#ainytk

The last time Gareth Emerson was kissed was at a party the summer before his junior year.  In late June, he thinks. 

He remembers it was a Friday night.

It hadn’t even been real, if he’s being honest.  They were playing spin the bottle, and by some stroke of dumb luck, he got to kiss Sadie Green, a junior on the debate team who is adorable in a sweet and nerdy sort of way.  It was quick and unfeeling and he couldn’t even remember what she tasted like, if anything at all.  So, it didn’t even count.  He also had to kiss Jeff the very next turn – but that’s neither here nor there.

But now?

Your lips are pillowy soft perfection, your hands that cup his cheeks so delicate, but Gareth feels like you’ve hit him like a goddamn freight train.  He wouldn’t be surprised in the least if his hair was standing on end like one of those fucking Looney Tunes characters what with all of the electricity that zaps and crackles through his veins.  His spine is rod straight, his fingers are held in shocked hyperextension on hands that are rigidly fixed to his sides.

He feels your mouth move ever so slightly, slotting tentatively against his bottom lip; still leading, in control.  Always in control.  Not like there was ever any control that Gareth had over how he feels about you, anyway.  

He’s pretty sure that went out the window the night you yelled at him in his driveway after he played that song he regrettably penned and then threw back in your face.  

Yeah.  That control.  God, and he thought he was being so smooth, so sneaky on top of being dickishly passive-aggressive. 

The reality is that he was never, ever in control.

His brain is a jumbled mess of misfiring synapses and overwhelming surges of serotonin that makes him lightheaded, and he sways on the spot.  Gareth finally goes to move his hands from his sides, finally inhales a sharp breath through his nose that delivers much-needed oxygen to his brain – enough to realize that he hasn’t kissed you back, that he wants to kiss you back, and that he needs to kiss you back.

But it’s too late.

Your beautiful face pulls away from the reciprocated kiss that never was with such hurt and confusion in your rounded eyes, it breaks his heart and sends him in an emotional spiral that stuns him stupid.  He has to say something, he has to reassure you that you didn’t make an unwanted move or do anything wrong.  His brain whirs into action, working to form the perfect words to keep you here in his space and maybe, just maybe, let him try again and actually be the person he told you he would be – the person he so desperately wants to be for you.

“Hi.”

God damn it.

Your eyebrows knit together as your hands drop from his face, dejected and so clearly lost.  

Your answer is wary, a breath of a whisper.  “Hi.”

Gareth swallows heavily as shaky hands run an anxious path across your forearms, up the back of your elbows to your shoulders, along the slope of your neck to cup around the angle of your jaw.  His thumbs sweep along the apples of your cheeks so carefully and gently as his sky blue eyes meet yours, darkening with intention.

“Can I try that again?”

A small smile tugs at your lips as you nod. Gareth watches your eyelids flutter closed and this time, he’s ready.   He dips his face to meet yours in the middle, lips brushing in a heart-stoppingly bashful way before he closes the rest of the distance and pulls your mouth to his. 

Oh, he’s so fucked. 

It feels like he doesn’t even have to try. You move in tandem with him, lips fitting and shifting with a slow, measured rhythm so honey-sweet and fragile that he’s afraid that if he so much as breathes wrong, he’s gonna shatter the image of perfection that stands in front of him. 

Your hands find the nape of his neck, agile fingers wind into his curls, and the self-control he has to practice not to moan into your mouth at the delicious sensation of your nails against his scalp is of cosmic proportions. He’s never going to survive this, not when the world’s most chaste kiss has him feeling like he’s dying.  

Someone get the fucking paddles, there’s no way a heartbeat this fast is actually compatible with life. 

That’s what he thinks… until he feels the minute opening of your lips and the wet swipe of the tip of your tongue against his mouth that had remained closed out of chivalry and self-preservation. 

Okay.  He remembers enough from when his mom watched Saint Elsewhere to know that now he’s actually dying.  Code Blue or some shit, he’s in full blown cardiac arrest. 

His breath hitches and he makes an embarrassingly pitiful sound as his lips open with yours to allow full access for your tongue to explore his mouth.  He hears you make a sound in return, a satisfied and sexy little hum that vibrates from the back of your throat, and he finds himself eventually answering with his own quiet (hopefully more manly) groan as he tangles his tongue next to yours.  He’s overwhelmed with your taste, soft and delicate and so divinely you; his eyes roll back behind his lids as he succumbs to it all. 

Gareth is content to let you lick and taste and move the way that you want and you need, and so he does; but after a few moments, your grip on his hair loosens, your ministrations slow, and your tongue retreats. You purse your lips a final time against his, and he can’t help but chase after them as you pull away. 

Even though the light is at the other end of the hall, he can still see the way your pupils have completely engulfed the gorgeous color in your eyes.  They flit back and forth between his as you pull your bottom lip over your teeth. 

“Gareth.” The husk in your voice is evident even in a whisper. 

“Yeah?”

A corner of your mouth tips up in a coquettishly crooked grin.  You lean forward just barely into his space for emphasis. 

“I’m not made of glass.”

He huffs a disbelieving grunt as he brings his forehead to rest against yours. 

“Yeah. You’re the strongest person I know.”  

He wants to add that he’s the one that might break, that he’s the one that will shatter into millions of tiny pieces if this goes south. But he doesn’t. He holds his tongue against the words that would ruin this, ruin any chance at being something more for you.

Instead he murmurs your name, downy-soft and oh-so tentative. “Tell me what you want.”

Your airy sigh gives life to a singular word that swirls tenderly like a dream between Gareth’s parted lips.

“You.”

Lightning strikes where he stands. His breath comes in desperate pants between feverish kisses against your lips as he leads you in his room, needlessly kicking the door closed behind him. His hands roam over your shoulders, down your back and along your spine, making you shiver and reactively press your torso closer to his. His feet stumble around yours as he clumsily navigates your tangled bodies to the opposite end of the room where his bed is situated against the wall.  The young man hesitates, wondering if this is what you intended and shit if it isn’t, he needs to stop right now and oh fuck if it is, when was the last time he changed the sheets — 

Suddenly, you’re breaking the kiss as the back of your legs hit the frame.  Gareth’s about to ask if you’re okay, if that hurt you at all and he’s so fucking sorry he didn’t pay better attention when your hand bunches around a hunk of his faded gray tee and tugs gently, a wordless invitation to follow as you fall gracefully into his bed. 

Oh Christ, you’re in his fucking bed. 

This isn’t a new thing, you’ve been here before.  But the context?  So entirely different from those instances in the past, so much more emotional weight and significance, though you lie across his sheets the same way.  

It’s his vantage point, the view of your body beneath him, bracketed by his strong, stocky forearms, his thigh slotted between your legs, his hands hidden under your hair that flares around your face like some ethereal creature sent to both torture and save him – it’s this vantage point that shifts his entire being and thrusts him headlong into how monumental this will be.

Your mouth quirks up in a cheshire grin, your fist in his shirt yanks him forward to press his torso against yours and meet your lips in a bruising, passionate kiss.  He’s certain you can feel the frenetic thumping of his heart with the way it beats against his chest, betraying the wafer-thin facade of confidence, of someone who knows what he’s fucking doing.  

But he can fake it; he’ll gladly fake it for you.

He follows your lead, melting his lips to yours, echoing the noises that you’re gracious enough to bring to life as he kisses you for all he’s worth.  Awareness of your touch is heightened with every mind-bending drag of your nails over the thin cotton that covers his back, and with each pass, you dip your touch closer to the hem of his shirt.  Deepening the kiss is almost like a permission with the way you groan, and his tentative but wandering hand finds a place at your hip, under the barrier of his Led Zeppelin shirt.

The want is there, coursing through his veins and making him feel like he’s literally vibrating.  To carry it out, though?  To touch and see your skin like this?  He’s not sure he’s gonna be able to survive that… or at least, survive the embarrassment of ending this intimate moment way sooner than he plans.  

Gareth bites the inside of his cheek to distract from the white-hot arousal that pools low in his belly, summoning any semblance of bravado to voice what he so fiercely wants.

“Can I?”

It takes every ounce of his self-control not to belt a moan at the effortlessly sensual way your top teeth sink into your bottom lip, peering up at him through your lashes.  The nod you give does it, though – produces a deep, throaty noise that sounds surprisingly masculine as it rumbles in his chest.  

He pretends his fingers aren’t shaking as he bunches the hem of your shirt to drag it off your frame.  Slowly at first, he takes his time moving the fabric higher and higher still, until it’s off – and suddenly, he’s staring in dumbstruck awe at your bare chest.

“Where’s your bra?!” 

Your huff of a laugh is so sweet it makes his skin tingle.  “Not wearing one.”

“Yeah,” Gareth breathes, swearing under his breath.  “I can see that.”

There’s not a force on earth that could rip Gareth’s stare away from where it lands.  He intends to memorize every inch of that gorgeous slope of your skin, every variation in texture and color that he swears he can appreciate, even in the low light that filters in from the window.  

God damn.  He knows he’s ogling, he knows his gaze is too intense, but he can’t help it – you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

A nervous giggle bubbles over your lips, and Gareth darts his tongue over his bottom lip as his hands creep north from their vise-grip on your waist.  A feather-light caress that doesn’t dare travel any farther north; back and forth over silky-smooth skin, desperately drinking in your nearly naked form splayed under him.  

He’s so zoned in that he doesn’t notice how your cheeks flush.  “Is that too much?” you ask meekly, your hands swiftly follow to cover your breasts from his laser-beam stare.

“No!” he practically shouts, pawing at your hands to keep them from obscuring his view.  “Christ, no.  Not at all.”  He gulps as he finally tears his eyes away.  “Just wasn’t expecting it, is all.”

“Oh,” you sigh, allowing yourself a hint of a smile as he pulls your hands from your chest. 

It’s still so much, his lips pop open in a soft o when your nipples peak under his attention.  

“Hey, are you okay?”

Gareth practically chokes over the gravel that rattles his tone.  “Yeah,” he clears his throat to murmur a much softer, “yes.”  

“Are you sure this isn’t too much?”

Of course it’s too much – it’s all so overwhelmingly too much that he’s tempted to bury his head in his pillow and count to eighty just to settle the fuck down.  He’s so unbelievably turned on, his whole body is thrumming with a pulsing, electric need for you that he feels like he might explode before this even starts.  Never in his life could he have prepared to lose his shit so fast – and Christ, he hasn’t even touched you yet.

God, just the thought of that.  He has to – he needs to touch you like he needs air in his lungs, but honest to Christ, he doesn’t know how.  

He forces a smile, a small little crooked grin that he hopes looks more endearing than grotesque.  “Not too much,” his fingers wind through yours as he admits, “it’s just…”

Patiently, you wait; your head does an adorable tilt while his brain supplies him with about a list of reasons – about a thousand different things to freak out over because ultimately?  He knows he’s not Eddie, and he’s terrified in his infinite inexperience, all he’ll do is disappoint you.  There’s no admitting that, though – not if he wants to save whatever shreds of dignity he has left.  

The truth still finds a way to come out.  “I just really want you to feel good.”

“Oh,” you practically whimper out the words, “G – c’mere.”  

He obeys your honeyed command, meeting your lips in a sweet, sultry kiss.  Chasing your mouth as you relax against his pillows, it’s like he’s thrust into another realm.  Somehow, it seems easier when he’s molding his lips in perfect rhythm with yours.  The incessant noise in his head ceases, and he allows himself to just be wrapped up in the moment.

Wrapped up in you.

It happens then, after a long, heated moment of tangled lips and breathy sighs.  The tiniest surge of confidence comes when you shift beneath him and emit the most perfect sound, a sweetly sinful blend of a gasp and a moan when his ill-contained bulge presses just right against your body.  Gareth’s eyelids flutter open to find your blown-out stare ready for him, and he breaks the kiss just in time to feel you grip at his waist to help your hips to move just like that again.

Turns out, when your mouth isn’t muffled by his, those noises you make sound infinitely more divine.

“Ohh,” it’s higher this time, how you belt your broken whine.  “Please,” you whisper as you roll your pelvis against him again, “need you to touch me, please.”

“Ohh, fuck –” your begging has way too much of an affect on him, and he stalls your ministrations with a firm press of fingers into flesh to give himself a fighting chance. “Okay… um –” 

“Gareth.  Hey, hey.  Look at me.”

Again, he obeys.  The soft little smile you give him is charged with desire and directed at him – and it takes his breath away.  

“I – I want this,” the warmth of your assurance tickles the sensitive skin of his lips.  “I want you.”  

“Okay.  Yeah, okay.”  A tentative hand trails over your stomach, along the curve of your waist like he’s strumming an imaginary tune. 

“Don’t be nervous,” you murmur lowly as you press a languid kiss to supple lips.  “It’s just me.”

He snorts through his nose, dropping his chin to his chest.  “I think that’s entirely the problem, honey.”

This time, his lopsided grin is genuine, and it sponsors a wispy giggle from you that charges the very air around him.  “Hey,” you whisper, “get outta that head and…” trailing off, you hum as your hips seek purchase against his erection, “let those hands wander.”

“Shit, Mayfield...”

If only it were that easy.  With every subtle pucker and press of your lips over his, he really tries to let his body take over and give you what you want, but his brain won’t shut off for five fucking seconds to just let his fingers roam.  So instead, his hand stalls; the calloused pads of his fingers tease and tickle your ribs just beneath your breast, so tantalizingly close but yet so far.  You’re encouraging him with the most beautiful little whimpers, giving him all the permission he needs when your lips part and your tongue leads the lustful dance with his – but bravery still eludes him.

Until his thumb finally swipes along the supple underside of your breast, and he’s treated to the softest of silky skin under the tips of his fingers.  Sucking in a sharp breath through his nose, Gareth pours himself into the ferocity of the kiss, drowning in your taste as his hand rises and cups that curve of flesh so gently it takes a moment to realize it’s there.  

There’s friction; delicious, feather-light friction against your nipple that puckers further in search of more.  He cradles your breast so gently, his touch so tentative that he skims over skin before hovering above where you want it most.  Desire runs red through your veins, arching your back to push yourself directly into his touch.  The movement takes Gareth by surprise; the young man intended to take it slow and get it right –  but now?

He’s full-on got your breast held in his broad palm.  It’s a monumental effort not to short-circuit again, especially when what he feels is so lush and soft and firm all at once.  

Twin sighs fill the space in between your parted lips, yours flutters up an octave as Gareth hesitantly flexes his fingers, molding the supple flesh in his palm.  He studies the way you react, alternating applying more pressure to his grip between soft caresses of agile digits over your curves.  You’re panting, the apex of each breath punctuated by these heavenly little moans that he can’t help but taste.  One well-placed movement of your body has him dragging his thumb over the peak of your nipple, and the breathy ahh! spills from your mouth and takes him by surprise.

His lust-blown eyes search yours.  “Did you like that?”

God, he loves how fucking responsive you are; he can’t get enough of those wispy little hums, those sighs and murmured babbling of his name and much-needed encouragement.  A new discovery though, that subtle buzz of your skin against his lips as trails row after row of heated kisses down your neck is by far his favorite, eternally grateful to even be able to experience it.  

And, as a plus, it makes it so much easier to focus on you and not how painfully hard he is.

Until he accidentally does something you deem is worthy of a throaty moan of his name… and he’s back to being very aware of the surge of arousal that pools hot in his loins, sending pleasure straight to his already too-hard dick almost has him losing it in his athletic shorts.  Employing every defense he knows, his mind shuffles through a barrage of foul content that’ll pull him away from the edge.

“Is that good?” he asks through clenched teeth after exploring the sensitive skin behind your ear.  You torture him with how you groan yes against his neck, and he has to suck a grounding breath through his nose as his cock throbs against your leg.  “Fuck,” Gareth grits, “jus’ wanna make you feel good.”

“You are,” you gasp, “Jesus, you’re teasing the everloving shit out of me.”  Your palm finds the back of his hand, deft fingers winding around his to guide your nipple between his index and thumb. “Oh-hh,” the hitch in your whine when he tugs over the sensitive bud is a melody etched forever in his mind, “that’s so good.”

“Yeah?” An idea pops into his head and thrills him to his very core.  “Tell me what you like, hun,” the roughended edge to his voice is unintentional but every part of him is thankful for it. “Don’t hold back, tell me what you like.”

Your breathing kicks up a notch, respirations coming quicker and he’s mesmerized with how it makes your chest heave.  

“More.”  

Agile digits wind into his curls, saying everything left on your tongue as they guide his head south, down past your collarbone and to the top of your sternum.  Gareth takes the hint, ignoring the roaring of blood in his ears and pressing dry little pecks between your breasts.  As much as his wits allow, he multitasks: right hand teasing and tugging at your nipple while his lips softly pucker and taste the salt from your skin, keeping an ear on the way you whine and writhe as his mouth travels closer.  

Please is his new favorite word – or at least it is when you say it, whisper it, all-out moan it while he wets his lips with his tongue and places another open-mouthed kiss to your chest.  

“Fuck, please, Gareth –” 

He freezes, body going tense like he’s done something wrong, so he checks in with a raise of his head and an anxious flare of his lids. 

“No – no,” you coo, brushing some of his curls from his forehead, “I’m sorry, I was – I swear I don’t mean to sound so goddamn needy.”

“Oh,” he scoffs over a laugh.  “I like it.”  He plants one more kiss to your breast, applying the gentlest suction before his lips release your skin with a soft pop.  “What do you need?” 

“Keep kissing me there.”  

He hides a grin in the supple curves of your chest, sighing as your fingers find their way back into his hair.  It’s a subtle permission, how they tighten when he resumes mouthing over your breast, and every second that ticks by he gains confidence, aided by noises so sweet they make him shiver.  But he has a want, a primal need to hear more – to be a fucking man and make you be the one to shiver at his touch.  Bolstered by this, Gareth mentally grows a pair and closes his lips over your nipple.

This gets him a response immediately, a keening cry of his name as your chin tips to the ceiling.  Without a second thought, he’s testing the metaphorical waters; varying how his tongue moves over that pert little bud, trying like hell to gauge what you like while his whole entire body feels charged like a livewire.  You whimper when he licks in circles, moan when he lightly flicks – but he knows he’s got you after you belt a sharp cry when he tucks it beneath his teeth, dragging his tongue along the underside before popping off completely.

“Yeah?” he husks through a crookedly hopeful grin.  “Good?”

If there’s one thing to be said about Gareth Emerson, it’s that he’s a quick study.  He memorizes everything, alternating between using his mouth and his fingers to work you up to the point of insanity.  In a flash of overwhelming need, he flattens his palm and skims it lower over your belly, and the new sensation grabs your attention immediately.  

“Mhhm, yeah –” breaking away from his kiss with a hitching breath, you bob your head in fervent assent as he traces over the band of your underwear.  “Yeah – y-you can go um, lower… if you want.”

His heart skips a beat as he snorts a snicker into your neck.  “She says like I wouldn’t want to.”

Funny thing is – or, maybe it’s not so funny – is that he’s equally terrified and hungry for this and what it could lead to.  It’s all uncharted territory for him, and though he’s more willing than he can fathom, the potential for more is so dizzying that the self-assured grin melts right from his face.

Bless you, his change in demeanor is noticed.  “Do you?” you ask, tipping him a sweet smile as he nods.  “Me too.  I mean, you’re a guitarist.”  Your bottom lip slips between your teeth as you stifle a giggle, your eyelids flutter to half mast as you husk, “You’re a pianist, G.”

Gareth wheezes out a disbelieving laugh, and that does it.  The thick, suffocating cloak of anxiety shreds, falls away as you outright cackle at your own joke and he willingly goes with you, not even bothering to mask his own laughter.  He drops to his forearm and buries his face in your skin, sighing into the slope of your neck.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.  Really gonna throw that one in my face right now?”

Your abbreviated shrug jostles his position, has him propping back up on his forearm just in time to watch that sly little smirk press into your kiss-bitten lips.  “It’s more what I’m implying,” you whisper with a sultry confidence that has him swallowing despite his mouth going completely dry. 

Winding your fingers through his, you take your time and lead the way, smoothing his palm over the top of your thigh.  His fingers rasp against the sensitive skin near the apex of your legs and the pitchy sigh he hears nearly sends him into orbit.  

“Touch me here,” you murmur, “please.”

His eyes round out as your hand stops over your mound, guiding him where you want him most.  Tentatively tracing his middle finger over the thin material that still covers your sex, his eyelids slam shut as he emits a low moan.  

“Jesus Christ.”

The heat radiating from your pussy and the way the soaked fabric clings to your skin is something Gareth hadn’t expected.  He’s no dummy, he knows how this works, but the only experience he’s ever had with another girl definitely never made it this far.  He’s frozen in place, fingers hovering, unsure what to do next and so in his head that he’s going to do something wrong or stupid that won’t feel good for you at all.  

Absolutely no part of his guitar or fucking piano lessons had prepared him for this, he can assure you.

He feels your hips roll, such a quick, tiny movement that catches the backside of his fingers that still linger uncertainly between your legs, and the beautiful, airy sound that you make from that contact alone fans the flames of his desire.  They burn away at some of his doubt and indecision, and in that moment he’s confident in his need to hear you make that noise again.

This time, he drags the pads of his middle and ring fingers firmly along your seam, applying gentle pressure to the wettest spot on the fabric.  He watches how your eyes round as you feel him, the fragile part between your lips falls open with your sharp intake of air into your lungs, eyebrows knitting together as you chase that elusive friction.  Your hips buck slowly against his touch, the need in your eyes evident, and he summons what little nerve he has to answer with what he’s been told you want.  His two middle fingers push just minimally into your covered entrance, circling and unintentionally teasing, and he chokes on his breath as they sink in what anyone else would consider a negligible distance inside of you.  It’s enough – oh, it’s enough for you, and it has your back arching into his hand as a musical whimper bubbles from your lips.

“Please, G.  Please…”

He knows what you want, but he hesitates.  He’s not sure if he’s to take off your underwear for you, or if that’s something you should do?  In the same instant, his brain chastises him for fucking thinking about this too much, and why can’t he just go on instinct – even though anything that could be identified as instinct at this point is so mind-numbingly aroused that he’s diverting all efforts to not blowing his load in his shorts just from touching you.

Fucking hell.

He takes a shaky breath as he locks his stare on yours, and his heart clenches as he reads your expression.

Or, rather – you read his.

Your smile is so sweet.  So kind and understanding.  You bring a hand to his face, drawing an errant curl away from his eyes and tucking it behind his ear in an impossibly you-like gesture.

“We don’t have to.”

“No!”  He’s practically manic as he blurts his fevered consent.  “No, no.  God, I want to.  I do.”

If you don’t kill him first with that look you’re throwing his way, that is.  Your lips press into a devilish little smirk.  “You do?”

“Yeah,” he husks as he plants a swift kiss to your mouth, sheepishly voicing again, “just want it to be good for you.”

“It will be.”  Though what you promise is so firm and so sweet, doubt burrows deep in his skin, and he answers with an incredulous huff through his nose.  Taking just a moment to pinch your brows into that v Gareth loves so much, you ask, “Would it, um… do you want me to show you how I like it?”

Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking with him – there’s no way in hell he’s heard you right.  His eyes widen comically at the thought of that and he chokes, “Oh, god no.”  

Your eyebrows shoot up your forehead and your lips part in surprise, and Gareth quickly recovers.  

“No, I mean… yes.  Fuck yes, I do.  Just not tonight, because if you do that I think this’ll all be over in about uh, ten seconds.”  Your sympathetic giggles are punctuated by short little staccato breaths out your nose, and he smirks in spite of himself.  “Maybe less.”

A knowing grin flashes across your face before it melts into more.  You roll your lips in, wetting them with your tongue, nodding once.  The way you bite your bottom lip is a spark, igniting a lick of boldness he so desperately needs, and he surges forward to capture your mouth in a passionate kiss.  His wandering hand still hovers respectfully above your center, waiting for you to tell him for the hundredth time that you’re sure you want this – that you want him.

Pushing down the waistband of your panties, you breathe, “Gareth, touch me?” against his kiss-swollen pout.

He pinches his eyes shut and nods, furious and abbreviated like he’s trying to convince himself this is actually happening.  Hooking his fingers on the other side and aiding you in sliding them down your legs, he tosses your underwear to the floor, and you take his hand in yours to give him a gentle squeeze before leaving him to make his move.  Kissing you seems to calm his nerves somewhat, and he takes advantage of this as his fingers dance a reverent path up your leg, over your knee and across the top of your thigh.  He feels your leg rotate out to encourage him higher, your lips disengaging from his with an anticipatory gasp as his middle finger recreates its movement without the cotton barrier.

The plush, silken heat of your pussy may just be the most divine thing he’s ever felt.

“You feel incredible,” he mumbles against your lips that have parted further in a sensual, broken moan as he runs his finger along your soaked slit.  The sounds his fingers make against your skin as they slide and tease are sinfully exquisite, the powder-soft gasps from your lips the perfect compliment.

“You feel incredible,” you whisper into his mouth as his middle finger runs a feather-light path up, searching for that elusive spot he’s heard so much about.  

Channeling every shred of pertinent theories he’s gathered over the years from hidden magazines and Eddie’s oversharing, he watches you closely for any indication he’s found what you need.  His finger drops down, teasing at your entrance before one more traveling north.  He does this, again and again until finally trailing higher and inadvertently swiping over your clit.  Inexpertise threatens to smother him in doubt, but he knows he’s found it the moment your hips lift off the mattress, chasing his hand with a sharp, wanton cry to the ceiling.  Stilling for a beat out of pure shock and yeah – maybe a little bit of pride –  Gareth’s lips part in reverence as you gasp again, whimpering so softly when he glides back over in the exact same way.  His heart hammers wildly in his chest, his cheeks are flushed with desire as he watches you writhe beneath him, hardly believing it’s his touch that’s doing this to you.

The young man doesn’t dare vary from the script, keeps his hand steady and his movements the same, over and over again.  “Does that feel good?”

Your lips bump his as you nod frantically.  “Yeah, ahyeah – right there, right there, Gareth, circle with your fing – ohhhmygod.”

The way your body reacts to your own instruction has Gareth gritting his teeth to distract from the obscenely strong waves of molten pleasure that crest and crash low in his belly.  He focuses on you and takes what you say to heart.  Following it to the letter, he keeps the pressure light and draws long, languid circles around your clit, watching with awe as your jaw drops and your chin tips upward with every high-pitched, panting breath that’s pulled from your lungs.  

“Jesus,” he whispers roughly, “you’re so beautiful.”

It’s out of his mouth before he even realizes he’s thought it.  A sweet little sound gets caught in your throat; your eyes flutter open and focus on him, and he swears he’s looking straight into your soul. 

“S-say that again, G.”

His fingers still over your clit, and your eyebrows knit in protest at the loss, but only for a brief moment.  In a move that surprises even him, Gareth reduces the distance between your lips and simultaneously slips his middle finger through your folds to slide home inside of you.  

Your garbled moan is drowned out by the rasp in his voice.  “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

The space between your lips disappears.  His mouth captures the decadent gasp that’s ripped from your throat as his finger finds a slow cadence in tandem with your hips.  There’s nothing he’s experienced to compare this to, the way your walls draw him deeper into your sultry heat with every subtle thrust, the silk in the smooth slick of your arousal coats him and helps him slide effortlessly in and out of your core.

Gareth buries his head in the crook of your neck, his hot breath fans over your sensitive skin. “Oh my god,” he mumbles reverently, pressing a line of kisses over the column of your throat, “you feel – Jesus Christ –”

He keeps his pace slow and gentle, a barely-there press of his hand to bottom out to the last knuckle and meet the lustful movement of your hips.  Raising his head, he’s immediately mesmerized by you – the way your eyebrows pinch together as your pleasure climbs, the hitch of your breath and the parting and wetting of your lips, the way your hand tangles your hair and the other grips and tightens on his arm like a barometer for his ministrations.  

Fuck, it’s everything.  How you feel, how you sound, how you look as he watches you climb higher and higher towards –

A reedy whine falls from your mouth and interrupts his thoughts.  “Can – mnhh, can you add another?”

“O-oh, okay.  Yeah,” the intake of air into his lung shudders as he pauses, a brief decision on which to use before he settles on his ring, teasing at your entrance and slips both inside you.  “Like that?”

Your wanton moan is synonymous with his whispered curse as Gareth’s fingers bottom out.  “God, yeah…”

“Is this good for you?”

It sounds so sweet, how you whine uh huh into his parted lips.  “Feels amazing G,” you keen, “your fingers are really thick.”

“Really?”  Gareth scoffs over his surprise.  “That's a good thing?”

“So good,” you cut him off swiftly with a kiss only to break it with another whimper, “so good – fuck, keep going.”

The pace is set, ultimately by you; his cadence holds steady in time with your hips.  Gareth’s blown-out stare darts back and forth to where his fingers disappear inside of you and to where the lines of your face are drawn in pure ecstasy.   He keeps up, even when your hips start to meet his hand with more vigor.  Your body moves like a wave, a gentle undulation that spikes your pleasure and unfortunately his – he angles himself away from where your leg repeatedly brushes against his erection.  Though the friction feels utterly divine, every subtle movement drags the soft cotton of his boxers over the weeping head of his cock and has him dangerously close to the end.  

Apparently, the shift in his position has him reaching farther inside, and it abruptly throws off your rhythm.  You’re panting, hips stuttering to try to match his irregular cadence, and he fears he’s hurting you as evidenced by a series of high and tight ah, ah, ahhs that sound so sharp they could be out of pain.

“Are you – are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you choke on a garbled, breathy giggle, “more than okay.”

Relief swirls in his exhale.  “What do you like?  Tell me what else I can do.”

“Oh – okay,” you breathe, lips bumping against his.  “C-curl your finger, like –”

Gareth crooks his middle fingers up in a come-hither motion to mimic yours, subtle and too gentle at first.  “Like this?”

“Ye-yeah…” Your sigh is quiet, some of its intensity lost.

Sensing it’s not quite enough, he tries again once he bottoms out, pressing firmly against your front wall. The pads of his fingers rasp against something ridgy, rough but soft as they drag a blazing path inside you.

Whatever he’s touched, he’s got it right.  Your eyes snap open, lust-blown as your high-pitched gasp tumbles over your lips.

“Ohhh, fuckk,” you wail, “like that!”

Gareth does it again, and then again.  “Yeah?  That’s good?”

“So good, yeah –”

Out of his periphery, he appreciates a flash of movement.  Your free hand releases his comforter and cups your breast, working your nipple over fingers that pinch and roll in expert precision.  A reverent expletive puffs through his lips like smoke, and Gareth’s both jealous and mesmerized with how in tune with your body you are.

“Christ, you’re so sexy,” he groans, planting clumsy, wet kisses over your collarbone.  Lost to the way you sound, the way you feel as your inner walls flutter and tighten around his digits, he briefly wonders if he should be doing more.  It seems like it feels good, you’re a godsend in the way your moans and whimpers fill his ears and spur him on, but he has this inkling that you’re left wanting – maybe something else with his other hand?  As unpracticed as he is, he’s always been good with his left, and maybe he could ask or suggest –   

It’s like you can read his mind.  “Need you to touch my clit, please…”

“Shit,” Gareth curses as his cock pulses and leaks an ample bead of precum at the sensual direction you give, amazed with how you can just say it.  He takes a series of deep breaths to stave off his impending premature release.  “H-how?”

“Uhh – uh, y-your other hand or – thumb…”

Okay, so maybe he can admit his piano lessons gifted him some dexterity.  Gareth maneuvers his hand to slip thumb through your folds, brows furrowing in concentration until he’s sure he’s found it.   Immediately snapping his gaze to your reaction, he sees your neck arch against his pillow as a sharp cry is ripped from your chest.  The pitch climbs higher, and he loses his breath at the way your body moves against his hand, making him choke over a moan Gareth as you clench around his fingers.  

“Ohh, is that –”

“Keep – yes,” you gasp, “keep going –”  

“Yeah?”  He’s actually pretty proud of himself, so fucking pleased that you’re moaning and whimpering as a result of his hand, with what he’s doing.  That flash of confidence evaporates in the wake of a superheated cry of his name from your perfect lips, 

“Ohhh, god – so close, I’m so close –”

What he means to say is something smooth, something sexy like, C’mon hun, I got you, or That’s right, come for me – or even a That’s it, baby would have sufficed.

None of that happens.  Instead, Gareth’s unable to hide his shock as he basically yelps, “You’re close?”

“Y-yeah…” It’s in the wispy way you trail off that he can tell you sense something is up.  “You sound surprised.”

“I, uh – I am, I guess.”

“Oh.”  Your features darken with concern as realization clicks into place, and you place a hand on his wrist to stall his ministrations.  “G, you’ve – you’ve done this before, right?”  

Oh, shit.  Ohhh, shitshitshit.  He has to lie, there’s no fucking way he can tell you he’s never gone this far before, that he’s a virgin in basically every sense of the word.  This isn’t a truth he’s prepared to tell you, and so he lies.  Unconvincingly.

“I have, um – y-yeah.  I have.”  He wishes he sounded a little more convincing than whatever that prepubescent squeaky-ass voice just conveyed, because there’s no way you’re gonna believe him now.  

Your eyebrow quirks up in a sweet little arch.  “Do you remember how you made her come?”

Inhaling sharply, he comes close to aspirating.  The way his dick jumps in his boxers is borderline graphic, but what does he expect?  Hearing your perfect voice and seeing your perfect mouth ask about how he made this imaginary girl – you know – is just the ultimate bricklaying material, for fuck’s sake.

Could you give him a goddamn break?

He groans softly as his head thumps against your shoulder.  “Ohh shit, you can’t throw words like that around, hun.”

You tip your chin to the ceiling and laugh, a low, throaty version of the lighthearted one he loves so much.  “Why not?”

“Talk like that and I’m a goner,” he mumbles into your neck.  He slides his fingers from your center, and a deep ache pangs in his chest at the way you whine at the loss.

He’s gotta tell you the truth.  Gareth whispers your name as he lifts his head to look into your eyes, his desperate apology tumbles over his lips in a rush. 

“Fuck, I’m not – I’m not experienced at all.  At all.”  His nose nuzzles your cheek, too embarrassed to keep eye contact.  “Honey, I’m sorry.  I have no idea what I’m doing.”

The soft swishing of your hair against the sheets rustles in his ears, and a swarm of wings flutters and beats low in his belly as your hands cup his face to direct his gaze back to you.  He’s not given a chance to look away before you reply, 

“Gareth, I’m nervous as hell right now.”

There’s a band, twisted and barbed that cinches so tight around his heart.  He feared this, knew he wouldn’t be enough, and yet he somehow let himself get to this point, anyway.  Of course you’re nervous, though you don’t seem that way at all… but what did he expect?  He knows this – he – isn’t really what you want.  With each erratic thump of his heart, those barbs sink deeper, and he bleeds.

Gareth swallows the massive lump in his throat.  “You are?”

“Yeah.  But not because I don’t wanna do this,” you affirm, and you punctuate that with a slow, meaningful kiss on his lips.  You take your time, molding his mouth against yours before pulling back and  pinning him with a stare that shines with conviction.  “I do.  I – I want to be here.  With you.  Whatever that looks like, okay?”

The tension eases, but just a little.  There’s hope in what you say; but then again, he’s afraid to believe it.  “Um, okay.”  He’s uncertain where to go from here.  “Are you sure?”

“I want this,” you declare, firm but kind in a way that he can’t misunderstand.  A wry little grin twists at the corner of your mouth.  “I just – I don’t wanna pressure you.”

It’d be embarrassing how loudly he snorts if it didn’t have you practically squealing in delight as he launches himself at you.  “Oh god, you’re not,” he promises, peppering you in enthusiastic kisses, smothering your cheeks and your jawline before latching on to that place that made you gasp when he found it behind your ear.  “You’re so not.”

