. “Seriously. You’ve got taste.”
She beams and claps her hands once in excitement. Clearly, she is looking forward to this new arrangement between you both.
“Okay, okay. Let me just get my stuff together, and we can do it. Okay?”
“Okay,” you nod, feeling a little buzz spark in your chest.
She lets out a small squeal, unable to contain herself—and before you can stop it, you do too, laughing at the sheer absurdity of it.
And as the sound echoes through the station, a thought slips in.
Maybe this is how it starts.
Maybe this could actually be the beginning of a friendship.
Steve is already up, sleeves pushed to his forearms as he begins to fill the sink.
The house is quiet, it only ever was when his parents are gone—not peaceful, but unmonitored. No footsteps overhead. No voices drifting down the stairs. Just the low sound of the fridge and the gentle trickle of water.
Robin had crashed on the couch last night.
He’d given her one of the blankets from the hall closet, the good one—the thick knit his mother liked because it “felt expensive.” She’d fallen asleep halfway through a sentence, limbs tangled, shoes kicked off without ceremony.
He hadn’t woken her. Just turned off the lamp and gone upstairs, listening for the familiar creak of the third step the way he always does, even when there’s no one around to hear it.
His parents are still in Virginia.
What was meant to be a brief holiday—a few weeks, maybe a month—has stretched into something longer, vaguer. The quarantine, the military presence. His father had said it plainly, over the phone, voice clipped and distant.
House and car are fine. That’s what matters.
The earthquake barely registered to them. A footnote. Something that happened somewhere else.
“If anything kicks off,” his father had added, “the guns are in the basement. Keep the place in one piece.”
That was the extent of the concern for their only son.
He shuts off the tap and reaches for the washing-up liquid, squirting a small amount into the full basin.
His dad can run the business from Virginia just fine—conference calls, numbers, decisions made from a distance. He is quietly, deeply grateful for that.
It means he doesn’t have to field questions about what he’s doing. Or not doing. It means his current unemployment remains an abstract concept rather than a daily disappointment.
There’s enough in the safe to keep things going for a while. Emergency funds. A cushion his father probably assumes will go untouched.
Steve doesn’t think about that part too hard.
He actually likes the house like this. Empty. It means Robin can come over when things get too rough. Means there’s space to breathe, to plan, to sit on the floor at three in the morning and talk things through without worrying about who might overhear.
It’s not a bad place to be.
He feels… content. Not settled—not naïve enough for that—but steadier than if his parents were around.
He’d dropped her off at the station earlier, already aware of the plan. He was taking the day. Needed time to get things in order before Dustin showed up later to talk about what would happen this weekend.
They’d all been briefed.
The radio was running smoothly. Robin staying on schedule, business as usual. You staying where you were, unalarmed, slowly warming.
That part matters.
It’s working. Better than he’d hoped.
Steve moves back, glancing at the counter where the remnants of breakfast still linger. Nothing fancy. Just sandwiches earlier—bread, meat, cheese, the bare minimum. Neither of them are great cooks, but they manage. It’s easier than the diner. Easier than risking being overheard.
He wipes down the counter, methodical, then checks the clock on the oven.
She should be on air soon.
Steve crosses the room and turns on the radio, nudging the volume up until it fills the space. He likes hearing her like this—confident, animated, unmistakably herself.
Even knowing it’s part of a larger plan doesn’t diminish that. If anything, it steadies him. She sounds happy, and that’s good enough for the meantime here.
And if this helps smooth things over with you, then all the better.
He starts gathering the remaining dishes, stacking plates, carrying them to the sink—and then it happens.
Robin bursts through the speakers, energy dialled up, voice bright and familiar.
He stills for half a second.
Let’s see how she does without me.
The thought isn’t bitter. It’s almost fond.
He smiles as he gets to work.
“Hello, Hawkins!” Robin’s voice rings out. “You’re back with us at the Squawk, and this is Rockin’ Robin, here to bring you music and a sense of direction where there absolutely is none.”
Her theme song kicks in, and Steve straightens as he hesitates to grab the sponge.
How is she doing two things at once?
Usually, he’s the one in the background, riding the levels, cueing tapes, watching the clock. She’d made it very clear in the car how nervous she was about doing this alone. Had stressed—repeatedly—that today was bare bones only. No frills.
Surely not…
Robin’s voice comes back in, smooth as ever.
“And there has been a very small change of plans over at the Squawk today, hasn’t there?”
Steve freezes.
From the radio, unmistakable now, comes your voice.
“Indeed, there has.”
His head snaps up, eyes widening.
That smile—he can hear it. The easy one. The one you use on air when you’re in control.
You’re on with her?
The shock gives way to something warmer, faster.
Holy shit.
Yes, Rob.
On the radio, Robin laughs.
“Okay, first of all,” she says, “I would just like it on record that I did not bully my way into this. I was very prepared to panic quietly by myself.”
You cut in smoothly. “She’s being modest. I only offered to keep the station from going up in flames.”
“Wow,” Robin says. “Rude.”
Steve lets out a breathy laugh and starts washing the plates, movements automatic, attention completely hijacked by the sound of the two of you together.
It sounds so natural.
“So,” Robin continues, “this is our first official show together, which means several things. One: if anything goes wrong, we’re blaming the equipment.”
“Absolutely.”
“Two,” Robin presses on, “if I accidentally talk over you—”
“You will,” you say mildly.
“—it’s because I’m excited, not because I’m rude.”
“Hm, sure.”
Steve scrubs a little harder than necessary, grinning.
God. You’re good together.
“And three,” Robin adds, “we’re playing good music today. None of that ‘requested by someone’s uncle’ nonsense.”
Steve shakes his head, rinsing a plate, warmth spreading through his chest.
She’s doing it. And you’re not stiff or polite in that brittle way he half-expected. You sound relaxed. Amused. Like you’re enjoying this.
So this is what you’re like with others.
The thought lands softly, and somehow that makes it hurt more.
It’s bittersweet, hearing you like this—easy, quick with your words. The way you laugh without bracing for impact. The way you sound unafraid.
This is who you are when you’re not guarded, when you’re not forced to be careful or sharp-edged or ready to defend yourself.
You’re smart. Witty. Effortless in a way he has never quite managed to be.
Everything he wishes he could reach for and never quite touches.
It isn’t fair—none of it. Not what happened, not what he let happen, not the way he stood by and watched while you were made small in a town that never deserved you. And yet, after everything he put you through, after everything Hawkins took from you, you come back with this voice.
This laugh. This light.
It’s admirable. And it’s devastating.
It makes something ache deep within him, because suddenly this isn’t just about a radio show or making a plan work. It’s about the knowledge that he broke something once—someone—and walked away from it.
He wants to set things right. He has to try now.
That and Nancy’s words ringing in his ears.
And maybe it’s selfish—probably it is—but part of him wants to step closer to that light, just a little. Not to take from it. Not to deserve it. Just close enough to feel its warmth, on the off chance that some small part of it might remind him how to be better.
From the radio, Robin again, clearly buzzing now.
“Okay, so for anyone just tuning in, today’s show is brought to you by teamwork, a mutual suffering over overplayed songs.”
“And by suffering,” you add, “we mean any Cyndi Lauper tracks”
“Firmly,” Robin giggles.
Steve pauses at the sink, sponge dripping, listening.
She’s happy, he thinks.
You’ve got her.
He isn’t sure how much of the Upside Down still reaches Robin, how deeply it claws at her when things go quiet—but he knows it eats at him every single day. She’s grateful he’s there to listen; he understands that much. Knows his presence matters, even when he doesn’t quite know how to help.
But the idea that she might have you now—someone untouched by it all, someone who laughs easily and doesn’t carry the same ghosts. Someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to lose people in ways that never fully make sense.
If you can give her even a moment of normalcy—just for a while—then it’s worth it.
On air, the two of you keep going—trading lines, slipping seamlessly into rhythm, like this is something you’ve done before. Like it was inevitable.
“And coming up,” Robin says, “we’ve got a track that neither of us is sick of yet, which frankly feels like a miracle.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” you reply. “Take it away, Wang Chung!”
Steve turns back to the sink, grinning from ear to ear.
Maybe this day off was exactly what needed to happen.
Maybe letting go—just a little—was the right call after all.
The knock comes sharp and fast, and Steve doesn’t even hesitate.
He’s moving before his brain catches up, crossing the hall and pulling the door open with a familiar grin.
“Hey, man—”
Dustin stands on the porch, backpack slung over one shoulder, expression flat.
“Hey,” he says.
Just that. No grin. No commentary. No immediate complaint about the heat or the bike ride or how long it took him to get here.
Steve blinks.
“Uh,” he says, thrown. “Hey?”
Dustin steps forward like he already owns the place, eyes flicking past Steve into the house.
“You got the keys?”
Steve frowns. “The—?”
“The keys to your car,” Dustin says, already sighing like this is exhausting. “I need to get into it to check a few things. Or did you forget?”
Steve stiffens.
Not the words exactly. The tone.
The way Dustin skips right past the usual rhythm. Usually there’s something—some ramble, some update about Lucas, some half-formed theory he’s been sitting on. Dustin Henderson does not usually walk into a room like a drill sergeant.
“No, I uh—” he says quickly. “No, I didn’t forget.”
He digs into his pocket, pulls out the keys, and holds them up.
The kid snatches them without a word and turns immediately toward the driveway. Steve stands there for a second, hand still half-raised.
…Okay.
He closes the door and follows, confusion settling as Dustin makes a beeline for the BMW like he isn’t even there.
This isn’t a new thing, exactly.
Dustin’s been like this for weeks now—short-tempered, clipped, brittle. Ever since the Upside Down.
Ever since Eddie.
Steve swallows.
He knows it’s grief. Knows it’s not personal. Losing Eddie ripped something open in all of them, but Dustin—Dustin had been right there.
Had watched it happen. Had lived with the weight of it.
It was a lot for a kid his age to bear.
Steve had hoped that if he just kept showing up, kept being nice, kept being Steve the way he’s always been for the kids, it might ease off eventually.
He’d been there for Dustin for years. Babysitter. Chauffeur. Shield.
Punching bag.
He thought that counted for something.
They reach the car. Dustin pops the trunk, shrugs his backpack off, and drops it onto the gravel. He unzips it fast, pulling out equipment in quick succession—wires, clamps, a small handheld satellite unit, a tracker no bigger than Steve’s palm, coils of something he can’t even identify.
He hovers uselessly.
Dustin leans into the open trunk, then moves around to the passenger side, opens the door, and slides in. He adjusts the seat, pushing it back, then forward again, testing the range like he’s sizing up a machine rather than sitting in a car.
Steve crouches slightly to look in, unsure what he’s supposed to be doing.
“So, uh,” he starts, then falters. Tries again. “What… what are you doing?”
Dustin huffs.
“I’m trying to see if there’s any way I can mount this without it shaking loose,” he says, holding up the tracker like it should be self-explanatory.
“Oh,” Steve says. “Yeah. Okay.”
He nods like that helped.
Dustin keeps working, hands moving fast.
“So like,” he adds, grasping for something solid, “the tracker, right?”
Dustin finally looks at him. His eyes flick up, sharp.
“Yes,” he says. “The tracker. Were you not there for the last meeting at all?”
The last meeting.
Wheeler house. Parents gone. Holly with them. Everyone crammed into the living room—papers spread out, maps marked up, voices overlapping as they talked about Hopper going back into the Upside Down.
About Vecna. About finishing this.
Steve remembers sitting on the arm of the couch, listening. Trying to keep up.
“I was there,” he says, defensive before he can stop himself. “I was listening.”
It sounds thin. Even to him. Sounds small.
The teen swivels toward the backseat, opens the door, and starts poking around, clearly done with the conversation. He shoves past Steve without looking.
He stumbles back a step. “Hey—watch it.”
Dustin ignores him.
He leans into the backseat, takes one look, then straightens with a frustrated sigh.
“This isn’t gonna work.”
Steve blinks.
“What do you mean it’s not gonna work?”
Dustin doesn’t look at him. “It’s just not.”
“Well,” he says, irritation creeping in now, “try explaining it?”
Dustin exhales hard, finally turning on him.
“Okay,” he says, rapid-fire now, like he’s already halfway annoyed. “Tracking devices rely on consistent signal relay. Satellites, repeaters, triangulation. But when you’re dealing with dimensional interference—like literal alternate planes—you get signal bleed. Loss. Distortion.”
Steve stares at him.
Dustin keeps going, pacing slightly now.
“You can’t just stick a small tracker in a car and hope it punches through interdimensional noise. You need amplification. A bigger receiver. More room.”
Steve nods, even though none of this is landing.
“And your car,” Dustin adds, gesturing vaguely at the BMW, “doesn’t have the clearance.”
Steve waits. Blinks.
Dustin sighs, clearly deciding to simplify—on purpose.
“Big satellite,” he says flatly. “Needs more room.”
“Oh,” Steve says. “Okay—yeah. No—got it.”
He absolutely does not ‘got it.’
“So,” he adds, after a moment, “what now?”
Dustin doesn’t answer right away.
Steve watches him turn back to the equipment, jaw tight, shoulders tense, grief sitting heavy in every sharp movement.
He swallows the lump in his throat.
He wants to help. He wants to matter here.
Instead, he’s standing in his driveway, holding nothing, feeling like he’s already failed.
Dustin folds his arms across his chest, eyes hard—like the kid has aged ten years overnight and resents anyone who hasn’t kept up.
“We need a bigger vehicle,” he says flatly. “If this has any chance of working.”
Steve exhales through his nose.
“Well, we don’t exactly have a bigger vehicle, Henderson.”
Dustin’s mouth twists.
“Yeah,” he says. “We did.”
Steve winces before he can stop himself.
A van.
Eddie’s van.
The word doesn’t even have to be said. It hangs between them, heavy and sharp and untouchable. He looks away, because that’s a line he doesn’t get to cross. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Dustin notices anyway.
He always does.
Steve swallows, heart aching, and something desperate claws its way up his chest. He needs this to work. Needs something to work. Not just for the plan—but for Dustin.
For all of them.
Steve Harrington has always been a fixer.
He fixes fights. Fixes doors. Fixes messes he didn’t start. Fixes things by putting himself between danger and people who shouldn’t have to carry it.
Especially Dustin.
“So,” Steve presses, latching onto momentum, “we need a van.”
“Yes,” Dustin snaps. “And I don’t see one lying around here.”
“I can get one.”
The words tumble out before he fully thinks them through.
Shit.
Dustin scoffs. “Oh yeah? How?”
Steve straightens, adrenaline kicking in.
Finally, something he can do.
“The radio station,” he says quickly.
“You still doing that?”
“Well—yeah,” Steve says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s… going. Kind of.”
He hasn’t blown it. You’re barely on civil terms with him, but you seem okay with Robin—and right now, Steve is clinging to that like it’s a life raft.
“They’ve got a van,” Steve continues. “Station vehicle.”
Dustin stills.
“Go on.”
Steve feels a flicker of hope spark in his stomach. He leans into it, words speeding up.
“She said it was broken—I think—but that’s fixable, right? I mean, how hard can it be? A few things here and there, and it’d be perfect. Plenty of room. Enough space for the equipment—”
“What about the part where she hates your guts?”
The words land clean and brutal.
Steve freezes.
“Who told you that?” he asks quietly.
Dustin shrugs. “Mike.”
Steve’s stomach drops.
“And how the hell does Mike know?”
“Nancy,” Dustin says. “She told him. Said she was worried you’d get kicked out. Told us to be nice to her if we ever ran into her.”
Steve winces hard enough it feels physical.
Of course Nancy told them.
She always thinks three steps ahead. Always covers every angle. It’s smart—brilliant, even—to make sure the kids don’t antagonise you if they cross paths.
But the idea that all of them know—that your history, your anger, your rightful hatred of him is common knowledge—twists something ugly.
And worse than that?
The idea that you hate him so much you wouldn’t even let him help you.
He can’t blame you. But it still fucking hurts.
Steve speaks before he can stop himself.
“Is that why you’ve been short with me?”
“What?” Dustin snaps his head up. “You realised actions have consequences, Steve?” He shoots back.
Steve stares at him, stunned.
Dustin exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Listen,” he says. “You were an ass.”
“Hey—”
“A grade-A douchebag,” Dustin cuts in. “And now you need her on your side.”
Steve nods helplessly. “Yeah. That’s what Nancy said. But it’s not that simple.”
Dustin snorts.
“No shit it’s not simple. If I were in her position, I would’ve called the cops and gotten you thrown straight in jail if you showed up unannounced.”
“It was close,” Steve mutters, barely audible,
Dustin looks at him.
Steve shuts up.
“Do what you have to do,” Dustin says finally. “Get that van up and running. Two weeks.”
Steve blinks. “Two weeks?”
“Yes.”
Impossible.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that in two weeks?” Steve demands. “I barely see her. And this—this is impossible.”
Dustin shrugs, already pulling his backpack on.
“From the sounds of it,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, “she likes Robin. That’s a start.”
Steve scoffs. “Robin can’t fix a van. She doesn’t even—wait.”
He stops.
“How do you know she likes Robin?”
Dustin doesn’t answer.
Instead, he walks over to his bike, reaches into the front holder, pulls out his Walkie, and turns the volume up.
From the tiny speakers comes the unmistakable sound of radio static… followed by laughter.
Yours.
Robin’s.
Goddamn it.
Dustin lifts his shoulders in a silent told you so and clicks the machine off.
“Use it,” Dustin says, swinging one leg over his bike. “Please.”
He pauses, just for a second.
“And don’t fuck this up any more than you already have.”
He tosses Steve’s car keys back at him.
“Get that goddamn van in working order!”
Steve catches the keys on instinct and watches as Dustin pedals away, shoulders hunched, grief riding him like a shadow.
Steve stands there long after the sound of the bike disappears.
Keys clenched in his fist. Heart heavy.
Two weeks.
A broken van.
And the knowledge that he’s running out of chances—not just to fix the plan, but to make amends for a past he can’t undo.
He exhales slowly.
He’d thought he’d have more time—that even with you hating him, he could use the station as neutral ground, something to hide behind while he figured out how to make things right.
But now there’s a clock on it. Two weeks. Two damn weeks, and stalling isn’t an option anymore.
He has to do something. And he has to do it soon.
He turns, eyes tracing the familiar lines of the house, then the car sitting idle in the drive. The answer settles in his chest, heavy but unavoidable. Either today, or tomorrow.
You both need to have this conversation. It’s been hanging between you for far too long, festering in silence and avoidance.
And if he can’t face it—if he can’t get it under control in the next two weeks—then the plan was never viable to begin with.
