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I’m crying this is so adorable.

would you kiss me in a crowded room?

Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: There was always a push and pull with Eddie. He'll kiss you in an abandoned corner of the library and then barely talk to you in the cafeteria, but will look like a kicked puppy if you so much as think about giving him a cold shoulder. You care for him, deeply, but sometimes, he confuses the shit out of you.

A/N: Let me say already that this is by no means my best work. It's just something I randomly wrote while bored, with a bit of Halloween spirit. Definitely not very proofread.

Masterlist

The burn of vodka was unpleasant down your throat, still, you kept on drinking, tilting the red solo cup until the last drops of your drink were gone.

You didn't know whose house this was, honestly you didn't care. Halloween was one of your favorite holidays, and when a friend finds you a party to go to, you don't ask many questions. As a last-minute call, you snatched a long, black cloak and a witch's hat from your closet, pairing it with a dark dress you hadn't used in a few good years and a pair of boots so you had a costume.

The music was loud in your ears, you could feel the drums of it on your chest; the lights were dimmed inside, making it hard for you to avoid stepping on the many discarded cups that littered the floor whilst you danced. Tina held onto one of your hands, moving wildly around and taking you with her. She smelled of alcohol, you did too probably, but you knew for a fact that she drank twice as more as you did.

"You're making me dizzy," you giggled, holding onto her shoulder with your free hand.

"Come on, I feel like I'm dancing with a mummy, you're too stiff," the girl jumped on the spot as if to emphasize her point, the cat ears she had on her head bounced with the movement.

"You're the one that's too loose," you said, but followed her lead nonetheless.

You had long since lost count of how many hours had passed since you arrived when the house started to feel way too cramped. You desperately needed fresh air.

The backyard was huge, shiny pumpkins adorned the stone path that lead you to the pool and lounge chairs, there was a patch of grass with a few trees further back, fake spider webs and makeshift ghosts were hung up on the branches; it felt like a different world compared to the raging party inside. Just a few people stood outside, mostly ones that were too far gone on drinks, and, to your surprise, one Eddie Munson sulking in one of the lounge chairs, beneath the starry sky.

The leather of his jacket was shining with the few lights that surrounded the pool, he wasn't looking at you and you took that as an opportunity to look at him. His eyes were dark all around, eyeliner painting the lids, and he had fake blood down the corner of his lips and to his neck, all giving his skin a paler tone.

You smirked, the chilly wind made your cloak flutter around you, walking up to Eddie with one boot in front of the other, "vampire Eddie," his eyes shot quickly to you, a smile of his own already forming and only increasing yours, "I like it. Suits you."

Eddie leaned back on his palms, his eyes nothing but black orbs in the night as he looked you up and down. "A witch," he began, and you couldn't help but feel heat creeping up your neck because of his attention.

He got up, extending a hand to you and wiggling his fingers until you took it, only for him to turn you around so he could see you from all angles, "always knew you were magical, sweetheart."

Eddie's voice was all warm and sultry, sending a pleasant shiver down your back. You ducked your head, your hand still gently held up by his, "you flatter me, Munson."

"Nothing but the truth passes through these lips," as if there was a gravity field around you, Eddie lowered your hands only to intertwine his fingers with yours. He smiled something shy, a timid tilt of lips as the only telling against the confidence in his tone. "I wasn't expecting to see you here," he said, his free hand tugging on the edge of your cloak as if you'd slip away.

Maybe he knew you better than you gave him credit for. "Roll for perception?" You raised an eyebrow at him, letting go and stepping away to walk along the pool's edge.

You heard him groan, and then the quick steps that followed before his shoulder bumped yours as he fell into step with you. Personal space was not in Eddie's dictionary when it came to you, not that you minded.

"Come on, I was going to call, but I came for just a few sales, last minute thing," his curls bounced with his steps, lower lip caught between his teeth and eyebrows up as he looked at you through his lashes. Eddie was nervous. "Humour me," he tried.

"Like you wouldn't roll a natural twenty," you muttered under your breath, gazing at your reflection in the pool's water.

Eddie's fingertips grazed the top of your ear as he pushed back strands of hair. Only to see you better, he told himself. "You know I would," he kept his voice just as quiet, the music coming from inside the house almost clouded it.

Your eyes closed for a brief moment just so you could turn to him, just so you could take a breath and will your heart to calm down. "I came with a few friends," you shrugged, trying to placate him, "and they're probably wondering where I am, so…"

"Do you wanna come back with me?" Eddie blurted out before you could leave. "We can smoke or, I could play something for you, or- or just be together?"

The small smile you gave him then held no happiness at all. You grasped the collar of his jacket in one hand to hold him in place, just long enough so you could peck his lips. A kiss that could barely be called a kiss, it wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last. "See you around, Eddie." You squeezed his hand before you turned to leave in lieu of saying; I'm not mad, but two can play this game.

Eddie didn't fight it when you walked back into the house, but he should have. His lips still tingled with the ghost of your touch as he gripped at his hair, mumbling countless curses under his breath. He considered throwing himself into the pool, if anything, the coldness of the water would numb everything else he was feeling.

You played some bear pong, gave Tina a peck on the lips in a game of spin the bottle, and danced some more, anything to keep your mind busy. But it didn't take long for you to find Eddie again, he was leaning back on the kitchen counter, red cup in hand, and looking for something in the crowd.

The burn of vodka was unpleasant, but it gave you a dash of confidence you wouldn't dream of while sober. Granted, the colorful lights did little to kill the darkness of the house, and most people were already beyond remembering anything tomorrow morning.

So it was easy to mold your way amongst the bodies, to walk the rest of the way to the kitchen and to him, before you could think better of it.

Nonchalant as ever, you stopped beside Eddie without looking at him, picking up a skull-shaped candy and throwing it in your mouth.

You could feel him shuffling closer to you, the warmth of him blossoming a color in your heart you couldn't find anywhere else — much as you might try. Eddie took your hand, a bold move considering the crowded room, he brought it to his lips and kissed each knuckle. You still didn't look at him.

"Don't shut me out," his voice was so low compared to the banging of the music, you felt more than heard the shape of his words on your fingertips, "please."

Eddie spoke softly and looked at you even softer, his eyes were glistening bright with the colorful lights when you finally met them with your own. There was always a push and pull with Eddie. He'll kiss you in an abandoned corner of the library and then barely talk to you in the cafeteria; he won't call you to parties but will look like a kicked puppy if you so much as think about giving him a cold shoulder. You care for him, deeply, but sometimes, he confuses the shit out of you.

"I won't, when you don't give me a reason to." You snatched your hand back, ignoring how it tugged at your heartstrings.

Dark curls fell like a curtain over Eddie's eyes when he ducked his head, his fingers rhythmically tapping the counter beside him; "I was just… trying to give you an out."

"And who said I want one?"

"You should."

"That's not for you to decide," you said a bit harsher, causing Eddie to finally look at you again, his eyes twitching as he tried to hold your gaze. You sighed and took off your witch's hat, running a hand through your hair in frustration. "Whatever, I don't care," you shook your head and walked away, not looking back. Your feet carried you all the way to the front porch, as far away from Eddie as you could get.

You braced your hands on the railings, already considering walking back home because you were so done with this party.

"What's a pretty face doing here alone?"

An involuntary groan escaped you when you heard his voice, James or Josh or something else irrelevant was his name.

"'m not alone," you grumbled, stepping away when he invaded your space.

"Looks pretty alone to me." He smelled strongly of alcohol and weed, slurring his words as he reached for your waist. "Let's get a drink, sweet thing."

"No thanks, no company at all is much more appealing," you smiled all sweet, hoping he'd just give up.

"What's your problem?" Apparently not. He made to grab onto your arm, but ringed fingers caught hold of his first.

Of course, he followed you.

"She said no, man. Just drop it," Eddie said, steadily, as he subtly pushed the man away and stood in front of you.

"What's it to you, freak?" The guy puffed his chest out as she spat the words. "Mind your own business."

Part of you knew where this was going. You curled a finger around the belt loop of Eddie's jeans, tugging gently. "Eddie leave it, let's go."

Eddie chuckled, straightening his posture and standing a few inches taller than the guy, "oh I am, and why don't you mind your business, get in there, down a few more drinks, and do us all a favor and pass out, yeah?"

As much as you might like the protective side of Eddie, it was the wrong thing to say. The guy got red with anger, if anything for the sole reason of having someone talk back to him. Neither you nor Eddie saw his punch coming, fist colliding squarely with Eddie's cheek and nose.

A few sober-ish people gathered around quickly to hold him back, but the damage was already done. Eddie brought a hand up to his nose and felt wetness there, blood was dripping steadily from one nostril and mixing with the fake one from his makeup.

The crimson color made your stomach twist and turn, a knot forming in your throat. You grabbed the hand Eddie wasn't holding under his nose and started dragging him away from the party. He followed you blindly, his eyes were half-lidded because of the sharp pain.

Your boots crushed the damp lawn as you looked around, the music from inside the house growing lower and lower, "where's your van?"

"Just around the corner," he motioned to an empty street, far away from the prying eyes; it was barely illuminated by yellow street lights that had bugs chasing their warmth. A quiet corner of the world.

You stomped your way there, throwing your hat over the van's hood once you reached it. "The hell were you thinking? Taunting him like that, do you have a death wish?"

"I was thinking that he wasn't gonna give up on you that easy," Eddie pulled away his hand and grimaced at the sight. He could feel the metallic taste of blood on his upper lip.

"Oh, so you make him punch you?" You crossed your arms to keep yourself from reaching out, palms already slick with perspiration.

Eddie brushed the sleeve of his jacket under his nose, hissing at the sting it caused. He somewhat curled in on himself, too aware of your eyes not leaving him once, "I had it under control."

"Evidently," you scoffed and Eddie winced at your tone. It hurt you just as much. You sighed, leaned your head back — the dark sky was full of clouds, only a few stars peeking through, the wind only getting colder — and dropped the act.

You walked up to Eddie, all careful and slow just as you did with the stray cats you wanted to pet, raising both hands to cup his cheeks; "let me see that."

Eddie gulped when you touched him, growing stiff, as if bracing for a scolding. You saw his eyes get wet when your thumbs brushed his cheekbones, a tiny tear clinging to his lower lashes that you chose to ignore.

"I don't think it's broken," you took hold of your cloak, raising the ends of it to his nose. You gently cleaned away the blood, tracing the shape of his cupid's bow. Eddie scrunched his eyebrows when you touched the bridge of his nose and the reddish part of his cheek, whimpering a little. You muttered apologies under your breath.

The moment felt way more intimate than it should. Eddie reached for the hand you had on his other cheek, holding it in place when he kissed your palm.

You sighed. This guy.

You dropped your forehead to his shoulder in some sort of an awkward embrace; "you can't do shit like that, Eddie." You let go of your black cloak, sneaking your hand under his jacket, under his shirt, palm brushing the warm skin of his waist. "Can't get yourself hurt 'cause of me."

