A/N: Huge thank you to @mothmansbanker and @fuckoffbard for putting up with my ramblings, and thank you to @fuckoffbard again for beta-ing and helping flesh out my story. I would not have gotten this far without you<3
WC: 13k
Summary: For as long as you can remember, you endured blood stained visions of past lives disguised as dreams. You think they’re just that—dreams, until a strange man comes into town.
or
Remmick’s first love reincarnates as different people each time. After centuries of living without her, his humanity and morality chip away until he will do anything to keep her with him.
Taglist!: @boogiemansbitch , @faephoria , @doflamingadonquixote @2muchtosee2littletime @pom3granates Thank you for all the love on the excerpt!! (which takes place in part 2, whoops)
CW: MDNI 18+, Smut, Dub Con regarding Dream Sex, Unintentional Voyeurism, F!Modern!Reader, Mostly Soft!Pathetic!Remmick for part 1 but Dark!Remmick will make an appearance, Soulmates/Reincarnation, Obsessive Behavior, Stalking, Recreational Drug Use, Feral/Down Bad Behavior, Murder because this is Remmick we’re talking about, Author tries to be funny, crackfic taken seriously, gets better and darker at the end and in part 2 I promise, if i’m forgetting anything pls let me know
When the dreams began, they did so with merciful tenderness.
A younger, fresh-eyed you believed they were prophetic visions of a prince, the foresight of a romantic love story that filled you with a dangerous amount of hope. A hope accompanied by longing for that breathtaking moment where you would finally meet. In the beginning, they were benign, and the croon of a lullaby and wistful wonder would follow you into the waking world.
That naive innocence gradually degraded with each dream. As you matured, the grotesque intensity of them did too.
There was still the gentle warbling of a lilting accent, the promise of eternal devotion, and the freefall into young love. But it was accompanied with the overwhelming smell of rot, the vivid image of bodies swelling in the sun, and the anguish of being faced with a choice of allowing yourself to be stolen away or having loved ones ripped from you.
Tonight, it’s a mashup of the two. There’s a heavy and hot weight to the air, twisting gnarled roots, an ankle-long tight-fitted kirtle that was outgrown years ago and a novel concern of status. You’re wearing a skin you distinctly recognize as not yours, speaking a foreign language, yet somehow you understand the words falling from your lips.
You met him under the sturdy bough of a sycamore during the wind-down of a festival. Skin dry from the salty breeze wafting from the shore, fingers cracked and peeling. He was a bard. You cannot make out his face.
Never his face.
But the blue of his threadbare linen tunic is dazzling. So is the lilt of his voice as he serenaded you. You feel the stretch of a smile across your cheeks. The syrupy stick of elderberries as you pressed them between his lips. Heard your laugh ringing out at the crass swipe of his tongue over your fingers. Felt the warmth rushing to your cheeks when that laugh alone looked to be his ruin.
You didn’t see him again until you’re married off. Until the scenery shifts with no rhyme or reason, and you’re left standing in the woods in a dress stained with blood and ash. A vague memory of being dragged from the altar by something that can only be described as monstrous. A persistent ghastly image of him that strikes terror through you, though all you ever remember upon waking are red eyes and dripping fangs.
But you’re not awake yet.
The village was burning. Smoke fills your nose, throat, expanding into your lungs. Immediate, violent panic seizes you. Your breath comes in agonizing, painful pulls. A numbness starts to spread up from your fingertips, threatening to bring you under-
A whisper of your name slices through the fog of panic. Not the name of the person you’re inhabiting, no. Your name.
“Where are you?”
You jolt awake in a fit of heaving breaths, shooting up in bed, left with the lingering taste of ash and blood clogging your throat. Chills wracked your body as the sodden sheets twist around your damp limbs. Your pulse pounds heavy in your temples with illusions of suffocation.
A quick, frantic glance at the clock tells you that yes, you only have 20 minutes to arrive at your shift on time. Two were spared trying to calm the jittery nerves that left you trembling, only marginally successful in convincing your autonomic nervous system to calm the fuck down. From your experience, the worst of the panic would abate in the next five spent in a light-speed shower.
This is how it’s been for years. Every night.
Different lives. Different experiences. Different selves. But they all had one dread-inducing thing in common. The same fuckass nightmare demon that plagued your piteous attempts at rest.
When tentative diagnoses and logical explanations failed, you took to researching what bleary remnants you could recall from your dreams. The creature’s face could never distinctly be made out, but you caught a few terror-filled utterings of attributed names.
Nightwalker
Vampyr
Even a Nosferatu at some point, but you chalked that up to an active imagination bleeding into your slumber after a horror movie binge.
Because of this seemingly unprecedented haunting, you’ve never been one for the romanticization of vampires. You needed reliable sources, not sparkly, religious-coded bullshit that muddies your research. Not to mention the many discrepancies in the lore that make the truth as elusive as the face of your demon. In a Hail Mary attempt to feel safe, you ensured a steady stock of garlic, crosses you got a sweet deal on at the antique store, and a mix of silver and iron items strewn around your house.
Settling in a small town has the benefit of putting your mind at ease by providing a consistent sea of faces. A cozy cabin bordering the outskirts made for a perfect spot to anchor down. You had wrapped up the welcome mat that came with like it had cursed your mother, roughly disposing of it in a manner befitting personal betrayal. If you wanted the presence of a blood-sucking leech, you’d have gone skinny dipping in the creek behind your house. The same effect without the trepidation of blood-soaked dreams and piss-poor sleep.
You’re not necessarily a true believer in the supernatural, but the protective measures you have accumulated over the years alleviate your troubled mind for reasons you can’t explain.
Your roommate was as decent as they come. Charming until he opened his mouth, and then that charm was ruined forever. But you both stayed out of each other's way, said all of five words to each other annually, and split the responsibilities and the rent. It just so happened that your roommate had also been your kind of crazy, if in a different flavor. He was into survivalist, apocalyptic-style bullshit, and had no problem crafting you your own nail-infused bat after an inebriated, vulnerable confession about your troubles.
For that, you considered him a damn near best friend until a week ago, when he skedaddled right off to greener pastures. Left behind a note barely a sentence long and a glaringly obvious lack of payment for the month’s rent. It smarted just a little, though your bank account smarted more, and occasionally the thought of seeing his car wrapped around a tree on the way to work makes you feel better.
The lack of warning stung for several reasons; the most pertinent was that he knew you were out of a phone after the landline to the house was found cut, though he assured you an animal chewed it. Your own cell was awaiting repair from a fatal crack when you were shoved in a drunken altercation at your job.
And so paranoia became a familiar friend along with faulty memory and constant fatigue.
That means it’s not worth losing sleep over (ha) when your belongings fail to turn up in the place you vaguely remember laying them. But when you begin to notice an uptick in the phenomenon, a certain possession appearing where you definitely don’t remember putting it, or going missing altogether, your mind has enough ammunition to fabricate a manner of explanations, each one more upsetting than the last.
A picture of you and your childhood pet vanished off of the out-of-commission mantle. The only evidence it was there to begin with was the pristine clearing among the dust. And then, more alarmingly, clothing started to disappear. You’re prone to misplacing an item or two here or there, but there’s only so much time that passes before they turn up.
And you don’t have that many pairs of underwear to begin with.
You curse your roommate again, it becoming a daily mantra at this point as you prepare your worn-out body for another tiring shift.
It’s fitting that you meet him on a day as dreary as your dreams. Rain fell in thick sheets, mist curling around the bases of aged architecture, rising against the asphalt like steam. It painted a lovely, tranquil view, one of the redeeming qualities of this dead, small town.
You approach the bar you tend with little enthusiasm. The building hails as the town’s crown jewel, standing proud and apart from the crowded nestling of the adjacent buildings.
You breeze in, make your apologies to your coworker who waves you off with a flick of her hand. There hasn’t been a full house lately and no one sticks around town long besides the old timers. If you haven’t been so out of whack, you would have noticed the man at the bar watching you, and had been for some time.
Time sluggishly passes as you serve drinks.
The consolation that usually comes from the pacifying, dimly lit area is nowhere to be found tonight after your nightmare. Each sensation seems to wear down your already high-strung nerves, pulling you back into that moment of panic-stricken terror.
The hum of a ceiling fan and noticeable absence of a working air conditioner makes your skin slick with sweat. The permanent aroma of cigarettes and alcohol congest your throat, reminiscent of the phantom ash and blood you were hacking up this morning. The tumultuous sounds of revelry ramp up as the night goes on. More than once your trembling hands overfill a few drinks.
At least the rowdier bar-goers haven’t been seen for some time. You make an effort to be friendly enough to the customers, but the occasional, normalized harassment you’ve undergone would’ve sent you over the edge on a night like this. A murder charge definitely would’ve been in your future.
The monotonous swipe of the rag over glassware goes without conscious supervision. That dream still lingers in the back of your mind, digs its claws into your shoulders and amplifies the weighted pull of your limbs to the earth. It’s a constant effort not to shuffle your feet, but it’s a battle mostly lost as they’re leaden with the weight of fatigue.
“I think that one’s as spotless as it’s gonna get.”
A melodic drawl from the far end of the bar top pulls you from your trance with an irksome abruptness. You blink, eyes cut to a man you vaguely noted in your periphery since the beginning of your shift.
The ambient lighting curls around the angles of his face, handsome features toggling between accented and concealed whenever he adjusts his position. He meets your gaze with a seemingly sympathetic one, steady until he nods at the cup you’re holding.
His eyes glisten in the warmth of the light but they’re dark, discomforting in a way that has your grip tightening around the glass.
They’re leagues better than the beady, blood-slick ones that haunt your nightmares, but you’re still not a fan of these. There’s an emptiness to them, cold and prying and knowing, like they’re picking you apart without you having to say a goddamn word.
You blink again.
“That it is.” You offer to top off his drink as you get to working on the counters, but he politely refuses.
From your margin of view, you note his eyes seem to track your movements unabashedly. You pretend not to notice, it’s not your first time dealing with a scenario like this, and observe him as subtly as you can.
Although he was well-dressed, his dapper clothes carried a worn, lived-in appearance. The discernible smell you clocked earlier was revealed to be emanating from him. He had an earthy, musky scent that carried a faint metallic trace — not exactly pleasant, but you’ve smelt worse. A gold chain sat at the base of his neck, vanishing beneath his button-up as if weighted by a pendant or something with similar heft.
At some point during your sly examination, you notice his nostrils flaring slightly when you walk close enough. That has you pausing, second-guessing if the shower you took before work was another fevered, hyper-realistic hallucination. And yikes, wouldn’t that be karmic if you were judging this poor man and his coppery aroma when you yourself reeked of sweat and insomnia. Said sleep deprivation clouds your decision-making, and you not-so discreetly take a whiff of yourself.
Not one for subtly either, apparently – he clocks it immediately and begins damage-control, stuttering out appeasements.
“Oh– no, miss. You smell real nice. Woodsy. Sweet.”
You can’t say the same to him, but you’d been using the scent of coins and desperation as a grounding sense whenever thoughts of your nightmare reared up. So you guessed you owed him an only slightly apprehensive pleasantry, “Thanks.”
He perks like a flower receiving a plethora of water after a nasty dry spell, apparently taking your response as a go for conversation, and excitedly prattles on.
“Oh, it’s a gift of mine. Could’a been a sommelier, if my heart weren’t set on music.”
He gets a hum in response, but he’s still staring at you, and you feel more than a bit pressured to offer a stilted effort to converse with him.
“Maybe one of those airport sniffer dogs.” You muse. He does give off a feral energy. Kind of reminds you of the stray cat that comes around your house once in a while. Sweetly imploring for scratches until he decides halfway through that your hand is the enemy.
“Woof, woof!” The man chuckles good-naturedly. “I’ll have to consider that if my passion doesn’t work out.”
You take some pity on him, eyes roving over the gradually emptying bar and the rustic clock above the pool table. It’s a while before your shift ends and admittedly, your curiosity has been tickled. “What kind of music do you play?”
He brightens like you just handed over the keys to the bar and open-access to the register. This man must not have an extensive social circle, evident for several reasons beyond questionable hygiene and his ardent interest in remaining here.
“Folk, mostly. But I dabble in just about anythin’. Say, you have live music here?” His eyes flit to the radio behind the counter, an almost distasteful glint in them that vanishes when they return to you. “I would love to offer my talents.”
“Sometimes. You staying in town long?”
“For the foreseeable future, yes ma’am. There’s just-” His face twists slightly, and you come to the weary conclusion that this man has a thing for dramatics, “just one little hiccup. I’m lookin’ for an affordable place to stay. Money bein’ tight and all.”
Something in the way he says it makes you pause. This whole conversation felt off to you, though you can’t accuse him of any ill-intent without sounding paranoid. This chat between the two of you feels as though he’s fishing for something; a pervasive theatricality wound through his every word.
“There’s an inn.” You politely ramble off directions, pointing out the obvious solution.
There’s an almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes, if you blinked you would’ve missed it. Not the answer he wanted to hear. It’s unnerving as much as it is vexing, but you tolerate your job and well-being, so you go for mitigation.
“Let-uh, let me hear something! Can’t promise you anything until I talk to my boss, though.” The rag gets abandoned behind the counter in favor of you leaning against it on your elbows.
Just like that, whatever tension was in the air dissipates. He amps up the prior enthusiasm, along with what some could refer to as charm, and pulls a hard case you never noticed from seemingly thin air, but really just under the counter top.
“Oh, you - wow. You really came prepared.”
“Sure did!”
It’s a banjo. Not what you were expecting but it oddly suits him.
He gets up with flair, brandishing the instrument like a fifth limb. And then he’s singing, a voice so dulcet and infatuated that it calls to your beleaguered soul. He had knelt for you, kissed your hand in a respect designated for royalty, unfitting of you. The echoes of it hum on your skin as you listen, enamored. You want nothing more than to find salvation in those fluctuating notes, those honeyed words offering no reprieve, voice going hoarse upon mentioning your beauty-
You flinch slightly. The striking familiarity of this scenario to the one in your dream makes you queasy, and bile with the incriminating viscosity of blood fills your mouth.
The man goes to pause, more than a little troubled by your reaction, and something like disappointment dawns on his face. You wave a hand, expression hopefully conveying the ‘it’s nothing’ you can’t ground out. Hopefully you passed it off as a bad case of acid reflux.
You shake your head slightly to rid yourself of the nausea and the residual blur cast over your vision. Now’s not the time to detach from your surroundings, and the poor dude only wants a gig. He’s just a flamboyant little guy, with no blood stained claws or grisly teeth. Get it together.
At least he’s playing a song you know, previous theatrics bleeding into his performance in a way you should’ve anticipated. His persistent efforts chip away at any lingering solemnity of yours, breaking you down until your laugh rings out in response to a few of his eccentric animations. He basks in the attention, is encouraged by it, if his increased vigor is anything to go by. The little blip in his performance seemingly slips both of your minds.
When he finishes, you applaud in a manner befitting a standing ovation. His excessive personality is contagious in his performance and successful in pulling you from your anxious, sleep-deprived funk.
“Thank you, thank you!” He accepts the praise humbly, executing a graceful bow that drags another giggle from you.
“That’s one of my favorites, actually.”
Once again, alarm bells ring in your head as that look creeps across his face again, a deceptive quality to otherwise earnest words. “Really? Ain’t that somethin’.”
The red flags he’s raising are put on the back burner as you two get to talking about music, the man - Remmick, he introduced himself as - displays a formidable intelligence of all facets of the topic, including ones broken off as subsequent tangents. At some moments it’s difficult to remember this man is a stranger, but damn is he disarming. Enough so that you allow minute aspects of your life to bleed into your answers until closing time creeps up on you.
The silent, ever-present skepticism rears its head when he stays after your last call announcement, after you begin cleaning up for the night, and after you give him a not-so-subtle hint that he’s welcome to go try his luck at the hotel you mentioned.
For a moment, you think he’s going to push the inquiry until he bids you a kind, if a bit crestfallen farewell.
Odd fellow.
—
The next day passes without the odd encounter at your work. You think you’re in the clear, until a knock at your door alerts you that your relaxing night is about to be rudely interrupted.
And of course it’s this fucking guy. All the land on God's green earth and he lodges himself nicely up your ass in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
You sigh, resting your forehead against the door with exasperated disbelief. Just your luck, truly. With a glance at your roommate’s innovative weapon in the corner, you reckon your chances of taking him are pretty high. He’s not exactly imposing, and the threat of him is mostly limited to talking you into a coma, so you open the door with no small amount of irritation.
“Look who it is!” His eyes widen in astonished recognition. Too quick. Too counterfeit.
“What are you doing here?” Wariness has your response low and curt, displeasure ringing out clearly in your tone.
“I heard tale that a vacancy has opened up. Straight from the horse’s mouth.” His hands slide into his pockets, feet shuffling with beguiling innocence. He’s not fazed by your tone. In fact, you’d say he looks thrilled at your visible disturbance.