“And that,” Robin says into the mic, leaning in just a little, “is us reminding you to take it easy. Drink some water. Stretch. Maybe—if you’re feeling generous—call your mom.”
You snort, fingers already easing the fader down.
“Optional,” you add smoothly. “No pressure. This has been—”
“—the true highlight of your afternoon,” Robin cuts in, effortlessly.
“High praise,” you say, lips tugging into a grin. “I’ll be back same time tomorrow—Rockin’ Robin, you gotta wait til Sunday! Until then—be kind, be safe, and we’ll catch you later!”
She taps the button, the track rolls in, and the red light finally clicks off.
Silence settles in.
Silence.
For half a second, you both just stare at each other—eyes bright, buzzing with leftover energy—before you break at the same time.
“That was so good,” Robin blurts.
“That was so good,” you echo, laughing.
She slaps her hand out instinctively, and you meet it mid-air, the crack of the high five sharp and satisfying. She whoops, spinning her chair a little too hard, nearly bumping into the desk.
“Did you hear that segue?” she says, breathless. “I mean, hello, professional.”
“You carried that whole second half,” you shoot back. “You as a host is actually insane. In a good way. Like—criminally.”
“Right?” She beams, the praise hitting her full force. “I’ve always been told I had a face for radio.”
You realise, distantly, that your cheeks hurt from smiling.
God. You adore her.
You never laughed like this in high school. Laughter back then had always come with a cost—watching who heard it, who saw you, who might decide that association was suddenly dangerous. People kept their distance. Safer that way.
Robin, though?
Robin doesn’t even seem to understand the concept of distance.
She swivels in her chair again, stands up—and her back lets out an alarmingly loud crack.
“Ooof,” she says immediately. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” you laugh. “Oh my god. That happens to me every time. I fear I’m going to have the worst posture before the age of forty.”
She waves a hand dismissively. “Eh. Worth it.”
You snort.
You step out of the booth together toward the couch at the front, the darkness of the station wrapping around you like something familiar. You glance at the clock mounted above the records and blink.
“Oh—hey,” you say. “Do you need a ride home?”
Robin shakes her head easily. “Oh, no worries. Steve’s picking me up.”
You stop short.
“Huh?” The word slips out before you can catch it. “I thought he had a headache?”
The lie lands awkwardly between you.
Robin tilts her head, quickly recovering from her slip.
“Oh—uh—yeah, he did,” she says before correcting her rambling. “But he’s not really one to go back on a promise once he makes it.”
You let out a small laugh. It sounds right. It feels wrong.
“Yeah,” you say lightly. “Right.”
The mood shifts. Subtle, but unmistakable.
You hear it in the quiet that follows. Immediately, regret floods in.
You sigh.
“Hey. Sorry. That’s not—” You gesture vaguely. “That’s not you.”
Robin softens instantly.
“No,” she says gently. “I know.”
Silence settles again, heavier this time.
She rocks on her heels, visibly conflicted, the quiet stretching just long enough to be uncomfortable.
You wait.
She’s not the kind of person who can sit on a thought for long, and you brace yourself for whatever’s coming.
“He’s… changed,” she says, softer now, like she’s not sure how it’ll land. “For what it’s worth.”
You blink. “What?”
“Steve,” she clarifies quickly. “He’s—” She winces. “I know it’s not really my place to say anything. I mean, you barely know me. Or him. And we’ve barely spoken, and we had fun today, right? But I wouldn’t say we’re, like, best friends or anything—”
“Robin.”
Off she goes again.
“Oh—right. Sorry.” She grimaces. “I—uh—talk when I’m nervous…”
You can’t help the small smile that tugs at your mouth.
“Yeah...” you say. “I noticed.”
She steps closer, the joking energy ebbing away as she takes you in more seriously now.
She exhales slowly, clearly weighing her words—and when they finally come, they’re not the ones you’re bracing for.
“I hated high school,” she says. “Like—really hated it.”
You didn’t expect that.
There’s no drama in the statement. Just fact.
She glances at you, searching your face for something, and whatever she sees there makes her soften. You give a small, sad huff of a laugh in return.
You’ll bite.
“Yeah,” you murmur. “I know what that feels like.”
Something passes between you at that—recognition. Her smile is small, but it’s real, and there’s an ache behind it you understand immediately. The kind of sadness that doesn’t fade with time. The kind you associate with lockers and hallways and too many eyes.
“I mean,” she continues, hands waving as if she’s scooping memories out of the air, “even now? You couldn’t pay me to go back.”
She shakes her head, hair bouncing.
“I hated waking up every morning and coming in. Everyone was always so loud—y’know? Everything was always life or death. One wrong word, and suddenly it was the end of the goddamn world.” She laughs, but it’s hollow. “Honestly, I couldn’t see a way out of it.”
Your chest tightens as you listen. The words slot into you too neatly, like they’ve been waiting there.
You watch her as she talks. She’s remembering. And it feels uncomfortably like she’s narrating your own past back to you. Your exact thoughts spilling from her lips.
“I probably didn’t make it easy on myself,” she adds, wryly. “I played the trumpet in band, for God’s sake. I mean—if that doesn’t put a target on your back, I don’t know what does.”
You smile despite yourself.
“I remember you,” you say quietly.
She blinks. “Oh yeah?”
You nod. “Yeah. Your hair was curly then.”
“Oh my god,” She groans immediately, covering her face. “Don’t remind me. I got a perm second year.”
You giggle, the sound lighter than you expect, and she laughs with you. But then her expression shifts again, settling into something more thoughtful.
“It was only when I got my first job that summer,” she says, “that I realised high school is just… a blip. Like, this tiny, suffocating little blip on an otherwise huge trajectory of life.”
She takes a few steps toward the couch and sits down, leaving the space beside her in a silent invitation. You hesitate for half a second—then follow, lowering yourself carefully, instinctively sensing the weight of what’s coming next.
Whatever is coming, it feels heavy.
You sit shoulder to shoulder, close but not touching.
“The one with the sailor uniform?” you tease gently, trying to lighten the mood.
She smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”
She shifts, tucking one leg under herself, eyes drifting somewhere far past the walls of the station.
“I took the first job I could get,” she says. “Funny enough, there wasn’t a lot of competition for the place.” A sigh. “But nothing could have prepared me for who I was gonna be working with.”
Your breath slips out of you before you can stop it.
“Steve.”
Saying his name hurts in a way that feels unfair. This tender moment isn’t doing you any favours; your emotions are creeping up despite your best efforts to keep them locked down.
You stay quiet. You let her speak.
She clearly needs to.
“You can imagine my reaction when I saw him,” Robin says, snorting. “I mean—God. He was such an asshole back then.”
You huff a laugh, bitter and familiar, and she grins at you in solidarity.
“Him and his fancy car,” she continues. “Always made sure everyone heard him pulling into school. I genuinely thought he’d just live off his dad’s money forever. Like—set for life. Untouchable.”
You listen. And as she talks, it clicks into place—the clothes, the car, the shoes, always new, always expensive. The ease with which he moved through the world back then. It makes you wonder why someone like that would end up working at a dingy food place in a mall when he could have had something handed to him without trying.
Your mind flickers back to the scar you saw on his side.
Maybe there’s more to Steve Harrington than you ever wanted to believe.
“It was downright pitiful at first,” she goes on. “You could see it—how much he clung to that high school persona. He thought his name would carry him. Tried it on with almost every girl that came in.” She shakes her head. “Told them who he was, like they couldn’t already see it.”
She laughs softly. “They recognised him. They just… didn’t care.”
Something ugly and satisfying curls in your chest.
“Watching King Steve finally get brought back down to earth?” she admits. “Finally humbled? Yeah—it felt… really good.”
She looks at you then, a small, sad smile tugging at her mouth. You can picture it all too easily—the fall, the confusion, the loss of power.
Good, you think, without guilt.
He should feel that way.
A quieter part of you wishes it had been Tommy. Or Carol. But you’ll take what you can get.
“It made me feel good for a while,” Robin says. “Putting him in his place. Watching him struggle with the register. Seeing him realise he’d never actually had to do anything for himself.”
She exhales.
“But after a while… it just made me sad.”
You frown, turning toward her.
“That summer,” she says softly, “that summer changed everything.”
Her voice dips. The air shifts.
“I won’t go into the details,” she continues. “It’s not my story to tell. But there’s a reason Steve is my friend now.” She hesitates. “My best friend, really.”
The words hit you harder than you expect. You look at her, and she’s telling the truth.
From what you remember, Robin hadn’t been popular. Not then. She wouldn’t say something like that lightly.
She’d have to have a damn good reason.
You want to argue. To push back. To reject the idea outright.
But you don’t.
“I never expected it to be him,” she says. “Never in a million years. But after everything that happened—the fire—” her voice wobbles, then steadies. “It was the first time I really saw him.”
She turns fully toward you now.
“Saw him for who he actually is,” she says. “He’s not the person you remember. When I learned about what he went through—it… it changes a person.”
She goes quiet as she stares at you, and it's clear what she is asking you to do.
Give him a chance.
You scoff and look away, the sound brittle in your own ears.
You don’t want to listen anymore. You can’t. Your chest feels too tight, your head too full, emotions scraping raw after weeks of sleepless nights and half-buried memories clawing their way back to the surface.
Coming back to Hawkins had already been more than you bargained for. Letting people in. Letting him in. And now Robin—kind, earnest, devastatingly sincere Robin—is telling you things you don’t want to be true.
Asking you for a favour she couldn’t fathom.
Tears blur your vision before you can stop them. You swipe at your face angrily, jaw clenched.
God, you’re exhausted.
Tired down to your bones.
Robin notices immediately.
She doesn’t reach for you. She just shifts closer on the couch, enough that you can feel her presence beside you—solid, grounding—like she’s saying I’m here without forcing you to acknowledge it.
You keep staring at the floor. The scuffed linoleum. Anything but her face.
“I can see how it’s eating you up,” she says gently.
That’s an understatement.
Her voice is softer now, stripped of the jokes and the energy.
“I can tell that having him back here—having him in your space—it’s ripping you in half.”
You glance at her despite yourself, and she sees it immediately. The tears clinging to your lashes. The way your mouth trembles when you press your lips together too hard.
Her expression doesn’t change. No pity. Just understanding.
“But coming from someone who has… even a brief idea of what you went through,” she continues, choosing every word with intention, “I promise you—holding onto all of this hate? It’s only going to do more damage in the long run.”
You bristle, instinctively defensive.
“What if I don’t want to let it go?” you snap, quieter but sharper for it. “What if he deserves it?”
You hope he is feeling even an inch of what you feel whenever you hear his name.
But if it’s hurting you in the process…
Robin nods immediately. No hesitation.
“There’s no doubt that he does,” she says. “You’re not wrong about that.”
That stops you short.
Then she tilts her head slightly, eyes searching yours.
“But what about you here?”
You frown.
Damn she’s good.
“I mean,” she continues softly, “there has to be a reason you let him back in here in the first place.”
You rack your brain, grasping for something solid to hold onto. Panic, you want to say. Convenience. Wanting him gone. Wanting the problem to disappear.
And maybe that was true—at first.
But then you think about the little things. The way he scrubbed the station until his hands were raw. The way he passed out on the couch afterward, exhausted and unguarded. The way he jumped to help without being asked. The way he listened.
The way he’s trying.
Nothing about him feels the way it used to. There’s nothing he’s done that’s made you afraid.
And that terrifies you more than anything.
He’s changed.
No.
No, you refuse.
You can’t believe that. Not after everything. Won’t let yourself be swayed by one month of good behaviour and his—annoyingly—brilliant choice of friend.
But there’s something else underneath it all—a question that’s too big, too dangerous to touch. One you refuse to answer. Because if you don’t hate Steve Harrington, then he becomes something else.
An ally.
And that’s not a position you can afford to put him in. Not after everything.
“What if I can’t forgive him?” you ask quietly.
The question feels fragile.
Robin smiles at you, small and reassuring.
“Then don’t,” she says simply.
A tear slips free before you can stop it, tracking down your cheek. You wipe it away with the heel of your hand, embarrassed, angry at your own vulnerability.
She shifts closer, her hand settling on your shoulder, reading the moment without you having to say anything.
“You don’t have to forgive anyone you don’t want to,” she continues. “No one gets to demand that from you.”
She pauses, then adds, gently but firmly,
“But… I think if you are going to keep letting us in here—if you’re going to keep sharing this space—you should talk to him about it.”
You tense. But there’s truth in what she’s saying.
Every time the station door rattles in the wind, every time it creaks open a little too hard, your stomach knots—half-expecting it to be him on the other side, bracing yourself for something you don’t quite know how to face.
You’ve been shutting him down at every turn. Real conversations, not the surface-level ones. You tell yourself it’s self-preservation, that keeping him at arm’s length is the safest option. But listening to Robin now, you’re starting to wonder if it’s actually doing the opposite.
Maybe hearing him out wouldn’t break you. Maybe it would quiet things—let you sleep through the night, let you breathe easier when the door opens. Maybe it would even let you have Robin without this constant, unspoken tension sitting between you.
She watches your expression shift, sees the way your thoughts spiral, and gently presses on, sensing she might finally be getting through.
“At least then,” she says, “he knows where he stands. Because I know leaving you like this is torture for him, too.”
You want to say good. The word sits sharp on your tongue—but it doesn’t make it out. Instead, you meet her brown eyes and see only sincerity there, and it undoes you more than anger ever could.
You don’t answer. You don’t trust your voice.
“Otherwise,” she adds quietly, “this is just going to keep growing inside you. And sooner or later, there won’t be anything left. You’ll burn yourself out.”
The truth in her words hits hard.
Damn her.
Damn her for being right.
You look at her again, and you see how open she is. How much thought she’s put into this. How carefully she’s trying not to push you too far.
She’s good at this.
You sit there for another moment, letting everything settle—your breathing, your racing thoughts, the knot in your chest.
For God’s sake.
“I’m not making any promises,” you finally say.
Robin’s smile widens, relief flickering across her face.
“But… I’ll think about it.”
She nods, like that’s more than enough. It would have to be, that’s all you could give her for now.
“Okay, good,” she says softly. Then she adds, almost shyly, “Because… just between you and me? I think I’d like to be your friend.”
The words catch you off guard, warm and unexpected.
You let out a small, breathy laugh.
“Yeah,” you admit. “I think I’d like to be your friend too.”
You share a look with her, trying to hold in the laughter. The whole thing sounds beyond juvenile.
She grins. “Are we in kindergarten or something?”
You snort, rubbing at your sleeve like it might steady you.
“I don’t know. I haven’t done this in a while.”
She bumps her shoulder lightly against yours, easy and warm. “Me neither.”
And for the first time since you came back to Hawkins, the idea of staying doesn’t feel quite so unbearable.
You’re about to say something else, something small and noncommittal that won’t give too much away, when headlights sweep across the window. Bright and sudden, cutting through the dim of the station. The moment fractures.
Robin glances toward the light, then back at you with a sheepish smile.
“Uh. That’s my ride.”
You sniff quietly and stand with her, smoothing your hands down your jeans like you’re pulling yourself back together. “Yeah.”
She gathers her bag, slinging it over her shoulder, and you walk her to the door. She pauses there, fingers curling around the strap, then turns back.
“You can come say hi? I mean—if you want,” she offers, hopeful in that way she tries to pretend she isn’t.
You chuckle, soft but tired, and shake your head.
Not tonight.
If this is going to work—if you’re actually going to do this—it has to be on your terms. Your timing. You’re not going to make it easier for Steve just because the universe seems determined to shove him back into your orbit.
And you definitely don’t want Robin there when everything finally spills out. She doesn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire.
“I think I’ve had enough emotions for one night,” you say gently.
Robin laughs, a little embarrassed.
“Yeah. No. Yeah, of course.”
She shifts like she’s about to leave, then you stop her—words tumbling out before you can overthink them.
“But—” you say, heart thudding. “If he’s… not doing anything tomorrow. He could drop by… or something.”
The words feel fragile the second they’re spoken, like glass you can’t take back.
Her face threatens to split into a grin, but she reins it in, nodding quickly.
“Yeah. No—sure. I can ask him.”
Before you can retreat into yourself again, she steps forward and pulls you into a hug. It knocks the breath out of you for a second.
“Oof,” you manage, then laugh and return it anyway, arms wrapping around her without thinking too hard about it.
She pulls back, smiling bright and sincere.
“See you later, okay?”
“See you,” you call after her as she heads down the hall toward the exit.
The door clicks shut behind her, and the quiet settles in again.
Your stomach twists, familiar and sharp.
Anxiety, blooming right on cue.
Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe tomorrow is a mistake waiting to happen.
But you couldn’t say no—not to her.
Not when she’d been so honest. Not when some part of you knows she’s right.
You turn back toward the station, gathering your things on autopilot, locking up like you’ve done a hundred times before. Only now, the night feels heavier.
You already know sleep won’t come easy.
Not with Steve Harrington possibly walking through that door tomorrow morning.
a/n: hope you enjoyed this part!! once again i absolutely love writing robin and–even though it pains me–the rocky relationship between steve and dustin.
hope everyone is doing well in 2026 and please let me know what you think! the next part i have already begun writing but i feel i'm gonna have to redo it like five more times because i need to get it exactly right so it might take a little while to make it perfect.
summary: Steve pining over Nancy is driving you crazy, so you offer to help him make her jealous.
pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader
word count: 2.4k
warnings: Explicit smut, fake dating, mutual pining, dirty talk, brief handjob, p in v sex, light choking
You notice it before anyone else does.
The way Steve keeps drifting… his body planted at the sqwak with the rest of you, but his attention constantly snagging on Nancy. It happens in little flickers, tiny tells.
Nancy leans over the map with Jonathan? Steve’s knee bounces.
She brushes hair behind her ear? His jaw flexes.
She laughs at Jonathan? Steve’s entire expression dims like someone turned a dial down.
It makes your chest tighten.
Because you know Steve… his bravado, his posturing, the way he jokes when he’s hurting.
You’ve seen the version he hides from everyone else. And right now, he’s trying so hard not to look like he cares that he might as well have a flashing neon sign over his head.
No one else notices at first…. But you do.
You watch him from your seat, pretending to study a sketch of the plan Mike came up with.
Really, you’re watching the way he keeps shifting his weight like he wants to go stand next to Nancy but can’t make himself do it. The way he swallows every time Jonathan gently touches her shoulder while pointing at the map.
He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. He looks… lost. And you hate how much that gets to you.
After a few minutes, you push yourself up and wander toward him, pretending like you’re just stretching your legs.
He’s leaning against the wall, arms folded, staring at nothing. Definitely not listening to whatever Robin is rambling about. His eyes flick to Nancy and Jonathan again—and that’s when you speak.