His point’s been made, but you still try to reiterate yours, even as your giggles melt into a contented sigh.  “I’m happy just to lie here.”

That earns you a dramatic grunt against your neck.  “I’m definitely not.”

“Gareth!”  A scolding swat to his chest bats away lingering insecurity, as does the glow about you as you look upon him with so much ardor in your eyes.  “But you – if you’ve never done any of this… it’s really okay.”

“You’re so fucking amazing,” he utters as his mouth ghost over yours, pressing a series of grateful kisses against the softest of lips.  “You know that, right?”

“So are you.  I mean that.  I wouldn’t have ever guessed this is new territory for you.”

Yeah, he’s not letting you get away with that one. A soft, incredulous scoff escapes through his nose. “You’re lying.”

“Um,” you nod toward his hand, where his two middle fingers still shine with your arousal.  “Clearly, I’m not.”

Those digits dig into the flesh of your hip as he hums, praying it sounds more suave than the manic thumping of his heart portrays.  He can feel the tips of his ears sear red-hot at the very thought of what he longs to do.  Somehow, the words are willed into existence.

“I wanna make you, uh…”

A sly waggle of your eyebrows sponsors the smirk that graces your lips as you murmur, “Come?”

“Fuck, stop,” Gareth grouses through an elongated vowel, digging those fingers into your side and eliciting a ticklish yelp from you.  “Yes,” he hisses through gritted teeth, “I wanna make you do that.”  His fingers start to tease again, drawing light circles on the canvas of your hip before inhaling bravely and whispering, “What feels best for you?”

You hesitate.  He actually feels you hesitate, and for a second he thinks maybe you did tell him the truth, maybe you are nervous and not just saying shit to make him feel better.  

Not that he minds either way.

“I don’t want to pressure you,” you murmur into his ear.  The easy seduction in your breath tickles the hair on the back of his neck and sends a shiver down his spine. 

He hums softly as he presses tender kisses along the curve of your jaw, down the taut line of muscle that leads to your collarbone. He reaches the dip at the hollow of your throat and plants one final kiss before lifting his chin to look at you.  This time, it’s he that raises the adorably crooked eyebrow as he summons whatever swagger he’s got left after your mere touch has burned it all away.

“Maybe I want you to pressure me.”

You bite your bottom lip again, and any shadow of an upper hand that he was trying for vanishes.  “If you’re sure –”

He moves to hover over your face, nose-to-nose.  “I want to know.  Please.”

He thinks he knows what you’re going to say, and although it scares him to death, he’s nearly vibrating with excitement.  He’d do fucking anything for you in this moment — especially what he hopes you’ll ask him for.  He’s not sure he has the courage to suggest it if you don’t. 

That lip is still caught between your teeth as you nod once and inhale deeply.  

“Kiss me,” you whisper shakily, your eyes flicking down your body to watch as your hand runs a blazing path over your belly to land at your wanting core.  “Here.”

He’s proud of how he doesn’t hesitate.  Desperate lips capture yours, his tongue dives in to tangle and taste before following your hand down your body.   You gasp his name as his tongue circles and flicks around your nipple, licking and sucking exactly how you told him you liked it.

“Will you tell me what to do?”  He hopes it doesn’t sound so fucking virginal as the words rush out of his mouth that greedily runs a blazing trail of soft, supple kisses down your belly and lower still.  

Your husky of course I will is barely registered over the roaring of blood as it pulses in his ears.

Not that it gets any better when he backs down the bed and settles between your thighs.  Even in the low light, he can appreciate the beauty in your anatomy, so much that it has him trembling again.  He’s hot, too hot – and leaning back on his knees he reaches back, bunching a fistful of soft gray cotton between his shoulder blades to yank it over his head.  One hand stays planted firmly on the flesh of your thigh while the other rakes his stupid curls away from his face as he tries to get oriented, desperately figuring out how to start.

“Hey,” your fingers tickle the back of his hand, drawing his attention to how you dance those digits to the soft skin of your inner thigh.  “Kiss me here, first.”  His owl-eyed stare snaps to yours, instantly calming his nerves.  “Start slow,” you instruct sweetly in a featherlight whisper as those fingers trail farther away from your sex, “here.”

This he can do.  Gareth dips his head, and basking in the sweet, heady scent of your arousal, wets his lips and kisses the tender flesh.  He takes his time, sucking it between his lips with the gentlest pressure before releasing and beginning again.  A broad palm splays over the back of your leg when your toes curl into his sheets, keeping you near as your body bows to him.  An abrupt wave of confidence washes over him and he gains momentum, adding a swirl of the tip of his tongue to soothe the faint marks he leaves.  Your tone hitches the same way he travels higher, ending in a powder-soft exhale when he switches to your other leg.  The method is the same, languid kisses and gentle suction all along your inner thigh.  Slow and steady, just like you’ve asked, though he could argue the hand that grapples at his shoulder is a plea for more.

The nearer to your sex he comes, the more his restraint crumbles.  He can’t take it anymore, and he’s pretty sure you can’t either – not with the way your moans have hitched into the most melodic of breathy sighs and rhythmic pants.

One final open-mouthed kiss is left in the crease of your thigh as it meets your body, Gareth basks in the moment before he’s drawn to the most intimate part of you.  Inwardly cursing the darkness in the room, he finds he wants nothing more to banish the shadows and see all of you.  Even in the low light, he gets it now; Gareth understands the fucking stranglehold pussy has on his friends, because Jesus – he can’t stop staring.  

Your beauty truly holds no bounds.  

It feels natural, leaning in for the honey-sweet kiss he plants to your seam, groaning in ecstasy at the divine taste of you that immediately coats his lips.  So he gives you another, and another – licking his mouth clean of your essence each time with a disbelieving sigh before traveling north, planting another kiss to the top of your mound.

“Yes, Gareth –” your body searches for more in how it bends in a delicate arch, “fuck, that’s it…”

A hesitant lick parts your glistening folds, and as soon as he tastes you properly on his tongue, he’s hooked.  Twin moans fill his bedroom, each a sound of individual bliss.  It’s his fault really – he forgets it all, forgets slow as he gives in to his most debased needs.  His fingers dig into the meat of your thighs, pushing your legs further apart so his mouth can explore the deepest parts of you.  All pretense is gone – there’s no grace; he’s completely lacking restraint as his tongue dives and twists, desperate to have every bit of you dance over his taste buds.  He’s only partially aware that you’ve fisted his curls in your hands, tugging at his scalp with the most delicious stinging pain that he has to lift his hips off the bed to keep himself from chasing his own release.  

He’s then reminded of your release, how he wants so badly to make you fall apart at the seams and how he almost had you there.  Almost doesn’t fucking count, not now – not when he can drag the tip of his tongue through your cunt and find that bundle of nerves that’ll have you careening towards your orgasm.

So he does it and he does it fast, with as much vigor – if not a little more – than what his thumb was able to provide.  You hiss in response, bucking your hips and disengaging his mouth from your pussy.  Gareth’s stomach plummets as he lifts his head to ask,

“You okay?”

Quick to assure him with a nod and a smile, you stammer, “Y-yeah, I am, don’t worry.”  You’re a little breathless as you admit, “Ju-just a little too hard.  Try, um…”

He’s never been more grateful for instruction in his entire life.  “Softer?”

The whimpering yes as your head hits the pillow escalates into a whine in the same vein when he flattens his tongue and drags a languid circle around your clit, careful to avoid direct pressure on the sensitive bud.  He’s less tentative now, in tune to how the pleasure in your tone continues to climb with every soft swipe around where you want him most.  

Not to overdo it, Gareth dips his head, dragging the smooth underside of his tongue to your entrance.  He simply can’t get enough of how you taste, how you feel, how warm you are – he could spend forever here because he’d die swearing that heaven is found between your thighs.  It isn’t long before you’re seeking some sort of friction against his face, and Gareth groans into your pussy as he feels you grind over his mouth.

A bawling cry is ripped from your throat as he runs his thick tongue back over your clit.  “Yes, fuck – please, yes – tha’so good –”

Circling once and then twice, he purses his lips and plants the softest of kisses over your clit, hoping like hell that it isn’t too much.  That has you crying out again, moaning his name to the ceiling as your hand is thrust into your hair.  Apparently, he’s done something right – and so he circles and kisses again and again and – 

Your free hand tightens its hold in his curls, and he nearly comes on the spot.  “Just like that, just like that,” you pant as your hand holds his place over your clit, “please – keep going, ye-yeahh –”

It’s an awkward position, engaging abs he hardly has to lift his dick away from the mattress and keeping his face buried in your pussy.  He’s glad to do it, and before long, he has you chanting his name like a prayer.

“Gareth, fuck – G, G!  Please, ohgod, need – oh, I need –”

“C’mon beautiful girl,” he rasps against your core, “tell me what you need.”

“Your fingers, please,” you gasp out, and he wastes no time propping himself on his forearm to plunge his two long fingers inside, “oh – so close, so close –”

He bottoms out slowly, hyper aware of how you clench and tighten over the delicious intrusion, and It takes only one or two drags of his pads over that roughened spot on your front wall before you detonate with a bawling cry.  He’s awed with how he can feel it happen as it does: your walls flutter and cinch around his fingers in waves as your orgasm crashes through your body.  

“Christ,” he grits as your cunt chokes his fingers stilled to the third knuckle inside of you, “so fuckin’ hot.”

He’d keep himself buried inside you forever if you let him, but as soon as your body quiets, you’re pulling him away from your overstimulated pussy, up your form to slam your lips to his.  It’s messy, mostly tongue and teeth and panting breath that fans hot against his pout still covered in your release.  For a moment, he wonders if he should have wiped his mouth – if that was the polite thing to do, but you don’t seem to care.  If he didn’t know any better, he thinks you actually enjoy tasting yourself on his lips.

It’s official, he’s decided as his tongue dances deeply with yours: you’re absolutely gonna kill him.

“H-hey,” he’s breathless as he grabs your attention between kisses, “hey – that was good, right?”

You bark a throaty laugh, throwing your arms around his shoulders to pull him close.  The skin to skin contact is overwhelming, and Gareth can’t decide if he wants to bask in it or roll off of you to stomp out the embers of his arousal that flare fire-red as he feels your nipples graze his bare chest.

“Are you kidding me?  Gareth,” superhuman strength from your arms keeps him flush against your body, “that was amazing.”

It sounds like you could be exaggerating, but he can’t deny what he’s felt.  “I mean, I think I know, but uh – y-you we’re able to, uh – you –”

Another blissed-out bit of tittering interrupts his rambling.  “G. Yes – yes.  I came so hard, I swear I did.”

“Don’t mess with me,” he crooks a smile that shines with your arousal. “I mean, I’d be more than happy to do that again.”

A coquettish flare of your eyelids sponsors a tiny smirk to bunch the apples of your cheeks. “Oh, really?” 

“Really.”  Gareth swallows as he balances his weight on his forearms, caught in a stare at your ethereal form beneath him.  It begins to catch up, the gravity of it all and the hope he still harbors for more.  His smile slowly fades, smoothing the lines around his eyes.  “Wow, you…”

“What?”

“I –” He shivers as your hands run over his chest, through the small patch of hair that dusts over his smooth skin.  A safer version of what he’s really wanting to say falls from his lips.  “I’m just really happy right now.”

“I am, too.”  Your hands continue their journey down his torso to the band of his shorts, thumb toying with the elastic but not daring to breach that barrier.  “Do you –”

“Y-yeah,” he stutters, inhaling a breath through his nose to wash the eagerness out of his tone.  He feels more solid, in control when he reiterates, “Yeah, I do.”  

The pads of your thumbs rasp over the oversensitized skin of his belly.  “We don’t have to have sex,” you assure softly as trepidation paints your tone.  “I can just, y’know, suck y –”

“No!” His hand flies over your mouth, huffing a disbelieving laugh as he cuts you off.  Jesus Christ, if he thought he was painfully hard before, it’s nothing to how he is now.  He drops his chin to his chest, willing the throbbing ache between his legs to subside enough to stay upright.  “If you finish that sentence, I’m done for.  You gotta stop talkin’ like that, honey.”

A sweet symphony of giggles rains from your kiss-bitten lips.  “Just trying to ask what you want, for once.  I want this to be good for you.”  

Oh, he knows what you’ve done.  Using his own words like a siren’s song against him to ensure that he’s getting what he wants… don’t you know that what he’s experienced to this point with you is everything to him?  You could stop him this instant and he’d be happy.  Unbelievably so.  Gareth doesn’t give a right shit about what he wants because he’s already got it at exactly this moment, lying beneath him on his bed.  Opening his mouth to say just that should be easy, but he’s completely stunned silent.  

Luckily, you’re not. “G, talk to me.  Tell me what you want.”

The fact that you’re eager to keep going… with him?  He hardly feels deserving of that kind of affection from you.  But… who is he to deny you?

“Have me,” he croaks, braving a look into your eyes as his chest heaves with desire.  “I want you to have… me.”

“Yeah?”  One final check in from you is unnecessary, but he appreciates it anyway, nodding furiously as you grin.  “You sure?”

His mouth has abruptly gone dry, making the high-pitched mmhm crackle and flake over the roof of his mouth.  “I uh,” he feels like he’s slurring with how heavy his tongue has become, “I’ll go get a condom.”

“Oh,” there’s a curious lilt to your tone as your eyebrows raise high on your forehead.  “You have some?”

Shit.  He can’t have you thinking he bought some, like he knew this was going to happen.  Never in a million years did he think he’d ever be so lucky, but making it seem like he’s got a stash of fuckin’ Trojans somewhere right after he’s admitted to being a virgin doesn’t look great.  In fact, it looks pretty damn creepy. 

“Not exactly mine,” he blurts, squeezing his eyes shut in regret because that wasn’t better by any stretch of the imagination.  He avoids your stare and runs his hand nervously through his curls as he throws a sheepish glance at the door.  “Jesus, this is embarrassing…”

Your gaze follows his, not quite comprehending… until you do. 

“We’re gonna… we’re getting into your paren –”

“No!” A mortified pair of lips crash over yours, swallowing that little burst of laughter that bubbles from your throat.  “Don’t you even say it, I’m humiliated as it is!”

“I mean, it’s nice to know they still had it bad for each other –”

“Will you shut that beautiful mouth of yours before I completely lose what I have going on here?”

“C’mere, G,” the smile you give him is doused in sensuality.  “Shut it for me.”

A wisp of a chuckle is all he can manage before he surrenders.  His mouth meets yours, pressing your head into the pillow under the weight of his want.  Wandering hands press into the flesh of his low back, a gentle invitation for him to lie flush against you, which he takes.  

He’d swear he was made to fit right here, in your arms.

All sense of time is lost as his mouth slips and molds with yours, but finally, he lifts his head, pulling himself away with a breathy chuckle.  “You are something else,” he whispers into your spit-slicked lips.

Your eyelids flare, fluttering to half-mast in a knowing stare.  “You kinda bring it out of me, I think.”

“Yeah?” he husks as he closes the distance once again.  “That a good thing?”

Gareth’s treated to a sexy little hum that breezes against his lips with your kiss.  “I dunno, big guy.  You tell me.  You’re the one that said that I was maddening.”  Your chin dips as you peer at him through your lashes.  “Maybe I’m just getting started.”

“Jesus,” he groans, shifting himself off of you to stumble towards the door.  “I’m going before you make me — I’m going. Right now.”

His traitorous brain starts to work against him as he hurries back to the bed with the foil packet in hand. He knows what you said, he heard you loud and clear when you told him he wasn’t a half version of anything, but that doesn’t stop the onslaught of self-doubt that suffocates him, stealing the air from his lungs.  

He’s been friends with Eddie for years, since they were kids – and in that time he’s probably seen more of the guy than he ever needed to. His brain is being horribly and unnecessarily mean as it aggressively reminds him of what Eddie was working with, and now as he climbs back over your body, he’s terrified he’s going to prove his stupid insecurities right. 

The stupid seal on the packet must be industrial strength; the way it refuses to relent as his fingers pinch and twist exacerbates his nerves.  He fears his inexperience is a neon sign, glowing red above his head, making it feel as if his whole upper body shakes under the stress.  The whole world tilts on its axis, and he sits back on his heels, fighting the urge to bury his head in his hands, or worse – call the whole thing off because he can’t get a fucking grip.  Gareth sucks in a breath through his teeth as your hands cover his; the electricity in your touch is a shock to his jangled nerves.

Though your wordless call to him is feathersoft, kindness and understanding unmatched in the rasp of your fingers, he still can’t find it in him to meet your gaze.   He’s acting like such a pussy and he knows it, and he fears he’s too far gone to stop.  Willing himself to just man up already, he tries to twist his downcast lips up in a smile, but they wobble and tremble so badly that he thinks he looks more pained than consoled.  

“G, look at me.” Your words drip with dark honey.  “You want this?”

“More than anything,” his reply is swift but shaky, his heart still pounding a furious rhythm against his ribcage.  “You have no idea.”

“Gareth,” you intone carefully and with such reverence, “is this…?”

He knows what you mean, what you’re implying as you trail off.  He’s never been all that ashamed of the fact that he’s a virgin, not until right fucking now when all he wants is a sliver of confidence and something to quell the quivering of his very soul.  Embarrassment flames a heat through his cheeks, pricks a set of stinging tears to the corners of his eyes.  It has him pinching them shut to affirm what’s true in a furious blur of abbreviated nods.

The sigh he hears is angelic.  “You want it to be me?”

“Yeah,” the threat of tears dispels as soon as he locks his stare to yours.  “Of course I do.”

Your fingers squeeze a grounding pressure into his skin.  “Okay,” you murmur, shuffling to your knees to bring yourself on the same level as him.  Steady hands cup around his jaw.  “Hey, it’s just me and you, okay?”

Despite the warmth in your touch, the affection he can feel as your fingers swipe a comforting path over his skin, Gareth’s baby blue eyes slip closed as you guide him to sit at the edge of the bed.  He can’t bear it, this fear of how you’ll react when you see him for the first time.  Your fingers start the slow drag of fabric over his legs with ease, all while whirling monochromatic constellations burst behind lids shut tight.  He lifts his hips, hissing a sharp inhale through his nose as his cock springs free.  The slap of skin against his belly makes it real, makes him want to draw him on himself and hide – but only for a moment.  Only until he hears you react, the quietest of sounds that he’s initially unsure how to interpret.  His brain plays tricks, the gnawing pit in his gut makes him think it was a bad sound, one born of disappointment… or worse, regret.

But as he slowly opens his eyes to look at you, he knows immediately that it wasn’t. 

“Oh,” you sigh as your lids flare at the sight of him leaking onto the sparse hair of his happy trail, “wow.”  

Wow wasn’t what he was expecting, but a welcome sentiment just the same.  Wow sends a shiver of something akin to pride snaking down his spine, enough to have him tipping his head back on his shoulders and scoffing a throaty moan as your lips connect to the superheated skin of his bare chest.

“You, Gareth Emerson,” you murmur between languid, open-mouthed kisses down his torso, “are perfect.”

“Ahh,” he huffs, respirations kicking up as you inch closer to his cock, “h-honey, I –”

Mercifully, the desperation in his tone halts your progress.  The mere sight of you on your knees between his legs is enough to end this very quickly all over his stomach, and that’s just not what he envisioned when he practically begged you to have him.  

A cheshire grin pulls at the corners of your mouth.  “I can keep going.  Kiss you here, if you want.”  

For emphasis, your head dips and plants your pursed lips at the base of his shaft.  For all he knows, your mouth is a livewire, generating enough electricity to restart his goddamn heart.  He hardly recognizes his voice when he belts an embarrassingly high ahhh! at the contact, regrettably flinching away from the sultry warmth of your mouth.

“I want you to,” he blurts breathlessly, chest heaving as he fights to stave off his orgasm, “Jesus Christ, I want you to so, so badly but I know I’m gonna be done the second you touch me and I –”  Gareth thrusts a hand in his hair as he flops back on the bed.  “I w-want, um… I really, really want to, um…”

“Hey, I know,” you coo, rising from the floor to your full height on your knees.  “We can save this for later, okay?”

His eyes slip shut, unable to accept your kindness despite the sincerity.  “I feel like such a loser.”

The bed dips under your weight as you settle next to him.  “Why?”

Gareth forces himself to open his eyes.  “I just turned down a… a blowjob,” he mutters, cheeks pinking as he bumbles over his admission.

“No, you didn’t,” the snort that escapes is sweet, as is the kiss you press against his lips.  “You’re just opting to have sex, instead.”

Body following his head, he turns toward you, brushing your bangs aside and tucking them behind your ear.  “You really want to?” he dares to ask, just one last time.  “You wanna have sex with me?”

“I really do, Gareth.”  As you lean in, he can feel the warmth of your breath fan over his lips.  “I feel it too, you know.”  

His eyebrows furrow briefly before he arches one in bewilderment.  “Everything,” you clarify, “I feel like I have everything when I look at you.”  A shuddering breath leaves your lungs, thickens your tone as you whisper, “Or, I could.  I will.  I’ll have everything once I – once my heart is healed.”

The weight of all he feels is crushing, consuming him from the inside out.  “It’s okay if it never does.”  The roughened pad of his thumb traces over your bottom lip.  “I’ll still –” 

Love you.

He mutes himself just in time.  The blue in his irises freezes, turns to ice as the chill puckers gooseflesh over his arms and chest.  He almost says it, nearly blurting an admission he hardly knew was real.  It’s not something he’s ready to say, and what’s more is that he knows you’re not ready to hear it, either.

So, he finishes with what he knows will be safe.  “– be here.”  

It’s just a moment’s hesitation, a darting of your eyes between his before you grab his face and slam your mouth to his.  He can barely keep up with your pace, all tongue and teeth and passionate panting.  Snatching the packet from the bed, you rise to your knees and with enviable accuracy, tear a strip off the top like it was made of butter.  He watches in awe as you roll the condom on, his bottom lip blanching with how hard he sinks his teeth into the tender flesh to stave away the absolute ecstasy that is your touch.  A moan escapes anyway as deft fingers guide the latex over his tip and down his length.  

After securing the rim at the bottom, you smile at him, keeping your hand at his base.  “Y’ready?”

“Y-yeah,” he barely is able to stutter his want over the roaring in his ears, “uh-huh…”

“C’mere.”  

He follows you to the head of his bed, struggling to keep his breath even as you lie beneath him.  Your body wiggles, bracketing his hips between your legs.  Gareth’s lost now, unsure where to put his hands or his torso or – well, he fucking knows he’s fumbling on top of you, shifting around like a dumbass because he doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s the best way to lie and maneuver himself inside. 

Christ, he never expected sex so be so fucking complicated.

“How, uh,” Gareth cringes as he asks, “how do you want me to be?  Like, o-on top?”

He loves how you don’t miss a beat, how you’re so generous with your direction.  “Here, I got you.”  

A subtle press of skin on skin, and you’re leading his body onto yours by the hold on his low back.  He’s chest to chest with you now, painfully aware of how your nipples brush against him as you shuffle south and wrap your fingers delicately around his base.  He loses his breath with the way his head teases through your folds, even though the thin latex of the condom, he can feel how wet you are.   

“Shit,” he groans hoarsely, “what’re you – hmm –”

That devilish smile you flash him is evident in your tone.  “Feel good?”

“Jesus, honey,” he scoffs over a stilted grunt.  “You know it does.”

Tinkling giggles melt into a sensual hum.  “Put your forearm, yeah, right there,” you guide him to settle his weight over you, “and get closer.”

He’s still supporting himself as best he can on his forearms.  “I’m not smushing you?”  

“Kinda want you to, G.”

A pitiful noise catches in the back of his throat as he eases his weight over your body, too loud to even bother hoping you somehow missed it.  

Because of course you didn’t.  “What’s wrong?”

“This is going to be embarrassingly fast,” he mumbles to your hair.  “Christ.”

Gareth shivers as he feels your free hand soothe a trail over his spine.  “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” you murmur into his ear, planting a series of kisses over his cheek.  “Really, it’s okay… this is about you.”  

Tawny ringlets bounce around his head.  “No, it’s not –”

“It is,” you interrupt, “it really is.  It’s going to be good for me no matter what.”  When he doesn’t respond, you tilt your chin, allowing the tip of your nose to trace over the lines of his.  “Okay?”

The action, it’s loaded with affection.  Gareth finally accepts it’s intended for him, releasing his breath in a drawn-out shudder.  “Okay,” he echoes, allowing himself to freefall into the impossibility of this moment.

He swallows hard, summoning the strength to balance a hand at the side of your face.  With a tilt of your hips, you’re meeting him at the apex of your thighs.  Gareth’s breath quickens as he feels his cockhead slip once more through the slickness of your seam before you guide him to your entrance.  The anticipation is killing him, the frenetic pounding of his heart might actually kill him before he’s able to properly put it in.  He’s split between heaven and hell, a sinful onslaught of sensations flare around his tip as he nudges himself forward.  It must be affecting you as well – a sharp gasp snaps through your nose as he lets you guide him in.  A slow and steady push, a savoring of the moment until he pops through that tight ring of muscle and is completely engulfed by the heat of your cunt.  

His jaw drops, eyes pinching shut as otherworldly pleasure slams into his trembling form.  “Ohh,” he whimpers a blissed-out version of your name, “oh, my god…”

It’s amazing how he can feel that hum that rolls through the back of your throat, how it buzzes along the entire length of his cock, even what isn’t sheathed by your pussy.  He sucks in a grounding breath through his teeth as you help him ease in to the hilt, dizzy and drowning in pleasure so sweet he feels his balls tighten with impending release.  Gareth belts a gravelly ohshit and promptly pulls out, regrettably leaving the warmth of your sex behind.  He’s frantic as he grabs the base of his cock before his orgasm has a chance to ruin what he hasn’t even started.

“Oh fuuuck –”

Molten waves of superheated lust broil in his belly, and despite his hold on his dick he can feel it throb, dangerously close.  His shoulders heave with each gasping breath that brings him farther from the brink of release, his mind whirring a mile a minute with silent prayers that beg for a shred of longevity. 

And perhaps some dignity, too. 

Several tense seconds pass – he can feel the heat of your gaze as he pulls himself back from the ledge.  

“Are you okay?”

“Yeahhh,” he whines, his face scrunched in deep concentration against the tidal wave of pleasure he’s fighting to stomp down. “Never better.”

Your nails scrape along the smooth planes of his back near his hips, pressing into his flesh to welcome him back inside. 

“H-hold on,” he chokes out, “I can’t yet.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“The best I’ve ever been,” he rasps as his eyes snap to yours.  “I just want this to be good for you.”

Your bottom lip juts out in an adorable pout.  “It already is,” the angle of your hips change to allow him to line up again, “when you’re ready, G – I got you.”

Gareth balances on the precipice as he bottoms back out, gritting his teeth against blinding pleasure that pulses in white-hot waves.  Your guidance is impeccable, and already, he feels connected to you and your body.  Moving in tandem with you, he seeks out your needs and his, too – heightened by the gasp that filters through your parted lips when your nails dig into his flesh and guide his hips into a gentle roll at the end of his thrust.  

He practically laughs as his body trembles.  “God damn, honey,” he grits, “y’feel so good.”

Instinct simmers hot, shoots through his veins as he drags his cock in and out with an agonizingly slow pace, knowing that anything faster than what he’s doing now is going to make him literally come apart at the seams.  He thinks it’s okay, though – the dreary cloud of inexperience still hangs low, but he can’t ignore the low burn of satisfaction in the way your face screws up with every pitchy moan at the apex of his thrusts.  His heart swells in his chest, thrilled to the bone with how you gasp,

“Gareth, yes –”

There’s a desire to say something back, to drag his voice through gravel and say exactly what’s on his mind or – even better – what he thinks you’d love to hear.  His mind turns blank, a vacant canvas that could be painted with something sexy or hell, even a little bit dirty – but it’s just not there.  

His mouth takes a different route.  Before he knows it, he is talking, a fountain of honesty spills in the fractional space between your lips.  

“You have no idea, I – Christ,” he rolls his hips against yours with a little more force, “you’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful to me, you have to know that.”

You angle your chin off the pillow and kiss him roughly, ripping away from his lips to exhale a shaky breath and press your forehead to his.  “Gareth –”

His truth is like wine, uncorked and flowing free to fill your glass.  “I’ve felt like this for so long, hun — I adore you, always have.”

“You do?”

He huffs a soft sound of assent.  “I’m crazy about – hahh, Christ –” an elongated moan bubbles in the back of his throat, “you feel so good –”

All of his faculties have arguably been squeezed right through his dick, the intensity in which your walls grip him is undeniably the greatest thing he’s ever felt.  He still has the frame of mind to wonder about you, and as soon as he bumbles over a stuttering sweet nothings that cater to your pleasure, you respond by shifting your hips and gasping,

“H-here, bring my leg up like – that –”  

The young man’s eyes nearly bug out of his head at how you can just bend like that – your entire fucking leg is practically hooked around his arm as it presses against his side.  He reactively palms the side of your knee, feeling like he’s putting too much force behind how he holds it bent at your shoulder.

“Like this?”

Your eyes roll back, your neck arches against the pillow as you belt a low moan.  “Gaaare – oh, oh! What y-you’re doing,” you keen, “keep going!”

“What the fuck,” he mutters softly to himself, drowned out by a rumbling groan when the position opens you up to him even more than before.  He’s overwhelmed with how much of you he can feel as he drives his cock into the deepest parts of you.  “I don’t even know what I’m doing –”

An angelic ahh! fills his ears before your face softens from pleasure to pure delight.  “Yes you do,” your voice tinkles like a bell as peals of laughter bubble over your lips.  

Gareth slows his cadence, biting his lip as his eyebrows pinch together in utter mortification.  “Please tell me I didn’t just say that out loud.”

“You definitely did,” you giggle as you run your fingers through his curls, “but – oh, that was so perfect.”

His stomach swoops, but not so much in embarrassment.  That smile that’s plastered to your face wipes away any shame he feels.  “I blame you,” he huffs into a wry purse of his lips that sponsor a crooked grin,  “tossin’ a leg up here like I’m gonna know what to do with it.”

For emphasis, he gives the meat of your thigh a smack and about loses his mind at the way it jiggles.  

“Oh,” the seduction in your tone dimples your cheeks as you throw him a look through your lashes, “sure felt like you did, big guy.”

That same seduction doesn’t come as easily to Gareth, not yet.  “You’re gonna kill me,” he grunts as he finds an easy cadence with your hips.  In and out and back again with that tiny roll at the end that makes him want to stay buried in your forever.  “Oh, fuck – fuck, honey…”

Realization isn’t delayed in the slightest, he knows it’s nearly over.  His hips fall out of what little rhythm he has, a slave to his own need.  The sounds you make spur him on, and he hopes to Christ that it’s really him that’s drawing those out of you, and not just an overexaggerated ploy to make him feel better.  It doesn’t matter, not at this point – Gareth dips his head next to yours and tightens his grip around the sheets, fisting some of your strands in the process.  

“God, G, fuck that’s so good,” you moan into his ear as you meet his sloppy thrusts, “y’can pull my hair, fuck, like that –”

He’ll go to his grave insisting that bit of sexual prowess was intentional, even if it does have him careening towards his imminent release.  The band of muscles low in his pelvis contract the same way his throat does around your name.  

“That’s it – y-yes,” you belt a high-pitched whine as you meet his every move, “Gareth, that’s it –”

It feels like his insides have wound into a red-hot coil, pulled tighter with every heavenly drag of his length through your heat.  Your praise is his undoing, ruining him as his cock jerks and pulses ahead of his climax.  

“Sh-shiiit honey, I’m –”

Gareth’s vision whites out while an ethereal ringing in his ears crescendos until it explodes.  He belts a gravelly ah! as the tension snaps, liquifying his insides with pleasure he’s never been able to draw out of himself before. 

Nothing compares. Nothing even comes fucking close. 

He can sense that you’re watching him as he comes, as he’s filling the condom with rope after rope of his spend.  While his body’s gone still, wrapped in the sultry heat between your legs, you’re sure to work him through it, undulating your hips in such a way to draw out every last drop of him. Gareth’s groans soon melt into throaty whines against the pleasure that now teeters on the edge of pain with every well-timed push of your hips. 

“Oh, god,” he practically sobs, in utter awe over the orgasm that seems to last ages.  “Oh, my god…”

Shivering as you pepper kisses over his neck, he barely registers your feather soft, “S’that good?”

His skin is electrified, currents zinging every which way and leaves him trembling in your arms.  Gareth musters the tiniest of nods, the post-orgasm fog not allowing for much else.  He’s still so charged despite coming harder than he ever has before; hell, it feels like he could come again with how you grind your hips against him.  Not wanting to be what he deems as selfish, he pulls out gingerly, hissing at the heightened sensitivity.  

His cock refuses to deflate.  That’s new.

Foregoing your offer to help remove the condom, he does it alone, knowing just enough to rid it in the trash under your watchful gaze from your propped-up forearms.  Once he rejoins you in bed, he hovers over your form and answers your lazy grin with one of his own.

Your arms go to wrap around his broad shoulders.  “C’mere, G.”

Rearing away from your touch, his curls fly around his crooked grin as he shakes his head.  “I, uh… I wanna make you c-come again.”

“What?!” you squawk, eyelids flaring in shock as your mouth pops open. 

“Can I?”

For once, he’s rendered you speechless.  Your jaw snaps shut as you come to your senses.  “Yeah, god… yeah, of course.”

Unused adrenaline surges under his skin, his muscles start to quiver under the strain of his position.  “W-were you close?” he asks, teeth chattering as his body shakes like a leaf.  “When we were –”

Smoothing your features into every bit of that comfort he needs, you coo with outstretched arms, “Gareth, please come here.”  It’s automatic how he obeys, how much he wants to, and as soon as he settles on top of you, your lips connect in a deep, languid kiss.  “Was that good for you?”

“Obviously,” he snorts, leaning into the warmth of your palms as they cradle his face.  “Shit.  Yeah, it was.”  He glances at you before mumbling, “But you didn’t –”

You’re gracious and not dismissive all at once.  “G, I swear, that was amazing.  You are amazing.”  The compliment feels genuine enough but he can’t bring himself to believe it, and so his eyes cast down to focus on the shimmer of sweat that makes your skin practically glow.  

A tender touch swipes over the apples of his cheeks.  “Hey, I’m serious.  It was so hot seeing you come apart like that.”  He swears your tone adopts a purr as you add, “And you made me feel so good.”

He can’t hide his growing grin, and so he busies his lips by slotting them in yours, unhurried but just as life-altering as the first time.  “I did, huh?”

Your lids sink to half-mast as you husk, “You felt so good, trust me.” 

“Sorry I’m being such a baby, having you fuckin’ coddle me like this.”

Another burst of your giggles scatter over his exposed skin.  “You are so sweet, seriously.  It’s your first time.  You deserve to know how good you are.”

One final huff is his concession, even after he studies your stare before darting his tongue to run over his bottom lip.  “Can I…” Gareth trails off as he shuffles down your body, “um, can I d-do this again?”

The hinge of your jaw swings wide open.  “You’re seriously asking if you can eat my pussy again?”

He groans your name in exasperation, helpless as his dick pulses to life against your thigh.  Mercifully, you’re laughing at his theatrics, played up to the extreme when you wrap your arms around him as he flops on top of you.

“You’re a fucking siren,” he gripes to your chest with a grin, “I’m gonna die if I look at you.  Turn to fucking stone or whatever.”

“That’s Medusa.”  A well-timed roll of your hips against his now-hard cock slotted in the crease of your thigh has him choking on another moan.  “Think you got this part covered.”

Gareth snorts a laugh, gritting his teeth against another undulation of pleasure over his length.  “Stop that.”

“I’m sorry!  I just – I love that you ask.  It’s so endearing and… different from the Gareth I know.”