“…Wouldn’t that be me?” You’ve only informed a few people about your roommate jumping ship, but intel around here circulates like blood in the goddamn body. For all your chatting the other night, you took care not to broadcast that you were living on your lonesome now to an unusual newcomer. Damn loudmouths.
He laughs long enough for it to be awkward (yeah, even more awkward), shaking a finger at you like you had told him the first joke he’s heard all year. You don’t join in.
“I guess so! But no. Just word of mouth, y’know. Small town. Nice people.”
That last bit feels pointed. You get a feeling it’s a subtle dig at you. He looks right into your eyes as he says it, smiling, but forgoing his animated expressions to drive the point home. Silence stretches between the two of you and he clears his throat.
“Well, today is your lucky day, darlin’!”
Something tells you that you two have wildly different concepts of luck, seeing as Remmick is cheesing like a strange man at your doorstep is something you should be particularly enthused about. One that still smells like coins.
“Why.” Distrust pours off of you in waves.
“Rentin’ a place on your lonesome in this economy.” He shakes his head at the ground, face pinched as if the idea offends him. “And findin’ good housemates is as scarce as hen’s teeth. But! Here I am. Ready to offer you my company and my money.”
He says that last part conspiratorially, like your panties are supposed to drop at the mention of cash. Maybe pop out a tit or two. The confidence in his pitch has your mind bending over backwards trying to figure out when you were dropping hints that you’d love sharing a house with a man that checked off all the boxes of serial killer.
“What makes you think I’d be a good housemate?”
“Why, from our chat at the bar! I can tell we’re similar. You like music-” He recites with raised eyebrows in a see how close we are expression, “And I, well, I happen to be a musician. We’ll get along real well.”
His convincing points seem to start and end there, but Remmick fucking beams at you. It’s as if he’s conversing with an old friend instead of someone he met days ago. You want to chalk it up to him being a friendly fella, but a nagging feeling tells you to be on your guard.
At your silence and more than likely suspicious expression, his brow creases. Doe eyes widen in a way that threatens to break into a pout, appearance ranging from a pathetic please be my friend to a more intense why don’t you love me. A true performance so dramatic it was painful. You nearly wince.
“Can you stop with that look?” You barrel on as his mouth opens in slight offense. “You’re acting like I kicked your puppy, man. Look, these things usually take interviews. Deliberation. Not drop-ins in the middle of the night.”
“I don’t recall being offered an interview when we met the other day-” His tone and countenance suggest that you’re the one being unreasonable, here.
“Are you kidding! You think I’m going to take roommate applications at my work? At a bar? With someone I just met?”
“I reckon we’ll be thick as thieves come the end of the week. I swear on my Mama, God rest her soul.” Remmick clasps his hands in prayer to emphasize his plea.
You have half a mind to tell him to go fuck himself, and maybe his Mama too.
“How about I give you my- shit.” You ignore his eyebrows shooting up at your vulgarity. There’s no working phone for him to have the number to, not that you’re particularly eager to share it with him, but you’d like to wrap up this conversation in the foreseeable five minutes. “How about you come back in a week?”
His hands slowly lower, dejected. He grimaces, hissing through clenched teeth as he prepares an answer you know will piss you off.
“How about somethin’ on a more immediate timescale?”
“How about no.” You give him the best mean-mug you’re capable of, and he relents.
“Then I’ll be on my way. But I’ll be around town, just in case you change your mind.” The show he’s putting on is truly impressive. He throws on a polite smile that conveys his disappointment, nodding to himself as he strolls away at an unhurried pace you know is fabricated, because this man is nothing but a ball of energy.
Your heart squeezes a fraction, but one quick gander at the situation in its entirety curbs any scraps of guilt you have.
—
Remmick’s melancholic departure would be a lot more impactful if he wasn’t back the next night, claiming his shaded barstool in the corner, and you tell him as such.
“Y’know, your dramatic exit doesn’t hold as much weight if you just come back the next day.” You attempt a mirthful jibe, if only to kill any hard feelings that may be festering. He does know where you live, after all.
Thankfully, Remmick doesn’t seem to harbor any, because his demeanor enlivens at you making conversation with him, and he plays into the repartee with wit of his own.
“I held off long as I could. Gave you time to cool down...” He says that last part gingerly, like you being unaccommodating was the result of an unpleasant mood.
“It’s not even been a full 24 hours!” You blurt, more than a bit incredulous.
“What can I say? Just can’t keep away from you.” His eyes flick over you, flirty, yet fleeting enough to be respectful for an action that’s more lecherous than not when performed by other customers. The dazzling smile he gifts you after helps more than a small amount. “Y’know, there was a time when women would find it flatterin’ to have a suitor.”
“Yeah? I can find ten of you at the gas station, so.”
“Alright.” Remmick smiles a little too wide for a joke that was more than a half-truth, hand raising to clutch his pearls with a slight scoff. “Why’re you single then? That sunny personality?”
Ouch. He had a few half-truths, too. Though his good-natured ability to take a joke is contagious, so you figure you can play into the one at your expense as well.
“Burns too bright, man. They can’t handle this.” You raise your eyebrows, shrugging in a ‘what can you do’ fashion. You hope the unsaid you can’t either rings out just as clear.
“I bet.” He stares at you, a crooked grin and that thoughtful intensity back on his face.
You hum, shaking your head as you go to serve someone else and ignore the way your skin burns with his eyes on you.
—
You should have expected the misinterpretation of your attempted friendliness.
That tick you had to pull out of your arm one afternoon should’ve been taken as the foreshadowing it was, because it accurately summed up the next few weeks. They pass like a fever dream, with varying, conflicting emotions to match.
You’re wary, sure. But Remmick doesn’t strike you as the typical tail-chaser, and nothing untoward has happened in your conversations besides the pleading to let him come live with you.
The look in his eyes does set you on edge, often triggering goosebumps erupting on your flesh when you just feel them on you. It’s not outwardly lecherous, though you have caught a hint of that, too. Several times when he thought you weren’t looking.
While the general populace was mostly cordial, there’s a few times where you’ve been on the tail-end of some seedy-as-hell looks that have you clutching your keys between your fingers on the way to your car. Once or twice things have gotten physical, but the miscreants responsible haven’t come by the bar for some time. A little before Remmick breezed into town, actually, with his banjo and comely smiles.
All that said, you could do worse in terms of admirers. It is a reasonable classification to make, because Remmick comes around your job and home like clockwork, as if he had all the time in the fucking world to pester you. He is frustratingly patient with your dismissal, unlike you.
You feel like a broken record as you rehash the same talking points with thinly veiled irritation.
No, Remmick, this is not your porch. No, Remmick, it isn’t acceptable to play banjo in a stranger’s yard at 2 a.m.. No, Remmick, you can’t live with me.
The bizarre image pops into your head of you parenting him with the No, David! storybook, a round-eyed Remmick sitting criss-cross on your porch, chin resting on closed fists, ooh-ing and aw-ing at the appropriate moments. Soaking in absolutely none of the pertinent lessons you’re trying to get across.
It’s fair to question whether he’s playing with a full deck here, given the amount of times you have to hold his hand through the explanation that he is a strange, strange man, and that just because you share a similar taste in music and films, it doesn’t indicate a compatible roommate arrangement. Though you’re fairly certain he was lying about sharing your taste in movies, anyway, because he couldn’t name a single plot point of one when you pressed him further.
Unfortunately, you begin to acclimate to his Remmick-ness the longer you’re around him.
It helps that Remmick has shown up on a few occasions with gifts that are…actually welcome. Scarily accurate to your current, unmentioned interests and needs. And because you’ve made the mistake of accepting one of his offerings, the walmart-brand sugar daddy he fancies himself as (yes, the one that begs to live with you) persists until you threaten not to open the door to him anymore.
Despite your best efforts to corral your foolish emotions, his affection and attention are more than welcome. Affection and attention, period. Full stop.
He’s not alone in his gift giving, because one day you find yourself offering him something in return: a few fragrance oils you have a fondness for. You tell yourself the thrill that comes with that has a psychological attribute that lies in loneliness and a lack of romantic experience, and has nothing to do with the primal satisfaction you get when he begins to smell like you.
Anyway, it’s more for your benefit than his. You can tolerate his natural, pine-scented musk, enjoy it on a good day, but those metallic whiffs you got occasionally had to go. Of course, Remmick’s ecstatic, like he usually is when you give him the time of day and you had no qualms finding a way to stifle his happiness. The one you land on is to inform him that he reeks of pennies, and you come to the heartbreaking discovery that he thinks he smells great, mouthwatering even (his words, mind you). You accept that the two of you will have a dissenting opinion on the matter.
That becomes a recurring theme in your relationship.
—
“It’s going to be hard to fight off rumors of my suitor when I have a man that’s constantly at my work.” You greet him with one night, taking a slow gander at the styrofoam cup he snuck in. “And don’t say it’s for the beer.”
“Nothin’s stoppin’ you from confirmin’ those.” Remmick’s lips close innocently around the straw. Outside beverages are against policy, but his rebuttal was that he needed all his money for a room after you denied him yours, and you waved him off before he could beat that dead horse. The alternative was a shift without Remmick, which would be peaceful if a little boring. He also quickened the closing process by helping you clean, so you let him keep his contraband.
“I’m not sure how to interpret that.” Your heart skips a beat, and in a rush of bashful delusion, you’d say his eyes glanced towards the malfunctioning organ.
“Interpret it any which way that pleases you, darlin’.” His smile is complacent with a deliberate amount of irreproachability.
And if a grin of your own splits your face as you turn to grab a glass, that’s your business.
—
Remmick is a bit of an old soul. You clocked that from your first conversation, one you used to attribute as overwhelming, but now seems performative and stifled upon comparison with your current nocturnal chats. In the late hours of the night, his mask slips and he doesn’t take care to organize his words with his usual methodical precision.
There’s times where you sit together in easy, cordial silence more revealing than some of your discussions. You, lounging on your swing with mellow contemplation as you study him, furtive. And Remmick, perched on a step with an elbow propped up on the porch, pen between plush lips as he ponders his scripture. The creak of the wood as he shifts to document a sudden thought, the scratch of his pen against the parchment.
There’s something familiar about him, yet he’s entirely unique to you. You’ve certainly never had a man dancing a jig on your porch late into the night. You’d wish he’d take that shit somewhere else, but, okay, he’s not bad. Pretty damn good, actually. And maybe you’re a bit sore because you feel the equivalent of a female bird, mesmerized by his impressive stamina and bones that are seemingly made of rubber. It’s all well and good until he tries to rope you into his antics.
“Dance with me.” He says, tone soliciting after he caught your intrigued stare over the pages of an abandoned novel. He extends a hand and wiggles his fingers alluringly.
“Tempting as that is, no.” You savour his petulant response. He must feel a bit more dramatic than usual tonight, because his arm falls heavily to his side, clearly peeved.
“That's your favorite goddamn word, isn’t it?”
“One of them. Want to hear some others?” You huff, book thumping as it hits your lap. His responding sigh is all suffering, like this isn’t a hell of his own making.
“As long as they’re for me, darlin’.”
—
A month passes and giddy expectation stains the hours leading up to each shift. You waited as long as you could to inform him that he did, in fact, get the gig. Just to see how long he’d stick around on his own. Remmick reacted with the fervor you expected, hands clasped to his chest in gratitude despite it being out of your hands. Sarcastically, you asked if he was pleased.
“I sure am, honey. Now I get to bother you on a frequent basis.”
“Already being done, I promise.”
—
On another night, you’re riding a nice high after finding your roommates stash of weed. You guessed a few clothing items was a more than welcome trade if this was the pay off. Hell, you’d ship him more pairs of panties if he let you keep it. But he would no doubt be back once he realized the gold he left behind, and for a moment, you seriously consider fighting him for it. You could, the kid was a noodle and at one point you had a steady streak of arm wrestle victories over the last pack of ramen. Those are fond memories between the two of you. Part of your annual five-minute interactions.
And now you’ve made yourself sad, wading down memory lane while you’re inundated with raw, unprocessed emotions.
No one had ever stayed long. Romantic or transactional, last roommate not included. Not after nights of waking up screaming, with sheets soaked in sweat and terror. It’s not like you’ve been sitting on your ass about it. You’ve tried therapists — hell, even a few charlatan dream analysts on a reddit thread — but the gas money for travel got progressively less worth it when the night terrors didn’t diminish, only persisted vehemently.
It’s stifling. Maddening. Lonely.
But the cannabis helps, because for now, you’re hazy and hyper aware of every sensation that draws your attention, with less than half of them managing to keep it. It’s fine. It’s great, in fact. Not to mention the potential of the blissful absence of dreams, or at least the memory of them come morning.
Normally, a knock at the door while stoned will send you into rubber-room paranoia, but you know who it is. You know that knock, have heard it nearly every night. It’s your friend. Remmick, who was keen on wasting his own time for the simple purpose of wasting yours too.
Tonight, you throw open the door with too much enthusiasm and pretend to nurture his demented idea of living together. He presents a hard-fought case, with potent impenetrable reasoning you find yourself nodding along to. Fortunately, you know better from your dreams, and promised yourself not to make any hasty inebriated-adjacent decisions after…the last few times.
And he’s talking about family now. You think it’s a bit of an odd topic to transition to when-
“... a damn shame how individualistic society’s become-”
The desolate realization hits you that you have never seen Remmick basked in full sunlight. Now that is a damn shame. A true tragedy. How those lustrous eyes would glitter, the LED glow of porch lights a poor match for the golden radiance that would wind around those dark curls of his. Those short, damp curls, brilliant shades of chestnut and auburn set aflame. How soft would they feel beneath your fingers-
“You listenin’ to me?”
You hum noncommittally. You need to get him into the sun.
“We need to get you in the sun.” You propose, butting into his draining spiel to pay him a very generous compliment.
Oddly enough, Remmick responds as though you’ve threatened to neuter him right then and there. Honest-to-God flinching back from you.
“...Why?” The slow stretch of the word in his pretty accent rings out into the night.
“No reason.” You shrug, finding a new aspect of his face to appreciate. The pull of his brow towards his hairline put those large eyes of his on display, providing an ample view of those perilous, dark beauties. You can see a prominent fang amongst cute, packed teeth, not at all like those dreadful ones in your dreams. Wait, why is he gaping at you-
“...you know somethin’?”
He looks incredibly suspicious of you, like you’re the oddball here.
“Not really.” You shrug, relaxed if slightly confused. Not exactly an unfamiliar phenomenon when you get high. Nothing to be alarmed about. Remmick doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. “What were you saying?”
He cautiously pursues the train of thought you gracefully interrupted, tentative at first and still staring at you like you’ve grown two more heads. Soon enough it picks up full speed as he drones on, if a bit hesitant to outright allude to the selfishness of your actions like before.
He has you questioning if you were toeing the edge of too high, but the room isn’t spinning and there’s no perceptible sensitivity that accompanies a green out. Maybe your roommate’s shit was laced-
“…fellowship…family.”
The pronunciation of the last word gives you pause, the southern cadence falling away to something your head goes foggy trying to place. You fumble with your train of thought before offering up a solution that, in your humble opinion, is a damn good one.
“Look… there’s a community center in the next town that hosts some cultural nights you can go to, a Renaissance Fair or Comic-Con, maybe is what you’re looking for… I can give you the email-”
“No, no, no, that’s not-.” He sighs, hand making to pinch the bridge of his nose before he abandons the action, opting to settle his hands on his hips like a disappointed father. “Thought small town folk were supposed to be friendly.”
Maybe it’s the ridiculous situation you’ve found yourself in, maybe it’s the weed but you can’t help it, you laugh.
It’s abruptly loud, and harsh, and you’re gawking at him with a toothy grin and eyes that are probably bloodshot. All highly attractive. But one look at Remmick wouldn’t confirm the revolting wince you’d expect to find.
At first, he looks shaken, and your head spins when you take in the wistful, tender look he doesn’t attempt to keep off his face. And then, because he’s keen to see how far he can milk it further with an exaggerated, southern drawl, he carries on.
“But you,” He shakes a finger at you disapprovingly. “You’re meaner than a goddamn rattlesnake.”
You’re still giggling as he critiques your absent hospitality, pulling a plethora of recent examples you’ve armed him with out of thin air. Ticks each one of them off on his fingers and then holds his palms up in mock surprise to show you he’s run out. You wave a hand at him to stop, cheek pressed against the wooden panels of the door and split with an uncontrollable smile.
He beams back at you, faux indignation gone, and you’re dazed momentarily.
He looks so, so handsome when he smiles. So enraptured and pleased and drawn inexplicably to you. The authenticity of this look more or less confirms the weary suspicions you had about the genuineness of his previous ones. Those primitive survival intuitions claw through the dumb-struck haze clouding your senses, and you go to bid him farewell in your usual rattlesnake fashion.
“That lets me know I’m doing something right. Away with you,” You halt the closing of the door to throw in a saccharine, “please,” complete with fluttering eyelids.
