Macrocosm

I enjoy reading and writing. | 18+ | AO3: Paracosm Enthusiast | Yes! I take requests :) send me all the prompts in the world!

[paracosmenthusiast]

Master List

Jonathan Byers: Cruel Summer 1, Cruel Summer 2, Cruel Summer 3

I also write for Billy Russo, but that story is quite long so I won't have it back up on my tumblr for a minute. You can find it on my AO3: Paracosm Enthusiast.

Keanu / Keanu Characters:

Sundays, The Apple Orchard

Servicing the Tech Guy

Fallout 4:

Trixie and Hancock

Coming soon...

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THE BEAR!!

I Can Do it With A Broken Heart - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

[paracosmenthusiast]

Update soon to come. 👀

[paracosmenthusiast]

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Chapter 4: Stick Season

Subtitle: The Bear Followed You On Instagram

``

Why the fuck did I do that?

Is there a part of me that wants him back? Or is this some sort of outlandish retribution for running away from my engagement? What the fuck am I doing?

“What are you doing here?”

I look up slowly. “In my own apartment?”

He’s dressed now, thankfully, but that shirt is a little too well-fitting and it’s too hard to look away. His hair is still wet from the shower, little droplets landing on his collar. He’s standing in the hallway, a specter, a visage from the past. I have five missed calls from Kendra and the phone is in my hand ringing again.

I push away from the island counter where I was leaning and walk to the door. “I had to get away from home and this is where I ended up.”

“Down the street from–my restaurant.” He doesn’t budge from the hallway and when I look back at him his eyebrows are up.

Hmm. He doesn’t actually look that well like I thought before. Hollow-eyed and tired. I wonder when the last time he slept was. “Yeah, I guess so, Carmen. Are you going to leave or are you squatting now? Because my friend is trying to get a hold of me.”

“Yes. Sorry.” That spurs him into motion, and he joins me at the doorway.

I open the door. And he still lingers. Like the bad aftertaste of nicotine (and I can smell the cigarettes on his clothes).

“She told me she loved me. Uh, the girl who kicked me out. And I didn’t say it back.” Why is he looking at me like that? Beseechingly. Like he’s hungry for some kind of reassurance.

When I don’t say anything, he pushes forward, same tone, almost puzzled: “I said it to you.”

It clicks then, because I’ve had that conversation with myself, because I’ve felt that feeling myself, that, Oh, what’s wrong with me, what am I feeling, why is it different?

“I really wrecked it,” he says, makes some obscure hand gesture that I can’t quite catch because I’m in my own head, “I don’t know why I did that. Why did I do that?”

Without even asking me if it’s alright he puts his hand on the door above mine and pushes it closed. Oh, for fuck’s sake, Carmen, I have to get Kendra. But since it’s Carmen’s open mic time he’s still fucking talking. “What can I do to–to not do it again?”

Like a little kid trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. Can’t comprehend what went wrong, can’t understand the rules of the game, can’t see why it won’t just fit.

“So now you’re, what? Taking it out on your cooking? In your kitchen, on your chefs, maybe? Fuck me, I’m such a piece of shit, I can’t even cook this dish which anyone else would think is perfect but will never be good enough for Carmen the perfectionist, why the fuck are you all so slow?”

He presses his lips together and when he speaks it’s brusque and tense. I think I hit home with the last remark. “Yeah, a little bit.”

“And what do you call what you’re doing now?” It’s mean and I shouldn’t say it, I know I shouldn’t say it because the emotion goes straight to my head, a rush of adrenaline, I say it fast before I can take it back: “Do you somehow think you’re justified to fuck me and then air your pain out on me? What about me? What about what you did, to me?”

He drops his gaze to the floor, fast. A quick breath out and an expletive, really, like I struck him: “Fuck.”

“You said you’d never let me go,” I say. One shoulder shrug. In a weird way I don’t even feel bad for hurting him. “It’s plain and simple in retrospect to see how we unraveled, because I would’ve fought my own pain and continued to advocate for you, (for us) and I would’ve stayed in that apartment, if you had reached out to me, if you had come to me, if you had–”

I’m not sure where the words came from or really what I expected from them, but certainly not the wide-eyed shocked pain on his face like he never thought I’d say it. I keep going, continue like a ghost is controlling me. “But you let me go. Why couldn’t you say, don’t go?”

“I didn’t deserve to do that,” he says. “What if you had stayed? With someone like me who did something like that? I didn’t even–I didn’t even feel sad you were gone, because I couldn’t allow myself that, because what the fuck would that even be? B-boo hoo, poor me, I destroyed something and now I’m gonna cry about it? I wouldn’t even be justified to miss you. I couldn’t give myself that kindness.”

What the fuck? Crying over us was a kindness he couldn’t award himself? Now I know exactly what he’s going to say next, because I’ve heard it a thousand times, and without meaning to, I say it in unison with him, mocking him, he takes a deep breath and says (and I mimic him) “I’m a piece of shit.”

That surprises him too.

“Yeah, I know all your plays at this point, buddy.” I reach out and pat his arm. Gruff and awkward. “You’re such a piece of shit you can’t be held accountable for your actions, because you’re just, inherently evil, just too fucked up to ever be good, how could anyone ever expect different, so of course your relationship blew up, right? It doesn’t even hurt because you did it to yourself, because you don’t believe you can be a better man.”

“Okay, thanks,” he says. “I got it. You’re not happy about four years ago. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“Yeah, because this is what you sound like: ‘It’s so hard to be a bad person, you couldn’t even understand what I’m going through because you’re just a good person with a good upbringing who’d never do such a thing,’ isn’t that right?”

“Fuck you,” he says.

I want to mock him for trying to run away from the conversation now that it’s pointed at his actual motivations, but I take a breath and I stop myself.

He’s right. That was four years ago. And I don’t know why the pain feels all weird and fresh like it just fucking happened, because it didn’t, because none of this is new.

I had four years to watch him over the internet and try to figure out why it had to happen to me. And the truth is that it happened to me because I backed down. He tried to self-destruct and I let him.

Who’s the little kid now? I let him come up and destroy my sandcastle, watched it happen, did nothing, and now I’m crying about it?

Angrily, I rub my eyes, squinch out the tears before they can fully form. “Listen, Carmy–”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t call me that.” He grabs my hands, startling me with the abruptness, and pulls them from my face. Less like a command and more like he’s pleading with me.

For one tense moment we remain like that, almost like an embrace, except he’s gripping me so hard it hurts, then he realizes how tightly he is holding my wrists and he gently releases his grip. I rub my forearms, wrists, just to give myself something to do. It makes it easier to get the words out.

I don’t want to tell him but I do: “I wish I hadn’t walked away and let you break everything I worked so hard to build, but I did. I’m in Chicago to flee an engagement that I broke with no warning. I am not your monument of honor. I am not your idyllic and shining good samaritan. I have done bad things too. I just don’t break as easy as you.”

I don’t think he even hears that last part.

“You’re engaged,” he says. Weakly.

“Not anymore.”

“Why are you telling me?”

Slowly, trying not to appear rude, I pull open the door, and step aside so he can leave. “Because you aren’t a villain, and I don’t accept that bizarre narrative you have for yourself, because I loved you, Carmen, I loved you, and it was impossible for me to accept what you did and it left me reeling because I–I simply couldn’t fathom how you could do that, not you, not the guy I knew. Somebody else, maybe. Somebody else could do that, sure. But not you.”

Shame-faced but only momentarily. He struggles to compose it and it kills my empathy just a little to watch that mask emerge. Obviously it takes him another moment to get his voice under control, because he steps out into the hallway before turning back to look at me. “But I did do it, didn’t I?”

He turns his face quick, but not before I see the way his lips part, not before one errant tear escapes and he has to angrily swipe it away. A little laugh escapes me before I can help it and he begrudgingly laughs, too.

“This is fucking stupid,” he says. “I should not be–why are we doing this now? Why didn’t you do this four years ago?”

“I wanted to,” I say. “It just–I don’t know. It just didn’t happen.”

Some words that I’ve wanted to say to him for years come to mind. Words I wanted to say since I got over my initial burst of rage and realized how much I’d lost. And now I can actually say them, really, right to his face. I take a breath and look him up and down. To take it in, to memorize the shape of him in the doorframe, and to picture that I’m saying this four years ago to somebody who needed to hear it most:

“Who you are is not what you did.”

–

Carmen says to Claire, how all the good things in his life fall apart, how it’s her fault, of course it’s her fault, because to him, she is little more than an idol representing what he wants from a relationship, not what actually exists - she’s a literary device, a foil to his manic depressive rages, not a supporting character, not someone with agency or aspiration. And if she weren’t around he wouldn’t have a constant reminder of how much he is hurting, always. Carmen is a terrifying monster and Claire is a sweet and delicate flower he destroys in a fit of rage so he can torture himself and feed his own masochistic cycle.

What does it feel like to love someone who loses sight of who they are? Of what they want? Of why they’re still here, still hanging on, still waking up every morning? Are you the sweet and delicate flower who says chin up and fix your makeup and move on because a real man would treat you better? What kind of standard does that set for people who want to be better (when the path to redemption is so perilously long and disheartening?)

And what if you aren’t the delicate flower? What are you, if they have idolized you, and you are not a flower but some kind of monster, yourself?

What if even though everyone says you can find “a better man” you grit your teeth and put your hands in the mud because you don’t want a better man–you want this man, for better or for worse?

And how much does it hurt, when you have to trade your pain for forgiveness without any trace of righteous indignation, when you don’t get to explode the way they do on TV, when you don’t get to make a scene? When do you get your gratification?

You don’t. You have to let it go. It might feel good to scream and break things now but how will it feel when the glass you shattered in a fit of rage cuts the both of you? When no amount of glue and tears and heart-to-hearts will put it back together again? 

–

“And then he said what?”

“And then he said Yeah, okay. And kinda laughed and then he left and I stopped watching him through the peephole like a fucking serial killer would and then I went to pick up my phone to answer you. We’ve been over this.”

Kendra doesn’t care that we’ve been over this. She also doesn’t care that we are discussing something totally personal in front of a MOVING COMPANY and I don’t necessarily want to hash out my little backslide last night in front of all these burly men who keep giving me sidelong glances.

In fact, Kendra is perched at the small table and chairs that the moving guys brought in first, and she’s totally unbothered by their presence during our conversation. “I think it’s really interesting, personally.”

An accusation leaves my mouth before I can stop it. “You weren’t anywhere near as drunk, so why on Earth didn’t you tell me it was Carmen Berzatto that I was hitting on?!”

Kendra purses her lips. “One, I was busy with my own action. And two, I thought you knew! You guys were so buddy-buddy! And I was busy with my own thing at the time!”

“Yes, your own ‘thing,’ and how is she this morning?”

Kendra snorts. “You’re so fucking lucky she has so much patience. I can’t believe you ignored me for AN HOUR to hook up with your ex.”

“I didn’t–” I did all of those things. “Well, fuck me, Kendra. It was really fucking weird, that’s all.”

“Sounds really steamy.”

“Kendra–”

“In the shower… On the bathroom counter… Out on the couch…”

“Shut the actual fuck up.” I reach out, as I can physically silence her but realizing the futility of the motion I stop and grab my phone instead. Checking my notifications (like anything will be there) to distract myself from looking at my evil friend.

@Theoriginalbear started following you.

I slapped my phone face-down on the table and looked up at Kendra.

Her eyebrows were up. I could tell she wanted to laugh but she wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to freak out, first.

I turn my phone back over to check again. @Theoriginalbear started following you. When I open up Instagram to take a closer look, the profile picture is the front of the restaurant down the street, and when I open the profile, there he is. In a picture with a few other people, in a picture next to various fancy dishes, in a picture with a group of people all wearing the same navy shirt (I can’t make out the text on it) but entitled “throwback Thursday–”

And then in my haste to scroll down I double tap the photo and like it.

Fuck!

I slide my phone across the table to Kendra. “Take this away from me before I do more damage.”

“Why? What did you–Oh my god, you’re joking. This is so cute. Y’all are so cute. It’s sickening.” Kendra is giddy before she’s even fully picked up my phone. “He wants you back so bad!”

I frown. “Please don’t say that. It’s a delicate situation. And, in case you somehow forgot, I’m actually fleeing my home so I can escape from my own delicate situation? I don’t need to get entangled with somebody new right now.”

“But he’s not new. He’s–He’s still saved in your phone contacts, and as Carmy, and he sent you a picture… It’s… What the fuck is it? A spicy picture! Sending back a like…”

I launch myself across the table in an acrobatic demonstration brought on by sheer adrenaline-fueled panic, and attempt to rip the phone out of her meddling hands.

Kendra spins away, holding the phone out with her infuriatingly long arms (Damn the tall women!) and giggling. “Oh, would you relax? I was just joking. I wish I weren’t, but he just sent you a very suspect URL. Oh, never mind. It’s for a dinner reservation at his restaurant! Yayy! You’re paying.”

I sink back into my seat, abdomen a little sore from how I’d thrusted myself up onto the table. “If you said the URL looked suspect, why on Earth did you click on it so fast?”

“Sounds great, we’ll be there… delivered… Oh, and read! Your boy is literally waiting in the chat for you. That’s cute. Or desperate. What do you think?” Kendra holds out my phone, self-satisfied like the cat that ate the canary, and I take it back although there isn’t much point because what’s done is done and she already dug me way deeper than I wanted to be dug. In fact, I didn’t want to be dug, at all.

“You’re psychotic,” I tell her.

“I’m a wing-woman.”

“When’s the reservation for?”

“7:45. It’s a little bit earlier than I would’ve liked so I guess I’ll have to order a lot to keep us there past closing.” And she gives me this suggestive eyebrow wiggle that I absolutely detest because no, we will not be doing anything of the sort.

“No way. They would all hate that. And that’s rude. We’re not doing that.”

Kendra sighs and thank God at that point the movers are asking me for directions on where to put the rest of my belongings, so I get up from the table (with my phone safely in my pocket, mind you) to help.

Later I can think about the inevitable awkwardness to come. For right now? I can just pretend that my stupid friend did not stick me in a tense situation with my ex.

Who I just fucked, of course.

Aghhhhhhh. Why did I do that?

--

“Oh, this place is nice.”

It is nice. A little internet scrutiny had shown me the interior of the original restaurant–called “the Beef”–and I can say with certainty that Carmen’s renovations left it a much more upscale joint than it had been. Of course that makes sense given the restaurant he worked at back when we were dating.

Kendra has somewhat reined herself in since this morning, and we’re both dressed according to what we’d seen online from people who had tagged the restaurant, but I still feel out of place. Under-dressed, maybe.

Kendra reaches out, putting her hand over mine to prevent me from twisting the bracelet on my wrist. “Relax, stop fretting. You look great.”

“You both look great.”

I look up, startled by the incursion, and it’s a very tall and slim guy in a nicely tailored suit. At our obvious surprise he gives a welcoming smile. “I’m Richard, I know you’re guests of Carmen’s, so you already have your first course coming out here soon, but what can I get you to drink?”

“Well, I’d love a wine recommendation,” Kendra says, without missing a beat, and I have to restrain myself from groaning at the thought of drinking any more alcohol in the next twenty four hours. Besides, if I do have more alcohol, who knows what the fuck I might do later on, clearly I can’t be trusted to make responsible decisions.

They chat about it for a minute or two, wine, and when Kendra has made her selection, Richard turns to me.

I smile. A little caught in headlights but overall not that uncomfortable anymore. “Just water is fine for me.”

Although I can’t believe he referred to us as guests of Carmen. Oh, god. Is this going to become a whole thing?

I just barely got my apartment situated and some of my things unpacked. I do not want to have to look at relocating because I somehow managed to massively fuck up and not only live down the street from my ex’s workplace, but also go on to hook up with him my very first night here.

Thankfully, Kendra picks up on my obvious distaste for the situation, because she lets me off the hook and doesn’t bring Carmen up at all. And after our first and second course come and go without him making an appearance, I start to relax a little bit.

Without the tension of potentially talking to Carmen in front of Kendra, I can start to enjoy the ambiance of the restaurant. It’s definitely way nicer than I ever would’ve thought to bring Kendra, but she conducts herself like a professional in such a manner that I’m actually impressed. Not because I doubted her ability, but because the way she ordered was more fluent and affable than my quiet attempts.

But I can’t pronounce a lot of the things on the menu. This was always Carmen’s domain and like he loved to tell me back when we were dating, it was such a substantial strangeness that he and I had ever even crossed paths, given the very different nature of our career paths and hobbies and entire lives.

Of course it hurt my feelings when he’d say something like that and it feels weirder and weirder to be here in his restaurant doing the thing I never would’ve done four years ago, eating at a fancy restaurant like I even remotely belong there,

But at this point I’m overthinking and Kendra is quietly trying to get my attention. “Hey. Hey. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m just tired.” I reach for my glass of water. “And a bit hungover.”

She laughs. “Just a bit? That’s impressive.”

I frown at her. “I have a great tolerance.”

“Oh, you do. I think you wanted to get that drunk on purpose last night. Lots of stress from the move and the drive, huh? Functioning alcoholism?”

“No.” I had definitely drank more than usual but that was just the combination of seeing Carmen and the sixteen hour long drive and my general disgust for how I’d left my hometown. Maybe a teensy sprinkle of self-loathing mixed in. “I just wanted to have enough in my system to sleep through God knows how many calls from my ex.”

“You know what’s hilarious is I almost forgot he existed!” Kendra is on her third glass of wine and showing literally no signs of being buzzed. Then again, she’s over six feet tall and built like a corn-fed dairy farmer, so I guess it isn’t that strange. “I had just managed to scrub that little bottom-feeding invertebrate out of my head for the time being, so I’m glad he’s making his way back into the conversation.”