A wave of adoration washes over him, soaking his skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake.  “A little out of my element, here,” he deadpans with a grin.

You shrug as you lean into another quick kiss.  “I love it either way.”

His eyebrows raise under his matted fringe, drinking in your form and how you look under him.  A quick but loving peck is planted on your mouth one more time before sliding down the bed, settling between your legs.  He wastes no time, tonguing you open with a deep, sultry swipe up your seam.  A bitter tang bursts over his tastebuds, so different than the honeyed arousal he’d eagerly lapped up before; and for a second he pauses, terrified that the condom may have broken and ohhh shit, that would happen to you the first time you get into bed with him – 

“S-sorry,” you stutter with a grimace as your hands guide his face away from your pussy, “it’s probably not the same since the condom.  You don’t have to –”

“Oh yeah,” Gareth breathes a sigh of relief before waving you off with a wet smack to your inner thigh.  “That doesn’t bother me, honey, trust me.”  Emboldened by your logic and how he didn’t just bust inside of you unprotected, he groans into the heat of your sex, “Love this, love how you taste.”

A pitchy whine bursts from your lips, taking you both by surprise.   

Gareth’s eyes dart to yours, locking in on your slack-jawed stare as his tongue circles your clit.  He pops off your mound and reiterates with a husk, 

“You do… you taste so good.”

“Yeah?”

Even he can pick up on this little tell.  Gareth lets a lazy grin slither over his lips.  “You like that?”  He allows himself a cocky tilt of his head.  “Me telling you how good you taste?”

It doesn’t escape him how high your answering little uh huh is, and it shocks him how good that makes him feel.  

“Oh,” he croons, willing forth a flash of confidence.  “Lay back, beautiful.  Let me…” trails off as he inhales a wisp of bravery, “let me eat this pretty pussy u-until you come on my face.”

“Gareth!” your scandalized exclamation is short lived, cutting to a sharp, wanton oh, fuuuck! as he latches back on to your clit.

His memory is impeccable, putting to practice everything he learned and adding in flares of his own doing as he eats your pussy for all he’s worth.   This time, he keeps his eyes on you, watching your every move, memorizing how your chin tilts to his ceiling in ecstasy, how your fingers tweak your nipples and help you toward your release.  Though the view is spectacular, he can’t see you fully, and he decides right then that he wants to watch you come.  

“God damn,” he breathes, sliding his middle fingers inside your hole that’s soaked with need, “honey you are so beautiful.  I – I gotta see you.”

“Yes,” you moan, hips meeting his hand as his digits bottom out inside your cunt, “ohh, yeah, c-come up here a-and kiss me, please.”

Gareth’s lips are hungry as they press into yours, his tongue bullies your mouth while his fingers swipe and drag over that sweet spot deep inside you.  He swears you taste better with every moan he swallows, completely intoxicated with how your arousal mingles with the divine flavor of you.  

He steals a glance down your body, enamored with the way your body takes over as you fuck his hand. “Oh, look at you…”

“So close,” you whine as your eyelids pinch shut, “so close –”

Your body provides delicious friction against his cock, now leaking over his length that’s so desperately hard.  Gareth ruts into your hip, a prisoner to his desire as he helps you chase your pleasure.  

“Jesus,” he grunts, slipping his thumb over your clit as he keeps up the pace, “c’mon, there you go.”  

Your legs widen, allowing him more room for his fingers to work their magic, and he briefly considers taking his cock into his free hand when you lean up on your forearm and spit into your palm.  He chokes on a garbled moan when you wrap it around his shaft, your head dropping back to the pillow with a wanton cry to the ceiling as you pump him.  The duality of sensations is overwhelming, so much so that he has to battle his pleasure to keep his eyes open.

“Gareth, Gareth – oh my god, yes – please, please –” you cry, your back arching with your imminent release.  

“Yeah?  That feel good?”

Deft fingers find their place, stall their pumping to drag calloused pads over that fiery place along your front wall.  His thumb swirls around your clit, making you bawl out his name.  The influx of pleasure has you squeezing his cock hard and he whimpers, trying to focus completely on you.  

Your cries crescendo in beautiful fashion, an elongated song of yes and his name.  “I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come, gonna come –”

The tidal wave crashes, slamming into you and forcing the breath from your lungs.  Gareth feels your walls clench and squeeze around him as a slow, small gush of arousal coats his fingers.  The wet sounds are filthy, lewd in the most debased, beautiful way, sending him straight over the edge.  He comes hard in your hand, burying his face into the crook of your neck with a low moan of your name.  

He wills his fingers to keep moving, to keep them pumping in and out of your pussy as long as he can still feel you pulse, as long as he can still hear those heavenly sinful sounds.  As you ride out your high, he revels in everything – the warmth of your release as it coats his hand, his name is on your parted lips, your bubbling, feminine whines and moans that fill his ears and provide him the material for his next dozen songs.

“Fuck,” he groans, still unable to separate himself from your sweet, honeyed center, “fuck, baby…”

“I know,” you sob, turning your head to press gentle kisses along his hairline.  “So good, G – god, feels so good –” 

You hiss a warning as his thumb slips over your clit, he presses the heel of his hand against it instead, rocking his hand against your hips once, twice before finally withdrawing his fingers.  His heart rate refuses to come back down to normal, so he’s panting as he plants wet little kisses along your collarbone.

“Are you okay?” he asks when he hears you whimper.

“Oh,” you sigh at the apex of an inhale, “I am more than okay.”  He feels you shiver as he tongues that spot behind your ear, huffing a breathy hum before cupping his face in your hands.  Your ardent eyes search his. “Are you?”

The ice that colors his baby blues is on fire as he looks upon you, trembling in your arms, so overwhelmed with adoration or what he fears is something more. He knows it is, the realization is a flame that licks at his insides, searing his skin as it courses through his veins.  His bottom lip blanches with how hard he’s biting the words back because he knows he shouldn’t say it.  He won’t.  Not now, not for a long time, if ever.  He has everything right now in the woman that’s lying beneath him and he’s not going to fuck it up by saying what he knows he shouldn’t. 

What’s that they say about the best laid plans?  The words are hot on his tongue anyway, the heat of them burn his throat, roughening his voice to a gravelly husk.  His world tilts on a desperate axis, heart beating wildly as he pleads with you while his lips hover just above yours.

“Kiss me.  Honey, kiss me, please.  Christ, before I –”

You bring your two fingers to his mouth to quiet him, pressing them against the kiss-swollen skin.  “Gareth, it’s okay,” you whisper gently as you tip him a watery smile.   “Just say it.”

I love you.

His mouth opens to do just as you’ve said, to breathe those three words into existence, but his voice betrays him. He’s gone silent. 

I love you. 

They’re right there. So close. But he can’t and for the life of him, he doesn’t understand why. 

I love you. 

His heart is screaming at him to be brave, to seize this moment and let you know that he does know how to love and how to love you in particular. That he wants and needs to keep loving you until the very end, which knowing what he does now could be a hell of a lot sooner than he thought.  

But he leans forward and kisses you instead.

You let him melt into you, molding your mouth to his until there’s no more to give.  He circles his arms around you, finding his home in the slope of your neck as your body lies flush, pinning against skin. Gareth stays  like this for a long time, savoring the way your fingers trace delicate patterns in the hairy skin of his arms, whispering the sweetest of secrets to each other in the dark.  

And when he gets a second wind, energized solely from your presence in his bed, he’s stuttering over mortified assurances that his cock has a mind of his own, and that he’s happy to just lie there and ignore the bastard as it fills out to its plentiful length against the supple curve of your ass.  You surprise the absolute fuck out of him by wiggling out of his hold to pad down the hall, returning a moment later with a handful of condoms and a sexy little smirk, convincing Gareth that you’d never want to ignore him, not by a long shot.  His arms are welcoming as you settle in as his little spoon when you rejoin him under the covers, opening yourself to him as your top leg hitches over his hip.  No words are spoken, but he’d argue they don’t have to be – he makes love to you this way, holding you close with one arm while you teach his fingers on the other to swipe gently over your clit and come on his cock.  He finishes as you do, those words of adoration and all-consuming love rattling around in his chest, unused and boxed away for another day. 

Somehow, he knows you know.

The next morning arrives swiftly, the brightness of the dawn awakens Gareth to a lonely bed. 

His heart stutters, panicked and out of sorts until the fresh smell of coffee wafts through his nostrils from downstairs, and so he doesn’t worry.  He takes his time in the shower, smirking to himself as he washes the heady scent of sex and sweat from his body and offering you a little alone time in the sunroom where he’s sure you’ll be.  

That frenetic rhythm is back, thumping in his chest as soon as he descends the stairs.  Gareth tears through the den, a fruitless search when he knows in his heart that you’re gone.  All he finds of you is your empty mug and a note near the carafe.

G – My heart’s not ready, it still aches over too many people. I can’t love you nowBut it doesn’t mean that I don’t. At Steve’s for the night, maybe two, but I promise I’ll be back.   I’ll come back to our home, G.  I will. I just need a day or two. -m

He still has the note bunched in his hand when the shrill jangle of the phone shocks him lucid.  Wiping the remnants of salt from under his lashes, he picks up the phone, breathing a long sigh of relief when Steve informs him that you showed up a few hours ago.  Before the older boy can get a word in edgewise, Gareth’s spouting off a million questions, and Steve nearly has to shout to grab his attention.   He assures Gareth that you’re fine – you’ve been talking with Robin for god knows how long in his room, and though he could tell something happened, you don’t look hurt or upset.

You told Steve before he was kicked out of his own room that you just need some space.  

Gareth still inundates the older boy with his interrogation, and Steve decides it better just to come over.  He brings the last bottle from his dad’s not-so-secret liquor stash – a bottle of Buffalo Trace that he and Gareth split in the sunroom while the events of the night before are relayed to the older boy.  Steve listens as he always does, a kind smile crinkling his eyes here and there, and provides advice and assurance where it’s needed.  Robin calls later that afternoon, her normally husky tone a little rougher as she assures Gareth that you’re fine – great, even – and that it ultimately comes down to you needing a day or two to get in the right mind to come home.

Home.

Gareth could cry with how happy that makes him when he hangs up the phone.

You’re coming home.

Three days pass in an emotional blur – admittedly, a day longer than you intended.  The guilt brought about by that extra time roars louder in your ears than the snap of dead twigs underfoot.  The wind isn’t as chilly in the depths of these woods, despite the dormant bones of ash and elm and their lack of usual cover.  Still, you pull your hoodie tight over your ears, shielding your face from the cold while your legs carry you onward through the trees. 

One final talk. One more conversation on the tail end of days with endless conversation. At this point, you’re fried, so mentally tired of sifting through the bottomless tar pit that houses your feelings. Hell, even your throat is raw from all the talking you’ve done. 

Okay.  And maybe crying, too. 

But it’s time.  You, with the help of Steve and Robin and Nancy, have decided it’s time.  

It’s funny how time can change even the most familiar of places.  The spot in the woods where you and Eddie would frequent is the same as ever, untouched by the evils that still threaten and prowl beneath those gashes that still bleed into Hawkins, but you would argue that it’s different.

Cold.  Dead.  Lacking.

The once-familiar refuge is shrouded in so much doubt that you don’t recognize it anymore.  Or, hell – maybe that’s you.  Just two months ago you were gifted what you thought was a miraculous sign that Eddie was alive, still walking this earth in a corporeal form that wasn’t cloaked in the mystery suggested by your dreams.

No, he was here.  He’d given you a sign that he was here.

But that was over two months ago, and as strangely as the notebook came, it halted everything else.  No more dreams, no more nightmares.  No whispered tickle down the back of your neck that had you shivering out of anticipatory delight, so sure that you’d turn and see his face that you’d bet your life on it.

Your life.  Held in a terrible limbo for the last sixty days, and for what?Nothing, other than a song that terrified your housemate to a point where you both argued again, culminating into a shouting match of epic proportions.  You dove into the intricate details of the NDA you were sworn to uphold.  You openly detailed Eddie’s last moments to his best friend in the whole world, who in turn flipped your fucking world on its head when he confessed fucking everything.  And your response was to end up in his bed hours later.

Not that you regret it.  You don’t.  If anything, it gives you hope again, but as to be expected, it comes with a price.  

Shit.  If this is what moving on looks like, it can fuck right off into one of those gates.  Honestly.

But these last few days taught you something.  Nancy and Steve and Robin and hell, even Jonathan had a thing or two to say that was helpful, and though your heart still hangs heavy in your chest, you can breathe again. 

And so you do.  You inhale a deep breath of the dry winter air as you sit on the roughened wood of the table and speak to the space between the trees.

“Hey, Eds.”

These lines aren’t rehearsed.  You feel it’s better to have what you need to say come straight from your aching heart.

“This kinda makes me a bad sister,” you begin softly, carefully as a finger traces over the faded knots and whorls, “but somehow I feel right admitting to you that I was a little jealous of Max.  The day we figured out she was cursed, she wrote letters.  Like, over a dozen of them… they were exactly what you’d expect.  Max let us all know how she felt on paper because she couldn’t find the words to say it all out loud.”  You huff an airy laugh as you wipe traces of your tears away.  “We’re so fucking alike it scares me, sometimes.”

You imagine Eddie would chuckle here, a deep rumble of bass in his throat that would vibrate his chest and tingle your bare skin as you lie against him.

He’s not, though.  Your words are met by no one, lonesome as they drift away in this cold, unholy confessional.

“She did it better,” you admit, “she did it differently.  Each letter was so fucking personal, Eddie.  So specific to each of us that it just broke your heart to know she had all these feelings bottled up.  You even got one.  I have it… or, I did.  I had it.  I lost it.”  You pause, inhaling a trembling breath on the verge of breaking down.  “I’ve lost a lot of things lately.”

You can hardly get it out between the sob that rips from your chest.  “The last thing I want to lose is you.”

“I want to believe I won’t,” saliva coats your tone, thickens it to the point where it threatens to choke the words before they’re spoken to life.  “I want to believe I’ll always love you the same way I did the first night I felt my life begin when you played Nightmare on Gareth’s stupid driveway for me.  You made it real, you made me real.”

A shuddering breath steadies you, just for a moment.  “Fuck, baby.  I loved you then, I know I did.  And I still do.”

“But…” the suffocating tangle of emotions lodges in your throat, “I might… I might –”  

It’s not something you can admit out loud, not yet.  Your guilt silences you, despite what you feel and what you’ve sorted through in the last few days.

“I need to let you go, but I just can’t yet.  He’ll understand, because he’s such a good fucking man.  Christ,” you snort a watery laugh, “who saw that coming?”  

Running your hand under your nose as you sniff, you ignore that ever-present ache in your chest and continue.  “I don’t know if it’s a matter of can’t or won’t, but to me, it doesn’t matter.  I’m not ready to say goodbye, Eddie.  I won’t ever be.  But… I do have to give up the hope that you’re… here.”  

You lift your eyes and throw a hardened glare to the trees.  “Alive.”

Nothing answers, just as you expected.  The hope was there, but whatever still flickered stubbornly despite complete lack of evidence has been snuffed out.  

It’s better this way, you think.  Not at all convinced but determined to move forward, your hand reaches into the depths of your hoodie and pulls out your notebook.  Trembling fingers rummage through your front pocket to fumble with Steve’s lighter.  The frigid chill in the air makes them clumsy, the pad of your thumb stings as you flick the dial to produce a flame.

“I don’t know why this is here,” you whisper as tears spill over your lids, “and I’m through trying to figure it out.” 

Waving the torch beneath the pages, you bring them to the flame as an offering.  It ignites, tiny tongues of fire lick the edges, but the paper doesn't burn.  Mesmerized by the way it doesn’t bow to the heat, how it neither singes or scorches – your eyes flare as they witness the sheets remain white as the fresh fallen snow.  Your fingers flinch, awestruck as the inferno spreads.  The flames burst as if they were fueled, roaring higher, engulfing your hand in a curious chill, absent of heat and pain and everything else expected.

Uh, no.  None of this is expected.  Your hand seems to remember its purpose before you do, and with a strangled cry, you fling the fiery book to the table.  There’s no time to catch your breath, to ask yourself what the hell that strange display of altered pyrotechnics that was before a sinister growl shatters the quiet of the clearing.  A wild wind whips through, shocking you still as you watch the pristine pages decorated with glowing red and orange flames flutter open to an all-too-familiar page.

I’ll make a beast out of myself Gets rid of the pain of being a man

The voice rattles in your ears, so loud it vibrates your teeth. The violent influx of sound makes you reflexively clap your hands over your ears until the roar disappears.  

It’s then when you realize there’s nothing now.  Not a sound, not a breath of a breeze.  The timber has gone eerily calm and quiet.

A strange sort of tranquility blankets the forest, perfectly harmonious with you.  Not warm, not cold.  A curious conglomeration of everything you need and nothing you knew you desired.  It’s there, all at once, filling the emptiness that still cored out your soul.

Empty it is, no longer.

The melody drifts into your consciousness, a tendril from the unknown tethering to you in your realm, pulling you forward with a sure step.  

So sorry you’re not here

And then another.  One foot in front of the other.  

Right, left.

I’ve been sane too long my vision’s so unclear

The strength of an unseen force draws you into the forest, which in any other circumstance would frighten you terribly. 

But it doesn’t. 

Blood confidently thrums through your veins, sure and steady as the steps that carry you nearer. 

Now take a trip with me

Your eyes are drawn ahead, searching without rushing. What is there is there, and soon, you’ll find him. This time, you know you will. 

But don’t be surprised when things aren’t what they seem

Each ethereal step forward feels lighter, an airy dance that has you floating without a trace over the dry, scattered remains of autumn that coat the forest floor.

I’ve know it from the start

You feel an absence of worry.  Freedom from guilt, from anguish, from it all.  Silent steps glide along the ground and silences your pain, enveloping you in a serenity that’s synonymous with your surroundings.

All these good ideas will tear your brain apart

And then, you realize you’re singing, too – a haunting duet with one that’s been missing but yet you know so well.

Scared, but you can follow me

The note holds for a moment before withering away, turning to ash that floats in flakes to the forest floor.  Heavy lids flutter closed, waiting.  Patiently waiting.

Time slips by, for how long, you’re not sure.  

You sense it before it happens: a feather-soft whoosh of wind, a flutter of weathered leather, and your eyes snap open with your high, breathy gasp that echoes through the ether.  There’s no need to search, not when the twin pools of oxblood and onyx capture your stare from the depths of the forest, new and familiar all at once. 

I’m too weird to live 

Your smile creeps across your face, crawling wide, crinkling the corners of your darkening eyes.  Plush lips are drawn up, pulled tightly across your teeth, mirroring his grin that drips a wry sort of foreboding in as you’re drawn in deeper. 

Closer.

Safer.

But much too rare to die

A shift in the air ripples in waves around those ebony curls, and those endless pools of burgundy-black bring you home in a long-lost chocolate brown stare.  A stretching moment ticks by as he peers down a long, pale nose to where you stand.  You could be compelled to stay, but that’s preposterous.  You know you don’t need to be.

It’s a want, a primal need you feel deep in your bones.  You’re there all on your own, unable to pull your gaze from the depths of his.  The telltale rhythm of your heart accelerates when those lush, blood-red lips spill forth that sandpaper rasp you’ve so longed to hear.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

Next Chapter

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Battle of the BandsNovember 1989, Indianapolis

Jeff sits next to Gareth in the green room, the antsy bouncing of his leg sends Gareth’s brain back several years.  Far back enough to a particularly small storage room before a rather thrilling night-before-Thanksgiving performance, and the clenching in his chest intensifies.

He blows out a breath to settle the ache.  “So, what are our options again?”

Jeff’s nervous leg stills.  “I know you might not want to, but we could do –”

“I swear to god,” Gareth snarls with no real malice behind it, “if you say Walk, I’m gonna punch you.”

That gets a barking laugh from Sully, who lies sprawled on the couch, idly twirling his drumstick between his fingers.

“No,” Jeff drawls with a grin, proud of his friend for dropping a reference that would have sent him into a spiral this time last year, “I was actually gonna suggest something to balance out our shit so far.  It’s been pretty dark –” another snicker from Sully and this time, Gareth joins in, “maybe we do the one we trialed last month in West Lafayette?”

Gareth straightens.  “Oh, shit.”

Jeff’s beams, his eyebrows raised expectantly.  “Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah.”  Gareth looks to the rhythm guitarist, who nods in agreement.

Sully’s fingers flip the stick high above his head, and he snatches it out of the air with tremendous dexterity.  “Let’s fuckin’ win this thing.  Sudden Death, my ass.  Should be us, boys – let’s go!”

“You assholes again, huh?”

Gareth throws his head back and cackles, the light of the stage glimmers off of the silver dagger that dangles from his ear as it bounces around on its delicate hoop.

With all the swagger his rockstar status allows, he saddles up to the stand and presses his lips into the mic.  “That’s right, Indianapolis.  Another year, another fuckin’ victory for your favorite metal band!”

The crowd’s response is deafening, a sonorous wave of favor for him and the men he's been fortunate to call his bandmates for over two years now.  

“All right, all right, quiet down,” Nick the emcee barks, side-eyeing a smirking Gareth.  “Congratulations aren’t official yet.  This is the Sudden Death round, not a victory lap.”

Nick is met with some jeers from the crowd, and he shoots them a glare to put them in their place.  “Our other incredibly talented challengers have just rocked this place practically to the ground –” this time, the roar is louder as the challenger’s fans yell their support – “I hope to hell you all have a solid plan, ‘cause you’re gonna need it after that original song Next Hex just performed.  You gotta admit, fellas,” the man at the helm jests in fun, “they fuckin’ blew your minds.  You know they did.”

Gareth steals a look offstage to the band members of Next Hex, making sure to toss an overly dramatic, cocky wink to Denise.  He’s pretty sure she might kill him after the show regardless of the outcome if he doesn’t reel it in.  

But where’s the fun in that?

“Oh, I think we got ‘em.  Worthy opponents, yes,” he murmurs with a tinge of condescension, dipping his chin in their direction.  He snickers as the lead guitarist flips him the bird from her perch on her barstool.  “It’s too bad they’ll be coming up just short of a victory this year.  Sorry, ladies,”  Gareth’s cocksure grin assures that he’s not sorry at all, “we’re goin’ for the repeat.”

The emcee’s lips twist into a crooked grin, the hands at his side gesture to the raucous crowd to quiet.  “All right, I like the confidence!  Now, I gotta ask, gentlemen of Morbid Mayhem,” Nick puts an unnecessary and snarky emphasis on gentlemen, and it gets a laugh from the audience.  “Your song that undoubtedly threw you into the Sudden Death round –”

“A Little Piece of Heaven?” Gareth murmurs impishly, grinning as he’s met with an explosion of applause and cheers.   

Nick’s eyes flare reactively.  “Yeah.  That fucking one.  Where in the hell – what were you guys on when you wrote that?”

The band soaks up the moment, a cacophony of positivity just for them and the debut of their newest work.  Jeff steps up to his stand and offers an explanation.  

“You’re gonna have to ask him,” he chuckles as he gestures to the drummer.  “That’s his baby.  You wanna tell ‘em, Sully?”

Sully shrugs unbothered from his perch behind his set, a devilish flash of mirth dances over his features.  “Nothing like writing after a night out chocked full of strippers, blow and Jim Beam.”

Nick’s cackling laugh booms over the venue.  “Probably a pretty regular occurrence for you rockstars, amiright?” 

Gareth tongues his lip ring nervously.  It isn’t; not for him, anyway.  It hasn't been for a long time for Jeff, either.  That’s more Sydd and Sully’s scene since their band started to take off a couple of years ago, about six months after he and Jeff moved to Indianapolis.

He snickers anyway, the way his lips curl around the mesh lead the crowd to believe that he is indeed living the rockstar high life, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.  There are benefits of remaining mysterious, especially when you have two incredibly talented and extroverted members who don’t mind taking the brunt of the attention.  Gareth’s done a stellar job of deflecting, and tonight, he continues his trend.

“Enough dicking around,” Gareth intones deeply, the harsh rasp in his voice hushes the crowd.  “We’re here to balance it out – A Little Piece of Heaven is fucked-up to the extreme, a little ode to all us sinners.”  He practically sneers the last word, punctuating it with a wicked smile.  “But for this final round, we thought we’d treat you to something a little more…” 

The lead guitarist trails off as he searches for the right words amongst the blinding lights of the stage.

Luckily for him, Jeff steps in.

“Saintly.”

A sardonic scoff covers up the way his heart leaps in his throat.  “Precisely, Jeffrey,” Gareth steals a glance at his bassist, tossing him a wry wink before flicking his pick at his face.  The crowd guffaws as it hits Jeff square in the chest.  “If any of you dickheads were at our show in West Lafayette, you’ll recognize it for sure.”

Sydd and Jeff lean into their stands, crooning a perfectly harmonious Woah that carries for several bars as the first chords are strummed.

Gareth shuffles a step and a half back to the Sully’s raised platform, grabbing the pint that he requested before the round began.  Raising his beer to the crowd, he practically shouts his intro.

“I need you all to raise your fuckin’ glass, get ‘em up!  This song is for each one of you, though it was written in memory of one man -   a man who was larger than life and left his mark on us in ways that’ve stained us forever.  You might not have known ours, but I swear to fuckin’ god, every single one of us here knows a Saint James.”

Gareth thrusts his beer high into the air before bringing it to his lips, downing the drink in several swift gulps.  He tosses the glass to a leather-clad girl in the front row, punctuating it with a coquettish purse of his lips before he slams his pick over a harsh set of chords and blends his gritty tone with Jeff before launching into the first verse.

This is the story of a man Who conquered life drink in hand Ship unmanned, yeah

A familiar lump forms in his throat as he thinks of his dark-eyed best friend, the next lines more telling of Eddie, a marquee of truth to his nature and the very reason why there’s still a hole left in Gareth’s heart to this day.

Marked by genius, channeled good By some a bit misunderstood They've been wrong many times before

Sometimes our saints are sinners They blur the lines and lead the way Their way

Gareth throws himself into the lyrics, the well-practiced lines doused in so much heart and grit that’s roughened as time has passed.

Raise hell and a glass in reverence The fearless lives of our great saints Our saints

He joins in this time on the harmony with Jeff, barely audible over the roar of the crowd before Sydd begins his lines of the second verse.  The addition of the bassist’s tone elevates both the words and their sound in ways that still gives him chills.  There’s such beauty in how it affects them after all this time, like Eddie’s very essence lives in how they belt and bellow another round of the chorus.

Then, it’s Gareth that channels every bit of energy he has into the solo, willing his fingers to press and slide with as much precision as his friend’s once did.  There was once a time where he feared he wasn’t enough, that he’d never do the part justice that Eddie deserved.  Tonight, though?  He does.  Calloused fingers flick and flutter expertly over the neck of his guitar, rounding out the solo before softening the tone to melt into the bridge. 

It's by the sea and at nights end That's when the sin and swill begin That's when he had that certain light inside his head

A new crescendo is ad-libbed; Gareth pushes his range up an octave, still well in his comfort zone but out of the realm of what is intended – like he’s showing exactly what he’s got to a crowd of one.  

For every whisper he would scream For every draught he'd share a drink For every sorrow there's a light 

He slams his eyes shut and throws everything behind the name he hopes this crowd remembers, From our St. James

The melody suddenly ceases; Gareth’s guitar swings unattended at his waist.  He wraps his hand around the mic as he closes out the bridge alone, mourning once and for all the light in his life that he’s lost in the best way he knows how.  

On the sea by the cliff he watches He waits the night to see the day His way

Thick, unyielding emotion lodges in his throat, and Gareth has to turn away from the mesh, coughing harshly to clear it.  The action takes but a moment too long, and the consequence of beginning a beat late sounds fumbling to his trained ears.  It may have cost them the title, depending on how noticeable it is and how finicky these judges want to be.

At this point, Gareth couldn’t give a shit less – if this is what has them losing, then so be it.  The crowd’s been more into this song than they were any other this weekend, the hauntingly poetic lines seem to resonate with every last person in that bar.

Last call will find us all But there's a light that leads the way

A serene sort of smile plays on his lips, a deep sense of calm drenches his skin as he croons,  Our way

It widens into a megawatt smile, so bright that his cheeks ache with the strain.  He hasn’t felt like this in ages – on the verge of euphoria that he once felt as the rhythm guitarist of Corroded Coffin, standing next to his best friend and debuting one of your newly penned songs to the crowd of ten at the Hideout.

So, in this moment, he pauses and pretends he is.  He imagines Ed to his right instead of Sydd, you in the front row instead of that gorgeous brunette in the lace-up leather top – dancing with Robin and Steve who, bless them, can’t carry rhythm in a bucket.  Gareth feels electric the way he pours everything into the last go-round of the chorus, wanting to win it all for the man the very song immortalizes.

Sometimes our saints are sinners They blur the lines and lead the way Their way Raise hell and a glass in REVerence The fearless lives of our great saints

Our saints

A furious wallop of drums signals the outro, a blend of all four voices that hold strong as the lights dim.  Gareth’s chest is heaving, sweat streams over his cheeks and in his eyes in saltwater droves.  He’s exhausted, the last performance of a three-day stint just sucked every last bit of energy from his bones, but he couldn’t be happier.  Whatever is decided, he already feels like they’ve won with the way the stage seems to shake from the waves of enthusiasm that flows from the crowd.  

The post-performance high lingers under his skin, even through the twenty-three agonizing minutes it takes for the judges to make a decision.  In Gareth’s very valid opinion, he thinks the champion was named immediately – and it was either the panel or Nick himself that wanted to fuck with the bands.  Make ‘em all sweat it out for a bit – and trust him, he did.  His Guns ‘N Roses tee is drenched down the sides, the cotton that drapes over his shoulders and down his back sticks in tacky bunches and offers no reprieve from the heat of his nerves.

Turns out, it was worth it.

He pumps a triumphant fist in the air, his genuine smile flashes all his teeth as Gareth celebrates the consecutive victory with his bandmates.  As soon as the mic is handed over, he’s sure to first give credit where it’s due – profusely thanking and praising the members of Next Hex and promising a Sudden Death rematch for the following year.   

There’s a good chance it landed as intended, if the thin-lipped nod from Denise was anything to go by.  Curt, but not unkind.  

Gareth snickers to himself.  Suppose that’s a win in and of itself.

Nick’s booming oration to the crowd pulls Gareth from his reverie, and before he knows it, he’s holstering his guitar over his shoulder for an encore.  After fiddling with his amp, he pulls the stand to his lips and asks the crowd a very important question.

“How ‘bout we treat you guys to what won it our first year?”  He turns to Sully, who gives him a nod.  “Whaddya say, boys?”

“Is it time for some Unholy Confessions?”

Gareth opens his mouth to decline Nick’s suggestion in favor of another when he hears it.  It starts low, a rumble of unintelligible melody near the middle of the crowd, and quickly gains momentum the way they shout the lyrics to the song that put them on the map.

I wish I could be the one The one who won’t care at all But being the one on the stand

Even after all this time, it never gets old.  Stealing a look at Jeff, his heart swells in his chest when he sees the awe and gratitude paint his features as he presses his lips to the mic and helps the crowd.

I know the way to go, no one’s guiding me When time soaked with blood turns it back I know it’s hard to fall

Gareth rises from his knees, foregoing a pick to gently strum calloused fingers over the final chord of the chorus. He plays into the crowd and belts the final lines of his favorite original tune, Confided in me was your heart I know it’s hurting you, but it’s killing me

His palms go up, facing the crowd.  “Nah.  The other one." Digging into his back pocket for a spare pick, he holds it between his teeth as he adjusts his shoulder strap one last time.  “Lighters up you shits,” he taunts the crowd tightly, “sing it if you know it.”  

Gareth catches Jeff’s eye before he rolls through his intro, his practiced dedication that he says without fail before every time they play the song live.

“This one goes out to all you cowards out there!” He shouts to the masses with a passion that he summons from the fire in his gut.  “You know who the fuck you are.  This song is meant to hit you like a bullet to the chest – so man up and listen up – fuckers! –” some of the more seasoned fans shout it in tandem with Gareth – “as we Seize the Day!”

There’s a heaviness in his chest, a premonition almost, the way his heart flutters and something akin to foreboding swoops low in his belly.  He’s never really said it, never admitted out loud to anyone who he wrote the song for almost three years ago.

Jeff always knew, of course, but there was no formal discussion.  It never needed to be said.

Something is growling, ripping, tearing at his insides to say it.  Now.

Holding his hand out to the side, he signals his rhythm guitarist to wait with a palm flat to the stage.  Sydd eyes him warily, pick hovering over his strings, and Gareth’s thin-lipped, miniscule shake of his head tells him to wait, just for a moment.

Gareth sucks in a deep breath through his nose and speaks before he can convince himself to shut up.

“It hit me, you know.  That bullet to the chest.” An oppressive wave of insecurity threatens to pull Gareth under, and he grits his teeth and presses on. “I don’t talk about this – but uh, I wrote this song almost three years ago,” he swallows a dry tangle of anguish, “after I lost her.” 

The crowd is silent, some lighters go out as arms are lowered to listen to the rough and tumble frontman of Morbid Mayhem share the backstory of their most beloved song. 

“She didn’t know.  She’ll never know,” Gareth draws in a ragged breath, “I’ll go to my grave regretting not manning up and saying the words the very last time I saw her.  Whaddya say, Indianapolis?  Tonight we say the fuckin’ words, yeah?”

A few scattered yeahs! reach his ears, and Gareth huffs a sardonic laugh as he shouts, “Oh for fuck’s sake, do better than that!”

He might go down regretting this even as a roaring chorus of chanting yeah! reaches his ears; he may end up cursing himself and his decision to divulge such a vulnerable part of his past, but there’s not a bit of him that cares.  Not now, not when he’s finally let the world know – or, at least those packed into this venue in Indianapolis, Indiana – that he finally manned up and admitted his mistakes and put it down in a song.

That he, Gareth Emerson, finally wrote you a ballad.

A pointed flash of baby blue to his right, and Sydd’s first chord is strum, perfect and synchronous with Gareth’s opening lines.

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost It's empty and cold without you here Too many people to ache over

His pick strikes the strings, a harsh series of downstroked chords chocked full of every bit of heartbreak he felt the day he penned these words.

I see my vision burn I feel my memories fade with time But I'm too young to worry

The note Gareth holds wobbles, a faint, unintended tremolo that softly mourns the memory of you. These streets we travel on Will undergo our same lost past

As it does with every time he performs this song, his mind floods with flashbacks – a visual journey through his precious time spent with you by his side.  

I found you here, now please just stay for a while

Line by line, he cards over memories like they’re photographs: the hospital, driving you home for the first time, how your presence, even if it was painful, patched that hole in his chest. I can move on with you around I hand you my mortal life But will it be forever?

Time spent holding, crying, begging, comforting – it never fails to ambush his senses in waves.  If he closes his eyes and really loses himself in the lyrics, he can feel the ghost of your fingers as they cling to the fabric of his shirt – feel the sting of your nails as they dig into the flesh of his back.

He can see you. Smell you. Touch you again, if only in his mind.

I'd do anything for a smile Holding you 'til our time is done

His lips curl over the mesh, a soft upturn of his lips is a secret between him and the memory of your smile.  There’s a reverence in his tone, silken and sweet like honey.  A tone reserved only for you. We both know the day will come But I don't want to leave you

Sydd joins him in the chorus, though he could just let the crowd take it over with how loudly the lyrics are shouted back.  The fans are just as well-practiced as they are, matching every inflection and pause with precision.  Gareth rolls through the first lines of the second verse, quickly slipping his mic from the stand and holding it out over the crowd.

The response is deafening.  They know exactly what Gareth wants, and so they scream it back with such vehemence it almost takes his breath away.