“You’re gonna burn holes in the back of Jonathan’s head,” you murmur.
Steve startles, blinking down at you. “I… what? No, I’m not!”
“You’re glaring.”
“I’m not glaring,” he mutters defensively, straightening. “I’m… observing.”
“You look constipated.”
He snorts despite himself, shoulders loosening a little. “Wow. Thanks.”
You shrug. “Just being honest.”
You look up at him, really look, and the vulnerable tightness in his expression is impossible to ignore.
“You okay?” you ask quietly.
He hesitates, then gestures vaguely toward Nancy nonchalantly. “She just… used to look at me like that.”
“And now she looks at Jonathan.”
He doesn’t respond and your stomach twists in sympathy—and something else you don’t want to examine too closely.
You nudge him gently with your elbow. “You know… there are ways to make someone remember you.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “What, walk over there and give a dramatic speech?”
“No,” you say, amuse, “something that actually works.”
His brows lift slightly. “…Like what?”
You look away for a moment, gathering the courage, because saying this out loud feels surprisingly intimate.
Then you turn back to him.
“You could make her jealous.”
Steve goes very still.
You keep your voice light, “It works. People don’t usually realize what they’re missing until they think someone else has it.”
He studies your face for a long moment, something soft and uncertain flickering behind his eyes.
“And… how would I do that?” he asks, slow, cautious. “Hypothetically.”
The question sends a pulse of warmth through your chest.
“Hypothetically?” you echo. “You’d need someone to… pretend with you.”
His throat bobs. “Pretend.”
“Fake date,” you clarify, shrugging lightly like your heart isn’t pounding. “Hold your hand. Lean into you a little. Maybe let you put your arm around them so Nancy sees it.”
He keeps staring at you and it makes your skin heat.
“You’d do that?” he asks softly.
You try for a casual tone, even though your pulse is everywhere. “I mean… unless kissing me is some terrible burden.”
A breath of a laugh escapes him, his mouth curving. “No. I wouldn’t call it a burden.”
Something shifts between you.
“So?” you murmur. “If you want the help… I’m offering.”
He looks at you like he’s weighing the whole world.
Like he’s finally seeing something he should’ve seen sooner.
Then, quietly, almost gratefully…
“Yeah. Okay,” he shoots you a faint smile, “let’s try it.”
And just like that, the pretending begins.
Pretending turns into its own sort of torture, because Steve commits.
Hand on your lower back when you walk into a room.
Thumb hooked into your belt loop when he stands behind you.
His palm resting casually on your knee when you sit together.
Little touches that are supposed to be for show.
Supposed to mean nothing.
Except they aren’t nothing.
Not when your body reacts every single time.
He looks at you differently, too.
Like he’s studying your face when he thinks you’re not looking.
Like he’s memorizing your laugh.
Like he’s trying not to cross invisible lines he desperately wants to cross.
And sometimes, when the fake dating act requires a quick kiss to your cheek or your temple, you feel his breath stall. Feel him linger just half a second too long.
You don’t bring it up and he doesn’t either.
But the tension builds, slow and relentless, like water pressing against glass.
And then the crawl happens.
The group is buzzing with nervous energy as plans are finalized. Supplies are checked, flashlights tested, weapons distributed.
Joyce is talking too fast, Robin keeps pacing, Nancy and Jonathan are coordinating routes.
But Steve keeps you close. A gentle touch at your back, a quiet glance to make sure you’re near. The kind of protectiveness that never feels like an act.
Nancy doesn’t say a word when she spots you and Steve standing a little too close near the van, but the shift in her expression is unmistakable. Her eyes flick down to where Steve’s hand rests on the small of your back, casual, but not that casual—then back up to your face, lingering just long enough to read a truth you hadn’t meant to show. It’s not the first time this has occurred, and you hope Steve notices your plan has worked
When the crawl site is declared ready, your stomach tightens.
You’ve been through it before. You know the dark, the vines, the suffocating air. The way the Upside Down swallows sound.
You try to steady your breathing, but Steve sees it immediately. He always sees you.
“Hey,” he murmurs, brushing your arm. “We’re riding in the van. Dustin’s a no-show, come with me.”
You nod, not trusting your voice.
Inside, it’s dim and quiet. A temporary bubble away from the chaos. Steve closes the door behind you, and suddenly it’s just the two of you in the muted half-dark.
He sits across from you at first, elbows resting on his knees.
“You’re nervous,” he says softly. Not accusing. Not teasing. Just noticing.
You swallow. “A little.”
He shakes his head gently. “No. More than a little.”
Your eyes sting, not because of fear, but because he sounds like he cares too much for it to be pretend. He scoots closer, still giving you space to pull away. “Come here.”
You go without hesitation.
He pulls you in, slow and carefully, one arm around your back, the other hand warm at the nape of your neck. Your forehead rests against his collarbone, his chin brushing your hair.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
You clench your fist in his shirt. “Steve…”
His hand slides up your spine, soothing… except soothing is the wrong word. Because every stroke of his fingers sends a shiver down your skin.
He breathes against your ear, voice low and soft:
“I’d get between you and anything. You know that, right?”
You pull back to look at him, and everything changes.
His hands stay on you. Your knees touch.
You’re close enough to feel his breath on your lips.
His gaze drops to your mouth. You see it, no.. you feel it.
The exact second the dam cracks.
“Steve,” you whisper, trying to steady yourself. “This is… pretend.”
His thumb brushes your cheek, featherlight.
“Not right now,” he says, “not for me.”
Your heart stutters.
“And not for you either,” he adds quietly.
Your pulse answers him before you do… and you kiss him.
It’s soft for half a second, just the barest brush of lips, before he exhales sharply and pulls you in like he’s been denied this for weeks.
His hand cups your jaw, the other sliding around your waist, pulling you into his lap. The kiss deepens. Hungry, desperate, starved.
Every tiny piece of restraint he’s shown shatters the moment you open your mouth to him.
He groans into the kiss, low and rough, like he’s been holding it back.
“Fuck,” he breathes against your lips. “I knew it. I knew the second I said yes to this fake dating thing I was screwed.”
Steve kisses you like he’s already fucked you a hundred times in his head.
Your back hits the bench seat and he follows, mouth devouring yours, hands everywhere at once—your waist, your ribs, the underside of your thighs. His fingers tremble with adrenaline and want, but his touch is deliberate, hungry, carving you into memory.
When he pulls back, both of you are breathing hard.
“Take this off,” he pants, tugging at your shirt.
You lift your arms, and he strips it off like he’s starving for what’s underneath. His eyes drag over your chest, slow and reverent, then wrecked.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs, palms sliding up to cup your breasts. “How the hell am I supposed to pretend after this?”
You grab his wrist and guide his hand lower. “You don’t.”
That breaks him and he kisses down your throat, your sternum, then lower.
Nipping lightly, sucking harder, leaving a trail of open mouthed heat over your skin until you’re arching into him. He mouths your nipple, tongue dragging lazily before he sucks, deep and firm. You gasp, threading your fingers into his hair.
“That good?” he asks against your skin, voice smug and breathless.
“More.”
He groans, an animal sound erupts from his chest and his hand slides between your legs over your pants, pressing right where you need him. You cry out and he bites your shoulder gently in response.
“Fuck yeah,” he pants. “Let me hear you. No one else is close enough to hear us.”
That thought alone makes your stomach flip.
He unbuttons your pants with frantic fingers, and you help shove them down. He drags your underwear aside and his jaw drops when he sees how wet you already are.
“Holy shit.” His thumb sweeps across you, slow and claiming, “you’re soaked.”
“Been waiting,” you breathe.
His pupils dilate, “for me?”
You nod, and he curses viciously.
“Get over here,” he growls, tugging you up and onto his lap.
You straddle him, and his hands slide under your thighs, squeezing, positioning you exactly how he wants. His mouth returns to yours. Hot, urgent, wet—and he grinds up into you through his jeans, making your breath catch.
You tug at his belt.
“Get these off.”
“Bossy,” he teases, undoing it with shaking hands. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
You help shove his jeans down, his boxers following. His cock springs free, thick, flushed, already leaking.
Your eyes widen and he smirks., “yeah? You like what you see?”
You wrap your hand around him and stroke once, slow.
Steve’s head drops back. “Oh—fuck—”
You lean in and kiss his throat while your hand works him, dragging your thumb through the slick at the tip.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the first time you pulled me against you for show,” you whisper. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
His grip on your hips tightens. “I did… but I didn’t know you wanted me back.”
You line him up, hovering over him.
“Find out.”
He sucks in a breath so sharp it sounds like pain.
Then you sink down onto him.
Slow. Stretching. Inch by inch.
Steve’s entire body locks. His hands seize your hips. He swears—low and broken—eyes squeezing shut like he’s trying not to explode right there.
“Oh my fucking god,” he groans. “You’re—fuck—you’re so tight I can’t—”
You take him until your hips meet, both of you shaking.
You lean forward, lips brushing his ear. “You can move.”
He exhales shakily. “Baby… if I move right now, I’m gonna ruin you.”
“Do it anyway.”
He snaps.
His hands grip your ass and he guides you up his length, then slams you back down. The van rocks hard. You gasp, nails digging into his shoulders.
“That—Steve—oh my god—”
“That’s it,” he pants. “Ride me just like that.”
You start moving to the best of your ability in the small space. Lifting, dropping, grinding—using him, taking everything he gives you. Steve’s eyes are glued to where your bodies meet, watching himself disappear into you again and again.
“Fuck, look at you,” he groans, thrusting up to meet you, “taking all of me like you were made for it.”
Your pace stutters. “Don’t stop—don’t stop—”
He grabs your face and kisses you, filthy and wet. “I’m not stopping until you’re shaking.”
He flips you onto your back so fast you gasp. He mounts you, driving into you deeper than before. Hard, relentless, your thighs shaking around his hips.
Your moans echo in the van. His breath is hot and ragged against your neck. Skin slapping, bodies slick with sweat, the air thick with sex and desperation.
He presses a hand lightly around your throat, not squeezing, just holding, pinning you in place while he fucks into you.
“You feel so good,” you choke out.
“You’re gonna cum for me,” he pants. “Cum on my cock. Want to feel you clench around me.”
His fingers drop to your clit, rubbing fast, perfect, ruthless. Your hips lift off the seat, back arching.
“Steve—Steve—I’m close—”
“I know,” he growls, “C’mon babydoll, it to me.”
You break apart, screaming his name, body trembling violently as pleasure crashes through you. Your walls clamp around him so hard he swears, thrusting fast and sloppy, chasing his own release.
“Shit—shit—baby—” He pulls out just in time, stroking himself once before he comes all over your stomach, your hips, your thighs—hot, messy, thick.
He collapses down onto his hands above you, panting like he just ran a mile.
You’re both shaking.
He looks down, taking in the sight of you: legs spread, panting, covered in him, and groans again like he might get hard all over.
He leans down and kisses you slow, messy, devoted.
“I wasn’t pretending,” he murmurs against your lips. “Not once.”
Nutritional Label : he likes the way you sound when he’s got you trapped like that.
Calories : 500
Notice .ᐟ first post on this account ! just a filthy blurb with sweet farmer boy remmick inspired by @flixpii !
Content Warning 18+ mdni, unprotected piv sex, choking / breathplay (consensual), light overstimulation, creampie / cum play, size kink, messy sex, light drool
you don’t even get a warning. just the blunt, thick press of his cockhead parting your folds again, already sticky with his last mess, already throbbing as it sinks back inside.
he’s panting before he’s even halfway in, forearm curled around your throat now, tugging you into a headlock that forces your back flush to his chest. your spine arches. your tits bounce with every roll of his hips, the slap-slick sound of skin on skin filling the room like it’s obscene.
“i-i like this,” he whispers, breath trembling as his chest swells against your back. his voice breaks into little gasps each time his cock bottoms out. “like holdin’ you like this… keepin’ you close.”
his cock is fat—too fat—and the stretch has your eyes rolling, your mouth open, drool gathering at the corner of your lips as your thighs tremble beneath you. he’s buried so deep it aches. every slow grind punches breath out of you, the blunt head of him dragging against that swollen spot inside that makes your legs go weak.
you moan, loud and shameless, and his breath catches.
“that feel good?” he mumbles against your shoulder, the arm around your neck flexing just a little, just enough to tighten the hold. “i-i’m doing good?”
you nod, squirming helplessly under him as his strokes grow faster. mess gathers between your legs, a slick squelch every time he fucks into you. his balls slap against your cunt, already wet and swollen from how full he’s made you. the lube of his last climax hasn’t even dried—it’s dripping out of you, leaking down your thighs, coating the base of his shaft in a creamy ring that clings with every thrust.
“s-sorry,” he whimpers suddenly, voice cracking as he hugs you tighter. “can’t help it—it feels too good—too warm—”
his hips are stuttering now, frantic and shallow, his thick cock rutting in and out of your soaked hole like he’s chasing the feeling. your walls spasm around him, and he cries out again—loud, needy, broken.
“please… please let me finish inside again. wanna give it to you. wanna see it drip out after—”
you press your hand to the arm around your throat and whisper, “tighten it.”
he freezes. “you sure?”
“yes.”
the squeeze comes soft at first, just enough to make your breath stutter. then a little more. your vision dims at the edges. your cunt clenches hard.
he groans—high, desperate, barely holding on—his cock pulsing thick and twitching deep inside as he spills. it’s hot. wet. a slow, sticky flood that fills you so full it bubbles out around the base, dripping down your thighs and onto the bed.
his arm is still around your neck. his body’s still pressed tight against your back, flushed and trembling, cock still lodged inside you, too thick to slip out even soft.
“made such a mess,” he breathes, staring down at where he’s buried. “you’re so pretty like this… leakin’ all over me.”
DAY 10 - HOSTILE HITCHHIKER
remmick x reader
wc: 4.1k
inspirations: near dark (1987), 1980s/90s
warnings: masturbation, vampire drool as aphrodisiac, dubcon, oral (fem receiving), piv sex, headlock, creampie
Taking your daddy’s truck across Texas shouldn’t be too hard. It’s just a three hour drive, what’s one hitchhiker?
You watch the sun setting on the horizon as you kick your feet at the bar, waiting for your father. He’s a cattle man and he’s been helping on a ranch near Waco. He drove the truck out here, thinking it’d only be for a day, but they need him for at least another week. Your mother needs the truck, so you took a bus and offered to drive it home.
“You want another, sweetheart?” the bartender asks you.
He’s a handsome older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a short beard. Not your usual type, but still plenty good-looking.
“I shouldn’t, I gotta drive,” you tell him.
He helps another customer, a man in a Stetson who you catch eyeing you as the bartender speaks. You could’ve worn something a little less revealing, but you came from work at the bar. Your Daisy Dukes and your ripped up shirt tied around your waist make you eye candy in this place.
You spy a truck pulling up and perk up, grinning as your father walks through the door with his business partner.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, sweetie.”
He embraces you and kisses your head.
“Hi, Jesse,” you greet the other man.
You’ve known him since you were five and he was nine, but now he insists on you calling him “mister”. So you never do, just to piss him off.
“Mister Parnell,” he grits the correction through his teeth.
He and your father sit next to you at the bar and order a beer and a whiskey respectively.
“I don’t think I like this idea.”
“Well, you don’t want the truck stuck out here for a week. And it’s not so far.”
“I don’t want you drivin’ at night.”
“I’ll be there in three hours.”
“Be witchin’ hour by then,” Jesse adds, drinking his beer.
You frown at him. You want to show your father you can be dependable and independent.
“I just wanna show you I can be responsible.”
Your father points to your empty glass and raises a brow.
“What’s that?”
“I had one beer an hour ago! I’m fine to drive, really,” you tell him.
He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. He pulls the keys from his jacket pocket and holds them out. You reach for them and he tugs his hand back.
“You gon’ be careful?”
“Yes, I will,” you answer sarcastically.
“Damn it, girl, I mean it. Promise me.”
“I will. I promise.”
He hands you the keys.
“It’s parked outside room six of the motel across the street. Full tank of gas, thermos in the cupholder. You drive straight on that highway and don’t do nothin’ stupid. If someone asks if you’re alone, you say…”
“I’m meetin’ my daddy.”
“Atta girl. No stops, no shortcuts, and goddamn it, no hitchhikers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
He kisses your cheek.
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
You smirk at the other man.
“Bye, Jesse.”
“Just get out,” he grumbles.
You get a soda from the vending machine and head on your way. You like driving the truck; it makes you feel like you’re in charge of the highway. You drive for a while, listening to music and counting the cows you see as the last bit of light leaves and the sky turns yellow-purple like an old bruise.
You glance at the clock in the car and see you’ve been driving for an hour. It feels like forever already. You continue on, switching on the headlights when the world goes midnight blue and you can’t see in front of you.
You spy something on the side of the road and squint at it. Looking a little longer you see a man waiting where the asphalt ends with a small rucksack. He looks dirty, like he’s been doing farmwork all day. You slow down a little and roll down your window just a crack.
“You alright?” you call from the driver’s side.
“Just lookin’ for a ride!” he calls back.
He removes his hat and you see his face. He’s very handsome. Dirty bronze hair in messy short curls and a sharp jaw covered by scruffy facial hair, like he hasn’t shaved in a week. You pull over to stop the car, putting it in park and crawling over the bench to roll down the window on the passenger’s side. You sit on your knees and lean out the window.
He grins, eyeing you.
“Well, ain’t you a sight?”
Your cheeks heat.
“You ain’t all alone, pretty thing like you?”
“I’m meetin’ my daddy,” you parrot the lie your father had told you to say earlier that night.
“Yeah? Where’s he at?”
“Where’re you tryna get, stranger?” you ask, dodging his question.
You’re a smart thing. He likes a little challenge.
“I’m Remmick.”
You give him your name and you shake hands through the window.
“I like that. That’s cute,” he compliments you.
Remmick can smell your blood and hear your heartbeat, especially the growing thump of your pulse between your legs. He spies the map with your destination marked off.
“I’m tryna get close as I can to Nacogdoches,” he says, running his tongue over his teeth.
“That’s on my way,” you tell him.
“Could I hitch a ride?”
Goddamn it, no hitchhikers.
Once, when drunk, one of your friends said you have a tendency to let your kitty do the thinking. You could only act so offended, because she was right. You’ve made more than enough dumb decisions just because a good-looking guy said all the wrong things in all the right ways. You can count on both hands the amount of times you’ve ended up half-dressed and half-drunk in worn down pickups with men your father would shoot without hesitation.
Goddamn it. Your father’s voice is pushed out of your head when Remmick puts his hands together in a prayer motion.
“Please, darlin’? It’s so late, and I got money if you want it.”
“Alright.”