Remmick seems desperate (when is he not, really) to keep up the hard-fought, genial momentum. In his haste, and with your absent cognitive faculties, the delivery of his next words is poor and easily misconstrued.
“Wait, wait, you gonna give me some?” He cocks his head, brows raised in mock sternness.
“...Pardon?” You force your eyes to narrow at the assumed proposition. Now that was forward, and more than a bit slimy considering your altered state. You’re still flattered and slightly interested, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“You reek like a muhfuckin’ skunk. You holdin’ out on me?”
“Oh.” Ah. Right.
You pluck the joint from where you stashed it on the ashtray, fiddling with a lighter and taking another hit yourself to irritate him. He wiggles his fingers out threateningly when you blow smoke in his face, muttering he’s gonna run out of toes to count on, too. You gingerly hold the joint out to him, careful to avoid his touch more than the burning tip, and he takes it between pinched fingers.
It's an instant regret for the rest of the night, because now your slutty mind has a fresh image to mull over. Remmick, with a J dangling from his lips, glowing tip battling a gust of wind as he strums a tune. Remmick, smoking and performing with a molten fluidity you’re jealous of just as much as you want to jump his bones for.
No. Hasty. Decisions. While. High.
You reprimand yourself with your full, government-issued name. It’s still a mighty effort to bite back the “come on in, partner!” you want to chirp at him, accompanied with an arm thrown wide to welcome him into your home. Take the tour straight to the bedroom.
Strangely, extraordinarily, he doesn’t press the issue tonight. Bids you farewell with a good-natured ‘get on to bed’, complete with an authoritative eyebrow quirk and a raised pointer finger. You raise a finger of your own in return, laughing as he mentions something about ‘ladylike’ and a ‘mind your manners.’
__
You braved the journey to work the next day with only mild brain fog and an intimate amount of fatigue.
“There she is. You alright there, party animal?” Remmick greets you from his normal spot, fond amusement coloring his tone at your slightly disheveled appearance.
“Please, I’m gonna live forever.” You joke, and something strange happens to Remmick’s face then. What was meant to make him crack one of those charming grins seems to drain him of energy. In a second, he looks haunted, or something of the like, eyes going unfocused for a brief moment.
“Lord willing.” He smiles, but it’s contrived.
Even stranger, you feel something akin to…misery, is an apt description for it. It’s low-grade but tenacious. It makes you contemplative, makes you abandon your usual taciturn behavior. You glance at his hardshell case propped against the counter.
“Encore of ‘The Killing Moon’?” You give him your best smile.
His answering one is blinding.
—
When you retire that night, you dream a scenario so wildly different and obscure from your usual that your head spins trying to understand it.
You still retain some lewd memories before the indecent moment you jumped into. There’s a spike of elation at the thought of him coming back for you, at the praises and cherishing confessions lyrical on his tongue. He loved you, he told you so and he promised to do so for eternity-
Him, him, him.
Him, who? You want to ask, but the blissful thrall of love lulls you into pliant submission. Turns out you don’t need to, because the next thing you feel are strong, steady hands lifting your skirts to expose you.
“You look real good like that, baby.”
The one kernel of reason you retain latches onto that familiar cadence, but it’s quickly drowned by the voice shushing you and a bombardment of sensual gratification. The next few scenes flash by in rapturous succession.
You’re on your knees, face smushed against the mattress, pillows and sheets displaced from his devastating thrusts. That intoxicating, earthy smell of his engulfs you in willing delirium. Large, cool hands massage your thighs, roaming up and up until they’re settled nicely on the arch of your back, tilting your hips up to further present you to him.
Something tepid and sopping drips onto you, sliding through your folds. It feels so good, but you want to see him. You love him, and you need to see him.
Words fall from your lips — yours, dream-you, you don’t know — but you’re begging.
And he was never one to deny you anything.
The image shifts in the disjointed way dreams do. You’re enveloped by the fluff of a mattress, legs spread wantonly and in between them, is Remmick.
He’s pretty, or at least this conjured image of him your debauched mind created is. His length is thick, uncut and leaking against you, hips inching to-and-fro to glide against where you need him.
And oh, do you need him. You’ve never needed anything more.
“Then let me in.”
—
You return to the waking world, winded and warm and drenched in sweat and — oh God. A fucking wet dream? About a guy you met barely a month ago?
Admittedly, the relief from the traumatic nightmares feels so sweet you could sob.
And you do. You set aside a short period of time to weep like a babe before your shift. Then you dry your eyes, collect most of yourself with only your dignity and sense missing, and the realization hits that you have to face him.
It’s not like you did anything wrong. For all your hoping and pleading with whatever is listening to have one peaceful night, you never could have guessed this was in store for you. And it’s not like he would know, so there’s absolutely no reason to feel any guilt.
At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you prepare for work like you’re heading to the hangman’s noose. You tell that to yourself again as you contemplate the accuracy of those dreams.
Would he be sweet with you? Take his time? Your subconscious sure seems to think so, since it’s already assigned him the role of service top in your wildest fantasies. But what if it was rough, feral as he fucked those so-called manners of his into you-
All too soon you’re behind that counter, that intense reverie consuming your coherent thought, looking every which way but his. Remmick’s chatting your ear off about something or other, and you mutter revealing little half-replies. The similarities of his voice and the one your depraved self delightfully calls on makes you lightheaded. You have a hard time looking him in the eye, but when you do, the glass in your hand damn near dive-bombs to the floor.
He’s staring at you. A proud glint in his eye and too damn smiley for your liking. Smug, pleased, and reeking of satisfaction.
He knows. Your traitorous mind squeals. No. There’s no way-
“Huh?” You blurt, elegantly.
“You goin’ for employee of the month?” He lifts his head from where it was propped on a hand to nod towards the glass you’re polishing, a repeat of your first conversation. That close-fitting shirt of his revealing every flex of his well-built back that’s curved over the counter. The more time you spend with him, the more apt the comparison of him to the street cat becomes.
“Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.” You mumble, and while he’s been sympathetic about your confessions of sleepless nights up until this point, it seems to be the worst thing you could’ve said.
If anything, his smile widens. Head flops back on his hand, eyes impish as he just stares. He halts fingering the rim of his drink to drum a tune against the counter top.
“What?” You press.
“Nothin’.” He chirps, which tells you that, yes, there’s something, “Have a drink with me.”
“No,” You reply, immediately. “What’s gotten into you?”
“What's gotten into you? You’re wound tighter than a spring.”
He gets to his feet, and for a stupid moment your heart lurches, afraid he’ll leave. But then he reaches behind the bar top to pluck up a shot glass that you just finished cleaning.
“Hey.” Your eyes dart around, but no one pays much mind to the two of you. It’s the tail-end of another slow night.
“Hey yourself. Drink with me.” He fixes you with those puppy-dog wonders of his. Seriously, he must’ve been mastering that look for years. An A+ student in Manipulations 101. Because you seem to have a hard-on for bad decisions, you grab a bottle of vodka and pour the both of you a double.
You down it in one go, the drink burning a path from your throat to your belly. Remmick hoots and hollers and you swat at his arm, missing entirely when he leans back.
“Look at you. Hair down, all carefree. You look real good like that.”
The vodka nearly claws its way back up your throat as you choke.
You look real good like that, baby.
“Y’alright?” His tone sounds genuine, concerned with a hint of amusement. You focus your eyes anywhere but his, and unfortunately those lustful bastards land on the open collar of his shirt.
“What’s that?” You nod to the chain there, amongst a smattering of chest hair.
He looks a little peeved at his words of concern going ignored, which delights you, but those expressive eyebrows go up and he playfully jerks as if there’s a bug on him. Plays stupid. “What’s what?”
“Your chain, babe. Your chain.” You snort at his antics, but the reveal of the ring as he pulls it up and over his shirt sobers you. “Oh.”
You had noticed a ring on his right hand before. A simple gold band wrapped around his ring finger; the spitting image of the one he just revealed to you. The one he wears around his neck dangles until his palm closes around it, easily dwarfing it in a way that reveals it’s meant for much smaller fingers. Your mouth goes dry. Remmick’s eyes dart towards your chest where it feels like your heart’s halted with your breath. Just as you remember oxygen is a necessity, he fills the stunted silence with a bemusing chuckle.
“Ah, this? I’m holdin’ onto it for someone.” His fingers grasp it with a tenderness that nearly has you grinding your teeth down to nubs. The delicate web of veins in his hand flex as he caresses an inscription on the inside that’s concealed to you.
“Is that…for a friend?” You joke, weakly.
“You can say that, yeah. A dear friend. Just waitin’ to give it to her is all.” Remmick ducks his head with a smile that is both sentimental and entertained.
Spikes of unwanted jealousy eat away at you. They revamp every time you see that stupid chain, each glint in the light a lacerating taunt. You feel nothing short of wounded for reasons that are baffling and arbitrary.
The mood shifts for the rest of the night. Or at least, yours does. You’re unintentionally short with him. He doesn’t seem to notice. If anything, he brightens in response to the change in your behavior, and you wonder what it conveys to him. You’re internally lamenting over a bruised ego, and Remmick’s keen to prattle on about the state of modern music and the lack of allure it brings to the table. All while you’re trying not to have a meltdown that would put a three-year-old’s to shame.
“-and now it’s just ear-candy, no substance worth mentionin’-”
“Can you get to the point?” It always fills you with a bit of sadistic satisfaction when you manage to irk him the way he does you, but it’s extra rewarding now.
“I’m fixin’ to!” He gives you an accusing look that says and this is why you’re the problem. “If you’d just- oh!”
He throws his hands up in sudden remembrance. Then goes to dig around in his pocket. Curiosity piqued, you abandon some of your sulk and lean slightly over the counter to catch a glimpse.
“Forgot. My down payment for the room.”
“What room-” Your incredulity cuts off when he produces an odd-looking gold coin.
“For when you say yes. Uh-uh, doesn’t have to be now! Don’t get started on me,” he says, sternly.
Sure enough, your mouth had opened to retaliate. You slap away the wagging finger in your face and sigh, examining the engravings on the coin. You’ve seen it somewhere before, but now you’re drawing blanks.
“And this is some kind of currency? I thought you said money was tight...” You look up to see a contemplative Remmick, gazing at you like the sun shone out of your ass. “What?”
“It’s the solid gold kind, darlin’.” He nods to the coin, unhelpfully ignoring your other inquiries altogether.
“I don’t believe you.” You shrug, extending the ‘gold’ piece back to him. “And even if I did, if it’s anything my landlord can’t immediately go off to buy booze with, he’d take me out back and shoot me.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, now that you have me to protect you.” Remmick doesn’t say it like a joke. It should piss you off, or make you uncomfortable, but you cherish what his odd segue reveals.
“Sure.” You laugh, foul mood lifting slightly. He still wants to stay with you. Still chooses to be here with you. “Start helping me clean up.”
“Yes ma’am, y’know I can’t deny you anythin’.” He says, smug and charming as he hops enthusiastically off his barstool.
You’re halfway through conjuring an unimpressed response when the words sink in.
He was never one to deny you anything.
You whip around to gape at him in a manner that would have him poking fun at you for the rest of the night. Instead of the gloating grin you expected, you stare at the expanse of his back, whistling as he begins to wipe down tables.
—
Remmick had a rudimentary understanding of personal bubbles. He wasn’t necessarily touchy – was more than respectful in that regard, actually – but he had a proclivity for standing and/or walking too close for comfort. More than once he’s bumped into you from a lack of maintaining appropriate stopping distance. You figured it was an effort to drive you crazy, because he always seemed to know when he did something that made your heart race, if his pleased little noises were anything to go by. As for your heart racing…
The delicious images you have been waking with throw you straight into a drunken stupor. Afflicted emotions from your dreamstate follow you, bleed into your interactions and infect your sense of reason until you’re never not smiling at him.
He frustratingly remains a gentleman despite his boyish flirting. So the first time his fingers are the ones to initiate contact and he freezes, as if debating some intricate meaning of the gesture, you roll your eyes and leap on that opportunity like fucking spiderwoman.
“No, that’s–it’s okay. Seriously. Hold my fucking hand, Remmick.”
He glows, and you get the feeling you just settled a timeworn decision for him.
For all his expressiveness, he’s never touched you. You understand why now. It’s like a dam burst, indomitable and perpetual. Now, his hands seek you out almost habitually; winding around to rest on your back, offering a playful elbow in the illusion of being a gentleman (you know he’s not, much as he says so), and, most devastating in effect, the gentle hand laid on the nape of your neck, a final, grudging squeeze before he surrenders you to the impenetrable residence that is your cabin.
Suffice to say, there is undeniable mounting tension between you two.
It’s there when you share the trivial matters you agonize over (to lessen the severity of other, far less trivial matters) and he hits you with astute advice and a kind, “Stop worryin’, huh?”
And you do, because his worn, calloused palms shuck off your shoes after a tiring shift, thumbs digging into the arch of your foot draped over his lap with doting attentiveness.
It’s there as the two of you are slumped together on the porch swing, leaning closer and closer until your forearm rested languidly on his shoulder, legs tossed over his thighs. You’re antsy with the dizzying proximity of him, weary fingers going to toy with that chain you have a strange penchant for, occasionally slipping and grazing the length of his collarbones. He shivers, hums out a soft ‘don’t stop’ whenever you pause.
He pretends not to notice the top view of your plush, warm breasts, and you pretend not to notice the budding erection under your knees. It’s a long while before you can convince yourself to move, limbs cozy and listless.
It’s shortly after that, and by shortly you mean that very night, you realize you may be in too deep.
You threw on a film in an attempt to convince yourself you’ve attempted other activities besides brooding. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect, because you find yourself wondering about Remmick’s thoughts throughout it. You guessed right that he wasn’t a big movie-watcher, though he seems perfectly content to listen to you prattle on about them. Therein lies the issue of wanting his thoughts on a score, wondering what jokes he would make during, and planning conversations and taunts based on those things.
For all his silliness he is wickedly intelligent, often spinning a cursory topic into a long-winded conversation lasting well into the night. Before, the days were long and the nights were endless. Now…
You blink and your shift passes. You catch yourself more and more frequently wondering what he would think about a movie, a book, a song. He’s burrowed himself into your head, clawed his way into your veins so that you don’t even dream of monsters anymore. Just him.
That night, you’re fighting restlessness with negligible results. Remmick, unbidden and evocative, infiltrates your mind and brittle peace without being physically present.
You sigh. Count the water stains on the ceiling. Count them again.
“Fuck it.” Your fingers slip past the hem of your underwear, past your puffy folds to where you’re ripe with need.
You get yourself off while envisioning a particularly vivid scenario of Remmick and his dexterous hands. Those large hands that always seem to be active, whether they’re rapping on the counter, fussing with that gold coin, or twiddling in the air as he talks like he’s playing a pretend instrument. Your enamored recall takes a debauched turn when that imaginary hand dives into his own trousers, this time, half-mad with lust as he watches you come undone.
As you lay there panting, left with the remnants of his name lingering on your tongue, your heart squeezes at a blinding truth.
You want him.
And as long as Remmick had a place in your life, you’d want him.
—
The spare key bites into the flesh of your palm, metal teeth of it grounding you as you mull over a scripted dialogue to go with your presentation. You had stared at it for all of ten seconds this morning, feigning deliberation of a decision you had already made. After scraping the tape containing your roommates name off the bow, you coated it in a layer of red nail polish, a favorite hue of Remmick’s.
When you enter the bar, you don’t notice him in his usual spot, but he sometimes likes to be sneaky and startle you, so you’re not worried. You’re not ashamed about last night’s finger-bang, either. Maybe it’s the anticipatory thank you for making me your roomie sex you’re betting on, knowing his control would fray and snap with one sign that you’re interested. Let you tell him so at the bar, and he’d probably take you right there over the counter.
You serve drinks in a haze, attention split between the pouring and deciding if you should hide the key in his drink, proposal-style. You can see him laughing in your head, those cute, jagged teeth of his on display. And then the two of you would go home, fuck, watch Netflix, maybe fuck some more, all while you make fun of his less-than-impressive repertoire of films. It’s a concrete plan.
You’re a bit sad that the running gag of him permanently stuck on your porch is coming to an end. It made you feel like a teenager, sneaking around in an experience you never got to live. You find solace thinking of the future domestic moments you’ll share together, eagerly keeping an eye on the door.
Only he doesn’t show. The next hour goes by, and you feel like a dog waiting by the door for her owner.
—
Remmick doesn’t come by that night. Nor does he come visit you at your shift the next day.
Or the next one. And the next one.
His silence is more than a little alarming, a phenomenon as unnatural as the clouds pissing blood rain. He wasn’t meant to vanish. He was meant to sing and strum and park himself on your porch after an already tiring day. And you were meant to gripe and sneer and tell him to get lost, all while anticipating his next visit. You had begun to count on it.
And you miss him more than you’d care to admit.
The annoyance he provided served as a balm to the mundane droll of daily life. That’s all it was. Chatting with him, arguing with him. Admittedly, you were lonely, and he listened.
Remmick listened like every word of yours was sacred.