The music of the party, the crickets singing and the sizzling of the street lamps were nothing but background noise. Eddie kissed your temple, arms closing around your shoulders and pulling you closer; bits of the affection he had for you spilling more and more. "Did you mean it?"

You frowned, tracing random patterns on his back and feeling his goosebumps under your fingertips; "mean what?"

"That you-" he hesitated, as if the words were choking him. "That you don't care?"

Subconsciously, you squeezed him tighter, "of course not."

Eddie nodded, you felt it, an exaggerated motion to try and calm himself down. He tucked his head on your shoulder; "okay," the word came out so shaky you barely recognized it.

You pulled away and Eddie almost panicked, but you kept your hold on him, only moving to wipe away the last droplet of blood that escaped his nose; "I do care about you," you started, knowing damn well he needed to hear you say it to believe it. You traced the shape of his eyebrow with your thumb, all the way to his hairline to bury your fingers in his curls, trying to memorize every curve of him, "so much, Eddie. But you have to let me."

"I want to," he breathed, pupils were blown wide and shining bright as he cupped your cheek, rings cool against your skin. "More than anything, I want this," he said, to the way you clung to each other.

So what's stopping you? You silently asked with a tilt of your head.

The nervous energy bounced off of him as Eddie ran a tongue over his bottom lip. You're not sure if he knows it, but Eddie’s face plays out his emotions like a book. "But you shouldn't settle for someone like me." He said it quietly, as if speaking the words out loud would make you believe them too.

"Someone like you?" You let out a breathy chuckle, squishing his cheeks with both hands and forcing his eyes to not leave you. "Eddie you're such an easy one to love, you gotta know that. There's no one else I'd rather be with."

Though a single tear met the pad of your thumb, Eddie smiled, shape a bit crooked because of your hands; you dropped them to his hips again, waiting, wishing he wouldn't pull away.

He dug his teeth into his bottom lip, smiling something teary, hair bouncing when he nodded his head; "Yeah?"

The small word was filled with hope and desperation, almost making you tear up as well.

"Yeah." You'd tell him that every day if he asked you to.

With his heart almost beating out of his chest, Eddie leaned down, brushing his nose with yours. And any other coherent thoughts slipped his mind when his upper lip grazed yours. He caught your lips with his in no hurry, in a way he'd never done before; clinging to you with everything he had, eyebrows just a bit furrowed, and tilting his head to be as close as possible. You could feel him, in every sense of the word.

Eddie tasted like sunshine and chocolate and just a bit like blood; most of all, he tasted like the prettiest of promises.

⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Thank you for reading this little story. Feedback and reblogs are very much appreciated. <3

Eddie’s taglist: @milkiane @bookfrog242 @alicefallsintotherabbithole @science--hoes @cherrypieyourface @tssf-imagines @daph-505 @astream-ofconsciousness @fentyreligion @fantasylovestoryme @justabeautiful-letdown @crazyrapunzel @yessica41 @dancing-hillary @bakugouswh0r3 @jakebasement @zervopoulouu @forverdaydreamer-blog @fromthedt @oeuryale @mcueveryday @witchbinchstories @call-me-magpie @loveshineslikethesky @luvmybbies @tvserie-s-world @agirlsguidetolove @hallothankmas @sweetpeapod @forsaken-letters @hazydespair @fangirling-4-ever @electric-cabaret @ollyoxenfrees @twinkofmydreams @paola-carter @masterlistmanic @xceafh @andraimeide @esoltis280 @eddielives1986 @totallynotkaibiased @just-love-reading 

---

nooo this is so adorable, can’t wait for the second part <33

whip it!

steve harrington x roller-rink!reader {4.5k} steve gets forced into taking the kids to the new roller rink, but he doesn’t mind so much once he meets you. basically just steve being a massive simp for reader. no use of y/n, reader uses she/her pronouns.

“Can you all slow down? You’re gonna end up on the floor before you even get inside.” Steve watches as the group of kids he’s somehow been roped into looking after clamber out of his car, legs over arms and feet hitting one another as they rush towards the door of the roller rink.

It’d opened up in the next town over a couple of weeks back, and since then all he’s heard is “please Steve we’ll pay for the gas” and “don’t you want us to have fun? after all the shit we’ve been through?” The guilt tripping worked, of course, and that’s how he ended up carting 4 kids out of town to spend an hour throwing themselves around on roller skates.

“Pick up the pace, Steve!” Dustin shouts back as the older boy drags his feet behind the group, the younger teenagers already at the door itching to get inside.

“Yeah, come on, hurry up.” Max and Lucas join in the heckling, whilst Mike just stands with his arms crossed giving Steve that infamous unimpressed stare.

“Alright, alright!” Steve huffs as he quickens his step a little, following his friends - though today they were better described as nuisances- inside the building.

“Wow Steve, real nice, I forget how generous you are.” Dustin quips, always the one to bite back to Steve’s remarks. It was why he was Steve’s favourite.

Steve just flips him off, shooing the group towards the counter so they can actually get on the rink, and then in turn get out. The place was already giving him a headache, and it’d been what? Two minutes?

Steve just flips him off, shooing the group towards the counter so they can actually get on the rink, and then in turn get out. The place was already giving him a headache, and it’d been what? Two minutes?

“Hey!” You grin up at the group of teens from your barstool behind the counter, hands braced on the counter so you can push and twist iit from side to side. “How many’s it for?”

“Four, please.” Dustin pushes his pile of quarters and a few crumpled dollars across the counter towards you, a toothy grin on his face.

“Awesome, you guys rollerbladed before?” You look along the line of teenagers who all shake their heads at you, minus the red haired girl who gives you a small, barely there nod. “It’s easy, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

Your voice is sweet, like it could be coated with honey or molasses, and is probably the last thing he expected to hear at a roller rink full of grotty kids and their unimpressed parents. When he finally gets a glimpse of you he thinks you somehow look sweeter than your voice, if that was possible. Your hair pulled up high but a little messy as your bangs fall out the front and frame your face, lips coated a cherry red that matches your works logo printed across your shirt and the red hot pants you’re wearing. You’re all long legs and saccharine smiles, and Steve thinks he might be in love.

“Stop gawking, Harrington.” Lucas turns and smacks a backhand to Steve’s chest, pulling him out of whatever trance you seem to have him in.

“Shut up.” Steve hisses at the boy, eyebrows raising in some sort of warning that holds no real power and he knows it.

You think it’s cute, and try to quell the smile that wants to work its way across your lips. You busy yourself with counting up the mounds of change the teenagers had placed on the counter, overhearing the group bicker under their breaths with the older boy.

“Well you’re all paid up, you get an hour on the rink, we’ll call your wristband colour when it’s time for you to scoot.” You wave the paper wristbands at the teens, them all eagerly putting their arms onto the counter so you can affix them.

“And you’re their guardian I’m guessing?” Your eyes are still focused on sticking the wristbands carefully together, but the question is clearly posed at Steve, who’s still cursing Lucas for as good as ruining any chance he had at even speaking with you.

“I guess, technically, I’m just the babysitter.” Steve shrugs, ruffling Dustin’s curls much to the boys dismay.

“Cute.” You finish attaching the last wristband and finally look up at Steve, your eyes glistening like they’ve got stars inside them that flicker and glow with each blink. “I just need you to sign in, essentially says if anything happens you’re in charge of taking them to their parents or the ER or wherever they need to go.” You slide a clipboard across the counter, a slip of paper already half filled with phone numbers and signatures. “You guys can go collect your skates from the desk just down there.” You smile at the group who quickly scurry off, hands grabbing at arms to drag one another over to the desk a few meters away.

“Does that happen a lot?” Steve scribbles down his name and phone number, now starting to really regret agreeing to be the chaperone for the outing if it has a high potential to end in an emergency room visit. He passes the clipboard back over to you and you look over the details to check everything’s okay before tucking it back under the counter.

“Nah, not really. Kids are pretty resilient, they’d have to really go down to do any actual damage.” You shrug, tapping your pen against the hard surface in front of you as you lean your other elbow there, chin resting against the palm of your hand. “You sure you don’t wanna go for a spin?” There’s a little teasing in your voice, not quite mean but just confident enough to have Steve choking on his words.

“Yeah, I - I’m sure. Someone’s gotta be responsible, right?” Steve chuckles, hand going to the back of his neck to rub at the skin there. It’s way too hot in this place, he thinks. That’s definitely the only reason he’s feeling flustered.

“Well if you change your mind, you know where I am.” You blink up at him through thick lashes, corners of your mouth curling into a smile and Steve thinks he might actually faint or maybe even drop dead if he doesn’t catch his breath in the next few seconds.

“Steve! Stop flirting and get over here!” Dustin cups his hands around his mouth as he shouts just to make sure his voice travels far enough, it definitely would’ve reached Steve without the added amplification.

Steve thinks he’s definitely going to drop dead now. “I better go. Duty calls.” He chuckles nervously and juts his head towards the kids who were now all standing watch.

“See y’around, Steve Harrington.” The way you say his name makes his stomach twist into a knot, he didn’t know it could sound so pretty considering he’s heard it every day of his life but here he is, hoping he gets to hear you say it again.

You wave him off as he goes to join the group of teens, all clutching their new roller blades and giggling amongst themselves as Steve chastises them for ‘making him look like a dickhead’. You press your lips together and sit back on your seat slightly, pulling your eyes away from Steve so that you don’t look like a complete weirdo staring at him.

You’ve always been confident, walking tall and smiling your way through life. It came pretty easy to you, not in a big headed way but more just self assured. It wasn’t the first time a guy had gotten shy around you, but there was something about Steve that piqued your interest. Besides the fact that he was undeniably the prettiest guy you’d seen in a long time. It also made a nice change to have someone your own age in the building other than your co-workers, normally you dealt with grumpy parents or exhausted teachers and sure you were nice to them but you didn’t actually want to talk to them, get to know them more than just a name and number.

You don’t have much time to think about it though, because more kids are piling through the door and you’ve got wristbands to give out, now’s not the time to start daydreaming about a guy you met for all of five minutes.

After about half an hour of sitting on the sidelines and watching the kids loop around and around the wooden rink to obnoxiously loud music, Steve has well and truly had enough. The coke he bought was too sweet and hurt his teeth and was definitely making his headache worse.

He runs a hand over his face, slouched over so his arms can rest on his knees because the bench he was sitting on wasn’t exactly the comfiest and sitting up straight against the hard backboard was hurting his spine.

“Looks like you’re having fun.” You sit yourself down next to him on the bench, a cherry slush in your hands and a teasing smile on your face. You smell just as sweet as the rest of you, vanilla and cherry and just a hint of something floral underneath the rest of the candied notes.

Steve instantly sits up straighter, a little wide eyed at the fact you’re actually sitting next to him. “S’that obvious?” He gives you a sort of apologetic smile, as if you’re going to be mad he’s not having the time of his life at your work.