You open the passenger door for him, and he climbs into the truck.
He spreads his legs wide, propping up his elbow in the window.
“Nice truck. S’it your daddy’s?”
“Sure is.”
You glance at him from the side as you continue driving.
“You a ranchhand?”
“How’d you guess?” he lies.
“Cause you’re dirty and you smell like horses,” you tease.
“That’s fair. I am one dirty dog,” he husks, his eyes tracing from your cowgirl boots to your ass in the frayed denim shorts.
“I’m a waitress,” you quickly tell him. “That’s why I’m dressed like this.”
“Workin’ girl. Bet your boyfriend never has to pick up the bill.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” you admit, no shame in it.
“Now that, I don’t believe,” he purrs, leaning in your direction.
“Simmer down, cowboy,” you joke with him in a sultry voice that has him shifting in his seat.
“You got a cigarette?” he asks.
“Oh, there should be a pack in the glovebox.”
He pops open the glovebox and sees a pack of Marlboros on top of a pistol. He glances at you.
“Is it in there?” you ask without looking.
“Sure is,” he tells you.
He picks up the pack and pulls one out with his teeth, producing a lighter from the rucksack he stole.
“You burn a hole in that seat, my daddy’ll kill me,” you warn.
“He mean?” Remmick asks, voice thick from the smoke. He blows it toward the window and it billows away in the night breeze.
“Not mean, no. But he’s a no-nonsense man.”
“Right.”
You glance at him as he smokes, watching the way his lips wrap around the cigarette and the glow of it illuminates his face.
His eyes go wide and he points forward.
“Deer!”
You turn back to the road and gasp as you suddenly see a deer. You swerve to avoid it and the truck veers to the left, going off of the asphalt and clunking down a ravine over some rocks. You feel something pop and the truck lands, sinking down slowly.
“Shit!” Remmick shouts, hands on the dashboard as you sit there with your hands on the wheel, dazed.
You tremble, gripping the wheel so tight your hands cramp up.
“D-did the tire pop?”
“Yeah, I reckon it did,” he says in a mean tone.
You step out together. The truck is fine, save for the back left tire, which is popped and completely flat.
Remmick could just kill you now. Make it look like the car crashed and leave you drained. Maybe it’s the little pout on your face or the glimpse of your tummy he gets when you hold your head in your hands and your shirt rides up, but he knows if he plays his cards right, he might just have a companion for the evening.
Or forever.
“You got a spare?”
You nod, still feeling out of your own body. You help him find the spare, the tire wrench, and the car jack.
He unbuttons and shrugs off his shirt, leaving him in a white undershirt discoloured by sweat stains. You watch him change the tire like he’s done it a hundred times before.
“Y-you know cars?”
“Some,” he answers curtly, standing up and wiping his hands on his already dirty blue jeans.
You blink at him. He looks good like this, sweaty and almost sleeveless. His arms are big and strong, and the littlest, stupidest part of you wants him to bend you over the truck bed.
He snaps, getting your attention.
“You cain’t drive on that for long,” he tells you.
“Right.”
“Ain’t no mechanics open this late, so… we gotta stop for the night.”
No stops. Breaking another one of your father’s rules. Tears prick at your eyes.
“Lemme help you push this thing up on the road.”
You push the truck up together and drive for a while, the ride uneven and shaky, until Remmick spies a motel sign.
You pull in and go to the front desk, meeting the man there. You spy the room rate and ask for one room.
“I only got rooms with one bed.”
“One?” you squeak.
You tug at Remmick’s arm.
“We can’t afford two rooms, I still gotta go get that tire replaced…”
The motel man raises a brow at you.
“You in the doghouse for poppin’ a tire?” he asks Remmick.
“She popped it.”
Remmick takes the key and leads you to the room. He unlocks it and you step in. He hesitates.
“What?”
“Are you sure you want me in there?” he starts.
“I can’t make you sleep in the truck,” you tell him. “Not after you helped me.”
“Do you want me in the room?” he asks again, a little rougher.
“Yes, please.”
He shakes off that feeling and crosses into the room, closing the door and locking it.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” he tells you.
You feel teary-eyed again as you look at the truck parked outside.
“Oh, my daddy’s gonna kill me,” you cry.
Remmick pats your back and you wipe your eyes. You hide in his chest– choosing for a moment to ignore how filthy his shirt is– and cry. His arms wrap around you, toned, strong, and strangely a little cold.
“I-I gotta call him or he’ll think I’m dead!” you gasp.
You will be dead before the sun is up if Remmick has anything to do with it.
You peek out the window and see a payphone.
“Do you have a quarter?”
“Uh…”
He digs in the rucksack and hands you one.
“Thank you,” you tell him quickly, rushing over.
You pull out the business card your father wrote his motel room phone number on and dial the digits, listening to it ring.
“Hello?”
“Daddy, it’s me.”
“Hey, honey. You’re not home already, are you?”
“No…”
You sniffle.
“You cryin’, sweetheart?”
“Daddy,” you whine, “one of the tires went flat and I-I had to stop at a motel for the night a-and-”
“Shit, girl. What happened?” your father grumbles.
“Th-there was a deer in the road and I swerved and I-”
“Honey. Honey,” he starts. “Take a breath, sweetheart. I ain’t mad, kiddo, things happen. Here’s what you’re gonna do, sweetie. You listenin’?”
“Y-yes,” you cry.
“You get that tire changed with the spare?”
“I did.”
“Good. You go in that truck, you go in the glovebox. There’s a pistol in there and some bullets. You keep that thing on you until you’re home. Tomorrow mornin’ you go to a mechanic. I’ll call your mama and tell her what happened, you don’t worry about payin’ for a payphone anymore. And I’ll cover the motel and a mechanic when I get back.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“You just get some rest, sweetheart. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you too.”
You hang up and quickly go back to the truck. You need your purse anyway, and you snatch the old shirt you brought to sleep in. You shove the pistol inside of it and take a shaky breath, going back to the room. Remmick is in the shower, by the sound of it. You’re glad he doesn’t have to see you all red-eyed and pouty. You take your boots off and sit on the bed, sniffling.
The alarm clock by the bed reads 11:27 PM. It’s not even midnight.
Remmick exits the bathroom redressed, save for the button-up he previously had on. He wipes his face with the hem of his undershirt. You see his toned core and his unbuttoned blue jeans, and the waistband of his underwear that cuts off the happy trail that peeks out. You want to undress him with your teeth and bite him all over.
“I can sleep on the floor if you want.”
You don’t answer him, stunned stupid by his physique.
“Me… sleep on floor?” he repeats like a caveman, pointing to himself and the grimy carpet.
You snap out of your trance and giggle at him, which makes him crack a smile.
“Is that okay?”
“Shit, I’m just happy I got a place to sleep tonight that ain’t a barn.”
“You wander around a lot?”
“I go from ranch to ranch.”
“Not many ranches in Nacogdoches,” you say suspiciously.
“I got a buddy out there. I can stay with him for a while.”
“When’s the last time you slept on a bed?”
He thinks, blowing out air.
“Damn. Good question.”
You feel so awful now. You made this poor guy change your tire and push your car out of a ravine and now you’re forcing him to sleep on the floor.
He seems nice enough. And he’s so handsome, it’s starting to make you dumb.
The carpet really is so grimy.
“You can share the bed with me,” you offer before you think.
Maybe you did think, but it wasn’t your brain that made you say that.
“You sure?”
You hesitate, but then your eyes rake his body again.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“You start feelin’ nervous… you can kick me out any time.”
You nod at him.
You decide you need to take a shower too, to wash off the dirt you got on yourself from pushing the truck. You turn the water up, hot as you can get it. You want to scald off the colossal fuck-up of the evening and feel less dirty about sharing a motel room with a handsome stranger. Your mother would faint at the very notion. Your hand starts travelling down your body as you lean against the wall, thinking about that stranger and his twangy accent. You take a shaky breath as you pass over your clit, lip caught between your teeth to keep you from making any noise.
But Remmick hears. His body is pressed against the wall, mouth open, drooling and panting as he palms himself over his blue jeans. He can smell your cunt, dripping and needy. Every squeaky sound of your skin against the tiles of the shower makes his cock throb. He can hear every soft little sigh that leaves your lips. He feels like an animal, his cool skin heated to a clammy lukewarm. He’s not so sure he’s ready to be nice anymore when you get out of there. It’s not too late yet, he could just drain you and steal your truck. But you’re so damn cute he just has to fuck you first.
It’s quick and dirty, just rubbing one out to make yourself feel a little better. You’re shocked at the noise you make when you try to grip the wall and just keep circling your clit. You’re used to farmboys and ranchhands who fuck you rough and fumble for your clit, so you have to bully your own button until you cum. All this makes you a little more than partial to harsh treatment.
When you come out you’re lightly patting the towel to your hair to dry off the water. You’re redressed, though only in your tight white t-shirt and your tiny shorts again.
Remmick is leaning against the wall, cool as a cucumber and waiting for you. He gestures to his jeans.
“Would you… mind if I took these off?”
“I’d prefer it.”
He raises a brow at you.
“Oh my God, no. No, you’re filthy.”
He rolls his eyes and slowly– too slowly– unbuckles his belt and pulls it out. You watch him the whole time like some two-bit hussy.
Remmick notices, of course, and smirks at you.
“See somethin’ you like, darlin’?”
You snap out of whatever trance you’re in and put on the sultry voice you use at the bar.
“I dunno, cowboy. You were so helpful tonight… maybe I wanna give you a reward.”
Remmick blinks at you. He could tell you were a flirt from the trunk, but he didn’t think you’d be this easy.
“Oh, yeah?”
You step closer to him, pushing his back against the wall.
“You wanna show me what’s under here?” you murmur, dipping your hand under the hem of his shirt.
He peels it off quickly and you eye his body. He’s pale, but he’s cut, beefy arms matching his chest, and you take a second to trace your finger over the gold chain that rests against his neck. On his side is a large cross tattoo, and moving down you see a slim waist with a v line above the waistband of his underwear.
“Fuck,” you mutter.
He lurches forward to kiss you, your teeth clacking together as your hand cups the back of his neck, curling into the short hair and keeping him planted against you. It’s the wettest, messiest kiss you’ve ever had, but where you’d usually be pulling away you just want more.
“Get on that bed,” he pants when you finally break for air.
You unbutton your shorts and shove them down while he quickly undresses, the two of you bare and sweating. He drops to his knees and shoves your legs apart. You gasp, trying to close them again, but his shoulders keep you spread wide.
“What’s wrong, sugar? Cat got your tongue?”
“I-I-”
“Cause I’m tryna get this tongue on your cat, baby,” he purrs, leaning forward.
Your hand meets his forehead before he can touch you.
“Wait, a-are you sure?”
One thing about your cowboys? They don’t eat kitty. Something about hard labour just has them turning their noses up, even when you bat your lashes. Though it happens rarely, it’s always a very welcomed gift.
“C’mon, darlin’, I know this pussy needs it,” he husks, his pupils blown up with lust as he hooks his hands under your thighs. “Heard you in the bathroom, pretty thing.”
“You heard me?” you squeak.
“Mhm,” he hums, leaning in to lick a wide stripe between your folds, pressing his tongue flat against your clit.
You jolt, and his hand slides up to keep you down by pushing on your tummy.
“Remmick,” you whine.
“What, baby? What, she so needy, huh? Yeah? Poor ‘lil pussy, she needa get licked so bad,” he teases, diving in and thrusting his tongue into your soaking cunt, his nose rubbing against your clit as you buck against his mouth.
He holds you down and somehow gets closer, his tongue swirling around in your hole , sliding up to your clit where his lips wrap around you to suck. His lips pull off of you with a wet pop.
“Mm, fuck, taste’so good,” he groans.
You grab at his wrist, though his big hand stays firmly planted on your tummy.
“Use your f-fingers!” you manage to wheeze out as he sucks– very loudly– on your clit.
That big hand slides down your body slowly, his rough fingers teasing your clit before he shoves two fingers into your cunt. You wince at the sudden stretch but quickly settle into the comfort of being filled so nicely. He keeps his fingers there for a moment, watching your face twitch as he presses sweet little kisses to your clit. When you’ve stopped moving he pulls them out slowly and pushes them back in. He drives those two thick fingers in and out of you with a wet sound that makes your cheeks burn.
“Yes! Yes, th-there, right there- ngh- fuck, f-feels so good-”
You sob when he pulls his fingers out, licking them clean.
“No, no, no-”
“Don’t fuss now, kitty cat. I’mma give you some cream.”
He pushes off from the floor to crawl onto the bed, shoving you back easily. He flips you over, one hand on your neck, forcing your face into the blanket– the other on your hip as he grinds his hard cock against your pulsing cunt.
“You need it? Yeah? Need’a get filled up, baby?”
You’re beyond words. You don’t know if you’ve ever been this needy or this desperate. You almost feel drunk on how bad you want him.
His hand traces down your spine to grip himself at the base, giving himself two good pumps and tracing the head over you until he hits that gushing hole. He pushes in and you scream into the mattress, clawing at the blanket.
It feels good. Good like it’s never felt before. Good like you didn’t even know you needed, and it just keeps coming. He’s pushing in until he’s so deep you can feel him in your heart.
Remmick is no better, he’s hardly holding it together behind you. He feels your pulse all around him, the way your hot cunt hugs his cock and pulls him in. He moves his hips back– slow, deliberate, all while he keeps you where you are with those two big hands of his. He thrusts back in, moaning at the feeling of his tip kissing your cervix.
“Oh, baby… fu-ck, y’huggin’ me so good,” he pants.
He starts going fast, so fast that you’re shaking and drooling onto the blanket. Suddenly, he leans over you, wrapping one arm around your neck and pulling you up with another one around your waist. Your back is flush against him as he bucks up into you, his forearm taut and flexed, pressing against your windpipe.
He has you stuck in a headlock and completely at his mercy, and all you can do is moan like a slut.
“Rem-Remmick! I-I’m gonna- oh!”
“Yeah, cum on this cock. Cum on this cock, you stupid bitch,” he growls, fucking into you rough and mean, two fingers pressing down hard on your clit.
You bawl as you cum, tightening around him and clawing at the arm around your neck. Your vision whites out– you can’t tell if it’s the orgasm or the lack of oxygen to your brain, but either way you’re in total bliss. You absolutely soak his cock, your slick dripping down to his balls and the blankets below you.
“Dirty fuckin’ slut, makin’ a fuckin’ mess all in this damn bed. Your daddy’s gonna kill you when he finds out you crashed his truck ‘n fucked a stranger in a hotel room you paid for with his fuckin’ money,” he taunts in a husky voice.
He gets even closer, releasing you from the headlock but keeping a firm hand on your neck.
“And guess what, gorgeous?”
“Wh-”
“I’m gonna fuckin’ eat you alive.”
He bites into your neck, but his teeth don’t just bruise you. They easily break your skin, and you feel your blood gushing down your shoulder and onto your back. It squishes between your bodies and you can feel his cock pulse inside of you as he cums inside, right up against your cervix.
He’s sucking up your blood, holding your body up as your vision starts to slowly fade.
“S’just a ‘lil nap, pretty thing. Y’gonna wake up in a second feelin’ fine.”
Summary: On the eve of your arranged wedding, you flee into the woods with trembling hands and a bloodstained gown—only to slip a ring meant for another onto a graveyard root and wake something ancient beneath the soil. Remmick is not a man, not anymore, but he remembers how to be tender. Touch-starved and centuries dead, he offers you the one thing the living never did: choice. In a forest that breathes and remembers, where the dead dream and the moss learns your name, you find yourself questioning everything you left behind. After all, what is a monster—if not a man who waits for you? And what is love, if not something you’re willing to bleed for?
(or: A Corpse Bride au)
wc: 15.2k
a/n: thank you all so much for the overwhelming love and support you’ve shown my fics, it means the world to me!! I originally planned to release I Thee Bled on Monday to celebrate one month since Brittany Broski posted Mercy Made Flesh to her Insta story (!!!), but life had other plans, so she’s arriving fashionably late. This one’s especially close to my heart, and I want to dedicate it to the lovely Moga @somnolenthour, whose beautiful fanart for this fic when it was still just an idea (completely unprompted!!) lit a fire under me, this one’s for you <333 shout-out to my beta readers, starting with Liz who also came up with the title: @fuckoffbard @titaniasfairy @jaythewriter @anhelconhmuda @kkniveschau
warnings: Corpse Bride!au, gothic horror, supernatural romance, blood, vampirism, smut, oral sex (f!receiving), praise kink, dirty talk, creampie, touch-starved monster, monsterfucking, sub!remmick, ghost town setting, period-typical misogyny, vague Victorian era, Tim Burton aesthetics, mutual pining, tragic undertones, Remmick in his final monster form
likes, comments, and reblogs as always appreciated, please enjoy!!
Masterlist
It was a quiet kind of death—to walk toward a future that never belonged to you.
The candlelight danced in its sconce like it too was afraid of the dark, throwing gold and shadow in uneven patterns across the walls of your bridal chamber. The air was heavy with the scent of crushed lilies—white, thick-stemmed, and already browning at the edges—as though the blooms themselves had second thoughts. A bridal veil hung limp from the mirror. You had not put it on.
You sat at the edge of the chaise, corseted to breathlessness, the bony ridges of your knuckles straining beneath the thin layers of skin from how hard you're clutching the ring.
Not your ring. Not yet. It was his—your would-be husband's—a man who smiled without his eyes and spoke of love like it was transactional. Whose name alone made your face pucker like you just smelled curdled milk. Mr. Langdon. So old your mother whispered “distinguished.” So cold the maids whispered other things when they thought you couldn’t hear.
Outside, the wind howled through the wrought iron balcony rails, shrill and wild like something mourning. You stood slowly, your bare feet silent against the marble floor, gown whispering around your ankles like the ghosts of every woman who’d gone quietly before you. The gown had been sewn for beauty, not for running. But you would run in it anyway.
You packed light, brought a white shawl and gloves to combat the chill. You brought the ring.
Not because you meant to keep it. Not because it held sentiment. It didn’t. It had no warmth, no story, no soul—just gold, cool and dull beneath your thumb. But it was worth something. Enough to pawn. Enough, maybe, to buy a train ticket. A meal. A room somewhere with a bed that didn’t come with a price pinned to your spine.
You told yourself that was why you kept it clenched in your fist as you slipped out the servants’ gate and into the dark. Not because it was his. Not because it had ever touched your skin. But because the world beyond your wedding had no place for a girl with nothing—and a gold ring, even one never worn, could be a lifeline.
Or a curse.
Fate hadn’t decided yet.