But he had no obligation to you. Nor you him. Perhaps whatever fleeting infatuation that caught his fancy finally ran its course, and he’s probably off chasing skirts in another town. You wished that thought wasn’t as devastating as it was.
You carry on, of course, like you always do with a shift in mood prominent for someone who knows you better. Your coworker notices and even the frequent patrons catch on, but they choose to remain silent while their pitying glances are anything but.
You’re nearly reconciled with the fact that you’ll end up alone when the soft, flowing twang of a banjo reaches you a few nights after his disappearance. Your heart lifts, stupid, foolish hope setting you alight. And then the rage hits. Your eyes roll so far into the back of your head they threaten to stick there, and then you’re yanking the door open to spew out,
“So this is what you’re doing? Taking up residence on my porch again?” Your tone is laced with condescension.
“Where else am I supposed to be?” No added flair. Just blatant truth. He barely looks up at you from his place on the rickety swinging chair, rusty creaks slicing through the melody that irritates you for all kinds of reasons.
There he is. The object of your affliction and affection. He’s cloaked in dense shadows but you can still make out the trace of purple, bruise-colored circles under his eyes and skin that’s a bit paler than usual. The distance between the two of you seemed to affect him, too, with even his indelible mood notably drained by your absence. The charismatic demeanor and energy you know and love him for dampened. It tugs on your heartstrings, as it’s meant to, but you can’t find it in yourself to comfort him, not when you need that comfort yourself.
“It ain’t polite to st– y’know what, nevermind-” His eyes lift when no barb is thrown his way and you must have overestimated your ability to remain composed, because his face drops further with concern. “What’s the matter?”
Damn him. Damn him and his wide, disney-princess eyes that see far too much. You shake your head, not trusting your voice to remain steady just yet.
“C’mon, honey. What’d I do, huh?” He slings the banjo strap over his shoulder, setting it down haphazardly as he rises to approach you. His prized possession, thrown aside when faced with your distress, with the mere presence of you.
“It’s just…you’re back.” You groused, and it didn’t come out as monotone and unaffected as you meant it to. The silliness of your reaction is made apparent by the sudden realization that it’s only been a few days, and here you were, acting like a grieving war widow. Surely it had to be longer than that, right? Were you that starved for companionship?
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He seems to read a hell of a lot into your silence, or maybe spots the tears burning behind your eyes because he gingerly grasps your shoulders, rubs soothingly down to your arms.
“Darlin’, you thought I left you. Aw, no.” His eyes squeeze shut, as though the idea of that causes him physical pain. He tugs on your elbows to uncross the limbs folded protectively around yourself, pulling you closer until he can encompass you in his embrace. At first, you go rigid, and then the weight of the past few days catches up and you melt against him.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not your keeper.” The orneriness is zapped right out of you, his rocking hold a balm on the distress you’ve accumulated in his absence. Remmick hums – a forlorn, amused little noise – and nuzzles your head softly. Too softly. “You’re the first real friend I’ve had in years. I care about you. So when you left- I just-”
“Shh. S’okay. I know, darlin’. I missed you too, baby.” His voice was low, murmuring platitudes into your hair that shouldn’t have been soothing but were.
Tucked into his embrace, you’re able to envelop yourself in his usual aroma; the aromatic scent of rosemary oil, fresh pine, and those cloying traces of copper. Subtle, faded, as he attempted to mask it in his normalized routine of freshening up for you. It’s instinct really, that has your eyes cracking open to narrow at nearly imperceivable, spackled stains around his collar. Dark.
Your heart pitches violently, plummeting to your feet as the blood drains from your body. You don’t react outwardly, and that’s what does it, because Remmick halts his swaying and tenses around you.
“Somethin’ wrong?” His words are terse, the warmth and solace they previously offered distinctively absent.
“No. Nothing.” The response that leaves you is pure impulse. You want nothing more than to tell him what’s wrong, so he can fix it like he always does. The idea of it, though… feels unsafe.
Remmick’s grip tightens, almost uncomfortably. Possessively, like you’ll be torn from him at any moment. He hums in reply to your answer, unsatisfied.
That roaring desire you had to see him is all but snuffed out. Your jovial, warmhearted Remmick is somewhere else. This man that’s holding you in his arms is a stranger. Even as he ceases your beginning movements to extract yourself, as he shifts to press a silky kiss to the side of your head. His lips linger a bit too long. Hands hold you a bit too tight.
His shift in demeanor gives you whiplash. He could have detected your hesitation but… you were calm, externally. Could he sense the pound of your heart from close proximity? There’s no other way-
A heavy, sharp realization settles into your bones, one your mind hasn’t yet caught up with. Refuses to. Intuition and limerence battle for precedence. You don’t ask where he’s been, and he doesn’t offer. He doesn’t even ask to come in that night.
You think of that key the whole time, but you’re hurt. You’re hurt and angry and that suspicion of him that’s lain dormant is now making its rounds while that rage is still fresh.
—
Maybe it’s triggered by the off-kilter, fragility of your mindstate, but the peaceful nights cease just as abruptly as they began, the nightmares returning with a wicked vengeance.
It’s fitting that it begins with a feeling of betrayal so heavy it sits in your belly like a stone. Your other senses catch up, each one thrown at you in a dizzying, desperate effort. Bleary flashes of viscera on cobblestone, a chest tightened with ruinous grief and a throat burning, raw from screaming.
A man is in front of you. The one that had whispered such pretty lies in your ear, had promised you forever and everlasting pleasure as you rode him in the back of a carriage. Only this time, his face wasn’t barred at all from view or memory. He was there. In front of you. Red eyes, fangs and all.
Remmick.
This wasn’t- he wasn’t- no.
No.
You felt the world tip on its axis. Your heart rattles against your ribcage, shattering at the betrayal that spans across lifetimes. Your consciousness struggles to grasp the situation in its entirety, the reluctant friendship and trust you built with this man pulled beneath your feet. Someone’s screaming — dream-you, you realize. You’re too far gone into the wounding treachery that you struggle empathizing with getting fucked-over by the same man, and unsuccessfully wail back for her to shut the fuck up, she’s hurting your throat.
You’re such a goddamn fool.
Of course it’s fucking him. Hands in his pockets, casual, collected like he isn’t standing over what you can’t see is a corpse but somehow know is. A viscous pool of blood surrounds the body, displaced as broken hands move — it’s fucking moving, that’s not possible- but your incredulous suspicions are confirmed when he manages to get to his feet. It’s a man, jugular torn to shreds, skin hanging in ropes from what you can see is from a brutal mauling. His eyes find you, entirely unconcerned with the proximity of his killer, and what was once sweet hazel morphs into something purely animal. No, not just a man, your friend-
“No, no. Don’t look at that.” A disembodied voice cuts through the terror. Guiltily, almost but more so desperate.
There’s no flash of light, no dramatic indications before the environment alters. What was once solid ground becomes sturdy wood pressed hard against your back, underneath your thighs, contrary to a softer, calloused touch holding them open. What the hell-
“Look at me.”
Your eyes fly open, you were unaware that you even closed them. If the previous dreams pulled you in with shaken, inexperienced hands, this one was adept with a hardened intensity that left you bound to the memory. Anchored to your surroundings in a way you never were in the others. Every sensation more vivid. And then the reason for the changes became apparent.
The voice that haunts your dreams—Remmick (your adoring lover, your new self unhelpfully supplies) on the floor in front of you. He doesn’t look at you right away, busy taking in the new setting like you were. Then his eyes are on you. Those scarlet, piercing eyes-
“Ah, hell. It was supposed to be a different one.”
You’re in some sort of shack. Fuzzy so that you know it’s still a dream, but corporeal enough for you to retain the previous terror and newfound understanding. What-
“The hell?” The recognizable southern drawl finishes for you and clucks his tongue. “C’mon now. You’re a lot sharper in person.”
It’s him, your mind screams. It’s him it’s him it’s him.
It’s Remmick’s hands that are on you, holding you apart. Him knelt between your legs. And that’s-
Oh God.
That’s you around his mouth, covering the beard he adorns in this version of him. You can feel the slickness at your center, still feel the ache and used condition you’re in.
“Remember. It ain’t all bad.” A soft, soothing kiss presses into the corner of the knee thrown over his shoulder. “Remember, baby.”
You awake with his laugh ringing in your ears, but it’s all wrong.
Your movements are fuzzy, detached, though it’s not unusual for you to still feel disoriented upon waking.
Alarm bells should go off when you sit up, fingers sliding through the blankets like parting water. But your focus remains on the fact that it’s your blankets, in your room, your house. Instead it hits you as you walk through the doorway and straight into the kitchen, the hallway failing to manifest in your dream state. The jarring inconsistencies of dreams are all too familiar to you, but not your autonomous lucidity. Something is different this time.
And then, to solve that mystery, Remmick’s there, sitting at your table and strumming his banjo with infuriating nonchalance.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Figured you wasn’t gettin’ the right idea of me. Meant to show you somethin’ a bit more virtuous but I’m still gettin’ the hang of this myself.” Never-mind the fact that he doesn’t sound the slightest bit apologetic, but the smarmy smile kills any lingering authenticity. He ducks his head with feigned bashfulness, “And that particular scene is one of my favorites.”
Unbidden thoughts arise at his shameless admission. You can’t be sure what time period that was unless you ask — you won’t — but the few palpable senses available in your ‘dream’ offer some hints. The musk and sweat you felt clinging to your skin from the trek to the cabin being a memorable one. Toiletries and frequent baths must’ve been a luxury.
But one of his favorites?
Pure, unadulterated fury bubbles at him, for his pitiless deception, and you, for your mindless trusting and the consequences that came with it. He had gotten into your head. Literally. And you might as well have opened the door for him.
He was a dirty pervert. Slimy, smelly, little man. You tell him as such in a shrill shouting fit, trying and failing to pick up objects for throwable ammunition. He does nothing but stoke the flames of your anger when he laughs, positively delighted, holding the banjo out as a shield when you approach him.
“Didn’t mean to, on my Mama!”
“Stoptalkingaboutyourmother!”
In an attempt to rip the instrument from him and bludgeon him with it, your hands pass through like an apparition. His chortling rings out — he’s damn near giggling, this ancient creature — and it’s resonating through your head and the ethereal space around you.
“How are you– how long could you do this?” You accuse and cease your attempts at picking a fight. Whatever this is, whatever he is, he clearly has the experience here. You can’t pluck a goddamn string let alone play a tune like he did. If you were to wage war, there’s no doubt he would have the upper hand.
“Now this,” He breathes, breathless from laughter (do vampires need to breathe? That’s what he is, right?) and looks around the spectral surroundings with his usual theatrics, “-this is a fairly recent development, courtesy of our meetin’.’’
It’s pure indignation when you huff through your nose, unable to feel the breath or the act of it. You’re you, at least. It’s your own skin you inhabit in your slumber for the first time in years. For all intents and purposes, it’s as normal a dream can be if you ignore Remmick.
“Well I’d be much obliged if you just- fucked off out of my head.” You can’t hurt him physically, but mocking him makes you feel better.
“No can do. Now all’a that-” He clucks his tongue and gestures in a way that references the nastiness of the previous memories, looking put-out like he doesn’t hold a shred of responsibility for them, “I can’t control. But that invitin’ little reminiscence, that I can do.”
“How charitable.” You grit out through clenched teeth. He hums in agreement, either missing the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it entirely. “But I’d rather not think of you at all.”
“That just ain’t true. You liked ‘em well enough the past few weeks. You call for me.” He states, back straightening, arm slinging smugly over the neck of his banjo. Looking satisfied as a bird preening its feathers for his mate, like what he just said wasn’t offensively untrue.
You table the information with all of your newfound knowledge to digest later.
“I sure as hell don’t. Call for you to stay out of my fucking head, maybe.”
“Now I won’t lie, your… guarded behavior at first made me think you weren’t interested. But after I sent those sweet little remnants, I knew I still did it for you.” The words are dirty – though the look he’s giving you paired with that lazy smile, mouth parted slightly is affronting in and of itself.
The truth out in the open appears to make him giddy, non-existent soul unburdened and whatnot, but he seems to come back down to Earth in that moment. His smile doesn’t fade, but the intensity does. He stares at you, seeming content to just take you in, only to drop the mother of all confessions.
“I’ve waited lifetimes for you. Endured loss, destruction, atrocity,” His accent wavers towards the end with something you’re familiar with. Devotion drips from his voice. “-just to find you. To be here for you when you come back.”
And just who’s responsible for that loss, that atrocity, you want to yell. Remmick senses your fury, of course he does, because he’s staring hard enough to cut through you. Your descent into wrath and despair radiates off of you in waves, permeating the ambience of the dreamstate. He sighs, adopting a pitying expression and trying his shitty hand at consolation.
“You’re bein’ misled-”
“Yeah,” You scoff, tone acidic and filled with scorn. “Big time.”
He shakes his head, weighted and resigned like you’re a misguided soul. Switches tactics from beguiling long-winded confessions to something more vague and preachy.
“We were meant to be from the very beginning. Everythin’ else was just noise.”
That … sounds as ominous as you’re beginning to expect from him. Definitely not the romantic, panty-dropper line he meant it to be. You can tell, because there’s always an undercurrent of frustration when the tools in his arsenal fail to woo you. It’s no different now.
“Stop looking at me like that.” He looks at you like you’re going to disappear.
“You did. For a long time.” Remmick responds to the part you didn’t say aloud, his pleading expression carefully crafted to appeal to your sympathies. It fails.
You burn, feeling violated and betrayed and you’d like to slip into sweet, blissful darkness and not come back up.
“Leave.”
His eyebrows lift, but he makes for the door. Head down, but no true remorse on his face. That bastard is smiling.
“See you tomorrow.” He throws a nod and a grin over his shoulder.
“You absolutely won’t-”
The door slams behind him, his laughter still reverberating in your skull.
—
You email your boss and tell them you won’t make it to work the next day. Then the next.
Mercifully, Remmick doesn’t show. He seems to be taking his role of a good, upstanding vampire seriously, because a mob doesn’t show up to your house to arm you with a torch and pitchfork and recruit you for the hunt.
His time must be occupied by something else that distracts him from razing a town. It’s not hard to guess what that ‘something else’ is, because he perseveres with a vengeance now that the other shoe has dropped, and the dreams persist in their relentless entirety.
Their relentless, vulgar entirety.
You’re not in your body, pelted with emotions that aren’t yours but that’s nothing new. What is new is the chain around your neck, ring cool against a flatter chest, a strange appendage between your thighs—You are in your bed though, the same salacious warmth pooling in your belly, filled with such need, yearning, you just want the scent of her to last a little longer-
The scent of you.
Woodsy. Sweet.
He’s thrusted you into his dreamstate this time. It wasn’t enough that he pervaded your waking thoughts, your slumber, but now has somehow accessed your memories, knows the layout of your room, your belongings.
Like its predecessors, you cannot control what you see or what you feel. And boy, are you feeling a hell of a lot. It’s him that’s rutting against your sheets, hips jerking, cock wrapped in a panty-covered fist, but it’s you that’s now experiencing it firsthand.
Ah. So he’s further invaded your mind and is aware of the item taken by your thieving roommate. And has now incorporated it into this fantasy wet-dream.
The unholy squelch of your (his?) skin sliding against the drool-soaked fabric fills every crevice of the room’s acoustics. Fabric you’ve sunk your teeth into, know the taste of, fabric that no longer smells like her-
You try to make sense of his nonsensical ramblings — now your thoughts— echoing in your head. It’s difficult to focus on anything but the wet rasp of your–his panting against the pillow, the crying, the whining as the heady smell of you fades.
Sweet merciful-
Your teeth ache when you think of her, the spearlike canines elongating when you think about how she looked like a dream lounging half across your lap, half on the seat. The way she touched you so casually, with an ease that you would've been beggin’ for if you knew it’d feel so sweet. How her featherlight touch danced along your skin as if it wasn’t ruinous, as if her putin’ those claws away for once wasn’t the damnedest goddamn thing-
You just know that you can’t be around her yet, not when you’re half-feral with the taste of your favorite girl, can still smell the way she touches herself through the damn door-
“You see what you do to me?”
That was definitely not part of the scene, nor was it in the thoughts you were experiencing. You sever the connection with incriminating quickness and awake, in your bed, your body this time, left with a debilitating headache and blazing guilt.
—
True to his word, Remmick seems to have gotten a hold on this dream-bond thing, because your ensanguined night visions have been few and far in between. You begrudgingly admit, they have been more ‘inviting’, as he puts it, but you feel like the choice between gory tragedy and mind-bending sex is hardly a choice at all. Not when they conclude so softly, with the two of you lying together, sweaty and sated, side by side and melded together as one being.
He’s been sending you to a specific one, lately. A lifetime lived of adultery, tender defilement, and stolen freedom in its naked entirety. You’ve awoken sneaking through a garden in pursuit of him, only to have him startle you from behind, the novel sight and feeling of his scruff tickling your neck. As the insidious pull of lust creeps down your abdomen, it’ll shift and suddenly he’s on his knees for you, again. It does seem to be a favorite of his; his fingers buried in you, mouth playing your body as adept as he is with an instrument, a leg hanging over his shoulder.