“Will you take a journey tonight Follow me past the walls of death? But girl, what if there is no eternal life?”

All of the energy he thought he’d spent in the sudden death round comes roaring back, sponsored by the unparalleled support from the crowd.  His voice adopts a deeper timbre, roughened and raw with unmistakable suffering from the years spent without you.

I see my vision burn I feel my memories fade with time But I'm too young to worry A melody, a memory, or just one picture

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost It's empty and cold without you here Too many people to ache over

Because he did.  It almost killed him when the days passed and there was no word from you; when he searched for answers after you disappeared and was left with nothing.  

Trials in life, questions of us existing here Don't wanna die alone without you here

Hawkins held too many memories, a thumb to a mottled bruise that just wouldn’t heal.  Life felt like it was hardly worth living, and so he poured what little he had left into these lines as he made plans to live on without you.

The distance never did settle the lingering turmoil he carried in his heart.  Never free.  Always wondering. Please tell me what we have is real

Gareth lifts his eyes past the crowd, straining beyond the lights to scan the shadows along the far wall.  There’s something here.  Something so strong and all-encompassing that transcends the lights and the crowd and the adrenaline high from winning that’s only meant for him.  It lights up his very soul, pulls the lingering sorrow and grief right from his bones and delivers it through a voice that’s coarse with the grit of his pain,

So what if I never hold you? Or kiss your lips again? 

Longing pours from his soul as he allows himself to feel.  To consider if it's true, and you’re really gone. That whatever ripped you from his arms isn’t giving you back, and it strikes an excruciating chord across his heartstrings.

The venue is a both a confessional and a church; Gareth sinks to his knees as he prays,

So I never want to leave you And the memories of us to see I beg don't leave me

He's a picture of supplication, hands wrapped around the body of the microphone like a lifeline. The final turn of the chorus is a bloodletting, every last remaining shard of his grief flows freely from where he kneels on stage.

Seize the day, or die regretting the time you lost It's empty and cold without you here Too many people to ache over

Trials in life, questions of us existing here Don't wanna die alone without you here Please tell me what we have is real

And then he's up, planting his feet in a too-wide stance. Gareth leans back on his powerful legs, into the space of his rhythm guitarist to synch up the chugging chords of the outro.  The tempo is dead-on with the pounding in his chest, the same beat that held him upright the moment he stood in front of you and poured out his heart that fateful night in his garage.

The notes crescendo, a cue for Jeff and Sydd to begin first, a melancholy closure in these lyrics Gareth both craves and avoids.

Silence you lost me, no chance for one more day

Sully’s tenored rasp joins in, elevating the misery that drips from every word,

Silence you lost me, no chance for one more day 

Gareth’s heart feels like it could burst from its cage with the way he belts,

I stand here alone Falling away from you, no chance to get back home

The round repeats, and though there are three that sing in unison on the first, it’s Gareth’s part that resonates.  It’s heard, it’s felt, it’s what the audience mimics right back through the very last of the song. 

I stand here alone Falling away from you, no chance to get back home His shoulders are heaving from his efforts, his head a little dizzy as his lungs struggle to catch up.  The crowd fades as the lights go down, and Gareth hoarsely hollers his thanks into the mic one last time before the venue goes black. 

He’s grateful.  The lead guitarist’s jaw clenches around a sob, the ache and the sting of stifled tears is too much, and he allows one – and only one – to fall, shrouded in the privacy of the darkness on stage.

Gareth still finds that the strangest things happen to him, even one hundred miles from Hawkins. 

It starts without him even noticing.  Opting to help the venue’s crew pack up their gear rather than saddle up to the bar and bask in the glory of their victory with his bandmates, he’s barely aware of the tiny earworm that begins as he’s manhandling one of his amps into his van.  The lyrics swirl and tumble, unclear like they're shrouded in a fine mist just behind his consciousness. Undetectable.  Untraceable.  

Soon, they build in intensity.  In vigor.  Like someone so very gently turns the dial, a slow and meticulous increase until he’s humming along, still blissfully unaware but automatic all the same.

Curious, how words he hasn’t allowed himself to even dream about for nearly three years suddenly pop inside his brain.  Even more interesting how they’re accompanied by a voice snuffed out of life in this realm ages ago; a voice that he’d give his own life just to hear one last time.

So it’s curious, indeed… how he can so clearly hear you.

Gareth’s breath is a sharp snap of a gasp, a harsh catch in his throat that leaves behind a burning he can’t quite swallow down.  Not that he’d be able to, anyway – the sound of your voice as it rolls over those haunting lyrics in his mind zaps all the moisture from his mouth.  He gently sets down the tack box, his muscles moving with such guarded precision that he’s terrified that if he so much as breathes wrong, he’ll lose it.

Hell, he might be losing it anyway.

So sorry you’re not here Been sane too long my vision’s so unclear

His crystalline eyes are blown wide, searching the darkness of his surroundings with his darting stare; back and forth along the shadows and back again.  Nothing appears, and just as quickly as the dulcet tones of your unique, sweet sound had come, it’s gone.  Dissolved into the cold, dank air of the night so abruptly, Gareth wonders if he’s imagined it.

But he hasn’t.  He swears that if he were brave enough to let his lids slip closed, he’d be sitting in his dad’s rickety lawnchair next to you.  Breathing you in as you lean into his space and mark your genius annotations in the margins of that fucking notebook that he found in the clearing two days after you promised you’d come home…

And never did.

But that was almost three years ago.  

He inhales shakily, blowing a long breath through pursed lips as his ears strain for any shred of your presence before giving up. Gareth bends at the waist, grasping the plastic handles before flinching back like they’ve burned him.

Your ethereal voice floats like smoke, stretching toward him like a claw ready to sink your nails into his exposed skin.  

Now take a trip with me, but

Terror should rip at his insides, instinct should scream at him to run.  But they don’t – all that consumes him is a desire to seek.   Your lyrics are an invisible force, rattling around in his skull and easing his darting eyes to gaze down an alley off to his right. Don’t be surprised when things aren’t what they seem

He doesn’t hesitate.  The wet slap of rubber soles against damp asphalt crowds his senses as he speeds between the two buildings, farther into the dim catacombs of downtown Indianapolis.  It's like he's called, pulled by a steel cable down this alley, leading him away from safety but towards everything he's been missing. Washed-out yellow light from far-off lamps fade to a milky orange, not nearly enough to allow for Gareth’s wits to remain.

Henderson would be furious, going back on his promise like that.  Jeff, too.

But he can’t explain it; why he feels so much safer at the dead-end of this abandoned path between two unknown brick boxes – so much safer than he’s felt in three years.  He knows it’s crazy.  He definitely knows that he shouldn’t feel this way, that danger is ever-present and it’s important to stay aware, but how can he?  

So, he searches.  Over and over, his piercing stare blazes across old brick and withered vines of ivy, dormant given the season.  Not a soul is with him, but impossibly so, he feels like he’s intruded in this space – like the invitation found from those delicate notes has been abruptly revoked.  Gareth waits, willing the desperation in which he draws in every raw breath to stabilize, even just for a moment.  Bones creak and tendons snap a soft protest in response to the most careful murmur of his name.  Sweat matted curls whip around his face that has angled hard under the stress of loss and time.

The air in his lungs goes stale, holding it past his limit as his eyes scan over the unmistakable outline of you, beautifully backlit by what little light is left as night continues to descend.

“Hi.”

There’s beauty in the way his mind snaps into focus, like remembering all of the intricacies of a long lost melody.  “Is it…” he begins, not even trusting his own voice to say it softly enough to not disturb whatever miracle allows you to stand in front of him, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Oh, fuck – that smile.  That grin that blazes over your features, pinching those cheeks into sweet, shiny apples he could sink his teeth into.  Christ, he’s missed it as much as he’s missed how you say his name.  

“No, Gareth.”  Your assurance makes his stomach swoop.  “You’re not.”

“Y-you – ah, you’re – uhm…” He’s a stuttering fool, now overwhelmed with the countless conversations he’s had with Dustin about the Upside Down since you disappeared.  It’s on the tip of his tongue, what he hopes to all hell is true, and if his lips would stop wobbling for a fucking second, maybe he could get it out to ask.  

But – would it be the truth, or just what he wants to hear?  There’s no difference as far as Gareth’s concerned, not right now.

He finds his voice.  “Mayfield.  You’re real.”

The way he trails off makes it feel more like a question than a statement, but he doesn’t dare correct it.  He thinks the real you would know what he’s implying, what he’s trying to get at without being obvious.   Because sure, that’s definitely going to outsmart the unimaginable evil that lurks around every corner and has haunted Gareth in his dreams for the last three years.

He cringes internally; Dustin’s gonna be so pissed at him, if he lives to tell him about this.

Or, perhaps not.  Your owl eyes round in alarm, like you’ve suddenly connected those desperate dots he’s strung up as an offering.  “I swear to you,” your hands come to your chest in defense, “I’m real.”

“Um,” a nervous hand rakes through sweat-matted curls; the war between caution and need has him belting in frustration to the gutters that start to plink with a light drizzle.  “Fuck… fuck!  Okay, uh…”

“Gareth,” you try again, taking a step nearer to where he stands, melded to the crumbling concrete.  He reactively flinches, slipping on loose gravel as he takes an unbalanced step back.  “G, please – it’s me, I swear.”

The young man chokes on a scoff.  “I – Christ honey, I want that to be true so badly it hurts.  I –”

“The Upside Down is gone.”  It flies out of your mouth so fast, a tourniquet to stop the bleeding you hear in his tone.  “I fucking swear to you, it is.”

He’s lost the air it takes to speak for a moment, forced out of his lungs like he’s been punched in the gut.  “It’s gone?”

“Y-yeah,” you breathe, “G – it’s gone.  We defeated Vecna, and –”

“But –” his eyes pinch shut with his abbreviated shake of his curls, “how do I know I’ve not been flayed and this is just…” Gareth trails off, his hands waving in wild circles in front of his face.  “This is Vecna,” he croaks.  “This is him, using m-my memory of you and projecting it and I’m imagining you telling me exactly what I want to hear.  Right?”

He’s probably fucked himself, announcing to this heavenly creature in front of him what he most fears.  If you are a figment of his imagination, if he has been flayed, he’s probably just sped up the process.  It’s not funny at all how mad this is and trust him – he knows it.

But irrational hope sings through his veins, and it’s drenched in your essence, your flavor that he swears he can still taste on his tongue when his mind wanders late at night.  A bark of sardonic laughter escapes anyway as he watches your mouth pop open and closed like a fish out of water.

“I –”

“Fuck,” the chuckle that spills over his lips is equal parts bitter and manic, “you’re – you’re not real, then.  I have been flayed or some shit –”

“No!” you shout, taking a determined several steps forward to close the chasm between you.  “No, G – please, listen to me, you aren’t flayed!”

The dark night sky is treated to a dramatic roll of baby blue.  “That’s exactly what my flayed brain would want me to hear you say –”

“There’s nothing to flay you anymore!”  

The vehement interjection isn’t enough to convince him, not yet; not until he spots the familiar winding your hands.  That nervous twist of white-knuckled fingers, a carbon copy of you in his kitchen, in the doorway of his room, on the couch in the den and a half a dozen other memories flash before him like a sepia-toned movie reel.  It’s impossible to ignore, that tiny little movement stutters the rhythm of his heart and softens the set of his jaw.

Gareth lets himself believe, just for a moment.  

“I could prove it.”  Conviction sets your stance into stone, and the power he feels rippling from your stare makes him shrink.  

He’s nervous it won’t work, enough to stutter out, “H-how?”

You snort a derisive huff through your nose.  “I don’t know, telling you something that only I would know?”  Gareth cocks his head to the side, preparing himself to challenge the point, but he doesn’t get the chance.  

“I could tell you th-that I was such a selfish, cowardly bitch to you that night I yelled all those horrible things in your face and that I was just afraid of you being there for me like you were.”  

A shaky breath evaporates into vaporous tendrils, little puffs that dissolve as soon as they rise above your head.  He feels a creeping rush of heat at the mere memory of that fight, shame is the same color red that flushes his cheeks.  Similarly, you appear contrite, like you can sense that it’s not quite enough.

Gareth will admit it’s a damn good start, though.  

Your shoulders square as you continue.  “And – and um, I could live off of your pancakes and peanut butter dinners and fuck the brussel sprouts, right?  Because you’re definitely a better cook than me, which is kind of infuriating if I’m being honest.  Um, I think the thing with the dish soap might be the funniest shit to ever happen, other than you taking up running,” that has Gareth belting a groan amidst your feverish rambling, “and I uh, oh!” – your fingers snap in rapid succession – “I think it’s bullshit you’re the lead guitarist of your fancy new band!”  

A self-assured smile crawls across your features, arms crossing over your chest as the exclamation mark while Gareth’s lips press into a frown.  You can hardly contain your glee as you deliver your punchline,

“You would have made a much better pianist –”

“Oh, my god,” Gareth chokes on his own spit as he splutters over an incredulous laugh.  “It is you, you complete ass.”  

There’s still a heaviness that hangs in the air, a note of uncertainty that he chooses to ignore.  He bridges the gap, arms outstretched and inviting and suddenly, full of you.  Tightly holding to your body, he’s a mess of limbs and tears as he buries his nose into the crown of your head.

“Gareth, it’s me,” you mumble into the salted skin of his neck, nuzzling the jet-black vines surrounding the tip of his newly completed longsword tattoo.  “I swear to you, it’s me –”

“I know,” he mutters as he finally allows himself to look upon your features that appear unchanged, frozen in time.  “I can’t believe –” broad hands part your fringe, smoothing the strands off your face, “fucking Christ, honey, it’s you.”

You tip him a watery smile.  “I’m here, G.”

He finally remembers his manners.  Holding you at arm’s length, he scans over your form, scouring a blazing path up and down for any evidence of where you’ve been for the last few years.  “Are you all right?  Where have you –?”  All of that lasts mere seconds before his brain shifts course, succumbing to desire and his own advice he shoved off on the crowd during the encore.  “You know what, no.”  A yelp bubbles over your lips as he pulls you forward, cupping his hand behind your neck and pressing his lips to yours in a desperate kiss.  A sob full of years of longing wrenches from the depths of his throat when he feels the adamant molding of your mouth with his.  “I love you,” he grits in between fervent gasps for air, “I love you so fucking much, you know that, right?”

Your fingers shake as they wind into the fabric of his tee, lips tangling for position in an enthusiastic dance.  “I know you do, I know.”  Tension pulls your shoulders for just a fraction of a second, and Gareth feels your spine straighten in the most subtle of ways.  “H-hey, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Urgent kisses become endless, the taste of you is too intoxicating to stop.  He tries to placate you anyway, the complete pushover that he is. 

“Okay.”

“You gotta stop kissing me for a second,” a giggle bubbles over your lips, and then another.  With no real urgency, you reiterate, “Just for a second,” before your mouth becomes pliant against his once more.

“Nope,” his lids slip closed as he smiles into your supple skin, “can’t do that.”

The moment his lips melt again into yours, an unwelcome feeling swoops low in his gut.  It invades his insides, his surroundings, quick like the flip of a switch.  However, the lights don’t fade – instead, a shadow descends, an inkblot of darkness shrouds the alley.  Gareth separates himself slowly from the softness of your mouth, searching with bated breath for the reason why there’s all of a sudden a terrible fear that needles up his spine.  That heavy cloak of foreboding is back, one in the same with what he felt on stage.  

“Gareth,” his name is a muted end of a sharp, panicked inhale, “I –”

One moment he’s returning your wide-eyed expression with one of his own, and the next – he’s yanked from your arms with such force that it snaps his neck back with a sickening crack.  His feet legitimately leave the ground as he’s propelled through the air in reverse, traveling at an ungodly speed until all motion ceases.  Another groan, louder this time, is torn from his chest as he slams against the brick wall at the end of the alley.  He’d cradle his head that explodes with fiery constellations of agony behind his eyes if he could move his arms, but he’s bound.  Trapped at an odd angle with his feet still several feet off the ground with his back against pressed an unforgiving barrier of clay and mortar. 

No, that’s not quite right. 

Gareth’s senses come back to him in waves, and among the first is how unmarred the planes of the brick feel beneath the thin barrier of his tee.  Where roughened edges should scrape and scratch at sensitive skin, he’s instead appreciating the absence of it.  In fact, it feels firm but softer than what a brick wall should.  His hands beg for purchase, to answer the questions that run through his brain a mile a minute, and the answer comes in the oddest of ways.

A set of long, leather-clad arms tighten around Gareth’s torso with such incredible strength, he’s rendered immobile, helpless as he hangs in the air.  The cool press of chilled skin around his neck shocks the breath right out of him, those undead fingers tighten their hold and will his lungs to fight for their breath.  It feels like the temperature has dropped at least twenty degrees, or maybe that’s just the adrenaline that’s causing Gareth to shake so violently as he tries and fails to get free.

A sinister rumble, a voice caked in the acrid smell of death rattles Gareth’s very bones.  

“Try to be very still.  It will all be over soon.” 

Gareth goes rigid, all will to struggle drains out of his body and pools beneath his feet.  His fate is sealed, it seems – a terrible thing to be in your arms and finally confess his love just to be severed from it and undoubtedly, from this earth.  Leaving you alone.  Again.                                     

“M-mayfield –”                                                                                                         

He goes to tell you to close your eyes, not to watch as whatever entity from the Upside Down literally flays him with these razor-sharp talons that dig into the supple flesh of his neck.  The rasp of his voice shocks the beast, has it digging those claws in deeper to the point where he feels warmth run in jagged streaks over the column of his throat.  A sharp burst of pain has him hissing, his stare locks on yours and he hopes you can see the terror in his gaze, hopes it’s enough for you to turn around and run for your life.

The soles of your shoes don’t hesitate, stomping across the alley toward Gareth rather than away, and if he could shake his head and not impart certain death, he would.  He’d tell you to go, he’s dead where he stands anyway –

Only, the look on your face has him reconsidering.  Really reconsidering.  Like, almost feeling sorry for the villain that holds him hostage, because that fire that blazes in your eyes is downright murderous.

“Eddie!”  There’s a madness in your tone, severe and intense as the furrow in your brow.  Your timbre drops to more like a growl with how fiercely his name rips from your throat.  “You insufferable asshole!  We agreed, no creepy shit!”

The solid force behind Gareth cackles, and the sound is so familiar it sends an icy thrill up his spine. The binds that hold him loosen, and Gareth drops to cracked concrete, whirling around to have his heart shocked still.  The young man’s gasp is strangled, baby blue eyes frantically ranking over the long gangly body of Eddie fucking Munson: his dead best friend – all sharp ivory lines and luminous skin that shimmers with an otherworldly glow that should be impossible.  It is impossible, as impossible as that devilish glint that flickers in deep pools of black, surrounded by a mane of long onyx curls that somehow looks softer than he remembered. 

What in the actual fuck?

Eddie’s Cheshire grin is fiendish; plump, crimson lips stretch across his teeth and Gareth’s ragged breath hisses its escape this time.

The younger man’s pupils dilate, his pulse bounds at the sight of the two long, razor blade canines that gleam like a threat in the low light of the alleyway.  Loose gravel scrapes over every menacing drag of Eddie’s boots over asphalt, his proximity suddenly too close.  Gareth inversely mirrors him with a stumbling shuffle back.  Ebony ringlets bounce with a condescending tilt of his head, a penetrating stare from twin orbs that swirl with a wicked sort of amusement that’s familiar but at the same time, so very different.

What isn’t so different is that stilted chuckle that rumbles from Eddie’s chest, or the way that dimple pops in his left cheek from that fucking smirk that Gareth suddenly has the urge to knock right off his face.  Especially as Eddie crowds into his space, holding his stare as he looks upon the younger man down the long slope of his nose and says,

“Heya, big boy.”

T O   B E   C O N T I N U E D

A/N: I've promised a lot of things, and I plan to deliver them ALL in the sequel to And I Need You to Know entitled Waking the Fallen - which I plan to start posting in 3 weeks time!

This sequel will detail exactly what happens with Eddie, Mayfield, the Party, the Upside Down and so much more. Questions will be answered, minds will be blown, and it'll all be done over the span of three days time as depicted in the story. Basically, it's what I would write as Season 5 if the Duffers were to hire me. ;)

There's action, there's gore; we've got reunions (oh, we've got fucking REUNIONS) and redemptions; there's monsterfucking (because duh, Kas!Eddie), and there's a happy ever after for everyone. Oh, and yeah. There's a threesome.

I plan (plan) to keep each chapter between 6 and 10K words at the very most. I want to be able to post these quickly, and that's why I'm gonna give myself a little bit of a head start. I have a couple of asks to get to on Tumblr, and then I'm diving right into this sequel with a head full of steam. It's all planned out, and all I gotta do is fill it in!

Thank you all SO very much for reading, engaging, interacting and making me feel like an actual writer. I've met the BEST people throughout this journey, and I truly am thankful for each and every one of you.

On to the next - Waking the Fallen, CH 1: Beautiful Morning to be posted 3/24/24

Let me know if you'd like to be on the WTF tag list! (HAHAH I love love love this sequel's acronym)

TAG LIST: @eldermayfield @nymqphet @feyremunson @unverifiedmeatsuit @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @chloe-6123 @angel-ann-pops @bibooozeta @trixyvixx @dashingdeb16 @pagesfalling @clarafornerlyknownasclaire-blog @lottie-90 @duncanhillscoffeecups @darkyuffie-blog @rip-quizilla @morningberriesao3 @munsons-queen

You need help.

It's glaringly obvious, even to the casual observer. The events over the last year changed you, and how could they not? You’d seen death. You’d felt it. You’d smelled it, for Christ’s sake. The acrid stench of decay crept in through your mouth and nostrils just like a poor-man’s version of the Mind Flayer. It seeped into your system and transformed you into the shell of a human, a shitty mirror image that you didn’t even recognize.

You need help, and not just for you, but for your little sister, Max.

You're forced to be present for her because your drunken excuse for a mother can't be bothered. Ever since your asshole brother died in the fire, and that even bigger asshole Neil abandoned your family, your mother had spiraled into a dark abyss of self-pity sponsored by whiskey and broken promises.

It doesn't matter what you’re feeling (or, more accurately, what you’re not feeling) because you're still applying that suffocating mask of so-called strength as you awaken to a world that doesn’t give two shits about you, Max, or your situation. You put it on because you have to. You fake the bravery and the composure in favor of a routine and stability for the most important person in your life. At some point, you thought you’d start to feel, too. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Hence, the help.

You watch your potential help spit gravel behind his van as he enthusiastically maneuvers it into the tight turn that leads into the trailer park. If you could feel, you’d feel amused. Eddie Munson is a force of nature in your eyes—the man is unapologetically himself, a town-proclaimed and self-promoted freak with enough personality to share with everyone. He revels in his madness and it makes you feel jealous as much as it amuses you. If you could feel at the moment, anyway.

You knew him from your senior year at Hawkins High a year before, that year being his (first) repeat year. Your paths didn’t cross much—you were athletic and involved in various sports, and he was decidedly not and involved in making sure it was well-known he was vehemently against all of the conformity of organized anything. Well, except Hellfire. Could you consider that organized, when the man that personified ADHD was at the helm? Probably not. So, it worked.

He knew you only because you’d become his neighbor two months ago, after the events at Starcourt altered your reality and your life indefinitely. He didn’t know you before. He didn’t know you even as your life began to change the year before, when the pumpkins rotted in the fields and Dustin befriended a fucking monster and Will was a fucking monster.

He didn’t know you before, when you were running circles around the girls in track practice, confidence growing in tandem with your acceptance of the less-than-ideal move from sunny California to dull-ass Indiana.

But was growing on you. Your teammates were growing on you. Your step-brother, for all of his moody, broody bullshit, was growing on you. You also felt like Max was easing in and finding a place to grow (and maybe people to grow with?), too. It’s not like your life as the Mayfield-Hargroves was fancy by any means, but it was certainly offered better quality than a musty, moth-eaten, mold-infested existence across from the Munsons in the shittiest trailer park that central Indiana had to offer.

Just like those blackened, decaying pumpkins in Merrill’s fields, your growth is halted, and you're decaying just the same from the inside out.

Max had noticed, and it was starting to affect her.

This is why you find yourself sitting atop the covered picnic table, watching Eddie spin his A-Team knockoff into his makeshift parking spot in front of his trailer, whipping gravel behind him as the van rocked on its axel, dust settling around like a sigh of relief as it comes to an abrupt stop. Your palms are tacky with sweat as you clutch your composition notebook, resolve threatening to waver as you watch the bushy-haired metalhead exit the driver’s side door. He's like a fucking cat, moving with such strange quickness and grace that doesn't quite fit the mold of his gangly body; and he's almost up the steps to his trailer before you have a chance to react and bark out a greeting to your future savior. Hopefully.

“Munson!”

He jolts in shock, both from the harshness of the address and the identity of the addressee. His hand hovers over the latch to the storm door as he warily turns his head toward you, as you continue to stomp towards his trailer.

Your tone is unintentionally brash, but here we are. You don't really care what your voice sounds like, or how you're perceived these days.

His large, espresso eyes meet yours in surprise, eyebrows reflecting the notion as he regards you with a soft pull of one corner of his full lips. He stands tall, and turns to you.

“Elder Mayfield, I presume.”

You huff a soft, sardonic breath through your nose. “Yeah, okay. Can I borrow you?”

It may not have been possible for Eddie’s eyebrows to elevate higher after your initial harsh exchange with him, but at this request, they're completely enveloped by the shaggy curtain of his bangs. Doe-eyes widen in further surprise, and you watch as he fights to find a response, mouth silently opening and closing. He keeps his eyes on you as you jump from the ground to the stair beneath him, and without giving him a chance to recoil or retort, you grab his leather-jacket clad arm and tug gently.

“C’mon. Five minutes. I need your. . .opinion.”

Your hand remains on his arm as you pull him away from his door. He follows you hesitantly as you walk back to the covered picnic table. You climb back up to sit and note with curiosity how he lags behind you, his typical air of confidence and self-assurance replaced with—well, he was clueless as to what the fuck-all was happening—and it shows.

If you could have, you would have tipped a lazy smile to ease his mind. But, you can't. Instead, you wait with a stony expression as he shuffles under the shelter and plops down on the worn wood with a noticeable distance between the two of you.

“I think this is the longest I’ve ever heard you not speak, ever.”

A shitty attempt at a humorous ice-breaker. Nicely done.

“I think this is the most you’ve spoken to me, ever.” His retort wastes no time tumbling from his lips.

It could have come across as rude, but the soft smile that plays at his mouth tells you otherwise. Still, your eyes flick to the ground to avoid his gaze.

He’s right, you know.

You inhale a shaky breath and try to summon the courage for this conversation that you had rehearsed in your mind for days.

“That’s fair. I’ll be brief, I promise.” You try inserting some inflection in the sentence to make it sound softer, but it just comes out flat.

The perceived danger passes for Eddie Munson. The cocky smile returns, full force. “Take all the time you need, sweetheart,” he coyly remarks as he reaches a hand in his jacket. He pulls out a tattered pack of cigarettes and taps it softly to retrieve one. He crooks an eyebrow at you, silently inquiring, and you accept the offer, allowing him to light it as you deeply inhale.

“I, uh, I guess I don’t really know where to start,” you begin softly, exhaling a narrow stream of smoke through pursed lips. You can feel his gaze on your face, watching and waiting. His patience is both comforting and unnerving. “I’ve been told that I have issues with dealing with the—things—that have happened over the last few months. The last year, really.”

He continues to watch you, unmoving. He’s almost afraid to react, fearing you’d startle like a deer, or worse: lash out and bite like a caged dog. Maybe it’s a little bit of both, and the uncertainty has him on edge again. This is truly the most you’ve ever spoken to the man, and the weight of that piles heavily on Eddie’s broad shoulders. Try as he might to shrug it off, he truly wants to know why the older Mayfield sister has asked to—in her words—borrow him. So, shuts up and listens.

You inhale another long drag on your cigarette as your eyes flick over to Eddie’s face and then back to the ground. Your right knee bounces in time with nothing, and everything that turbulently swirls around in your mind. In an instant, you change tactics.

You startled him again by addressing him directly. “You’re in a band, right, Munson?”

“Uh, y-yeah, I am. Corroded Coffin. I play—”

“Guitar. Right. Okay. So, I need your help. Your band’s help. I have all of these,” you pause for the right word, and it doesn’t come. “These thoughts. A lot of them. I’ve been writing them down. I’ve been writing them down a lot,” you explain, the cobwebs of doubt slowly start to clear, making your words seem less like rambling and more like a coherent train of thought.

“It’s just not enough to see them on paper, though. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s not that I want other people to see it or read it; I’ll be honest, some of it is dark.” You sneak a look at your table mate, who is still watching you speak with rapt attention. “It’s really fucking dark,” you whisper, afraid of the judgement you’ll soon see in his eyes.

It never comes.

He nods once, an invitation to keep going. Your knee continues to bounce rhythmically as you hit him broadside with your request for help.

What a dirty word that is. Help.

“On paper, they’re just words. I need—Eddie, I need to hear them. I need someone to make them to come to life because maybe, if they do, then all of what I say I’m feeling on paper can actually—fuck, I don’t know, maybe it’ll help me to feel again—you know, in real life,” your voice comes to a notable, but soft, crescendo as they spill out, filling the air around you with the weight of the truth.

He stares.

Fuck. This was a mistake. “Yeah, um, forget it.”

“Show me.”

He scoots closer to where you’re sitting, and the light afternoon breeze flutters past, bringing with it Essence of Eddie: cigarette smoke, a hint of leather mixed with cheap cologne and a sickly sweet smell that is foreign (but not?) to you. You inhale again, and it grounds you.

Strange.

Your large, dark eyes meet his as your hands tighten protectively over your notebook. “Munson, I want to show you. I mean, I’ve spent the last week or so convincing myself of that, anyway, and—"

“You’ve been thinking about me for the past week, Elder Mayfield?” His dark eyes snap into mischief, a slow smile stretches across his face, and it nearly pulls you along for one of your own. Nearly.

You don’t miss a beat. “I have, actually.” His features light up, and you hold up a finger. “Only to use you for your musical talents.”

You would have missed it had you blinked. The light in his eyes dimmed just a fraction, but he recovers, chuffing a laugh as a leather clad shoulder bumps yours.

“Huh. Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m not one to really flirt right now, Munson.”

“So, in the future then?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Jesus,” you mutter under your breath.

He cackles, throwing his head back, so seemingly carefree. Another white-hot flame of jealousy licks at your insides. How can delight and joy come so easily to this guy?

Where can you get some of that?

“All right, Elder Mayfield is all business. What exactly is it that you want from me, hmm?” his question is like a song, each word emphasized with the melodic rasp of his rock-star voice.

You perk up, just slightly. He just proved he’s perfect for what you’re needing, after all. You turn to him, and lay it all out. “I want you to be my Elton.”

His face falls. He stares. Actually, you could argue that this time, it’s more of a gawk.

Oh, my god, was that an insult? “You know,” you begin slowly. “Elton John? I can be your Bernie Taupin.”

His eyes are as large as saucers.

“I want you to put my words to music. Like Elton did for Bernie,” you explain gently. His eyebrows knit together in confusion. “No? This isn’t ringing a bell?”

Silence.

Oh, no. What if he thinks…?

“N-not that I think you need help with that. I’m sure you have a lot of great songs. Your band, I mean. I’m sure you write amazing shit. This is for me. T-to help me, um—deal. With this. With what, um—"

“Starcourt?” Eddie suggests softly.

So he has been paying attention.

You take another long pull on your cigarette. “That and other things.”

“There were other things?” Eddie asks incredulously.

Oh, were there.

It’s almost automatic, the way you glance around the park quickly, surveying your surroundings. Checking, rechecking. Someone is always listening, it seems. It’s pretty sad that those assholes are the ones that frighten you more, given you lived with the devil himself for several torturous years.

Your voice drops low. “You’ve been around Hawkins long enough to realize that this place isn’t right.”

Eddie considers this as he flicks the butt of his cigarette to ash it. “Yeah, I mean, I guess some people say it’s cursed.”

“And what do you say?” You’re almost whispering.

“I don’t know,” he replies, waving his hands to gesture indiscriminately to your surroundings. “I think it’s a shit little town full of mostly shit little people that think way too much of themselves.”

You hum softly, neither agreeing or disagreeing. “But you don’t think it’s cursed?”

He leans in close to your face without regard for your personal bubble. “Isn’t that enough of a curse?” he asks sardonically, voice deep with dramatic flair.

Your eyes fix on a focal point in the distance and you stare at it, unblinking and unfocused.

“Sure.”

Eddie may be repeating his senior year for the second time, but when it comes to people, he is damn perceptive. “You think there’s more to it.” It’s a statement, not a question. Your cheeks grow hot with the flush that comes from the unintended truth of his words.

His head tilts to the side as he tries to catch your gaze. He takes your silence seriously, and drops his voice to match yours. “You know there’s more to it.”

“No. It’s just—I’ve been through more than most in the last year,” your rehearsed reply falls at his feet, and there isn’t a drop of care in your voice as to whether he believes it or not. You heave yourself forward off of the table. “Here, take it, and just—let me know if you can do this.” You shove the composition notebook into his hands, and turn to walk back to your trailer. He scrambles to stand, stumbling a bit as he propels himself off the picnic table.

“Mayfield, I, um—I can read it all? I mean, uh—is there any of it you don’t want me to read?” His words are careful, respectful. It seems to Eddie like you’re trusting him with sometime deep without too much of an explanation, and he’d be damned if he ruined a chance at getting to know (Y/N) Mayfield because he wasn’t aware of your boundaries.

“All of it, Elton!” you call from over your shoulder.

“Wait! Which one? All of it, or none?”

“Both,” you yell without turning back.

You reach your trailer and with a half-wave, half-salute, acknowledging him one last time before letting yourself into your home.

House. Trailer. Shitbox. Whatever.

Your reply stuns Eddie still, and the hand that grasps the notebook falls to his side. He takes a moment to contemplate the last ten minutes of his life, shakes his head and mutters a few explicatives before heading back to the friendly confines of his trailer across from yours.

Next chapter ➡️

He should be more excited about this, but he’s not.

He’s in a real-life studio, fucking recording his music with his band and his amazing girlfriend that’s organized all of it for him – for the band – and he’s sour about it.

He’s actually a little more than sour.  He’s borderline rabid.

Eddie and Corroded Coffin are now two hours into the four-plus hour recording session at Hawkins Community College, which comes nearly two hours after they spent lugging equipment and going through a rigorous setup in an unfamiliar place.  That alone already thrust Eddie into the edgy mood he’s in.  Two hours of running through Nightmare, Almost Easy and Beast and the Harlot again and again until his fingers felt like they were cracked and bleeding.  Two hours of sweat and gritty vocals and complicated riffs and thundering tempos that make his chest heave and temples throb with his efforts.

It’s been a day so far, yeah – especially for someone who hates getting up early.  Granted, he’d do just about anything for you, and he knows it… but it’s approaching noon, and his seven a.m. wake-up time is starting to take its toll.  He’s tired and cranky and his voice is kinda starting to hurt. 

But that’s nothing compared to the agony of spending two hours watching you through the thick glass of the sound room with him. 

There are three of them total, the 200-level students that are running the session (in the most disorganized and fumbling manner possible, but whatever – Eddie’s not a complainer).  The more personable ones, Sam and Andrew, are cool.  Like, really fuckin’ cool.  Nerds like them from another small town high school that are finding their place in college.  It gives Eddie insight as much as it gives him hope.

Sam really got in their favor when he complimented the hand-drawn D-20 on Gareth’s guitar case.  Andrew is a little on the quieter side, or maybe that’s just because the other one, fucking Tucker, is being a huge asshole and has basically made this a one-man show.  