A band of simple gold, dull with fingerprint smudges, too loose for your thumb. You had not even worn it yet. It was handed to you this evening after supper, set beside a slice of blood-orange cake you hadn’t touched. “Keep it close, darling,” your mother had said, smoothing your hair as if you were already a corpse. “It will be yours come morning.”
You slipped it into your palm. And now it pulsed there like a secret.
The hallway outside your chamber creaked and groaned, the house settling into its evening sighs, and still you waited. You waited until the grandfather clock struck eleven, slow and solemn, each chime echoing like nails hammered into your future. Then—silently, so silently—you fled.
The woods did not wait to welcome you.
They swallowed.
The moment your slippered feet hit the dirt path behind the manor gates, the trees leaned in like they were listening, thick with Spanish moss and shadow. The moonlight fractured through their limbs, casting the path in broken, silver stripes. Your breath came out fast, clumsy, fogging in front of you as the night grew colder with every step, every frantic press forward into bramble and black.
The hem of your gown—once bone-white satin—darkened with mud. Then blood. A snag of thorns caught your ankle, sliced skin. You barely flinched. Pain felt like permission.
You weren’t sure where you were going.
Only that it has to be away.
You didn’t stop until your lungs burned and the trees had turned unfamiliar, too thick, too silent, the air tasting of copper and something older—stone, earth, iron. You collapsed against the base of a twisted tree, your gown a tangle of ripped silk and smeared petals, a bridal bloom gone to ruin.
The ring was still in your hand.
You looked at it—glared, really—angry at its weight, at the heft something so small contains. “To have and to hold…” you muttered under your breath, voice bitter, breathless, a mockery of a vow.
Your fingers fumbled blindly through the loam, sticky with sap and rainwater, until you found what you thought was a root. Something slender and pale rising from the earth like a bony finger.
You laughed, delirious. “Here,” you whispered, sliding the ring onto it. “Do you, strange tree, take me to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
The wind rose.
“I do.”
You reached out to steady yourself against the gnarled bark—but as your hand met the tree’s twisted surface, a sharp edge of wood caught the pad of your finger, snagging your bridal glove and the soft meat underneath. You hissed.
Blood welled—bright and living. It wobbled off your fingertip and fell. One drop. Then another. The red hit the base of the tree and sank into the soil like ink into paper. The bark beneath your palm felt warmer now. Almost…breathing.
Something moved. Beneath the dirt. Beneath you. You blinked. Sat up straighter. Listened.
Nothing.
Then—again.
A twitch. A shift. Like the earth itself was exhaling after a long silence. The root curled, moved, wrapped just slightly around your finger. Cold as the grave.
You yanked your hand back with a startled gasp. But it was too late. Blood had already spilled from your hand, sliced on bark or thorn or bone, and soaked into the black, thirsty soil. You watched it disappear.
The tree shuddered. Not in the breeze—there was no breeze anymore. The air had gone still, heavy as boiled milk, clinging to your throat, your hair, the space behind your knees. Your breath hitched. The birds had gone quiet. The crickets. The frogs. The world was listening.
And below you, the earth moaned.
A sound like old wood splitting. Like ribs breaking beneath dirt. Then, suddenly, a violent lurch—wet, sucking, earthly. The ground near the tree root cracked open, moss peeling back like flesh. You scrambled backwards on your palms, your gown tangling around your legs, but you couldn’t look away.
It didn’t feel like waking the dead. It felt like being watched by something that had never closed its eyes to begin with.
First came a hand.
Wide-palmed, thick-knuckled. Fingers unnaturally long, his nails cracked and gray and dirty, like shale. A gold ring gleamed faintly from the third finger. The wedding band you slid onto what you thought was a gnarled uproot.
Then the second, this one skeletal, stripped clean of flesh and muscle and tendon.
And finally, the rest of him.
He rose in pieces, as if gravity itself hadn’t yet decided whether to allow him back. His body pushed through layers of sod and clay and root like a memory that refused to stay buried. His shoulders were broad, shoulders that had once carried something heavy—tools, a body, a burden. One arm braced against the edge of the grave, veins bulging under pale, slick skin.
You saw the sweep of a dark, deep blue tuxedo, its fabric dulled by dirt and time, stitched with the memory of ceremony. The jacket clung to his shoulders unevenly, one side sagging low with centuries of damp, the lapels wrinkled and soil-smudged. Beneath it, a white collared button-up lay partially unbuttoned at the throat, the linen stained faintly at the seams.
A slightly lighter blue tie hung askew from his neck, knotted but loosened, the silk puckered where it had weathered through the grave. His trouser legs matched the tuxedo, tailored once, but now creased and grimy at the hem. Shoes to match—oxfords, maybe—scuffed to near ruin, soles coated in moss and wet earth.
He pulled himself from the dirt slowly, deliberately, like someone waking from a sleep they weren’t meant to return from—each breath thick in his throat, each movement dragging time behind it.
And his face—God, his face.
He was beautiful. In the way statues are beautiful. The way a ruin is beautiful. Pointed cheekbones beneath a mask of grave-filth. Mud in the seams of his short, messy brown hair, clinging in dark curls across his forehead. His mouth parted as he panted for breath he didn’t need, and you saw the right side of his jaw was ruined—torn open, exposing ribbons of raw muscle and the gleam of sharpened teeth. All of them sharp. Uneven. Crooked in places, silver-fanged and jagged like they weren’t made for a human mouth.
He drooled. Milky and thick, slow as syrup, threading from his teeth to the black soil.
His skin was a deep, post-mortem blue—something between bruised flesh and storm-lit sea, like teal left to darken in shadow. In the moonlight, with his veins just barely visible beneath the surface, it looked like cracked glass. His chest heaved. His head turned. And then—
He looked at you.
His eyes were wide as a frightened dog’s. But in the shadows, they shifted—black, almost red, glowing from somewhere behind the pupil like dying coals still clinging to that cherried spark.
He didn’t speak. He just…stared. Watched. Not like a stranger. Like someone trying to remember you. Like someone who knew you. Maybe before. Maybe in another life.
“Are—are you…” Your voice broke, shamefully small. You didn’t finish the question. Couldn't.
He swallowed, thickly. The sound was wet. And then—he smiled. Not cruel. Not ghoulish. Soft, tender.
“I knew ye’d come,” he said.
His voice came low and lilted, thick with the cadence of an Irish accent—rounded consonants, vowels pulled soft and long, a kind of music in his throat whether he meant it or not. The kind of voice made for stories. For lullabies. For oaths.
He took a single, stumbling step forward, mud pulling at his shoes, laced tight enough to keep the soil from suctioning them off his feet.
You couldn’t move.
“Ye put a ring on me hand,” he said again, gentle this time. Coaxing. He held up his fingers, all blood-caked and twitching, the wedding band glinting faintly beneath the filth, fractals of moonlight dancing off the polished gold, a stark contrast to the dirt and grime clinging to his skin. “And ye spoke a vow. That counts, don’t it?”
He tilted his head, like a curious animal. “Didn’t reckon ye’d be so bonnie.”
You should have run.
You knew that. Every part of you knew that. The sensible part. The terrified part. The part that still heard your mother’s voice whispering warnings about strange men, and worse things still, things that didn’t breathe right, didn’t die right.
But something rooted you.
Maybe it was the ring still snug around that pale, twitching finger. Maybe it was the way he looked at you. Like you were the first warm thing he’d seen in centuries.
He took another step forward. Then another. His oxfords left deep, sucking impressions in the soil, and his gait wasn’t quite right—like a marionette with its strings pulled too hard, or a man remembering how to be one. You flinched when he got too close, but he didn’t reach for you. Not yet. Just stood there, arms slack at his sides, mouth slightly open, that thread of spit still hanging from one fang like an afterthought.
His head dipped low, curls shadowing his brow, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost shy. Like he feared you might bolt.
“Was it the blood that roused me, then?” he asked, one brow raising slowly. Thoughtful. “Or the vow ye whispered?” He swallowed, working his jaw with a faint wince. “Might’ve been both. Hard to say.”
You blinked at him. Swallowed the lump that had risen hard and high in your throat. “Who…who are you?”
His smile faltered. Just a flicker. Not hurt—more like confusion.
“Don’t remember me, do ya?” His voice dropped low, almost tender. “But you called, lass. I heard ya—clear as day, so I answered.”
He tapped his skeletal palm against his chest, right over his sternum, his eyes round and brows raised in a puppy dog look, a pleading little tilt to his head like he's desperate for you to believe him.
“I felt you in here.”
You opened your mouth. No sound came out.
The man—the thing—before you cocked his head again, just slightly. His eyes were too soft for the rest of him, too warm. And the accent in his voice made everything worse, somehow. Made it gentle. Comforting. It stripped you of fear, piece by piece, until all that remained was the strange throb of something you didn’t understand.
“What’s your name?” you asked, finally.
His gaze lit up like the question pleased him. He didn’t answer right away. Just dragged a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of mud and grit and grave soil across his temple.
“I’ve been called a lot o’ names,” he said after a pause. “Some of ’em I earned. Some I didn’t. But the name I remember best is…” A thoughtful frown pulled at the less-damaged corner of his mouth.
“Remmick. That’s what me ma called me,” he said, almost shy now. “Back when the sky was still thick wi’ peat smoke and the land hadn’t yet learned the sound o’ English steel. When we carved prayers into stone ‘stead o’ paper, and the rivers boiled not from fire, but from the rage o’ gods long buried.”
He glanced at you then, as if expecting you not to understand. But you didn’t flinch, causing his smile to grow like a decaying flower that didn't know it was dead yet.
“Back when the forest had a name you weren’t meant to speak after dark,” he added, voice gone soft and faraway. “And folk still left cream out on the stoop, hopin’ to keep the hills quiet.”
You said nothing. You had no words.
He glanced down at himself as though just now noticing the state he was in. Fingers touched the torn lapel of his jacket before dusting the front off next. His nose wrinkled faintly, sheepish, eyes round and sorry.
“Would’ve cleaned meself up a bit had I known,” he said, glancin’ back up at you with a crooked smile. “But by Gods, ye caught me right in the middle of me dirt nap, didn’t ye?”
And then he laughed. A soft, broken sound. It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t hollow. It was almost—sweet. You didn’t realize you’d taken a step back until your spine hit bark.
He noticed.
“No need to fear me, lass,” he said, quickly, voice pitching soft, hands raised just a little, his eyes bleeding red like a freshly weeping cut, “I won’t hurt ye. I wouldn’t.” His fingers curled back toward his chest again. “Not you.”
“Why me?” you asked, finally. “Why—why do you think I called you?”
His smile returned, slow and tender. He lifted his hand—the one with the ring, the one that was intended to collar you to Mr. Langdon before you turned tail and fled, looking sleek and shiny against grimy blue skin.
“’Cause ye put this on me finger,” he said. “Ye made a promise. A vow.”
You shook your head, your breath catching like a bird startled mid-flight, wings beating frantically in your throat. “It wasn’t real.”
“It was real enough for me.”
He looked down at the gold band, turned it with his thumb. “You bled for it, didn’t ye?” he murmured. “Spoke words into the trees. Placed a ring on a buried hand. That’s old magic, love. Older than graves. Older than the Gods above.”
His eyes flicked back to you—red blooming around the edges now like ink through water.
“Old magic don’t care whether you meant it.”
You didn’t know if it was the way he said love, like it meant something eternal…or if it was the silence of the woods, how they held their breath around him…but your world had suddenly been flipped upside down like you'd been living inside a snow globe and someone decided to just come along and shake it. All because you'd gotten cold feet. All because you couldn't bring yourself to walk down the aisle and wed a man who barely made your acquaintance prior to the arranged ceremony.
You recall last night in great detail, the last time you were alone with Mr. Langdon. It had been in your father’s study—dark-paneled, smelling of tobacco and power. He hadn’t touched you, not exactly. But his hand had rested too long on the curve of your shoulder, fingers splaying toward the top of your spine like he was trying to gauge how much pressure it would take to snap it.
“I prefer quiet girls,” he’d said with a smile that didn’t reach his shrewd eyes. “Ones who don’t ask so many questions. Obedience is a virtue, you know.”
You had smiled. You nodded. Because what else could you do?
He had leaned in close, breath stale with wine and something bitter, suppressing the reflexive urge to recoil, “After tomorrow, your body belongs to me. That’s what marriage is. Best you start getting used to the idea.”
You hadn’t answered. You’d gone to your room and vomited in the basin. And tonight? Tonight—you ran. You didn’t bring a bag. You didn’t bring a plan. You brought the ring.
And you brought the no you hadn’t dared speak aloud.
It’s only then that you start to notice—the world around you moves. Not with the subtle rhythm of wind or wildlife, but with a kind of strange, theatrical breath, like the forest is alive.
The tree behind you creaked like a yawning coffin, bark groaning against your spine as if waking from its own long sleep. Overhead, the moon hung too round, too large, almost theatrical in its glow—more paper lantern than celestial body. It cast light not white but a washed-out bluish silver, the kind that made every shadow look like it was up to something.
There were no clouds. The sky didn’t need them.
Instead, the forest itself began to shift—bending at the edges like a curtain drawing inward, branches twisting and stooping with exaggerated grace, their tips curling into crooked little hooks. The trees no longer stood tall and noble; they hunched and leaned like gossiping old women, knotted spines cracking as they bent to get a better look at you.
The leaves above clinked faintly like dry metal. One branch spiraled down and hovered beside your shoulder, like it was waiting for permission to touch you.
And still, Remmick didn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe he did.
Maybe he was used to it—the way the world rearranged itself around him, the way nature bowed and blinked and breathed differently wherever he walked.
Maybe he’d never known a forest that didn’t follow.
He took another step toward you.
He was close enough now that you could see where the flesh on his cheekbone pulsed faintly, still clinging to old life. Where blood had dried in a crooked path down his exposed jaw. Where some of his teeth weren’t perfectly sharp at all—some had chipped, split, yellowed in ways that proved he hadn’t always been what he was now. He had once been a man.
You stared. Not at the horror. At the detail.
His collar was unbuttoned. There was a ring of skin just below his throat that was somehow clean, as if protected by the chain that still hung there.
“You’re real,” you breathed, as much to yourself as to him.
He smiled again. Small, head bowed slightly. Like the thought embarrassed him.
“Aye,” he said. “At least I was.”
Your heart skipped. The accent curled around that last word—was—turning it melancholic and soft. He sounded deeply lonely in a way that didn’t scream or shudder, but bled slow and quiet—like a candle left to burn itself out in a chapel no one prayed in anymore.
You didn’t realize your hand had risen until he caught it. His grip wasn’t strong. In fact, it was hesitant. Loose. Like he feared you might flinch, and he was giving you time to do it. To reject it.
You didn’t.
His thumb dragged over the small wound on your finger where your glove was torn. The one you’d cut on the tree. Your blood had dried there, rust-colored and still.
“’S’what woke me,” he murmured. “This wee thing.”
You tried to speak, but the words tumbled over each other, panic and fascination tangled in your throat. “What are you?”
Remmick looked up at you, then down at your hand in his. He didn’t let go.
“I was a man once,” he said. “Before they put me in the ground like a secret.”
There was no anger in his voice. No grief. Just barebones honesty.
“I remember cold,” he continued. “I remember bein’ bound.” His brows drew together. “I remember hunger.”
You swallowed.
His head tilted slightly again. “But now I remember you.”
You opened your mouth to deny it, to tell him he was wrong, that you weren’t anyone, that this was all a mistake. That you weren’t his. That you weren’t meant to be anything.
But the woods behind you had gone too still. And he was staring at you with a gaze so tender it made your stomach twist.
“Ye came in white,” he said, voice softer now. “Like a bride. Ye gave blood. Ye spoke vow.” He brushed a skeletal knuckle to your chin with aching slowness, the bone surprisingly soft, “don’t reckon the veil’s far behind.”
The branches rustled above, though there was still no wind. You realized the forest wasn’t closing in. It was gathering.
And Remmick…he was looking at you like he was home.
It was no longer night in the way night should be.
Time moved differently now. The sky above bled grey and silver and rust, but the moon never shifted from its throne behind the trees. The light stayed fixed in place, like the forest had slipped sideways into some pocket behind the world. Hours passed like fog. You slept, but never fully. You walked, but your feet left no prints.
And Remmick—Remmick stayed near.
Not hovering. Not leering. Just there, always just far enough not to crowd you, yet always within reach, like the forest had redrawn its laws to keep him at your side. Like you were its axis now.
You thought of Langdon.
Of his voice—measured, polished, practiced. The kind of voice that never raised itself above a certain register, as though passion was unsightly. He had a way of looking at you that always felt more like study than affection. Like you were something to be assessed, not adored. His fingers, when they grazed yours, were cold from gloves and colder still beneath them. Everything about him had been lacquered to a shine: his shoes, his manners, his hollow future he spoke of with such sterile pride.
You remembered one night, not long ago, when you’d dined together at his family estate. A private supper. Three courses. Too many forks. You’d asked him if he liked poetry.
He blinked. Set down his wine glass. “I tolerate it,” he said. “In women.”
That had been it.
No questions in return. No warmth. No wanting.
You’d spent the rest of the meal smiling at your plate, wondering if it would be considered madness to simply climb out the window and run.
And now—here.
Now, you were with a man who’d crawled out of the earth, with dried blood under his nails and a ruined jaw, and somehow he made you feel safer than any lace-draped parlor ever had. Remmick, who flinched when he touched your skin like you were the sacred thing. Remmick, who didn’t ask you to perform, or flatter, or prove anything—who simply stayed close because he wanted to be near.
He was a walking corpse.
And he seemed more human than Mr. Langdon had ever been.
Remmick spoke in murmurs. Half-conversations.
“My folk used to call this part the belly,” he said, gesturing toward a clearing that bloomed only with pale fungi and white moss. “Said the trees grew too thick with memory. Said it weren’t safe for the livin’.”
You stepped forward slowly, the hem of your gown brushing through the hush of strange underbrush. The clearing pulsed in stillness, like something held its breath just beneath the surface.
The fungi were long-necked and ghostly, some capped in translucent bells, others curled like fingers mid-spasm. They glowed faintly in the dark—not enough to see by, but enough to feel seen.
Overhead, the trees now leaned inward with impossible arches. Their bark smooth and gray as drowned bone, and where knots should’ve been were instead hollowed faces, soft and suggestive, as though the trunks had grown around someone who once leaned too long against them. One of the branches creaked in a slow, pendulum sway, even though there was no wind.
You tilted your head. The white moss underfoot looked soft, inviting—until you noticed it wasn’t growing in any natural pattern. It coiled in tight spirals, some large enough to circle your slippered feet, others small and delicate as lacework.
When you asked what he meant, what memory had to do with the trees, he only gave a crooked smile and pointed at your feet.