“Just a little.” You sip your slush, lipstick leaving a red stain around the white straw. “Y’know we run an over 18s night the first thursday of every month, you should come. I promise it’s more fun, plus you can bring some friends your own age.”

“Are you asking because you need to get numbers up? You got, like, a referral scheme going on or something?” Steve jokes, though he does genuinely want to know, it’s just easier to pose the question this way.

You laugh a little and shake your head. “No, I’m asking because you’re cute and it’s an easy way to see you again.” You’re nonchalant with your words, but they make Steve’s breath catch in his throat.

“You won’t be working?”

“I‘m sure I can swing an evening off if I’ve got a reason to.” You stand up from your spot next to Steve and stretch out your back a little. “Just think about it.”

“Do I at least get your name? Might help my friends believe that the pretty girl actually invited me.” Steve was staring up at you, the dim overhead lights casting shadows over his face and accentuating his features. His eyes almost looked black, his irises deep brown with large pupils in the low light. You really do think he’s pretty.

“Sorry handsome, just assumed you could read.” You tap a red lacquered nail against the name tag on your shirt, Steve’s eyes following your pointer and a small ‘oh’ falling from his lips. “I’ll see you Thursday.” You say it more as a statement than a question, eyebrows raised a little but a playful smile on your lips as you walk back to your desk.

Steve doesn’t mind sitting around as much after that, the next half hour passes much quicker than the last because his mind is reeling over the fact that you want to see him again. He’d pinch himself but he might look a little insane and he doesn’t want you to revoke the invite.

By the time the kids make their way over to him, skates returned and sufficient energy burned, he’s still in a world of his own.

“Earth to Steve, hello!” Dustin waves his hand in front of Steve’s face, the older boy flinching back from the palm that’s dangerously close to his face.

“Chill out, idiot, I can see you.” Steve huffs, standing up from his spot on the bench that never did get more comfortable.

“You gonna stay and gawk all night or actually take us home?”

“You’re all assholes, you know that?” Steve pushes the curly haired boy in front of him, the group all heading towards the door to the parking lot.

“She’s too cool for you, dude.” Dustin calls back, making sure to be a few feet in front to prevent another shove.

Steve groans. “I will literally leave you all here.”

—-

Your shift had finished half an hour ago, and changing out of your uniform had taken you all of five minutes as you swapped your staff t-shirt for a black turtleneck of your own and tucked it into the pleated red skirt you’d worn on shift, which means you’ve spent about 25 minutes lingering at the bar and making small talk with your colleagues.

You’d promised to hang around for a little while anyway, some of your friends finishing work at the same time so it meant you could all properly catch up, but mainly you were hoping that Steve would actually show up.

Thinking back, maybe you were too casual with your invite. Not specific enough that you wanted him to come to see you, not just because you think he’d have fun. You hope that’s not the case.

Steve, on the other hand, is getting an earful from his friends on the drive over. He tried to bring it up subtly, that they should try something new for a change and there was definitely no other reason that he had a sudden interest in roller skating. But apparently Dustin had already snitched to Eddie, outed him as having a big teenage crush on the pretty girl who works at the rink, so he had no choice but to own up and beg his friends to just do this one thing for him, please, just this once.

To his surprise, they’d agreed. Albeit reluctantly, mostly just to see him fumble over his words and attempt to flirt, but that was good enough for him.

Your skates are slung over your shoulder, laces tied together so they can hang there without you needing to keep a hold on them. You lean against the bar, facing out across the rink that is a lot calmer than usual, making small talk with your friends but not really paying attention. They know why you’re distracted, so you don’t feel as guilty for being a little out of it.

So when you see Steve, and who you assume are his friends, walk in, none of them are shocked as you excuse yourself from the group and walk over to the boy with a big grin on your face.

“Steve Harrington, you came.” You meet him midway across the room, staring up once you’re in front of him with big eyes and sickly sweet smile. “And you brought grown ups.” You look at the three people Steve was with, who all look between you and Steve a little bewildered.

“Yeah, well, you know how much I loved it here last time.” Steve chuckles, hands shoved into his back pockets. Robin coughs behind him, looking at him with raised brows when he turns around. “Uh, this is Robin, Eddie and Nancy. All grown ups.”

You introduce yourself to them all, polite ‘hello’s’ and ‘nice to meet you’s’ exchanged before you turn your attention back to Steve. “You want a drink? I can definitely get us free soda but they know I’m not 21 yet so I can’t get much else.” You hold your hand out to Steve, and his brain short circuits a little bit before he actually takes it so you can guide him over to the bar.

“He wasn’t lying.” Eddie looks between Nancy and Robin, who both look back at him with the same shocked expression. Not to be cruel, but it did sound too good to be true.

“Huh, can’t believe all it took for Steve to get back in the game was to get out of Hawkins.” Robin nodded, watching you and Steve make your way across the floor.

You walk backwards so you can keep looking at Steve as you move, he looks even better than you remember. “Y’know, you had me worried you were gonna stand me up for a minute there.” You smile at him, tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth and a playful look in your eyes.

“I’d have to be real stupid to do that.” Steve can barely focus because all he can feel is how soft your hand is in his, the tips of your nails pressing gently against his skin. It’s barely there, a minuscule pressure that is somehow all he can feel.

You giggle and shake your head at him before turning to actually look where you’re going. Steve breathes and realises he’s been holding his breath since you held his hand.

You get to the bar and ask Steve what he wants, but he just says to get him whatever you’re having, so you end up with two cherry slushes. “I swear this place is gonna make my teeth rot, I drink so many of these.” You hand Steve his drink and sip your own.

Steve takes a sip and wonders if that means you’d taste of cherries if he kissed you. “They’re pretty good though.”

“Ugh, I know.” You sigh. “D’you think your friends will want anything? I kinda dragged you away there.”

“Think they’ll definitely forgive you if you get ‘em slushes, especially Eddie.”

“That’s good, gotta make a good first impression.” You order 3 more of the same bright red drink, carefully placing them into your hand so they’re balancing against each other. “Okay, got the apology slush, let’s go.”

You move so smoothly, like the entire world bends itself around you. Steve thinks that maybe it does, you’re none the wiser.

You sit with Steve’s friends for a little while, crammed into one of the booths so you’re pressed close to Steve’s side. You lean into him a little, head almost resting against his shoulder as you answer their questions about you.

“You go to college?” Robin asks, her words muffled by the straw that she’s trying to sip from at the same time as speaking.

“Mhm.” You nod, fingers playing with the silver pendant that hangs around your neck. “Just community college though, nothing crazy.”

“What d’you study?”

“Oh it’s so boring, you’ll think I’m so lame.” You look up at Steve for the last part, doe eyed through your lashes.

Steve has to stop himself laughing at the thought of him ever thinking you’re lame, or anything even close. “I definitely won’t.”

“Yeah, you’re way cooler than Steve.” Robin agrees, instantly following up with a “no offense” as her friend shoots her a glare.

“I study finance, I always just sorta got math y’know? So it just made sense. Total snooze fest, I know.” You roll your eyes dramatically, leaning back so you’re tucked further into Steve’s side.

“So you’re, like, super smart then?”

“I’d say averagely smart.” You shrug, dropping the pendant from your fingers and placing your hand on Steve’s knee. “Right, I think it’s time we skate, don’t you?” You shuffle in your seat to nudge Steve along the booth. “C’mon, up and out.”

Steve wouldn’t even know how to begin to say no to you. He stands up out the booth, waving bye to his friends who all look at him like he’s a goner, absolutely done for. He probably is. “This is hardly fair, you’re basically a professional.”

“I’m giving you the perfect excuse to hold my hand and you’re complaining?” You tease, lips pulled into a pout.

“Yeah, you’re right, I’ll shut up.”

You perch near the edge of the rink to put your skates on, sat alone whilst Steve goes to sort getting some of his own. Your fingers pull the laces tight, they’re pretty worn from how often you use them so you make sure to tie them extra tight. Steve comes and sits next to you with his newly acquired pair, the smell of his cologne hitting you as soon as he’s there. “You smell really nice.”

Steve chuckles, pulling the skates on. “Thanks, so do you.” It feels like a pretty weak response considering how intoxicating your perfume is.

“Oh, that’s good. I was worried I smelled like wood polish and shoes after working.”

“Only a little bit.” Steve smirks at you, only a little bit and it’s so full of affection rather than anything cruel that you think you’d let him insult you all night and it’d be fine.

“You’re a real charmer, Steve Harrington.”

You take the lead heading onto the rink, so used to moving about in your skates that it feels natural at this point. Steve’s a little slower behind you, but he speeds up when you hold your hand out for him for the second time that night.

His hands much bigger than yours, fingers hooking through your own and gripping tight as you step onto the wooden floor of the rink.

Steve let’s you skate a little ahead of him, your arms stretched out but still joined at the hands. He can see you properly now, doused in colourful light that reflect off your skin and leave you looking like you’re in a kaleidoscope as you move. He feels a little embarrassed when you turn around and catch him staring, but you don’t seem to mind. You just smile at him, head tilted to one side as you hold out your other hand for him to take.

“You’re gonna have to tell me if I’m gonna bump into someone.” You’re facing Steve fully now, feet gliding to push you backwards whilst you hold both his hands.

“That’s a lot of responsibility to give to a guy you’ve met once.”

You shrug. “I’ll take the risk.”

You move around the rink slowly, not really focused on your surroundings as you talk about yourselves a little more. There’s a few close calls where you nearly skate into people, barely pulled away in time by Steve who keeps apologising even though it just makes you laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m being a really bad guide.” Steve pulls you out of the way of another person, inadvertently bringing you closer to him as he does.

“It’s okay, I’ll let it slide. Only ‘cause you’re cute.”

Every time you compliment him, Steve genuinely worries his heart might stop beating. That or beat so hard it pushes its way out his chest.

After a while you end up standing at the edge of the rink, feet still moving a little so you can twist on the spot. Your fingers are playing with the hem of your skirt, nails brushing against the skin of your thighs. Steve tries to stop himself looking, because he doesn’t want to look like a creep. It’s totally not appropriate to stare at a girl's thighs the second time you meet her, he thinks to himself, as much as he might really want to.

You’re completely oblivious to his internal debate, just musing on about how you’d just got the newest Pet Shop Boys album on tape but when you look up from your hands you realise that Steve’s not really paying attention. “You’re totally not listening.” You don’t sound mad, if anything you sound a little amused as Steve seems to snap out of his trance and look down at you with an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, you’re so pretty and cool and you’re smart, and you’re talking to me and it’s just -“ The words fall out of Steve’s lips quickly and all in one breath, because if he doesn’t say it now he might actually explode. “It’s a bit crazy.”

You giggle at Steve’s rambling, reaching your hand out so your fingers brush against his. “So if I said I wanted to kiss you, that’d completely throw you for a loop?”