The kid’s a douche, Eddie was certain of that immediately.  Like King Steve Harrington (before he started coming to the Hideout with you and okay, okay – acting slightly less like a tool), Chance Brady and Tommy Hagan all rolled into one colossal asshole.  

It isn’t how he dresses or even what he looks like.  

It’s how he speaks.  To his apparent project partners, to the band, and to you.

Everyone has their place, and he openly believes it’s beneath him.  Eddie estimates that Tucker is at least two years older than him, maybe three and obviously on strike number twelve with his daddy before his trust fund gets “taken away.”  Like that would ever actually happen to someone like Tucker.  And the shit part is that Tucker knows it.  That silver spoon will stay gnashed between his teeth for as long as he decides – daddy’s threats started coming up empty years ago.  

So, Eddie has spent the last two hours listening to a complete and total fuckwad boss them around like he’s goddamn Peter Mensch without the actual experience to back it up or the ability to listen for a hot second so Sam could actually apply his skills and get them the fuck out of there.  

Or, more aptly put, get you the fuck out of there.

Eddie’s not sure if he can take another fucking minute of watching Tucker invade your space or smile that sickly sweet smile or drag those vile eyes up and down your body – he fucking moves toward you at this point and it makes Eddie see red.  You’re not encouraging it by any means, and that’s the only thing that’s keeping Eddie’s fists from meeting Tucker’s face in between takes.  He’s watched you engage with Andrew more than any of them, but that’s done nothing to deter Tucker.  If anything, it’s made his efforts for your attention double, and fuck if he isn’t laying it on thick.

Eddie knows for a fact Tucker heard you when you introduced him as your boyfriend.  There had been polite recognition with Sam, for sure.  He’d read through Almost Easy before the session and had a lot of great things to say.   Sam?  Cool.  Andrew?  Definitely seems decent.  

Tucker?  Absolute dick pickle.

Tucker right off made some jackass comment on how he thought it was cute that a chick was the real songwriter behind a heavy metal band and that Eddie and Gareth could stand to learn a thing or two from your genius.

Eddie knows he’s not wrong.  But fuck him for pointing it out like the jerk that he is.  The look he shared with Gareth was drenched in mutual understanding:

Yeah, he’s asking for an ass-kicking.  

Speaking of King Asshat, Eddie fights a gigantic eye roll as he watches Tucker stretch his body across where you sit to click on the speaker to the live room.  You reactively flinch at his proximity, but being as polite as you are, you don’t make a show of it.  

Eddie grits his teeth, his mouth pressing in a hard line.  He’s trying desperately to follow your example, but he knows he’s not at all as well-mannered as you and his patience is wearing thin.

“I’d say we lay that one down, fellas.  That’s probably as good as it’s gonna get.”  Tucker drones, sighing as if he’s bored as he addresses the band through the com. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie mutters under his breath with a shake of his head.  The throbbing in his temples intensifies, and he casts his darkening eyes to the ground while Gareth snorts on behalf of both of them before agreeing with their stopping point for Eddie, who is immensely grateful that his friend sensed that his lead guitarist isn’t in the most agreeable frame of mind. 

Eddie’s entire demeanor changes when he hears your voice.

You swivel in your rolling chair, nudging Tucker out of the way of the com.  “We still have nearly two hours left, you guys!” you exclaim, and Eddie grins at the excitement in your tone.  “What else do you wanna do?”  You look over at Sam and Andrew.  “We can do a couple more, right?”

Eddie opens his mouth to offer a suggestion or two when Grant swiftly interjects, nearly shouting from his perch behind the band,

“Eat!  I’m fuckin’ starving!”

With raucous laughter ringing through both sides of the glass, it’s agreed that yeah – it’s time to take a break.  Eddie jerks his head, motioning you to join him, and he can’t fight the smug little smirk that plays on his lips as you hop off your chair, effectively ignoring whatever nonsense Tucker was spewing in your ear.  The scowl on Tucker’s face at your complete disregard of his being might be the most beautiful Eddie’s seen today – next to you, of course.

You let yourself into the sound stage and Eddie shifts on his stool to allow you to slot between his lanky legs.  Having you close already calms the roiling in his gut, and he wraps his arms around you, pressing your back into his chest.  

“You guys have no idea –,” you praise through a groan as you lean back into Eddie’s embrace, “oh my god, you sound so good.  It’s wild, I mean –”

The sharp click from the booth cuts you off mid sentence.  “So, what do we want brought in?  I mean, if you guys are all so keen on taking a break.”

Eddie buries his face in your neck to keep from scowling.  Maybe if he makes a bit of a show of it, starts kissing you right behind your ear just like you like it,  it’ll shut him –

“Alfredo’s is running a special on buffalo wings today,” Grant interrupts Eddie’s thoughts with his suggestion that rolls off his tongue like he’s been thinking of it all morning.  “I vote there.”

All are in agreement with the exception of Tucker, and it comes as no surprise to Eddie.

“Nah, Alfredo’s is kinda gross.  Their wings are too spicy, anyway.”

Andrew speaks up for the first time in over an hour, his voice muffled with his distance from the mic.  “Seriously, man?  Just get pizza or something else.”

Tucker shakes his head.  “No way I’m eating from there.  Their shit is just bathed in grease.”

It’s out of Eddie’s mouth before he knows it, leaning around your frame to deliver a well-deserved dig with his signature toothy grin.

“Watching your figure, are ya, Tucker?”

The man in the sound booth attempts to level Eddie with a stare.  “Some of us just value our health more than others, that’s all.”

Jesus.  This guy couldn’t sound more pretentious if he tried.

Eddie bites back a retort with a roll of his eyes and immediately wishes he didn’t, as you pipe up from your perch on his thigh.  “There’s a coffee shop around the corner from there.  I could run by and get you something.”

A smile slithers wide across Tucker’s face.  “Sure, sweetheart.  That sounds great.”

Molten, bubbling rage rolls back to a boil just beneath the surface of his prickling skin.  Eddie sucks in a breath to bark a comeback so full of venom it’ll be sure to poison and god, hopefully silence this asshole.  Before he gets his chance, he feels you shift in his lap, fingers wrapping gently around his forearm and pressing a reassuring squeeze into his muscles that are wound tight with hostility.  

“Don’t even bother,” you murmur into his ear, your calming words coated lightly in honeyed sweetness that eases some of the tension in his shoulders.  “He’s so not worth it.”

He feels you shiver as he exhales over the sensitive skin of your neck.  “He needs to watch his mouth,” Eddie mutters, feeling somewhat better when he hears you sigh as he sneaks sly little openmouthed kisses along the column of your throat.

It’s like you can sense that he needs you, your attention, even if it’s dialed back.  Your arms wind around his shoulders, slotting his head under your chin.  

“He certainly does, but you just gotta get through the rest of this and then we can go back to your place,” your feathery giggle is full of divine promise; he sucks in a sharp breath through his nose as he catches your subtle wink.  

Your arms tighten, squeezing him in a bear hug before jumping to your feet.  “All right!  Food!”  You hold your hand out expectantly, and Eddie forces a crooked grin as he twists in his chair to dig his keys from his pocket.  

You lean forward and snatch them from his hand and his heart stutters when you plant a chaste peck on his lips.  “Play nice,” you murmur in the fractional space between your lips, “for me.” 

You’re out the door in a flash after scribbling everyone’s orders on a scrap piece of paper, promising Grant you’ll be back as soon as you can.  Eddie can feel the heat creep into his neck and cheeks when Tucker lets himself into the sound room and straddles in the chair across from him, his proximity making him all the more difficult to ignore.  Eddie grabs his Warlock from her stand, and angling his body towards Gareth (and out of that fucker’s eyeline), he starts his well-practiced tuning process again.

He knows he doesn’t need it, his guitar is already expertly readied.  It’s just nice to have his twitchy fingers occupied with plucking the strings and not, say, gouging out eyeballs or fisted in balls poised and ready at his side.  He soon finds himself deep in his own world, the dulcet tones swim in his ears and dull the mutterings around him, his nimble fingers unconsciously flow from their work on the strings into a somber, bewitching melody he’s been perfecting on his own.  

Eddie isn’t sure how long he’s been zoned out and blissfully unaware, but he can tell he’s much more relaxed as Jeff calls him back to the present.  His headache is gone and he hasn’t ground the enamel from his molars, and that he considers a win. 

“What else do you wanna record, Ed?” 

Eddie stalls mid-strum, mouth twisting as he considers.  “We could always do Welcome to the Family.  Maybe Afterlife?” 

“Nah, not Afterlife.  We didn’t bring the Casio,” Gareth reminds him, and Eddie can see the disappointment flash across Jeff’s face.  

Eddie’s expression falls, too – he thought Afterlife would be a great choice, something they’re all really confident in playing and could knock out in a take or two.  But, you know – not because he and Gareth wrote it.  No.  It has nothing to do with that.

Okay.  Maybe it has a little something to do with it.  Maybe it would be just the thing to wipe the arrogance from Tucker’s stupid face.

Andrew speaks up, wrinkling his nose and lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug.  “They’ve got one in the other room.  It’s old as fuck but it’ll work, I think.  If it sucks, it’ll give me a chance to play around and mix sounds a little.  Wanna try?”

“That’s rad, man.  Thanks.”  Jeff hops off his perch and catches up with Andrew at the door.  He throws a look to his friends over his shoulder.  “Hey, better think of another before Mayfield gets back or she’s gonna suggest Walk again.”

Gareth groans and slouches on his stool.  “Ughhh,” he grumbles, raking his hands through his ringlets. “It’s time to let that go already!”

Tucker snorts.  “Is that yet another original of hers or is that something you guys actually wrote this time?”

“Dude, lay off.”  It’s an effort, but Eddie keeps his tone neutral.  Kind of.  “Who gives a shit if it all sounds metal as fuck?”

“Just sayin’.  She’s got skills, getting better and better in the booth all the time.  Who knows?  Maybe she’ll be your boss someday.”

Grant scoffs.  “You say this like it’s something we haven’t had figured out for months, man.  She’ll be lording over all of us soon enough; you included, Tuck.” 

Eddie’s crooked smile beams with pride, grateful for his friend’s little jab thinly veiled with courteous and well-deserved compliments for you.  

Playing nice, he figures; and in doing so, he makes a mistake and relaxes, letting his shoulders round, which takes his sights off of the jackass in the room for just a moment.  

Unfortunately, an opportunity is sensed, and it’s seized readily.

Tucker leans back in his chair and fixes his egotistical stare on Eddie as his hands fold behind his head, the green in his eyes flashing with foul intention.  

“Wouldn’t mind being under her for a second.”

A tense silence descends in the live room, an electrifying thrum beneath the surface that buzzes with the imminent threat of an explosion of epic proportions.   It’s a palpable intensity that emanates in waves off of the lead guitarist and noticeably chills the air.  Eddie’s eyes narrow dangerously as he slowly lifts his head to pin Tucker in a withering stare.  His crumbling control over his temper comes as a delight to Tucker, as evidenced by the priggish little smirk that tugs at the corners of his thin, serpentine lips.

Eddie can feel Gareth shift forward in his chair, a tiny bit significant move that gives him a boost of confidence.  

Good, Eddie thinks.  Backup.  

Sam tries to keep the peace.  “Sh-she, uh – she could definitely skip the class she’s in and um, do well in ours.”  He grimaces, knowing that he’s done nothing to help the situation.  “I think Tucker just means that she’s talented.  Right?”

The villainous grin widens.  “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know the half of her talents.”

“You’re right,” Eddie snaps, unable to restrain his temper.  His spine straightens as he points his pick at Tucker’s chest.  “You don’t.”

It’s unfuckingbelievable, how blatantly disrespectful of you he is and how completely unbothered he seems.  Eddie shifts uncomfortably in his chair, caught between tactfully telling Tucker to go to hell and finish the rest of session with his fat mouth shut, or not-so-tactfully telling Tucker to go to hell by delivering a punch directly into his fat fucking mouth.

Grant intervenes before someone detonates, directing his question to Sam.  “So, where are you guys from?”

It’s mercifully effective, but barely so.  Eddie hardly listens to the stilted small-talk, temper cooling and returning to normal the longer the boring conversation drones on.  Jeff eventually returns with Andrew and the Casio, giving Eddie something else to focus on other than the patience that wears thin for the idiot across the room.  They’re busy testing tones and different features on the keyboard when you return with lunch, and Eddie can feel the knot physically unwind in his stomach at the mere sight of you.

And if he feels well enough to make a bit of a show out of splitting pieces of Alfredo’s supreme pizza with you in his lap while Tucker chokes down what looks like a sad excuse for a chicken salad sandwich, then that’s just fine.  Perfect, actually. 

After the well-deserved lunch break, Corroded Coffin is properly reenergized enough to sail through Afterlife and Welcome to the Family in two takes.  Jeff plays the Casio part once more after they’re done and discusses with Andrew on where else they can cut it in.  

Sam checks his watch.  “We have more than enough time for another, if you’re up for it.  I mean, you guys gave us enough for this project already.  Anything at this point is gravy.”

Fuck, Eddie could stay in this room all day if they’d let him.  He’ll probably regret it tomorrow, his fingers are already starting to cramp as it is, but it’s so validating, what they’re doing today.  What all they’ve accomplished.  He noticed that even Tucker was bobbing his head during the solo of Afterlife, and not that he was looking for it but it felt so satisfying to see that piece of shit slip, though Eddie knows Tucker would never admit it.  Not that he needs him to – cause seriously, fuck that guy.

“We can do one more,” Eddie says with a glance to Jeff and Gareth, who are already nodding their assent.  His eyes flick to yours where you stand behind Sam at the soundboard, brows furrowing when he registers the apprehensive look on your face.

“Would you, um…” you trail off, your gaze casts downward, your fingers picking nervously at the sides of your thumbs.  

He knows you, knows your anxious habits, knows when there’s something on the tip of your tongue that you wanna say.   It’s precisely why he keeps his voice impossibly soft as he asks,

“Whatcha got in mind, sweetheart?”

There’s conviction that shines through the trepidation in your eyes.  “I think I’m ready to hear Victim again.”

You could have knocked him over with a feather. “Really?”  

Gareth eyes you warily.  “You sure?”

Eddie knows what his friends are thinking.  They’ve only ever played it once, and even then, it wasn’t the whole way through.  His heart stutters as he remembers back to that day in early October, one of the first times he’d ever seen you upset. 

Eddie was so pumped to play for you the first song you told him you’d ever finished.  You’d confided in him that it was just a couple of weeks after Starcourt, when the weariness of playing your role as mother and sister and provider and confidant started to catch up to you and you realized you needed an outlet before you collapsed in on yourself like a dying star. 

Victim was written in three hours as you sat outside on the picnic table under the shelter at sunset.

He and Gareth composed it almost as quickly, and it took no time at all for the guys to have it down.  While it was uncomplicated on the melody, it more than made up for it with its depth and intention.

You made it through two minutes of the song before you broke down and excused yourself into the house.  The band had stared at one another in stunned silence and Eddie, overcome with concern, quickly whipped his guitar from his shoulder and followed you, where you confessed through your tears that maybe you weren’t quite ready to hear it. It damn near broke his heart, watching you succumb to all that you’d kept bottled for months as he held you in his arms in Gareth’s kitchen.

They hadn’t played it again, or even so much as brought it up.  The band all had this hivemind-like agreement that they’d just shelve that particular song in their archive indefinitely.  They shifted their focus on Welcome to the Family instead.

Eddie says your name carefully, like he’s walking on eggshells and you reassure him with a small smile and a shake of your head.  

“No, I really, really wanna hear it.” 

Nervous glances are cast around the live room.  “It’s been awhile since we played it.  Um…,” Eddie trails off, looking at Andrew and Sam.  “Might take us a few takes, maybe?”

The two on your left look completely unbothered by this possibility, while Tucker predictably huffs in exaggerated indignation.  He leans towards the com and snaps,

“You guys don’t have all day.  How about you just stick to songs you know?”

Eddie watches how Tucker’s face hardens with the dismissive wave of your hand. “They’ll be fine.”  You look at Andrew and intone softly, “I think it’ll round out the demo for your project if you include this one.  It’s more of a ballad.”

Tucker grimaces unkindly, scoffing at the suggestion.  “A ballad?  Fucking boring.  No, pick something else or we’re callin’ it.”

Anger spreads like wildfire, the heat of Eddie’s cheeks blaze a fiery red, his pulse pounds a deafening rhythm in his ears.  Oh, it’s fucking over.  He’s insulted you and that’s just fucking it.  Eddie can’t keep simmering like this under the surface, this douche has grated on his very last nerve.

“Excuse me?”

Eddie straightens when he hears the razor-thin edge in your tone. 

Tucker drones on, unaffected and uncaring.  “I thought this is supposed to be a metal band?  Who the fuck listens to ballads?”

Andrew, who is infinitely more self-aware, tries to interrupt his tirade and stop him before the powder keg on both sides of the glass explodes.  “Tucker, dude – just shut up.” 

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me to shut up.  I’m not having my project ruined with some shitty, sappy love song.”

That draws both Sam and Eddie out of their respective chairs with simultaneous shouts,

“YOUR project?”

“Hey, asshole—” 

Before either of them can finish their thoughts, the com switches off. Your hand that held the dial now points at Tucker’s chest, attached to a body that aggressively leans forward, bullying into his space and forcing him to rear back in his chair.  Eddie can see how furiously your mouth is moving, and he knows it’s not a bit good, what’s being said – he’s been on the receiving end of that particular look on your face before and from what he can tell, it seems to be landing with Tucker.  For now, anyway.

It lasts only a few moments; just several well-served sentences to the upper-level student that could stand to learn a thing or two about tact before you turn back to the band, face a little more flushed as you address them.

“Whenever you’re ready, fellas.”  

Eddie watches you plop down in your seat with a silent huff, arms crossed protectively across your chest.  He catches Sam’s eye, who quirks the smallest of grins and it settles the rumbling in his chest, somewhat.  Jeff clears his throat over Eddie’s shoulder where he stands behind the keyboard.

“Uh, should we – we should just start, right?”

Grant snickers, keeping his voice low.  “I’d pay money to know what she said to that idiot.”

“Let’s just rock this in one take and get the hell outta here,” Gareth mutters, and Eddie readily agrees with a fuck yes under his breath.

The melody begins once Grant counts them in; slow, measured plucking of Eddie’s guitar strings and a singular, melancholy note from Jeff that mourns like a funeral bell from a tower of a church.  The guitar’s tune repeats, the subtle sorrow in the tone prevalent even in its simplicity.  It tugs at his insides, he feels the pain of your loss, too — there was a time for him long ago when he heard that funeral bell ring, and that sound forever latched to a heavy place in his heart.

Eddie’s lips press against the mic, the tenor in his voice is soft yet strong, and he balances it beautifully with the roughened grit he draws from his belly to push the pain of your words to life.

House full of roses  A letter on the stairs  A tape full of messages  For anyone who cares 

Collage of broken words  And stories full of tears  Remembering your life  'Cause we wish that you were here 

He meets your eyes through the glass, and you flash him a tiny smile. Eddie returns it by holding your gaze, wrapping you in the warmth from his darkest brown to get you through the next verse.

Nothing is harder  Than to wake up all alone  Realize it's not okay  It's the end of all you know 

Time keeps passing by  But it seems I'm frozen still 

It kills him to get to these lines, the ones that broke you to the point where you couldn't bring yourself to hear them, had to physically separate yourself from the manifestation of your grief because it was just too much to handle.  

Scars are left behind  But some too deep to feel 

And some say this can't be real  And I've lost my power to feel tonight  We're all just victims of a crime 

He doesn’t hold back though, not today – all the anguish you have buried in these words are unearthed by the gravel in his voice, brought to the surface to shine in the harsh light of reality.  These words aren’t pretty, their meaning isn’t sweet. 

It’s raw and painful and real. 

When all's gone and can't be regained  We can't seem to shelter the pain inside  We're all just victims of a crime 

Some days you'll find me  In a place I like to go  Ask questions to myself  'Bout the things I'll never know 

What's left to find  'Cause I need a little more  I need a little time  Can we even up the score? 

And some say this can't be real  And I've lost my power to feel tonight  We're all just victims of a crime 

It’s interesting, what two months can do for perspective. Initially he’d wondered about these lines, specifically why you speak so much of a crime — it wasn’t so much as confusing as it was mysterious.  Given the sensitive nature of the song and the fact that you weren’t able to make it through the first time they played it, he never did ask about it, even though he wanted to. 

But now, after what you’d been through, after what you alluded to in his bed almost two weeks ago? 

It’s more literal than he’d ever imagined. 

When all's gone and can't be regained  We can't seem to shelter the pain inside  We're all just victims of a crime 

His stomach flips — these might be the most obvious lyrics, content-wise, that you’ve written.  Or, that’s how it seems to him now that he’s been somewhat enlightened. 

It’s so clearly about Billy, that he’s always known.  What’s become apparent for Eddie today is you’re very much calling out whoever those assholes were that took you to Starcourt. They're not just assholes in your eyes — they’re motherfucking criminals. 

And for you to ask the band to play it today?  To fucking record it, after all you told him and shit, Gareth too?

The significance is not lost on him.  You might be the bravest person he’s ever met. 

Eddie throws himself into the bridge, the home for some of the more flat-out bewildering verses of the song.  He doesn’t understand, not in the least — even when he composed these lines with Gareth it was almost funny to them how ridiculous it sounded, to be moved as much as you were over losing someone so downright horrible. 

And nothing lasts forever  For all good things it's true  I'd rather trade it all  While somehow saving you 

Your eyes say it all.  That suffocating grief that still lingers rounds them out, unblinking and stubbornly holding back tears.  It hurts how his heart twists with your pain, knowing you continue to mourn for someone as awful as your jackass stepbrother. 

It must have been the season  That've threw us out of line  Once I stood so tall  Now I'm searching for a sign 

But he knows better, now.  Eddie knows you better than he knows himself, and there’s this understanding that thrums through his veins, a realization that surges through the pads of his fingers with every agile press of his pads against the fretboard — there was some good in Billy Hargrove for you to love him as much as you did. 

As much as you do. 

It’s what ultimately carries his tone into a more roughened inflection, an intensity conveyed that the rest of the words are largely without, 

So don't need your salvation  With promises unkind  And all those speculations  Save it for another time 

The tiniest smile quirks the corner of his mouth. It’s like you’re talking directly to him, to just trust you and believe that Billy was a good man, or at least good enough to assure a way out for those in the thick of the madness that was that night.

'Cause we all need a reason  A reason just to stay  Some just can't be bothered  To stick around another day 

His downstrokes are harder through the solo, the grit in his voice flows effortlessly, melting with Gareth’s as they round out the last chorus,

Some say this can't be real  And I've lost my power to feel tonight  We've all been victims of a crime 

When all is gone and can't be regained  We can't seem to shelter the pain inside, ooh  We've all been victims of a crime 

Victims of a crime  Living with this crime 

Eddie and Gareth’s tone mellows out for the outro, a singular truth bared from the depths of your soul. 

I'm missing you I'm missing you I'm missing you I'm missing you 

The gentle reverb hangs in the air with Eddie’s final note as the song comes to a close, and a gentle smile crooks at the corner of his mouth as he hears your shaky exhale through the speakers.  

“Yeah, guys – um, that’s it.  Well done.” 

Sam leans out of his chair over the control board.  “Agreed – seriously well done, yeah.  That’s a wrap.  We’ll mix this all up and get you a copy as soon as we can.”

“Thanks, man,” Eddie replies, unholstering his guitar from his shoulder.  “Really appreciate all your help.”  

He means it, he realizes as he places his Warlock back in her case.  Tucker may have been a huge damper on the day, but overall, recording with the guys and with you is everything he could have ever wanted it to be.  And ending it with one take on Victim?  He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried.

Especially after you let yourself into the sound stage and planted a big, grateful kiss on his lips.

Yeah.  Leave it to you to make him feel markedly better with just a look and a kiss.

Corroded Coffin makes quick work of packing up their equipment into Eddie’s van, and Gareth opts to ride with Grant, sensing that Eddie needs a little time with you.  He nods, thankful for his best friend and his perceptive tendencies, because he absolutely needs you alone in the worst way.

Especially after what he hears when he gets back into the booth.

Tucker is putting forth his best effort, which is to say that he’s being a colossal asshole and pestering you to your very limit.  

“I think you should,” the false sweetness drips from the points of his too-straight teeth, “I’d be happy to show you how it’s done.”

“Nah, that’s okay Tucker,” you wave him off as you take a step back from his advancing frame.  “I’m good with learning with the rest of class next semester.”

“I could show you a thing or two, get you miles ahead of your dumbass classmates.”

Eddie comes into your line of vision, and he sees your eyes widen in relief at the sight of him before flicking back to Tucker.  “Thanks, but no.”

“Aww, c’mon, sugar,” Tucker presses on with his back to Eddie, “I’ll even offer to stay late tonight, just for you."  His voice drops a suggestive octave.  "Show you how to properly handle the equipment.”  

Your face contorts in disgust right as Eddie gets within arms-length of him. Eddie’s fingers dig into the meat of Tucker's shoulder and jerks him away from you with a force that surprises even him. 

“She said no, you dickhead.”

Tucker stumbles from the sheer strength of Eddie’s grip, knocking into your side as his balance slips.  “Did you just touch me?!”

“I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than that if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now,” Eddie snarls menacingly.  A knot of rage twists and bubbles low in his gut, and it’s everything he has to release Tucker’s fisted polo that’s so fucking starched it feels grimy under his fingers.  

Tucker rights himself, throwing his shoulders forward to straighten his slightly displaced shirt.  “I know who you are, you know,” he threatens in a dangerous tone full of arrogance and privilege.  “Fucking freak trailer trash that’s had to repeat senior year what, twice? Three times, now?”

Eddie’s eyes flash, a downright murderous scowl paints his features. “You don’t know shit,” he spits, moving to raise his arm to land a well-deserved punch to his smug-ass face.  Before he gets his chance, you intervene, stepping in front of Eddie and effectively blocking his path.

“Alright Tucker, we’re done here.  I think you need to leave.”

The older boy’s eyes round, flicking over you with blatant disrespect.  “Excuse me?” he scoffs as his upper lip curls in a sneer.

“You’re excused,” you murmur evenly, inclining your chin over Eddie’s shoulder.  “Door’s that way.”

Eddie’s eyebrows fly under his fringe at the snip in your retort, pressing his lips together as he steps to the side, pulling you with him to clear a path for Tucker’s exit.  It’s an effort to stay composed with you so stern, Eddie can feel with the way his pants fill out behind his fly that it’s lucky you didn’t yell – there’d be no way he’d be able to hide his raging hard-on then.  

He’ll gladly boast his semi for now, anyway.   He sweeps an arm across his body with an over-dramatic flourish of sarcastic grandeur and a snide little smirk tips the corner of his mouth, threatening to widen as his fingers waggle, rings clacking obnoxiously as Eddie twists the figurative knife deeper into Tucker’s side with his gesture to leave.

Tucker’s jaw clenches as his fiery stare oscillates in heavy silence between the two of you.  He scoffs and mutters something unintelligible before stalking along the path to the door that Eddie’s arm designates, which he wisely retracts before Tucker’s able to shove it out of the way.

Your narrowed eyes bore twin holes in the back of Tucker’s head, and don’t falter until he’s completely gone.  The sharp exhale out of your nose is a quick one, and Eddie keeps his blazing stare on you, swallowing hard and struggling to remain present and not giving into his rising desire to just take you right on the soundboard.

“God, I’m sorry he was such a dick,” you mutter as you turn to Eddie.  “Sam and Andrew had literally no choice but to take him on as a partner in this project.  No one wanted him.”  You roll your eyes as you wrap your arms around Eddie’s waist.  “Now we see why, huh.”

Eddie cinches his arms around your body, hugging you close.  He can feel the heat radiating off your form, soothing him from the inside out.  

“I don’t want you to be sorry about him,” he mutters as he presses soft, sweet kisses into your hair.  “I want you to be proud of what you did today.  For us.”

He can feel you smile against his chest.  “I am.”

“Good.  Cause baby,” he holds you out at arms length to flash you a toothy grin, “we’re all really fuckin’ proud of you.  I mean,” his eyes widen comically as he surveys the board behind you, “Jesus.  This is some complicated looking shit.”

“Nah,” you assure him, turning in his arms, your fingers threading through his to rest his hands on the front of your hips, “it’s not so bad.  Want me to walk you through it?”

“Absolutely, m’lady.”

Eddie does well enough initially to pay attention.  He’s mesmerized by the brightness in your voice, the subtle, excited inflections in your tone – especially when you really get wrapped up in describing something that’s familiar.  His dark eyes follow as you point and explain, more in tune with how you say it than what exactly it is that you’re saying.

Your proximity, though –  especially after spending the majority of the morning separated from you by a thick sheet of glass – he can’t resist how his mind and his hands wander.  The smell of your skin, the softness of your hair, the vibrations of your voice as they rumble through your form and buzz against his chest; it’s not long before you’ve bewitched him, pulled him willingly under your spell.  He tries to keep it together, keep himself present so he can give you the attention you deserve, though the way you smirk and cast him knowing glances out of the corner of your eye has him thinking that you’re well onto him.

So, he starts to push the envelope, a bit. 

It starts slowly:  a soft, subtle nuzzle of his nose against your neck here, a squeeze of his hand against your hips there, a barely-there rock of his pelvis against your backside as you shimmy closer into his hold on you.  He can’t get enough of how fucking good his hands look splayed over your hips, ringed fingers wrapping possessively over your curves like they belong.  He can hear the warble in your voice as he squeezes more, circles wider, swipes harder over the fabric of your jeans, the tiny struggle to keep it even as you describe the intricate configurations of knobs and slides and dials on the board in front of you.  The smile that escapes can’t be helped, he feels the bounding of your pulse under his lips as they pull tightly over his teeth.  Eddie takes a chance and trails his mouth up the supple slope of your throat and nips at his favorite place behind your ear.

He knows it’s landed as soon as your breath hitches with a scrape of his teeth across delicate skin.  “Eddie…”

Broad palms flatten against your hips, his fingers creep lower along your front, pushing your bum back into his body that searches for friction to quell the ache in his growing erection.  He soothes his bite with a hot swipe of his tongue, parroting your name in a sultry rumble against your skin.  It would be great if he could care more about what you’re talking about, he knows that – but what drives him now, the white-hot need for you that pulses through his veins has hit him hard in unrelenting waves.  His fingers dig into the plush curve of your hip, breaching the band of your jeans at your waist, drawing you closer.  

It’s as if he needs to prove a point to himself just as much as anyone else that he is the one that gets to touch you like this, hold you like this, make you squirm under his touch like this.

Nobody else.  Especially not Tucker. 

He leans into the greed, the hunger, the primitive need to claim you as he pops the button on your jeans and deftly slides the zipper south.  He can feel how your mouth parts in surprise, the subtle drop of your jaw with the sharp intake of breath.

“Oh –”

One hand holds you still while the other slides beneath the elastic of your panties, slowly teasing and inching his fingers nearer.  

“C’mon, baby,” Eddie rasps in your ear.  “Keep talkin’ me through.  You’re doin’ so good, tellin’ me everything you know.”

He knows he’s taunting you and right now, he doesn’t fucking care.  He’s high on how he’s got you so scrambled, unable to string two coherent thoughts together as his long, slender digits dive between your slick folds.  His hand that supports your hip has to grip you tightly as your weakening knees make you falter, a deep, resounding groan bubbles over his lips as he hears you sigh his name.

“Christ,” Eddie grits, burying his nose deeper into your hair as he glides his fingers through your heat.  His cock jumps behind his fly at the slick sounds his digits make, the tiny whines from your mouth with every swipe of your clit make him dizzy with desire.

“You’re so wet already,” he gruffs as he inhales, delivering much needed oxygen to his brain.  He hears you sigh again when he swipes his two middle fingers over your clit, expertly circling with just the right amount of pressure that he knows drives you crazy.  Your hand flies to anchor in his curls in response to his ministrations, the sharp sting of fisted hair makes him wince, just a little.  

He loves how it burns where your fingers curl that delicious pressure into his scalp.  “Fuck, Eddie –”

That need flares deep in his belly, and he can feel himself losing control. The sweet, breathy sounds of your pleasure elevate his desire as his fingers fly over your clit, punctuated by his deep, wanton huffs hot against your neck as he ruts into your ass.

“This pussy is mine,” he growls, hardly even aware it’s out of his mouth as he’s said it.  It’s a split second where he feels like maybe he got too carried away, maybe he’s gone a little too far, and then he hears the most beautiful high-pitched whine tumble from the depths of your throat.

“Y-yeah – yours –” 

He’s been reduced to his most basic instincts.  His boot nudges your heel, widening your stance to allow him better access.  He grunts at how much better his cock feels against the swell of your ass, the sticky patch of precum that’s gathered in his boxers grows larger with every shallow thrust of his hips against your curves.  Two lithe fingers plunge into your pussy and Eddie moans with you at the sensation, the velvety walls grip and suck him in with every drive of his hand against your cunt.  He shifts forward, angling his hand better to reach deeper inside of you, making sure to press and grind the heel of his hand against your clit.

“Y’like this, hmm?  You like me fingerfucking you in your studio, baby?”

The breathy sigh in your voice drives him absolutely wild.  “Eddie, mmhyeah, keep going…”

Your encouragement is enough to make his eyes roll to the back of his head.  He increases the cadence of his fingers, sure to keep them gentle as they plunge in and out of your core.  He can feel you start to come apart, your hips grind against the heel of his hand with every thrust.  Your eyes flutter shut, the top row of teeth sink into the plush crimson of your bottom lip.

“Gonna make this pussy come all over my hand, sweet girl.” It’s a promise he knows he can keep, especially when he hooks his two middle fingers inside of you to drag firmly across your front wall.

Your head knocks into his shoulder as it lolls back, lost in pleasure.  “Yeah, yeah –” 

“That’s it, let me take care of you,” he rasps in your ear, pressing you into his chest to hold you upright as your cunt begins to pulse around his fingers.  “Yeah, sweetheart, c’mon – be my good fuckin’ girl and come on my fingers –”

Eddie smiles into the skin of your neck that blooms crimson with the birth of your release.  His fingers never stall their rhythm, the wet sounds of them fucking you through your orgasm that clenches and chokes his digits fills his ears and stirs something dark and needy low in his belly.  

“That’s right, I know just what to do to make you come, don’t I?”

“Y-yeah –”  

He slows his fingers, the leisurely pull in and out guides you through your aftershocks.  “No one else ever made you come like this, huh?”

A small puff of air escapes your nose, and he feels you smile as you bury your head into his neck with a satisfied hum.

That’s not enough for Eddie, not at this moment.  “Tell me.”  His command is gentle but explicit, and it makes you gasp.

“J-just you –”

“Fuckin’ right, just me.”  A burning satisfaction spreads like wildfire in his chest, and Eddie slides his fingers out of you, grabbing you by your hips to swiftly turn you around.  “Face me. I wanna look at you when I make you come on my cock.”

It thrills him to see how your fucked-out stare rounds out in surprise, how your kiss-swollen lips drop in an expression that drips of want and lust, just for him.  He guides you back to the soundboard by the band of your jeans, and in one fluid movement, tugs them down over your legs.  He lifts you up onto the table and with the help of your deft but trembling fingers, you’re able to unbuckle his belt and yank his tight, ripped jeans down past his mid-thigh.

Eddie hisses as he grabs his cock that bobs thick and heavy between his legs, dragging the sensitive, weeping head over your underwear-covered slit, reveling in how your slick, swollen folds spill out on both sides of the hem of the material which has turned dark with your release.