All while you keep an eye out for your husband.
Goddammit, Remmick.
—
The time spent apprehensively cramped up in your safehaven-slash-prison is filled with enough rumination to need at least ten therapy sessions to cover. It’s not as though it’s difficult to put the broken, bloodied pieces together, rather it’s unsettling in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve waited lifetimes for you.
He could’ve slipped you something at the bar. Maybe all that sleep-deprivation deteriorated what was left of your logic and sanity and you were muttering to yourself in a padded cell. You would heavily consider this to be an elaborate prank if those appalling dreams had not haunted you through life.
It makes you recall the recent ones with mortified contemplation. Raunchy visions haven’t been unfamiliar to you for some time, but the frequency of them is worrisome. And if it was him who was responsible for the latter, debauched dreams (and by proxy, the rest), then it was also him after the initial passion-filled sequence, sat at the bar the very next day oozing male pride and looking entirely too pleased to satisfy you.
Ah. So, he did know, then. And enjoyed fucking with you about it. At least you weren’t making that up.
And that one with him in your room, a depraved fantasy of his? Memories stolen from the very source, the enticement of the forbidden fruit that is access to your residence, your bed. This intrusive assessment has you teetering on the edge of insanity more than your self-inflicted seclusion does.
Any blissful reprieve the dreams offer only lasts until you wake, wanting and primed and wet for him. It’s like something has awakened within you, a primordial ache laid dormant until Remmick got his specter-adjacent hands on you. The languid ache of pleasure brought to you years ago, the cathartic satisfaction still burning bright in your bones. And that’s not all that they’ve stirred in you.
Unwelcome emotions have accosted what little peace waits for you in the daylight. You’ve always had a propensity for intense emotion in several aspects of life, but jealousy was an emergent one. You’re not sure whether it’s truly you that’s feeling it. The consequences of your dreams stretch far beyond sleeplessness now, and you often wake up with the residue of intimate endearment and a sharp, pining ache for Remmick. It’s to be expected, surely. He worked tirelessly to dig his way into your head.
But what does that make you? A cheap imitation of his dearly departed? Was he even seeing you, when you laughed and flirted and-
Are you seriously feeling territorial of him towards other women that were…you?
Alone in your room, you seethed, and cried, and then seethed some more. To date, this was the most contradictory and unique position you’ve found yourself trapped in. Exactly why you’re still thinking of Remmick as a man and not the monster he’s repeatedly revealed himself to be, is beyond your understanding. Perhaps it’s the friendship you’ve built with him over the past few weeks that stains your view of him as a silly, reliable confidant that’s capable of brightening your day without the presence of the sun.
The sun.
You recall musing about him in the sun with the consistency of faded dreams. You were high then, busy waxing poetic so the realization and what should have been alarmed suspicions entirely slipped your mind. You had never seen him in the sun. The most crucial, reliable fucking weakness of vampires and he had lured your attention from it like a siren’s call as he sang and danced and bickered with you.
In your defense, the prophetic dreams could’ve been a little more fucking clear. His face should have been plastered on wanted posters in your dreams.
Unwanted: Fuckass nightmare demon Remmick. Crimes: not worth the waste of paper it would take to list all of them on. DO NOT APPROACH. DO NOT FEED.
More justification on your behalf is that he has an impressive resume with experience of manipulating young women, and has quite literally made it his full-time purpose in his unlife. The careful crafting of the confusing wet dreams and the pleasure they promised, more manipulation on his part. Probably had a heavy hand in concealing his face from your waking memory, too. Past yous have doubtlessly fallen victim to the cycle, ignoring prescient warnings with similar love-struck idiocy.
Not-so in your defense, these seductions and betrayals went platinum in your head every night for years. Your past selves must’ve been rolling in their graves, shouting well-deserved insults as they watched you get close to him. Their tormentor.
Yours.
—
Maybe the isolation and idleness gradually degrades your sense of reason, because when it’s past the point of acceptable call outs, you reluctantly prepare for your shift. Hide a tiny mason jar brimming with garlic juice inside an inner pocket of your jacket, nevermind the fact that it’s sweltering outside and you’re running plenty hot from the misfiring of synapses in your brain. You rehash the plotted route to your car in your head and exit the house with a wince and a prayer. Every noise is the equivalent of mortar fire.
You’re actively scanning the treeline for a Remmick-sized mound loitering among it, waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump out with a ‘rah!’ The sylvan area provided considerable cover for him to be lurking and if you weren’t borderline hysterical, the idea of him squatting in some moldering branches would make for an amusing mental image. If he were to get the jump on you, you’d at least have the pleasure of making fun of him before you ate it.
You clutch the jar of garlic juice tightly, damn near tip-toeing along the graveled path to your vehicle, and you make it without the expected altercation. Problem was, you didn’t expect to find your tires slashed and sagging sadly into the grit in an accurate depiction of your mental state.
“Fuck!”
For several reasons, you’re not too keen on the idea of involving police into what you aren’t sure isn’t a mental break. Disregarding the probable incompetence and unskilled assistance you’d receive for the threat of an actual vampire, you’d be the source of gossip for months. Even if this isn’t a figment of your imagination, you have no evidence he committed a crime. Though the psychological warfare he’s committed – in your opinion, was a goddamn crime. Considering the vandalism of your vehicle and several historical accounts of stalking, he was proficient in them.
Half-way during your heated debate with yourself, the skin on the back of your neck pricks. Your heart thuds to a halt. Primitive prey instincts kick in, and you freeze, attempting to detect what you feel is amiss. You take a deep breath to steel yourself, listening.
There. A hovering, sinister presence, two pin-points burrowing into your back. You’re being watched. Hunted. He’s behind you, isn’t he? Or wait, no-
You look up. A buried remnant of vampire knowledge hits you like a freight train. Knocks the breath from you just as much as the sight above you does.
summary -> when remmick comes knocking on the ‘jukebox’, a sweet young girl had answered the door. he was captivated by her, determined not to leave until he had gotten her, and he didn’t care who he would have to hurt to get what he wanted.
the loud blues music filled your ears as you stumbled towards the bar. “give me another.” you called out to the bartender, plopping down onto the stool as you discarded the bottle in your hand.
“whoa, y/n, slow down. what’re you doing?” you could hear mary’s concerned tone from a distance. “jesus, how much have ya drank?”
“not much.” you shrugged, a drunken smile on your face.
“c’mon now, let’s get’cha home, i’m getting stack.” she said, taking your arm but you yanked out of her grip.
“they barely even noticed that i’m here, why do you think they would care now? i-i mean you guys call me ‘family’ but the truth is you only call when you need me.” you said, frustrated, waving your hands in the air. “just go, i’ll be fine.”
mary sighed, truth is, she knew it too. it was hard to miss, but she had been feeling like an outcast too. more than she’d like to admit, she resonated with every word you said.
so you left, stumbling as you made your way to the front door. you dragged a chair near the threshold of the door, the legs scraping on the wooden planks. with a groan, you nestled yourself onto the seat, opening the door as you let the breeze blow through your hair.
you didn’t know how long you sat there, it could’ve been minutes? hours even.
but your peace was cut short when a group of people came, happily striding towards the entrance where you sat.
by now, you had sobered up a little, you narrowed your eyes to see them clearer. it was a man dressed in a baby blue button up with suspenders, accompanied with a woman and another man who stood behind him as if he was their leader.
“good evenin’, darlin’. how are ya?” the man spoke with enthusiasm, a warm grin on his face.
“can i help you?” you asked, straightening up as you kicked one leg over the other, arms crossed.
the man shot you a look, it was subtle but you caught it. his eyes flashed down and up once, smile growing wider.
“i sure hope you can. but before i start, can i say, darlin’, you sure do look absolutely breathtaking.”
you chuckled at his weak attempt at charming his way in. “what can i help you folks with?”
“well, ya see… we heard word of a party here and we just wanted to come play some music for ya guys, we sure do know our way around the blues.” he replied, his two henchmen nodding. “the name’s remmick, by the way. and whom do i own the pleasure to?”
“i’m y/n.” you introduced, placing your hand in his as he reached out, bringing it up to his lips.
“my word, miss y/n, ya sure it’s safe for you to stand guard at the door? might attract more people in than you think.” remmick joked, causing you to chuckle, shaking your head.
“i’m not their guard dog, i’m actually-”
“y/n, who are these people?”
you pulled back. standing behind you now was stack and the others with frowns on their faces as they looked the trio up and down. you got up from the chair, using your feet to kick it one side before the group pushed passed you as if they were protecting the jukebox, taking a stand firm at the door.
“hey, you okay?” mary asked as you made your way beside her behind stack.
“i’m fine.”
“whoa now, we don’t want any trouble, mister.” you heard remmick say, his arms held up as he took a few steps back.
“how’d you get here?”
“i-i was just tellin’ that pretty lady how we heard people speak of this place.” he defended, eyes locking with yours as he sent you a subtle wink, causing a blush to creep up on your cheeks as you looked down to hide a smile.
stack rolled his eyes at the sight. “sorry but this place isn’t open to the rest of’ya.”
“oh, i-is this because we’re-” he pointed to his arm. “then how’d they both get in?”
before you or mary could speak up, annie stepped in, “they’re family.”
remmick’s mouth fell into a silent ‘o’, nodding. “can we just play a lil somethin’ for ya? maybe you’d change your mind.”
there was no response, so remmick took the silence as his sign to continue.
the three of them took out their banjos and began to sing an old folk song.
it was catchy, you couldn’t lie, but there was something eerie about it at the same time.
you tapped your foot to the rhythm and you observed how no one seemed impressed except smoke.
“okay that’s enough.” stack interrupted as the three of them groaned.
“c’mon, it was just about to get good.”
“nah, i think it’s time for you to leave.”
you wanted to protest, but seeing how you didn’t really have a say, you kept quiet.
“i guess that’s fair, it’s a shame… i would’ve loved to serenate y’all with my music.” remmick let out a sigh of disappointment, eyes flickering to you once more for a brief second before looking away.
“have a good night.” stack said bluntly, turning around and slamming the door shut behind him as everyone went back to doing different things.
you stayed by the door for a few moments, the image of remmick not leaving your mind. he was so welcoming towards you, caring even. his smile gave you butterflies and you wanted nothing more but to have him stay.
“looks like you’ve got a fan, princess.” stack teased, shoving pass you, heading back to the party.
fuck it.
in a distance
“fuck! how are we supposed to get in?!” remmick cursed, throwing his banjo onto a tree log in the middle of the road, plumping down next to it.
“how about y/n?” the woman spoke up, “she seems like an easy target.”
remmick’s jaw tightened and his fists clenched, “we are not taking y/n.” he gritted, causing the woman to gulp.
he sighed with frustration as he buried his face in his hands.
remmick didn’t want to hurt you. it was like he was being held back, he couldn’t bring himself to turn you into one of them. the mere thought of sinking his teeth into your delicate skin made his blood boil and he didn’t know why.
up till that night, remmick didn’t even know who you were. but after that small interaction, something in him compelled him from putting you in harm’s way.
he felt attracted to you, like a magnet pull that he couldn’t resist. after being chased away by stack, he fought the urge to turn back just to sneak one last look at you.
you were just like honey to him, so sweet and he craved it like a bee attracted to nectar.
unbeknownst to him, you were walking by your lonesome down the road. you silently hoped that they hadn’t made it far.
then, in the mere distance, you heard singing. picking up the pace, you found remmick and his friends on the side of the road.
“grows around the blooming heather-”
your gaze softened, they were singing yet another folk song that held a special place in your heart. it was beautiful.
“-will ye go, lassie go?”
your eyes swelled with tears as you approached them. remmick’s eyes shot up upon sensing another presence, but his guard was immediately dropped as he laid eyes on you.
he smiled to himself, continuing the song as you made your way beside him, sitting down as he continued to enchant you with the lullaby.
“and we’ll all go together, to pull wild mountain thyme…”
“…all around the blooming heather,” you started to sing with him, “will ye go, lassie go?”
as the song came to an end, you chuckled, wiping away the tears and gave them a small applause.
remmick gave you a bow, “how’d you know that song?” he asked.
“my mother taught me, it’s very beautiful.”
“you have a siren’s voice, darlin’, i sure as hell would die a happy man if that was the last voice i ever heard.”
“thank you, remmick… i’m sorry about earlier. they’re not exactly a welcoming bunch.”
“it’s alright, sweetness. it ain’t your fault.”
“i just couldn’t help but notice you feeling just a lil out of place with them.” remmick pointed out his observation.
“wh-what?”
“it’s clear as day, y/n. these people don’t appreciate you.”
you stayed silent.
“i’d never make ya feel like a burden to me, y’know?” he continued, “unlike those fools, i know how to treasure a pretty girl like you.”
you blushed at his words. “i-”
“you just gotta give me a chance, darlin’. and i promise you, you’d be the happiest girl alive with me.”
you stiffened. “i-i think i should get back to the party, they’re probably wondering where i’ve run off to.” you excused yourself, as remmick watched helplessly as you began to walk away.
then, the woman too had gotten up, drooling as she took a step, following you but remmick’s hand held her back.
“no. not yet.” he warned, watching you disappear into the darkness of the night, his heart pounding in his chest.
oh, you were going to be his.
you staggered back into the party, but it was chaos. people were fleeing from the barn as high pitched screams rang all around.
you shoved and squeezed through everyone, making your way to one of the rooms where smoke, sammy and the others gathered.
“y/n! where have you been? oh, i was so worried!” annie gasped, pulling you into a hug the second you entered the room.
“what’s going on, why is everyone-” then you saw it. stack’s lifeless body on the floor laying in a pool of blood. “what the fuck?!”
you were in shock, your hand flying to your mouth as your chest heaved heavily.
“wh-what h-happened?” you asked as you knelt down beside smoke, taking stacks’ hand in yours as smoke sucked in a breath.
“mary.”
“mary?”
“we broke in, she was all messed up and shit. had blood all over her mouth…we had to pull her off of stack.” he explained.
suddenly, everyone was spooked by a knock on the door.
you shot up, smoke pushed you behind him as he carefully made his way to the front door, gun in hand. when he opened it, your eyes widened, it was remmick.
but this wasn’t the remmick that you had met earlier. cause right now, his eyes were bright orange, glowing in the moonlight, accompanied with that same grin but only now he had fangs.
“what the hell?” you heard smoke mutter under his breath.
“good evening, again.” remmick greeted, his eyes glued to you but you couldn’t look away. “i was wondering if y’all would let me in now.”
“get the fuck away from us.” smoke threatened, raising his gun.
you winced at the sight, looking away from the two men but you were immediately drawn back by remmick’s voice.
“y/n…”
for a moment, you stopped breathing. slowly, your eyes trailed up to remmick’s face, noticing now that his eyes were back to it’s soft, blue color.
“sweetheart, why don’t you come with me?” he asked, voice softer than ever.
you only stared, falling into a turmoil of emotions.
“what do you want with us?” annie asked with a trembling voice.
“i’ve told you before, i don’t want any trouble… i just want the girl.” remmick replied, tilting his head, never breaking the eye contact. “c’mon y/n, i know that you know you’re not happy here…with them. and you will never be unless you come with me.”
you opened your mouth, but no words came out. you felt safe just listening to the words he said, it was so comforting and geniune.
“you knew it from the moment you came to look for me…” remmick continued, extending his hand as you looked down. “…come with me, darlin’”
“y/n, don’t do it.” smoke warned, his grip tightening on the gun. “don’t listen to him, y/n.”
but you were too far gone. you closed your eyes, taking in a breath and taking his hand. before anyone could hold you back, remmick pulled you out of the barn where no one dared to step out of.
a devilish grin appeared on remmick’s face as he wrapped his arm around your shoulder and placed a kiss on your temple.
“attagirl.” he mumbled, taking you along as he started to walk away.
then he stopped in his tracks, whipping his head around. “oh, and i apologise. it seems like i’ve changed my mind.”
suddenly, a crowd of savage vampires appeared in the treeline, all sprinting towards the barn.
when you turned to see what was happening, remmick gently held your face in his hands, turning it back to him instead. “don’t worry about them, sweetheart. in fact, you ain’t gotta worry about a thing with me now.”
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down.
NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil…and love.
The story will be told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut, it turned into a fix it fic for ST4
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, attempted assault, bullying, canon-typical violence
summary: you’re new at hawkins high, and the hellfire club practically kneel at your feet.
warnings: language, fluff to the max. just short and sweet:)
a/n: i’m turning this into a series! part two is here
This feeling, this one right here, was the worst. There you stood, front of the cafeteria, tray in your hands as you observed the crowd. You could see each cliché friend group at each table. Towards the left, were the jocks and their cheerleader girlfriends. There were students who held instruments and taped up glasses. There were a few tables that barely had anyone sitting there, a couple quiet kids. On the right, were the students who actually gave a damn about grades, their books cracked open as they studied mid-chew.