“I like how you feel stronger about this breakup than I do.”

“I don’t feel stronger than you do, I just have the guts and the articulation skills to say it.” At this point, although I can tell from how she raises one finger that she wants to go on, Kendra is forced to take a pause because Richard is coming back by our table with whatever special dessert they were selling tonight.

Even though I’m normally not the type to spring for dessert, in this case I’m glad we did–it’s beautifully plated (I’m stealing phrases from Carmen shamelessly at this point so I might as well fully embrace my new reality) and once I’ve had a taste I can safely say it is fully worth the cost.

Thankfully, Kendra does not stick to her guns about trying to keep me here after closing, because once we’ve lingered over dessert long enough, Richard comes over so I can pay and Kendra doesn’t say a word about ordering anything more.

At least, it didn’t seem like she would.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Could we get–each–one of the signature drinks?”

“Absolutely. One for the road. You and I are very alike.” Richard smiles what I think is an indulging smile, but Kendra is brazenly unbothered by how long we’ve been here and grins back at him. “Which one were you thinking?”

“Oh, well, you tell me–you’ve been here a lot longer than we have, so what’s your personal favorite?”

She could work in one of these restaurants, herself. She’s always been personable, but tonight has certainly been a new experience with how comfortable she truly is given that we’ve never been to a place like this together before, least of all after a very long and tiring roadtrip.

And a long night out. Which extended into a brutal morning of moving a lot of heavy boxes and furniture.

Richard walks off with an assurance that our drinks will be out shortly, and I put my card away, pleased by the prices for the quantity and quality of food we’d received.

“You know, I really didn’t want to drink anymore,” I say.

“Yeah, but signature drinks! They’re always so fun. I love trying to think about what inspired the recipe. I wish I was a bartender.” Kendra taps her chin, scrutinizing the artwork on the wall across from us. “I think I would’ve been a really good bartender. I have good conversational skills and I really love alcohol. And the process of making alcohol. Man, why didn’t I ever become a bartender?”

I roll my eyes. “Maybe because you’re a morning person?”

It had come in handy on the road trip, since we’d left around 3:45 am (at her behest, no less) and I had adamantly refused to drive until after at least 9am.

Kendra deflates. “Oh, yeah. Well, I could do brunches.”

A little laugh escapes me. “I think that’s a very different type of bartending.

“Yeah, you’re right. Forget it, it wouldn’t even be that fun.”

I realize, then, that she only followed this line of questioning to cheer me up, and it puts a warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach. She’s a good friend.

With that in mind, it’s much easier to down the signature drink, and to indulge Kendra on her speculation about the flavors and the “subtle hints” of x or y which I’d normally hardly give a second thought to. In fact, when we get up to leave, I’m in a better mood than I have for the last two weeks. Maybe more.

We say our goodbyes to Richard and thank him for his fantastic service (when I’m standing he’s still extremely tall, even taller than Kendra) and he’s perfectly lovely showing us out and thanking us for coming. Saying we’re welcome any time. Although I find that very difficult to believe based on the bizarre and uncomfortable relationship between me and Carmen.

And we get probably five feet down the sidewalk before I hear someone calling after us. “Wait a moment!”

Kendra stiffens up like a board. “Oh gosh, I think I see the Uber going down to the corner, I’ll be right back.”

I take back everything nice I said about how she conducted herself inside, because she walks off giggling like a complete clown, stiff-legged and awkward and making herself way too obvious.

I turn around even though I already know from the voice who it is. “Oh, hey.” I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t show your face tonight.

Carmen is fidgety in the way he always used to be when he was working. I guess it makes sense that wouldn’t change. Oh, I should be flattered he somehow pried himself out of the kitchen long enough to say something to me. “What did you think? Uh–was everything good?”

I stare at him. “Yeah, it was great. Um–thanks for the reservation.”

“Oh, no. It was nothing. I’m glad–I’m glad you came.”

Oh, God. Kill me now. The awkwardness.

“Well,” I say. “I should get going. Kendra just–my friend–just went to go grab the Uber.”

“Really? Don’t you live like five minutes from here?”

Fuck me! “I think she was just making up an excuse to let us talk, but I still don’t want to leave her standing on the corner.”

He laughs and it… winds me. Puts me out of my body, so I’m looking down at us talking, floating, out of body existential, just watching it happen. I think it’s been so long since I heard his unexpected laugh like that and I suddenly remember that I used to tell him jokes all the time, especially when he’d just gotten off work, that I’d save images or videos to show him when he first got back, all with the express intent of teasing out that laugh.

Oh, God. I stopped being funny just because I missed the way he laughed.

“Are you okay?” He has noticed how long I’ve been silently staring at him. I clear my throat and look away, woken from the reverie. Jarred.

“Oh, yeah. Just having deja vu. Anyway, I’ll–I should get going.”

“Can I come over?”

The bluntness sends me, reeling. For a second I think I’m out of my body again, but no. Just very surprised. “Carmen, I’m–”

He puts up his hands. Like he’s showing me he’s unarmed (except I think he has all kinds of weapons tucked away in his words). “Just to talk. I–I’m sorry we left things the way we did. Earlier. It was good to talk. I’d like to talk.”

Will I keep on wondering if I say no? Will I see him on the street corners and have to avert my eyes? Is there some way that we can have this conversation and then just kind of grow apart, only present in each other’s lives by proximity and nothing more?

Fuck if I know. Why the fuck not? Why the fuck not. “You know, knock yourself out. I have shit all to do anyway.”

I start to walk before my brain really issues the command–I think my legs want to carry me out of this conversation since it seems unlikely that the sidewalk will open up to swallow me.

“I’ll be a few hours,” he calls, after me, and I wave my hand vaguely over my shoulder.

So that means I have a few hours to figure out how to apologize to Kendra and kick her out, or to somehow stash her somewhere in my apartment and hope she doesn’t pop out in the middle of conversation? What the fuck am I supposed to do?

When I come up to her, though, she’s on an actual phone call. From the high tone of voice and the excessive giggling, I would have to say it’s the lady friend from last night.

“Hey,” I say.

“Oh, shoot. Yeah, I gotta go, but I’ll see you then.” Kendra hangs up and whirls around to look at me with the excitement of a feral animal. “Guess. What.”

“You got a second date?” Could the stars be aligning?

“I asked for one because I was inspired by Carmen’s bravery, so yeah. You’ll have to make do without me for a few hours tonight and you can consider this my revenge for making me move that fucking bookshelf in the heat.”

I flush even though she literally volunteered to help me move it. “That actually works out fine for me.”

She laughs a long, theatrical, derisive laugh. “Oh, I imagine so, since he’s coming over, isn’t he?”

Fuck me! She’s a fucking telepath! “Unfortunately.”

“I expect full tea service. Sugar. Cream. Jam and crumpets. All the fixings.”

What the fuck does that even mean? “Are you possessed by the ghost of a Victorian woman right now?”

“You know what I mean.” Kendra wags her finger at me, and then starts to walk, leaving me to follow behind. “Now come on, I have to go change into something way hotter than this. And you can help.”

“I am your best wingwoman,” I say.

“Exactly. So chin up. This should only take an hour. Or so.”

Oh, god. And if I know anything about Kendra, it’s going to involve at least one full Taylor Swift album.

I glance back at the restaurant right before we turn the corner. It’s still there, people meandering on their way out, and Carmen has obviously gone back inside.

What more could he have to say to me?

--

Thanks for all the love! The masterlist will be here: masterlist

[johnwickb1tsch]

imagine...it's 1999, and you think your boyfriend's cheating on you, but you don't have proof. you get a name from a friend of a friend to contact this dude Neo, to hack into your bf's email.

sweet version: he finds the proof you suspect is there. he shows you, hating hurting you but you need to know. it's rEAlly baaaad, this guy's a TOTAL douche... but in the end, you're ok with it, because you like this cute nerd waaaay more than your asshole ex. he's too shy/awkward to make a move tho, so one night you just show up at his door and kiss fuck his brains out. 💚

dark version: neo thinks you're really cute, and while he's working this assignment he can't stop thinking about you. it's possible he spies on you a bit through your webcam, before he gets into your bf's email, and he sees the secrecy you were worried about was totally innocuous. he's actually planning to ask you to marry him. LAME. Neo wants you for himself, so he fabricates evidence to show you, so that you break up with your boyfriend. he's there to comfort you though... <<there there. i know, men suck. want to get a coffee sometime?>> 😈

when your laptop totally freaks out and all the work for your master's thesis disappears you run crying to him to fix it. man, this guy's your HERO! who knows how it got deleted in the first place... at first you depend on him for tech support - wow you've been having THE WORST luck lately - but soon it's more...he's SO cute with his big dark puppy eyes. you just TRUST him, ya know? one night he's helping you get a virus off your computer <<how did that even GET there??>> and he kisses you - his lips are so soft, you let him, you can tell he's nervous, it's so cute, his big hands so sure on the keyboard are shaking on your skin <<it's ok, you can touch me, i like you>> you let him do anything he wants, let him kiss your nipples and suck on your neck and pin you on his messy bed, pounding you with his *delightfully* big cock, and who knew this sweet gothy hacker boi would know sO many positions? it's like he's been thinking about this for a while...

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gif by magical cinema

[daisy-is-a-writer]

I quite frankly appreciate the font and color that was used in this. So Matrix!

[paracosmenthusiast]

Ohh yes yes yes and so many more yes, I wrote my own version of this and you can find it here: servicing the tech guy

[paracosmenthusiast]

Servicing the Tech Guy

Neo x Reader based on the ~dark~ prompt from @johnwickb1tsch circulated to me by a good friend @daisy-is-a-writer

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18+ | sexual content | 4.2k

--

It was a long shot and you knew that, and waiting outside of his apartment was (at the least) creepy and (at the most) borderline psychotic.

But what other choice did you have? In your hands, the two pieces of your laptop. You couldn’t afford to replace it, at least, not before your quarterly report was due, which was tonight, by the way, and all of your hard efforts were there in the broken halves of your laptop, you didn’t have time to figure out a solution.

Besides. You were fighting back tears as it was. Two nights ago you had broken up with your long-time partner, it was his fault your laptop was broken, and you didn’t really want to think about it anymore but it was there in the broken device in your hands and you couldn’t avoid thinking about it. What was something you never wanted to see? Oh, yeah. Naked pictures of your (now ex) boyfriend including videos of him rubbing his cock which he had callously sent to… Well… A innumerable number of women over the internet.

The craziest part of it all was that he had sworn to you he didn’t do it, he didn’t cheat on you, that he had been so secretive lately because he was ring shopping!

But your friend had pointed you in the direction of an internet private eye who had hacked into your partner’s accounts and produced the irrefutable evidence so without literally thousands of screen captures in hand, you had a pretty damn hard time believing your partner wasn’t cheating.

And speaking of the internet private eye—fuck, what was his name? Neo? You were outside of his apartment like a goddamn stalker, holding your broken laptop, rapping impatiently on his door.

Last time you’d seen him you’d remembered him as very tall, very dark, with a very low and husky voice and an air of seriousness that unnerved you. Like he’d seen things in the depth of the internet that hardened him.

A big part of you doubted that he was going to take pity on poor little you and fix up your laptop or at the very least, pull your quarterly report off of it, but you had to try. What else could you do?

Tears burned in your eyes again. Damn it. Thought you’d gotten that under control—

And perfect timing, because you heard the lock click, and the door slid open, just enough for you to see him peering out at you.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. You (idealistically) thought he sounded pleasantly surprised.

You held up your broken laptop, mouth opening to unveil the funny, funny story of why you needed his help yet again, and before you could get it out, a sob burst out instead.

Double damn it.

Neo snapped the door shut—you heard the chain rattling—and then he opened the door fully, now frowning down at you. Just as dark and tall as you’d remembered except he didn’t have that long, black coat anymore. Now he… Honestly looked like he’d just crawled out of bed, in a loose pair of flannel pants and a white t-shirt decorated with a graphic outline of a bunny (hadn’t that been his private eye business logo?).

“Uh, come in,” he said, when it was clear you weren’t going to get words out over the tears, and he stepped back to let you inside his apartment.

It was just as you remembered it a few days ago. Relatively clean and sparse but with the lights off and the windows covered by heavy blackout drapes, not that it mattered now because it was pouring rain outside the apartment building, and half past 10pm.

His hand on your shoulder startled you. “Are you coming inside?”

You shuffled forward, one foot after the other. He reached for the wall and flicked on a light over the entryway, revealing that he’d been cooking and there was a lasagna sitting on the counter looking beyond delicious and smelling twice as good.

You sniffled, and tried to stop yourself from crying further. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just—I have this big report due tonight, and…”

You gave your broken laptop a little shake. The screen was in one hand, the keyboard in the other.

Neo shut the door, bolted it, and then gave you another little push, guiding you to walk further into the apartment. Away from the plate of lasagna that aggressively beckoned. Your stomach flip-flopped: How long had it been since you last ate? Why couldn’t you remember?

God, this breakup was murdering you. Why couldn’t you have waited until after the quarterly review period had closed?

“Totally fine,” he said. “Uh, have a seat. I’d ask what the problem is, but I think I can put the puzzle together myself.”

And then he reached for your laptop and you reluctantly surrendered it into his hands. His fingers brushing yours startled you—the warmth, almost electrical, did not match the guarded expression on his face.

“Taking the breakup hard, huh?” It’s a rhetorical question. He wasn’t even looking at you, just took the computer over to his desk in the corner, not bothering with the light, and flipped the laptop upside down.

You awkwardly perched at his two-person dining table. The same place you’d perched a few days ago when he’d briefed you on his findings. The parallels depressed you and before you could stop it, a few more tears slipped out.

He looked up like he had some sort of sixth sense and turned around. “Why are you still crying?”

You frowned.

He turned back away and sighed. “It’s easy. The drives and data are all fine, just the monitor is busted. It’ll be ten minutes to pull everything, if that.”

Then he put the laptop down and strode back across the room, you tensed as he passed and you weren’t sure why, except that he came back with a fork and the plate of steaming lasagna and put it in front of you.

“Help yourself.”

You were a little agape. “You don’t have to do that, I don’t want to take your dinner.”

“I already ate.” He walked back to his work station and the conversation was over—you could tell from his curt tone.

One more frown from him, and you obediently picked up the fork. Then he turned away to work on your laptop and you fed yourself.

Actually, it helped a lot. Filling your stomach and not having to think about the breakup, just thinking about the taste of the pasta and the sauce on your tongue, layered with some hearty, almost smoky meat; it was a pretty damn good lasagna.

By the time he came back to the table, you were over the tears. He stood over you for a moment and when he didn’t say anything, you looked up from the finished plate of lasagna. “Uh, thanks for the lasagna. I’m sorry for showing up with no notice. I—How much will it be? I do plan to pay, I’m sorry, I’m a mess right now.”

“Lot of information,” he said. “Slow down. I don’t need payment, seems like you’re suffering enough from the last time I saw you. So. Just take it.” And he placed a USB drive in front of you.

“Ah—” Shit, how were you going to submit your quarterly report?

“I already sent your report.” He tapped the USB drive, and you found your eyes wandering up his arm—he was nicely developed, in a way you didn’t expect from a guy working in tech. Like, at all. “It was pretty easy to log into your work email. You should probably change your password. First name, last name, and your birthday? Seriously?”

You flushed. “Shut up, I’m not that creative. But—um. Thanks. This is great. This is way more than I could’ve hoped for.”

For a moment he was silent, then he reached out and brushed your hair back from your face. A motion that startled you enough to make you jump.

“I changed my mind. I want payment.”

Yeah, you couldn’t fault the guy for that. “Okay—Um, what sounds reasonable to you?” You didn’t have your wallet but you could send it over your phone. If your phone wasn’t dead. For that matter, he could probably just take whatever money he wanted, anyway. Jesus Christ—technology was terrifying.

“I want a date,” he said. “Go on a date with me and we’ll call it square.”

You blinked. Now you were properly agape and for some reason you found it incredibly hard to look at him so you stared down into your lasagna. Or the leftovers of it. “Uh, Neo—fuck me, that cannot be your real name, is it?”

“Close enough to it. What do you need my real name for?”

Not that you really expected him to give you his real moniker. Ugh. “Um, okay. Neo, I just broke up with a long-term partner, I’m… I’m a mess. I don’t really have time or desire to go out with anybody right now, but, you know, in a couple months, sure. Why not.”

He tapped the USB drive. “Now I regret proactively sending your report for you. Alright, then I’ll take a kiss. A long one. And slow.”

You looked up, thinking he had to be joking, and he was smiling, but in a way that put a nervous tizzy in your stomach. Fuck. He was attractive—and tall—and muscular—Honestly, what would it hurt?

“Alright,” you acquiesced. And opened your mouth to continue but he leaned down, one hand reaching out to steady your face, and immediately kissed you.

Oh, he was a good kisser. He was a very good kisser. His lips were soft and when his tongue touched your teeth you didn’t mind at all, because you had to squeeze your thighs together, uncomfortable with the heat growing low in your stomach, and when you tasted his saliva it made it nearly impossible to remember to breathe.

You pulled away.

“I said a long one,” Neo said, murmured it really, because he was still an inch or two from your face, “and slow, too.”

And he pulled your face forward, fingers tight on your jaw, and kissed you again. And you let him. Again. This time you shut your mouth, to keep it chaste, and without a second of delay he bit your lip. Hard. Until you gasped a little at the sharp pain.

His hand slid to your throat, for just a second you wondered if you’d gotten in over your head, except that the rest of your body was very onboard with this new course of action, and you couldn’t breathe well enough to complain, anyway.