He snickers, eyes flashing a wicked amber as pushes your knees apart, slotting himself closer to your heat.  His hand reaches down and moves your panties to the side, the blunt edge of his cockhead breaches your soaked folds with the most crude, slippery sounds.

“You’re gonna make a mess of your soundboard, aren’tcha, sweetheart?”

His thick head catches the rim of your entrance, and he pushes forward, sheathing himself in the sultry heat of your pussy.  Your tight, plush walls suck him in, bottoming him out in an instant, and Eddie has to grab your waist to hold him steady with the headrush of searing pleasure that overwhelms his senses.  He’s acutely aware of how you moan and plead for him to fuck you, to move harder, faster inside of you, and he wastes no time, his cock pounds your pussy at an unrelenting pace, and soon you’re reduced to nothing but high-pitched, garbled cries that oscillate between yes! and his name.

He’s a man possessed, filled with an inhuman need to stake his claim, to bring you so much raw, unfiltered ecstasy from his touch, from his ministrations that he nearly loses his footing.  He shifts his grip, both on you and against the floor, driving his pelvis into yours with such abandon that he’s sure you’ll both bruise.  It’s everything, though – his mind may be consumed with the wanton desire for you – but he’s able to ground himself, watching with awe as his cock drives deep with every heated thrust in your cunt.  

This is what he needs.  A fervent reminder that you’re his.

Because he knows, without a doubt – he is completely and irrevocably yours.

There’s a flash of moment in his periphery, so minute he thinks he imagined it.  The time in which it pulls his attention from watching where you’re joined is a mere moment, a split-second glance of a heavy-lidded, frenzied gaze over your shoulder and for an even briefer moment, where it lands steals the air from his lungs.

But it locks him dead in place.

Molten honey burns to blackened pits of animalistic possession as Eddie narrows his eyes at the threat that stands frozen in shock in the live room.  Gareth’s ice blue eyes are rounded impossibly large, flicking wildly between Eddie’s challenging stare and the back of your body that’s arched beautifully, overcome with pleasure as your orgasm simmers beneath the surface.  

Eddie can see how mortification paints his cheeks red, how utter surprise elevates his eyebrows off his forehead, parts his lips in a silent gasp, and paralyzes his feet to the floor.  Maybe it’s the way your moans and cries ring in his ears, maybe it’s how your cunt feels as it pulses hot around his length, the wet, lewd sounds of sex drown out all reason and Eddie’s hips drive harder into yours, snapping forward with such force that your head bobs in its tipped-back position on your shoulders.

Gareth may be completely taken aback, shocked stupid – but Eddie isn’t.  He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he holds his ground and marks you as his, his dark chocolate eyes bore into Gareth’s; there’s no mistaking the message conveyed.

He could have had his hand there the whole time, he’s not really sure – what he is sure of is how the need to stake his claim has overwhelmed him, consumed him, reduced him to this debased version of himself that he hardly recognizes – but that doesn’t stop him, not in the least.  He inches his middle finger forward on the board and clicks on the com.

He sees how the abrupt influx of sound in the once silent studio jolts Gareth where he stands.

“You’re mine,” Eddie’s sandpaper voice growls in your ear, loud enough to be heard over your breathy moans and gasps that echo through the speakers, shattering the trance you’ve placed on his best friend.  “Say it for me, baby.”

Eddie’s eyes blaze viciously into Gareth’s, a wicked grin spreads across his face as you whimper, “Ahh, m’yours –”

A darkness wrought with the compulsive need to possess you shrouds him, settles like a cloak over his back and blocks out all rational thought.  He’s overwhelmed with this desire, driving his cock into you harder, the intensity has you gasping high little ahh-ahh-ahhs with every time he thrusts and bottoms out to the hilt.  

“Say it again,” he commands roughly, breath ragged with his efforts.

You sound almost pained, your whine nearly a sob as you cry through gritted teeth, “God, Eddie – I – I’m y-yours – fuck!” 

He huffs a short, staccato laugh, smirking through the glass at his rhythm guitarist.  “Gonna make you come, aren’t I?”

Gareth’s chest rises and falls in rapid succession, his neck pinking in blotchy stains as your babbling yes and please and garbled versions of Eddie’s name surround him.

Eddie takes control and shuts it down, deciding that his friend has heard enough.  He takes that hand and hitches your leg over his hip, angling your pelvis forward so he can hit that spot just right.  Your head drops back in erotic bliss, an elongated moan falls from a mouth that hangs open, sucking in breath after hurried breath as you chase your high.  Eddie sees Gareth watch as all of this as it unfolds, and his unrelenting ministrations turn crazed, almost harsh.  

If his friend wants to watch, then Gareth’s gonna know you’re his by the time this is all over.  There’s a part of Eddie that lies deep inside that wonders if Gareth truly knows, and that part has gone completely feral, wild in his quest to brand you as his with every hard snap of his hips.

“Fucking yes,” he grunts, the coil of his own release winding tight and hot in his belly.  The fluttering of your walls around his cock pulse and squeeze, and the intensity of his lock on Gareth falters.  “God, baby, yeah –”  

“Ed – oh, Eddie – please –”

He rips his blown-out stare away, honing in on your pleasure to bring you over the edge.  He snakes his hand in between your bodies and thumbs your clit, watching as he swipes over the slick, swollen nub to the cadence of your pitchy cries.  Eddie slams his eyes shut, holding you as you shake, and with a final well-placed snap of his hips, he feels you shatter around him, your hips stuttering with the strength of your orgasm.  

The rush of heat to your core drenches his cock, the plush, silken walls of your cunt suck him in with every thrust as he savagely fucks you through your release.  You’re so soft, so tight, so wet; he feels his control over his climax fading. 

“Fuck, baby – fuck yeah that’s it, m’gonna come –”

Eddie throws his head back and buries him waist-deep in your pussy that still clenches his cock with aftershocks of rippling, spasming muscles, the curls that curtain his face fall to the side as he tips his chin to the ceiling and groans an elongated blend of yes and your name.  His length twitches as it spills his release into the depths of your pussy, the rush of blood to his cock makes him more sensitive with each rut inside of you, but he can’t stop.  He won’t stop until he feels like he’s claimed you, has stuffed you to the brim with his white-hot seed.  

His chest is heaving, his mouth hangs slack as he regains his bearings and catches his breath.  He can hear how your little gasping pants hitch in and out of your lungs, he can feel how your nails still dig into the meat of his upper arms as you cling to him for dear life.  

Jarring realization dawns hard and fast for Eddie, and his heart thunders in his chest.  His head snaps up from where it rested on his shoulders, his fingers dig protectively into the ample curve of your thigh as he scans the live room for any sign of Gareth.

For a moment, he’d forgotten.  For a moment, he’d allowed himself to get lost in your pleasure, your cries for him, your release that he brought on and that you gave readily with his name on your tongue.  

He’d forgotten he’d spent the better part of your tryst staring down his best friend as he fucked you senseless.   

But now?

He remembers, and he’s not sure how he feels.  What he’s sure of now is Gareth is gone, and you were none the wiser of his presence.

He knows how he should feel.  He should feel badly, he should be ashamed of his behavior.  But as you cling to his frame, as his arms circle your body and hold you impossibly close, as his cock softens inside of you, he feels only one thing.

Possessive. 

“We need to talk.”

He knew this was coming, he was more or less waiting for it.  Still, it doesn’t stop him from grinding against his molars in frustration.  Eddie slams his locker door with a little too much force as he musters the strength to be as nonchalant about this as possible.

He turns to his best friend, who stands next to him with his stocky forearms crossed across his chest, defensive already. 

Interesting. 

“What’s up?”

Eddie internally cringes hearing the way he snaps the question. He’s missed his mark for nonchalant. By a fucking lot. 

Gareth scoffs.  “C’mon man, you know.”

Yeah. He fucking does. Eddie presses his plush lips together in a firm line as he regards his friend with a severe look down his nose.  

“Nothin’ to say.”

“Don’t be – Jesus…,” Gareth groans as he runs an irritated hand through his mop.  

Eddie’s face twists in a hard scowl as he leans against his locker.  Gareth's irritation rubs raw on his already frayed nerves. 

“What do you expect me to say?  Sorry you walked in on me fucking my girl?”

Gareth chokes on his spit and casts a nervous look around at the students milling around them, not expecting Eddie to be so goddamn blunt about it all.  His cheeks flame red as a barrage of images flood his mind – the arch in your back, hair falling over your shoulders in luscious waves as your head tipped in ecstacy, the delicate part in your lips that widened in pleasure with every thrust, the sensual angle of your jaw that dropped as an undoubtedly angelic cry was ripped from the long, slender column of your throat as you – Gareth grunts in frustration, the effort it’s taking to scrub that endless loop of the moment of your release from his mind is physically painful.

He would know, he’s unsuccessfully been trying to erase it since he left the studio yesterday.

“I don’t know,” Gareth admits dully, unable to meet Eddie’s eyes.  “Honestly don’t know what to say.”

Eddie sighs.  His stomach rolls with dread, he did not want to do this right now, or honestly, at all.  His suspicions still lurk in the depths of his mind, countless reassurances to the contrary not quite enough to slay that beast that feeds on his insecurities.  

So, he does what he always does: casually shrugs like he’s unbothered to help him play it off and tips a crooked smile that doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes.  

“I was on a rampage, man.  I fucking lost my mind seeing that douche hit on her for like, four fucking hours.”

Gareth nods as if this confirms what he’s already discerned.  “Okay.  Figured that’s what it was about.”

Eddie bites back a scathing retort as the beast rears its ugly head.  He opts for snark, instead.  

“Observant, aren’t we?”  He raises an eyebrow at his friend for good measure.

“Uh, you were visibly seething,” Gareth informs him flatly.  “Pretty obvious what was going on.”

“Well,” Eddie huffs, cheeks pinking slightly.  He knew he wasn’t hiding it well, but to hear it thrown back in his face from Gareth of all people makes his blood boil.  

“Fucking Tucker pissed me off,” he mutters through gritted teeth, fighting like hell to keep his voice even.  He gives Gareth a pointed look.  “Any guy after that was just a threat.”  

Gareth holds his stare, like he’s expecting more.  Eddie’s dwindling control he has over his rising anger is rapidly weakening.  What more does Gareth want from him?   

“Sorry,” the older boy says in a way that suggests he’s not sorry at all, like it’s just a filler to satisfy an uncomfortable lull in the conversation that he wants no part of.  “Nothing personal.”

Gareth doesn’t respond for a moment, his eyes narrow to thin slips of blue.  Eddie tries to remain impassive as he watches Gareth mentally chew on his words, but he feels his facade slipping, crumbling. 

He can’t remain impassive when it comes to you. 

Especially when Gareth mumbles in reply, “Seemed pretty personal.” 

The fire in Eddie’s belly ignites, the words singe his tongue as he spits, “Should it have been?”

“Dude, no!” Gareth almost shouts as his hands fly in front of his chest defensively.  His eyes round in genuine concern.  “Christ Ed, who d’ya think you’re talking to?”

Eddie’s voice drops low to avoid drawing attention.  He doesn't need what he says next to get around, but he does need his friend to fucking know. 

“The guy who watched my girlfriend come.”

Gareth’s eyes narrow dangerously as he scoffs.  “Says the guy that saw me and didn’t stop, either.”  

Eddie grunts and shoves off from his locker, his long strides carry him heavily down the hall.  Gareth wastes no time to catch up to him. He keeps his voice low and hisses at his side,

“You and I kinda fucked up and put her in a situation that I’m sure she doesn’t even know about.” 

Eddie rounds on him, halting Gareth midstride.  “And what situation is that, exactly?” he intones lowly, dark eyes flashing, challenging.  “You gonna tell me your side of the story?”

Gareth pauses, a myriad of emotions pass in a flurry over his features, but the one that sticks is pained.  

“You know my side,” he states, the waver in his voice betraying his confidence, making it sound more like a plea than a fact. 

The muscles in Eddie’s jaw twitch as he blows a breath out of his nose.  His espresso gaze flick up and down his friend’s stocky frame, considering for a long, tense moment.

Eddie keeps his eyes on Gareth, hard and unrelenting.  “Yeah. I think I do.”  

Gareth blanches, the swooping feeling in his gut gives him the impression Eddie’s words are more loaded than what they seem.

Eddie’s umber stare narrow fractionally before he straightens next to his friend and starts walking down the hall again.  Gareth hesitantly follows and jumps as Eddie stops abruptly at the door of his first hour class.  He angles his body away from Gareth to pull open the door, but not before muttering over his shoulder,

“It’s done, move on.”  Murky brown locks with watery blue for several moments before Eddie murmurs a familiar farewell with strained normalcy.  “See you at lunch.”

Gareth watches him disappear through the door, his features drenched in confusion and concern.  His heart pounds a deafening rhythm in his chest as he wonders if there’s any coming back from what happened.  It makes him sick, to have to wonder, to worry about where to go from here. 

One thing is obvious, he can’t move on, not like this.  He swallows hard before muttering softly to the door,

“Yeah.  See you.”

Next Chapter➡️

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This is so fucked.

Gareth’s heart sinks like a stone as he watches your large eyes grow impossibly rounder as you process his rambling, his plea, his offer.

God damn it. Did he seriously just offer himself to you?

Jesus Christ. He did, didn’t he? Is he really that desperate?

The ball of emotion that threatens to choke the air from his lungs reminds him that yes, he is indeed that desperate.

Desperate for you to finally see just how much he cares for you. He’d call it love if he knew any better, but right now, he doesn’t.

Or, maybe he just doesn’t trust it. There’s not much that he trusts anymore, save for the woman in his lap that he’s holding tightly in his arms like a lifeline.

Either way, his heart is hammering in his chest, his fingers that are still slipped between yours turn to ice as the tiny arterioles in his fingers constrict, the ignition of his fight or flight response shunts his blood away from his extremities toward his brain and his heart at a dizzying rate.

At least he can say, in his defense – if Eddie really is alive – he’s one hundred percent not thinking with his dick right now.

*

You’ve lost all track of time – it could have been a minute or an hour before you were able to gather yourself and respond to Gareth’s proposition. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it?

I have everything when I look at you.

That’s what he said.

Holy fuck, it’s not a proposition.

It's an admission.

You snap back to your senses, your voice croaks your first of a million questions. “Where is this coming from?”

Gareth’s absolutely frantic. “I – I don’t know, me? I’ve, um… I think I’ve felt this way for a long time but di-didn’t wanna believe it or dwell on it –”

It hurts with how dangerously low your stomach swoops, hitting you with a tidal wave of apprehension. This can’t be happening, he can’t be saying this – this is all just a wildly fucked-up dream and soon you’ll wake up in your bed, NDA and friendship still intact.

For good measure, you pinch the sensitive skin of your forearm, wincing as the pain shoots over your jangled nerves. “Stop, please. G –”

“Fuck, don’t call me that,” he makes an indignant noise as his head falls back against the wall. “It kills me when you call me that.”

“Why?”

Misery drips from his heavy sigh while heavy lidded eyes slip shut. “Because it makes me think I’m more to you than what I actually am.”

Taking a moment to gather yourself, you watch as his broad chest expands beneath his flannel. “We’re drunk,” you rationalize in a rush.

That’s not really something you believe, but at this point, you’ll throw out anything that would explain why in the fuck he would just take a grenade to the perfect balance you’ve found over the last two months.

“I’m not – I’m not drunk,” he responds with a hint of confusion in his tone, “are you?”

The world around you swims, you sound as if you’re underwater. “No, I’m not.”

He scoots along the wall, sitting straighter. The calloused pads of his fingers run a blazing path over your skin. “Mayfield…”

Your heart is in your throat, every fiber of your being is against him finishing that thought. “I still love Eddie,” you blurt, averting your gaze to avoid the inevitable hurt that’ll flash in those endless blue eyes.

But there’s no hurt there, no misery at all. “Oh hun, I know,” only sincerity and understanding pour from Gareth’s lips. “I know you do, and I’m not asking you not to. I’d never do that.”

“Then what do you want?” Scrambling out of his hold, you rise on wobbly legs. “How can you ask this? How is having me when I love someone else good for you?”

Your best friend struggles to find his footing, apparently just as shaken by this revelation as you are. “I don’t know,” he huffs as he ungracefully uses the wall to stand in front of you, “I don’t know! I just want you.”

“I can’t,” you choke over the thick tangle of guilt in your throat. “Gareth, I can’t feel for two people at once…”

“I’m not worried about that.”

This man is making no fucking sense – how in the hell are you supposed to respond? Of course he should be worried about that, though it’s possible you’re worried enough for the both of you.

Which is why you sound a little harsher than intended when you suggest, “Maybe you should be?”

Either Gareth’s got some thick skin, or he’s just refusing to let the acid in your tone burn him. “I just know that I can be someone for you.” He’s as smooth as silk, unshakable and firm as he assures you, “I want to be, Mayfield, you have no idea.”

Your face scrunches in an exaggerated grimace. “What do you mean, I have no idea?”

An overwhelming wave of memories crash through your brain, all of which very clearly display this man as being something for you over the past nine or ten months. Longer, if you’re being honest. How in the hell can he say you have no idea?

“You already are something to me, Gareth! You’ve been my best fr –”

“No,” he groans, fisting a handful of ringlets before dropping his hands at his sides. He tries for a gentler approach, but you can tell he’s unraveling. “I know what I am, but… I want to be more than that for you.”

Maybe you’re unraveling, too. “Gareth, this is so fucked up! You deserve so much better than someone that… that can’t feel the same about you!”

“And you deserve to feel like you have someone! Actually have someone!”

“I do have someone, I have you!”

“Not – not like… Mayfield, you understand what I’m saying,” his chest is heaving as he gestures wildly at where you stand, “I want you. Like fucking romantically.”

Cocking your head to the side, you feel a rush of warmth flood to your cheeks as you regard him. “Well,” you scoff over a hint of a smirk, “you’re off to a great start, G.”

A crooked smile adorns his lips, and god damn it if it isn’t charming as hell. “Yeah, well…” his retort fades with a roll of his eyes. “I do, okay? I want you to have me. God, you basically already do.”

“You can’t want this,” you try to reason with him, “not this way, not with me broken like I am.”

“I don’t think you’re broken.”

“I am! You can’t possibly want to fix this with, with –”

It’s all so clear in your head, what you mean to say. Very plainly, in bright flashing lights: you can’t want this with Gareth. There’s no way in hell you’re ready. He has to know that. He’s gotta know there’s not a soul on earth that could come back from loving Eddie Munson the way you did to be ready for anything remotely close again.

To you, it’s not a lonely thought; it’s just a fact.

Interestingly, or maybe infuriatingly, that’s where all of it stays – locked away in a box inside your head. As much as they rattle around in their cage, the words don’t come out. And so Gareth dispels every weak argument you throw at him with a stronger one of his own, spoken in honey-sweet tones that are just so unlike the man you thought you knew that he gets it, he understands – but all the while it nags at you, needles at your heart.

And so you say it. Again. “Gareth… I – I can’t.”

Stocky arms fold over his broad chest, and there’s a glint in his eye as he ponders aloud, “It’s interesting that you keep saying can’t, instead of don’t.” The space between you diminishes by a foot as he steps closer. “Do you? Feel something for me?”

“I –”

He’s delivered a blow; a cold, hard, shock to your system and you physically feel it. It’s everywhere, seizing your muscles and freezing your bones, crawling in tight electrical currents over a thudding heart that’s completely lost her rhythm.

It makes you choke on a sharp exhale, spitting half-hearted excuses that hold no meaning. “I don’t know, I have no idea what I’m feeling right now.”

“Oh, come on,” he pleads for your honesty, “hun, I’m spilling my goddamn guts here –”

There’s a curious pull at your heartstrings, steady and firm to the point of snapping. The desire to tell him no is overpowering; because the alternative feels like your whole world will crumble if you wipe the film from your tired eyes and see, finally, who stands right in front of you.

Funny thing is, your world started crumbling months ago.

“Fine, okay – gun to my head?” Your teeth sink into the flesh of your bottom lip so hard they draw blood as the truth bursts from your mouth, “Yes I do, okay? I feel something for you. But I don’t know exactly what it is or what it means!”

“Jesus,” Gareth groans, lips parting in a wounded exhale. “Gun to your head? Really?”

“Well what the fuck do you expect?” Your hands brush his chest as they wave in an arc in front of your body. “You sprung this on me and I’m completely reeling right now!”

“The least you could do is give me a straight answer!”

“Oh really, the least I could do? No,” digging a defiant finger in his sternum, you summon the strength and push through gritted teeth, “I think the least I could do is tell you to give me a goddamn second for – for dropping this on me, for turning this around on me!”

Gareth snatches your hand away from his chest. “I’m not doing that!”

“It feels like you are!” While biting back with a vengeance, you still feel like you're grasping at straws. “I – I had no warning!”

He deflates like a balloon; shoulders slumping, his face falls as his fingers go limp around yours. “No warning, huh?”

The utter devastation in his tone has you averting your gaze to the floor. A shameful heat floods your cheeks as you feel him regard you with such sadness… and maybe a little disappointment, too.

He sighs heavily, his hands come to his chest in supplication. “I don’t mean to do that, okay? I just – fuck, I feel like my goddamn heart is gonna explode.”

“Well sit down, then,” you grouse. “Maybe stop yelling so much.”

Gareth’s chin dips downward as his eyebrows shift sky-high. “Oh, right,” he snips, “because I’m the only one yelling.”

“Well, I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t not say it, either.” Gareth deliberately avoids the chair arranged haphazardly near the wall, and instead opts to brood upright with his arms tightly crossed over his chest. It takes but a minute of heavy silence before he murmurs your name and says,

“I’m sorry.”

Pushing a heavy sigh through your nose, you will yourself to answer gently. “For what?”

“For yelling,” he clarifies, swallowing hard. “I kinda swore to myself I wouldn’t do that to you again.”

A dubious click of your tongue punctuates the narrowing of your eyes as you search his gaze for answers. “When have you ever yelled at me?”

“When I made dinner…” He goes quiet, clearing his throat against the memory that flushes his cheeks pink. “In the summer, and I got all hurt that you weren’t like, fawning over my stupid grill skills.”

“Oh,” scoffing over a laugh, you mean to comfort Gareth because that’s not at all what you remember about that night. “That was hardly yelling at me,” you assure him, “you were just frustrated.”

“Frustrated right now, that’s for damn sure.”

“See? You deserve so much better.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“I can’t give you what you want,” you lament with a whine. “A shitty piece of a broken heart won’t be good enough for you.”

He pushes from the wall. “It is for me. There’s no one better than you!”

“Gareth,” your breath comes in rapid succession, “you don’t mean that.”

“I’m telling you that I do.” He’s encroached your space, taking both of your hands and holding them to his chest. “I – look, I’ve never been in love before –”

The bottom drops out from under you as your eyes nearly pop out of your head. “What?”

“Okay,” he grumbles with a massive eye-roll, “hold on —”

Oh, but there’s no holding on for this; your voice rises an octave as you squawk, “Love?!”

“Just listen –”

“You’re in love with me!?”

“No!” he shouts, the baby blue in his eyes darkening in irritation. “Jesus Christ, just listen to me!”

“Gareth, what in the fu–”

“Stop!” he roars over your shrieks and you both fall to open-mouthed silence. He recovers first, his arms manically waving in the space between you. “God damn it, I’m already second guessing this and it hasn’t even been five minutes!”

It’s the adrenaline, it has to be. There’s no other explanation for why bubbly laughter bursts over your lips, chewed raw and red from nerves. It doesn’t quit, even as you slap a hand over your mouth to quell the near-hysterical sounds. Gareth looks at you like you’ve lost your damn mind, and hell – maybe you have. But right now – as you stand toe-to-toe with him in his garage, there’s not a thing in your life that’s funnier, more ironic than this.

You’re pretty sure he knows it, too. “Stop laughing,” he grits in an attempt to fight away a grin, “it’s not funny!” Denial just seems to make you laugh harder, and his smile is literal sunshine as it splits through steel gray clouds. “Mayfield, god damn you,” he chokes over his own mirth, “it’s not fucking funny!”

“I know,” you giggle as you swipe the wetness gathered along your lashes, “I know it’s not, but ohhh – Christ, G.” You grimace when you see him flinch and immediately amend, “Gareth, sorry.”

You take a careful step towards him. “We’d never work out. We’d both be plotting murder by the end of day one.”

“What if I want that?” he asks with a crooked grin, though it’s strained. “Sounds pretty awesome to me.”

“You’re delusional!”

His mouth twists into a scowl at your name-calling and answers with some of his own. “Well, it’s your fault for being so fucking – everything. You’re maddening and beautiful and funny and talented and you grate on my every nerve and the fucked up thing is that I want you to.”

Tawny curls jostle at his temples, and the look he gives you is pained as he confesses, “It’s my fault, too. I felt this coming for a while now, and I swear to you I tried to ignore it and push it down.” His finger oscillates between the two of you. “This? It’s the only way I’ve survived. I think you feel the same.”

Well this, you can agree with him. “I do, yeah. I told you… you made this a home for me. For us.”

“We did, you know?” Braving another step forward, Gareth takes your hands. “I’ve never been in love before. Shut up, no,” he cuts you off as you start to interrupt, “just listen. I’ve never been in love – never been in a relationship, even.” He inhales a shaky breath, watching as his thumbs graze over your knuckles before flicking his stare to yours. “But I imagine if um, if I were… if I did love you… it would feel a lot like this.”

You can feel your chin wobble, stronger as feelings buried deep begin to emerge. His voice drops, a roughened husk as he tells you, “It would look a lot like this.”

“Gareth,” you stifle a sob that lodges painfully in your throat, “I –”

“Please,” his voice cracks thickly, “tell me I’m not crazy for feeling like this and thinking that part of you might feel this way, too.”

Your hold tightens on his hands, chest heaving to make up for the air you’ve lost. “G…”

“Yeah?”

His body stays rigid; perfectly still, a picture of respect while his eyes dart from your stare to your lips. Back and forth and back again; unconsciously, you find yourself tracing the outline of his upper lip with equal parts distress and wonder.

Because… what if?

You suck in a sharp breath through your teeth, unable to answer that question at the moment. “I need to go inside,” you whisper to the young man with a quick shake of your head, “I can’t…”

The answer he hears makes Gareth sway on his feet, stepping back to find his balance before rolling his lips inward and exhaling a long breath of defeat. You almost say something more, especially as you watch his eyes fall to the floor. The grip on your hands soon follows. Left standing without a physical tether to him, the pain sets in; a harsh vortex of contradiction slices into your skin.

You feel his eyes boring into your shoulder blades when you turn, racing out of the garage as fast as your feet can go – up the stairs to shut your bedroom door a little harder than expected. The slam of wood against wood echoes through the empty corridor, louder than the expulsion of a pitiful moan you didn’t realize you were holding in.

Pushing from the frame, you struggle to right your breathing. Heart thunders in your chest, pacing your room like a caged dog, teeth gnawing at the raw skin on the side of your thumb as you replay the conversation over and over in your mind. Conflicting emotions pull at your heart and sear a hole through your stomach so hot that it feels like you’re burning away from the inside.

Skin feels hot, flushed. From what, exactly? The crying? The yelling? The –

You can’t even allow yourself to think it, much less dwell on what it might mean.

Twisted thoughts, tangled feelings, all offering no clarity.

You should have seen this coming.

You absolutely, completely, totally should have seen this coming.

Why didn’t you see this coming?

A gasp catches in your throat as you hear the telltale creaking of the steps. Your entire body stills, desperate to be silent, stuck between wanting to jump under your covers to feign sleep and race to the door to lock it.

There’s a lull in the sounds of movement, and then the dejected click of a closed door down the hall.

A slow exhale of held breath whooshes out of your lungs, bringing with it no relief. Dropping your stare from the door, it’s drawn like a magnet to the Hellfire shirt that lies on top of the pile of dirty clothes. You couldn’t stop the tears from welling in your eyes if you tried.

Because if you let yourself think about it, bring down your guard and allow yourself to be truly, one hundred percent honest…

You most definitely saw this coming.

But, what you didn’t see coming?

How strongly you feel every bit of what he does.

“Oh, fuck…”

An abrupt spell of vertigo plops you on your bed, fingers bunching the material of Laura Emerson’s beloved quilt. You huff a watery laugh, running trembling pads over thick edges and delicate stitching, a physical representation of Gareth’s first real gesture when you arrived at his house all those months ago. Day in and day out, he poured himself into making sure he cared for you – and you weren’t blind to it.

You saw it happen. You let it happen. One could argue that you needed it to happen, though you wholeheartedly agree with his concession that it might not have been the best way for him to process what happened the day the Vecna upended his life.

He needed you, just as you needed him – and somewhere along the way, it changed for him. There could be a dozen and a half different instances where you could pick out his deepening affection at the time they occurred, but you didn’t. Selfishly, you pretended like you didn’t know what was happening.

But you did. You absolutely knew Gareth’s feelings had changed over those months… what remains is, when did it happen for you?

Is this denial, this suffocating guilt partly why you’re clinging to the idea that Eddie is still alive? It would be easier, sure… ignore the blossoming of appreciation and genuine happiness into adoration for the sake of what, exactly? Your resistance to feel something for another? Your need to stay rooted in the same place and refuse to move on?

Another shaky exhale rattles your chest, and you swipe your hand under your eyes to rid your face of your tears. If you’re being honest, the answer is yes.

To all of it. To every single murky excuse, to every single fantasy you clung to over the last eight weeks because of what, a notebook on a picnic table? The vehemence in which you held the belief that Eddie had returned for you faded just as fall bled its color into the gray of winter without him. Without another word or sign or dream of Eddie. Conversely, you clung to this coincidence harder, tried to believe more with each passing day, and you could tell it wore on your housemate.

It wore on you, too.

He said a lot of things just now, spoke some radical truths that quite frankly, you weren’t ready to hear. But you heard them, anyway. Tangled thoughts unwind the longer you sit at the edge of the mattress, and one thing becomes very clear:

He doesn't get to speak about himself like that.

You launch yourself off the bed, throwing open your door with a bang to cross the hall in two hard steps. A rough rap at his door, and then another bounces the hollow declaration of your presence outside his room, and you raise your hand again to grab his attention when it opens, and your heart leaps in your throat.

Gareth’s expression is a perfect blend of hope and despair, red-rimmed ice blue eyes swim with leftover tears, puffy no doubt from how much he’s rubbed at them. His thick eyebrows knit in confusion over his nose, but you don’t miss how they jumped in surprise, first.

“You don’t get to tell me what I want.”

It shocks you both, the gravelly intonation of your voice as you finally let months of repressed emotion surge to the surface. He wrinkles his nose, darting his stare between your eyes that are dead set on drilling what comes out of your mouth into his brain.

“What?”

“You don’t –” you straighten your spine, “get to tell me –” and take a half a step into his space, “what I want.”

His eyebrows shoot under his floppy fringe, and a cantankerous scowl pulls his mouth down. “When did I ever –”

Impossibly so, your heart rate kicks up even more, but you don’t waver once. “I know what I want and what I deserve. And you?” You allow a small smile to tug at your lips. “You’re not half of a version of anything, Gareth. You’re more than enough. Don’t you dare say something like that about yourself ever again.”

Before he can scoff at your words, before he can snark his retort that you know is coming, you bring your hands to cradle his face and press your lips to his.

Next Chapter ➡️

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“Hey Ed, have you come up with the rest of your solo for Save Me? ”  

Gareth ambles over to where Eddie sits at the old glass patio table, deep in concentration as he tucks the rolling paper to tightly wrap the first of several joints he plans to share over the course of this particularly intimate New Years Eve celebration. 

Eddie nods as his tongue flicks over the edge, glancing over his shoulder at his friend.  He affirms with a deep hum as he presses the edges together tightly.  

“Yeah, I got a little more out of it, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

You’re snapped from your blatant staring at Eddie’s deft fingers; that’s a take on his music you’ve never heard before. “If what will be enough?”

“Ahh, our latest quest, fair maiden, is to really arrive as a metal band.” Eddie grandly sweeps his arm in front of him.  Dipping his chin, he locks you in a severe gaze and intones like the DM he is, “It is high time we had ourselves a song unfit for the radio.”

Your eyes go round, watching his Cheshire-catlike grin crawl across his chiseled features while an eyebrow arches in delicate curiosity.  “Unfit for radio?”

Gareth snorts as he snatches the blunt from Eddie’s fingers.  “He means, Mayfield, a song that’s too long for station play.  Every metal band has one.”

“Every metal band that’s arrived, Gareth .”  Eddie attempts to reclaim what he’s just rolled from his friend, who turns his back just in time to avoid the aggressive swipe from Eddie’s long arms.

“You mean, Iron Maiden just released one,” Grant quips from behind Gareth, reaching across his friend to hand you a beer before smirking and rolling his eyes.  “And we gotta do everything Iron Maiden does.”

“Thanks,” you murmur, taking the cool aluminum can and cracking it open.  “What is considered too long for station play?”

Eddie scowls as he watches Gareth take the first hit, waiting until the cherry-red tip fades before grabbing it back and taking his own.  

“I dunno,” Eddie contemplates in a tight voice at the top of his inhale, “maybe around seven minutes?”

Your brow crinkles thoughtfully.  “Wasn’t Bohemian Rhapsody around six minutes?”

Eddie beckons you over to sit on his lap, wiggling his eyebrows expectantly.  You titter as you settle on his thighs, holding your beer away from your body while your face leans close to his.  He slowly exhales his hit into your awaiting mouth, trailing his long fingers along your spine as you breathe in the spice from his lungs.  

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he drawls with heavy lidded eyes, “but ours is longer than theirs.”  He gives you a salacious wink as Grant groans.

“You’re starting in on your pervy crap already?”

“Whatever, man.  You try to behave while she’s around.”

“Woah, now.  Woah.”  You swat Eddie across the chest as you wiggle off his lap.  “He’ll behave, Grant.”  Eddie gasps in mock indignation as you level him with a semi-serious stare.  “I’ll make sure of it.”

Your boyfriend becomes the primary target of friendly ribbing over the next half an hour while the joint is shared evenly between the five of you.  You’re starting to feel pleasantly settled as they arrange their gear to run through their latest quest , as Eddie called it: a piece of yours that the guys all worked together to finish over the last month to make it as long, or longer, than Iron Maiden’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, whose runtime – Jeff is always quick to remind – is a whopping 13 minutes.

Eddie, never wanting to be deterred, did finally shed some of his stubborn pride and agreed to settle on being thrilled if the song made it past the ten minute mark.

While the men of Corroded Coffin are excited, you’re a little less so given the events of the early morning at Eddie’s trailer with Gareth.  Of course they’d pick the fucking song that quite clearly (to you, anyway) detailed the events of the Fourth from the eyes of the victims of the Mindflayer.

Billy, especially.

Thankfully, there’s no singing to be had, yet – the boys are busy tuning and adding riffs here and repeating runs there, trying desperately to add as much as they reasonably can to make it past ten minutes.  And you – well, you’re trying to get in the right headspace to enjoy their efforts rather than be stressed about the content.  You’re so fucking sick of hearing about your content at this point, anyway.  

You take one last hit and pass it to Jeff, deciding to ignore the tiny, lingering speck of anxiety that stirs in your belly.  

A giggle bubbles over your lips as your eyes dart to the maniacal blur of black leather and frizzy curls; watching Eddie perform isn’t half as entertaining as watching him compose.  He’s a wrecking ball of waving arms and theatrical, flaring emotion.  Most of it could be misconstrued as wacky, aggravated or even condescending with the way he snaps and barks and groans at his bandmates – but they know differently.  It’s all done with wild eyes and big, bright smiles and voices that carry louder and louder as more beers are opened and roaches extinguished.