You looked down. The moss had formed perfect circles beneath your heels.
Spirals.
“See?” he said. “She’s already learnin’ you.”
And sure enough, even as you stood there, the spiral beneath you shifted. Just slightly. Not like a plant reacting to pressure, but something alive—tracing the shape of your sole, marking your weight, remembering the heat of your blood. It liked you.
Or worse—it recognized you.
He never called the place a graveyard. He called it “the kept.”
You first saw them while following a worn path between black pines—stones laid flat into the dirt, unmarked, sunk deep with age. You almost stepped on one before he reached out and caught your wrist, not harshly—just quick.
“Aye, mind where ye tread,” he said, voice gentle, Irish vowels lilting around the warning. “They don’t take kindly to bein’ disturbed.”
You stared at the stone. And then you realized it was moving. Not rising. Not moaning. But the soil above it—it breathed.
You took a step back, heart climbing into your throat.
“They don’t wake unless they’re called,” Remmick said softly. “But they listen.”
Far off, from a hollow deeper in the woods, a chime echoed. High and delicate, like a piano key played underwater. Another answered, lower, more metallic. You didn’t see the source, but you could feel them vibrating in your bones. And yet it didn’t frighten you.
He never told you how he died. You tried to ask. More than once.
The first time, he looked away. The second, he closed his mouth mid-sentence and didn’t speak for a full hour. Not angry. Never angry. Just—withdrawn. The third, he reached up and touched the ruined side of his jaw, as if he’d forgotten it was there.
Then he whispered, “Not yet,” and nothing more. You didn’t press.
Some things, you could feel, were kept buried by more than soil.
It was on the fifth day—if you trusted your own body’s clock—that you tried to leave.
You didn’t make a show of it. You waited until Remmick went still beneath the shade of a hollow tree, head tipped back, eyes closed like he was listening to something beyond your hearing. You crept away quietly. You didn’t look back.
You hadn’t meant to stay that long. You told yourself it was only curiosity, only caution, only until you understood what he was. But the forest had begun to feel too quiet in the right places. Remmick had begun to speak too softly, like a prayer meant only for you. And that was precisely the problem. He was too gentle. Too kind. Too patient.
You weren’t supposed to like any of this—weren’t supposed to be lulled by a dead man’s voice or find comfort in a world where bones lined bird nests and laughter came from unseen mouths. You ran not because you feared him. You ran because, terrifyingly, you didn’t.
At first, the trees parted for you. The path unfolded.
You ran.
You didn’t cry. You didn’t call his name. You just ran. But the forest…it shifted.
The branches overhead grew too low, too tangled. Vines curled beneath your feet like hands reaching out to stop you. A bramble reached out like a whip and slashed across your collarbone, slicing clean through the dress, nicking your skin just enough for blood to bead along the uneven seam of your cut. Still, you kept going.
Until you hit it.
The edge.
It wasn’t a wall—not exactly. It was air. Thick, humming, wrong. The veil between life and death. When you stepped into it, your skin felt like it peeled. Your lungs refused to fill. The world blurred and bent at the corners like warped glass.
You stumbled back, coughing. Gasping. Remmick was there. Not chasing. Not angry. Just there.
He caught you around the middle before your knees buckled, arms strong but careful, like you were made of spun sugar and he was afraid you'd shatter.
“Sshh, now,” he whispered, curling you to his chest, soothing, the brush of his lips, the bloodied network of muscle fiber and tendons woven through his jaw pressed to the side of yours, wet and textured, “easy, easy, you’re alright.”
“I—I had to try,” you managed, fingers curling into the lapels of his jacket. “I didn’t want to stay. I didn’t mean to—I can't stay.”
“Shhh,” he soothed again. “I know.”
You felt him exhale into your hair. Slow. Shaky.
“I know wee bride,” he murmured, the accent softening everything it touched. “But she don’t open the same way twice. Not once she’s taken a name.”
You pressed your forehead into his shoulder, trembling. And for the first time—you wondered. Not how you got here. Not how to undo it.
But if you even should.
You thought of Langdon. Of his thin lips, the contracts, the expectations. Of your mother, her quiet threats tucked into lace gloves. Of the veil that felt more like a burial shroud than a blessing.
And then you thought of the way Remmick had caught you—like a man catching the last soft thing left in the world.
Later—how much later, you couldn’t say—you sat with him in the moss-ringed clearing where the mushrooms bloomed like broken teeth, soft and damp and glowing faintly blue at their tips. The forest had gone quiet again, but not heavy this time. Not watching. It simply…was.
Remmick had taken to lying on his side, propped on one elbow, his ruined jaw turned slightly from view, though you were never sure if it was for your comfort or his.
His fingertips brushed through the withered stems, and chose one near the base of a crooked stone. It was long-dead, crumpled and brittle at the edges, the color all but drained. He held it up between thumb and forefinger, and as he rolled the stem, you watched something shift. The petals darkened—deepened—like blood soaking back into flesh. It bloomed, slow and unnatural, into the shape of a dried red rose. Not living, not quite—but remembering life. Like something dressed for mourning.
“These only grow where the veil’s thin,” he said quiet-like, voice laced with that low, lilting Irish bend. “Where things slip in and out. Couldn’t say for certain which side they’re meant for, if I’m honest.”
You didn’t reply. You just looked at him.
There was dirt under his nails. sediment clinging to his collarbone. His oxfords were still caked in grave mud, but he hadn’t touched you with anything other than gentleness.
Your voice felt small when you spoke. “Why did you wait?”
Remmick blinked slowly. His fingers stilled.
You clarified before he could pretend not to understand. “All this time. You said you felt me. But you were already down there, weren’t you? In the earth. Waiting for someone to call you back. Why?”
He didn’t answer right away. Didn’t shift. Didn’t look at you. And just when you were sure he wouldn’t speak—he did.
“I didn’t know I was waitin’,” he said, voice gone low, just a touch rough. “Not truly. Time goes quiet when you’re laid under like that. Y’don’t count the years. Some days, y’don’t even remember your own name.”
He looked at the sky through the trees.
“Sometimes I’d dream o’ faces. Yours, maybe. Or someone who looked like ye. Sometimes I’d think I heard someone weepin’. I’d think, was it me?”
You felt your chest tighten. Remmick smiled again, faint and lopsided, like a man recalling a song he hadn’t sung in years.
“But when I felt ye, I knew. I knew it weren’t just hunger or ghosts or wind. I knew it was real. Ye bled for me. Ye called for me.” He glanced over. “No one’s ever done that before.”
You stared at him. At his hands, broad and veined. At the faded chain around his throat. At the ring you’d slipped, thoughtlessly, onto the hand of a tree like a promise.
A tree that had promised back.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” you said.
“I don’t care.”
You swallowed.
He said it without venom. Without accusation. Just—resolute. And maybe something softer curling underneath. He rolled onto his back, the moss giving way beneath him like a cradle.
“I’d have waited another thousand years for that drop of blood,” he said, quiet now. “Another thousand after that just to hear your voice say I do.”
You turned away. Not because you didn’t believe him. But because some part of you did. And it made your throat ache.
Your gaze drifted to the edge of the clearing, where the trees stood thick and close.
“Will it ever open again?” you asked. “The forest.”
Remmick didn’t move. “Aye. Someday. When she’s good and ready.”
“And if I’m not here when it does?”
He was quiet for a beat too long. Then:
“Then I’ll follow.”
That made you look back. He didn’t smile this time.
“I’d walk through fire to find you, wee bride.”
His voice was still Irish—but there was something else behind it now. Something old. Ancient. Something so sure of its longing it didn’t need to shout. It just was.
You realized, in that moment, how terribly lonely he must’ve been. How quiet his world had become. How loud your heartbeat must be to him now.
And how warm you still were.
He asked if you wanted to see the rest.
Didn’t demand. Didn’t lead without waiting. Just…offered.
With a hand half-outstretched and those eyes still puppy-wide, still lit like you were a miracle he was afraid to touch too quickly, lest you vanish into smoke.
You hesitated. But not long.
The forest parted for you both this time. Not like it had when you tried to run. Now it was more like—inviting. The way a house might creak its doors open when it recognizes one of its own.
You slipped your hand into his, the one that still wore flesh. His fingers were cold, yes—but not corpse-cold. Not the kind that bit. His hand was rough in places, as though he’d lived long enough to carry calluses even through death. His thumb flexed gently along your knuckles, testing. Not possessive. Just…checking.
Reassuring himself you were real.
He showed you the orchard first. Or what was left of it.
A grove of trees that no longer bore fruit, only ribbons—hundreds, thousands of them, hanging from the branches like wilted party streamers. Blue, white, ivory, pale lilac. Some patterned, some torn, some fraying from centuries of wind.
You reached up and touched one.
“They’re wishes,” Remmick said, voice softer than ever, his breath beside your cheek. “Made by the dead. Before they were buried.”
You turned to him.
“But they never came true?”
His expression shifted—fond, wistful.
“Some did. Some didn’t. Doesn’t matter.” He touched the ribbon nearest to him, the pad of his thumb brushing its edge. “It’s the hoping that counts, innit?”
You said nothing. The breeze moved the orchard like a lullaby.
Further in, he showed you a town of sorts.
Carved into the side of a crumbling cliff where the rock split into ribs and the stone seemed to breathe, the little village clung to the earth like a half-forgotten secret.
The houses were squat mudstone cottages, weathered and slouched, their chimney pots crooked like snapped fingers. Moss crept up their sides in thick velvety bands, swallowing old lanterns, window frames, and entire doorsteps. Windowpanes blinked with eyes pressed from the inside.
The doors were low and arched, some made of driftwood painted in peeling funeral hues—deep violet, waxy blue, iron black. A few homes had teacups balanced on their roofs. Others had shingles shaped like fingernails or pressed flowers. Bones hung from strings between rafters, clacking gently in the hush, arranged like wind chimes or family crests, each one carved or etched with little initials, or painted with the ash of something you couldn’t name.
A skeletal cat darted past your ankles, all jangling vertebrae and twitching tailbone, its paws clicking faintly against the cobbled path. Its jaw hung open in a rictus grin. You didn’t scream. It looked up at you once—empty sockets glittering faintly—and carried on.
And then the town began to move.
A shutter creaked open. A door whined on its hinges. A hatless man with no lower jaw swept the stoop of what looked to be a bakery, the scent of charred sugar and burnt cinnamon floating faintly from within. He nodded at you politely, bits of soot falling from the collar of his shirt, and kept sweeping. Further down the lane, a trio of old women sat in rocking chairs that had been nailed directly into the wall of a house—sideways, five feet off the ground—and knitted with thread made of silver hair. One of them had no eyes. The second had too many. The third winked at you with a socket.
“Don’t mind them,” Remmick murmured. “They been there long as I can remember. Like to keep to themselves.”
He led you past a crooked fountain that spewed a slow, syrupy trickle of black water, and through a crooked square strung with dim, blue lanterns that hung from lengths of discolored intestine braided like ribbon. In the center was a music box the size of a carriage, its brass bell warped and dented, still playing a waltz you could swear you remembered hearing in a dream long ago. No one danced to it—but some of them swayed.
There was a tailor’s shop with mannequins made of stitched skin and bent spoons. A chapel whose bell tower rang without sound. A bar, glowing faintly green from the inside, where shadows moved across the windows though the glass had long since clouded over with frost from the wrong side. A child floated by without legs, giggling into a jar that held a swarm of candleflies. You saw a man with a flowerpot for a head watering it with tea. A woman selling buttons shaped like teeth.
This was not a place that mourned death.
This was a place that remembered it, wore it, built tea tables from it.
Remmick led you down a sloping path toward a cottage built halfway into the stone, the door crooked, the curtains made of faded funeral veils.
“This was mine,” he said, his voice almost sheepish. He toed at the dust near the doorstep, head ducked slightly.
“When?” you asked.
He smiled faintly, lifting a shoulder. “When the veil was thinner. When the dead and the livin’ shared more than just memory.”
He said it like someone recalling the smell of something they’d never taste again. Like someone who’d tried, once, to live after he’d been buried.
You looked around you.
The town wasn’t decayed. It was…rearranged. It had rules you didn’t yet understand. Gravity worked only where it felt like it. The dead did not walk in straight lines. Some glided. Some bounced. Some stitched themselves together fresh each morning and wandered about humming.
And the strangest thing of all?
You didn’t feel afraid.
Not in the way you should have. Not even when you turned around and the fountain had grown teeth. Not even when a man tipped his hat and his entire scalp followed. Not even when a door sighed open with a voice like your own and whispered, Stay.
Remmick was beside you, his body casting a shadow even here, where most things didn’t. He looked at you not like you were lost—
But like you were home.
That night—you still called it night, even though the moon hadn’t moved—he brought you to a bridge.
It spanned over nothing. No river. No ravine. Just a stretch of fog and sky. A ghost bridge.
You sat beside him at the edge, your legs dangling off as if you could fall somewhere, though you knew you wouldn’t. He sat close. Close enough that your shoulder brushed his.
He didn’t move away.
“Used to dream o’ this,” he admitted, after a long silence. “Not the forest. Not the dirt. Not the blood.”
He looked over at you, slowly.
“Just this. You. Here.”
You couldn’t answer. Your throat ached again.
His voice dropped, deep in his chest, accent thick with emotion he couldn’t hide. “Haven’t been touched since they put me down.”
The confession wasn’t vulgar. Wasn’t even pleading. It was starved. He smiled, crooked and small. “Can’t remember the last time someone just…looked at me. Like I wasn’t somethin’ to be feared.”
He didn’t touch you again, not even your hand.
He didn’t need to.
Your fingers brushed his pinky. Slowly. Once.
And his breath hitched so sharp you felt it in your bones.
By the next day—if you could still call it that—you weren’t watching the sky anymore. Weren’t thinking about what the world looked like outside these woods.
You walked the paths beside him. You listened to the hush of wind that sang like violins through cracked branches. You let him point out where the ghost-lanterns grew, little flowers with glass bell-heads that chimed when you passed them. You started remembering the feel of his shoulder bumping yours and missing it when it wasn’t there.
And you started to wonder.
Would it really be so terrible if you stayed?
You asked yourself that once. Then again. Then again.
At first it was just a whisper behind your ear. A suggestion. But now it nestled behind your ribs. Grew there. Took root.
Because you remembered Langdon, didn’t you?
You remembered his hand on your waist at supper, always too firm, like you were something to steer. You remembered how he spoke over you in every conversation, like a man correcting a child he hadn’t bothered to raise. You remembered how the ring—his ring—had been handed to you by someone else. No kneeling. No asking. Just expectation.
You remembered the way his lips never curled unless he was closing a deal.
And then there was Remmick.
Who asked if you wanted to see the rest. Who offered you his hand like it might be too much. Who waited every time you hesitated, and looked like it hurt him to do so.
He smiled with his whole mouth—ruined and all. He grinned when you laughed, even if he didn’t understand why. He softened around you like someone desperate to remember warmth. Every time he brushed against you, it wasn’t accidental. It was careful. Measured. Hopeful.
He looked at you like he was still not sure he deserved to.
You sat on the bridge again. Together.
Remmick had his hands in his lap, thumbs tracing nervous circles against each other. Every now and then, he’d glance at you. Say nothing. Then glance again.
You finally looked back.
“What is it?” you asked.
He startled slightly, sheepish. “Ah—nothin’. I just…”
His jaw clicked when he closed his mouth, then tried again.
“Ye don’t wear nothin’ on your finger,” he murmured.
Your breath caught. “Remmick—”
“No, no, love, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, huffing a laugh with no sound. “I know ye didn’t mean what ye said under the tree. I know ye weren’t…ye weren’t askin’ for all this.”
He paused, eyes dropping to the ring still on his own hand, the one you'd given him. “I just thought,” he added, quieter now, “maybe it’d feel a little less lopsided, is all.”
You didn’t know what to say. But your silence wasn’t rejection.
He must have felt that, because something flickered behind his eyes. He turned his palm over, and reached into the inside pocket of his coat. From it, he drew something strange.
A spool of hair, spun fine as thread—white and silvery-blue, like spider silk in moonlight. A broken thorn. A sliver of bone, no longer than a sewing needle. And the petal of one of those ghost-lantern flowers, shriveled but still glowing faintly at the edges.
He looked at you. Not for permission, exactly. Just to be sure you were still there.
Then he began.
He wrapped the hair into a loop, whispered to it in a language you didn’t understand—soft, low, rhythmic, like a lullaby hummed through soil. The thorn pierced the bone. The petal melted as it touched the band, fusing everything together in a slow flicker of light. It wasn’t magic like fireworks. It was quieter than that. Sadder. But it was real.
When it cooled, it had taken shape.
A ring. Fragile-looking, but solid. Matte white, like pearl gone to sleep. Veined faintly in red.
He offered it, resting on the flat of his palm like an offering. You looked at it. Then at him.
“It’s not a bindin’ spell,” he said softly. “I’d never do that to ye. It’s just a…a mark. That ye’ve been seen. That someone loved ye enough to make it.”
Your breath caught. You reached out, fingers trembling, and took the ring. And when you slipped it on—
The forest sighed.
Branches curled in. Flowers blinked open. The bridge beneath your feet thrummed like a harp string plucked once, gently.
And Remmick—Remmick made the smallest sound.
A choked inhale. Then, in a voice so soft it broke your heart:
“Ye look like someone worth waitin’ for.”
You don't remember dozing off.
But you did—still sitting beside him on the bridge, the soft weight of the ghost-ring warming your finger, his presence beside you steady as the moon that never shifted in the sky.
And when you woke, he was gone.
You startled upright, heart lurching. Your hand flew to the ring first—still there. Then to the edge of the bridge—still solid. The air felt heavier. Scented with something faint and iron-rich.
You called his name.
No answer.
Not at first.
You stood, blinking the fog from your lashes—and that’s when you saw it.
Laid carefully across the planks of the bridge, stretching in a line from your feet to the treeline beyond, was a trail of dead butterflies.
Hundreds of them. Each one perfectly intact, wings folded like prayer hands. Black as pitch with veins of crimson. Their bodies still. Sleeping. Dreaming. Waiting.
You followed.
Each step brought a rustle beneath your slippers, the softest stir of powder-dust wings. And up ahead—beneath the crooked trees that hung low like eaves—there he stood.
Remmick.
He had one hand behind his back, and his head tipped, sheepish as ever, like he’d been caught with something sinful in his pocket.
“Didn’t mean t’worry ye,” he said, voice soft.
You looked at the butterflies. Then back at him.
“What…is this?”
His smile wobbled.