Having Military parents was difficult for you, especially with the constant moving. If anything, it was the worst thing about it. Any friends you made were short lived, so as the years went on and you got older, you purposely tried to avoid making friends. Your eyes then settled on a table that made you curios. You’d never heard of that cliché group before. Hellfire club?
It was a group of boys, chattering away with smiling faces and waving their hands in dramatics. Oh well, you thought, and made your way toward their table.
“So, instead of finding a sub for him, you want to postpone?”
“Just for the week! Just until the championships are over!”
“Oh no, I see how it is. Sinclair has obviously been taken in by the dark side,”
“Can I sit here?”
Eddie, and the rest of his hellfire crew’s eyes immediately snapped to the sound of your voice, widening at you, a girl, who stood at the end of the table. “Uh, sorry?” Mike gulped.
You grew red at the obvious disturbance that you had caused, swallowing roughly. “Sorry, it’s just- well, I’m new here and I wondered if I could- but it’s okay! I’ll just-”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Eddie snapped his fingers, turning the spotlight on him. “Here.” He patted the seat next to him, shoving Dustin over one. “Forgive us our manners, my lady, it’s not everyday a creature as…lovely as you graces us with your presence.” You chuckled awkwardly, sitting down next to him as you glanced at everyone.
“Thank you.” You nodded to everyone. “I’m y/n.”
“Eddie.” He held out his hand for you to shake, leaning on his other elbow with a curious gleam in his eye. He was trying to sniff you out, because no woman ever just sat with them. Surely, you had to be just like every preppy girl at that forsaken high school. Why would you choose them out of everyone?
You shook his hand, smiling softly as his brown eyes smiled back. “And I’m Dustin!” Your eyes widened as the curly, short haired boy shoved Eddie’s hand out of yours, grasping your own tightly.
“Hi, Dustin.” You kept in your chuckle.
“And I’m Mike!”
Eddie rolled his eyes as everyone about the table took their sweet time with shaking your hand, marveling at the fact they were touching a girls hand. “You guys are very welcoming.” You tucked a hair behind your ear. “But please, don’t let me interrupt, just ignore me.” You smiled, picking up your jelly sandwich.
You were mid-chew, staring down at your hands as the loud chatter of the cafeteria flooded your ear. You glanced up and froze, everyone’s eyes on you. You gulped.
Gareth and Jeff’s mouth’s hung open, faces pressed into their hands as they stared at you. Dustin thought you were cutest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, even more so than Madonna. And Eddie, dear god, was practically drooling at the mouth. He looked like a damn cartoon character with hearts for eyes, watching you as you grew red. There was something so- innocent about you, youthful. You had no idea how hated they were at that school.
“Uh,” You placed down the sandwich. “You want some?” Your words muffled from your mouthful, and Eddie chuckled, everyone else doing the same.
“We’re just waiting for the punchline, sweetheart.” Eddie kicked back in his chair, stretching his arms out. “You see, your with the freaks of Hawkins High. The devil worshipers.”
“See!” Dustin pushed out his chest, pointing to his hellfire shirt.
“Yeah, I saw that.” You nodded.
“And it didn’t scare you?” Eddie raised a brow, poking at the devil on his chest. “This guy?”
You were confused, glancing at everyone around the table. “No? I mean, it’s mostly why I came over here. I haven’t ever heard of that club before.”
“That’s not surprising,” He popped his chair back down, smiling at your confusion. “Ever heard of dnd? Dungeons and Dragons?”
“No, I don’t think so.” You answered.
He nodded. “I figured not. Sweet little girl like you wouldn’t mix herself with the likes of such.”
It almost disappointed him, because he’d already placed you up among the crowd, with the preppy’s and cheerleaders.
“Well, are you going to tell me what it is?” You said softly, watching as his eyes grew hopeful.
“It’s a fantasy role playing game!” Dustin intervened, moving around the table to sit beside you, ignoring the way Eddie grew annoyed. “There’s wizards and warlocks, druids and rogues. And there’s a dice you roll that determines what happens to your character!”
You sat and listened as he listed the game, trying to collect every piece of information he gave you. Eddie wanted to send him to the moon. “Are there elves?” You tried to contribute.
Now that, got Eddie’s attention, at the mere fact you were at least somewhat interested.
“Yeah, there’s elves.” He beat dustin to the punchline, scooting upward as he leaned closer to you. “Really, you can be anything you want to be.”
“What about princess’s?” You chuckled, causing everyone else to do so. Eddie snickered, looking down as he nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Well, it sounds fun.” You shrugged your shoulder. “I don’t get why you’re made fun of for liking a cool game. I’d play if I knew how.” You said the last part mostly to yourself, but the metalhead’s interest was peaked.
He glanced at his sheep, having silent communication about the decision. Girls did not play dungeons and dragons. Girls did not hang out with hellfire club. Girls did not make Eddie Munsons heart soar, only his sweet guitar did.
“You could play with us, if you wanted.” Eddie said, resting his chin against his fist, speaking cautiously. “We’re actually one man short tonight. We play right here at the school.”
His eyes bore into yours, and it gave you a moment to actually take in his appearance. His eyes were beautiful, big and full of excitement. His hair was wild and free, his body adorned in shiny jewelry. He looked the part of an outcast, but the invitation was not something you wanted to pass up.
“I’d need you to teach me.” You smiled awkwardly.
“And I’m,” He leaned in closer, smirking at you mischievously. “A very good teacher.”
The bell rang across the cafeteria, but his eyes remained non yours. You breathed out in excitement, looking at everyone’s shocked faces. “Well, I guess I’ll see you gentlemen tonight then.” You stood, Eddie smirking as he followed form.
“See you then, princess.” He shouted, and you giggled as you waved them goodbye.
He crossed his arms, kicking back into his chair as he watched you walk out of the room. He finally looked to his friends. “What?” He noticed their stares.
“That’s not fair, Eddie!” Dustin complained. “I wanted to invite her! I called dibs!”
“No, you didn’t.” Eddie snorted, standing up. “Besides, this one’s special, boys.” He found you again, staring at your back.
“Why?” Mike groaned.
He swallowed at your bouncing curls, and he knew you were going to disrupt his simple little life. “I think I’m in love.”
This series will be updated every weekend. If you’d like to be added to my Eddie taglist, let me know. I hope you enjoy the first chapter! - Love, Kiki ❤
𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Eddie Munson x female reader
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down.
NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil…and love.
The story will be told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (in the later chapters, so you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, harassment, canon-typical violence
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 5.4 k
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | attempted sexual assault but Eddie saves the day, Jason Carver, canon-typical violence (Those are the chapter warnings. There will be lots of smut in the later chapters so please only read this if you’re 18+ years old!)
It had already been there when you’d woken that morning, that strange, nagging feeling in your gut, like a silent shadow in the corner of the room. Dread. A sense of something being…wrong.
The feeling in your guts had started to grow when Robin had climbed into the passenger seat, and by the time you’d reached Forest Hills to pick up Max, it had spawned into a dark, sinking premonition.
“Holy shit, what the Hell’s happening here?”, Robin gawked at the sight unfurling in front of you when you steered the car to the side of the road, yellow police tape fluttering in the spring-breeze.
“Do you think something happened to Max?”, your friend gasped.
The trailer park was abuzz with police.
In the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police cars painting eerie patterns on the walls of the nearby trailers in the blushing light of dawn, cops whirred around the place like a swarm of flies over a rotten carcass.
And the dark premonition morphed into panic.
“No,” you breathed. “Not to Max.”
You didn’t hesitate a single second, didn’t wait for the officer walking up the gravelly road to reach your car
With Robin’s surprised call piercing the early-morning-air behind you, you burst out the door and broke into a run, ignoring the warning shouts of the officer right on your heels as your feet carried you across the crunching gravel, the haze of panic buzzing like static in your mind, turning your surroundings into white noise and blinking lights.
The gravel beneath your feet turned to dry patches of grass, and you reached the trailer, the crackling static of RT units and shouts filling the morning air around you, all blurring beneath the thundering of your heart, the rush of blood in your ears.
Neither you or Aegon wanted to get married. Neither you or Aegon wanted to marry each other. But at some point, you figured you should make the most of what you had, and so you offer your husband a deal he cannot refuse.
A/N: ... i had something to say about this fic but i forgot... maybe ill remember later???? edit: i did not remember. i thought of mitski while entitling this so go play i bet on losing dogs ig?
Aegon only truly understood what this meant the day he was married and he was forbidden to drink a drop of alcohol.
As if it wasn't painful enough that he was going to be married to a complete stranger from some house he's never fucking heard of, he was erratic and uneasy the whole day because of the withdrawal. He loathes the preparation, the ceremony, the fucking pageantry of it all.
He thinks it was worse that you seemed to be so chipper the entire time. You smiled with a halo, skin shining with the light. You also seemingly did no wrong, judging by the praises you received from his mother and grandfather. But, who was he kidding, of course they fucking loved you, they chose you to be his prison keeper.
You did not press him once, not when you were preparing for the ceremony, not when you were at the feast, not even after the Queen encouraged you to dance.
Anyone with eyes could see from how he slumped on his chair during dinner that Aegon would rather die than circle around the room to this grating noise echoing in the chamber.
The band begins to play another song and another round of dancing ensues.
He stares at the food on the table. Oh, to be a suckling pig.
The relief that coursed through him when he could finally leave was enough to knock him out. Except, he really wanted, no, needed a drink.
He crashes on his bed, belly down, and reaches for the cabinet door on his bedside table. He feels for his bottle, hand knocking into the corners of the compartment, but he sits up when he finds nothing.
He growls in frustration upon realizing this was definitely his mother's doing. Thief!
"I managed a cup."
Aegon struggles to look over his shoulder from his position. He rolls on his back as you walk to the side of the bed.
He stares at you. You offer a glass holding burgundy liquid. Your voice is soft and kind as you explain, "your mother would suspect me if I took a whole bottle."
Aegon pushes himself up and sits on the edge of the bed, facing you. He gulps at the wine you were offering.
Sure, he may not be the brightest, but anyone could tell this scene was the epitome of ulterior motives. Aegon leans on his thighs, "why are you doing this?"
You stare a moment. You clutch the cup in both hands and examine it. Again, your voice is gentle, "you are clearly in torment. It hurts my heart."
His eye twitches.
I see. It seems you were a fucking saint.
Aegon rips the glass out of your hands, some of the wine spills over. He downs the contents in one go, then chucks the glass across the room once he finished.
He looks back at you, glaring with watery eyes. He was exhausted, he was angry, and he wanted you to know it. But you don't flinch at the sound of the glass breaking. You didn't flinch at all when he showed aggression. Why didn't you flinch?
You press your lips and sigh. You step towards him and reach out.
He nervously straightens up and tilts his head back as you approach. His breath hitches when your warm hand touches his cheek. He blinks rapidly.
"It's been a long day. Would you like me to help you change?"
Again, his eye twitches.
And then he realizes what you mean.
Ah. So, this is what you wanted?
He releases a breath, eyes lowering. Your face falls into a slight frown.
He thinks about it for a moment. I mean, sex was sex and he was game. It didn't matter how he performed, his completion was all that mattered, really. And you were pretty enough, albeit irritatingly good.
When you stroke his hair, Aegon pulls at your skirts, causing you to squeak and topple, hands flying to his shoulders for support. Your faces are inches apart. He pulls you down until you have no other choice than to sit on his lap.
You can smell the remnants of the wine he just drank on his breath. Aegon brings his face closer to yours, and you let out a soft 'hmp'. You mutter, "I gather you don't want to change, but want to get out of your clothes."
He narrows his eyes as you shift on his lap and undo the buttons by his chest. He mutters dumbly, "this is what you wanted."
With knit brows, you retort, "I've not yet told you what I wanted." You shift on his lap again as you peel his top off. Amidst it, he asks, "what do you want?"
You grunt after ridding him of his top. You fold it in your arms then set it aside on the bed. You turn back to him. Aegon's breath hitches when you fondle with strings of his undershirt. He watches your lips as you mumble, "I want you to give me a ride on your dragon."
He furrows his brows. But that's what he just said.
You stand, only to lift your skirt and take your place back on his lap. This time, you straddle him.
Aegon gulps, hands coming to your hips like a magnet. He feels you grind on him; shaky breaths leave his lips in response. His hands scratch up your back and a moan escapes him when your nails trace his collarbones.
"Allow me one trip on Sunfyre, and in return, I'll be your magic lamp," you whisper, taking one of his hands, bringing it to the side of your ribs, "you may rub me where you like-"
His heart skips when you kiss his cheek.
"-and I will grant you all your wishes."
Aegon ticks.
The next moment, he pushes you down on the bed. He doesn't bother getting either of you naked, nor does he prepare you at all in fact. Thankfully, you were already wet.
You don't have the opportunity to ask him to be gentle, to explain you were a bride after all, and it was your wedding night.
Aegon grips your skirts as he fucks you like he means to prove a point. He snaps his hips roughly into you to assert dominance, to exemplify control. Sure, you offered yourself to him, but he was the one doing the work, and you were the one beneath him.
In truth, the pace he set gave you more pain rather than pleasure. And with how pent up he was, the rough tempo he set burnt him out way too quickly before it could make any of you feel good. And when he begins to lag, you start to feel good.
You notice this change and rub your nose against his. He recoils, unused to affection when fucking. It snaps him back into an aggressive trance.
You yelp. Aegon convinced himself it was a sound of bliss.
You kiss his jaw and work your way to his ear, hoping to calm him down. He tenses at the feel of your tongue on his lobe. It stokes flames in his belly and makes him involuntarily roll his hips slower to focus on the attention you're giving. In return, his pace is just enough for him to hit that spot that makes you throw your head back.
Aegon is startled by the scratchy groan that leaves your throat. He finds himself lifting his head to spectate, but you pull him into you by the nape and groan, "like that. Please- gods - that feels good."
His brows tense and he rolls his hips again, finding the same reaction.
You wrap your arms and legs around him, uncaring of how hot and sweaty you were getting. In the heat of the moment, you reach for his lips, needing them, needing something to wrap your own on.
Aegon kisses you. He kisses you with a strange twinge in his chest. He kisses you until he has to pull away and reposition himself to catch his building climax.
In a second, he's back to his fuck-loving self, only self-serving and lustful. As he gazes upon your writhing body, catching the beads of sweat on your skin, the concentration on your face, and the way you chant his name as you part your legs for him, he's overcome by another spirit. To watch you break, to watch you coil and collapse around him felt just as urgent as his need to come.
And so Aegon rubs your clit and forces you to peak first; you do it so well he curses loudly and comes after.
He lays on top of you for a moment, the overwhelming need to be held ripples through his body. He recalls how his whores shoo him away after he's done fucking them though. Before you can cradle him in your arms, he rolls off you.
You close your legs and and watch him strip himself and sequentially change. You watch him get back in bed and bring himself underneath the covers. He goes to sleep.
He fucking goes to sleep.
You feel hollow after this, but tell yourself it's nothing personal. You repeat this as you, yourself, get up and change, sequentially sleeping too. Or at least you try. You have fight the urge to cry for hours before you do.
The next morning, you bring up dragon riding to Aegon, and disappointed as you are, you are unsurprised to find that he was unwilling to give you such a thing.
It was a plain thing you were asking for, you explain. And it's exactly why he doesn't want to do it. It's clearly some trick, something to trap him, something he's going to regret. It was probably some ploy orchestrated by his mother.
Oh gods, he thinks, it's worse. It's a bonding experience so you can make him into your puppet. Fuck. No.
So, he does what he does best, and makes an excuse, "I don't feel like riding today. I'm still exhausted from the festivities."
You purse your lips and nod, "that's understandable. Would you like for me to get you something?"
Wait. You weren't going to argue about him not keeping his end of the deal?
You seem to catch this, considering your response and the way you take his hand. You place his palm on your chest. He can feel your pulse quicken as you mutter, "I am your magic lamp, husband. I wish to please you. I will prove this until you trust me enough to grant me a ride on dragonback."
He narrows his eyes, "you would grant me wishes, all in return for a ride on Sunfyre?"
You smile softly at him, "in return for respite, yes."
He doesn't trust your smile.
"I want to visit the Grey Cliffs. I have for a years now. I went there once as a child and long to go again."
"Why?" he knits his brows at your explanation, "what's there?"
You lower his hand and rub his skin, "respite, my prince."
Aegon pulls his hand away.
Very well. If that is what you want, then he will wear your wishes dry until you find it no longer worth the trouble.
Aegon wishes on his lamp everyday, and his wife sequentially plays entertainer, jester, servant, and slave.
He makes you bring a bottle of wine with you everywhere, and pour him a cup when he wishes. He loathes how you seem unbothered by it. He loathes how you don't even correct a visiting Lord who mistakes you for a cupbearer and simply serve him some wine. The Lord is mortified when he realizes you are his wife, a fucking princess. Aegon hates how you tell the man you were unbothered because you spent your whole life being a cupbearer to your father anyway.