After a solid hour, there’s a buzzing thrill thrumming through the veins of each of the members of Corroded Coffin as they take their places to begin the first run-through.  The burst of laughter from all of you at Gareth’s expense is loud enough to rattle the windows when he trips over Eddie’s cord that lies in sloppy disarray around his station.  He’s red-faced and ready to rip into your boyfriend when a more mature version of his voice carries through the haze from the thrown-open door of the mudroom.

“Christ almighty guys, you couldn’t wait until we left the damn house?!”

The four members of Corroded Coffin – plus one – fall silent as heads whip to the house door where Mr. Emerson stands, arms crossed and face wrinkled in severe disappointment with the scene that’s laid out in front of him.

It’s several long seconds for the shock to wear off before Gareth stammers what can barely be considered a coherent response.

“Shiii –oot, dad.  We thought you and mom already left.” 

All eyes turn to Gareth, who over an hour ago had assured you all that his parents were gone for the evening at the Wheeler’s annual New Year’s Eve party and would be out until far past midnight, making the garage a perfect location for practice and the typical extracurriculars – one of which Eddie still holds between a trembling thumb and forefinger. 

“Well, we’re not.  Your mom’s still inside and if she catches a whiff –,” his arms gesture grandly in front of him, and you flinch, sinking back into yourself in your chair, “this party is most definitely over.”

“Shit,” Gareth mutters, stumbling from his perch on top of his amp to crack the window above the workbench.

His dad descends the stairs, eyes wide, hands cutting across his torso in short, chopping motions.  “Woah, no – Gareth, what are you doing?  Don’t open it,” he scolds as a tiny grin crooks the corner of his mouth, “we’ll be able to smell it walking over to the Wheelers.  C’mon son, use your head.”

The tense silence breaks, and it was that faint little grin that did it.  Jeff takes advantage.

“Yeah, Emerson,” he mutters, “use your head.”

Gareth pushes down on the frame to ensure it’s still closed and scowls at his friend.  “Oh, piss off Jeff.”  

“Ed, you done?”

Eddie’s eyes couldn’t be rounder if he tried.  “Y-yeah, Mr. Emerson.”  

“Well, bring it here,” he instructs tiredly, reaching to pinch the joint between his index and thumb.  “If I’m meant to deal with Ted Wheeler all night, I deserve a hit or two.”

Eddie snorts, handing it over.  “You could take the whole thing.  I’ve got plenty.”

Gareth’s father levels him with a deadpan stare, bringing the blunt to his lips.  “Maybe not the best thing to tell me, son.”  

His eyes, a carbon copy of his son’s (or is it the other way around?) drift to you where you lounge comfortably in your typical place on the bean bag.  Thick salt-and-pepper brows lift as he regards you, sifting through his memory of Gareth’s friends to try to arrive at some familiarity.

Eddie notices and waves off the joint that he tries to pass back.  “Uh, so this is my girlfriend, Mr. Emerson.”  Eddie stammers adorably over your name, still somewhat shaken by his presence and the fact that he’s not lost his shit at the sight of you all engaging in such illicit activities in his garage.

His face lights up as he takes one more drag from the joint, holding it briefly before blowing an elongated Ohh with his abrupt recognition . 

“So you’re the infamous songwriter.  I see.”  He quirks a half-smile, one that looks eerily like the one his son wears often, and he gives you a friendly wave.  “It’s really nice to put a face with a name.”

That puts you at ease.  “Oh, thanks Mr. Emerson,” you reply, trying to flush the shyness from the unexpected compliment out of your tone.

Gareth suddenly finds it of vital importance to fiddle with the dials on his amp, though the crimson sear to the tips of his ears has Eddie narrowing his eyes briefly while he tries to keep his glance at his friend neutral. The older man calls back Eddie’s attention and hands him back the blunt, which your metalhead gratefully takes.

“It’s Tim, hun,” he corrects genially as he lifts his collar to his nose and grimaces.  “Damn it.  I’m gonna have to change my shirt.  Your mom’s got a nose like a damn bloodhound.”

“Sorry, sir,” Grant mutters meekly, and Eddie echoes the sentiment.

He chuffs and nudges Eddie.  “Maybe I’ll keep it on.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and some of it will rub off on Ted and loosen him up a bit.”  He sighs heavily as he’s met again with stunned silence, and chuckling to himself, he bids you all farewell. “Be safe, you guys.”

Nodding towards you with a smile and a wave, he corrects himself, slipping through the door.  “Gal.” 

The door clicks shut, and a collective sigh shudders through five sets of lungs.

Eddie turns slowly, his legs twisting on themselves as he rotates on the balls of his feet towards his friends. “Oh my god, I thought we were all dead.”

It’s all Gareth can do to nod in agreement, eyebrows lifted high under the messy fringe of his ringlet curls. 

Grant steps behind the drum set and plops down in his seat. “Dude, when did your dad get cool?”

Shaking his head to knock himself out of his trance, his shoulders lift in a slow, bewildered shrug.  “Uh, tonight?  Apparently?”

Lighthearted chuckles break the tension, and it’s decided with maturity far past your years that maybe the weed — outside of the last joint that’s stubbed lonely in the ashtray in front of you — would stay stashed for another day. No need to push the luck that seemed to befall the band this evening. There had been enough to go around anyway, and after another hour of manifesting the collective genius of the band into the final pieces of their work, Eddie unbuckles his watch from his wrist and hands it to you. 

“I think we’re set, sweetheart — s’only right you do the honors.”

You brush your fingers delicately over the roughened skin of his knuckles. “Ten minutes,” you muse with an alluring smile, “got it.  Here’s hopin’ you go that long, Eds.”

Eddie’s mouth drops in shock, and you’re fighting like hell to keep a straight face while the rest of the band dissolves into hearty belly laughs.

His eyes narrow dangerously, conveying none of the intended darkness that the light from his grin chases away.  You bite the side of your thumb, giggling as your other hand comes to your chest in defense.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting all fucking night to say that and I cou-couldn’t resist!”

Eddie chuckles lowly, tugging you gently toward him. “You, my love, are going to pay dearly for that when I get you home.”

An eyebrow elevates in defiance.  “Good.”

“Mmmhmm,” Eddie hums skeptically, and before you can regain your comfortable position on your bean bag, he snatches the hair tie off your wrist, his wandering eyes run a seductive path over your frame, lingering with purpose on your lips before locking in your gaze and tying back his mane in a low ponytail.

Your lips part with your sharp exhalation, because god damn him, he knows exactly what he’s doing.  You narrow your eyes, and he slips you a wink as he shoulders his Warlock.

“You know damn well I’ll make it past ten, sweetheart.”

You shrug before any of your friends protest the innuendo.  “We’ll see.”

Still caught in the aftershocks of his snickers, Grant counts the band in and you press the start button on Eddie’s watch as soon as the sound waves that emanate from Jeff’s bass begin to thump and weave a delicious tempo through your veins. Your head tips back in your seat and you sigh, lost in the deep, rich vibrations as they echo in your bones. 

Fuck.  Anyone who isn’t affected by bass riffs as sexy as those must not be fucking breathing. 

The intro is a long one — the presto pace set by a cascade of furious flurry of drumsticks and matching turbulent downicking of the rhythm guitar that pairs expertly with Eddie’s warbling, supercharged chord progressions. It’s like walking through a dense wood in the dead of night, blind to your surroundings but knowing that heaviness you feel in your gut means something is there — that foreboding hits you square in the chest with Gareth's manic strumming, complimented by the sinister undertone of Jeff’s bass guitar. 

It’s heightened further as Gareth steps to his mic and rasps in a chilling whisper that sends a thrill down to your toes,

They all know They all know

This signals the end of the intro, and before Eddie begins the first verse in that beautiful tenor you love so much, you mouth two-oh-two! and in return are treated to a blinding, toothy smile as Grant thrashes the final piece on his bass and floor tom — they’re already two seconds ahead of schedule. 

Confidence shines brightly over the planes of Eddie’s face framed unfairly well by his errant curls, and his lips press into the microphone, eyes locked with yours as he croons,

Sorry did I wake your dream? Some questions run too deep We only, only wake up when we sleep

The addition of Gareth’s vocals to the last line is perfect, and you throw them a thumbs up, loving how haunting it sounds, melting gracefully into the next lines,

Led by the lunar light Trouble’s all we find Lost our way tonight

Broad shoulders stretch the worn fabric of his faded black tee further as Eddie heaves a deep breath, pushing forth gravel and grit into the pre-chorus of the desperate, pained cries of the flayed,

Is it somethin’ we said? Is it somethin’ we said to them? Is it somethin’ we said?

Eddie holds the note, a masterful ad-lib that as Gareth bouncing on the balls of his feet as he looks at his best friend grinding through with such force that his eyes remained pinched tightly together while Grant’s frantic tempo launches them into the chorus, 

Save me I'm trapped in a vile world Save me Where the endgame’s all the same as every other We're only here to die Save me

Save me I'm losing my only dream Save me I could use some guiding light Some place to go

If you hear me let me know

A quick glance of the tiny screen shows that they’ve well breached the three minute mark, nearing three and a half. You can’t help the grin that creeps across your face, crinkling your eyes and bunching your cheeks into those pinchable little apples that Eddie adores. 

He and Gareth return it in kind as they read the update from your silent lips, and Gareth takes his cue to begin the next verse. 

They all know They all know

Ever since the day you left My fate's been set unknown How many years to walk this path alone?

So much to see tonight So why'd you close your eyes? Why can't I shut mine?

Jeff comes in on harmony for the final bar and you hold back a squeal, tapping your feet against the floor in excitement with how fluidly their voices blend in delicious, stark contrast to the grit in Eddie’s voice as he begins the prechorus.

Is it something we did? Is it something we did to them? Is it something we did?

Save me I'm trapped in a vile world  Save me Where the endgame’s all the same as every other We're only here to die Save me

Save me I'm losing my only dream Save me I can use some guiding light Some place to go If you hear me let me know If you hear me let me know

You try to hide the pinched expression on your face as you check Eddie’s watch.  From what you recall from before, the guys had meant to be at five minutes at this point; as it stands, it’s only 4:45.

Shit.  Where had those fifteen seconds gone?

Grant shifts his tempo, changing the cadence of the song in stride with Gareth as Eddie’s guitar solo begins right at the five-minute mark.  The difference is mesmerizing, frantic in a way — evoking a range of feelings from frightened to disoriented to unvindicated and back again.  It’s exactly what you intended and again you’re left feeling so in awe of the band’s prowess of grabbing just what you want right out of the depths of your mind and making it real.

Jeff and Gareth’s voices wrap around you like a warm blanket, their euphonious ahhh in the middle of Eddie’s solo providing a haunting boost to the mystery of the tone.  Eddie nods in time with a toothy grin stretched wide across his face, loving what he hears while he rounds out his work on the strings with the extension he fabricated just yesterday.  His agile fingers flutter and fly over the fretboard, twisting and pressing in seemingly impossible arrangements only to flick to another and another at lightning speed.  

The heat from your involuntary blush spreads like wildfire up your neck, burning the apples of your cheeks.  For fuck’s sake – you’ve been with the man for nearly six months and still, the sight of his dexterity on his guitar still makes you weak with the need for him to run them over your body like they do over the notes of his solos.

You snap out of your reverie straight into the ever-darkening eyes of the lead guitarist, his smirk a clear indication that he caught you staring.  Your lips roll in, hiding your embarrassed smile.  Eddie’s chin tips up, widening that wicked grin as he rounds out the last of his part to dive into the lyrics.

Help me find my way Said, help me find my way

You tense where you sit, the bridge is here — the words dedicated to your brother who El knew was there, somewhere in his final hours, buried in the depths of those seaglass eyes.  

No pulse inside of me Stone cold lips and heresy All lies and to a degree Losing who I wanna be

The details came hesitantly from El in the days following Starcourt.  You’d been there at the cabin and obviously there in the atrium; you were desperate for any indication that there was still hope for Billy after it was feared his fate was permanently sealed. 

She couldn’t recall everything Billy said in the Void, but what she remembered was terrifying.  Though the prophecy fell foul from his lips in such ominous prose, she swore his eyes told a different story.  

It tore at your heart to know that he cried.  He spilled real tears from bloodshot sky-blue eyes as he spoke of the evil intention and dark promises of the Mindflayer – and despite what his words foretold, El knew he was still in there. 

It’s how she knew he was still there but he couldn’t be saved, not by himself alone.

You'll find out right now He may be out of his mind But someday you will find That sanity's left us all blind And dragged us all behind

You will yourself to hold Eddie’s gaze, desperately needing him to ground you while the bars that haunt you the most tumble from his lips,

A moment seen through those eyes Crystal blue disguise They say that all beauty must die I say it just moves on

A shiver snakes down your spine, as it does each time Eddie gets here, the climax of the bridge.  Such a large part of you remains wanting, wishing that you could see them again.  

For all of his flaws – and they were many and terrible, you know – his potential for good was strong, but not enough as fought and lost the battle against dusky shadows in the Void. 

An abbreviated transition, much like the one before the bridge, blares through the amplifiers, allowing Eddie to catch his breath and belt with the raw, sandpaper strength of his voice,

If you'd only open your mind Then someday you will find Insanity left us behind And walked right through the door

I can see the pictures clear as yesterday Pictures of my own I can hear the voices begging you to stay But know you're not alone

Jeff catches your eye as the guitarists barrel into the final pass of the chorus, and quickly flicking your eyes to the watch, you’re shocked to see that they’ve barely passed eight minutes.  You try to keep your face impassive, maybe it was you that misunderstood – maybe this is exactly where they need to be?

The corner of your mouth ticks up in a small smile for Jeff just as the bassist steps to the mic to add to the harmony,

Save me I'm trapped in a vile world Save me Where the endgame’s all the same as every other We're only here to die Save me

Save me I'm losing my only dream I can use some guiding light Some place to go

If you hear me let me know If you hear me let me know

You know in your heart there’s no way the last portion of the song lasted two minutes.  A quick peek at Eddie’s watch as he finishes his last chord progression with Gareth confirms it: the stopwatch crawls past 9 minutes, 17 seconds.

Shit.

Even if they hold on to the outro for a few more moments, it still won’t be long enough to surpass the ten minute mark.  Eddie’s looking at you expectantly, hopefully; and with a tiny scrunch of your lips, he knows they come up short of their target.  His face falls as his fingers chug through the last notes, and they hang heavy and discouraged in the hazy air.

Back to the drawing board, right?

Or…

You lean over, reaching to light the blunt left neglected on the table to take another hit.  A whisper of an idea stirs in your mind as you hold in the smoke, inversely becoming more clear as you surround yourself in the dense, peppery fog of your long exhale.  You catch Eddie’s eyes as you lean back in your chair, a lazy, lopsided grin on your face, hands clasping behind your head as you train your eyes to the ceiling.

You’ll try it on and see what they think, may as well articulate the mantra that ran through your mind like a broken record that night in July, where you were convinced that the fate of you and your friends was all the same as those who were already gone and flayed.

You take a deep breath, close your eyes and push the words into the space around you.  It’s soft at first, low against the gentle reverb that echoes through the garage.

Tonight we all die young

You can feel them look at you, their gazes bore hot little marks into your skin.  The burn spurs you on as you inhale and repeat with a stronger tone and a clearer cadence, 

Tonight we all die young

You hear Eddie strum a run of chords, and a languid smile spreads over your features as you hear him melt his tone with yours.  Your heart flutters and your confidence soars and you pitch forward in the chair to hold his gaze that blazes fervently for you. 

Tonight we all die young

Gareth watches you carefully, knowing you’re the lead and the rhythm of the outro, and he breathes in deeply in tandem with the rise of your shoulders; his low tenor blends with your high alto when he comes in.  Eddie pushes powerfully into a higher infection at the end of the line, and in a burst of moxie has you following Eddie up into his range.  The synchrony your voices attain as they meet at the top has his jaw dropping in both an impressed and genuine smile.   

Tonight we all die young

Jeff and Grant roll into the melody, tentative at first with the first go,

Tonight we all die young

Your feet hit the ground, bouncing on your toes in tandem with the rhythm Eddie keeps in his legs, and you let the synchrony of their sound carry you into a stronger, higher harmony with your lead guitarist,

Tonight we all die young

Gareth locks eyes with Eddie and slides the inflection lower, dropping the line shorter than the others.  Twin smiles crawl across the faces of the Corroded Coffin frontmen, the sound of their change injects the right amount of variance, spotlighting the tone in their rough and rich voices in a way you couldn’t have done on your own.

Tonight we all die

Grant must have loved it too – the way he goes feral on the drums as Gareth holds die has your belly swooping in excitement.  The strumming slows fractionally, indicating this’ll be last line of the outro, and Eddie mirrors their last tonal change and leads the charge, voice raw with adrenaline,

Tonight we all die young

As they repeat the original instrumental outro, you’re jolted by your own realization that you haven’t checked the watch in what seems like forever.  Bumbling fingers trip over themselves with your frenzied attempt to adjust the watch and visualize the time so you can tell them –

Your screech is ear-splitting, both Gareth and Jeff flinch and scowl reactively as you jump around in front of Eddie like a loon. 

“Ten – omigod, ten!  FUCK!  Ten fifty-fucking-four!”

The high from achieving the goal in such fantastic fashion that it has the band roll through the song two more times before finally coming down to take a breather long enough to watch as the clock strikes twelve and launch you all into 1986.

Eddie’s lips find yours right at midnight, moving and molding with you as you’re thrust into your own world. No noise, no one else – just you and Eddie and the soft intimacy of skin against skin.  It’s chaste in the perfect way, the kind that leaves you satisfied yet still wanting more.

But isn’t that how it always is with him?

The pounding of your heart and the fluttering in your chest as he pulls away and sets those dark chocolate doe-eyes on you lets you know that yeah – it is always like that with Eddie.

He pulls you into his lap, the slope of his nose nuzzles into the side of your neck and you’re again reminded just how lucky you are to have this affectionate rock-god of a boyfriend, which in turn jogs your memory…

“Hey, guys?”

Jeff looks over his shoulder before leaning out the door to grab another round from the case of beer set outside. “What’s up, Mayfield?”  

You clear your throat, trying to shove down the excitement and appear nonchalant.  “I got you all a Christmas present.”

Eddie twitches so violently in surprise that his ponytail nearly slips out of its tie.

“You did what?”

“Yeah, uh – kind of!  It’s nothing, really.”

Grant calls your bluff.  “Oh, it’s definitely something.  Spill it, Mayfield.”

“Well –,” a hesitant smile creeps across your features, “you’re gonna have to move practice on Sunday the 12th.”  Your eyes shift expectantly from one member to another. “To the studio at HCC.”

You’re met with silence and four pairs of wide-eyed stares.

“I, uh – you have a half-day session booked?  I booked it for you, with – um, I think two or three guys from the upper level class –”

Grant chokes over his words, like he can’t get them out fast enough. “We’re gonna record?”

The light in your eyes brightens.  “Yeah!  Yes.  It’s just for their end of semester project, so… yes.  Is that okay?”

“Is that – ha!”  Gareth plows into you, knocking you from Eddie’s lap, quickly followed by Grant.  “Fucking right , it’s okay!”

“Guys, you’re suffocating her –,” Eddie scoffs as Jeff follows, slamming into your side, wrapping his arms around his two bandmates already squeezing with brute force elevated by their elation.  

You grunt as a puff of air is forced from your lungs with the ferocity of Grant’s embrace.  “Gahhgh – don’t get all excited, it’s just the community college –”

Gareth mimics your voice in a high falsetto.  “Don’t get all excited, she says!  Fuck that, we’re jacked!”

“Don’t!” you wheeze a weak laugh.  “Their equipment isn’t at all that new and you’re not working with like, professionals or anything…”

Eddie’s arms wind between Jeff and Gareth’s faces to cup your cheeks and smoosh them together.  Gareth guffaws at your expense as Eddie purses your lips comically, and you’d shoot him a withering look if you weren’t so happy at their collective reaction.

“Baby,” Eddie breathes through a manic grin, “we do not care one iota what the equipment is like.  You gave us a chance to record. ”

Jeff is the first to release you, initiating a chain reaction of relenting arms that has you able to catch your breath.  

“How did this even happen?!”  

Your hands clasp around Eddie’s wrists and guide them away from your mushed cheeks. “I figured out who didn’t have a project going.  There’s a group of three and I know one of ‘em — I talked to Andrew and he said they’d be really glad to have you guys for their project.”  

Eddie pulls you to his side and kisses the top of your head.  “You organized this when?”

“Right before break.  Wanted to save the news for tonight when I knew we’d all be together.”

Eddie's lips caress the shell of your ear.  “Baby, that is so fucking metal.”

A shiver runs down your spine so strong you hardly hear Grant questioning, “Why us?”

“Uhhm –,” you giggle and lightly shove a grinning Eddie away, “why not?  They were pumped to have a real band come in.  Most students in that class are recording themselves, I guess.”

Jeff snickers.  “Bor ing.”

“Recording themselves doing what, exactly?” Gareth cackles.  “Mayfield, what kind of operation is HCC running over there, huh?”

His antics make you snort through your nose, bewildered eyebrows crinkling over your eyes.  “What?”

Eddie’s exceptionally long reach proves helpful in this moment as he delivers a whack to the back of his friend’s head.  “Dude,” he chastises with a roll of his eyes, “c’mon.”

“What?!  It was funny!”

Grant groans and lopes his arm around Gareth’s neck to put him in a headlock.  “It really wasn’t.  Not as funny as y’think you are.”

“Oh, whatever.  I’m plenty funny,” he grunts as he struggles against Grant’s monster hold.  “Fuck you guys.”

“God damn.  Happy fuckin’ new year to me.”

Eddie lies reclined against his pillows, left hand curled around the back head, gripping his mane to distribute the white-hot need that floods to his groin, aided from the lazy stroking of his right hand along the length of his cock.  

You watch the flick and drag of his wrist with heavy eyes, your own hands trail a featherlight path over your tummy, trickle over the swell of your breasts and across your chest at your collarbone, sending a shudder of goosebumps down your spine.

“You like?”

Eddie’s grip tightens on his cock as it jumps at the husk in your voice.  

“Fuck yeah, I like.”  The molten honey in his stare drips in a thick cascade over your body, his tongue runs along his bottom lip while he drinks you in.

When you tried the lingerie on in the store, yes – you were pleased with how you looked.  The way the sheer, velvety-soft material clung to your curves, accentuating them in all the right places had you more than excited to show it to Eddie.  It was still a little intimidating, knowing all of you would be on display, flaws and all – but right now, as Eddie pumps his dick that looks painfully hard at just the sight of you in this outfit – you can’t for the life of you name one fucking thing to be self-conscious about.

The skin on your chest prickles in response to the change in direction of your hands, your fingers tease their way down your sternum to cup your breasts along the underwire, mouth parting with a sharp inhale as your thumbs skim your hardened nipples through the lace.

“What would you like to do?”

Eddie’s eyes flutter closed, the low groan he emits echoes against the walls, enveloping you in the small space of his bedroom.  

“So fuckin’ much, princess.”

“Yeah?” your wispy sigh is dripping in desire.  “Tell me.”

He grunts, thrusting harder into his hand.  The lewd sounds of slippery skin-on-skin fill your ears as Eddie speeds up, bringing himself close to the brink.

“I – I, fuck – ‘m gonna make that pussy scream for me, baby,” Eddie rasps between hitched breaths.  “Gonna get you so worked up, you’re gonna be beggin’ me to stuff you full.”

A feminine moan is wrenched from your throat, the throbbing of your pussy so strong it makes your knees weak.  The light steps you take put a notable sway in your hips, closing the distance to his bed, your pinked skin flushing further under the intensity of his gaze.  Cocking your head to the side, you put on your best sultry-sweet and innocent tone and ask,

“What’re ya waiting for?”

Eddie’s palms slam against his mattress, bracing himself as he surges off the bed.  His hands wind into your hair, squeezing that sweet tension through your scalp as he kisses you roughly.   His length is hard and hot against your belly, pressing firmly against superheated skin, the frank sensation makes Eddie inhale sharply through his nose as his tongue parts your lips to slide in a sultry dance with yours.  You reflexively hitch your leg up to hook around his hip in an attempt to slot his cock against your ever-dampening panties and provide that contact you’re both longing for.   Big palms splay behind your thighs in a firm grip, lifting you from the floor and pinning you against the wall.  His mouth works furiously in rhythm with yours, frenzied open-mouthed kisses swallow moans and whines with every hard rut of his cock against your sex. 

He reaches away from his body for a moment, and you’re vaguely aware of how his position shifts slightly to follow before those supple lips rip from yours to travel in a searing path down your neck, planting white-hot kisses and sucking fiery marks into the sensitive skin like a man starved.

One well-placed pull of his mouth against your skin has you moaning, high and needy.  “Eddie, fuck –”

He grunts, relishing in the purpling bruise he’s just made under the angle of your jaw.  “Yeah baby, okay,” he grits in your ear, spinning you away from the wall and walking you back to his bed.  

You don’t get the chance to chase his lips before the deceptive strength of your man’s upper body launches you to land at the headboard.  You squeal in surprise, body bouncing once on his worn mattress before Eddie’s over you in a flash, a devilish smile curls across his kiss-stained lips.

Your eyes grow large, pupils dilating impossibly more as you watch Eddie’s umber eyes rove over your heaving chest, the curves of your waist bracketed by his powerful legs at your hips, the smooth extension of your hands above your head.  He chuckles darkly at the surprise for your abrupt change in position, capturing your lower lip between his teeth and sucking hard.  Your eyes flutter closed as you groan, lifting your hips to satisfy the slow burn that’s ever-intensifying low in your belly.

Eddie shifts on top of you, lacing his fingers in between yours as he grinds his cock into the slick heat between your thighs.  It’s sweet relief and yet not even close to enough, the tension rises at every apex of the undulation of your hips.  You’re lost, out of your mind drowning in the sinful sensations that are all Eddie, Eddie, Eddie – 

Until you hear it – the clean, metallic snap and the stark, cool press of steel at your wrist makes you choke on your gasp in shock, watching in lustful awe as Eddie threads his handcuffs through a slat in his headboard and masterfully secures the other above your head. 

His eyes are darkened pools of depravity, ready to rip and tear you apart at the seams, but his voice still harbors the care and control needed to ask,

“This okay?”

You’re nodding wildly before he’s finished asking, making his smile positively crazed.  “Ye-yeah, it’s okay.  I – wow,” you breathe, licking your lips as your stare trains on his, “I’m so – wow. ”

His voice is all sandpaper and sex.  “Yeah?”

The rather precarious position he’s put you in accentuates the way your breasts rise and fall with every panting breath you take.  “Y-yeah, Eds – I think I might really be into this.”

His snicker tickles your ears, making the hair on the back of your neck stand straight and your nipples pucker.  “Oh yeah?” he husks as twin pools of the darkest brown rake over your frame beneath him. “Just you wait.”

A pitiful whimper is pulled from the bottom of your lungs with every featherlight kiss he plants along your neck.  “Let me know if it’s too much, okay?”

Your jaw drops in a sharp gasp, the warmth of his tongue over the intersection of your neck and your shoulder a welcome surprise, and you arch your back to encourage him further.  

“Mmmhmm,” you hum, succumbing to a sultry, sinful swipe along your collarbone.

Eddie chuckles and pulls his mouth away from your chest.  “I need words from you,” he commands, soft yet serious.  

The severity of his tone makes you shiver.  “I’ll say something, I promise.”

His lips tilt with his head as he tips you a lurid grin.  “What will you say?”

It’s not condescending how he asks, but you can’t help but blush at your inexperience.  “Um… stop?”

He doesn’t balk or tease.  The look he gives you is positively wicked.  “I plan to do things to you that will have you telling me no when you really mean yes, begging me to stop when you really want me to keep going.  And baby,” his eyes bore into yours, swirling with shameless, carnal smoke, “I’m gonna keep going.”

A shuddering breath gets caught in your throat, and you reflexively strain against the cuffs.  “Oh.”

He snickers, ember eyes flicking to where you’re chained.  “Damn right, oh.  I’m not stopping unless you’re absolutely sure you need me to.”

Your brain takes far too long to process this.  “O-okay, um…,” you stammer, squirming under Eddie’s hips, searching for more friction from his erection that is still throbbing against your cunt.  “H-How will you know?”

His hips lift away from you, removing the source of delicious relief, and you grunt indignantly at the loss.  “I’m so glad you asked.  How about… we use colors, like on a stoplight.”

The way you snort through your nose suggests you think he’s joking.  “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”  His features soften in genuine assurance, and it makes your heart clench fondly.  “Think about it.  Green means go, yellow means slow down or pause…”

“Ha.  Red means stop.  That’s genius, Eds.”

“Ahh, well,” he chuffs with a sly grin, his eyes drop from your gaze humbly, “Not an original idea of mine, but –”

He cuts himself off with a sweet kiss to your lips, his tongue slowly pushes into your mouth to lick and tangle with yours.  He keeps his hips high above you, removing all opportunity to quell the ache that burns hotter between your legs.  Eddie turns his head, slotting his mouth more deeply, passionately moving in tandem with your lips.  He’s ignited your insides, melted your skin – and he’s barely touched any part of you, yet.

A low groan rumbles through his chest as his tongue drags along the roof of your mouth, the sound so wanton it makes you answer with one of your own.  He’s kissing you senseless and it’s all you have to keep yourself present, to match his every erotic move when you feel the rough pads of his fingers trail lightly over the seam that plunges down your chest.

You inhale sharply, the fractional drop of your chin has you breaking the kiss without pulling your lips away.  His touch is so soft, barely-there, dragging calloused skin and blunted nails along the butter-soft fabric, but the sensation flares your desire and has you arching into his hand. 

Eddie chuckles, flicking his tongue over your bottom lip that’s still dropped open, lost in the feel of his sandpaper skin against the thin barrier.  Your eyes flutter closed as he rasps his index finger over your breast, teasing and dragging painfully slowly over the swell of the fabric that sharply dips at your sternum.  He rotates his hand and runs his knuckles down the center seam to where it stops just before your belly button, and you whine when he stops short of running those agile fingers over your tingling skin that aches for his attention.

He repeats the tortuous ministrations over the other breast, fingers over fabric, careful not to touch anywhere that isn’t covered by silken lace.  You’re caught between watching the slow path his hand takes along your lingerie and slamming your eyes closed to stop yourself from begging, pleading for him to hurry the fuck up and touch you already.

You know what he’d say, and yet you ask for it anyway.

“Baby,” you whine through a reedy exhale, “please –”

Little puffs of warm, sultry air from Eddie’s mouth swirl around yours as he huffs an abrupt laugh.  “Please what?”

You groan, feeling his fingers dance along the side of your breast and along the underwire of the bodice. “Touch me, please.”

He presses his plush lips to the corner of your mouth.  “I am touching you.”

You think you’ve got him, his middle finger traces the garter that dives from your belly to your upper thigh.  The cuffs clink as you shift, hitching your leg in an attempt to grant him access to your pussy that pulses so hot and aroused with every frantic beat of your heart that it almost hurts.  His powerful thighs clamp around yours, preventing that rotation you want to encourage the contact you crave.  

“Nah, ah, princess,” Eddie scolds, smiling against the skin of your neck that’s started to shine with perspiration, “you stay still.  Relax and enjoy this.”

You mean to scoff, but it comes out more like a garbled moan, needy and desperate.  “R-relax?  Fuck, Eds, this is – just want you.”

“I meant what I said.”  His tone changes, shifting to a darkness you’ve not explored fully to imply your obedience.  

It fucking excites you.

His expression darkens as he watches you writhe under the severity of his gaze.  “This is the only way I can think to put you through all of my foreplay,” he intones lowly, the bass in his voice reverberates through his chest and zings across your skin like a livewire.  

A wicked smile splits wide over his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes but does nothing to soften the intensity in which those twin pools of muddy onyx pin you in your place.

“You be a good girl and take it, now.”  

It’s like he’s lit the short fuse and it simultaneously detonates, spilling molten desire from your core to the tips of your fingers that squeeze into balled fists, yanking and straining against the metal.  You squeeze your eyelids shut, tipping your head back between your arms as you whimper,

“Fuckk–”

Eddie’s pillowy lips latch to your pulse, sucking a mark into the sensitive skin.  His tongue soothes the sharp soreness that blooms and runs a hot stripe up the cord in your neck to below your ear, planting more hot little kisses along your jaw.  

His breath ghosts over your lips.  “Color?”

Your arms flex against the cuffs, the leverage helps you arch your back and press your chest against his.  “Jesus, Eddie,” you sigh as your nipples scrape against hard, heated skin.  “Green.”

He works his mouth over the smooth column of your throat.  “Hmmm.  You gonna take it?”

Your eyes fly open in desperate submission.  “Ye-yeah,” you mewl, nodding furiously.  “I am –”

A deep, raspy laugh spills from his kiss-swollen lips at your eager docility.  “I think you need something more, though?”  

To make a point, he slots his weeping cock against your barely-covered pussy, rutting through your soaked folds and assuring the velvety steel of his length slides over your clit before pulling away.  The teasing is driving you wild, effectively frying your brain.

“Oh god...”

His lips hover above yours, and you can feel them brush over you as he holds that fractional distance, a delectable tease.  “How about my mouth?”

Your groan is wanton, uninhibited as it rattles off the walls of his room.  “Yes!”

“What do you say?”

“P-please, Eddie —”

Your begging is cut short by a surprised yelp; Eddie’s broad hands grasp at your waist and flip you on your stomach in one swift movement, crossing the long chain of the cuffs just above your hands, the increased tension pulling you slightly forward.  He wastes no time giving you what you crave, the abrupt skin-on-skin contact has you whining into his pillow as his tongue blazes a sinful path up your spine to the nape of your neck.  You arch your back against his body, relishing the way his cock presses over the rounded, plush curves of your bum has you both huffing with pleasure.  Your cunt pulses, begging to be filled, and you give your hips a subtle wiggle that has him rumbling a warning in his chest before nipping at your shoulder.

“Watch yourself, baby,” he reminds you roughly, soothing his love bite with a hot, open-mouthed kiss.  You whimper as you relent, silently thanking him for keeping his cock pressed against you as he continues to tongue and lick and tease along the fabric of your bodice.

Every inch of you is on fire, every part of you begs for his touch, and all you can manage are pathetic little whimpers and gasps with each nip and suck and kiss he caresses over your skin that tingles and burns like the nerves are aflame.  The bodice mercifully spans over a greater area across your back, which leaves little room for him to tease over bare skin once he’s run that villainous tongue of his down the straps and over the delicate lace beneath your shoulder blades.  Allowing yourself to think for a moment that he’s close – you’re close to getting what you crave, more of what you need, you hum contentedly, smiling as you press your cheek into the rich musk in his pillow.

Nothing escapes this man.  He chuckles as he takes the silken material between his teeth and stretches it tight, releasing it back against your dewy skin with a harsh snap.

“What’s got you so happy, baby?” he coos, condescension painting his tone as he hears you gasp.

You chuff indignantly, burying your face in his pillow as you pull against your bondage, biceps flexing and making the steel clank sharply.  “Nothing…,” you trail off in a muted, reedy whine.

His mouth dips lower; the warmth of his breath swirls over the swell of your ass.  

“Nothing, hmm?”

The anticipation is consuming you, burning you to ash and dust from the inside out.  It’s involuntary how your hips cant into his, determined to give yourself over to any friction you’d be lucky enough to find.  

Just as you think you’ve found some with how the lace of your g-string rubs against the coarse fibers of his sheets, his hands yank your hips from the bed, deepening that beautiful arch in your spine.  You feel so exposed the way your ass is presented to him like it’s on a goddamn silver platter, but you know that fuck, this is doing it for him as much as it is for you.  

The throbbing, the ache between your thighs borders on painful, sharp, feral – and it has you nearly screaming in frustration.  Your bottom lip blanches with how hard you bite down, swallowing your pitiful, needy grunts and a snarky retort that would likely get you in trouble and farther away from his mouth and cock where you really want them.