“A bit of foolishness, maybe. Or maybe not.” He stepped forward, still holding whatever it was behind his back. “Back where I’m from… when we had no coin, no land, no dowry to offer—only things we’d taken from the earth—we’d still find a way t’make a gift.”
He stepped closer.
“An’ the most prized thing a man could offer…” He brought his hand forward.
In it, he held a locket.
But not gold. Not silver. It was made of bone, carved smooth and rounded into the shape of a heart. Not anatomically perfect—no, it was whimsical and off, a little uneven, the way a child might draw one. Etched into the surface were little spiral markings—like the moss had made beneath your heels that first day.
He opened it.
Inside was a pressed bluebell, perfectly preserved, its color dimmed to twilight. Across from it was a single moth’s wing, paper-thin and gleaming dully like wet stone—its veins iridescent, its edge slightly frayed. It shimmered like dusk and felt like a secret, as if it had been plucked from some dream before it could end.
Remmick didn’t explain right away. He only watched you open it, watched your thumb trace the curve of the petals, the fragile line of the wing. When he did speak, his voice had gone quieter, almost reverent.
“Th’bluebell,” he said, “they grow o’er graves where the dead were loved. Not all graves. Just the ones where someone wept hard enough t’water the earth.”
Your fingers stilled.
"And the wing?" you asked.
He hesitated. His eyes—those soft, wolf-sad things—lowered.
“She followed me once,” he said. “When I had no body. When I weren’t really a man at all. She’d land on me shoulder. Wouldn’t leave. Thought maybe she’d carry me soul somewhere if it ever got light enough.”
His smile came crooked. “She never did. But…I kept her. Just in case.”
You looked down at the locket again. At the love tucked carefully inside it—not gaudy, not gold, not spoken in flowers or poems, but in grief. In memory. In quiet things that didn’t ask for attention, only to be kept.
That was how he loved, you realized. Not loudly. Not demanding.
But devoutly.
With mourning in his blood and hope in his teeth. And you, wearing that little bone heart, felt something ancient stir beneath your ribs. Like maybe you'd been waiting for this place—this grave-bound man—just as much as he'd been waiting for you.
You blinked. Then laughed. It startled even you, the sound of it. But he didn’t flinch. Just watched, like you’d handed him the sun.
“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, that left side of his face pulling with a skeletal twitch where the wound exposed too much. “But I’d like you to have it. If you want it.”
You took it with both hands.The weight of it pressed into your palms like a heartbeat. You looked at him.
At his eyes—those wide, sorrowful things that glowed only faintly red now, not from hunger, but hope. At the way he didn’t reach for you, didn’t presume. Just stood still. Waiting.
You reached up. Tied the chain around your neck. It settled just above your collarbone. Close to your throat. Close to where he watched your pulse.
When your hand brushed his chest after—just lightly, just shyly—he let out the breath he’d been holding like it was his last. That was the moment you knew.
Not the rose. Not the bridge. Not the ribbon orchard. Not even the ring.
This.
This strange, mournful creature who had carved you a heart from the bones of the dead. Who watched you like you were worth every moment of his waiting. Who asked for nothing except to love you.
And you thought—
I feel more alive here, in this place of ghosts and ghouls and goblins than I ever did among the living.
You didn’t say it. But you didn’t have to. Because the forest heard you.
And so did he.
You held the locket in your palm long after it cooled, long after the weight of his gaze had eased—but not faded. He didn’t speak again. Only watched you with that tremble behind his smile, like he was scared his own heart might make too much noise and scare you off.
You looked at him. Really looked.
The sharp, wolfish teeth. The wound yawning over the right side of his jaw, red-veined and lipless but somehow not grotesque—just raw, unhealed, honest. The way his suit jacket hung slightly crooked over his frame. The moss in his hair from when he’d laid down in the grove beside you and listened to your voice like it was music. The wedding band still on his finger, slightly dirty with time passing but not with meaning.
You thought of the bluebell. Of the moth wing. Of all the things buried. And you asked, gently, “you never did get to kiss your bride, did you?”
He blinked. His breath caught like a match about to light. “No,” he said, slowly, voice cracking around the edges, thick with barely restrained emotion. “Never did.”
You stepped closer. Bare feet brushing bone-white moss, slippers silent as ghosts. The town behind you stirred like something dreaming—warm, moon-drowsy lamplight spilling from crooked windows. A cart creaked past on rusted wheels, pulled by a skeletal mule with eyes like glow-worms. Somewhere overhead, a thousand paper bats took flight from the belfry, flapping on stringy wings like dying leaves.
You lifted your hand.
Touched his face—gently, gently—cupping the uninjured side, but letting your thumb rest just at the edge of that ruined jaw. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t lean in.
He just…stood there. As if he was scared his own desire might shatter him.
“Then kiss her now,” you whispered. “She’s right here.”
Remmick’s eyes burned. Not metaphorically. Literally.
A ring of red swallowed his dark gaze—glowing like coals in a hearth that hadn’t felt breath in years. His lips parted, a tiny whimper caught between them. His hand twitched at his side, then lifted—hovering over your waist, then pulling back, trembling.
“I—” he choked. “Tell me if y’don’t want it. I’ll wait, I swear, just—just say it, an’ I’ll wait ‘til the grave grows cold.”
You didn’t answer.
You kissed him.
It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t chaste. It was raw and starved and aching. His hand finally landed on your back, gripping your gown in a fist like it was the only thing tethering him to the world. His mouth was cold—unnaturally so—but the longer it moved against yours, the warmer it got, like you were coaxing heat back into him.
He whimpered into you.
That sound—ragged and small—was almost too much.
His other hand found your cheek. Not greedy. Just reverent. Like he couldn’t believe you were solid under his fingertips.
And all around you, the forest bloomed.
Not with roses or lilies—but with boneflowers and glowing toadstools, with lantern-bugs that lit the air like constellations. Wind chimes made from ribs began to sing, and the belltower rang once, a low, humming note that quivered like a heartbeat.
You didn’t want to pull away.
Not because it was perfect. But because it wasn’t. Because it was messy and trembling and stitched together from grief and longing and the quiet, sacred madness of being wanted exactly as you were.
When you finally parted, his forehead dropped to yours.
“Christ above,” he whispered, voice gone soft and accented and wet with disbelief, “Ye taste like warmth. Like bloody spring after a thousand years o’ frost.”
You smiled.
Because for the first time in your life, you believed someone meant it.
His forehead rested against yours, breath shaky and uneven as if he’d forgotten how to need anything until now.
The world around you hummed in its stillness. Lantern-light flickered like breath behind gauze. Something in the cliffs sighed—the sound of wind moving through the hollow spaces of a place not meant for the living. The scent of old parchment and smoke-moss clung to the air. The boneflowers glowed dimmer now, like candles burned low in anticipation.
Remmick’s hand still cradled your cheek, reverent as a benediction. His thumb moved once, a trembling stroke along your jaw.
You looked at him. Really looked. The way his lashes fluttered like he couldn’t hold your gaze too long. The way his lips—wet, bitten, parted—trembled just slightly even though he’d stopped kissing you. He looked stunned. Like a man waking from a century-long dream and realizing heaven hadn’t been a lie after all.
You pressed your hand over the one still clutching your back.
And you asked, very softly, “Is there somewhere we can go?”
He blinked. “Go?”
Your thumb brushed his wrist.
“Somewhere private,” you said. “Somewhere we can be alone.”
You let the weight of your meaning hang there, open. Raw.
His eyes—still rimmed in that glowing red, still almost black where the light didn’t touch—widened just slightly.
He didn’t speak right away.
Then: “Y—ye mean…”
You nodded.
He let out a breath that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a sob, but something caught in the middle. His jaw flexed, the muscles around the torn part twitching as if it ached to smile and didn’t remember how.
“Aye,” he said at last, breathless. “Aye, I—Christ. C’ourse there is.”
You followed him through the quiet town, through paths lined with broken gravestones and wrought-iron gates wrapped in black ivy. The skeletal mule lifted its head as you passed, but didn’t move. The sky flickered between colors that didn’t exist aboveground—indigo, absinthe green, deep plum, midnight rust.
The house he led you to was small, crooked, nestled between two weeping trees. Its windows were frosted over from the inside, but lanterns glowed behind them—soft and inviting, not gold but something bluer, like the edge of candlelight seen through tears.
He opened the door and held it for you, eyes not leaving your face even once.
And when you stepped inside, the house breathed around you.
Like it had been waiting too.
The moment you stepped inside, the door shut behind you with a hush like a drawn curtain. No click. No finality. Just the sound of something sealing the world away—just the two of you now, cocooned in this crooked little house where time didn’t dare intrude.
It was warm, impossibly so. Not with fire, but with memory.
Lanterns floated untethered above the room, bobbing gently like sleeping fireflies in glass cages. Their glow was the color of old violets pressed between pages—dim, wistful, soft. A chair sat crooked beside a hearth with no fire, its frame carved with sigils too old to name. The walls were mismatched wood and stone, patched in places with stained-glass panels that bled moody light across the floor. Dust danced in the air like confetti made from ash and pearl.
And across the room stood a bed.
Not some pristine matrimonial thing. No, this was older. Lovingly worn. A frame of twisted wrought iron and bone-white wood, headboard etched with curling ivy and crescent moons. The sheets were moth-gray and velvet-soft, tucked in neat but frayed at the edges like they'd been waiting for years—centuries—to be touched again.
Remmick lingered behind you, his presence like a shadow you didn’t want to outrun. He hadn’t stepped closer yet. He was giving you space. But you could feel the way he vibrated with restraint. His hand hovered just inches from your back, like he couldn’t trust himself to touch without unraveling.
“If ye…” he began, and his voice cracked down the middle. He cleared his throat, tried again. “If ye’ve changed yer mind, just say the word. I’ll not take a thing ye don’t want to give, not even a breath.”
You turned to face him.
There was nothing hungry in his stance. Not yet. Just reverence. Just awe. But something in you had already begun to ache with want.
You stepped closer, silent as snowfall, until your fingers found the button of his collar. He startled at the contact—but didn’t stop you.
“I’m not scared of you,” you said, voice hushed. “I want this.”
You slid off the suit jacket, palms skimming the broad expanse of his shoulders, Remmick's lashes fluttering in response. Underneath, you found a pair of suspenders stretched taut over his chest, creating wrinkles in the fabric of his collared dress shirt.
You undid the top button. He didn’t move. Then Another.
His throat worked around a swallow, breath trembling. The glow in his eyes flickered, pulsing, softening. Like it responded to your touch.
Another.
You watched his chest rise and fall, slow and shallow as he tried not to pant. As if the sheer fact of you, undressing him—not in horror, not with trembling hands, but deliberately—was too much.
Another.
You laid your palms flat against his chest now, pushing the shirt from his shoulders. The white wife beater underneath clung to him, threadbare and soft, stretched over his broad frame. He was muscular in that quiet, devastating way—someone who’d labored long past death. His chest heaved with breath he didn’t need.
He hadn’t stopped watching your face.
Not once.
“I dunno if I remember how to do this slow,” he murmured, voice hitching on every word. “I’m too far gone for gentle if ye ask me to take too much control.”
You smiled, cupping the side of his neck. The unbroken one.
“Then let me.”
You stepped back once, your own hands now at the hem of your gown, torn at the hem, blood dried like rust at your shin. You pulled it loose now, bit by bit, letting it fall from your shoulders with the softest sigh of fabric meeting floor, leaving you in just your panties.
Remmick stared. His lips parted. No sound. His knees bent slightly, like he was fighting the urge to fall to them.
“Sweet hell,” he whispered, reverently. “Ye look like…like the night I died dreamin’ someone might love me anyway.”
And then, as if the words had summoned it, the lanterns above bloomed brighter, casting kaleidoscope patterns over your bare skin. The stained-glass windows threw ribbons of blue and red and indigo across your collarbones, your hips, your thighs.
Remmick reached out—slowly, slowly—and let the backs of his fingers trail along your arm. He didn’t dare touch your breasts. Not yet. He touched the hollow of your elbow. The dip of your wrist. The edge of your shoulder where your gown had once kissed your skin.
“Are ye sure?” he breathed.
You nodded.
“Lay with me.”
He exhaled like he’d been holding that breath since his last life.
And then he moved.
He moved like he wasn’t sure he was allowed.
Like the spell might break if he touched you too boldly—if he let himself believe for even a moment that he could have this. Have you.
You were already on the bed, the velvet beneath you rich and rippling like ink-stained water. Your head resting against moth-gray pillows. The locket he’d given you pressed cool against your breastbone, shifting with every breath. The air smelled of petrichor, moonlight, and something sweeter—something you’d begun to associate only with him. A scent like charred lilac and old longing.
Remmick knelt beside the mattress on one knee, wide palms gripping the edge of the frame like it was the only thing keeping him from coming undone.
“Christ, darlin’,” he rasped, his voice thick, slurred just slightly with his Irish cadence. “Ye don’t know what ye’re doin’ to me.”
But you did.
You could see it—see the way his jaw clenched, the left side twitching faintly where the skin had long since been torn away. The way his fangs caught on his lower lip, not bared, but there—unavoidable. You could see how hard he was fighting himself, how deeply he was suppressing the parts of him he feared you’d flinch from.
You didn’t flinch.
Instead, you reached for him, fingers curling into the front of his thin undershirt. Pulled him closer.
“Remmick,” you whispered. “It’s alright.”
He froze above you, nose inches from yours.
“I can’t—”
“You can.” You cupped his cheek, gently thumbing along the edge of exposed muscle. Not in disgust. Not in pity. But in affection. “I want all of you.”
Something in him broke.
He surged forward with a noise caught between a sob and a growl, his mouth crashing against yours. It was not the kiss of before—this one had heat, had desperation, the kind of longing that hadn’t been touched in over a thousand years. His lips were cold, but his tongue burned. You tasted the salt of old grief and something copper-sharp beneath it. His hands—God, those hands—one cupped your jaw while the other slid around your ribs, feeling flesh and bone simultaneously, cradling your back like you were sacred, like he might be punished for touching you too hard but couldn’t stop himself even if he tried.
“So soft—” he whispered, kissing the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then your neck. “So fuckin’ soft, love, like the world before it soured…”
His fangs dragged the faintest line along your throat. Not piercing—just testing. Just tasting. His breath hitched like it pained him to hold back.
And you whispered again:
“It’s fine.”
That was all he needed.
A low, guttural moan tore from his chest as he finally let himself grip you harder—your hips, your thighs, hauling you into his lap like he needed you closer, needed your skin pressed to his or he might rot again right there on the floor. His body was strong, stronger than a man’s should’ve been, and you could feel that strength now as he spread your thighs wide and settled between them, the weight of him pressing down deliciously heavy.
He groaned when he felt the heat of you beneath the fabric, when your legs wrapped around his waist. He wasn’t shy anymore. His teeth caught on your lower lip as he kissed you again, hungrier now, drooling slightly with want—not from gluttony, but from sheer, unbearable starvation.
“Ye smell like everythin’ I’ve ever lost,” he murmured raggedly. “And everythin’ I thought I’d never be allowed to touch again.”
His hips rolled once, helplessly, against yours. You felt the hardness of him, thick and restrained behind old linen and buttons. His breath hitched, head dropping to your shoulder.
“I’m tryin’, I swear it, I’m tryin’ to be slow…”
“You don’t have to be,” you told him, voice gone small and shaking. “I’m not afraid of you. I want you. All of you. Even the parts you’re trying to hide.”
He lifted his head slowly—eyes glowing red now, the pupils huge and blown with need.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he breathed. “Marryin’ me twice over, sayin’ that.”
You hadn’t meant to tempt him. Not exactly. But you’d said the words—I want all of you—and now you could feel what that meant in the trembling of his fingers as they hovered over your body. Not touching. Not yet. Just breathing you in like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. That you were happening.
His voice cracked through the hush of the room. “D’you know what yer sayin’, love?” He cupped the back of your neck, gentle as a grave flower. His thumb dragged along your pulse like he was listening to it. “A thousand years o’ hunger in me…an’ you go sayin’ that?”
Your answer came not in words but in action—pulling his hand down, pressing it against your chest so he could feel your heart race for him. For this. For the way his eyes glowed like twin embers in the dark.
That did it.
He surged forward, lips grazing the shell of your ear. “Then lie back for me, mo chroí,” he breathed. “Let me see what I’ve been dreamin’ of since before I knew what dreamin’ meant.”
You reclined against the velvet, heat curling low in your stomach, and Remmick followed you down—kneeling between your legs like a knight in a fairy tale gone all wrong and better for it. His skin caught the light, that blue like moonlight over still water, marred only by the right side of his jaw—where muscle and bone were laid bare, yet never once did he try to turn his face away from you.
Because you didn’t flinch.
You reached up and traced the edge of the torn flesh, and he shuddered, a sound like something old breaking loose in his chest.
He kissed you then—not hurried, but deep, wet, needy—and his hand came to rest between your thighs, warm despite everything. His fingers traced the seam of your inner thigh first, featherlight, before his mouth followed. Down your jaw. Your throat. Lower.
Praise spilled from him like prayer:
“Look at ye—soft as sin, warm as summer rain—ain’t never seen anythin’ like ye.”
He mouthed at your thighs, biting down just enough to make you gasp, but never break the skin. He lapped at the indentations like he wanted to memorize every tremble, every twitch. When your legs started to close reflexively, he hooked an arm around one, spreading you wider with a low, sinful groan.
“No, no, love. Let me see. Let me taste. It’s been so long—I’ll be good, I swear it, I’ll make ye forget everythin’ but me.”
His hand moved between your legs again—rough palm against soft heat. He doesn't remove your panties yet, content to tease you through the., letting the slick there soak into the cotton. He rutted his palm against you, slow and grinding, until your hips started chasing it.
You keened. And he moaned in response—open-mouthed, desperate.
“Fuckin’ drippin’ f’r me already…ain’t even had a taste…”
And he did.
One long stripe with his tongue over the damp cotton. Then another. Until he was panting into you like a starving man nosing through the seam of your underwear. One hand splayed over your belly, keeping you still.
Then he sucked the fabric into his mouth like he could wring the taste of you through it.
When you gasped, he looked up—eyes blown wide, red rimmed, lips wet and parted.
“Beggin’ ye,” he whispered. “Let me have ye proper, yeah? Just me mouth for now—let me make ye sing, mo chroí, let me worship ye like the altar ye are.”
And when you nodded—more a whimper than a yes—he pulled your panties aside and groaned, deep and broken.
You didn’t expect him to kiss your cunt.
But he did.
Like he meant it.
Like it was holy.
He parted you with reverence—his breath hot against your folds, one trembling hand holding your thigh like it anchored him to the earth. The other lay against your belly, fingers twitching as though resisting the urge to claw, to grasp, to sink into your softness and never let go.