Neo pulled you up from your seat, almost roughly, crushing you into an embrace that would’ve hurt except it felt good and strange to be held after the last two very lonely nights, and you breathed out, and he kissed your teeth, and you forgot for a moment what the fuck you were doing and you put your hand on his hip to steady yourself and you felt bare skin between his shirt and the waistband of your pants and it felt hot like fire.

His hand wrapped around your wrist, still kissing you, deeply, and then he put your hand over his crotch and you were confronted by the thick bulge in his pants.

You shouldn’t have done it, should’ve pulled away, but for some inane reason you just—you gave it a little squeeze. Just, you know. Trying to get a feel of how big he was.

It felt big. It was hard to tell (although you didn’t think he was wearing underwear) but you thought it felt pretty damn big. You slid your hand along the waist band of his pants, toying with the button fly, until your fingers slipped through the gap in the front of his pants and you felt the warmth of his bare skin beneath.

Then the two of you broke apart, and you found you were sweating a bit, and your hand was half inside his pants, his skin was hot and you were inches from touching his cock and he was looking down at you, and he was looking down at you, and his eyes were so dark and so—mysterious, and deep…

And besides, you were wet, you could feel it between your legs, you were wet, you were sweaty from nerves, and your heart was pounding in your chest.

“I am so sorry,” you said. What the fuck was wrong with you? “I—I’m not trying to lead you on. I can’t do this, I just had a breakup—”

“Yeah,” he said. “So you deserve a win. Right?”

And without warning he scooped you up, so easily like you were a feather, hands tight on your thighs, all too close to gripping your ass. More to catch yourself than anything you wrapped your legs around his waist, startled by the sudden change in altitude. And of course it put your pelvis right into contact with that bulge in the front of his pants that you couldn’t seem to stop bumping into.

Oh yeah. That felt big.

He kissed your neck, you felt his teeth nip at the skin, and then he bit down, and the rush of pleasure and adrenaline made you gasp.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “I think I do deserve a win.”

He hmmed his approval, almost like a laugh, and you ran your fingers through his dark hair, gripping it close to the scalp, enjoying the soft strands, the cedar and musk smell of his skin.

Then he turned, still holding onto you, his face still tucked close to your neck (surely he could hear your erratic pulse) and carried you to the bedroom.

A moment later he dropped you on the bed, a little unceremoniously except it was so soft and big and the comforter was so plush that you didn’t even mind. You’d been staying in a shitty motel on account of, you know, the breakup.

For a moment you forgot about your impending endeavor and luxuriated in the soft bed, a little moan of happiness leaving your mouth, and he laughed, rousing you from the moment. “Having fun?”

“Fuck, I missed a real mattress,” you said, and ran your fingers over the comforter. “It’s—Oh.”

He had taken his shirt off, revealing a nicely defined and trim torso. But more than that. He pulled his pants down, then, and you could see his cock unrestricted by his clothes. And you were right. It was big. And thick.

He ran his hand down the length of his cock and smiled at you. “Take off your clothes.”

The authoritative tone made it hard for you to freeze, and without a thought you pulled your shirt over your head and reached down to unbutton your jeans. Why’d you wear skinny jeans? Why did they have to look so damn good but then cause so many damn complications during attempted hookups?

“I thought you were pretty when I first met you,” he told you, causing you to pause. “But you’re more than pretty, you were just so… Lifeless.”

You frowned.

“I don’t think you were really all that happy with him anyway.”

You frowned, further, because thinking about your ex was not going to make this little sexual escapade fun. “Can we—not talk about this?”

Neo smiled, and then grabbed your arm and lifted you up like a doll and turned you over onto your stomach. “You’re taking too long.”

You were stunned by the action so you couldn’t reply, he grabbed the waistband of your jeans and yanked them down to your thighs. Pinning your legs together because goddamn it, why had you worn skinny jeans?

His finger trailed up the inside of your thigh… Down the inside of the other thigh… Then he slid his finger teasing down to the the wettest part of your panties and you flinched at the unexpected touch. “Oh, are you excited?”

“Fuck you.” You were embarrassed and it made the words come out rough. “Can you—not tease me? I told you, I’m a fucking mess right now, and I can’t—I can’t…”

As you spoke, he gently pulled down your panties, and right as you formed the most impassioned part of your sentence, you felt his mouth on your clit and suddenly all the words escaped you. Disappeared into thin air.

Didn’t want to but it came out of nowhere: you let out a soft little moan. It wasn’t that good, just, his lips were so soft, his mouth was gentle and warm and he ran his tongue over you and his teeth passed over your clit just enough to send a shiver through your whole body, and yeah, it was that good. Fuck. Oh, fuck. You moaned but this time it was because you wanted to, because you’d never had the opportunity with your ex because he hated noise during sex—

“Oh,” you said. “Fuck.”

He replaced his mouth with a finger, gently teasing your opening, feeling along your labia, tracing the shape of you, and then gently slid his finger in. When he spoke it was so quiet it was barely audible over the sound of your pulse beating in your ears. “So wet for me already.”

Irritation, hot flash of it. “I’m not wet for you—”

“Why is that so hard for you to admit?” He took his finger out, leaving your walls to clench miserably around nothing, and then for a moment you felt nothing, and when you craned your neck to look over your shoulder at him, it was just in time to watch as he brought his hand down and slapped your ass cheek. Hard.

This time you gasped out of pain and before you could process it, he did it again; and a third time, and a fourth. “Stop! Stop it, Neo, that really hurts!”

He did it again and you braced yourself on the bed, leveraging yourself up onto all fours, so you could turn over onto your side to properly look at him. Except he put his hand on your thigh in such a reassuring manner and said, “calm down. I’m sorry, I got carried away. You really have the most perfect ass.”

The compliment in conjunction with the cool tone disarmed you, and you looked over your shoulder at him, unnerved. Trying to gauge what to do.

He smiled. “Relax. I want you to enjoy this. I just got carried away.”

“Yeah, well, fucking don’t, next time—”

“Next time? Who’s carried away now?” He grabbed the hem of your jeans right at your ankle and in a coordinated motion you found quite impressive, he pulled it over your foot, effectively freeing your leg from the vice-grip of the skinny jeans.

So impressed were you that you offered your other ankle, dumbfounded at the ease, and let him do it again, so you were bare with just your panties rolled down to your thighs, and your ill-fitting bra barely hanging on.

He leaned forward, still meeting your eyes, and then kissed the inside of your ankle. You found yourself thanking the universe that you’d had an everything-shower this morning and your legs were exfoliated and lotioned and everything was shaved or trimmed the way you liked.

“Keep going,” you said. And he smiled again, climbed onto the bed between your legs, and this time his lips landed just above the inside of your knee. You were a bit breathless now. “A little bit higher.”

Your thigh. You swallowed. “Higher.”

He kissed the inside of your thigh, so close, and then ran his tongue over the spot, and up, until he had found your clit again—

You tried to stifle a whimper but he heard it, and then straightened up, wrapping both arms under and around your thighs and jerking your hips up so you felt the whole length of his hard cock against your entrance.

For a moment he didn’t do anything, just let the head of his cock rub against you, until you found yourself clenched in anticipation, until you grabbed at his forearm and hissed at him to do something.

“Do what?”

Why was he playing this ridiculous game? “Put it inside!”

“Put—What?”

You growled. “Put your cock inside me and fuck me, Neo, please.”

He smiled, and reached down to gently place the pad of his thumb against your clit. Stroking in slow and gentle circles that did nothing to alleviate the lust clouding your head.

Then he put the tip of his cock against you and pushed, and it was so much thicker than you were anticipating that you gasped a little. Actually it didn’t feel great—it kind of hurt. “Slow down!”

“Stop it, keep going, go faster, slow down… So many mixed messages.” He still had one arm wrapped around your hip but obligingly he pulled out. For a half a second before he thrust forward and this time the head of his cock pushed all the way in, and you were scrambling to adjust, squirming on the bed except he had your hip pinned so you couldn’t move.

You lay there, breathing a little hard, looking up at him, walls clenched tight around his cock, and before you could tell him that it didn’t feel that great, he slid his hand to the underside of your knee and lifted your leg so he could kiss the sole of your foot.

The soft, wetness of his mouth on your toes distracted you from the mild discomfort of him stretching you out, and worse. You were a bit ticklish so you squirmed and his tongue between your toes was so soft and warm and nobody had ever done that before. You weren’t sure you liked it but it definitely relaxed your taut muscles and you abruptly felt his cock press up to your cervix.

“Fuck,” you gasped, and he gave no more delay, pulling out and thrusting all the way back in until you felt the tip of him against your cervix, “Fuck, Neo!”

Another couple of thrusts and you found it all too easy to let yourself moan. It felt good. You’d never had someone so deep inside you and holy fuck, it felt good.

Neo reached down, scooping up your leg and placing it over his shoulder, lifting your hips off the bed. The angle put his cock even deeper inside you and you let out a little strangled cry, half at the discomfort, half at the unfamiliar sensation of something rubbing against your cervix.

It felt…

“You’re so fucking tight,” Neo said. “You’re really squeezing my cock, aren’t you? Does that feel good?”

You wanted to remind him that you didn’t want to be embarrassed but you kind of just let out a gasp or a moan or something and he leaned down and kissed your neck, tongue running over the sore spot he’d bit earlier, and that made you forget about any embarrassment.

You ran your hands down his bare back, digging your nails into the muscles as they flexed, enjoying the suppleness and the warmth of his skin, until you felt him suck in a breath of pain and you realized how tightly you’d latched onto him.

Tried to apologize—but he simply lifted up your other leg onto his other shoulder and pressed down into you, until your knees were jammed against your collarbone and he could fuck you easily without resistance.

And at the very first thrust that way, both your legs up over your head, you couldn’t hold it a second longer. “Fuck,” you said. “Fuck, fuck!”

Felt yourself squeeze tight around his cock, and release, and squeeze, you couldn’t control it; suddenly the feeling of his abdomen rubbing against your clit as he fucked you so deeply was unbearably sensitive and you were clawing at his back this time to get him to stop because you were—

Oh! It was an orgasm! All your muscles locked up, you gasped out some strangled version of his name—

And then you felt his cock throbbing inside you, and he wrapped his hand under your neck and pulled your head up, compressing your spine even further and—you felt a rush of warmth as he came.

He thrust a few more times, but much slower, and then gently peeled your legs off his shoulders and sat back on his heels to look at you.

You could barely look back at him. Your mouth was open in shock, your abdomen felt like it was seizing, and your vagina was so sensitive that the open air was over-stimulating.

For a moment the two of you breathed, and he ran a hand through his hair. He was sweaty but for some reason you didn’t mind it, didn’t mind his sweaty skin still touching yours. Actually you could probably lick the man clean.

“Did that—”

You interrupted. “I’m—I’m not sure I’ve really paid you back for, uh, helping me with my laptop. But, you know. If you could help me get a new one then I’d really owe you.”

For a second he didn’t seem to get it. And then he grinned. “I think we’ll have to look into some payment plans, then.”

-

the rest of my keanu stuff is on my master list: masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

Carmy WIP <3

Just a snippet of what I've been working on today. I would like to bump my updating schedule to Thurs & Sun, but we'll see. Check out the masterlist for the full thing: Masterlist

~

“She told me she loved me. Uh, the girl who kicked me out. And I didn’t say it back.” Why is he looking at me like that? Beseechingly. Like he’s hungry for some kind of reassurance.

When I don’t say anything, he pushes forward, same tone, almost puzzled: “I said it to you.”

It clicks then, because I’ve had that conversation with myself, because I’ve felt that feeling myself, that, Oh, what’s wrong with me, what am I feeling, why is it different?

“I really wrecked it,” he says, makes some obscure hand gesture that I can’t quite catch because I’m in my own head, “I don’t know why I did that. Why did I do that?”

Without even asking me if it’s alright he puts his hand on the door above mine and pushes it closed. Oh, for fuck’s sake, Carmen, I have to get Kendra. But since it’s Carmen’s open mic time he’s still fucking talking. “What can I do to–to not do it again?”

Like a little kid trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. Can’t comprehend what went wrong, can’t understand the rules of the game, can’t see what’s gone wrong.

“So now you’re, what? Taking it out on your cooking? In your kitchen, on your chefs, maybe? Fuck me, I’m such a piece of shit, I can’t even cook this dish which anyone else would think is perfect but will never be good enough for Carmen the perfectionist, why the fuck are you all so slow?”

He presses his lips together and when he speaks it’s brusque and tense. I think I hit home with the last remark. “Yeah, a little bit.”

“And what do you call what you’re doing now?” It’s mean and I shouldn’t say it, I know I shouldn’t say it because the emotion goes straight to my head, a rush of adrenaline, I say it fast before I can take it back: “Do you somehow think you’re justified to fuck me and then get to air your pain out on me? What about me? What about what you did, to me?”

He drops his gaze to the floor, fast, like I hit him. A quick breath out and an expletive, really, like I struck him: “Fuck.”

[paracosmenthusiast]

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Chapter 3: Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus

18+ per usual - the story updates on THURSDAYS. thank you for all the likes, it really makes my day!

=

Opening my eyes is excruciatingly difficult.

Agonizing.

Oh–and everything is so bright. I’m sluggish, but lurching upright in the bed reminds me just of the quantity of liquid I consumed last night, so I push myself out of bed and stumble out into the hallway, feeling my way down the wall toward the bathroom.

And it’s cold. I’m totally nude, which isn’t unusual when I go to sleep drunk and can’t get over how hot I feel.

Washing my hands after, I look into the mirror. Actually I don’t look half bad for getting black out drunk the night before. Shit, where’s Kendra?

No doubt I forgot to put my phone on the charger. It’s probably still in the living room somewhere. Next step: Obtain confirmation that Kendra is okay.

Out to the living room. I have to dig through the couch cushions–push aside whiskey shooters, don’t recall Kendra and I getting into them, but who knows what happened after the wine–and there’s my phone, wedged awkwardly upright.

7%. Just enough to check for a morning message from Kendra. She’s sent me a picture of her tall pretty friend from last night holding an everything bagel. So they went to get breakfast.

Oh. Maybe brunch. It’s almost 11am. Yikes.

I send her a quick message, just woke up, wondering where she’s at or if she needs a ride, then drop down onto the couch and toss my phone to the side so I can focus my efforts on massaging my temples.

The headache’s not as bad as it could’ve been, but I can’t shake the feeling that I did something last night.

Fuck it. Until Kendra gets back to me I’m going back to bed. I didn’t have much planned for today anyway, besides unpacking a little bit of my stuff and going out for dinner.

I drop back onto the bed with a contented sigh, rustling the fluffy comforter to build a cozy nest, and promptly (and hopefully not that forcefully) backhand the person LAYING IN THE BED BESIDE ME.

I’m slack-jawed for a moment, he’s buried in the cushions, I’m trying to remember what the fuck happened last night, except I’ve clearly given him a rude awakening because he props himself up on an elbow and looks at me.

It takes me a second to process and then I screech. 

It’s Carmen. It’s fucking Carmen!

One moment. Two moments. Then he blurts out: “Oh, fuck.”

I can’t do much besides point a shaking finger at him. “Get out!”

“Me??” His eyebrows jump to his hairline. Such lovely, messy, yummy curls. Oh, God. Not again. “Me? You! You’re–”

“You took advantage of me. You knew I was completely hammered. Didn’t you? I blacked out! You knew!”

“No, I–” He sits up further and clears his throat. His voice is crackly, groggy. “You’re the one who took advantage of me, you said it. And I didn’t–I was fucking wasted, I couldn’t even tell, I swear.”

Oh, his words spark an unfortunate memory, I think I did make some kind of joke about taking advantage of him. But I didn’t–I couldn’t place him! I didn’t recognize him through the filter of too much alcohol and maybe some dissociation? 

This is probably the most insane thing I’ve ever done while blackout drunk.

“Did we have sex?” I whisper. And I sound like a fucking idiot. Wonderful. Just great.

For a minute he just stares at me and he’s probably thinking exactly the same thing. That I’m a fucking idiot. When he answers it’s slow and deliberate. “Yes.”

In addition to my hangover headache, I feel a very distinctive tenderness emanating from my scalp. When I rake my fingers through my hair, it exacerbates the pain–my skin itself is sensitive.

“I pulled your hair,” he says.

“What?”

“I pulled your hair,” he gestures, loose, “I mean, you were rubbing your–I thought you were sore.”

“I am sore! You pulled my hair?” You never used to pull my hair. Ah! Not the thought to be having! “When did we halt the you-getting-the-fuck-out-of-my-apartment process?”

Just that silent stare for a moment like he can’t process what he’s hearing. Then he pushes himself to the edge of the mattress, blanket falling off (don’t look at that very nice view) and climbs out of bed.

Totally nude. Actually, in a lot better shape than he used to be, he’s definitely put on a fair amount of muscle. Oh, God, don’t look down! “Hey!”

“You told me to get out!”

“Not like–you’re naked!”

“Yes,” he says, with that same slow deliberation like I’m a fucking idiot, and comes around the edge of the bed to stand next to me, “yes, because we fucked last night, multiple times, and you’re the one who invited me over!”

“I didn’t know it was you.” I pull the blankets up, suddenly conscious of my own state of undress. “I just barely moved here! I didn’t even know you lived here. I thought–I would’ve assumed you were still in New York.”

He blanches. “Why would you think that?”

“Why would I not think that? It’s not like I’m tracking your whereabouts. I haven’t thought about you in years.” What a pointless and hurtful (and wrong) declaration. This can’t get any more embarrassing. I need to get a grip.

“Oh.” He seems deflated, but only for half a second. Then he shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“Oh, yeah. I am. I don’t know where that came from.” I drop my face into my hands and without the lovely naked man in front of my eyes it’s easier to think. “I wasn’t listening when you introduced yourself last night. Wow, I was wasted.”