Steve swallows hard, trying to keep his cool. “Might kill me on the spot.” He’s only half joking.

“Oh, I better not then.” You bite down on your bottom lip and let out a small sigh for dramatic effect.

“I’ll take the risk.” He repeats what you said to him before, his honey brown eyes focused on you as they flick between your eyes and your mouth.

You move your body closer to his and bring a hand up to the side of his face, running your thumb slowly across his cheek down to his jaw. His skins soft, save for the small specks of stubble that are scattered across his jawline, but they feel nice under the pad of your thumb. Your fingers rest at the nape of his neck, brushing against the curls that gather there and tangling in them.

You pull his face down to you gently, no real pressure applied but more of a guidance. You push up as much as you can on the balls of your feet, closing the gap between you and pressing your lips to his. It’s a simple kiss, soft and a bit cautious but still sweet. More than enough to make Steve feel a bit dizzy from it.

You pull away, still keeping your face close to his. “Still alive?”

Steve can feel your breath against his lips as you speak, your voice so warm and soft he thinks he might melt. “Just about.” He whispers, the moment a bit too surreal for him to speak any louder. Like it might all disappear if he does.

You grin at him, and feel a swell in your chest at his sweetness. You don’t normally find yourself taken by any guys, but something about Steve had you feeling like a teenager with her first crush again. Maybe it was because he just seemed so enamored by you for no other reason than the fact you were you. You weren’t going to question it.

You end up writing your number on the back of Steve’s hand, carefully drawn out numbers in red sharpie that you’ve picked up from behind the counter and a little heart next to it. “Don’t do that dumb thing guys do where they wait like a week to call, ‘cause it’ll wash off by then and you’d have to come here and hope I write it down again.”

“Would you write it down again?” Steve asks even though there’s no way he’s not going to call you tomorrow. He’d call you tonight if it wasn’t a crazy person thing to do.

“You could just call me and then you won’t have to worry.”

“I’m obviously going to call you.”

You lean up and press another kiss against his cheek, your lips plush against his skin and he can feel their touch even after you move away. “Good move.”

thank u for reading !! i’m going to write a second part / sequel for this so keep your eyes peeled if h enjoyed this <3

---

jadeee this was the best thing i’ve read all day.

i had my notes app open while reading <3

You often think the worst thing about Morgan is that you love her, or you could love her more, if only she felt the same way. She isn't all evil and she never will be, she's just a person. But she takes shit out on you and makes your life harder than it needs to be, so even her most endearing moments fall short.

this hits so hard for someone like me, i have a morgan but also i think everyone has a morgan. made me tear up a little bit.

The dedication is hot. 

i can’t even begin describe my love for that line.

He should stop now, he would, but suddenly his anger is real, this isn't strictly fun anymore. He says what he knows is gonna hurt you.

anyone with anger issues can relate to that line on an absolute personally level

"You're a burnout waiting to happen”

that line hits so so hard

but he also thinks about them as actual people, something Gareth hasn't quite grasped yet. 

i love love this line

He hates how your snark makes him smile.

ahshdhsjsjka dying dead

For a split-second you adore him. It's the meanest thing you can do. 

this line is the best thing ever

the ending anshdjs jade <333

𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome, and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating. Too bad you just can’t seem to leave each other alone. [13k]

fem!reader, enemies-to-lovers, rival rockstars, mutual pining (and hatred), slight miscommunication, angst, hurt-comfort, eddie has mixed intentions, kissing / heavy petting, hickeys, sexual tension, eventual hate-fucking, some misogyny (not eddie), TW readers bandmate is a bully, TW drugs/alc/smoking, disclaimer: I can’t play an instrument

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana, Late 1988.

There's a really sweet-looking boy sitting in the chair across from you. The airport is blotted out by both your headphones —huge chunky cans, the best you could afford— and your sunglasses. He's a shade of sepia from the lenses, dark hair darker still where it's tucked into the hood of his hoodie. 

There's no way he could possibly know you're staring at him while you're facing your lap, scribbling lyrics for a song that'll never get made with your body curled inwards, and yet he looks up from the novel in his. He smiles, his cheeks pulled up, and he looks younger. He isn't old by any means but something about his smile is transformative. 

You don't mean to give yourself away. You smile back just a little. 

He says something. You push your headphones around your neck and break the seal, soft 70's rock replaced by the sounds of the airport, footsteps and clicking and children laughing somewhere behind you. 

"I'm sorry," you say, covering the cans of your headphones to cut their weak buzzing, "what did you say?" 

"I said you have good taste."

He nods toward your guitar case patterned in overlapping band stickers. 

You notice his own case on the seat next to him. It's more conspicuous than your own with only one sticker, a band you've never heard of. 

"I wish I could say the same, but I don't know who that is, 'Corroded Coffin'?" you ask, purely curious. 

He sits forward, a picture of casual confidence as he drops his face into his palm, elbow digging into the ripped jeans covering his knee. "I'm offended, sweetheart. They're only the best sound to come out of Indiana in the last ten years." 

"The Stacey's?" you offer, scandalised by his suggestion. "Doorway to Cooperstown? The Cats?" 

He blinks at you. "You know the scene." 

"It's my scene," you say.

You don't mean to sound pretentious, and hopefully you don't, but music is your life. 

"It's mine, too," he says. He leans forward and scrubs a hand through his hair, scratching absentmindedly. "Where are you going? Must be pretty important to tear you away." 

"New York. I'm– I'm a techie for Godless. I will be, once I get there." You sound smug and nervous at the same time.

"Holy shit," he says. He smiles a gorgeous, awful kind of smile, like you've been friends for years, and your good news is his. "No fucking way. Go you." 

Godless have been compared to loads of bands but the one you favour is a heavier, feminine The Clash. It's an emerging sound, punk rock stolen, repurposed, and remade. Reborn by girlhood rage. You love their sound (though you have some notes), you love their statement, and you're probably the happiest you've ever been knowing you'll be behind the scenes of a new era of music. 

"And you're taking her?" he asks, gesturing to your guitar case. 

Inside is a beat up old bass guitar you got for nothing. You're self-taught, you're good, but you don't have any disillusions on what you'll be doing on tour. 

"She's worthless," you say, "mostly taking her for company." You reuse his pronouns, though you aren't the type to assign personality to your instruments. "What about you, uh–" 

"Eddie," he says, taking his guitar case into two fine hands. Your eyes snag on his ragtag assortment of rings, and he leans over the neck of the case to retake your gaze. "This… is Sweetheart." 

— 

Hotel Edison, New York, Early 1990.

"We have to go. Why are you guys never ready when I tell you to be?"

You panic slightly. "I need a minute." 

"Ananya, could you find, like, a modicum of patience? Fucking annoying." 

Sharp, Morgan's unhappiness sounds over the droning drill of your shitty hair dryer. You shift where you're kneeling in front of the floor length mirror to check she isn't talking to you — unusual, but not impossible that her hostility would be aimed at someone who isn't Ananya. 

Ananya stands in the middle of the hotel room, thick eyebrows pulled into a familiar scowl.

"Get it together," she says disdainfully, like Morgan's nothing more than a mild inconvenience. 

You wish you had her confidence when it comes to Morgan's tantrums. You stand up, clad in nothing more than underwear and a pair of black stockings, your t-shirt in one hand and the hairdryer still humming in the other. You turn it off and let it drop to the floor, worried you're just another rockstar cliche as you take in the state of your room. Your suitcase is open and your clothes are all over the place, laid flat in an attempt to dry your rain-soaked clothes. Your underwear dangle from the lampshade, a mix of pretty lingerie you've yet to wear and full-shaped panties that had made Morgan laugh for a minute, no pauses. 

"I can see why you're so desperate," she'd barbed. 

You slip your shirt over your head in case you have to act as a human shield. It's honestly not the worst thing they've had you involved in this year. 

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Morgan asks. 

She's a fascinating creature in that she isn't always talking with thinly veiled passive aggression. You genuinely believe she's looking out for you sometimes, or believe that she believes it, at least. She doesn't say it with malice, simply asks. 

She's multi-faceted. 

"No," you say, though you'd been meaning to. 

"Good, skirts really aren't your thing. You look blocky. I have a pair of flares in my bag, wear them." 

And Morgan — Morgan's the lead singer of Godless. You don't really have a choice. 

You find the pants she'd instructed you to wear and half tuck your shirt, scrabbling for your shoes as Ananya starts lamenting the time, sat on the small table by the TV.

"They have to wait for us, babe, that's the whole point," Morgan says, fussing over her eye make-up. 

"No, they don't. And we really don't need the attention right now." 

"That's dramatic." 

Ananya leans forward and clicks on the TV with a perfect finger. The screen buzzes to life. She clicks through the channels until she gets to the local news station, and then she slumps over the frame on her elbow. 

You giggle behind your hand. Onscreen, images of Morgan are blown up and slated, your bandmate sloppy drunk on the steps of Covey Gold. They've caught you red-handed in the background pretending you aren't with her, but luckily Morgan's too obsessed with herself to notice. 

"I really don't see the issue," she says breezily, slipping into her tiny heels one foot at a time. "I look sick." 

She looks stunning, easily, but that's not the problem. 

"You have a fucking snow trail," Ananya says. 

Unfortunately, Morgan's left nostril is crusted with coke. 

"It's punk rock!" Morgan's moved onto earrings now, and she's jutting her tiny pointed chin toward the door. "Hello? We're late." 

You don't roll your eyes, but you could. You slip your shoes onto your feet and tuck the laces inside without tying them while the news anchor on TV continues to relay current events. 

"Fletcher isn't the only rockstar making a mess in New York City this week. Members of up and coming heavy metal band Corroded Coffin were sanctioned by Flume Venues Tuesday night for damaging twenty six thousand dollars worth of equipment when their lead guitarist kicked over an amp and caused a quote unquote 'domino effect.'" The anchor laughs. "Their PR has certainly felt some corrosion." 

You look up at the joke and are just in time to catch a picture splayed across the screen of the band. You're so close that their faces are made up of red, blue, and green, more colour than photo. Your skin glows with the image. Your eyes widen, perplexed. 

"Do we know those guys?" you ask. 

Morgan grabs your hand and drags you up. "They know us," she says. "That's what matters." 

Ananya turns off the TV. 

You're thrilled at being included in the 'us'. You've been an unofficial official member of Godless for four months now. Each one feels more unreal than the first, and each one brings a solidity. In Ananya's words, you're on 'probation, given you can keep up', but you look at her now, her hopeless expression as she closes your room door behind you, and know she's not hoisting you off the stage anytime soon. She'd have to deal with the world's tallest toddler alone. 

Your tour manager and assorted personnel meet you in the hotel's lobby, furious and panicky at your being late. Morgan spouts the same spiel as you get shepherded into cars idling outside of the hotel.

"We're the talent. What were you gonna do, throw the gig without us?"