And then…he kissed you.
Not rushed. Not ravenous. Just lips to flesh, slow and aching, as if the act itself might undo him. As if his very mouth might shatter around you—and he’d welcome the breaking.
Your back arched.
Not from shock—but from the texture.
Because his mouth wasn’t whole.
His lips were soft, yes. Warm, even. But where the skin gave way—where bone and sinew lay exposed, where every sharp, imperfect tooth glistened with preternatural hunger—his kiss became something otherworldly.
It should’ve been frightening.
It wasn’t.
It was devastating.
You felt it not just in your cunt, but in your spine, your ribs, your soul. He didn’t just use his tongue—though God, that tongue, wet and thick and curling with practiced strokes that told you he hadn’t forgotten how to ruin a woman—he used his mouth in full. The broken parts. The jagged ones.
He scraped—not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to tease. Just enough to remind you this wasn’t a dream. That this was him. Remmick. The dead man with the living hands. The monster with the gentle touch.
He licked you like you were spun sugar and sacrament, and when he pressed his tongue flat against your clit and sucked, your hands shot to his hair, tangled in it, dragging him closer—
He moaned. Moaned into you, like the taste alone could kill him.
“Christ alive,” he rasped, pulling back for half a second to pant against your slick. His voice was wrecked, thick with emotion and want, thick with his Irish cadence.
He ducked back down—open mouth, flat tongue, slow circles that made your thighs tremble—and then slid two fingers inside you in one smooth, devastating motion.
“Tight little thing,” he whispered, “grippin’ me like ye missed me your whole life.”
You sobbed something between his name and God and yes, your thighs clenching around his ears, and he groaned again—deeper this time—rutting against the bed like he was getting off on the noises you made alone.
And somewhere between the moaning and the wet pop of his mouth over your clit, somewhere between the slurp of his tongue and the squelch of his fingers moving inside you, the thought came—
My mother warned me of what goes bump in the night.
She whispered it when you were little. When the winds howled. When the floorboards creaked.
She said, “There are monsters, my love. Stay in the light.”
And now here you were, sprawled beneath one, flushed and soaked and gasping, letting him drag you apart with teeth and tongue.
You wondered what she’d say if she saw you like this.
If she knew that you’d chosen the dark—and begged it to keep you.
You felt it coming.
Not like a storm—fast and brutal—but like a tide, rising slow. Heat bloomed between your hips, slow and dangerous. Your thighs ached with the effort of keeping him there, like if you let go he’d vanish back into the earth that made him.
And still he stayed. Mouthing at your cunt like a man devoted. Like a man damned.
His eyes fluttered shut as his tongue circled your clit, drawing wet, lazy shapes—infinity, you thought, or a name—until you couldn’t tell where his mouth ended and your body began.
And then—
His eyes opened.
They glowed dimly at first, that reddish hue flickering like coal beneath ash. But when he felt your hand trembling against his scalp—when you whimpered “Remmick, I—”, his gaze snapped to yours.
Locked. Frozen. Held. It wasn’t lust you saw there. It was awe. It was reverence.
It was a man who hadn’t been touched in thirteen hundred years, now watching you—bare, flushed, trembling—fall apart beneath his mouth like a blessing.
His lips glistened. His fingers curled inside you, stroking something sharp and sacred. And still, he didn’t look away.
He stared at you like he was watching the stars be born. Like you were the only heaven he ever hoped to find.
And you knew—without him saying it—that if you asked him to stop, he would. If you asked him to die again, he would.
But you didn’t want that. You wanted more. So you said nothing.
You only whispered, voice shaking, “Don’t look at me like that.”
His jaw twitched. His breath caught. Then came his voice, low and ruined:
“Can’t help it, darlin’. Ye look like salvation.”
And you broke.
Your thighs clamped around his ears. Your back arched. You came with a sound so soft it felt like mourning. Like prayer. Like surrender.
And Remmick—beautiful, monstrous, trembling—moaned like he’d been given breath again.
He kept licking you through it. Slower now. Gentler. One last kiss to your clit, soft and grateful. He pressed his cheek to your thigh, jaw wound resting against your skin like it belonged there.
And still, his eyes never left your face.
After, you pulled him up.
He came willingly. Crawled over you with something almost shy in the set of his shoulders, the way his body trembled despite its strength. You reached for him—and for a moment, he hesitated, like he couldn’t believe you were still here. That you wanted this. That you wanted him.
You cupped his face.
Cold skin. The torn edge of his right jaw like worn marble. One fang brushing your thumb where it passed his lip. His eyes flickered between black and red—uncertain, afraid he might be dreaming.
“Remmick,” you said, your voice thick and still breathless, “do you want me?”
The question broke something in him.
He nodded too fast, like a man who’s never been given permission to hope. “Aye. Christ, aye, I do—been wantin’ ye since the trees took yer scent. Since ye bled on the bark and woke me.”
Your fingers trailed down his chest, down the wife beater—until you reached his belt. He sucked in a breath, whole body twitching when your knuckles brushed the tented front of his trousers.
“Then show me,” you whispered. “Show me how much.”
His mouth twitched into a smile, wide and crooked. “Ye don’t know what ye ask, lass.”
You leaned up, lips brushing his jaw, your whisper soft and sharp against his skin. “Then show me anyway.”
He kissed you—harder this time, desperate now, hips grinding against your thigh with the ragged rhythm of a man barely keeping himself leashed. His tongue pushed into your mouth, all heat and hunger, and you could taste blood and lavender and something older, something wild, on his tongue.
And God, he kissed like he meant to die in your mouth. When he pulled back, his voice rasped, thick and low:
“Ye sure?”
You nodded once. Twice. Then said it, clear and sure:
“I want to feel you inside me.”
He shuddered. Not just a tremble—but a full-body quake, as if your words went deeper than skin, straight to the buried places inside him.
“Then lie back, ma wee bride,” he murmured, voice shaking, thick with that Irish lilt you’d grown to crave. “Let me make a proper mess of ye.”
He moved slowly, reverently, as he undressed you fully, fingers shaking as they peeled your underwear down. His breath caught at every inch of exposed skin, like he was memorizing it with his mouth slightly parted.
He bent low, kissed the inside of your thigh again—then your hip, your stomach, your ribs. Worshipful. Starved.
And when he reached for himself, undid the buckle of his trousers with fumbling hands, he looked up at you once more, almost apologetic.
“I—ah—may not last long,” he confessed, shame flickering across his face. “Not when ye’re lookin’ at me like that. Not when I’ve waited this long. I’ll—I'll make it up to ye, I swear it—”
You touched his face again.
“Then come undone for me, Remmick,” you whispered. “You’ve waited long enough.”
He lowered himself between your thighs like a man preparing for worship, not fucking.
His forehead pressed to your sternum. His breath trembled. You felt him—not just the weight of his body, but the heat of him, pulsing against your thigh, thick and straining beneath your touch.
And God, he was big.
You glanced down and saw it—long and flushed dark at the tip, veined like marble, so hard he twitched in time with his breath. The way his cock curved heavy toward his stomach made your breath catch. He looked like something carved from sin.
He saw your eyes widen and started to pull back.
“I—I’ll wait, love, I’ll—”
“No,” you breathed, grabbing his arm. “I want it. I want you. Just…slow.”
He swallowed, hard. His throat clicked.
“Gonna ruin ye,” he whispered, voice thick with Irish dusk and awe. “Gonna stretch ye wide and deep and still wish I could go deeper.”
Your legs parted further on instinct. Your heels dragged the sheets. He looked down at you like you were something sacred, worshipped and half-afraid of.
Then his hand moved between your thighs.
His fingers—two at first, slow and careful—slid back into your soaked heat, working you open gently, watching for every flinch, every sharp breath. His jaw—half-torn and glowing faintly with the light of his hunger—tightened.
“Look at ye,” he whispered hoarsely, breath like a vow. “So soft f’r me. So warm already.”
Your hips arched into his hand. You whined when his thumb brushed your clit, your hands clutching at his shoulders, his name escaping your lips again and again in half-sobs.
“Please, Remmick,” you gasped.
He kissed your knee. Your hip. Your inner thigh again. Then—
He lined himself up with you, shaking. “I can feel ye callin’ f’r me,” he said, voice low, trembling. “Can feel yer body beggin’ mine to belong.”
You didn’t have words for what he made you feel. Only need. Only the hot, aching stretch inside as he finally pressed forward, the thick head of his cock nudging into you with aching slowness.
And God—the burn. It wasn’t pain. It was too much and not enough all at once. You clutched his arms. Gasped. He froze.
“Too much?” he rasped. “Do I stop?”
“No—Remmick—don’t stop,” you moaned, “just—go slow—”
And he did. So slow, like he was trying not to shatter.
His cock dragged deeper, inch by inch, your walls clutching at him, your slick coating him as he bottomed out in you with a shudder that shook his whole body. His arms shook. His forehead dropped to yours. His mouth opened but nothing came out—not until your name escaped his throat on a cracked, desperate sound that felt more like prayer than pleasure.
“Fookin’ Christ,” he choked, barely moving, buried to the hilt inside you. “Ye feel—Gods above—ye feel like fire.”
You were full. So full. Stretched in a way that left your eyes fluttering, your voice catching in your throat. You didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe. You only wanted to feel him there, pulsing deep inside, trembling like you were the first sunrise he’d ever seen.
And maybe you were.
He stayed there, deep and still, as if even the smallest movement might break you. His eyes squeezed shut. His jaw flexed against the side of your throat. You could feel him shaking—not from strain, but from the restraint it took not to move.
You wrapped your arms around his neck.
“It’s okay,” you whispered, mouth brushing the shell of his ear. “I can take it.”
He didn’t answer at first. Just trembled, breath warm on your shoulder. But the sound he made when your hips tilted up—when your walls squeezed gently around him—wasn’t human.
It was a groan wrenched up from the deepest part of him. A sound centuries old.
“Ye don’t know what ye’re sayin’,” he rasped. “Ye don’t know what I’ll do if ye tell me I can…”
“I do,” you whispered, meeting his gaze. “I want you to.”
And that’s what broke him.
The first thrust was shallow, but sharp—his hips twitching forward, grinding deep. Your mouth fell open, a gasp slipping past your lips. He did it again. Then again. Each movement just a little rougher, a little more desperate. Until he was fucking you with the kind of pace that spoke of appetite, not lust.
He pressed you down into the sheets, breathing ragged, body arched over yours like he couldn’t get close enough. His lips dragged down your throat, over your collarbone, mouthing at the tops of your breasts like a man starving.
He muttered something in Irish against your skin—raw, thick, ruined—but you didn’t need to understand it. You felt what it meant in the way he rutted into you, deep and fast, his cock dragging along the parts of you no one else had ever touched.
You sobbed his name.
Your nails dug into his shoulders. You felt his back ripple beneath your hands, all sinew and strength, every part of him working to fuck you the way he’d been dreaming of since long before your first breath.
“You feel me?” he groaned into your mouth. “Deep in that sweet lil cunt, aye? So warm—so wet—I could drown in ye.”
You cried out, back arching, thighs trembling.
His mouth kissed down your breast, licking over your nipple before sucking it between his teeth. Your whole body jerked beneath him.
“Fook,” he breathed against your skin. “Ye’re squeezin’ me like you like it when I lose m’self.”
“I do,” you sobbed. “I want you to—Remmick, please—don’t stop—”
He didn't.
He pounded into you, hips snapping, the slick drag of his cock obscene as your bodies slapped together. His jaw wound gleamed faintly with wet, his eyes glowing a deep carnelian red. But even with his mouth parted, his teeth sharp, even with the beast in him taking hold—he still looked at you like he loved you.
Loved you, even if he didn’t dare say it yet. You clenched around him. His rhythm faltered.
He growled, low and broken, “Tell me if I hurt ye, love. Tell me—swear it—”
“You’re perfect,” you whimpered, tears slipping down your cheeks. “You’re perfect, Remmick.”
His forehead dropped to yours. Then he rutted into you with such bruising depth, you saw stars.
He couldn’t stop shaking.
Even as his body rocked into yours, even as your legs wrapped around his hips and your nails raked down the meat of his back, Remmick trembled like a man possessed.
“Can’t hold m’self back,” he whispered, voice rough and wrecked and soaked in longing. “Not when ye’re like this—soft and beggin’ beneath me—so fuckin’ warm—”
“Then don’t,” you breathed. “Remmick, please—don’t stop—don’t hold back—just take me—”
Your words undid him.
He groaned low in his chest, mouth falling open, and something inside him slipped. His pace turned brutal—not cruel, never cruel—but driven. Like centuries of craving finally had a body to answer to.
Like you were the only thing he’d ever wanted, and the wait had nearly broken him.
The frame of the bed creaked beneath his rhythm. Your thighs trembled around his hips, slick and trembling, your body rocked with every deep, ragged thrust. And still—still—he tried to speak.
“You feel me, yeah?” he rasped, forehead pressed to yours. “Deep in that sweet cunt…like I belong there. Like I was meant to be there—"
Your hands curled at his nape. Your lips brushed his ear.
“You do,” you said.
That was all it took.
Remmick let go.
His body slammed flush against yours, hips stuttering hard, cock pulsing deep inside you with a heat so full, so heavy, it knocked the breath from your lungs.
He groaned brokenly against your skin, his whole body arching as he spilled inside you—deep, thick, endless—his forehead resting against yours like he had nowhere else left to go.
You clung to him. His breath hitched. Then again.
And when you looked down between your bodies, when your thighs parted with a sticky ache—you saw the proof of him leaking back out of you, thick and warm where you were still stretched around the base of his cock.
A creamy ring of white.
Remmick saw it, too.
He moaned—deep, guttural—and pulled you closer, nosing at your throat like he was afraid you’d disappear. “So full of me,” he whispered, dazed. “Look at ye. Stuffed so pretty…”
You kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Remmick,” you whispered.
His eyes fluttered open.
And when you looked into them—when you saw the pain, the wonder, the sheer reverence—you knew. He’d been waiting longer than you’d been alive. For this. For you.
His voice cracked, Irish accent trembling:
“Don’t leave me, love. Not now. Not ever.”
You kissed him back.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The air felt different after.
Not warmer, not colder—but fuller. As if something ancient and unseen had exhaled at last. A spell released. A promise made flesh.
Remmick lay tangled beside you, arms wrapped tight around your body like he didn’t know how to let go. His cheek pressed to your shoulder, jaw wound cool and tender against your skin. His breath was shallow, uncertain—like he still couldn’t believe you were real.
You watched the glow-worm lanterns drift lazily overhead. Somewhere outside, the bones in the wind chimes knocked gently together like teeth. The forest whispered.
You should’ve been afraid.
Of the damp, breathing woods. Of the moss that learned your name. Of the way the moon never moved and the veil hung so thin you could taste it when you kissed him.
But you afraid. You were…calm.
He stirred slightly when you traced a lazy pattern down his back—soft whorls against undead skin still damp with sweat. A low, content sound rumbled in his throat, and he nosed into the crook of your neck, whispering something like “m’wife…” so quietly, you weren’t sure if it was meant for you or just the silence.
And God help you, you smiled.
It hadn’t been love with Mr. Langdon. It hadn’t even been kindness.
It had been a future written in ink not your own. One you’d been expected to accept without complaint, because it was tidy. Respectable. Fitting of a girl raised to smile politely, to never contradict her elders, to marry for property and speak only when spoken to.
Your mother had called it security.
Had warned you to stay away from things that wandered in the woods. From things with glowing eyes and sharpened teeth. Things that hungered.
And now—
Now you lay in a moss-slick bed of dirt and silk, bare and marked and full of one such thing. You wore his locket. His bite. His ring.
You brushed your fingers along the smooth place at your neck where his lips had lingered. A perfect bruise. A signature.
And still you weren’t afraid. You weren’t ashamed. You were…
Content.
“I wish I’d met ye sooner,” he whispered against your collarbone. “Back when I still knew how to be a man.”
You turned your head, met his eyes. Those wide, glowing eyes.
“You still are.”
He swallowed, expression caught between reverence and disbelief.
“I ain’t decent,” he said, voice thick with that Irish lilt again. “Ain’t clean. Ain’t right. I sleep in the dirt, I feed when I must, and I carry more ghosts than I do breath in m’lungs.”
“You’re kind,” you said.
“A monster.”
“You’re mine.”
He closed his eyes at that.
You rested your palm over his heart—cold and still. But when you pressed closer, you could swear something stirred there. Like an echo. Like a wish.
He buried his face in your chest, arms tightening around your waist. And you let him hold you.
You never looked back again.
Not at Langdon. Not at the mother who warned you off the dark but allowed the devil in anyway. Not at the world where your name was written beside a stranger’s in a church you hated.
Instead, you stayed in the belly of the forest. In the town built of bones and moss and memory. You watched the ribbons in the orchard sway like breath. You fed the skeletal cat scraps of peach and laughed when it swiped at your slipper. You kissed your husband when the wind moaned, and whispered promises against his cheek when his hands trembled.
Because you loved him. Because he waited.
And because when you reached for a tree with trembling hands and a bloodstained ring, he was the one who answered.
Not Langdon. Not God.
Him.
On the morning the bluebell bloomed again—only one, shy and frost-bitten—you knelt beside it with Remmick and whispered,
“Maybe this was the wish that came true.”
He stared at the bloom, then at you. And smiled.
“I ran from a man with a pulse,” you whispered, lacing your fingers through your undead husband’s. “But I stayed for the one with a soul.”
summary: in the humid belly of the night, you flee through the wild woods, breathless and bleeding, chased by a monster dressed in the skin of a man, and when he inevitably catches you, it's not to kill, but to keep. What follows is neither rescue or ruin, but a slow, savage claim written in blood, hunger, and heat.
wc: 15.2k (wip)
warnings: heavy dubcon, dead dove: do not eat, blood kink, period sex, heavy breeding kink, monsterfucking, possessive behavior, coercive control, demon x human dynamics, religious imagery, breeding/ownership language, filthy talk, cockdrunk reader, forced orgasm, restraints/restraint kink, forced captivity, manipulation, southern gothic horror, explicit sexual content, obsession, violence, rough sex, blood play, dark romance, somnophilia undertones (reader too weak to consent properly), gore, murder, body horror, emotional manipulation, pregnancy themes, psychological conditioning, trauma bonding, devotion through violence, canon-typical Remmick unhingery, homegrown cult wife aesthetics
Sinners is what happens when directors are allowed to experiment with the genres like a horror musical that puts you in a trance and makes you question your existence while also being campy and funny but also breathtakingly beautiful but also haunting and terrifying? Yes please I literally did not want to leave the theater I wanted to just stay there and keep watching it over and over