It’s not a great look. I feel irresponsible, like I’m twenty-one again.

“It’s fine.”

For a minute we fall into silence. I peek through my hands and see he’s still standing naked in front of me. Nice and right at eye level. “Can you at least put something on?”

“Oh–yeah.” He bends down, scrounging for underwear off the floor, and once he’s safely got–all that–tucked away, he sits down on the edge of the bed next to me.

Are we on speaking terms? What upside down logic is this? I haven’t reached out to you for years and you’re just casually hanging out in my apartment like I didn’t already ask you to LEAVE.

“Uh,” he says. “That was fun. It’s–it’s nice to see you.”

I stare.

“So you’re living in Chicago now.”

Oh, to tell you the truth, Carmy, you talked about it so much with such fondness, it became kind of an ideal fantasy for me, somewhere you were so comfortable yet somewhere so different from where I grew up, yeah, when I needed an escape from my hometown, it was the reasonable option that popped into my head. It’s not like I realized he’d be back living there!

But I don’t want to tell him any of that. So I keep silent. Just look at him. At some point he has to take the cue and leave.

Except he reaches out and puts his hand on my leg. It’s supposed to be comforting but it’s way too familiar, his wide and calloused and rugged hand stroking my bare thigh, with none of the hesitance that accompanies a new relationship, like we’re existing briefly in some micro-cosm from 4 years ago–

“I’m glad,” he says, quiet. “You look really good.”

“It’s crazy,” I say. 

“What?”

“How much you haven’t changed.” I reach out to take his hand off my leg, and he reaches out with his other hand to stop me.

It stuns me. He used to do this when I would get pissed and hold a grudge and pout. He used to be slow and gentle and pull me into one of his long, tight hugs–and the reminder is bitter and sour.

I get angry. Really angry. “Carmen, do not grab me.”

He hesitates but then quickly lets go, drops his hand off my leg. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Why should I feel bad because he feels bad? I shouldn’t. He screwed me over four years ago. But for some reason I reach out and touch his arm. “You look good too. This is just not what I need right now–I just had a bad breakup–”

Why am I making excuses for why we can’t do this? I don’t need to have a reason. Four years ago is enough of a reason.

He interrupts me. “Me too.”

My hand is still on his arm. He’s really gotten quite muscular, I noticed it earlier, but it’s hard not to notice it again right now, when he’s leaning on the bed, tricep flexed, the man really has enormous shoulders. Was he always this big?

Despite drinking so much last night–I think he doesn’t smell all that bad. Up close his eyes are very, very tired. More than just one night of drunken sleep causes.

He has some new tattoos since the last time I saw him. They’re nice, I like them. His skin tenses under my touch and I realize I’m just running my fingers down his arm repeatedly and I quickly pull my hand away. 

He clears his throat. “Too bad about your breakup.”

Shake my head. “Nah. But, too bad about yours.”

Too bad, so sad. Wonder if he’s pulling the same shit he did with me.

“Nah. Except I’m fucked now, I’ve got a restaurant to run and now I have to look for a place to live.”

Oh, so they were living together? And she’s keeping the apartment? It’s not so different from our situation. I remember the stress. I ended up moving back home because I couldn’t really make it in New York (nor did I have the energy anymore).

“Actually, sleeping here was a fucking relief. I didn’t know what I was gonna do last night. You know, she told me in a note. Not even to my face.” He rubs his jaw, but from the way he taps his fingers along his face I wonder if he’s craving a smoke.

Is this really something I want to hear?

“I need a smoke,” he says.

I laugh, hard and sharp before I can stop myself. He stares and so I clear my throat. “I was just thinking you looked like you were craving a cigarette.”

The next words out of his mouth: “How much does–how much can you put away after 4 years?”

I don’t get it. But he hasn’t budged from the bed even though I told him to get out of here already. I think I told him more than once.

Something flickers from my subconscious: Last night we were cheering in front of the same TV screen, rooting for that team to win. Probably the first time in a long time the two of us had been on the same page about anything.

“I’m liking this consistent silent stare instead of responses,” he says. “It’s totally not uncomfortable at all.”

That tricks a little laugh out before I can crush it down. “I’m really hungover. Um–But you can take a shower, if you want. Before you go.”

“Incredibly kind of you. I do have to work today. So–only if you really don’t mind.”

It’s irritating how someone can seem so innocent and considerate and then flip of a coin can betray you when you trusted them more than anybody. “I really don’t mind. Go ahead. But I haven’t used it yet, so, good luck figuring it out.”

He nods, and after another moment, gets up from the bed and leaves me.

The second he is out in the hallway I can finally exhale, flopping down on the bed and grinding my hands into my eyes.

Pounding headache. Burgeoning hunger and nausea in my stomach. I don’t even know where any of my cooking stuff is, the moving truck won’t be here for another two or three days with the rest of my shit, so I have to go out if I want food besides whatever road trip snacks are leftover from yesterday (which is probably not much).

I can hear, somewhat faintly, the sound of running water–he got the shower started.

Without Carmen sitting in the room traumatizing and distracting me, I have a little more time to think about the events of last night.

Bits and pieces–we were on the couch, I remember that. Remember how hot his hand felt moving up my waist, bunching my dress up to expose my bare skin.

Then what happened? I’d scratched his chest in my impatience to get his shirt off. I remember apologizing and how he’d told me–

“Dig your nails in at least if you’re going to do that,”

His breath on my neck, how painfully tight his grip had been when he slid his hands up to my breasts, and the way I had shamelessly ground my hips against his. Fuck me.

A snarky voice in my subconscious retorts, clearly, he did.

Oh, fuck me. One day in Chicago and this is the play? Seriously?

It felt good though. No one’s denying that. It was quite lovely how easily he’d scooped me up into his arms while I was still eagerly putting my tongue down his throat, unworried about how familiar he’d seemed like the idiot I am,

His kisses were nice. Oh, more than nice. He’d kissed me like a storm in the desert. All consuming, until everything else disappeared, until I couldn’t see straight and had no choice but to be in it, until it was all around me, all over me–

I look up, then, because Carmen is standing in my doorway with a strange look on his face. Naked. Dripping wet.

I barely have time to sit up before he’s made his way over to me. Cradles my face in his hands. Should probably say something. I don’t. I go with it, tip my head back, eyes shut, his lips land on mine. I can hear the shower still running in the bathroom.

The blanket falls down, exposing me to the cool air. Water droplets from his wild hair land on my arms, run down the curve of my forearm, cold water landing on my thighs sends shivers down into my core.

Then as forcefully as it happened he pulls away, still holding my face, keeping me still, unable to move.

“I don’t know why I did that.” He’s still holding my face. Looking–no, peering at me, scrutinizing me. “Can I? Do that?”

I wrap my hand around his wrist. “You can do that.”

He pulls me forward, kisses me intensely. If it was like a storm in the desert before this is not the same, because he lets go of my face and instead wraps an arm around my waist, yanking me up from the bed and crushing me to his chest, kissing me all the while. I’m a little dizzy from it and have to remember to breathe through my nose.

“Fuck,” he says, aggressively, millimeters from kissing me again, his lips brush mine as he utters the expletive. “The shower’s running.”

I have to shuffle forward a little bit to get my feet under me properly. To catch my breath. Still pressed up against him. He’s dripping water everywhere. “That’s okay. I have to shower. I smell like alcohol.”

He buries his face in my hair, unexpected (he’s never done that before) and when he talks it’s low. “Come with me.”

Little shiver–a frisson–and I let him pull me out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

``

Chapter 4

thanks - check the masterlist, the story updates on THURSDAYS. Master list:: Paracosm Enthusiast Masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

The AC has been broken for two days. It is 95 degrees inside and 108 degrees outside. Husband keeps saying "now you really know how it feels in a kitchen" "isn't this good inspiration for your writing"

[paracosmenthusiast]

Carmy WIP

I was hoping to post this sooner but between the blood draw and general pregnancy discomfort I am not going to get this update out until Thursday, so here's a snippet...

-

Fuck it. Until Kendra gets back to me I’m going back to bed. I didn’t have much planned for today anyway, besides unpacking a little bit of my stuff and going out for dinner.

I drop back onto the bed with a contented sigh, rustling the fluffy comforter to build a cozy nest, and promptly (and hopefully not that forcefully) backhand the person LAYING IN THE BED BESIDE ME.

I’m slack-jawed for a moment, he’s buried in the cushions, I’m trying to remember what the fuck happened last night, except I’ve clearly given him a rude awakening because he props himself up on an elbow and looks at me.

It takes me a second to process and then I screech. 

It’s Carmen. It’s fucking Carmen!

One moment. Two moments. Then he blurts out: “Oh, fuck.”

I can’t do much besides point a shaking finger at him. “Get out!” “Me??” His eyebrows jump to his hairline. Such lovely, messy, yummy curls. Oh, God. Not again. “Me? You! You’re–”

-

Check the masterlist for the update: Masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Chapter 2: The Black Dog

Warning: 18+, some drunken fun in this one!

~~

CHAPTER 2 - The Black Dog

Six months before Chicago - Starring The Infernal Ex Fiance

My ears were ringing from the concert. I was high on the experience, giddy at seeing my friends perform, happy they’d played my favorite of their original songs. And there was my fiance hiding in the back of the room pouting because he wasn’t getting enough attention as usual.

I think I did cross a line, maybe, spending time talking to the vocalist of that band; he was an angel who had spoken to me every time I’d followed my fiance to these shows, the one person who made an effort to talk to me when my fiance routinely sat me in a corner and ordered me not to move, and I had come out of my shell enough to feel confident talking to the vocalist first. 

He was really excited by the little patch on my jacket that I had embroidered the band’s name on. Grateful for the support. And I was grateful and excited for a platonic friendship with someone in that music scene, as I was new to it. Especially someone who was so considerate of me for no reason other than the goodness in their heart.

But my fiance hated this. He didn’t bring it up at the time, and he didn’t even say anything on the hour drive home. But when I dropped him off at his parents house, he leaned in for a kiss goodbye and then out of nowhere his hand wrapped around my throat.

“I don’t ever want to see you talking to him again,” he said.

I was too shocked to respond. Hardly intimidated–hard to be physically intimidated by someone who couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded–but I was shocked and scared by the fact that it had come out of nowhere.

I said the vocalist’s name out of knee-jerk reaction and surprise. “Don’t talk to him anymore?”

And then he hit me! He actually hit me!

Not hard enough to split my lip–but close. Just enough that I was rattled, that my head spun a little bit, that I stared in disbelief and agreed without another thought sure, I won’t talk to that band anymore. I think I probably would’ve said anything just to get him out of my car because I was just so shocked.

With one foot out the door he looked back at me. “You know, they don’t even like you. Everyone just feels awkward with you there because you don’t really fit in.”

Then he got up and he closed the door and left those words to resonate with me and I started the car, because I didn’t want to sit there and cry, because I was stung by the words and because I found it terribly hard to believe and terribly hurtful if it were true.

After that there was some distance.

We stopped sleeping together for months–I claimed I wanted to try out celibacy ahead of the wedding for the sake of getting off birth control to try to get my anxiety medication under control. It should’ve worried me how easily he agreed to it but I was so relieved to be free from the constant stress of his inability to perform (it had to be because of me, right?) that I let it go just like that.

Again. Things that add up in hindsight, things I shouldn’t have ignored in the moment. A bingo card filling up with red flags.

Present day -

“Oh, listen to that! I love the beat of this thing. It’s not a happy song but it always makes me want to dance.” Kendra does, in fact, get up, shaking her hips but holding her (very full) glass of wine stable in front of her. “Of the Jesus-looking singers, Noah Kahan is one of my favorites.”

I almost inquire and how many of those are there? But in a bid to avoid a tangent I turn my glass of wine and take a very long and generous swallow. I don’t even really like wine but it gets me drunk faster than anything else.

“So tell me,” Kendra says, after a moment of bobbing about in front of me along to the beat of the song, “What happened, again?”

I never told anybody what “happened” between me and Carmen. Because I was in pain, because it seemed such an injustice to the person that I had grown to–uh, to have deep feelings for; and to bring it up now seems cruel. “He was never around and we just got distant. I think I wanted a Taylor Swift-esque moment in the rain and it was just never the right time.”

Never the right time summed up our entire relationship. It’s a mystery to him how we had ended up together as he frequently told me there was no reason “someone like me” should ever be with “someone like him.” I wonder if he still uses that line to pull girls. I wonder if it ever works.

And it always hurt my feelings when he said that. Just a little bit. I liked to look at it as a marvelous incident of that old idea of fate, and he thought it was a series of mistakes colliding until we did, too.

Nope. Not thinking this way. More wine. “How is it that we’re talking about a guy I hooked up with four years ago instead of the guy that I was supposed to marry?”

“Ugh.” She clears her throat quickly to try to cover up the huff. “I mean, I don’t know. But we just saw this guy. And he’s so cute! That’s way more interesting.”

I almost ask her something about Taylor Swift just to change the subject from Carmen, but I don’t have the energy, so I look down and disappear into the depths of wine.

But then 2 glasses later, the words start to trickle out against my will.

There’s some weird part of me that does want to think about it. At least, thinking about Carmen instead of thinking about the abandoned wedding ring. “Oh my God, I left a fucking note before I ran away like a child.”

“As you should.” She’s not slurring. She’s probably not even that buzzed–Kendra can put away a metric ton of alcohol. Certainly more than me. But she’s also an entity of chaos and so she encourages my lapse in rationality. “That guy was a total loser! Please, I can’t move with you, I have to think about the future of my band, I’m thirty and I still obey my mom’s curfew, and think I’m gonna make it as a rockstar, and I spent our wedding budget on a master of the shittiest single ever produced–”

“Hey,” I say. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. One more half-glass of wine. “Can you help me find something?”

Stagger up from the floor. I love the floors in here. They’re wooden and gorgeous and they feel old and solid and real and I love them. I love the floors. This place is so much better. This place is so much better. Yes, I’m glad I moved to Chicago, already.

“Sure. What are we looking for?” Kendra trails after me. I slide my free hand down the wall as I wander toward the bedroom.

Nasty thought interrupts whatever I was going to tell her. “Hoe attire, Kendra. We’re looking for hoe attire.”

That takes her back but only for an instant before she’s back on board. “Fuck. Yes. I am so ready to hit the bars!”

Yes. And I want to drown in someone else’s skin and not think about the reason why I’m living in Chicago. I want that slinky black dress I know I packed with the matching heels–the one that screams I’m here for a good time not a long time–

Kendra and I ransack the bedroom, half from the alcohol, half from her excitement at my sudden change in spirit. Now that I think about it, I haven’t had a drink, not since I got with my fiance. Ex fiance. He was sober and so I turned sober out of mere convenience.

What we end up with is the slinky black dress of legend for me, a similar note in emerald for her, and a lot more confidence than perhaps we should’ve had for two drunk women in an unfamiliar city.

Kendra whips out her phone while I’m looking through my makeup, searching for a nearby bar. Though I keep the makeup to a minimum because of my inebriated state and generally being out of practice, I do down a couple glasses of water to help return myself to some semblance of a normal human being.

She actually holds her breath watching me drink the water, as if I’m going to go back on my decision to go out when I start thinking clearly. Wrong. At least, wrong this time. With the water put away, I raise my hand. “Onward?”

“Hell yes! I’m so down to bar hop in Chicago!” She could bring the energy for three of us if need be. “You look amazing, I look amazing, and we’re going to go to a bar and find–anything better.”

At the very least, I’m fairly sure I’ll find a much-needed distraction and an ego boost.

Kendra whips out her phone while I’m putting the finishing touches on my hair. “There’s a place down the street from us, so we can walk. That’ll be nice.”

“How far is it?”

“It’s like a seven-minute walk.”

That should be enough to sober up at least enough to put away something else. Vodka, maybe. Vodka is usually my drink of choice for the bad feelings to go away.

After a full-body mirror check, Kendra and I lock up the apartment and hit the streets, heading toward whatever bar she’d picked out on her phone. It’s not that late yet, 11pm, so I’m not even sure the crowd will be all that good.

But maybe I just needed a change of atmosphere to get certain things off my mind.

“Oh–we need to cross here.” Kendra grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop on the street corner, and I obediently rotate to face the direction she’s looking. It’s getting a bit cold, although not enough to justify wearing a coat over my outfit. Especially because then I’d have to keep track of a coat, one of my biggest bar-hop pet peeves.

The traffic light changes, beckoning us across the street, and we step across together. Luckily, Kendra is correct and the bar isn’t far at all; it’s quite close, and the exterior is surprisingly welcoming.

It’s not bad. When Kendra opens the door, we’re met by a rush of pleasantly warm (not too humid) air, and the low thrum of music not so loud as to be obnoxious but not so quiet as to be awkward.

Beeline for the bar. Kendra orders the same thing she always does–a signature cocktail, which is nearly twenty dollars and I have to shake my head at her choice. I’ll pick something much cheaper. Redbull and vodka.

“No, no way.” Kendra interrupts my order. “We’re celebrating! She just moved here. Can we get… Um… Whatever that guy’s having.”

She gestures down the bar and the bartender swipes her card with an obligatory smile and assures he’ll have the drinks right out to us.

“You really didn’t have to do that.” I push my hair back from my neck. “I’ll buy the next round.”

“That’s a great compromise, I like it! Now, tell me more about the plan for tonight.” She leans in close, a conspirator to the very end, with a suggestive wiggle of the eyebrows. I think this is way too much power for her to have and I wish she would’ve ordered me something like a dark beer–something that would take longer to drink and maybe wouldn’t get me blackout drunk. Kendra loves going on a bender.