You're both embarrassed by her and impressed. Morgan is pretty and talented and extremely loud — she's not afraid to stick up for herself, even when she's (nearly always) wrong. She sees each hurdle in her life as an unfair disadvantage. Insanity, in your opinion, considering nearly all of those hurdles have been jumped by means of a favour, rather than any expended effort on her part. 

Her bad attitude aside, she's a good singer. She's gorgeous, exactly the kind of face that obliterates mainstream reluctance. 

She sits between you and Ananya and kicks her feet out over the console, boots between your driver and your tour manager, Angel.

"You guys can't be late like this. You have half the time you need for sound check now, you realise?" 

"I don't need practice," Morgan says. 

"It's not practice, Morgan, it's–" 

Morgan laughs and bursts into song. She does it whenever she doesn't want to listen to Angel, and she sings an apt tune: Angel by Aerosmith. You look out the window rather than watch, eyes snagging on the wet New York streets and taxis and people, so many people despite the weather, black umbrellas like inverse stars lining the sidewalks. 

Morgan has a great voice, raw when she wants it to be and full of life when she doesn't. You can't hear Angel's venue instructions under it and are barely paying attention as a lanyard gets tossed into your lap. It sounds stupid, and a few months ago you wouldn't believe it, but you get used to the motions. Ferried from one place to another, all anybody cares about is technicalities, politics, public image, and how you look on stage. All you care about is the music. Your bass guitar in your hands, that familiar weight, the strings as your pick slides across them, and the sea of the crowd. Its waves and ripples, hands and eyes and mouths like poppies, red-pink tongues and black throats at the centre as they scream. When you throw your pick people want to catch it. They fight over it. You throw a few. There's always more in a box in some poor techies bag.

The cushy car you're in pulls up and parks outside of the venue's main entrance. You climb onto a wet curb and shield the top of your hand with your head, dirty rain splashing down in fat, sparse drops that chill your scalp. Morgan blitzes inside and Ananya tags behind her. You go slower, eyes following down the sidewalk where, in a couple of hours, fans will wait to see you, shivering in the cold. 

— 

Every breath Gareth takes sucks in Eddie's short sleeved t-shirt. Eddie scowls at the top of his bandmate's head and tries to shift away. 

"Seriously, man? There's a whole fucking couch," Eddie grouches. 

Gareth sits up with bleary eyes furrowed into a scowl of his own. He's pale and missing his glasses, giving him the appearance of a concerned zombie.

"Shithead." 

Eddie has a lot of emotions he wants to express and none he feels he can properly articulate. The injustice of his current situation, for one, is a burning irritant. How the fuck can you get grounded by your manager? And why did his warden have to be the most boring member of the band? Sorry Gareth. 

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" Eddie asks. 

"You'll sneak out." 

Eddie will sneak out. He's a fledgling rockstar in New York. Suddenly, there are a hundred colourful boozy doors wide open to him, and he intends on haunting the threshold of each one accordingly. 

But you kick one amp and boom, you're the antichrist. 

"You know this is stupid." 

Gareth rubs his eyes. "I mean, do I know that?" He reaches behind the couch armrest for the two-litre bottle of soda stashed there, and he talks as he brings the lip to his mouth. "You've been a real pissant lately, Munson." 

"You're a pissant, pissant," Eddie says, really scowling now. 

Gareth kicks him across the sofa. Eddie kicks back, foot jamming into the side of Gareth's knees. Soda spills in a shoot over the carpet. Gareth is a know-it-all with a predisposition for being as unpleasant as he can possibly be at all times, in Eddie's opinion, and Eddie knows the second the soda lands what he's going to say. 

"Nice going, hotshot. This is why you're fucking grounded." 

Eddie's halfway across the sofa when the door opens, an unimpressed Jamison standing with the light behind him. He flicks on the main switch and glares, brown skin golden in the resulting yellow light. 

"What are you losers doing?" 

"I prefer the term 'freak'," Gareth says, glare softening. "I'm fending off Munson's advances, what does it look like? No means no, asshole." 

"You're disgusting," Eddie says. 

"You look disgusting," Jamison echoes. "I don't know who forgot to tell you, but they invented running water a century ago. Go shower. I'll watch baby boy." 

Eddie thinks Jamison is hot in the freaky way — Jamison is conventionally attractive, and Eddie would let him get freaky if he asked. He has a perfect complexion, the most attractive of the band by far, medium brown skin and a broad-shouldered frame. He's the eye-candy, literally; they'd admitted him into the fold based one parts on his talent, two parts his image. 

He can play piano, guitar, bass guitar, violin, all that shit. He's a musician, and he's better than Eddie at everything but the guitar. 

Nobody's better than Eddie on guitar. At least, not anybody running in his circles. 

"I can't shower, I'm watching him." 

"I'll watch him," Jamison says, like this is extremely obvious and Gareth is an idiot. 

Eddie pulls a couch cushion over his face and drags himself onto his back, whining into the fabric unhappily. "This is fucking bullshit," he mutters

"This is due diligence," Gareth says. Eddie feels his weight lift off the couch and lets his legs slide into the empty space. 

"This is fucking bullshit," he repeats. 

There's a silence. He sulks. Gareth collects toiletries and the bathroom door clicks open and closed. The shower spray begins to sputter, and then the pillow is being tugged out of Eddie's hands and tossed aside. 

"Jame," he protests. 

"Shut up." Jamison stares down at Eddie. "Are you done being a child?" 

"I already told you, it was an accident. Yeah, I kicked the amp, because my fucking string snapped and nobody would listen to me. I didn't know it was gonna actually move." 

"If we go out, can you behave?" Jamison asks quietly. 

Eddie sits up ramrod straight. "Absolutely… Why? What's so important?" 

"Jeff's asleep, I'm bored, and-" He shrugs offhandedly. "If you got 'em, flaunt 'em?" 

Jamison holds up a silver pair of car keys. They clink together, the sound music to Eddie's ears. 

—

So you and Eddie meet for the second time like this. 

“Does it have to be this loud?” you shout over the music, pleading gaze on Ananya, who shrugs. 

She looks better after a show, even drunk. Her lipstick is a pink-red with a darker but incomprehensible outline, leaving her looking kissed sick. Her dark eyebrows are ruffled and thick, their minimal gel sweated off. She has the most heartbreaking expression about her, and you think it isn’t truly fair, how she can look so pretty and be so talented at the same time. A tragedy that other people have time for both. You feel as though you barely have the time for one.

Despite the volume, you love the sound. This is your sound. Small town hatred in a big room — begging to get out and the music proof enough that you did. It’s passionate and anxious, a two-chord progression that’s boggling simplistic but drawing you in anyhow. Wrinkled noses and bored eyes say it’s not to everyone’s taste, but you’d hazard a guess that whoever plugged it into the stereo isn’t the kind of person who worries about public opinion. If Godless worked more on your choices, this is how you’d sound.  

“Whose house are we in?” you ask. 

“Babe,” Ananya says, “seriously, there’s a whole room of people who want to answer you. Go bother someone.” Else. Go bother someone else. 

She dismisses you with little more than that, slinking into the kitchen with a toss of her thick hair. The red of her corset top darkens to a bloodier shade in the mood lighting. She looks as though she’s bleeding out from the back. 

You aren’t sure Ananya’s right. You aren’t, in the eyes of the people here, anything impressive. A techie who’s been filling in isn’t anything new, no, you’re only impressive if you get to stay, if you play better than anybody else. You’re never gonna prove that under Morgan’s thumb, and you’ll never prove it without her. 

I need a bump, you think. Morgan’s coke nose flashes in your mind and you change your mind. I need something to drink. Something fucking cold, but if Ananya thinks you’ve followed her into the kitchen she’ll throw a pissy fit in front of everybody. 

The room is a gaudy yellow, a tobacco stained fingerprint over the lampshade with whorls of dirt in lines, darker patches where shadier reconciliation plays; in one corner, a bag of coke, another something worse. This had been a surprise with age rather than location, the commonplace of cocaine and the bravado of its sufferers from high school and up. You’d die for some of that cocky confidence now, numb gums and a sullen credit card. 

I need to get paid. 

The heat of a cigarette tip kisses your shoulder. In your ear, the sound of someone taking a long, slow drag, crackling paper. You turn into it slowly, looking up slower, right into the skinny face of your missing-in-action bandmate. 

“What’s up?” Morgan asks, blowing her smoke in your face. Your eyes burn. 

She’s placing the cigarette between your lips before you can answer. Whether she believes she’s tormenting you or throwing you a life raft, you’re grateful for it, sucking in a blistering breath and wincing as it floods your nose. 

You blow it away from her. 

“Ashtray?” you ask, pinching the cig between two fingers. 

“The floor’s fine.”

You raise your eyebrows, unsurprised at her cavalier suggestion and flick it still smouldering into your cupped palm. The door is perpetually open, guests flicking in and out like the froth of a cresting wave, a rushing entrance and a sluggish recession. 

“Can you get me a bag?” you ask her. 

“I’m not your daddy,” she murmurs.

“Bored already?”

“I have to be bored?”

To bother bothering you? Yes, Morgan would have to be bored. Bored or wasted, and she doesn’t seem inebriated. You place the cig between your teeth and lean your head back to look at the ceiling rather than give her the attentive watching she desires, the roof of your mouth an uncomfortable heat.

You remove it, blow all your smoke skyward, and drop your head. “How are you gonna fuck with me tonight?” you ask plainly. 

You find you aren’t asking Morgan. 

In her place stands a much taller, much more handsome face, big eyes set into pale skin. You don't recognise him at first. He wears the uniform well, in company with every other guy in the room, a crumpled shirt you imagine discarded and re-discarded on different floors. Ripped, dark jeans. He could be wearing nothing at all and the air of intimidation surrounding him would survive — there's something behind his eyes that alarms you, a knife's edge. Sweetness bordering cruelty. 

"I don't know yet," he says. An insipid smile takes his lips from corner to corner as he eases the cig from your hand. "I'm sure we can think of something… together. Sweetheart." 

Boys don't always give you the time of day, not the nice ones, and he doesn't look very nice. He looks like he's trying to calculate what he can get out of you. You're thinking you'll pay just about anything if he can get you a bump of something fun. 

He sees your look too, his lips poised to mention it, but you've just realised where you know him from. 

"I saw you on TV."

"Yeah? In Madison Square Garden?" 

"In court." You give him your best doe eyes, a soft, sweet look, far from mastered and yet effective where it counts. "How much did you have to pay for all the stuff you broke?" 

His smile shutters, realigns. A split-second and enough to let you know his cool gaze is nothing more than a parlour trick.

"You look familiar," he says. 

You hum. "Rollerboy paid, huh?" 

He glares, the idea that his record label might pay for the damages he'd caused laughable and undoubtedly correct. You aren't trying to make enemies, aren't attempting to play someone you're not — you're meek mannered, mollycoddled, too naive to be in the industry for very long. You can see it on his face, exactly what he's thinking, and it's easy to see because everybody else is thinking it too. Even you. 