He makes you do trivial tasks as well, sometimes tasks meant for more than one person at a time, and yet you still manage to do them, annoyingly better than the maids. When he demanded you cook him a full course meal, you did so all by yourself, and had the servants looking at you like you were some goddess.
He ripped a hole in his clothes then made you mend it. You covered the hole so seamlessly that he poked a bigger one right in front of you. And even then you don't give him the satisfaction of getting angry. You tell him you will embroider something on top of the hole and he storms off. He overhears you telling the servants, who applaud your level-headedness, that you were used to angry men, because your father was just the same.
You use each of these moments to somehow tell him you were the perfect wife and he had to oblige your stupid request at some point.
But then he found your flaw.
Aegon asked you to play the harpsichord for him, and you told him you did not know how. The woman who knew all did not know something? He would then proceed to hang this over your head. When he asked you for food, he'd tell you how much better it'd taste if he had entertainment. If he asked you to do something physically taxing for him, he's say that he wouldn't have asked you to do it, had you known how to play his 'favorite' instrument. He would use this as the reason why he could never bring you to Grey Cliffs.
It was all fun and games, but then you had to snitch, hadn't you?
"What are you doing to that poor girl!" Queen Alicent barked, making his ears ring.
Aegon groans from where he lies in bed. His mother rips the blankets off him, making him wake in a sour mood.
"She is your wife!" Alicent yells, "not your slave! Fine, you wish her to do tasks for you, tasks for your betterment. But to insult her standing by treating her like a maid is beneath a prince, Aegon!"
Aegon feels his throat tighten at the sight of his angry mother's face, "she is my wife," he growls, "I do with her as I please."
She strikes his cheek.
Aegon's head whips to the side. He doesn't have the energy to look back at her.
"You will no longer parade her as a cupbearer. I will have it decreed you are not ever served a drop of wine if you don't."
Alicent leaves after this. Aegon's anger explodes when the door closes.
He screams and rips at his hair. He kicks furniture around and eventually drops to the floor, exhausted, furious, and hurt. This was all your fault.
He screams again and claws the tears on his face. He slowly exhales through tight lips. His cheek is hot with saltwater. Who was he joking, this was all him.
This was all Aegon's doing.
His breathing is impeded by snot. He walks over to his window and stares at the ground below. If he jumps head first, not even the best maester in Westeros could fix him.
Before he can lean on the ledge, he is paralyzed in his spot by the sound of the door opening.
"I did not know she would be angry with you," you say.
Aegon looks back.
You see his red eyes and wet skin. He is a mirror to your younger self. You feel sick to your stomach. You try to explain, "I only asked if she could find a harpsichord teacher. I did not realize she would take offense in wanting to learn to play for you."
Aegon's heart aches at your naïve response. You were a stupid, perfect wife, and he, a stupid, petulant husband.
"I'm better off dead," he mumbles, looking back out the window. The call of the fall felt inviting, "want to push me, wife?"
You don't respond.
Aegon looks back at you, and suddenly you're only inches away. He tries to evade you, but you manage to catch his hand.
"We could jump together."
"What?"
Your face is blank. You part your lips, and for a moment, your eyes seem desperate, but then it's gone. You sigh, "dying is quite lonely," looking down, "I could keep you company."
Aegon stares at you. Tears stream down his face. "You're mad," he sniffles, yanking his hand away.
He walks over to his bed and collapses on it. He wraps himself in a blanket and feels sorry for himself, and angry at you for suggesting such a thing. Even now you want to be perfect by dying with him?
"I am," you mutter.
Aegon watches as you walk over to him. You sit on the floor beside his bed and look at your hands as you rub them.
"I cannot play the harpsichord, because my father does not like noise," you explain, "I was not allowed to make a sound or else I would be punished."
Aegon covers his head with a blanket but keeps his face visible, "he beat you, didn't he?"
You look at him, eyes melancholy, but still, he is the only one crying, "he beat everyone."
Aegon does not respond.
"I can sing though."
His brow raises, "how can you sing?"
"I would practice whenever he was gone, and sing for my mother in secret. It made her happy... happy enough."
He knew there was more to this confession, but he was too tired to ask about it, too tired to shed more tears.
"Would you like me to sing for you?"
"No."
"..."
"..."
"Would you like me to hold you?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
You stand from where you sat and get on the edge of the bed. Aegon watches as you slowly lie beside him. You bring an arm over him and pull him close. Aegon closes his eyes as you bring him into your chest.
You hold him until he falls asleep. Later that night, he asks you to hold him again. He also asks you to sing to him.
Aegon nestles his face in the crook of your neck. He wraps his arms around your torso, digging his fingers between your flesh and the bed. Your hushed voice reverberates in the bedroom, the song you sing is haunting and soothing. The vibrations from your chest lull him to sleep. You feel wetness pool by your clavicle but you make no note of it.
Aegon asks you to hold him the next morning after breaking fast. He asks you to stay with him in bed and to sing to him some more. When you have to leave his side, he asks to join you and waits until he can have you in his arms again.
Aegon becomes your shadow, and follows you around, under the promise of getting to share in your embrace. As you read and review letters or ledgers, your seat becomes Aegon's lap. He sleeps against you while you work without a fuss, cheek pressed against your back, arms fastened around your waist.
Sometimes, he notices the line that forms between your brows while you read and at some point, asks about it. You explain what causes it, and he is unmoved, as he is uninterested in politics that stress you. But when you read out to him, he finds comfort in your voice and asks you to read some. He falls asleep to your calm droning of circumstances he could not care less about. He groans and groggily awakens when you stop. He mumbles against your skin that you continue, pleadingly so.
When you had to leave the Keep for business, Aegon insisted that he joined you. When you brushed his cheek and explained to him why he could not go and that you would not be long, Aegon pushed you away and stormed off. You left without him anyway, and the treachery he felt was so great, he realized then how he could no longer go day to day without you. What was there to do, if you were not there?
And so Aegon desperately rubs his magic lamp and wishes upon you.
He wishes that you never leave without him again once you return.
He wishes that you promise to no longer make plans without him.
He traps you beneath him on your shared bed and wishes to be inside you. He kisses you and wishes to see you completely bared to him.
Aegon's mind is dizzy as he gazes upon the glory of your skin. He kisses your thighs, your hips, your breast, your lips.
Aegon wishes to surrender to you. He wishes that you undress him. He wishes to pull you on his body like a blanket. He wishes to see you take control. He wishes to see you cast your eyes upon him and lay your weight on his body.
He wishes to see you use him, to take what you need from him, to pleasure yourself, and to make him yours. He squeezes your thighs desperately when you moan out his name. This was much more maddening that what he imagined it would be.
He wishes to feel you come undone around him. He wishes he could forever feel the pleasure he did when he comes right after you do.
He wishes to hold you after. And when he holds you, when you lay on his chest and kiss him there, he wishes to never leave this moment ever again. He wishes to sing to you like you've sung to him.
"What are your plans tomorrow," Aegon asks as he draws nothings on your back.
You lift your head from his chest. He looks at you. You smile, "whatever you wish them to be."
He rubs your back and smiles, "I wish to take you to the Grey Cliffs."
Your expression drops, "what?"
He raises a brow at your reaction. You shift on your place. You straddle him again.
He looks up at you, noticing the line between your brows. He rubs your thighs, "you've granted me all my wishes. It's time I grant you yours." He shifts on his elbows and sits himself up, "it's time you meet my mount and-"
"We don't have to," you cut him off, placing your hands on his shoulders.
Aegon examines your expression. He listens to you sigh.
"I'd like to keep you-- wish to keep you..." you correct yourself, pushing him back down.
He looks up at you, feeling your hands rake up his body.
"...just like this," you finish, eyes solemn, lips curving into a soft smile, "I've not felt a thing like this in my entire life."
Aegon takes one of your hands and places it on his cheek. He whispers it like a secret, "neither have I."
You lean down to kiss him, "I wish to keep like this."
He kisses you back.
He is blindsided by how his wishes came to bite him in the arse. It's all crashing down on him. Suddenly, he wishes he didn't actually do any of those things with you.
He most of all wishes he heard you wrong. He wishes you didn't repeat yourself when he stupidly said, "what?"
"I'm with child," you speak slower, less excited yet excited still.
Aegon wishes you didn't look so excited. He wishes he fucking pulled out, but gods, you felt so good-- you feel so good around him, he felt so good inside you.
He realized the next moment, it couldn't be helped. You were going to have to bear his spawn at one point or another. He wishes you didn't have to. He wishes his seed wouldn't take completely. He wishes you don't take it to term. He wishes he won't have to be a father. Fuck.
He realizes he's been too quiet and you were waiting for a response from him. Your face began to twist. Your smile fades.
"Congratulations," Aegon musters. He feels like he swallowed a metal ball. His eyes wander to your belly. He mumbles mindlessly, "I suppose."
Your face falls.
Aegon looks back at you. Your face is devoid of any semblance of the glow it normally holds. You look sick. You feel sick.
"I see," you say, unintentionally allowing him to hear your voice break. Aegon's brows furrow at it.
He shakes his head, "you will be a great mother," he chuckles dryly, "you mother me so well."
You offer him a smile, but Aegon can see how disconnected it was from your eyes. You say, "thank you."
When you leave him after this, he wishes he hadn't said a word. He wishes he just left it at congratulations. He wishes he just pretended like the idea of having a child didn't mortify him and make him sick to his stomach. He wishes he wasn't so ill-suited to be a father.
Ageon no longer wishes for anything after this.
He no longer wishes to hold you, though he so badly wanted to. He no longer wishes to hear you sing, nor does he wish to hear you read to him. He no longer wishes to be around you, though his body urged him to follow you around like the lost soul he was.
He wishes he didn't wonder what you were doing at every moment of the day. He so desperately wishes to rid you from his mind completely that he drowns himself in his first and only true love, alcohol.
Fuck. He wishes he hadn't taken this route to his room. He wishes you hadn't taken this route to wherever it was you were going. He wishes he just turned around and fled like the coward he was, because then, you wouldn't have spoken to him.
"Husband," you curtsey.
Aegon stiffens and uncomfortably avoids your eyes.
You catch it, feeling your chest tighten painfully. You clear your throat and take a deep breath to steel yourself, "I thought you should know that I will be travelling."
Aegon looks at you.
"I have a ship ready and I'll be visiting the Grey Cliffs. Do not wait up for me."
His face falls. He opens his mouth, but doesn't have an opportunity to speak.
"I thought you should also know that I am no longer carrying."
His eyes widen.
"It's not an uncommon occurrence the first few months," you say simply, "I suppose the gods do not wish me to be a mother."
Aegon feels like a murderer. He wants to say something, to apologize, to comfort you, but he can't. He's too taken aback to do a single thing.
He turns into stone when you take his hand. You step forward and place his palm on your chest. Your heart is slow as you speak, "you won't have to worry about anything anymore, Aegon. Today is the end of our shared torment."
Aegon's stomach drops when you kiss him.
His eyes are glassy. You pull away before he can kiss you back. He wants to hold you, but the sadness in your eyes reminds him he is undeserving. You kiss his wrist, "goodbye, my love. I love you."
His heart thumps as you walk away.
Aegon is manic. He basks in the mess he's made and feels crushed by it all.
He finally acts after wasting so much time feeling sorry for himself. You were long out of his sight by the time he started running. This is why he headed to the dragonpit and got on Sunfyre.
"WAIT!" he screams, just as your boat leaves the dock.
Aegon watches as you run to the edge of the boat. He lands Sunfyre and runs as far to the edge of the docks as he could.
"Aegon-"
"Take me with you!" he pleads, "let me be the one to take you to where you must go!"
You look back. The ship stops. The crew brings down a boat and on it, you are rowed back to the dock.
He crushes you in his arms once he reaches you.
"Aegon," you mutter.
"Forgive me," he shudders, "I... I wish you let me do this for you."
"Aegon," your voice croaks. You push him away, "go home."
His heart drops. He breaks away to look at you. Your words feel like a stab at his thorax. It was presumptuous of him to assume you'd want him back, but it doesn't kill him inside any less.
"I've come to realize this is a trip I must go on myself," you mutter.
He shakes his head, "no. Please." He motions an arm out to his mount, "one wish. That I grant you one wish before you throw me away forever is... is--"
Your throat constricts at his words. Tears rush down your eyes, "I'm not throwing you away--"
"Please," he squeezes both your hands in his, "please, let me do this for you."
The flight to the Grey Cliffs is quiet, save for the whoosh of winds and the roars of the golden dragon you both rode. You always imagined it would be freeing, but only now did you know how it freeing it truly felt to fly. You knew now you'd forever chase the euphoric crush of air against your skin.
Aegon, who sat behind you, looks at your form as you outstretch your arms and close your eyes. Your body presses against him, and in this moment, he is unable to hold back from wrapping an arm around you and sparing a kiss on your shoulder. You are snapped out of your trance because of this.
The Grey Cliffs are dark and gloomy when you get there. Aegon realizes when you land that it got its name from the weather conditions.
He helps you down and surveys the area, trying to make out which part of this drear land was so special to you that you wished to go here.
You catch his expression and squeeze his hand.
Aegon turns to you.
You give a solemn look, "the view is better on the edge."
Aegon strokes Sunfyre's cheek, commanding him to stay before you lead him by the hand to the edge of the cliff. Once you get there, he feels queasy looking down at the crashing waves far beneath him. In contrast, you seem comforted by the view. His brows furrow at the deep breath you give out.
When you look at him, his stomach feels it, the comfort you felt upon witnessing the violent waves. Whatever it was that compelled you to this place was the same force that compelled him to kiss you.
He reaches out for your cheek, his other hand coming to you back. He pulls you close. His heart twinges when you stop him from kissing you.
"Aegon-"
"Forgive me," he cuts, "I beg."
You gawk at him. He brushes your hair which was wildly flinging with the breeze.
"You must know by now that I am craven. I lack the spine and the wit to be of any use to you."
Your eyes water. Your lips quiver.
"I would be a hopeless father, worse than my own, no doubt."
"Aegon," you babble as sobs overtake you.
Aegon, himself, succumbs to tears. He wipes the ones streaming down your face before taking a breath, "but you made me feel a love I do not deserve."
You swallow a heavy lump in your throat.
"I love you," he confesses.
"No," you pierce his heart. You shake your head in disagreement, "Aegon, this is a mistake. Bringing you here was a mistake."
"No!" he blurts louder than needed, "this was a choice," he looks down, "I choose to rip my insides out for you to devour. I am miserable, much more in the heat of your hate, but most of all without you."
His downturned eyes land on your face when you grab his wrists. You croak, "I do not hate you."
Aegon is not relieved by the admission, but he chooses to believe you mean it. He smiles softly, "good."
"But I do hate this life I live."
He clenches his jaw. Of course you do.
"You saved me," you press a hand on his cheek, taking your turn to wipe his tears, "even if for a moment."
"I made you miserable."
You chuckle. The sound makes his heart skip.
"You filled my life with purpose," you smile softly, "even when you did not mean to."
Aegon knits his brows deeply and takes your hands. He brings them to his lips and kisses them.
"But accidents happen. You must remember that accidents happen all the time."
Aegon shakes his head, "this is not an accident. Believe me when I say I chose to do this, I- ... I choose to love you."
You sob and turn to your feet.
"Please... believe me."
You sniffle and nod, slowly looking up at him, "I believe you."
You lunge into his arms and seal him into a tight hug. He hugs you back like it's his only way of surviving.
A crack of thunder startles Sunfyre. He becomes restless and steals away Aegon's attention, panicked that he might flee and leave them here.
He pulls away and takes a step towards her. He holds your hand, urging you to follow, "we should go before it rains."
You hug him from behind and press your face into his back, "thank you for taking me on Sunfyre."
"It was a long time coming."
"I've always wondered what it would be like to fly. And now that I know how peaceful it is, I'm ready to fly one last time."
He turns to you as you slowly come to his side. You hold his hand. He looks at you as you turn to Sunfyre. He promises, "I will take you on dragonback as many times as you wish."
You smile, but your eyes are fixed on his dragon. You release his hand and wrap your arms around yourself, "he is beautiful. You must never tire looking at him."
Aegon gazes upon Sunfyre. He takes in his golden scales and has newfound appreciation.
You take a step back.
"He is. To be honest, it's been long since I, myself, took him out of the pit. He must enjoy this day as much as you do."
"Aegon, you must understand that what I have to say has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."
Aegon turns to you. He watches you tighten your arms around yourself. You must be cold. He rubs your shoulders.
You shake your head and turn him back to his dragon, "look at Sunfyre."
He knits his brows, "I'm looking."
"For so long," you release him, "I've wanted to fly free, to find my peace here in the cliffs. This was before I even met you." You point at the golden dragon, "I choose to love you too, but accidents happen, like if Sunfyre were to fly away, and you were to be left here alone."
Aegon stares at his ride for a moment as you lower your hand. He tries to makes sense of your words, but he cannot for the life of him understand.