Then again, I’m almost certainly going to be fielding calls from unknown numbers all night as my ex fiance has been so prone to do in the last two weeks, and do I really want to be fully conscious and sober for that?

The bartender slides our drinks over to us with a smile, and I answer my own question. No, I do not want to be fully conscious or sober for anything that’s going to happen next.

The atmosphere in the bar picks up after that, with one drink down and another round ordered a fresh group of people come in, the energy is livelier, and the music is a little bit louder and a little bit better. Kendra is tempted to dance, I can tell from her frantic tapping of her hands and feet, but there isn’t really any space to do it in here and everyone seems to be particularly excited over a sporting event.

Actually, why not? I drag her to one of the screens and despite not being particularly engaged with the sport or the team, we introduce ourselves to the group watching and quickly fall under their spell of rooting for victory.

It’s nice. Jumping up to our feet when something happens, gasping and clinging to each other in tense moments.

Another drink: This one is just a double shot of whiskey. We’re drinking with another girl at this point, a tall and beautiful and hopefully sapphic woman that Kendra is doing her best (and failing) not to salivate over, with long dark hair and darker eyes but a very soft and feminine voice that absolutely does not hint at the pure rage she expresses when her team fumbles a play.

“I will never understand how you can do that,” Kendra says. “I love drinking and I still wouldn’t do that with whiskey.”

I want to tell her it’s because we have very different taste buds–she likes sweet and floral or soda-like alcohol, and I like anything incredibly bitter and subtle, but the words get mussed in my mouth so I end up laughing it off and get up to order another drink.

“Get me one,” Kendra’s friend calls. “You can put it on Kendra’s tab! Anything with tequila!”

“You’re really impressing me and the gentleman over there,” the bartender tells me.

I lean forward over the bar, heart beating in my ears. “Huh?”

He pushes a bright blue drink across the bar to me. “This is from your buddy in the sports group.”

My mouth opens slightly. “Is that an Adios, Motherfucker?”

The bartender laughs a short, abrupt laugh. “I usually hear Adios, Mother F’er, or just an ‘Adios,’ but fuck yeah. Good for you.”

I pick up the drink and then turn around to look back at the group of cheery sports-watchers. “Who’d you say?”

“That one. Guy in the white shirt?”

It’s dim and alcohol makes it hard to see straight, but I pick out the white silhouette of the guy’s shirt and nod absently at the bartender. “Thanks, dude!”

On my way back over to the group, I try to meander, try not to make a direct beeline for the dude, but that’s essentially what happens. Except as I pass Kendra I hear her stifle her laughter and turn to her friend:

“I think you just got stiffed.”

“Whatever. You should get me one, then.”

Kendra leaps up, and brushes her hand over my shoulder as she passes me. To check if I’m alright maybe. I am.

My drink is–not delicious, but not terrible, and heavily, heavily concentrated. I haven’t had one since college so it’s a nice trip down memory lane.

I come up on him, the guy who bought me a drink, a moment later and raise my glass. “Nice. I haven’t had an Adios since college.”

He laughs. Up close he’s very attractive. He introduces himself, but I get distracted by the motion of his hands (he has a set of interesting tattoos and scars) and honestly his name doesn’t even make it fully into my consciousness before I completely erase it.

Whatever. Who needs a name? I introduce myself back, and before I can thank him again for the drink, something happens that has all of our new bar friends leaping to their feet with cries of indignation.

Yes. This is very fun.

Two more drinks down: I finish the Adios to a crowd of cheers and do shots with my new handsome male friend, Kendra, and Kendra’s very handsome female friend. Now I’m beyond dizzy–I want to go hide in the bathroom and try to breathe through some of it–but I’m too hyped. Too excited.

We’re getting to the end of the game. The scores are close but our team is definitely in the lead. Strange to feel camaraderie with people I barely know for a team I’ve certainly never supported in the past.

The homestretch. Everyone is clustered around the TV–even the bartender is at our end of the bar, hovering, trapped by the contagious atmosphere.

I grab my friend’s hand. Unlike everyone else, he’s sitting on a bar stool, a little more relaxed, a little less invested, maybe. His hands are very rough and calloused–it surprises me–and give it a very tight squeeze. I think he’s looking at me but I don’t peel my eyes from the game. If I’m blushing no one can tell because we’re all so flushed from yelling at the screen.

And then our team wins!!

I cry out in excitement before I can control it. The bar erupts into chaos, fans jumping to their feet and those few non-supporters shaking their heads at our antics. And in our group we’re hugging, and shouting, as if the triumph really belongs to us…

I want to kiss him so I turn to my male friend, caught up in the excitement, not a chance to second-guess, and I just—

I just lean in and he is surprised, but then kisses me back quick, his breath tastes a little bit like nicotine and I can’t stand smokers but for some reason, for some reason I don’t mind.

His hand comes up to my neck, gentle, cupping my jaw, and then just as quick I step back, still grinning, a little exuberant and a lot drunk. I have to raise my voice over the cheerful celebration going on around us. “Oops, I’m sorry!”

His eyes are very blue, I think, blue like the drink he bought me earlier. His hair is pretty and wild and curly and I want to run my fingers through it. “Uh, no, I mean, I’m sorry. Did you mean to kiss me?”

“Yes, I did.” Did I say I leaned in to kiss him? I got a little over-excited for how much balance I have in these heels when this drunk and to extricate myself, I have to put my hand on the bar and pull back. Oh, but I’m still smiling, I can’t peel the look off my face.

He laughs a little bit at that and then I realize I’m still clutching his other hand, a little tight. I apologize again and go to pull my hand away.

He doesn’t resist–per se–but doesn’t look away from me, either. I brush my hands down my sides, smoothing out my non-wrinkled dress to give my hands something else to do. Don’t grab him and go for another kiss. The aura is too confusing right now. I really can’t tell if he’s about to storm off.

“Do you want to sit?” he gestures to the stool next to him. “You almost fell just then.”

That’s a little embarrassing. I’m back to smiling, sheepish. “Well, I guess I figured you’d catch me.”

“Oh–no.” He shakes his head. “I am too drunk to be trusted with a–very beautiful woman. Like you.”

He smiles, it’s hazy, I can see now that he’s telling the truth about being drunk, and he clasps his hands together, gently rubbing them as if he has something to do.

“Okay then,” I say. “Then are you in the sweet spot or do I need to buy you another drink to take advantage of you?”

“Oh, you’re going to take advantage of me? In that case…” He pauses, pretends to contemplate. “Probably I have one more drink in me until we have to get out of here.”

We both try for a minute to get the bartender’s attention, but he is firm in ignoring us–attention completely directed to the opposite end of the bar.

My friend leans in close, lips almost touching my ear. “I think we might be getting cut off.”

I shake my head and push myself away from the bar. “Hey, you know what, I live just up the street from here and I got one handful of whiskey shooters if you can stomach it.”

He gets up from his seat, smiling again. “Alright then, lead the way.”

I turn in a quick circle, looking for Kendra and her friend, but they’re nowhere to be found. “One sec.”

I pull out my phone–it’s sometime past 1am–and there’s a short, abbreviated text message from Kendra. She’d taken the very lovely lady home. Or rather, the very lovely lady had taken Kendra home. Followed by a live location share and a pin of her address.

I send her a text back. Success with the guy.

Then I shove my phone back in my purse and reach for my friend’s hand again. “Come on, we gotta walk fast, it’s going to be cold!”

If the walk across and up the street was short with Kendra, it was much shorter with my male friend. Partially because I was self conscious trying not to fall down, and partially because I felt warm from the alcohol and that made the bracing cold so much easier to bear.

But thank God we make it back to my apartment and back inside and I’m flicking the lights on as he’s making himself comfortable on the couch. Where had we thrown our bag of road trip snacks? The shooters were in there, purchased at some gas station at Kendra’s behest and against my better judgment, as we had initially planned to stay in all night and drink in the apartment.

Whatever. It worked out in this case. I find it, wrapped up in a reusable tote bag imprinted with my home state, wadded up on the counter.

I come back out to the living room with a bigger smile, holding up the small bottles, and sit down next to him, dropping the bottles in his hands and then reaching down to undo my heels.

When I straighten back up with a breath of relief, he’s taken the tops off and hands one of the bottles to me.

“Cheers,” he says.

Obediently, I tap the rim of my bottle against his, and without breaking eye contact, we turn them bottoms-up.

For a moment I think that the walk over here sobered me up, but then I feel a sluggish haze spreading down to my fingertips. Dullness over my periphery.

He coughs. “Oh, fuck. That’s strong.”

I echo his sentiment. Mouth doesn’t want to obey me. “Sure is.”

One moment he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and then our little bottles get wedged in the couch and he pulls me across the distance and half into his lap, lips pressed to mine.

He bites my lip, clumsy, and when I right myself, one hand on the back of the couch to leverage myself up, he laughs, breathless. Lips a quarter millimeter from mine he says: “Sorry.”

Actually, looking at him this close… “You know? You look really familiar. D’you get that a lot?”

He shakes his head. “You look familiar.”

Except staring at him doesn’t make it come back to me, or maybe I’m too drunk to care. I grab his hand, and put it on my waist. “I like your tattoos.”

“Thanks–”

I put my other hand on his chest to push him back down. He’s a million degrees warm but somehow not hot and when I kiss him I let my hand trail down his arm–he’s strong, muscular under my touch–and then his chest and feel his heart beating under my touch and then his hands cup my waist, scrunching the dress up and up so he can touch my skin,

And I close my eyes, push everything else out of my head, and think about how all of my skin feels like it’s on fire at the very, very welcome touch of a familiar stranger.

~

Chapter 3: Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus

Master list: Paracosm Enthusiast Masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart part 1~!!! yay!

~~

Chapter 1: Innocent

This one is going to be a lot more angst than what I usually put out, but I think it’s suitable not only for the universe of the Bear, but for what I’ve learned about the industry from my very own Carmy.

WARNING: 18+ - mention of substance use and mature themes.

~

I’m sitting at the kitchen counter with all the lights off and the curtains thrown open so the lights of the city dimly illuminate the space.

Phone face down on the counter in front of me. I don’t want to pick it up because all the evidence is right there (not that it was hard to put together) and looking at it made me sick. I threw up six times already and it was mostly bile and saliva but, my throat hurts. My chest hurts. For more than one reason.

The door shakes, a key jammed in the lock, I know the sound like the back of my hand after almost six months of hearing it. I can probably tell with my eyes closed now whether it’s Carmy or someone else coming in. This time it’s him.

What’s the point of talking? I asked myself this more than a few times in the last couple of hours waiting for him to get home. What’s the point of talking when the conversation is only going to have one conclusion and I’m going to have to go pack my bag either way? But for some reason (becauseIwanttostay) I didn’t pack my bag first and for some reason (becauseIdon’twanthimtogo) I’m having this conversation with him.

He doesn’t realize I’m here at first until he flicks on the light and has a little jumpscare. When he catches his breath he says: “Why are you sitting in the dark? You scared the shit out of me.”

I turn around and I have to smile at the sight of him, his hair is sweaty, he always comes home sweaty, and his tousled button up open to the white undershirt underneath. Then I think I’m a fucking psycho for smiling at a time like this and the look wears off quick.

He’s a smart guy. He picks up on the somber atmosphere right away. “What’s going on?”

The world’s kinda traveling in slow motion at this point. I can’t pick up my phone to show him and I’m too tired to get all the words out. All of a sudden it’s all gone. All my energy. All my desire to fight. I should’ve said, do you have something you want to tell me? I should accuse him, should throw it all in his face, but I can’t, suddenly, it’s all gone. I’m all spent, used up. I get up from my seat and then my feet are going one in front of the other toward the bedroom. “I know.”

“What are you talking about? You know what?” He has to raise his voice because I leave him in the foyer.

Don’t look at the bed. I get my duffel out of the top shelf in the closet. Just some essentials and we can divide everything else up later. He’s followed me to the doorway by now. “What are you doing?”

“I know,” don’t make me say it, I can’t say it, I’ve seen the pictures, “I know, Carmen.”

Turn around to show him that I’m filling up a bag of my things. He gets this look sometimes that makes me sad now because I used to love it–the problem solver, crunching the numbers, riddling out the situation.

Except this time the color just leaves his face when the recognition flicks on and he swears, turns away from me, starts running his hands through his hair.

That’s right, don’t say a damn word in your defense, just watch me walk away, don’t tell me not to go, just watch me leave;

I want him to plead for forgiveness but, he is silent,

I say, “I’ll be around to get my stuff.”

Glittering shimmering iridescent soap bubble of a six month relationship, burst. Gone. Not a trace.

“What? Come on. I’ve been working a lot, not that you can possibly begin to understand that, and I’m fucking tired. Sorry I’m late to come home, I didn’t realize it would be a huge thing.”

The anger I feel comes out of nowhere, and burns hot and quick, the words rushing over one another and then stumbling and faltering. “This has nothing to do with dinner, Carmy, I know about the other girls, you, you, … Slimy bastard?”

“Hey, fuck you. Why are you going through my phone?”

“Why am I–” Calm down. My voice is ascending to the high heavens where only dogs and Ariana Grande can hear it. I take a breath. “My actions aren’t under scrutiny right now, Carmen, you fucking cheated on me. Fuck me? Really? No, you haven’t been, that’s kind of the fucking problem, you’ve been fucking everyone else! And I do mean everyone.”

“Fuck you. Stop yelling at me. I never met anybody.” And he does this thing he always does, looks around for something else to do, like he has better places to be than having this conversation.

But I do too. I yank open the dresser drawer and dump a handful of my underwear into the duffel. Slam the drawer shut. My voice is still shaky: “Oh my God, I’ve seen the pictures. ‘Thick Amanda xx’ sound familiar? What about Throat Goat Amber?”

“Jesus Christ, I didn’t meet up with anybody. I didn’t do anything.”

Anddd we’re back to Ariana Grande octaves again. “Sending and asking for nudes and telling them all the gritty details of what you’d do to them is fucking cheating to me, Carmen!”

“Fuck you. I don’t have to do this shit right now, I’m tired. I just got off work.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry that I’m confronting you at a time that isn’t convenient. You dumb bitch. Don’t fucking avoid the subject.”

“Why? What is there to say? I didn’t do anything!”

I’ve never wanted to strangle him so badly in my life. When I stop shoveling my clothes into the duffel and look up at him, he’s not even looking at me. Just fidgeting in the doorway, smoking already, one hand angrily combing through his hair.

“Yes you did,” is what I actually say. “You cheated on me. And that’s just the start– I–I think I hate you.”

Oh, he wasn’t expecting that. He snaps back to the moment like he never tried to wriggle out of the situation. “What?”

I’m floating out of my body and looking down on it from far away. “I think I hate you.”

What a sick realization on our six month anniversary.

“Six months and you think you hate me? I told you from the start I’m fucked up, I have issues.”

And you wear that excuse like armor, I think, but I put my hands to my face, pushing back on my temples. “Are you sorry you did it?”

It takes him a minute to answer, but not because he’s lying. I can see all the emotions filter over his face as he processes. He’s relieved. He thinks that he’s de-escalated the situation and at least put a stall to me packing my shit. “I mean, yeah. Yeah, it’s really fucked. I’m sorry. I just don’t have time to really think about this right now.”

Whatever beginnings of sympathy he had drummed up in me fall completely flat at that. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, my bad, it’s not the right time. Fuck me, Carmen, it’s never going to be the right time.”

“That’s not what I said,” he says. “Fuck you. I don’t need this right now. I just got off work–”

Use it like fucking armor, ‘I just got off work,’ like you always do–

“No, don’t bother walking out,” I say. “Let me do it this time.”

My duffel only has a couple shirts and a pair of pants but I don’t care. I have to come back later to get more and right now I just want to get to the hotel. I pick up the bag and zip it shut even though it doesn’t feel like my hands are working and I can’t look at him.

He gets out of the way when I go to leave our bedroom. Doesn’t say anything just backs up, until he hits the wall of the hallway,

I glance back at him as I’m fumbling with the front door,

He’s just… Standing there. Like he’s in shock. Like he doesn’t quite get how his actions lead him here. Fuck this.

I slam the door on purpose because I know he hates it.

-Four Years (And a different failed relationship) Later-

“I can’t get this out of my head. Look. This picture with her arm up and that smile–”

“Shut up, shut up, look, we’re here!” Actually we’ve been in Chicago for a minute, but as much as I thought I could take talking about the Eras Tour for sixteen consecutive hours on the drive up, I was wrong. So wrong. So I deploy distraction strategy number 1: Pointing out scenery.

Kendra falls for it, whipping around in her seat. “What, where? None of these buildings look like a habitable apartment. Except that one–Wait, that’s a restaurant. The Bear. What a funky name.”

It worked. I glance in the direction she points, because I’m starving and I promised to take her somewhere nice tomorrow as thanks for helping me move. “What restaurant?”

My question was redundant because the restaurant is very obvious, the nicest exterior on the street. And I glanced at exactly the right moment because the front door opens, I can catch a glimpse of a ritzy interior, and someone walks out. I know the look of that shirt, it reminds me of a guy I used to date, and actually, funny anecdote, his hair does, too.

Then I slam on the brakes knee-jerk reaction and the strangled ghoul-like voice that comes out of my mouth certainly doesn’t belong to me: “Oh my fucking god, Kendra, that’s the guy!” Pitches up into hysteria at the end.

I’m staring right into his face! It’s Carmen! It’s fucking Carmen staring right back at me!

Kendra whips around in her seat in the most overt way possible and I realize how fucking insane it is to stop in the middle of the road, the guy who at least looks just like Carmen is looking our way probably confused by me slamming on the brakes, so I do the opposite (and weirder) thing, and I HIT THE GAS. Oh fuck, this day could not get worse.