Before you can repair the offence you've caused, he's dropping your stolen cigarette on the ground and grinding out the flame. 

"Nice to meet you," he says slowly. 

You stare straight ahead and listen to him leave. Smoke tickles your nose. When you look down, the cigarette is smouldering. You squat down, pick up the flattened bud, and drive it into the floor until your fingers are black with soot. 

You wrap those same ashy fingers around the neck of a bottle of coke and try not to be too pissy about it. Fucking rockstars and their fucking egos. He did something embarrassing, and you're the villain? 

You feel bad halfway through your coke. Maybe he'd had nice intentions, but how could you know? You'd talked for all of two minutes. And even if he was bad news, he likely wouldn't have been any worse than half the jerks here. 

He'd have had a handsome face to look up into while said intentions were being acted out, at least.

You frown more. Wishing you'd been nicer to him because you're bored enough to want to get laid isn't strictly kind. Human, maybe. 

The feeling worsens when his appearance garners a small crowd. He sits in a nest of dirty couch cushions and a cloud of smoke, the smell of green strong enough to irritate you from here, telling a story with frenetic hands, and despite the cool look he'd given you earlier, he's making a show of it. Cussing, giggling, blunt between his lips as he ushers for a zippo. A pretty girl with surfer curls relights it, an act of flirting in the way she pulls her shoulders in. 

He takes the blunt from between his lips and blows the smoke so it misses her completely. 

"Thanks, sweetheart," he says, voice rough as hewn stone. 

You kick one shoe behind the other and squeeze your tired thighs together. You get this feeling like a matchstick, red powdered head flicking against gritty scratchpad but failing to strike. Something is familiar about the way he speaks, his sticky inflection. 

Or you're lying to yourself, and you just like the way he talks 

The way he would've spoken, thick fingers braceleting your wrists as he forces your hands into the pillow behind your head, the weight of his body on top of yours, the snugness of a knee between your soft thighs. Your hotel light would've kissed his left side, dividing his curls into strands, the individuals glowing like silver thread as they danced over your cheek and temple, as his breath warmed your lips, as he closed the distance. 

Joan, you could hit him.

"That's an unfortunate hand. Are you sober?"

Cheeks full of heat at being caught in a fantasy, you lift your eyes and meet light, almond brown eyes almost entirely shielded by darker eyebrows. A man stands in front of you, a comfortable gap between his nondescript skate shoes and your worn boots. He's tall and pretty and surprising: he's smiling at you like you're something worth smiling at. 

"I'm–" You brandish the bottle as if that might explain it but harshly set it aside. "No, not sober. I mean, not willingly. Coke's were out here, so…" 

"Oh, right," he says, nodding knowledgeably. "Right, I was sorry to hear about that." 

You lick your lips. "'Bout what?" 

"They banned beautiful women from the kitchen," he says. "Hadn't you heard?" 

"No, that one passed me by." 

"I'm Jamison," he says, holding out his free hand. 

You take it. You tell him your name. 

—

Morgan is crying. Big heaping sobs that she attempts to talk through, creating this ringing whining sound that fills you top to toe with anxiety. You lean back in your hotel bed, wondering what it is in the world that could've happened to her as a kid to make her this unsatisfied now. Ananya blows on her freshly painted nails though they've been dry for hours, knee to knee with you atop the squishy hotel sheets. 

"I can't fucking do this," Morgan cries, tears dripping down her bare skinned cheeks. 

The three of you have been sworn off of makeup, junk food, and unapproved wash products for the next four to five hours. You're happy for this to continue until the end of time. Morgan, less so. 

You're trying to decipher exactly why she's crying, feeling a confusion you'd liken to the first modern day archaeologist that laid eyes on ancient hieroglyphics. All these symbols and colours and stories. No clear translation. 

If Ananya were an archaeologist, she's the kind who got to see the Rosetta stone. Morgan's moods make sense to her, and while she often doesn't empathise with her, she at least knows what to say to appease the worst of it. 

"It'll be alright, Morgs," she says, her faux sympathy unconvincing.

You feel a little sorry for Morgan and clear your throat. "And you're not by yourself. We're here." 

"Fucking amazing help you've been," Morgan says. Her voice does a theatrical peak, pure hysterics. 

It irks you how good she looks. You think that, maybe, if you could make your problems pretty the way that she does, you'd be a lot happier overall. You've often lamented that you suffer the kind of unhappiness that makes people uncomfortable and unwilling. You cry ugly, and always alone, hands over your mouth to smother the sounds, and that's when you do cry. Mostly, you bounce around inside yourself and feel very afraid that this feeling is forever. 

But, you think presently, that isn't Morgan's fault. Not all of it. 

Morgan throws her hands out at you and Ananya and spins on her heel, through the bathroom and into her own separate room. 

"At least the backdrop of her breakdown is nice," you murmur, hugging the pillow against your stomach, heels digging into the mattress to keep your knees up. 

Ananya snorts and flicks to the next page of her magazine. "Right?" She stretches her naked legs out over your sheets. You know she's decided to ruin your bed with her after-waxing oils rather than her own. "Better here than back home." 

"Why's she so upset?" you ask. 

Already, your thoughts are starting to drift. You take another peek at the phone across the room and will it into ringing. 

"She draws them on everyday anyway," Ananya says agreeably. 

You summarise that Morgan's eyebrows are the root of the problem. You don't blame her for wanting to look perfect tomorrow night. Your stomach is a weight every time you think about it, solid as petrified wood. This will be your first TV appearance that isn't a recorded concert, a mid-show performance for the Prover Music Awards, and it should further cement your place in the band. If you look good and people like you, public favour might be enough to keep you around. If they don't, there'll be a couple hundred different audience members with industry links. If you play well, and you're certain you will, you might finally prove to Morgan, Ananya, and the rest of the management team that you're worth choosing. 

You want it badly. You want lots of things, and being a real part of Godless could hand them all to you on a studded platter. Recognition of your talent, further experience, the chance to perform and be supported, to be adored, and the money isn't something you'll pretend you don't think about. A rockstar's salary is hardly stable, but a lack of stability is almost always supplemented by the amount. Wouldn't that be nice? To buy your own bass, to buy whatever you liked. To go out and have spa treatments like the one you'd had just this morning whenever you please. To get to feel beautiful and limp as this all the time. More than anything, you want the validation, the poster that comes with it. 

If Godless decides to keep you, it's a huge, blinking, neon-lit sign that says you're good enough. 

They chose me, and you're stupid for letting me go. 

They chose me. I'm something worth something. You didn't see it, but it's there in me. 

The subtext isn't important. 

You're scared shitless at the reality of performing tonight, knowing any fuck up could follow you, or worse ruin your hopefully budding career in rock for the rest of time. You have this body and this name, and if you want to keep your life you have to be good. It has your fingers itching for your piece-of-shit bass guitar where you know she's hiding under the bed. You should be practising, but this entire week has been practising. The dress rehearsal went well, and you'll give yourself a pass for having certain distractions. 

Morgan warbles. You glance at the phone. 

"Waiting for someone?" Ananya asks. She misses nothing. 

You both wince as Morgan screams and throws something across her bedroom, the eventual clattering smash indicative of a fragile target. 

"Think room service will send up a sedative?" she asks. 

Room service won't send a sedative, nor will they send the single hashbrown Morgan is apparently craving. You're starting to panic when the solution practically jumps at you. 

"Morgan," you say gently, standing in the doorway of her room with a tentative smile, "can't offer you something, can I?" 

You hold up your little pouch. Morgan doesn't know you well, but she knows it's where you keep anything interesting. She should know, she pilfers it of anything truly exciting within the day. 

"Don't be stupid," she scathes. "My eyes will be bloodshot. You know smoking doesn't agree with me." 

You hold in a comment on how she'd literally been smoking out of the window last night. 

"It's a brownie. It's a couple days old, but… perfectly edible." You offer her the pouch, dropping it at the end of the bed among her things. 

She picks at the brownie, timid princess bites that make you want to roll your eyes. You often think the worst thing about Morgan is that you love her, or you could love her more, if only she felt the same way. She isn't all evil and she never will be, she's just a person. But she takes shit out on you and makes your life harder than it needs to be, so even her most endearing moments fall short. 

"This tastes awful." 

You laugh and kneel down at her dresser to start putting her thrown jewellery box back together. "It wasn't that nice when I got it," you lie. 

You clean her room. Morgan never wants to do anything she knows can be done for her, and you know she won't bother here, not when room service will spend the hour it takes themselves. You think of some poor service worker squaring away the impossible amount of stockings and garters for a sad $3.45 an hour and the task suddenly becomes much more enjoyable. 

Morgan doesn't say thank you. You don't insult her intelligence by thinking she isn't aware of what you're doing. She sniffles and blows her nose daintily with a balsam tissue. 

"I saw you talking to that guy from Corroded Coffin." 

You brush off your knees as you stand. "Which one?" 

"Eddie. The rhythm guitarist." 

"The loud one." 

"He's kind of hot. If he calls, you should go out with him." 

"That's not–" who I'm waiting for. You squint at her. "Morgan, that would be terrible." 

"Can you get me something from the minibar?" 

You kick open her minibar and grab a cold can of seltzer. She slides onto her back and accepts it, pressing it to her eyes with a relaxed smile. Eyebrows forgotten, it seems. 

"That would be perfect. He can be the cat to your mouse." 

"Your definition of perfect–" You cut yourself off again when she starts to laugh. You don't believe it to be genuine. 

She lounges in bed for an hour until she's high, reappearing in you and Ananya's suite with a dizzying smile. You don't mind high Morgan. She's smoked enough in her time to bypass the dizzying, giggly kind of stoner. This Morgan is relaxed, almost easygoing. She sits at the end of your bed and watches you pluck out a bass line proposal for one of their current works in progress, head bobbing. 

An hour again and the stylists appear to spray you down with smells and oils and make up, and soon you've been strapped into a short shining dress with a cowl neck, dark black stockings that shine like oil, and heels you can't really walk in. You complain about them politely enough that Mel, the man in charge of your 'costuming', swaps them out for shorter ones. 

"This fucking corset is a nightmare," Morgan grumbles. 

"Sorry, love, that's all we've got." 

The commute is over in a blink. You arrive outside of the venue for the Awards, staring up at its imposing silhouette against the skyline, a dark building in the strange blue night. The sun is unseen but light illuminates the wet streets in blinding patches, so white they glow violet behind your eyes. 

There's a modest red carpet where you thankfully don't have to pose for many photos. After all, besides being a temporary member of the stage, you aren't truly in Godless. Most casual fans (the majority of their fan base) only know the faces in the magazines and on TV, and you have yet to be in either until tonight. 

After a bundle of shy and regretfully nerve-wracking photos, you're drawn inside the building and away from all the flashing hubbub. You sit in your seats, short rows divided by the occasional table for drinks, and you try not to sink into the carpeted floor. It smells insanely like nothing at all. No bleach, no air conditioning cleanliness. Every now and then another guest walks past your row and you get a whiff of perfume. 