He sighs, "what accident? Why do you keep-"
Aegon is flooded by confusion when he turns and finds you nowhere behind him. A split second later, he lets a horrified scream and the fear that claws into him makes his knees buckle. He crumbles to the ground and crawls to the edge of the cliff. He screams so loud that Sunfyre roars back and comes towards him.
Aegon watches as the red seafoam bubbles at the foot of the cliff. He watches as the crimson waves slowly slosh back into its original tint.
Rain begins to pour, and his tears taste no longer salty.
Was this the flying you ached for? Was this the relief you sought?
When he returns to King's Landing, dripping wet, he breaks down in front of his mother, weeping as he clutched his skirts.
Queen Alicent is obviously disturbed. She instructs her servants to get his son a change of clothes and some towels. She looks down at him, "what's happened? What's wrong, Aegon?"
"An accident-" he barely manages to say, "there's been an accident."
same universe as this post. you don't have to read it beforehand, but it helps 🤭
even when yuuji's much older and has his own room, he's still woken up by sukuna's old man noises™ in the bathroom at 7am.
the poor, almost adult just wants to sleep in for a little longer and rest his weary bones, but sukuna's snorting and coughing and hacking his life out in the bathroom down the hall.
yuuji doesn't know how you do it, to be honest. between the snoring and old man-isms, the way he seems to have a permanent frown on his face. you've been by his uncle's side for as long as he can remember, acting as a mother figure to yuuji. always patient and caring, standing your ground against sukuna who can be bull-headed sometimes (a lot of times), and ultimately doing everything you can for the little family they've created.
he truthfully doesn't remember life without you, and quite frankly, he doesn't want to remember. ever since he was a toddler, you were his sun, yuuji your sunflower, absorbing your warmth and love.
you stayed by their side throughout everything; the ups, the downs, the twisty turvies. never once have you tried to replace his biological mum or even referred to yourself as his mother. but yuuji sees the way your eyes shine with pride and joy when looking at him.
he can see it in your face now as he walks into the kitchen, yawning. you notice him immediately while plating up everyone’s breakfast and attempting to escape sukuna's embrace, who's clinging onto your back like the leech he is.
“dammit woman, just let me hold you,” he growls, tightening him arms around you and kissing up and down your neck.
“sukuna,” you gasp, “not in front of yuuji!”
the giant of a man slowly lifts his face up from your neck and turns to side-eye yuuji. he lets go of you and sighs, grabbing the plates you’ve prepared, setting them on the table.
“mornin’ brat, sleep well?” he asks yuuji.
“not with all your snoring, he didn’t.” yuuji laughs at your response.
“i don’t snore woman.”
you and yuuji share a look, completely in disbelief at the man’s denial. he’s woken himself up with how loud he is, many, many times. neither of you can believe he has the audacity to stand there and lie with a straight face.
you both scoff and yuuji sits down at the table, in no mood to deal with his uncle’s nonsense this early in the morning. you move towards yuuji planting a soft kiss on his cheek and ruffling his hair.
“sorry he woke you up yuuji,” you say warmly, kissing him once more.
“if anything i should be apologising to you, you’re the one that has to put up with him for the rest of your life,” the boy responds, looking up at you solemnly, genuinely sorry for you.
“i can hear ya both,” sukuna rumbles, mouth full of egg. “anyways, finish eating and make sure you’re ready by 10”
yuuji turns to you in confusion, and sees your face light up, practically buzzing with excitement.
“where we going?” yuuji asks
you wrap your arms around him tighter and press his cheek onto yours. he basks in your affection and leans impossibly closer towards you.
“it’s a surprise,” you giggle.
yuuji’s face twists in confusion as he stares at the shiny, brand-new motorbike in front of him. it was beautiful, and he’s always dreamed of having that exact model, but he was confused at to why they were there at the dealership. is this some cruel joke? he looks at you though, and shakes the thought out of his head. you would never do that to him.
“you like it, yuuji,” you ask, a broad smile on your face, eyes shining with glee.
“s’ beautiful,” he nods in response.
his uncle pats his back and lifts his hand up, his own tattooed hand pressing something sharp and chunky into his palm. yuuji looks down and sees… keys?
“she’s all yours,” sukuna smirks, revelling in the disbelief on yuuji’s face. he seems to be frozen for a good 20 seconds, just processing what he’s heard. you and your husband share a smile. it suddenly hits yuuji that the motobike is all his, and his face splits into the widest grin.
“i love you both so much” he whispers, tearing up and throwing himself into sukuna’s arms and an arm around your neck.
the man steadies himself as you both tumble into him, heart suddenly panging at how big his nephew has gotten. it seemed like only yesterday when he was barely up to his shins, and now he was eye level?
sukuna hides his teary smile in yuuji’s hair, tightening one arm around you and softly rubbing his nephews back with his hand.
same universe as this post. you don't have to read it beforehand, but it helps 🤭
even when yuuji's much older and has his own room, he's still woken up by sukuna's old man noises™ in the bathroom at 7am.
the poor, almost adult just wants to sleep in for a little longer and rest his weary bones, but sukuna's snorting and coughing and hacking his life out in the bathroom down the hall.
yuuji doesn't know how you do it, to be honest. between the snoring and old man-isms, the way he seems to have a permanent frown on his face. you've been by his uncle's side for as long as he can remember, acting as a mother figure to yuuji. always patient and caring, standing your ground against sukuna who can be bull-headed sometimes (a lot of times), and ultimately doing everything you can for the little family they've created.
he truthfully doesn't remember life without you, and quite frankly, he doesn't want to remember. ever since he was a toddler, you were his sun, yuuji your sunflower, absorbing your warmth and love.
you stayed by their side throughout everything; the ups, the downs, the twisty turvies. never once have you tried to replace his biological mum or even referred to yourself as his mother. but yuuji sees the way your eyes shine with pride and joy when looking at him.
he can see it in your face now as he walks into the kitchen, yawning. you notice him immediately while plating up everyone’s breakfast and attempting to escape sukuna's embrace, who's clinging onto your back like the leech he is.
“dammit woman, just let me hold you,” he growls, tightening him arms around you and kissing up and down your neck.
“sukuna,” you gasp, “not in front of yuuji!”
the giant of a man slowly lifts his face up from your neck and turns to side-eye yuuji. he lets go of you and sighs, grabbing the plates you’ve prepared, setting them on the table.
“mornin’ brat, sleep well?” he asks yuuji.
“not with all your snoring, he didn’t.” yuuji laughs at your response.
“i don’t snore woman.”
you and yuuji share a look, completely in disbelief at the man’s denial. he’s woken himself up with how loud he is, many, many times. neither of you can believe he has the audacity to stand there and lie with a straight face.
you both scoff and yuuji sits down at the table, in no mood to deal with his uncle’s nonsense this early in the morning. you move towards yuuji planting a soft kiss on his cheek and ruffling his hair.
“sorry he woke you up yuuji,” you say warmly, kissing him once more.
“if anything i should be apologising to you, you’re the one that has to put up with him for the rest of your life,” the boy responds, looking up at you solemnly, genuinely sorry for you.
“i can hear ya both,” sukuna rumbles, mouth full of egg. “anyways, finish eating and make sure you’re ready by 10”
yuuji turns to you in confusion, and sees your face light up, practically buzzing with excitement.
“where we going?” yuuji asks
you wrap your arms around him tighter and press his cheek onto yours. he basks in your affection and leans impossibly closer towards you.
“it’s a surprise,” you giggle.
yuuji’s face twists in confusion as he stares at the shiny, brand-new motorbike in front of him. it was beautiful, and he’s always dreamed of having that exact model, but he was confused at to why they were there at the dealership. is this some cruel joke? he looks at you though, and shakes the thought out of his head. you would never do that to him.
“you like it, yuuji,” you ask, a broad smile on your face, eyes shining with glee.
“s’ beautiful,” he nods in response.
his uncle pats his back and lifts his hand up, his own tattooed hand pressing something sharp and chunky into his palm. yuuji looks down and sees… keys?
“she’s all yours,” sukuna smirks, revelling in the disbelief on yuuji’s face. he seems to be frozen for a good 20 seconds, just processing what he’s heard. you and your husband share a smile. it suddenly hits yuuji that the motobike is all his, and his face splits into the widest grin.
“i love you both so much” he whispers, tearing up and throwing himself into sukuna’s arms and an arm around your neck.
the man steadies himself as you both tumble into him, heart suddenly panging at how big his nephew has gotten. it seemed like only yesterday when he was barely up to his shins, and now he was eye level?
sukuna hides his teary smile in yuuji’s hair, tightening one arm around you and softly rubbing his nephews back with his hand.
It's already a part of Sukuna's personality to be mean, always throwing insults at every person he finds annoying here and there. And you were no exception. You ran after him like a lovesick puppy, happily smiling at his rejections, confessing to him multiple times how much you like him, and Sukuna wanted so much to strangle you for your persistence.
But when you stopped showing interest, maybe... just maybe, Sukuna didn't like the sound of it.
contents: sukuna x reader, soft!reader, reader is oblivious to sukuna's insults, mean!sukuna, golden retriever x black cat trope, reader is a happy pill (not to sukuna tho, yet), hurt/slight angst, modern college AU, sukuna is in a band, bassist!sukuna, not proofread, jjk characters in a band, siblings yuji and sukuna
warning: cursing
links: < part 1 > < part 2 >
***
You don't remember anything that happened last night.
Waking up with a throbbing head and no memories of what occurred when you were drunk was not something you were happy about. You were still dressed in your last night's clothes, your heels discarded on the floor, a blanket being over your body the whole time you were sleeping. You didn't even know how you still got home or how you even ended up on the living room couch, assuming that maybe Nanami took care of you because of the text he sent last night.
2:17 PM
Nanami: I hope you slept comfortably. Drink some water when you wake up.
You smiled at his message. Nanami is surely the gentleman out of everyone in the band, he really never forgets to take care of everyone.
So when Monday comes by, you immediately look for Nanami to thank him personally. It was during lunch period when you caught sight of the person you've been wanting to see, and without further ado, you ran after him as you called out his name.
Unbeknownst to you, Sukuna was just a few steps behind when he found you talking to Nanami. And the words that escaped your mouth sent his blood levels high.
“Nanami! I wanted to say thank you for taking care of me last Friday night!”
“Friday night?”
“Yeah? I was really drunk, but I do remember someone taking me home. And you texted me that morning too, so I concluded it was you. Anyways, thank you so much–”
That's all Sukuna needed to hear as he walked right past the two of you, his eyes shooting daggers at everyone who walked in his way.
What he witnessed somehow left a bitter taste in his mouth. Like there's a poison corrupting his veins, eager to suffer him to death as he clenches his hand in a fist to restrain himself.
All Sukuna could do was walk away.
He couldn't accept how you dare to think that another man took care of you and drove you home. He couldn't believe how you're thanking another man right away, instead of clarifying who did what first, and he's just really going to hate you more for this.
“Wait, what do you mean?” Nanami asked you with an evident confused look on his face. After rambling about how you appreciated his act of concern towards you last Friday, you finally focused on him and saw how he looked clueless about the situation.
“You… took me home, didn't you? Because… I was really drunk…”
“Oh.” He nodded, now realising what you said. “It wasn't me, though.’
•
You were entirely confused by the situation now. Your feelings had tangled up in your mind and you don't know what to believe anymore when you saw Sukuna walking past you in the hallways.
The surroundings seem to quiet down as you focus your eyes on him. His figure, his stare, his inevitably handsome face. It's all coming back to you again. The beat of your heart, like a slow motion film everytime he walks by, and you feel like you're a teenager for these feelings.
You were about to open your mouth to talk to him, when he brushed you off so easily as he spared you no glance, walking right past your shoulder. Mouth agape, words left unspoken, mind wandering elsewhere, your cheeks blushed in embarrassment.
If he's the one who took you home after the party, then why is he not taking any credit for it?
Did he do it out of pity or something? Did he just feel bad to leave you alone in there?
You knew he didn't have any feelings for you, so maybe it is the latter. And after that, he doesn't care anymore where you thank him anymore, because that's just how he is.
Sighing, you clutched your bag in your hand and thought of another time to thank him still.
On the other side, Sukuna is mad mad. He doesn't even know why. He can't even explain it himself because he feels like it's nonsense.
It's like a feeling of wanting to throw a tantrum for all his bottled up feelings of anger at you, but if he did do such a thing, he'll come out whiny. Plus, only Yuji does that.
He just hates it. Everytime he looks at you, that anger starts becoming intense in some type of way. His hatred makes him want to lock you in his arms, and just… and just…
Why is he thinking about this anyway?
He hates you for your annoyance. For your persistence. For always smiling at everyone. For always making his day feel incomplete if you're not there.
He hates you even more for thanking Nanami for something he had done. And he wants to knock some senses in you at some point.
He hates how you've changed. How you're slowly fading away from him.
He hates how he's maybe starting to feel different about you now.
•
“You might pierce a hole in her head if you keep staring like that…” Yuji whispered close to Sukuna’s ear. Sukuna flinched, but immediately hit Yuji with his elbow, leaving the latter hissing in pain.
The football field was yet again full of people. Girls would walk over and say hi to Sukuna and Yuji to where they sat at the benches, and only Yuji would have the heart to flash them his cheeky smile. While Sukuna watches you who had been sitting a few seats far away, your back facing them, focused on whatever conversation you have with your friend.
“Tell me,” Yuji continues. “Are you starting to like her?”
Sukuna immediately turned his head to him with a glare. He scoffed, crossing his arms on his chest, “That's total nonsense, Yuji.”
Yuji shrugged as he stared at you as well. “Not to me… You look… troubled…”
“That… has nothing to do with that fool…”
Yuji laughs at his brother, shaking his head at his denial. “Whatever you say.”
•
This is it. This is the right time to finally talk to Sukuna.
You breathed heavily as you wiped your sweaty palms on your clothes. Your heart was thumping loudly on your chest as you stood right before the band's practice room door.
You've been looking for Sukuna the whole day and ended up asking Yuji where he was, and this is why you ended up here. The door seems to dread a dark presence before it, looming an ominous aura within, or maybe it was just you over exaggerating things.
You nervously twist the door, and there you see Sukuna on his usual seat, legs spread apart, his face resting on his palms as he had his eyes closed. You almost backed away after realising that he was sleeping, but stopped when he opened his eyes.
“O-oh I'm sorry, I didn't know you were asleep!” You panicked, bowing at him repeatedly for your mistake. “I'll leave–”
“Do you need anything?” His deep voice felt like thunder as it rang in your ears.
You purse your lips, feeling the heat rush to your face. You reluctantly nodded your head as you took a step inside the room, closing the door behind you.
“About last Friday…”
Sukuna raised an eyebrow as he stood up, taking a step forward as he placed his hands on his pocket. “What about it?”
“Y-yeah uhm… Thank you for… f-for…” You started stuttering, your hands shaking on your sides. Sukuna's eyes landed on them, which startled you to clasped your hands together instead to keep them still, but it didn't really help.
“Say it.” He demanded, and it made you even more nervous because he was staring at you too intently.
“L-last Friday night… I want to thank you for…” You take a breath to calm yourself down. “N-nanami said… you took me h-home?”
“Are you asking me if I did?”
You pinched your shaking hands, not expecting his question. “Y-yes? Did you…?”
“Tsk.” He took a step closer, reaching out to grab your shaky hands with one hand. “What's gotten into the sunshine brat I know, hmm?” He asks, staring at your shaky hands between his. “Nervous?”
“T-that’s not the question, Sukuna.”
“Alright then,” he let go of you, bringing his hands back to his pocket. “I did. Happy?”
You closed your eyes at his answer, your breathing becoming uneven as you opened them again. Sweat is starting to form on your neck, “Why?”
It was the question that had been running in your head for the whole time since Nanami told you that it was Sukuna. And you needed answers. At this instant.
“You were drunk,” Sukuna answered straightforwardly. “Did you want me to leave you alone?”
“N-no! B-but–”
“Don't put too much ideas in your head.”
Your heart skipped a beat.
The world seems to start crashing down, and that's all the answers you need.
What were you expecting anyway? That magically, Sukuna started to care for you just because he had the heart to act like a person towards you? That maybe, he started to realise that his feelings for you were never hatred but it turned into something deep?
No, that's impossible. Liking you the way you like him was never in Sukuna's vocabulary.
So what now?
“Right!” You nodded your head with a smile. “I wasn't thinking of anything! I really just wanted to thank you, that's all!”
Sukuna searched your eyes, trying to read you. But you quickly feigned your disappointment as you grinned at him.
“I just needed to confirm that. Thank you, Sukuna! I should get going now. I won't bother you anymore.” You waved him goodbye as you ran out of the room, and when he was finally out of sight, tears started rolling down your face.
Sukuna, on the other hand, just stared off into space from where you left.
He was… undoubtedly, regretting his words.
***
Is the update too short? lol, ill make it up to you guys once im done with schoolworks!! i promisee 😭 part 4 will be up in idk when ☺️