“WAIT! I didn’t get a good look!” Kendra smacks my arm. “Way to be low-key.”

But I can only breathe once I’ve turned the corner (I wasn’t supposed to turn according to my frantic GPS, but who cares, I have to pull over, if just for a second).

This is crazy. I’ve been in Chicago for one day, four years later, who’s the first person I see? Carmen fucking Berzatto.

Well, I barely even recognized him. Actually who’s to say that was even him. Yeah, joke’s on me, I’m seeing ghosts because I’m stressed by the move and by the breakup and by the long day of driving, yeah, that’s it. It’s gotta be.

“Sorry,” I say, carefully returning to traffic. Both hands on the wheel, both eyes on the road. “I think I mistook that guy for somebody else. He looked like the guy I used to date in New York, a little bit.”

Kendra’s the ever-vigilant internet super sleuth and she already has her phone out. “Oh, no, that was definitely him. Says he just reopened and revamped his brother’s business. The restaurant’s called The Bear now. Carmen Berzatto. That’s the guy, isn’t it?”

And to add insult to injury she shoves her phone with a picture of his face pulled up right in front of my eyes.

I swat it away but not before I catch an unfortunate glimpse. “Don’t distract the driver.”

“Hmm,” she says. Gleeful. “Come on, let’s get to your new place, we need wine so we can discuss this.”

Discuss? What is there to discuss? Nothing. We have nothing to discuss and there is no reason to go hunting for ghosts. “Stop it, Kendra. I mean it.”

I haven’t thought about it in a long time but a memory comes back to me, the look on his face when I left. He helped me carry my boxes out at least. But I still think about that look–like he was in shock, like he couldn’t believe how his actions could’ve lead to the point of us dissolving.

“What if I buy the wine?”

Actually, how is a six month relationship from four years ago even remotely in my head right now? I just broke up with my fiance to move here. Oh, God. Another relationship that didn’t even make it to a year. I am not doing well on the scoreboards these days.

“Hey, are you listening? I said what if I buy the wine. I can even DoorDash it, I think. Or UberEats. Or I could just take the car to the liquor store…”

Fuck, my apartment is coming up on the right. How did I end up so close to his restaurant? What a sick twist of fate. Why didn’t I look closer at Google maps before I picked this place? No, I deserve this. This is what I deserve for snapping off a relationship so coldly the way I did and then dropping out of town like I was entering witness protection.

“Hey!”

I jolt from my reverie as we approach a red light. “Sorry. Yes, wine. Please. Lots of it.”

An embarrassing thought flies into my head: Oh God, what if he saw me when I slammed on my brakes? No. No way.

If I keep thinking about this I’m going to ascend right out of my skin from the mortification, so I focus on directing myself to park the damn car so I can get out from behind the wheel ASAP. And preferably get inside where I can hide behind closed curtains. And wine. Closed curtains, and a lot of wine.

---

Part 2: Chapter 2 - The Black Dog

masterlist: Paracosm Enthusiast Masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

Trixie and Hancock

This is one of my absolute favorite one shots about Hancock the Ghoul from Fallout 4. I am a sucker for that critter.

WC: 2.2 k

18+ for mention of fallout 4 drugs.

~~

“Well,” Hancock said, over the roar of gunfire and the gleeful taunts of blood- (or perhaps chem-) thirsty raiders. “I think this is goodbye.” Trixie, carefully slotting more ammunition into her favorite rifle, the one that fired .308s and was outfitted with a wicked bayonet, wondered how it had come to this point. Sitting at the top of an assembly plant watch tower in her underthings, with a leathery-faced ghoul and a metric shit ton of drugs.

A momentary pause in the gunfire. Hancock stood from his prone position into a crouch, attempting to gain vantage over the bridge control panel, now busted all to hell thanks to the gunfire. He let off a couple shots, and then she could place a familiar, unmistakable sound: That rolling thud of a grenade.

“Get down!” She grabbed for her companion and barely had she yanked him back below the control panel before the grenade went off, a world-shaking boom and flash of fire, a scream of warped metal.

They laid there uncomfortably for a moment, two, three, before Trixie shoved him off and crawled to her knees to check out the damage. “Oh, for the love of—”

Hancock straightened up next to her, replacing his hat on his head, but her ears were ringing so she studied the movement of his mouth to puzzle out the words. “Motherfucker… the bridge—way out.”

“Give me your coat.” And then, when he stared blankly at her, not comprehending, she leaned over so her lips brushed his ear, or rather, what ruined remains there was of his ear, and shouted into it. “Give me your goddamn coat!”

He’d shrugged nearly out of the red frock before even questioning her. “Why?”

Trixie pulled it from his hands and slid into it, wrapping it tight over her scantily-clad form. “Didn’t want everyone in the fucking Commonwealth staring at my tits!”

“Shit, that reminds me, where’d your clothes go?”

She slid her bag of guns closer and pulled out her very favorite long-range sniper rifle, ready to end this little game. “To hell if I know, I woke up like this.”

“Betcha say that to all the men.”

Well aware of her companion’s eyes on her—she caught his gaze for a moment before peering into the scope—she let her gun thud down on top of the control panel and put her finger to the trigger, looking for those asshole raiders. “Nah, I say it to the ladies, too.”

But the ghoul had a point. How had she ended up nearly naked, on top of the mayor of Goodneighbor, fifty fucking miles from any place halfway decent? In a shit-hole of raiders and chems, no less?

God, she barely even knew the man. She’d been to Goodneighbor twice, and only remembered one of the trips.

Hmm. Scratch the raiders. She couldn’t make out hide nor tail of any, so there was no one to exact her fury on. She sat back on her knees, letting the rifle down to the ground in front of her. Exhausted, hungover, Jesus, what had happened last night? She wanted to go back to sleep.

Of course, wasn’t likely it’d be half as comfortable now that the sofa had been destroyed. All the same she was a little glad the only evidence was gone.

Trixie stood, keeping that coat tightly shut, and stepped around the control panel as if a new vantage point would magically make the bridge reappear. Didn’t matter—from what she could see, the heavy metal bridge and stairs that used to connect this control room to the rest of the assembly plant was fucked. Kaboom. Blasted.

God fucking damn it.

Then she remembered Hancock. “Hancock, you alright?”

He blinked up at her, eyes like charcoal and obsidian. “Am I gonna get my clothes back? Or you planning on taking up mayoral duties yourself?”

“I...” Trixie made a weak, vague gesture. “Shit.”

She knelt down, pressing her the palms of her hands to her eyes. It was a joke, she supposed it was to make her laugh, but she couldn’t. The red frock coat overwhelmingly smelled like him.

Aerosolized chemical scent of jet, acidic salty scorch of wasteland air and gunpowder, underneath that, the smell of his skin.

She dropped her hands to see he had risen to his feet to investigate the blown-out bridge for himself.

“Hope for that bridge? Or is it out?” She tried, tentatively, to put a little humor in her voice.

“Like a light. S’alright. Think there may be something this way. You alright, sister?” He stood up, dusted himself off like he hadn’t just been in mortal peril, and pulled her up to her feet. The coat flapped open in the process and she didn’t bother closing it. What was the point? He’d seen everything.

At least she still had her shoes. Good, thick-soled boots, taken from some of the first raiders who ever had the misfortune of crossing her path.

“I’m alright, Hancock.” She let his grip linger way too long. He was still standing there with his hand at her arm and she was just looking back at him like a dope. She shook herself from her reverie. “Let’s get on the road.”

They sidled through the door and out onto a thin, mesh metal platform, anointed with dainty, warped railings.

Trixie felt the mentats from last night coming right back up, and doubled over, gaze spinning like a kaleidoscope. Oh boy. No way, she wasn’t going to let some old fear of heights get to her in this day and age.

She was a used-to-be vaultie. She survived nuclear fallout. She was kick-ass in leather pants (well, usually) and combat armor and damn it, if heights would be the thing to take her down, she wouldn’t go quick.

She pushed her sunglasses further up her nose. That was a blessing in the form of perfect chrome reflection, kept people that much further from guessing her thoughts. And kept the sun from scorching her weak eyes.

Forced her feet to move. One in front of the other. One in front of the other. One…

Until they went around the curve of the building and there was a smoldering hole in their path, about three feet across, the railing busted and hanging out over perhaps three hundred feet of air before a cold, hard connection with concrete.

She could feel her skull flattening on that concrete like an egg, and the mentats burned their way up her throat. She could feel it, see it, like it was already happening. The world lurched forward—

“Trixie?” Her name came hesitant from his mouth. He’d probably only said it once before now.

“I need a second. Hangover. That’s all.” Her heart pounded. From the terrible lie, the hangover, or the sheer fucking terror gripping her. “Go ahead.”

He did, with a hop and swinging step, and then leaned up against the railing, waiting on her to get her shit together.

Had she said the gap was three feet before? She meant thirty.

Trixie forced her eyes up from the ground and onto her ghoul companion. Felt her lips tremble as she tried to speak. Sweat rolled down her forehead and stung her eyes. She wanted to sit, but didn’t trust her legs not to send her plunging off the edge. “I need to lie down. Feel like shit. You go ahead, get to Castle, or—”

“What are you playing at? Let’s go.” His hoarse voice hugged the words, making them harsher than he probably meant. “Much as I want to stand here all day and stare at a pretty little thing like you in my damn coat, that’s a radiation storm on the horizon. Step on over, a hangover ain’t gonna stop you from that.”

Well fuck. What options did she have? Trixie knelt, hand sliding to the railing. Her eyes back on certain death below. “...Can’t do it, babe.”

“Sorry, sister. Didn’t catch that.”

She cleared her throat, and leaned her head against her arm. “I said, I just can’t do it, babe. It’s just not happening.”

He laughed, incredulous, but it turned to frustration when a bolt of glowing lightning in the distance signified the coming storm. “Why the hell not?”

She coughed. Throat was tight. Very tight. “I got a thing. Heights. Don’t like ‘em.”

The world was spinning. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the ground. She kind of wanted to fall, kind of, it had to be better than the alternative of starving to death up here.

He laughed again, that strained, ruined laugh like nails raking on a chalkboard. “That’s some lazy shit. You can step over it.”

She mouthed a couple choice words. Heard that laugh again, Jesus, she felt it in her stomach, her core.

“C’mon, I’ll help you over, but we gotta move.”

It wasn’t until another bolt of lightning that Trixie got it in her jelly legs to stand up. She had to keep most of her weight on the twisted railing, too, because spots flickered in her vision. She focused on the silhouette of her ghoul friend, who had his arm outstretched toward her, and tentatively she reached a hand out. Across a thirty foot gorge. A sixty foot gorge…

A sudden, light brush of skin to her hand shocked her back to attention. It was Hancock, pressing his ruined mouth to her knuckles. “You comin’ or what?”

For a split second the gorge didn’t seem that wide, and Trixie made the decision to leap even as he spoke: “Come to daddy.”

But she’d already put herself into the position to jump across so she couldn’t stop herself.

Slipped, too, nearly knocking him over when she made it across to his side, and she grabbed at his shirt, desperate for traction to keep her from slipping backwards. “You are such a fucking jackass, I’m gonna kill you—”

But she was on the other side. She breathed a heady sigh of relief.

For half a second, because he laughed that throaty laugh and gave her a gentle push backward, and to the side, into the railing. There was a yowl, of metal protesting. The screws were threatening to pop loose, send the railing—and her—plunging to the ground.

Her whole body seized, whiteness now taking over her vision, and Trixie let out an unpleasant sound remarkably similar to the complaining metal.

“Come on, you aren’t really scared of heights, are ya? Jesus Christ, you can stare down a room of feral ghouls but you can’t take a little open air?” He put a hand on either side of her, gave the rail a good shake.

She was put off balance by that. Windmilled, for a moment, her foot slipping out over open space. That was the last straw. No fucks given, she wrapped her arms around the ghoul and clung to him with the desperation of a dying woman.

Shut her eyes tight and leaned her head against his shoulder, still seeing blinding flashes of color, feeling the unpleasant coil of nausea in her stomach. She could barely whisper. “Stop.”

He took a big step back, and she felt the reassuring thud as he leaned back against the solid wall of the control room. She also felt that he was perplexed and taken completely off-guard by her sudden embrace.

But her heart was still pounding. She couldn’t breathe, but the dizzying chemical scent of his clothes and the acrid smell clinging to his fucked up skin was the most calming thing she’d ever felt, like twenty hits of jet all at once.

“Sorry.” Gruff. Well, she’d never heard him apologize before.

She tilted her head back so she could put her lips nearly to his ear once again, each word angrier than the last. “I. Don’t. Like. Heights.”

Then, though it took the rest of her determination, she briefly released one arm so she could push her glasses to the top of her head and look him in the eye.

“Alright,” he said, after a long pause. A little cowed, she thought. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

For approximately a second, it was. Then his gaze dropped. “Not that I mind you grinding on me like that, but you think you could give a ghoul some breathing room?”

Trixie felt an angry smile work its way onto her face and stepped away. “You said we gotta move, so march, soldier.”

It was a mutter, sarcastic. “Just glad everything’s a-OK between us.”

“As soon as we get on flat ground, Hancock. I have a helluva right cross.”

“Right, right. ‘Course you do.” He walked, though, dropping his head almost like he really felt sorry for fucking with her.

Trixie’s eyes fell as he started down the steps. Oh, yeah, now she remembered why they’d barely spoken the first time they met. He’d turned to walk away, just like he was now, and just like now, the motion of his narrow hips was all too much. A confident saunter, slow but not too slow, entirely conscious of what he was doing.

She felt a smile coming on, and started after him. Maybe she wouldn’t need to show off that right cross after all.

[paracosmenthusiast]

The Apple Orchard

A very quick Neo x Reader AU in an apple orchard... Just some more lovely Keanu fluff <3

WC: 1.4k

~

Sweet, spicy cinnamon wafted up toward your face, splintered by the scent of warm, fresh apple.

With a long sigh, you kicked your legs out, stretching your arms up above your head. Your apple cider in question was sitting on the folding table in front of you, right next to a stack of cardboard boxes and a slightly sticky scale that had seen better and considerably less fruity days.

Working at the you-pick apple orchard was one of your better seasonals, and even one that you could almost claim you enjoyed. If it wasn’t for days like this—slow days when nobody even stopped by to check out the place, and you were alone with a cloudy sky and a chilly breeze.

Currently, you were resting your feet after taking a long lap around the orchard, trusting that at nearly seven pm (quitting time!) on a Sunday, you wouldn’t be particularly busy with customers. And if any customers had stopped by and noticed the back-in-five sticky note you’d placed on the scale, they hadn’t stuck around to greet you.

Which you were fine with. Just fine with.

Theeen you heard the rolling crunch of tires on asphalt, and you snapped to attention, jolting upright in your chair and leaning forward to scan the driveway. It was shielded by apple trees, by you could make out headlights through the leaves and branches.

The sun was long gone by now, as result of the ever-lengthening autumn nights, and at that moment, staring dumbly at headlights, shivering in cute but seasonally ineffective overalls, you started to get a little wary.

What was the groundskeeper’s name? Gary? Garrett? Was he working today? You reached for the lockbox, fumbling with the key in the dark to get to the little list of phone numbers you’d been left with.

A quiet clearing-of-the-throat had you looking up from your unsuccessful attempt to open the lockbox, and you were rewarded with a tall guy, about your age, looking a little perplexed. Brow slightly furrowed. “Sorry, is the orchard closed?”

He was tall, dark, and his voice was deliciously husky, like he’d just woken up. You stared at him for a moment, suddenly feeling that your overalls were more than enough to keep you warm, and then you realized he was waiting for a response.

“Oh—no! No, sorry, we’re still open! You can take a box, and, um, really it’s self explanatory, just go and pick to your heart’s content and then I’ll weigh you out at the end.” You hurried up from your seat, pulling the stack of boxes apart so you could hand one to him.

He walked forward, reaching out to take the box from you, and rewarded you with an adorably crooked smile.

You melted at that, gazing back at him and thinking you could stare into those pretty brown eyes forever.

“Are you...” He let out a short laugh and stepped forward, pushing his hair out of his eyes so he could smile at you again. “Working much longer?”

“Just until 7.” Then you would have to pack up, stash the table, the chair, the lockbox… Call the groundskeeper…

“Hey,” he said, quietly, and you snapped back to alert, feeling your cheeks brighten in response.

“Sorry. Excuse me. It’s been a long 12 hours.” You laughed, but the sound was weak.

He glanced over his shoulder, absently flipping the cardboard box over in his hands, and then looked back at you with a rakish grin that stole the wind from your lungs. “Okay, crazy idea here. But I could really use the help of an apple expert like you. I’m home for the holidays and Mom wants to bake this pie from scratch with me...”

He raised his eyebrows, trailing off expectantly, still turning the box over and over.

Absolutely. You definitely wanted to show him the best trees to pick from. He could reach for all the high-up apples you’d spent the last 12 hours staring at. What were the chances of another person coming by the booth in the last 15 minutes before closing?

You came out from around the table, forcing yourself to walk leisurely and not to run, and flipped the sign on the table to CLOSED.

“Sure,” you pointed him down the nearest lane of trees, fighting back a smile of your own. “All the best ones are down this way.”

He tucked the box under his arm, falling in step beside you, and just as you were congratulating yourself on keeping your composure in front of an incredibly attractive guy, it happened.

Your foot landed on a rotten apple and you slipped.

Just as you were cursing the groundskeeper, already preparing for the mortification of falling in front of said incredibly attractive guy, fate intervened. You felt his arm wrap around your waist and pull you sharply to the side, so your back was pressed to his chest.