Eddie’s hands rasp over your bare cheeks, squeezing and kneading the ample flesh so hard that he dimples and divots the skin with every press of his fingers.  He groans, a heady noise full of lust and need.

“Fuck, I’ll tell you what makes me happy.” The gravel in his voice makes him sound animalistic and it sends a fresh wave of heat over your skin, flushing it so thoroughly you feel it prickle as it sweeps like a blanket over your form.

You gasp as his large hands wrench your thighs apart, the rugged path of calloused pads ignite a wave of goosebumps over the sensitized flesh.  It takes you a moment to register the chill you feel is from slick arousal that has soaked your inner thighs, dripping from your pussy that has gone neglected for so long.  The goosebumps multiply and pucker, spreading like wildfire and hardening your nipples, the overly-sensitive nubs peaking painfully hard against the lace.

Eddie scoffs softly, and the bed dips as he shifts further behind you.  He grunts your name, and the gravel in it makes a breath hitch in your throat.

“I love seeing your pussy so messy for me.”

You’re vaguely aware how he moves, but it isn’t until you feel the heat of his mouth against your inner thigh that you tense, willing him with a pitchy gasp to finally give in and ravage you. 

The juxtaposition of the heat from his tongue against the cool, sticky slick on your skin is erotic and filthy and everything – and it has you calling out his name like a prayer.

“Ahhh – Eddie, ohhhyeah – ,” you keen, parting your thighs farther in a desperate attempt to bring his mouth closer to your weeping cunt.  His tongue flicks and drags over the lace of your stockings, and not an inch higher.  “Baby, please!”

He refuses to relent.  Hell, he doesn’t even act like he’s heard you.  The tortuous teasing of his mouth continues at a crawl, seemingly tracing every millimeter of the intricately woven borders, the infinite twists and turns of his tongue simultaneously send you higher but never reaching that level of ecstasy needed to bring you close to release.

Eddie knows exactly what he’s doing.

A clasp of a garter stops his progress, and he pauses after planting a wet kiss at the junction of your thigh and your bum.  Lifting his hand, he brings his finger under the strap and hooks it, pulling it taught before letting it go to slap harshly against your skin.  You answer with a sharp intake of breath as your pussy clenches around nothing, delighting in the sharp sting and pulsing with your want for more.  

“Hmm, did my girl like that?” Eddie asks, hooking his finger around the strap again.

“Yes,” you breathe without hesitation, and Eddie snickers at the neediness that drips from your slackened lips.

He pulls back farther, the smack of the tightened fabric against your ass reddens the skin, the heat blooms and pools between your legs.  Your soft moans are pitiful with the way you try to stifle them at the back of your throat, and it has Eddie snickering as he unclips the first garter, and then the second.

He plants a gentle kiss on your cheek.  “Doin’ so good for me,” he murmurs against your skin.  You hear him inhale with another kiss on your other cheek as he releases the clasp on the next clip, his progress halted with a loud groan.

“Christ, woman,” he grits coarsely, and before you can ask what’s got him so seemingly agitated, his hands grab the tops of your thighs to hold you still as he buries his face in your cunt.

It’s overwhelming, how he’s shocked you with such a sudden action, the sensation of the slender slope of his nose practically wedged between your puffy folds has you crying out like you’re in pain.  

“Ed – yeahohh –!”  You thrust your hips back against him, pushing his face farther between your legs in a frantic attempt to tempt him to lick you, suck you, fuck you, anything –

It seems his patience is waning.  Eddie grunts, long and low as he inhales deeply, basking in your sweet, musky flavor before sweeping your legs out from under you and flipping you on your back again.  He’s on you immediately, kissing and sucking smooth, salty skin at your neck before moving south at a feverish pace.

“God, baby please,” you beg as you try to wiggle a leg out from under his strong hold at your hips, “n-need you, need you, please –”

His hands follow his lips as he trails over your chest and breasts.  “I know,” he assures you, the husk deep in his voice, “let me hear it, beg for it, sweetheart.  Fuckin’ beg me.”

His lips are lush and soft in their blazing path over the curves of your belly, but the fire that burns with each searing kiss and nip and bite has you panting, each punctuated with its own feeble whine that climbs higher the closer he comes to your sex. 

How you’re this close to coming, you’ll never know, never understand – all that’s on your mind is an obsessive want, a desperate need for Eddie to put his mouth on you.  You need it like you need air, the very thought of it has you gasping for breath, straining against the cuffs with such force that it makes you dizzy.

He’s so close, so tantalizingly near your pussy as he drags his tongue along the top hem of your thong, your nonsensical babbling and pleading fill his ears while he dips lower, widening your legs with a firm push at your knees.  Your breath catches with the dip of his head, your toes curl as you feel the faint path the tip of his nose takes over your seam, ghosting over your clit and sliding softly over your sopping folds.  Your panties are ruined, completely drenched, legs shaking on either side of his face impatiently while you wait for him to devour you whole.  You couldn’t care less if he doesn’t move the fabric out of the way at this point, with how your desire boils hot in your core has you believing you’ll come as soon as you feel that sinful, delectable swipe of his tongue through your pussy.

Eddie purses his lips and turns his head, planting soft, too-gentle kisses just to the side of your center, and it takes everything you have not to clap your thighs around his head and force his hand.  You moan, a high-pitched, pathetic sound, and you feel him smile with he next featherlight kiss he presses into the opposite thigh.  

He wants you to beg?  Yeah.  At this point, you’ll fucking beg.

“Eds…”

You hardly recognize your voice with how reedy it sounds.  “God, Eds – please, please kiss me – touch me, I need you so, so badly baby,  please –”

You hear him hum his approval with another kiss, closer to your cunt this time.  Your heart kicks up, beating at breakneck speed while your brain tries to formulate any semblance of a plea when his tongue slips under the satin of your panties and dives between your folds in one bold, wide, flat swipe.  

The firm, tantalizing pressure of his tongue stuns your core and sends you reeling as your vision whites out for the briefest moment, crying to the ceiling in ecstasy.

“Fu – ahh, yes!”  Trembling hips that hurtle dangerously close to release follow the broad path up and then – away.  You’re unable to fully appreciate the flood of searing pleasure that wrecks your body before it’s ripped literally out from under you, unwinding and uncurling, the heat abruptly dissipating as Eddie purposefully comes short of licking over your clit.

“NO!” a growl borne of fevered frustration rattles in your throat, your hips leave the mattress in a weak attempt to chase the depravity that is promised by his tongue.  “No, no, no –”

Eddie doesn’t misunderstand you, not in the least.  The menace in him plays like he does, patronizing you in the most exaggerated way.

“Oh, you don’t want my tongue in your cunt?”  He slithers backwards, away from the molten, pulsing ache at the apex of your thighs, and you groan louder, almost angrily.

“No!  Baby, fuck – please –”

He’s a devil of the first degree.  “I mean, we don’t have to –”

The edge in your voice is razor sharp, and you know you should control it better, lest he uses it against you as a punishment, but you can’t stop the fiery wave of sexual frustration that surges through you even if you tried.  

“Agghh, Eddie, god damn you!”

Eddie is over your body in a flash, his torso pressing a you-shaped divot into the bed and his hand flies to grab your face, his long fingers spanning the slope of your jaw and flexing, causing your cheeks to mush together and your lips to pucker.

The darkness in his eyes matches the grit in his tone.  “Don’t.”  

Your pussy throbs painfully at his show of dominance, the hard lines of your peaking lust sharpening with every panting breath that puffs out of your mouth.  You attempt to level him with a withering glare, and he quirks a patronizing eyebrow.

“Think you’re tough, huh princess?”

Narrowing your eyes, you decide to ride this wave – you can feel the steel of the cuffs digging into your wrists like the way his cock digs into the plush of your thigh – hot, heavy and impossibly hard.  You know he’s desperate for you just as you are for him with the way his hips subtly rut into the softness of your leg slicked by the precum that drips from his slit. 

A low moan rumbles at the back of your throat, and he releases your cheeks from his grip.  Pinching your chin between his thumb and forefinger, he jerks your head up to catch your gaze.  His chest is heaving, the pinking skin darkening with every breath, the way his curls frizz and stick to his forehead make him look positively wild.

“God damn,” he growls, “you look so fucking good.”

His hand drops from your jaw and paws at your breast, pinching and rolling your nipping over the lace as he slams his lips to yours in a bruising kiss that’s all carnal desire, tongue and teeth.  He moans as he licks into your mouth, swallowing your filthy, needy cries that border on sobs.  His deft fingers tug hard at your nipple and you whine loudly, breaking the kiss with a shout that sounds something like his name.  His ministrations are gasoline to the fire, and it takes flame instantly, thrusting you towards release in a way you never thought possible.

You twist and wriggle beneath him, hips bucking to quell that burn, that need at your core with friction against your clit that is just out of reach.  You whimper in frustration, teetering so close to the edge but needing more, more of him to push you to your end.  He senses it and in a moment of mercy, his lips disengage from yours, a line of saliva tethers you together before it breaks and lands in lewd disarray against your chin, and Eddie’s head dips to suck your pert nipple between his teeth, over the lace of your bodice.

“Eddie, Eddie!”  Voice is hoarse and raw, “Fuck, fuck – oh my god please –”

You slam your eyes shut as your vision spots, growing more lightheaded with every frantic breath as Eddie’s mouth persists over your breast.  The friction of the satin over your skin is exquisite, igniting your passion that flows like rolling rapids through your core, pulsing and crackling with your need.  Your pleasure soars higher and closer still, winding the coil of your release dangerously approaching your climax.

He nearly sends you into space with an unintentional thrust of his hips against your leg, his position shifts just enough to slot his aching cock against your pussy, and you both moan in tandem, relishing in the brief reprieve from the white-hot tension that has stretched between you to its limit.  

“Fuckk, baby,” Eddie mutters against your breast, and he ruts his length through your clothed folds again, rolling his hips slowly to ensure a long, delicious drag through your cunt.  The blunt head of his cock nudges your clit, the shockwaves from the much-needed contact spasm and contract in your low belly with such force that it toes the line between pleasure and pain.

“Ed – Eddie… baby please, n-need –,” you babble, and Eddie flips the fabric covering your breast down as he murmurs I know against your skin, and takes your nipple into the wet heat of his mouth.

You swear you see stars as you’re overcome with the erotic sensations – his tongue laves at your breast, sucking hard at your pebbled nipple while he continues to thrust along the slick heat of your clothed sex.  He has you now, your orgasm comes rushing in – you’re gonna come like this, you’ve never come like this, but he has you so fucking close –

And then he drags his tongue under your nipple, trapping it between his teeth.  A pornographic scream is ripped from your throat, and in the haze that descends as your pleasure climbs to the peak, teetering on the edge of release, you’re very aware of how you bawl and cry his name loud enough to wake the whole trailer park.

Fine.  Let them all know that it’s Eddie Munson that’s fucking the very life out of your body.

Eddie stills, sucking in deep breaths through his nose, his mouth pops off your breast as his forehead rests against your sternum.  You’re both shaking, about to explode, and you’re about ready to tear into him for bringing you to the brink again when he emits a low groan and brings his hips away from your cunt.

“Shit,” he breathes, the sultry exhale swirls over your dampened skin, “too close, princess.”

Your eyebrows knit together, hardly able to hear him over the pounding of your heart in your ears.  “Hmm?”

Eddie chuckles and plants a wet kiss in the center of your chest.  “Gonna make me come like that.”

You huff petulantly, your wits returning as the coil unwinds, pulling you back away from the edge.  Again.  

“I was gonna come like that.”

He tosses you a toothy grin.  “Oh, I know.”

Your eyes go impossibly large, and your arms flex against your restraints.  “You insufferable ass –”

The retort gets lost in the plush press of Eddie’s lips against yours.  “Be nice, my sassy girl, and I’ll have you coming harder than you ever have on my tongue.”

Your belly swoops heavily, anticipation sends a shiver down your spine.  “Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah.”  

And he’s off of you, reaching above your head to grab a pillow and lifting your hips with one hand, he shoves it under your ass with the other.  He wastes no time, tearing your panties down your legs and dropping to his stomach as he throws your thighs open wide.  

Though you can’t see him, you can hear in his groan how the sight before him affects his state greatly.

“Christ,” he draws out the vowel, nuzzling between your pussy lips with his nose, “you’re beautiful.”

That sinful tongue waits no longer and plunges deep into your heat, and it’s everything you can do to remind yourself to breathe.  Tears prick the corners of your eyes as your gasps hitch higher with every thrust of his tongue deep in your cunt, every nudge of his broad nose against the swollen bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex.  You’re dizzy, drunk on his mouth and it’s been no time at all.  That searing burn, that superheated coil that cooled and lay in wait as you begged him to give you what you want surges back to life, winding tighter and flaring hotter than ever before as he fucks you with his tongue.

You think he may be right.  He’s gonna make you come harder than you ever have all over that insufferable mouth of his.

The way he’s lapping and twisting and thrusting that tongue with such depravity in your pussy rockets you toward your release faster than before.  You cant your hips, trying to grind your clit against his nose and bring you all the way over, but it’s just out of reach.  

“Eds – god, please!” you moan, undulating your his desperately, eyes rolling back in your head as his tongue dives deeper inside of you.  “N-n-need – unngghh – fuck, need it, Ed!”

The tears come freely now, that coil winds so tight it’s sharp and painful, spasming those muscles of your pelvic floor to their limit.  “I – I – so close –”

A thunderous grunt rumbles possessively in his chest.  He withdraws from the honey-sweet depths of your pussy, licking a wide, flat path up your seam and latching to your clit that throbs and begs for attention.  As soon as he makes contact, his two middle fingers plunge deep in your cunt, immediately crooking against your front wall as he sucks hard, increasing the friction with a filthy shake of his head over that crackling bundle of nerves.

Blood roars in your ears, frying your senses and blacking out all sight and sound as you succumb to the most intense, earth-shattering orgasm of your life.  His name is a bawling cry, punctuated with gasping sobs as his fingers fuck you through the massive waves of tightening and convulsing muscles, massaging the walls of your cunt that clench and choke his digits with every thrust of his hand.  A slow gush of your slick pools in your core, leaking from your pussy and creating the most beautifully dirty sounds Eddie’s ears have been treated to.

Other than his name on your tongue when you come apart at the seams for him, of course.

He lets off your clit and swirls and licks at your entrance, moaning in ecstasy at how sweet you taste when he hears your hiccupping sobs above him.  His heart plummets in his chest, and he scrambles to kneel between your quivering legs, hovering over your body and cradling your tear-streaked face in his large hands.

“Baby, are you crying?  Oh, no, no –”

“Eddie please , keep – keep – going –”

He shakes his head in disbelief, errant curls plaster to the thick sheen of sweat on his forehead.  “Y-you want me to – are you sure?”

The ache between your legs hasn’t gone away, if anything, it’s intensified since your orgasm and all that remains is this consuming need for Eddie to touch you, bring you over the edge that’s so near release again.  

“God, so sure, you have me so –”

His thick eyebrows furrow deeply, and he dips his head towards you, willing you to look at him as your name tumbles hesitantly from his lips. 

Your eyes fly open, manic and wild, and you interrupt him with shrill, fevered plea. “Happy tears, I swear – I’m green, bright fucking NEON green , I need you please!”

Eddie scoffs, a sharp, quick exhale of breath before he moves.  His right hand comes to his mouth and though he figures it’s unnecessary with how wet you are after your climax, he soaks his fingers and bottoms them out in your pussy in one swift motion.  Your guttural moan has him setting a furious pace, pumping his two fingers deep in your pussy in tandem with every snap of your hips against his hand.  

The carnal slick, squelching sounds are music to his ears.  “Christ, you’re so good for me.”

You’re beside yourself, swept away with how tightly he has you wound already.  “T-think m’gonna come again,” you whine as your hips roll and thrust faster, meeting his hand stroke for stroke with more intensity.

“Such a good girl… yeah, fuck yourself on my hand, baby –”

The gravel in his voice sends you spiraling.  “Ed – Eddie, fuck yes – yes, please, yes –”

He snickers darkly, speeding up the pace of his fingers as the dive and expertly curl over that sweet spot.  The way your tits bounce with every deep thrust of his fingers into your pussy has him biting his lip to keep from coming untouched.  His free hand slithers up your stomach and palms your breast, pinching and rolling the nipple and making your eyes flutter closed with a wanton groan.  

“Mmmhm,” he hums approvingly, his eyes roving over your body.  “Gonna come again?”

“Shit, keep doing – yes, yesyesyes –”

“You gonna soak my sheets, baby?”  His head lolls to the side, chin resting against his chest as he watches you fall apart.  “Yeah, you are.  Yeah you are, c’mon, come all over my sheets, ruin my sheets, be my dirty girl –”

Your hips stutter as you reactively clench around his digits, your chest and cheeks heating with a fresh, crimson blush that scalds you from the inside.  

“Ohh –”

Eddie wouldn’t have missed that reaction for the world, and the excitement he feels has his dick twitching and leaking onto your inner thigh.  

“Y’like that?  Like bein’ a dirty girl for me?”  He chuckles as you moan again, reorienting the rhythm of your hips with the cadence of his hand.  You pull at your cuffs to gain leverage, ensuring that you’re able to take every bit of what those agile digits can give you as they flutter and pulse over that spot again and again.

The heated smoke in his voice spurs you on, singes over every nerve.  “These fingers have you so far gone, don’t they?  Oh fuck yeah, I can feel you, so close now c’mon my filthy baby girl, want this pretty pussy to soak me –”

Your jaw drops in a silent scream, your hands fist in your hair to distribute the blinding sensations that ripple and roll through your core.  A hot burst of fluid spills over Eddie’s hand and wrist, squeezing and choking his hand inside of you as you freefall into the fiery abyss of your release.  His name is a garbled, choked cry, punctuated with reedy gasps for air that you desperately need to help stop the earth from tilting on its axis like it is.

Eddie grunts, fighting the way your cunt clamps on his fingers with several deep, plunging thrusts before he pulls them free and licks them clean of the evidence of your orgasm.  “Oh, good fuckin’ girl…”

He can’t hold back any more.  He doesn’t give you any time to recover before he’s flicking open the safety clasp on the handcuffs and sliding your wrists from their binds.  He straightens and grabs your leg and throws it over his shoulder, lining up his painfully hard cock with your dripping entrance and sinking all the way into the hilt.   

“Oh, Christ,” he whines, slamming his eyes shut to stall the wave of pleasure that roil through his groin, “this pussy –” 

Eddie shudders, giving his bottomed-out hips an experimental roll.  “Such a tight – fuck – ”

Something snaps behind Eddie’s eyes.  He rears back and slams his cock into the deepest part of you, the force of it knocks your body north on the mattress.  You both groan, your hands scramble to his waist, and as you sink your nails into his sides, he wraps his arm over the top of your leg and sets a bruising pace.  His cock bullies into your cunt, plowing and pounding a relentless rhythm so fast it has you grabbing for purchase at his hips and his sheets for dear life.  The indecent, wet slaps of his hips against your thighs fill your ears, fanning the flames of your desire, well on its way back to a rolling inferno that’ll land you your third orgasm of the night.

Eddie is entranced with how your bodies connect, how his cock plunges deep inside of you with every forceful thrust, the swollen lips of your pussy wrap greedily around his girth and suck him back in where he belongs.   Filthy words tumble from his reddened lips, the roughened husk in his voice rumbles through your chest. 

His jaw goes slack as he watches himself bottom out again and again between the slick, swollen folds of your pussy.   “Look baby, look at us.  Look at how well you take me.”  

It’s all you can do to push a whine out of your throat with how each drive of his cock deep inside you steals the air right from your chest .  Eddie chuckles at the fucked-out sounds that spill from your lips.  

“Listen to you, how gone you are, how wet you get for me –”

The pitch in your voice rises higher and higher in tandem with the heat that smolders low in your center.  “Only – ahhh, Jesus Eddie –”

He somehow speeds up, drilling his hips against your cunt faster, harder.  “Wanna ruin this pussy, baby – wanna fuck you so deep you feel me for the next week.”

You answer with a choked, reedy cry and the sound makes Eddie come completely unhinged. 

He’s sweating with his crazed efforts, his chest glistens in the low light of the room, errant curls that typically frame his face are corkscrewed and plastered to his head.  He grits his teeth against his impending release, high on the reactions evoked from the depravity in his words.

“Gonna take me like a good girl?”

Your head tips back, the rush of his voice fans the flames as your body jolts in tandem with the frenetic plowing of his cock into your cunt.  “Y- y- yeah –”

The corner of his mouth tips crookedly in a sinister grin.  “You’re my dirty girl, aren’t you?”

There are no more words, just shameless blends of his name with nonsensical cries of pleasure.  He’s giving you everything he promised and more – there’s no way you’re coming out of this without bruises and a profound, lingering ache that’ll remind you how he fucked you senseless with every step you take.

The very thought has you tightening your hold over his thick length as he pounds your pussy, and the sensation has his voice shaking as he’s hurtled close to his release.  

“Shiiit, shit – gonna come –”

You think you tell him to do it, to come inside you – how you wanna be so filthy for him and have him fill you up, but there’s nothing but Eddie and the overwhelming waves of pleasure that wreck your insides and have you seeing stars behind your lids.  

Eddie shifts his weight forward, plunging deeper inside of you in more controlled, snapping thrusts. “Fuck, m’gonna come on your tits,” he grits through gnashed teeth, and your eyes fly open, pupils rapidly dilating at the very thought.  

He huffs as he gauges your reaction.  “Y-yeah – fuck baby, get you all dirty for me, yeah?”

Each word is punctuated at the end where his cock meets the deepest part of you.  “Eddie, god, yes –”

“Say it –”

Your hands fist the sheets, trying desperately to match the steady, powerful movement of his hips. “YES!”

His tone is positively villainous, his ember eyes flash as he pins you in a stare.  “Say it.”

“F-f- uuuckk, come on my tits, Eddie – please !”

A low groan rips from his throat as he pulls his cock from your center, fisting it tightly and angling himself over your chest.  The roughened pad rubs along the underside of the tip, a stark contrast in stimulation from the plush, silken heat of your cunt.  Your name is an elongated song of rapture on his tongue as his orgasm rips through his core, his cock twitching violently in his hand and he comes hard, spilling hot, thick ropes of his spend onto the dewy skin of your chest and over your exposed breasts.  He chokes on a cry as he fucks himself in his hand through his climax, nearly blacking out at how debased and fucking hot you look, covered in his release.

It stirs something inside of him, a molten possessiveness and all-consuming need that ebbs and flows through his veins.  He releases your leg from his shoulder and drops to his forearms, hands twisting into your hair.  His lips slam against yours, mashing and molding his mouth in desperation; his kiss is what boils in his belly brought to life, illustrated for you the best way he knows how.  

Your arms wrap around his broad shoulders, not caring in the least how slick and sticky your skin feels as he presses his chest to yours.  It seems like hours since you were able to properly touch him, and your hands cling to the trembling musculature of his arms, trace over the damp planes of his back, touching every fiery inch of his skin that burns against yours.  All the while, Eddie keeps your lips trapped, consumed in him, kissing you thoroughly as you both pant and gasp for air while your bodies come down from their high.

It could have been minutes or hours of bring wrapped up in him.  You’re pulled slowly back into consciousness when Eddie’s lips finally leave yours, his wide, owl-eyes stare deep into your soul as the soft tenor in his voice instructs lowly,

“Come with me.”

Strong arms pull you up with him, and he steadies you on your feet with a grin, snickering as he watches you stumble on wobbly baby-deer legs for the first few steps.  You bite your lip and shake your head as he leads you to the bathroom.  He takes his time undressing you while the water warms in the shower, deft fingers travel in soft paths over your skin as he unhooks clasps and clips and rolls your stockings off your feet.  

Your fingers wind between his when he offers you his hand, helping your trembling legs over the lip of the tub and under the heavenly spray of the showerhead.  He takes his time, slowly working his white bar of soap through his cloth and running the sudsy, soft cotton over every inch of your skin.  It’s as relaxing as it is erotic, and when his hands dip between your legs to give attention to your sex, a rush of liquid heat pools at your center, peaking your nipples and dilating your pupils with wanton need.

Eddie drops the washcloth over the nozzle, abandoning it in favor of continuing his aftercare in different ways.

Not a word needs said, your eyes say it all.

Eddie turns you and pulls your back flush to his chest.  His cock lies hardening against your low back, twitching with every slippery, warm brush of the swell of your ass against his overly sensitive cockhead.  He dips his head next to yours and carefully brings your foot to rest on the tiny ridge along the inside of the tub, opening your pussy to him to grant him the access he craves.

You sigh as calloused pads softly circle your clit.  He’s careful not to overstimulate, knowing you’re likely still as sensitive as he is, and so the lazy, languid ministrations over your nub alternate between light, tight circles and firm, slow swipes.  

The fires burn, electricity crackles and the orgasm that was building before now stirs deep in your belly, awakening ever so slowly with each measured touch over your clit.

He dips his fingers and your slick wets his tips differently, more completely than the water that drips down your belly and over your pussy ever could.  Dragging his fingers back up to swirl over your clit, the slick provides just the right kind of smooth friction you desire, and your hips jerk and roll to meet the expert movements of his digits.

Eddie plants firm, sweet kisses into the side of your neck.  “Wanna come like this?” his gravelly voice whispers in your ear.

Your breath hitches and you shake your head.  “No,” you murmur, inhaling deeply as his fingers breach your folds again to gather more of your arousal, “wanna come on your cock, Eds.”

He was already growing harder by the minute as he worked your pussy closer to release, but hearing you voice so plainly what you want has him there with a breathy grunt against your neck.

“Fuck -”

You undulate your hips as he swirls his fingers over your clit, so uninhibited and lost in your sensuality.  “Come inside me.  Need it, Eddie.”

He scoffs softly, he knows he’s not gonna last long.  He’s recovered, yeah – his cock juts proudly from the thick thatch of dark curls at his base, but if the way the head of his dick still tingles like it’s been electrified, he might come just as soon as he sheaths himself inside your lush, velvety walls.

He applies firmer pressure to the tight circles he winds over your clit, and the change has you gasping his name as your pleasure flares brightly.  

“Gonna get you there first, princess –”

Your hand flies to the slick fiberglass, bracing yourself upright as you nod furiously.  “Y-yeah, it’s – I’m getting – getting –”

The water that runs over you curves and drips between your legs heightens the beautifully obscene sounds of slick skin over skin.  

“These fingers are gettin’ you close, huh?” Eddie asks, flicking his middle finger firmly over your bud to punctuate his ask.  He presses his cock against the swell of your ass.  “You tell me when you want me, baby.”

Eyelids are shut tight in concentration, your brows furrowed and nails from your free hand try to dispel some of the tension by pressing little half-moons into the arm that stabilizes you around your collarbone.  “Ohh, feels so good – so good, mmhmph – Eddie, yeah –”

He switches back to long, wide strokes up and down over your slit, and merely a few passes of his hand just like that is what does it.  Your pleasure surges dangerously close to the edge, and you cry his name as your head tips back against his shoulder.  HIs fingers stall against your cunt and he reaches back to grab the base of his dick to line it up with your entrance.  

He bends his knees slightly to improve the angle.  “Arch that back f’me – Christ, yeah –”

His cock is flushed, still sensitive as hell but pulsing and twitching with the need to be buried inside you.  Lining the flared, thick tip with your entrance, you increase the beautiful curve in your spine to allow him better access, and he nearly comes from just the sight of you like this.  His cockhead breaches your folds and catches at your entrance, and you’re panting wildly as he slides home inside you, filling the ache in your pussy so completely he has to tighten his hold to keep you upright.

Twin, blissed-out moans echo loudly in the small space of the bathroom.  “Fuckk,” you breathe as you roll your hips back, “god you feel so good.”

You feel Eddie shudder, and your hand grapples behind you for a moment before finding his and bringing his fingers back to your core.  

“Jus’ like you were doing,” you mewl, powder soft and barely heard over the singing of the water around you, “just like that, slow – fuck, that’s gonna make me come –”

Your hand finds purchase again against Eddie’s forearm, and you lose yourself in how measured, how controlled his strokes are.  You know he’s gotta be so close, teetering near the edge but he holds it off somehow in favor of getting you there first.  Each slow drag of his hips has him plunging his thick cock inside of you, the rhythm set by the hand that runs and rubs in expert cadence over your clit.  

He keeps his pace, fucking you slowly with his cock and fingers back and forth, over and over again until he hears it – the telltale hitch in your breath, the shake in your thighs as you hurtle near release.  All he has to do is get you to come, he knows that as soon as he feels you flutter and pulse around his dick he’s a fucking goner.

His fingers pick up the pace, and you keen reactively.  “Goood, yeah Ed – that’s, that’s it –”

The dam is ready to burst, and he hones in directly over your clit to circle firmly two, three more times when he feels you detonate, your orgasm shudders and rolls over your body as it rips an angelic moan from your chest.  Eddie stops his hips as soon as he’s bottomed out inside you, relishing in how he can feel every ripple and flutter of your pussy as you come hard around his cock.  He groans loudly with you, choking over your name as your pussy draws his orgasm from the depths of his core.  Hot, thick ropes of his release fill you, and you sigh contentedly, feeling every single shudder and twitch of his length inside of you as he lets go.

He pitches forward in exhaustion and post-orgasmic euphoria, riding through the aftershocks of twin climaxes.  The warmth of your cunt is overwhelming, and he gives his hips a tiny roll as he husks,  

“Could stay buried in you forever, princess.”

You hum agreeably, planting kisses over his forearm that’s been pinched all to hell by your nails.  “Mmm, love it when you come inside me.”

Eddie chuckles against your neck.  “Yeah?”  He punctuates his question with a more pointed thrust inside you again.  “What does that do for you?”

Your eyes flutter closed as you smile against his arm.  “Jus’ feels so good.”

He nips at the shell of your ear.  “Hmm.  Sure that’s all it is?”

“Eddie…,” you giggle, sighing as you come down from your high.  Your heart flutters wildly, daring you to voice the words that beg to be set free as they rattle wildly in your mind.   

You answer, barely above a whisper.  “You’re it for me.”

“Yeah?”

The grip he has around your chest tightens, like he’s pulling you impossibly closer, though you’re still so intimately joined.  “That’s what it does for me,” you affirm, tilting your head so he can hear you over the rushing water.  “Just makes me… feel like I’m really yours.”

You feel him nod once before he presses a gentle kiss on your cheek.  “I know what you mean.”  The depth of his voice conveys such sincerity that your stomach swoops.  “You have me, you know.  As long as you want.”

He’s said this before.  You know he has.  But there’s something about tonight, about how you’re speaking these words to life again has you believing there’s more weight behind them.  That you both mean it – that the endgame for you both is the other.

And that means…

“I think I want it all, Eds.”  

You definitely feel it this time, the rush of air out of his nose, the strength in which he holds your flush against his chest, the way his hips push into yours and though his cock is softening, he still has you filled with him.  You know he knows what you mean, even if you can’t say it out loud quite yet.

It’s not like you’d never planned to get married.  You did.  A part of you might still want to, but you promised to take your time to find the right person.  It’d have to be a really right person to assuage all of the doubts you have about marriage now, especially after Neil.  Even with all that to sort through, the thought of being with Eddie forever under the implication of marriage is – well, fuck.  It’s just right.

So much so that you find yourself thinking about it like it’s as natural as the stars in the night sky.  

“I want graduation and the dunes and… you.”  You’re not quite ready to voice it, not yet – but soon.  

Eddie just swan-dives right in.  “And barefoot and pregnant in our kitchen?”

You bark a breathy laugh, and you feel his shoulders shake as he chuckles.  “Yeah, actually.”

Eddie clears his throat softly, hesitating before he asks, “In like, six years?” 

You throw your head back, a peal of giggles bubbles over your lips.  “Oh my god yes, at least!”

Eddie pulls his softening cock out of you, turning you around to face him.  You instinctively wind your arms around his neck, moving him closer so you can watch as tiny droplets of water bead and run off his long eyelashes before falling to your feet.

He grins, wiggling his eyebrows after planting a kiss to the tip of your nose.  “Yeah, good.  Me, too.  What else do you want?”

“I don’t know,” you reply slowly, tipping your head to the side.  “What d’ya mean?

He shrugs.  “Like… with school.  With whatever comes after.”

Your eyebrows lift in understanding, and tip a small smile that mirrors his.  “Oh.  Honestly I don’t know.  I don’t mind taking some time to figure it out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  You peek at him shyly through your eyelashes.  “Probably graduate from HCC and then… I’ll have options.  What do you want?”

“I don’t know, either,” he says slowly, his palms trace over the dip in your waist.  “But I have thought about it more since…”

“Since?”

Eddie finishes his thought with a small smile.  “Since you came along.”  

It’s something you’d hoped but didn’t ever want to push.  One of the wonderful things about Eddie is that he’s bound and determined and loyal to a task – but it’s gotta be of his doing – his idea – if he’s going to step out of his comfort zone.

Dark eyes flit back and forth between yours, he murmurs his sweet confession as his hands come up to cradle your face.   “I wanna go with you.  Wherever you wanna go.”

Your heart flutters in your chest.  “Really?”  

He nods and you’re quick to assure him. “I want that, too.  So much, Eddie.”  You swallow, carefully contemplating the logistics while holding his amber stare.  “I think I have at least another year here in Hawkins.  Is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course it is.  We don’t have to leave right away,” he pushes wet, errant strands of hair out of your face.   A slow smile spreads across his lips, reaching wide enough to crinkle the corners of his ember eyes.

“We could um, wait for Max, if you wanted.”

Your lips part with your tiny inhale, not quite a gasp but an action borne of surprise, nonetheless.  It’s hard to tell with the tiny rivulets of water that trickle over your skin, but Eddie clocks how the rims of your eyes redden as they fill with tears.

There’s a thickness to your voice when you ask, “So we could all go?”

“Yeah.”  

“Oh, my god, Eds…,” your whisper trails off in the minute space between your lips as you press your pout to his, trying to convey all of the emotion that fills your soul and makes your head swim.  

He returns the kiss in earnest, breaking away only when the warmth of the water starts to fade.  “I cannot fuckin’ believe this is my life.”

You scoff softly, lifting yourself on your tiptoes to press your body against his.  “It is, though.”

“1986.  Gonna be our year, sweetheart.”

There are things you should probably be thinking about, things you should be planning, should be worrying about — but you can’t think of a single one while you stand there in the tiny shower in the tiny trailer in the arms of this man who is just as invested in a future with you as you are with him. 

Yeah, there are alternate dimensions and monsters and kids with superpowers and burnt notebooks to consider, but it’s hard to even care when for the first time in a long time, it feels like your future is bright and real and right here. 

Your future, despite the heat from your embrace, shivers as the tepid water from the shower head turns cool. 

Eddie takes a ragged breath, his chin dipping to catch your stare. 

“C-can we get the fuck outta here now?”

He doesn’t wait for your response, he rips back the shower curtain and leaps out of the tub, shaking like a leaf as he grabs his towel and wraps himself up like a poorly rolled burrito.  You cackle at his expense, shutting off the water and following him out.  He tugs you close as you wrap the towel around your torso, his eyes appraising the way your breasts look held together by the worn cotton.

He leans in, his lips hover at the shell of your ear.  “Make no mistake, princess,” he husks lowly, the gravel in his tone perks your nipples and sends a shiver down your spine, “my cold shower days are fucking over the moment I marry you.”

Your eyes go round, face flushing in a crimson blush as he pulls away, regarding you with brows lifted in a coy, ornery arch above his dark chocolate eyes.  “Yeah?”

You press your lips in and nod furiously, catching your bottom lip in your teeth as you try to hide your megawatt smile. 

“Yeah.”

Next Chapter➡️

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