A familiar scent pricks your attention. 

You look up, slightly over your shoulder, and your eyes meet familiar sticky brown. 

He drops down in the seat next to you, and you think, No way. 

He holds up the placard that had been under his thigh. His name is typed in clear blocked letters. 

It's a strange humiliation to have been read for filth like that. You're you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me expression can be pretty telling, evidently. 

"Hey, sweetheart." 

Matchstick against the box. You tilt your head and try to place him for the tenth time. 

"Have we met before?" you ask. 

He actually grins like this is the best thing you could've said. "You met my friend," he says, pointing down the aisle. 

Jamison stands talking to a woman who is admittedly gorgeous, and, to your sinking horror, much prettier than you. They kiss each other on the cheek and it's the kind of over friendly to make you sick. 

Eddie pouts at you. "Better luck next time, sweet thing." He throws one leg over another. "You look different. New haircut?" 

"You look exactly the same," you say. 

It's surprising how untouched he is. Sure, he's had some makeup applied and his hairs been tousled into life, but his outfit is remarkable in its simplicity. Surely rockstars can wear suits too? He looks neat and dark and tidy, but he also looks effortless. It's irritating.

This phenomena is not self contained, you find, as his bandmates sit down the row with their managerial chaperones and one date. Jamison sits right at the very end. He doesn't look at you. 

You avert your eyes and wonder if it's possible to die from embarrassment. 

The venue gets increasingly busy as the bigger names and bands flood inside. Soon, you're sitting amongst legends, people who pretty much spearheaded late 80s glam rock, punk, grunge. People you've only ever seen on TV. And it isn't restricted to alternative sound, there are pop stars and their supermodel girlfriends shaking hands and kissing cheeks in the row behind, while producers with names big enough to make your mouth dry up clap each other on the shoulders in front. 

"You'll catch flies." 

You turn to Eddie. He doesn't sound entirely cruel. He doesn't sound like much of anything. You could almost believe him to be a friend. 

There's a smudge of eyeliner on his cheek. 

"You have–" You point at your own cheek, a mirror. 

His lightness fades. "Nice." 

"No, seriously, you have something. Make up, on your cheek. I have a wipe if you want it." 

He scrubs at his cheek ineffectually. 

You're reaching out to help before you can stop yourself, witnessing your own actions with a strange out-of-body horror as you wipe the small black line gently. It spreads, and you panic and dab at it until it's an unfortunate grey shadow. 

"Let me get the wet wipe," you say. You'd been holding your breath, awkwardness stiff between you, and it sounds too much like a laugh. 

Eddie flinches away from your touch and covers his cheek. "I got it," he says stonily. 

He leaves, stepping over his bandmates feet like stepping stones, earning a cacophony of protests and disparagments. 

Dick, you think. Again, that had been a little bit your fault. Not all of it, he seems to be in a perpetual bad mood that can't be your doing, but you can understand why he might think you were laughing at him, and the defensiveness that comes with it. When he comes back you'll apologise. 

Or that's what you tell yourself. The lights go down, the curtains open, and the venue erupts with applause. By the time Eddie takes his seat again you're too afraid of disturbing the quiet. 

After half an hour you're ushered backstage. You have to move in front of Eddie and the rest of Corroded Coffin as you go. 

He looks up at you in silence. Head tipped back, face barely lit by the lights while you stand in between his legs. His lips part and he's all rockstar, his brown eyes and their edging of straight dark lashes, his pink, pretty lips. He has a distinct line to his nose, a cupid's bow perfectly shaped. His maker must have looked at him and known somebody, somewhere, would want to kiss him right there. His lips twitch. 

"Can I help you?" he whispers. 

You stammer a response that won't form and Morgan shoves you. 

"Fucking move," she says. 

His expression flickers. 

"Sorry," you say, unsure of who you're talking to. "Sorry." You sound pathetic. A kicked puppy. 

You keep your eyes on the floor until you're in the aisle, where a new set of nerves tries to swallow you whole.

—

Eddie knows exactly who you are, and he hates himself for it. He remembers you, the first you, shy and sweet and so excited, sitting pretty in Indianapolis International Airport with your guitar and your huge leaky headphones pounding death metal. While fame has broadened the amount of people who want to sleep with him, it hasn't changed his type, and you'd been a ringer, right there in the middle. 

You'd been pretty and maybe you knew it, maybe you didn't, it didn't matter — what he liked most was the way your hands had moved as you spoke, hummingbird thrumming, an energy he'd seen in himself and every other musician desperate for a chance. He loved the passion and your eyelashes and the way you'd smiled as you'd waited for your plane, the two of you destined for New York, where you both seem to have looped back now. Only, he'd been cursed with remembering your every detail, and you either didn't remember him or don't care. Both sting, but he likes the second better. He'll take purposeful cruelty over the casual any day. 

Like your thumb pressed to his cheek. The heat, and then your laugh. 

"The fuck is this?" Gareth asks, leaning over the space between their two chairs. 

Eddie looks up at you on stage and shrugs. While bands made up completely of women aren't new, they aren't as common as bands made up of men, obviously. He likes it, likes your sound, though it's not the kind of thing Corroded Coffin would ever play, and he won't join in on Gareth's doubt. Even if you are, like, a magnanimous shithead. You're good. 

"She's hot," he furthers. 

"Jesus, Gareth." 

"What? She's fucking hot." 

He has to squint to see you from this distance, and he can't truly make out many details. Gareth's not wrong. You're pretty, and out of the three members of the band you're the only one who actually looks like they're having a good time. 

The lead singer trails around the stage pulling Blond Ambition poses. She can sing well, she has a strong voice that does whatever it is she bends it into, but her propensity to drop the guitar slung around her neck to grab at the microphone stand like it's escaping isn't helping anything. 

The girl on drums is arguably given a pass, fighting to keep up with the pace, sweat sticking her thick hair to her neck in glossy spirals and her huge eyes set in concentration. Her messy lipstick sparkles under the stage lights, a party pink that pops against her brown skin. 

He thinks you might be trying to cover up the lead singer's sloppy playing. You're good, sure, but it's not the easiest to tell when it's ragtag and rough like this. Only because he's watching does he notice your pick slipping between strings to the floor, and your willingness to strum with the sides of your fingertips. He likes that. The dedication is hot. 

"I've never seen a girl on drums who didn't look like a guy," Gareth says. "She's killer. Think I can get her number?" 

Eddie groans. "No, you fucking loser." 

"I was just asking." 

You bounce around and Eddie shifts in his seat, annoyed that he'd assumed you were the one Gareth was talking about. 

He claps for you when the song is over and hates how you return to your seat during the break, back in your cute dress and beaming, practically dripping in deodorant and post-show adrenaline. 

You apologise again as you step over him, and if there's one thing he doesn't want from you it's a sorry. Twice now you've spoken to him in the last week and twice you've made fun of him like some plaything under your thumb. Eddie isn't in the habit of being under anyone's anything. Apologies feel like salt in the wound, even though he knows you aren't saying sorry for the stuff that's pissing him off.

"What the fuck was that?" Lead girl asks you, sounding about as uptight as she looks as she climbs over your leg. "What were you doing?" 

"Morgan, I don't know if you noticed, but you didn't play half of the song," you say defensively, the skirt of your gem-encrusted dress glancing off of his thigh. The gems are tiny, like pinprick stars in country night skies. They shine purple, green, orange. 

Morgan holds her hand up for an attendant. When one approaches, she says, "Appletini," and nothing else, waving dismissively. She pulls at her stockings and doesn't notice the ladder she makes near the calf. "You're here to play what you're given." 

"I did." 

"And only that." 

Your silence speaks volumes. What he'd thought to be an edge in Godless' sound may have been an improvisation, something Eddie personally applauds. 

"Christ," Morgan says, "you're more trouble than you're worth. I hope you know that." 

Eddie believes the sting of her barb to be in the presentation rather than the words themselves, though what she'd said is hardly kind. She looks away from you as she says it, like she's giving instruction far below her station. Factual, concise. 

You barely wince. The lights dim, and he watches you contend with how you're feeling from the corner of his eye.

Eddie isn't evil. You may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and he's definitely holding his resentment at being forgotten tight to his chest, but nobody deserves to get shit on like that. You'd played well, you'd had a great time, and that should be commended. What's worse, your lack of a reaction tells him this is a common occurrence. 

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you say. 

Morgan waves you away like she had the waitress. You stand, and you say, "Excuse me," to every person you pass. Eddie put his hand on the back of his chair to follow you up toward the back of the room where the sign for the bathrooms glows green. 

He sets his eyes back on the stage and begs himself to stay sitting. Corroded Coffin's nomination for best up and comer has already passed, a loss, and there's no reason he can't nip to the bathroom himself. There's also no reason he should go after you. 

Fuck it, he thinks. 

What could go wrong? What could go wrong, outside of the women's bathroom, where he has so obviously followed you, where he waits for you like some creeper trying to paw one off on you. He can't hear anything but the running tap. For a moment he thinks you haven't come here to collect yourself after all, you'd needed to pee, which makes his situation that much awkwarder. 

Stuck between indecision, he leans against the wall between the women's and men's and digs for a cigarette. His pockets are empty, a precaution for exactly this moment. You can't smoke in the Prover Theatre, pissant.

You appear and blitz past him. 

"Hey," he says before you can go too far, "d'you have a card?"

You turn on your heel. Hands already in your purse, you dig out an unopened box of cigarettes and offer it to him. You don't look as though you've been crying or anything like it, but you don't look him head on, so he keeps his theory. 

Eddie peels the plastic off of your box and slaps the end against his chest for good measure. 

"I don't think you can smoke in here," you say finally. Your voice is tired. 

He raises his eyebrows and peers down into the box, pulling a cigarette free and sliding it between his lips. He holds out his hand for a lighter and you give it to him, already waiting with it between two fingers. 

He lights it, inhales sharply, and passes you back your carton and lighter with a clouded, "Thanks." 

"Yeah." 

He's surprised when you don't move. You stand there and watch him smoke, whorls of pearly smoke dissecting the air between you, spider-webs over your pert face. You're waiting for what he doesn't know, so he'll give you something. He's nice. 

"She's a piece of work." 

You shift uneasily. 

"I'm not the feds," he says, pulling the cig from his lips to talk unfettered.

"Forgive me for wondering if you have my best interests at heart." 

He beams at you, really smiles, startled and enamoured by your sharp tongue. "Now why wouldn't I?" 

You don't say anything, only pull at the neckline of your dress in what's likely a nervous habit. He gets a flash of the top of your chest and looks away. He thinks you're beautiful in a rather understated way, and he doesn't not want to see what it is you're showing, but he knows you don't actually mean to be so forward. He might be an asshole, but he's not like that. 