You froze. He froze. Collectively, your breaths fogged in the poor lighting, a cloud of frozen particles hanging in front of your faces.

He released you, and that husky voice was nearly urgent. “Are you alright?”

You turned to face him, blaming the pink to your cheeks on the dropping temperatures. “I’m fine! Thank you. For catching...”

He was holding onto your hand. When did that happen? His hand was warm, his palm and fingers calloused but gentle.

“Um,” you said, rather breathlessly, because you were still so close and his touch had incited a furor of butterflies in your stomach.

“You sure you’re alright? Your fingers are freezing.” His voice dropped, so you had to lean in to hear, and then he flashed you a quick, brilliant smile, there for an instant before he was looking at you very seriously.

“I don’t know.” You feigned intense worry. “It could be a precursor to frostbite, don’t you think?”

That smile came back, and he dropped the cardboard box, taking both of your hands in his and pulling you forward, even closer, so you were nearly touching, so he could bring your hands close to his face. For an instant, you were certain he would kiss your knuckles, but instead he breathed out, slowly, blowing warm air over your frozen digits.

You shivered, but this time it wasn’t the cold.

“You think… Maybe we should get out of here? Warm up someplace.” He released your hands, and moved instead to grasp your shoulders, one hand sliding down your ribs and hovering at your hip.

“What about the apples?” Your voice came out a whisper, a breath that froze in the air and dissipated just as quickly. With your hand pressed to his chest you could feel his heart beating, hard. He licked his lips, glanced away, and by the time he met your eyes again, you had all the answer you needed.

He gripped your chin, gently, brushing his thumb along the length of your jaw. Eyes fixed on your lips.

You were studying him, too, mesmerized by the pale of his skin and dark of his eyes and hair, by the little scar running through his eyebrow. He leaned in, and you tipped your head back, sliding your hand up from his chest to the back of his neck.

His lips brushed your cheek, the corner of your mouth, and you kissed him before he could pull away.

It was wonderful—his fingers digging into your hips as he pulled you sharply to his chest, the smell of his cologne, something spicy and subdued but still tingling in your nose as you breathed. Felt him, grinning as he kissed you, as his teeth grazed your lip.

It was wonderful, and then it was over. Just as quickly as it happened, he pulled back, keeping your chest pressed to his but looking you over very carefully.

You were overwhelmed, almost, by the look on his face, his eyes fixed on something about your throat. Your heart pounded in your chest, adrenaline making your hands shake.

Slowly, he raised a hand, abandoning his grip on your hip. Instead, he looped a finger through the dainty chain around your neck, pulling it out from underneath your shirt.

He studied it, the white gold charm depicting a rabbit, for only an instant before his eyes flicked back up to meet yours.

That rakish grin spreading quick over his face.

“What?” You were breathless. Chest heaving.

He leaned back in, letting your necklace fall back to its place against your throat. “Nothing. Just think I may have been looking for you.”

You pushed your fingers into his hair and guided his lips back to yours.

~

thanks!

[paracosmenthusiast]

Sundays

Just a quick Keanu x Reader fluff <3

WC: 700

~~

The smell of earth after rain.

You were strolling across the tennis court, shoes wet from running across the wet grass in the dark. The face of your watch reflected the time—a quarter past midnight—as you passed by one of the brilliant overhead lights.

It was well-lit, like any place on a college campus should be. But somehow you still felt encapsulated by darkness, a sheath of night slipping over your shoulders and down your spine all the way to your toes.

Arriving at your destination, you shrugged your bag to the ground and unzipped your racket. Ordinarily you wouldn’t be out here by yourself. You would be accompanied by at least three or four of your friends, bored after dark in Columbus, Ohio, with absolutely nothing better to do on a Friday night than hit the asphalt and kill some time.

Yet, here you were.

Thwack.

A bright green ball shot off into the darkness, turning oblong for a moment when it rebounded.

You adjusted your wrist, sent another one off. Watching the motion of your feet more than the motion of your racket was screwing with your grip, but you were more concerned by your still-healing knee.

“Hey.”

You whirled around, heart beat on the high line, the sudden motion straining your knee and nearly bringing you down.

“Oh—I’m sorry!” The newcomer rushed to help you, resulting in you awkwardly clasping his forearm but successfully avoiding eating asphalt. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to startle you.”

Trying to restore your heart to something below cardiac arrest, you looked up at the stranger. He was tall, lean but not skinny, with the most magical brown eyes you’d ever met and thick, dark hair falling into his eyes. Already flashing his teeth in a wide smile, half-sheepish.

“You’re fine,” you said, waving him off, righting yourself and smoothing a hand down your leg until it met your weak knee. Squinting up at him in the bright lights of the tennis court. “You’re so fine! I’m just—thank you. I have a bad knee, that’s all, so when I turned, I must’ve put too much weight on it...”

You were still distractedly pressing down on your knee, even though it didn’t particularly hurt. Trying to find somewhere, anywhere, to look. Because you were feeling a heat in your cheeks that wasn’t from your solo tennis session.

“Hope I’m not interrupting. Nobody’s usually out here this late, it gets lonely. I was on a walk when I saw you over here.” He was grinning again. You heard it in his voice, deep, husky, but still quiet. Your eyes made contact with his shoes—he was wearing black motorcycle boots, laces lazily knotted, a vivid green stem caught and snarled in the mess.

Now you were smiling, staring at a brightly colored flower stuck in his shoe, and then you were staring at his well-fitting pants, and then you were taking in how his black t-shirt hung off his very nice shoulders...

Oops. You redirected your gaze at once, meeting his eyes.

“Wanted to say hi,” he said, not that he needed to explain anything. “Uh—my name’s Johnny.”

“Johnny,” you said, unable to stop the smile spreading on your face. Rocking back and forth on your heels, smiling at him smiling at you, squashing down some odd, warm feeling in your chest.

He cleared his throat and looked around the court. “D’you come here a lot?”

You nodded, folding your racket under your arm so you could cross your arms, warming your chilly fingers. “Yeah, sure do. Normally some friends and I—I mean, we just play doubles. No real score. Just for fun.”

“Just for fun,” he repeated. “Maybe I haven’t been coming around often enough.”

“Yeah,” you nodded enthusiastically, “you sure haven’t.”

Grinning. Wow, you loved that grin. You might do anything to see that grin again. You swallowed, mouth almost uncomfortably dry, and gestured with your head back at your bag. “Wanna play?”

Surprise flit over his face. Then he was smiling, and nodding, tilting his head back so you could see the column of his throat as he laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

[paracosmenthusiast]

Cruel Summer 3

The final installment! Please keep in mind it's still 18+ with some ~steamy~ action.

WC: 2.3k

~~

With spring in swing and Will’s new curfew, Nancy was sitting three rows back from the boys at the movie theater and wishing she could be out with her own friends right now. With Steve.

She was starting to wish she’d bought popcorn. The movie wasn’t interesting, just some gross sci-fi flick that the kids wanted to see, and she was bored out of her mind.

More importantly, she was about ten minutes into the movie and she couldn’t get it out of her head that she’d seen Jonathan at the line for concessions. He’d glanced at her, briefly, but she’d seen him flex his hand, feeling the place where he’d cut himself so many months ago.

No. She was watching the kids.

Nancy slid out of her seat, ducking down and apologizing in a whisper to the people next to her as she tried to slip out of the theater. At the door, she glanced back, just to make sure the kids were fully engrossed in the film. They didn’t so much as look up, so she pulled the door open and slipped outside.

The air was a little easier to breathe out here, even filtered by the smell of stale popcorn and brightly colored slushies.

Nancy wandered down the hall, trying to be casual, her fingers curled tightly into a fist. She didn’t even realize how high her hopes were until she rounded the corner and saw the concessions stand was completely vacant except for an entirely too-bored employee.

Nancy’s heart dropped.

“Hey, thought that was you.”

And her heart stopped entirely. Nancy whirled around, one hand going to her chest. Jonathan was standing directly behind her, and started to smile apologetically, reaching out to steady her. “Sorry, Nance, didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She didn’t know what to say. This close she could smell his cologne, and she was thinking about that night in her bed.

Nothing had come of them after that. It felt further and further away with every week, even if she looked for him more and more.

“I was just taking my brother to the movies.” She was formulating a lie, already laughing at herself. “I wanted to say hi--”

Jonathan took her hand and started pulling her toward the doors.

“Oh—Jonathan, where are we going?” Nancy almost tripped over herself to keep up with him. He held the door for her, but only briefly before he was pulling her off to the side lot, where nobody really parked. They struggled over grass, dead from cars rolling over it, and past the dumpster.

“I just need to talk to you,” Jonathan said, finally, pulling her to a stop beside his car. “I didn’t want anyone to see you and get the wrong idea about us.”

That was bitter. She felt a wry smile twist her lips. “They’d get a much worse idea seeing us out here.”

His face fell, and at that moment, both of them seemed to realize he was still holding onto her hand.

Nancy cleared her throat. “Um, Jonathan. How are you?”

He blinked, and nearly flinched when she reached up to touch his cheek. “I’m okay, Nance. It’s...”

She waited. He was frozen, looking at her like a starved animal, like a man possessed. And then he blurted it out.

“Nancy, what happened to us?”

Her heart seized. “You didn’t wait for me.”

“I waited for a month.”

“That wasn’t enough time,” Nancy said. It was a whisper. She was still touching his face, thumb stroking over his cheek. She could feel the heat radiating off of him. “It wasn’t enough time.”

Jonathan leaned closer to her, so their foreheads were nearly touching. “How much is enough?”

Her lips were less than inch from his. She let her lips brush against his cheek, his jaw, trembling, almost standing on her toes with anticipation. His breath was shaky against her face.

She inhaled, that woodsy cologne, the smell took her back to that night, rosy light on her wallpaper, his body in the bed beside hers…

“What were we talking about?” She cleared her throat. “What?”

Jonathan cupped the back of her neck, pulling her in, and Nancy went willingly, melting into him, hands pressed to his chest, lips to his.

His teeth immediately found her lower lip, tugging on it, and she gasped into his mouth, one word: “Car.”

He pushed her against the side of the car, the kind of roughness she wouldn’t have anticipated from the oldest Byers, and put his hips against hers, reaching into his pocket and fumbling for the car keys.

She kissed his neck as he twisted the lock, and then he was pulling the door open and the two of them climbed into the back seat.

Barely had Nancy hit the seat before he followed her, and she felt his hands sliding up her shirt, gently kneading her breasts over her bra.

“Take it off,” Nancy breathed, struggling to stay upright, her skirt pulled all the way up exposing her pink underwear, his knee between her legs, warmth against her.

He wrapped his arms around her, up her shirt and unclasping her bra, and they worked together to pull the straps off, so she was bare beneath her shirt.

Jonathan pushed her (gently) down onto the seat, and then she felt his hips rocking into hers, a gentle but rhythmic grinding as he lowered his mouth to her stomach, kissing above her belly button.

She whimpered, and though it was unintentional, his name left her mouth.

What she really wasn’t expecting was the sharp nip of his teeth around her nipple, pushing her shirt up to make room. She moaned, an abrupt noise in the silence of the car, and in response he pressed himself against her, so she could feel how hard he was.

Moaned his name again, fingers going to his hair, and in response, he slid a hand between them, cupping her through her underwear and gently stroking.

“F-fuck...” Nancy threw her head back, arching her hips off the seat, eyes shut. “Jonathan--”

He kissed her neck, her jaw. When his lips found her mouth she kissed him back with a fervor, making up for every missed minute, bucking against his hand.

She tried to sit up, reaching for his belt, but barely had her fingers wrapped around the buckle before he pushed her back onto the seat. “Nance, it’s alright.”

His mouth was back on her nipple, teeth and tongue working it over, so her sentence was a string of high-pitched whimpers more than words.

“What?”

“I want you,” she whispered. “So it isn’t alright.”

He took his hands off of her, and though she protested by pressing her hips against him, it was only momentary because he was fumbling with his belt buckle, then unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans. Reached down on the ground, pulling condoms out of a box.

She tried to contain the hurt. “How many girls do you bring back here?”

“There’re two girls in the city.” He leaned down to kiss her, even as he was putting on the condom. “But that was months ago, Nance. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t be with someone else like this. You did something to me.”

She pulled him onto her, roughly, hands going up his shirt and digging into his back. It was all she needed to hear, especially with his mouth back on hers, gentle.

She wasn’t expecting it, so when she felt him press against the warm slickness between her legs, she gasped.

He stopped. “Are you okay?”

She met his eyes, nails digging into his back, and her voice was a growl. “Jonathan Byers, fuck me right now.”

A smile etched onto his face, lazy, and he pushed her flat onto the seat, and pushed himself into her.

She gasped the entire way in—It was tight, but didn’t hurt, wetness pooling on the seat beneath them and making the entrance easy.

His hips glued to hers, and he stopped there, rocking gently, one hand between them, thumb massaging her clit.

She uttered a curse, stammered it really, and Jonathan obediently began thrusting into her.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuckkk...” She knew she was leaving grooves in his back, but she couldn’t focus on that, could only focus on arching her hips to meet his thrusts, on the way his hands cupped her breasts, the way his lips and teeth felt on her neck. “Harder, do it—Ahh, ahh...”

She bit her lip, trying to silence the whimpers, head thrown back in pleasure. He had picked up the pace as she requested, and now thrust into her with some force, pushing one of her legs down to make room between her thighs.

She was hot. On fire, really, wetness running down her legs, pooling on the seat, her abdomen clenched tight as a spring. Every thrust was a cascade of pleasure, every stroke of his hand down her chest and side made her whimper.

“That’s really good,” Nancy said, trying to catch her breath. “That’s so good. Jonathan. Oh my god. Oh my—More—Harder.”

“Harder,” Jonathan said, and it was breathy, his voice. Husky. “You want me to fuck you harder?”

“Yess, please, fuck me as hard as you--” She was close to screaming now, her moans were loud and drawn out, clawing at his back and chest, pressing her hips up to meet him. She was so, so close…

His thumb on her clit was enough to send her into overdrive. She shook, violently, clenching around him, her moans trailing into something inaudible and high-pitched.

“Not quite yet,” Jonathan said. “I’m not finished.”

“Not fin--” She squeaked, unable to finish the words, because he was going deep now, every stroke hard and deep, until his hips slammed into hers, and she was crying his name.

“I like that.” Jonathan’s lips were inches from her ear. “You calling my name. You like it that much?”

She tried to nod, teeth on her lip, trying to contain the squeals.

“Don’t fight it. Let it out. Scream if you’ve got to...” His hand was gentle on her throat, thumb stroking the place where she felt her pulse beating erratically. “Come on, Nancy.”

He was goading her, and she was flying out of control toward orgasm. She started to cry his name again, and when she felt the pressure of his hand tightening on her throat, it did her in.

She was orgasming.

It was a hundred times better than the head of the shower, than her fingers rushed against her labia before school. He was driving into her without pause, hand around her throat, telling her what to do.

“Please,” she gasped, voice hoarse. “Jonathan, Jonathan, please. It’s too much.”

It was fireworks behind her eyelids, her stomach clenching, feeling her walls tighten around him with every thrust. The pleasure was enormous, but her skin was on fire. She felt like she was going to explode.

“I’m almost there.” Jonathan kissed her, gently, fingers loosening on her throat. She whimpered into his mouth. “Let it happen. You’re with me, alright? I’ve got you.”

Wetness on her cheek—tears slipping from her eyes, dripping off her jaw. It was all too much, the feel of his skin, the hotness of his breath on her neck as he thrust into her. She wanted the moment to go on and on.

His fingers were tight around her throat again, as her moans were building up to a crescendo again. “Come, Nancy. Again.”

She didn’t have a choice. She was tired and it was hitting her, wave after wave, his hips rhythmic and deep into her, pounding her into the seat. She let go, and felt a flood of wetness between her legs, orgasming hard, muscles clenching around him, squealing like a little girl.

“Good girl.” He hummed approval in her ear, kissing her cheek, letting go of her throat, kissing down her jaw and toward her lips, still thrusting into her, but harder and slower, until it hurt, until she was crying faster, whimpering his name, begging him to finish inside her, begging for him to keep going.

He thrust into her and she felt him stutter, hips jolting against hers, and he leaned into her. Chest heaving.

She couldn’t even speak. Tears trickling down her face, gasping for air, all of her skin red and hot and flushed.

“Jesus,” Jonathan said. Gently, he pulled out of her, so she ached without him, and then carefully flipped her skirt down.

Nancy reached for the back of the seat and hauled herself up, hair mussed and ruined, skin boiling, sweat sliding down her back. He was grinning that lofty grin, one hand on his dick, pulling the condom off and tying it.

She couldn’t speak. Mouthed a couple words, trying to figure out what to say.

“You loved it,” he said. He was kidding, she could tell from the openness of his smile.

“I love you,” was all she could say.

His mouth fell open. Smile vanished, just like that, all arrogance dissipated instantly. “You what?”

“I love you. I mean—I’m in love with you. That was—really good, that was really good, Jonathan, but… I just missed you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Shaking. “I didn’t know how badly I needed to be with you.”

“I don’t...”

“I’m not saying that because of this! I love you. I’ve loved you since that night in my bedroom. You stayed with me.” She held tightly to him, worried about where he was going, worried he might try to slide away as he had back then.

Until she felt his arms around her waist. “I love you too, Nance.”

Relief poured over her, and Nancy slid over the seat and into his lap, her soaked panties pressed to him.

“Movie’s still got at least forty-five minutes,” Nancy whispered. “Let’s go again.”

~~

Thanks for reading!

Go back to my Masterlist: Paracosm Enthusiast Masterlist

[paracosmenthusiast]

Cruel Summer 2

This is part of a collection I wrote a couple summers ago themed off (inspired by) the Taylor Swift song, and it's a Jonathan x Nancy ship! Please enjoy :)

WC : 1.4k

18+

ADVISORY: mature themes, *steamy* content

~

She woke up some time later, hearing the sound of her brother on the stairs and her mom talking in the kitchen.

“Nancy!” A harried whisper. Cut with stress. “It’s late. Almost 7:30. They’re going to see my car.”

Nancy could barely pry her eyes open. Her face was tucked against his neck, and her hand had drifted down to his stomach, to where she felt him shudder as she picked up her fingers.

Nancy rolled off him and sat upright, bleary-eyed. “Shit.”

Then she looked down at him. He was wide-eyed, clearly awake for some time, hair mussed. The urge to fix his bedhead was almost overpowering. “Uh, just… I guess climb out the window?”

He was climbing out of bed, stooping to the ground to grab his shirt, when suddenly her bedroom door shook violently.

“Nancy, why’s the door locked?”

Nancy couldn’t really keep the stress out of her voice. She jumped up out of bed. “I woke up late and I’m getting dressed!”

She frantically gestured to Jonathan, who was already sliding the window open.

“Well, hurry up. I think I saw Jonathan Byers’ car outside, do you know why?”

He froze. Nancy waved her hand, this time much more frantically. “Yeah, Mom, he’s… He’s picking me up for school?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Don’t you remember, I told you last night...” Nancy kept an eye on Jonathan. He slipped out the window, shaking his head, and when her window slid shut, she nearly ran to her closet. “I’ll be down in a minute, Mom.”

When they pulled up to school, Jonathan put the car in park and made no move to get out. Instead he looked at her, hesitant.

“So your mom doesn’t knock.”

She smiled, and they laughed for a minute. It felt good. Until silence fell back over them and Nancy sat there, trying to think of what to say.

“Thanks for driving me,” Nancy said. She was fiddling with her bag, avoiding his eyes.

“Great,” he said, and leaned toward her, his hand curled in a fist on the seat between them, she saw how white his knuckles were. “I… Nance, about last night--”

She looked up at him. She hadn’t heard him call her that before.

“We can just—forget about all of that. I shouldn’t have… You were in a weird place. I mean, it’s insane that any of that even happened.” His ears were red. She could see it around his neck, too, mostly hidden by the collar of his jacket.

Nancy looked away, out the front of the car. She could see Steve and his friends going through the doors ahead of them. They could look back at any minute. “If that’s what you want.”

“What do you mean, if that’s what I want?”

Without really thinking, she reached for his collar, pulling his face close to hers. Wanting to feel what she felt last night. But an inch from his lips and she suddenly remembered where they were and she exhaled, shaky, and slowly let go of his collar.

Instead she let her arms loop around his neck, so her chest was pressed to his, and she could feel his heart pounding even through his jacket. Maybe she wasn’t in control.

He was staring at her now. There was no avoiding what she’d done, and from this close, looking at his face, the softness in his eyes, vulnerable. “Nance, you don’t have to—do this. We can just forget about last night.”

It wasn’t cunning or mischievous, it was just… Him. God, it was her little brother’s best friend’s brother, it was Jonathan who always picked up Will and they’d hardly glanced at one another the last couple of years. Did they used to play together?

His voice came out a whisper. “Nancy?”

She closed her eyes, and it was bleak laughter. “I don’t think I can.”

She didn’t kiss him. But she did bury her face in his neck, breathe in that woodsy cologne. Until his fingers delicately landed on her back. Then she finally disentangled herself, rubbing her face on her arm, trying to pretend like she didn’t want to pull him on top of her right here in the school parking lot.

Jesus.

“I should get to class,” she said, not even looking at him, pushing the door open.

“Yeah,” he echoed. “Me too.”

They didn’t look at each other once, climbing out of the car, and Nancy felt like she was fleeing as she went into school.

NANCY THE SLUT WHEELER.

Only love makes you that crazy, sweetheart. And that damn stupid.

Nancy felt a strange fluttering in her chest, as she walked up to him. “Found some ice.”

She pulled the chair out and sat next to him. Barely heard him mutter the thanks, but he turned toward her, reaching out his cuffed hands. She ignored it, lifting the ice and gently pressing it to his face herself.

When she met his eyes, his were wide, concerned. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” She was starting to smile despite herself. “That was really stupid, Jonathan.”

Saw it in her head. The way Steve hit the ground. How bloodied his face had been. She’d… She hadn’t expected him to do that. She knew it was about what Steve had said about the Byers, about their family, about being a disgrace, and not about her and what they’d painted on the theater, but she felt a little bit of justice too.

“I know.” Whatever beginnings of a smile fell off his face. “I’m sorry, Nance.”

She shook her head, starting to protest, but he reached over and took the ice pack out of her hands, holding it gingerly to his eye. “No, I am. That was stupid.”

He looked bleak. She thought about Will. She thought about—Well, about his mouth on hers last night. Shit, she hoped to god Steve hadn’t seen that. Hadn’t seen Jonathan’s hands all up her shirt… Something stirred in her stomach again and she put her arms around Jonathan, pulling him into her, so his head rested on her shoulder.

“What are you--”

She ignored him. A moment later, the tension went out of his shoulders, and she heard him sigh. Wondered if the secretary’s words had any truth to them… He had to feel some kind of way about her, or else they wouldn’t have kissed. Not like that. It didn’t matter what he said about them—being in a weird place—acting strange—people who didn’t feel anything just didn’t kiss like that.

“Jonathan? Jesus, what… What happened?”

They pulled apart, and several officers moved over. Joyce had arrived.

“Your boy assaulted a police officer.”

The next couple of minutes were agonizing. The search through the car, the way the officers looked at them, the disbelief and anger on Joyce’s face. Nancy sunk lower in the seat with every minute.

And then they were shuffled off to Hopper’s office, to show him the pictures. To tell the story.

“Blood draws this thing?” Hopper was scanning the photograph.

Nancy reached out, but Jonathan’s hands were tightly clasped together, so she left her hand on his thigh. “It’s just a theory.”

Joyce asked to speak to Jonathan alone after that, and Nancy reluctantly backed off, but she couldn’t get herself to go all the way home. In fact, she hung just a little too close.

Saw the anguish on Joyce’s face as she questioned Jonathan’s actions. Saw Jonathan’s shoulders fall as he apologized. But it wasn’t enough.

“You act like you’re all alone out there in the world, but you’re not.”

Nancy felt a throb in her chest. She shouldn’t be listening, but she couldn’t help herself. He looked like he was going at everything by himself right now.

Heard the metal door slam shut.

Nancy didn’t look up. Not until Jonathan slid down against the wall and sat down beside her. Even then, it took her a while to speak.

“They’re just walking in there like bait. We have to… Do something. Help them.”

“You want to try to draw it out.”

She nodded. “I want to finish what we started.”

The Byers’ house was trapped and ready for whatever the monster was going to throw at them.

They’d screwed in the bulbs on the Christmas lights, loaded the gun. Nailed the bear traps. Poured gasoline. Rigged the place all over.

They were standing in the living room, holding the knives. Facing one another, less than a foot apart.

And together, on the count of three, they cut.

Blood welled up immediately, dark and crimson on her hand. A moment passed, and nothing happened. After another moment, they both breathed again.

Still, nothing was happening. There was enough blood flowing from their hands that Nancy grabbed the gauze, and they took a seat on the couch to wrap each other’s hands.

~

That's all for now, but go to part three here: Cruel Summer 3

[paracosmenthusiast]

Cruel Summer

This is part of a collection I wrote a couple summers ago themed off (inspired by) the Taylor Swift song, and it's a Jonathan x Nancy ship! Please enjoy :)

WC : 2.2k

18+

ADVISORY: mature themes, *steamy* content

~

“We’re all thinking of you.”

Jonathan found that hard to believe. Except that she was standing in front of him, her eyes fixed on his, and a little frown on her face. Eyebrows furrowed.

He looked over her shoulder at that. Barb, Tommy, Carol, and Steve. His stomach flipped. He could tell, he recognized that look. They’d been talking about him, and he highly doubted it came from a place of concern.

“Thanks,” he said, though he didn’t feel much like saying it.

“Jonathan--” Whatever she said next was interrupted by the ring of the bell. She fumbled, eyes dropping to the ground, and then to his immense surprise she reached out and touched his hand. “It’s going to be okay. He’s a smart kid.”

He tried to thank her, this time for real, but she was already turning and hurrying away.

“I’m so sorry.”

He was in too much of a daze to really take it in, as Nancy stood in front of him, arms crossed. It was just weird that they’d interacted so many times recently. It was like she was thinking about him or maybe he was imagining it because every time he saw her, it seemed like she looked his way.

And if he’d thought that was surprising, then he had simply no idea how to respond to her stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m so, so sorry, Jonathan.”

He froze, waiting for it to be over, or perhaps to wake up. Except she was still there holding onto him and his vision got oddly misty.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. It was miserable. Desperate. Muffled because her face was pressed up against his chest.

He wanted to thank her, for this, but that wasn’t what came out of his mouth, as he started to pull away. “It’s not.”

Her voice rose, several pitches higher, shook. “Oh, Jonathan. I know. I’m so, so sorry.”

She still hadn’t let him go. He felt close to awkward. Knew that he needed to break the embrace, except…

“Come on,” she said. “Let me—Just… Just let me do this for you.”

“Yeah, okay.” So against his better judgment he put his arms around her and hugged her close. She smelled nice, like strawberries, and he couldn’t resist the urge to put his cheek to the top of her head. His breath hitched. Knowing that he was crossing a line—

She backed up, enough to look up at him, her arms still loosely around his waist. He had no idea how to act, trying to avoid her eyes. “What’d you come here for, Nancy?”

At that, she finally let him go, and stepped back. “I need you to look at this picture.”

Nancy’s head was spinning. She couldn’t quite get her muscles to unclench, even though she was showered, even though she was clean and laying in the same pajamas in the same bed in the same bedroom as always.

She thought about the words for what felt like a long time before saying them. Worrying at her lip with her teeth. When she finally got the words out, they sounded impatient, as if she’d been having a conversation with him. “Can you just come up here?”

There was a hesitation, like he was processing what she said. But then she glanced over her shoulder and saw Jonathan climbing into bed beside her, and she turned fully away from him again, marginally relieved.

The next words were easier. More like she was offering hospitality to a guest, not having a boy in her bed. “You can get under the covers.”

“Nancy...”

She wasn’t sure where he was going with that, but she didn’t have time to risk it. “Please.”

The bed shifted as he tugged as the covers. And she knew he would be warm, knew it would be radiating off of him like he was her own personal space heater, and though she knew it wasn’t the best idea, she let herself inch over on the bed, until she was close enough to feel the heat coming off of him.

Yeah, that was alright. Nancy closed her eyes.

Saw it immediately in the darkness. A creature that had come too close to her. Something that had made her cold, deep inside where a blanket just couldn’t warm her. And Nancy reached out, eyes opening again, and her hands brushed his thigh over the covers.

“You alright?”

Nancy turned over, not quite meeting his eyes because she wasn’t sure what expression would wait on his face, and she took his hand. Her face was already heating up from his gaze on her so she turned back over, holding onto his hand, almost like his arm was around her.

For an instant when she closed her eyes she almost didn’t see the monster. Almost.

“What’s--”

Nancy turned back over, and this time she did meet his eyes, and that silenced him pretty fast. Though it was as bad of an idea as getting close had been, she turned all the way onto her side, tucking their joined hands under her head so she felt the back of his hand against her cheek.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered. “But I can’t close my eyes or I--”

Had to stop and calm herself. She was seeing it all over again. Even here, even in the floral-wallpapered room, even in the rosy light of her bedside lamp. And while she was focused on her breathing, Jonathan carefully pulled his hand away.

Wanted to act like it didn’t bother her but she was embarrassed. It was embarrassing to have him pull away.

Until she realized he wasn’t pulling away. Jonathan’s hand rested on her cheek, brushed her hair away from her face, his touch feather-light like he was handling something incredibly delicate and expensive.

“You’re here,” he said. “With me. It’s okay.”

“But what if it’s not?” She let her eyes trace over his face, the column of his throat, the peek of his collarbone from underneath his shirt. He leaned closer to her, so she had to drop her voice to a whisper, shaky, afraid that the moment would burst. “What if it comes back and there’s nothing we can do.”

He was looking her over, just like she was watching him, and then leaned in, slow. Hesitated for a moment as if waiting for her to pull away. But then his lips touched hers.

Nancy breathed him in, the smell of his woodsy cologne, it was familiar like she’d known him forever and when she slid her fingers into his hair, it was soft and his lips were soft and she pulled him closer.

They kissed for a long minute. Her eyes were shut and she could smell him and taste him and feel him under her fingers, one hand in his hair and the other clasped around his shoulder, and that was enough until his teeth grazed her lower lip. Almost as if by accident. The two of them jolted apart as if suddenly remembering what exactly they were doing.

Her eyes were barely open, staring at him, breathing uneven, fingers still tangled in his hair, and then she pulled him back to her lips. He went willingly, she felt his breath of relief on her lips as he kissed her, teeth pulling on her lip until she gasped, and then their tongues touched.

They jumped at that too, as if they were surprised at one another, as if they had no way of knowing this was happening. He shook, slightly, when she slid her hand up his shirt and felt the muscles on his back all tensed, ran her fingertips over his shoulderblade.

Broke apart for an instant, breathing wild.

They were looking at one another like they didn’t know each other. Nancy ran her tongue over her lips and her voice was breathy. “I--”

He was something close to anxious, his hand gentle on her face, thumb swiping over her cheek, but his expression was open and patient.

The words came out like somebody else’s, a whisper in the rosy light. “Get closer.”

His eyes widened.

Nancy turned flat on her back, already tugging his hair to bring his face closer to hers. His hand touched her thigh, she felt the warmth even through her pajamas, and then he hiked her leg up, and she startled when his hips landed on hers.

She could feel him, easily even through his jeans. That was definitely not a thought she’d had before. Jonathan Byers laying in between her legs, one of his hands touched her bare waist because her shirt had gotten twisted beneath her, and she shuddered at the contact.

But then his mouth was soft on hers, gentle. Fingers stroking the curve of her waist, other hand cupping her cheek. She pulled his shirt up, exposing his back so she could feel the musculature with both hands.

They broke apart again but this time only to discard his shirt, and then his mouth was back on hers and she was breathing him in again, that lovely, comforting smell, the warmth of his hips pressed to hers. She let her hands fall away from his back and then she was reaching for the hem of her shirt.

“Nancy.” Jonathan’s hand covered hers, pressing her hand flat against her chest, stopping her attempt. “You don’t have to.”

Firm. He met her eyes, and sat upright. Both of them started at the sudden pressure of their hips sliding together, and it cemented it in Nancy’s mind. She wanted this. Not like she’d wanted Steve Harrington—she had, she thought about how the lights of the pool had flickered and wavered all over the ceiling—but some other kind of way.

Nancy pulled her shirt up, her breasts barely hidden by the hem, and looked back at him. Not defiantly, but expectantly. “You don’t have to.”

But then she was reaching for him again, fingers sliding over the back of his neck, and he obediently lowered his head, lips on hers.

And she gasped into his mouth when his hand slid up her shirt and she felt his palm on her breast, fingers sliding over the nipple, teasing it. Gently pinching, gently pulling, until she let out a whimper and felt his chest shaking with laughter.

“Stop,” she whispered. “Jonathan, be quiet.”

“You’re the one making noise!”

They hesitated there for a moment, her nipple twisted between his fingers, mouths inches apart, hips glued together. And then they were both laughing, shaking trying to contain it. At least until his thumb circled her nipple again and she gasped, sharply.

His voice was hesitant. “Should I stop?”

They met each other’s eyes, and Nancy tightened her grip in his hair, pulling his mouth back to hers. She breathed out the words. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t, his hands on her chest, stroking all the way down to her stomach, to the soft flesh of her waist, until she was trembling underneath him, her skin almost on fire, a tight clench in her stomach. All she could think about was the shape of him between her legs, a friction that she liked all too much.

And when he pressed his hips into her, she gasped out loud, and he stopped, almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, teeth sinking into her lip. “Jonathan, I want it.”

He hesitated over her, his hips still flush to hers, and then he kissed her, but gently, and then he pulled away.

Her face was on fire, now. But it was more with embarrassment than desire. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re—You’re just scared. Anyone would… Act strange.” He gently tugged her shirt back down, and ran his hand over his face. She watched his chest heaving as he tried to calm his breathing. Wistfully, she wondered if he simply had to put his shirt back on, or if he’d leave it off.

“Okay,” she said, after a minute. They separated, and laid back down on either side of the bed, flat on their backs and staring anywhere but one another.

This time when she closed her eyes she pictured his bare chest above her, felt his fingers on her skin, his soft mouth on hers.

She wondered what his mouth would feel like on the tender skin of her breasts.

Or what his fingers would feel like, between her legs.

It was quiet for a long time, maybe ten minutes, and then Nancy turned on her side to look at him. He didn’t turn toward her, eyes shut. Face relaxed for the first time… Maybe ever?

She whispered in case. “Are you sleeping?”

He didn’t answer, and she scooted closer, until her knee was resting on his thigh, until she could touch her cheek to his bicep. She kept her voice a whisper, barely a breath. “It wasn’t strange to me.”

It hadn’t been strange. It had been wonderful. Though she probably shouldn’t have, she could hardly stop herself. Her leg was already up over his hip, so she placed her hand on his chest, where she could feel the steady beat of his heart.

With that sensation in her fingers, and the warmth from his body, she drifted off to sleep.

~

Thanks! Part two is here: Cruel Summer 2