It's quiet here in the foyer, like standing outside the doors of the movie theatre. You can hear the announcement of a new category, the roaring applause. The hallway and the bathrooms feel cordoned off from it in a strange way, an uncanny energy that has him on internal tenterhooks. 

"You always let her treat you like that?"

"Like what?" 

He steps toward you because the distance feels unnecessary. "Like that. Like you're a dog." 

"Fuck you, I do not." 

He pouts, the taste of smoke thick on his tongue. 

"What would you know?" you ask.

"Besides hearing it all fucking night, nothing. You must like that shit." 

Your eyes go wide. He hadn't meant to say it. There's a light behind them now, some life, something to cover up that shitty wounded despondency you'd been wearing. Your hands bunch in the soft skirt of your dress, shaking. He's touched a nerve. 

"I must like it," you quote, strained.

"Woof. Do you do any tricks, or is it just the one?" 

He doesn't mean for it to happen this way, he wants it on the record. He's a dick, he's a loser, whatever, he hadn't meant to argue but he will. And, you know, there may be a slight possibility that he isn't as sure in himself as he appears, and that there are nerves he keeps too close to the surface, too. 

"You can teach me one of yours, if you want," you offer, voice tight with annoyance, "I'm thinking smug asshole picks easy target, but I'm open to other options." 

That's funny. He takes another step toward you, another, your cigarette between his lips smouldering at the tip as he inhales through his smirk. 

"Yeah, like what?" he asks, smoke licking your cheeks as he breathes out. 

"How you get your head through the door might be a good place to start." 

He waits for you to explain, knowing the silence will force you to fill it. 

"You know, considering you're in the exact same place as me, only one of us performed tonight and it isn't the one acting like God's gift." 

"You think they invited you to play because you're good?" he asks, feigning an earnest tone.

"I know exactly why they didn't ask you." You hike the strap of your purse higher up your shoulder, chin lifted in a snooty superiority that makes his heart pound. "Wannabe rookie who had too much smoke blown up his ass and thinks he's somebody. But you're not," you say. "You're a child. They've seen a hundred guys just like you in the Indiana circuit."

"You're a jumped up fucking groupie that got lucky," he says.

The light behind your eyes dims. He takes that last step, the step that's gonna put you shoe to shoe. 

He should stop now, he would, but suddenly his anger is real, this isn't strictly fun anymore. He says what he knows is gonna hurt you. 

"You're a stand-in, a temp who's already overstayed her welcome." He flicks the tower of ash between your heels. You follow it down, watch as it settles into the fibres of the carpeting. "You're a burnout waiting to happen." 

Your breathing is loud in his ears. Slightly too fast. 

"You don't know anything," you murmur. 

"If it barks like a dog, and it heels like a dog," he says, pausing, words coming out thick and slow, "it's a dog."

Your face flares with hurt. You're gone before he can say anything else. 

He's glad for it. Honestly, he's not sure what else he would've said, and later, he'll regret this, regret blowing up at you, regret following you out here and making you feel worse when he'd wanted the opposite. But tonight he's lit up from the inside out, your words a reverberation. A hundred guys just like you.

"Yeah, right," he says to himself, scoffing with a surety he doesn't feel. 

—

Donington Park, England, August 1990

"I'd be a little more excited if I knew they weren't desperate this year," Jamison's saying, "that's all." 

"They're hardly desperate." 

"Last time they had KISS, Iron Maiden, Megadeth." Jamison sighs and falls back into the couch, muttering about the stale smell before continuing, "and this year, what do they have? Poison? Thunder? Who cares." 

Eddie thinks he might actually have an opponent for biggest ego right now. 

"You know they put Godless bigger on the poster," Jeff says with a bright smile. 

"Can we not talk about them for one fucking day?" Eddie pleads. 

He's a little disappointed at the lineup too, but that doesn't make this entire festival a bust. Monster of Rock may not be the most prestigious event they've ever attended but it's still impressive to be asked to play here, and this is only Corroded Coffin's third festival. Eddie's a smug bastard and even he knows Jamison sounds like a bitch. Besides that, he's so, so tired of talking about Godless. 

"They finally stopped stringing that poor girl along. What was her name?" Jeff asks, clicking his fingers. "Eddie, you know, the one who said she didn't know you in the magazines?"

"What?" Eddie asked. "They cut her?" 

Jamison sits up, eyes lit with mirth. "What's it matter to you, heartthrob?" 

"It doesn't." 

He's not being truthful. His bandmates are all unkind, and none extend the generosity of pretending they believe him. 

"Nah, she's not cut, she's official. Writing credits on the new album and everything, 'cordin to Rolling Stone." 

"You have it?" Eddie asks.

Jeff laughs at him but digs it out of his suitcase, brandishing it all rolled up. 

"Shit better not be sticky," Eddie mutters under his breath. 

"... Skip the interview with Kim Gordon." 

Eddie gags and flicks through the pages until he finds the article on you, or rather the column. 

"All female rock band Godless finally welcomed a new bass player this month after the departure of Millyanna Richardson in '89. Y/N L/N, 24, had been with the band for almost a year under a 'touring only' basis, though she performed live with remaining members Morgan Fletcher and Ananya Roy at the Prover Music Awards in early June. Fans have praised her talent and finesse, and are looking forward to her contributions to the band's next album expected this December. Hopefully she has thicker skin than her predecessor, who branded the band's inner politics as 'gruesome' and 'unlivable'."

There's a grainy photograph of you and your bandmates at the Prover Theatre overtop. You look exactly as you had that night, pretty and glitzy. He scowls at your printed face.

He can't fucking stand you, let it be known, and he thinks your frontman is the most spoilt brat he's ever seen. He hadn't seen the article, but he'd heard via word of mouth that you'd both had something to say about him. His approximation goes as follows: 

Interviewer: …and you guys will be performing at the Monster of Rock music festival in England this August, right? Any faces you're excited to see? 

Morgan: I think I'm better than everyone despite being in a mildly popular band that didn't qualify as hard rock until, like, three months ago, and I totally shit on our bass player for trying to make the change by the way, so I'm not excited to see anyone besides myself in the mirror. 

Interviewer: How sophisticated and mature of you. And you, Y/N, are you excited to see anyone? Photos from the Prover Music Awards show you were sitting beside Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson, did you two hit it off? 

Y/N: Who was that, the guitarist? I'm so sorry, I don't really remember getting a chance to talk to him, but I'm excited for the opportunity to meet more people in the scene right now and to get to play for a new audience. Also I suck and I want Eddie sooooo bad. 

"I wish I were asleep." Gareth squints at the ceiling. "Asleep or back home."

"Miss mommy?" Jamison asks him. 

"And Cindy." 

"Oh, god," Eddie groans, "I don't want to hear it, seriously." 

"She always had smooth legs, you know?" Gareth says. "Always shiny, soft. Fuck, I miss her legs. Girls on the road never shave their legs." 

"Do you shave your legs?" Eddie asks. 

"Fuck off, Teddy, you know you like it better when they shave." 

"Do I know that?" Eddie asks. 

He turns to Jamison, giving him a much-used 'make him stop' expression. Eyebrows raised, lips parted. When Jamison says nothing, and Gareth starts to talk about hair removal in other places, Eddie scrubs his eyes with both hands and stands up. 

He's a guy. He has guy thoughts. Yeah, he thinks about girls, and their legs, and everything else, but he also thinks about them as actual people, something Gareth hasn't quite grasped yet. 

"Remember why Cindy said she didn't wanna come with you?" Eddie asks. 

"Because she was jealous of my success." 

Eddie snorts and shrugs on his jacket where he'd left it thrown over the ratty couch. "Because she was going to beauty school," Eddie corrects. "I'm going out." 

"We're miles away from anything interesting," Jeff says, magazine crinkling in his hands. 

"I'm sure I'll find something," he says, and doesn't add that it should be easy. 

What counts as interesting has taken a sharp turn since arriving in Donington. Which isn't to say it's boring, exactly, there's a rich culture Eddie isn't familiar with, and a fucking castle, but he's so used to loud dives and backroom parties that this has been a stark change. Wending had said to think of it like a vacation to get his head screwed on tight. Paula had said to think of it like a punishment, which had been funny at the time. Now he's wondering if she was serious. 

He knows there'd been a convenience store somewhere down the road from the hotel. Or rather, the bed and breakfast, a strange cottage situation where the hosts keep an eye on you under the guise of making your dinner. Eddie's first world problems continue. 

He could get weed, possibly. He doesn't know where from, but he knows someone who knows someone who must know someone, right? 

Then he starts debating with himself about if he should smoke just to escape boredom. That sounds like a terrible idea, life isn't even bad right now, he's just hungry, and— 

Eddie turns the corner, wet sidewalk dark as pitch under his feet, and spots the back of your head as you disappear inside of the convenience store. The corner shop, as Wending had informed. Eddie doesn't understand because it isn't on a corner, but he has bigger fish to fry. He considers waiting for you to leave. What are the chances you'll walk back this way? Pretty likely. 

Don't be a bitch, he tells himself. 

Light rain spots his neck as he hurries inside, the bell above the door ringing to announce his entrance. He's confused as soon as he looks up, because in front of him is an aisle, and to either side is an aisle, and he can't make out where the cashier is. He takes a tentative step in, eyes tracking muddy footprints down the way to the drinks fridge humming loudly at the back of the room. 

Claustrophobic, he makes his way through the aisle and stops in front of the drinks. Because luck isn't ever his friend, you're standing toward the leftmost part, where a second fridge hums, filled to bursting with canned beer and litre bottles of cider. Eddie isn't sure it's really you until you turn to the left slightly and reach out for a colourful glass bottle. He should walk away. He doesn't like you, he has no business watching you, but there's something so sweet about it. 

You in the humming chill, a coat pulled tightly around you, your chin hidden by the multicolour of a yarn scarf. You turn the bottle in your hand delicately and blink slow as you read the ingredients. Your hair is frizzy from the wind, flyaways surrounding your face in a little wave. His fingers twitch. 

You keep the bottle and pick up a second, nails clinking against glass. Your movement pulls like you're moving through jello, and Eddie turns to the fridge in front of him hurriedly. 

He can feel your gaze on the side of his face. 

He picks up a couple of drinks without thinking, his face burning with heat. When he chances a glance your way, you've moved. He stares at the rainbow of drinks and the gaps where you've taken what you wanted. 

He leaves some time between your departure and follows the way you must've gone down an aisle of more alcohol that's unrefrigerated and pet food, wondering how they organise here, and is confronted with you again at the end. 

It's a snug building. You're blocking the way past where you're standing in front of the cashier's desk, a plexiglass shielded cube decked out in hanging sweets and cigarettes. 

"Do you have Newports?" you ask mildly. 

"Sorry." 

"That's okay, uh, I'll just take a carton of whatever you think is best?" 

The cashier retrieves a light blue box of cigarettes. "Lambert and Butler blues," he says. "Total, sixteen fifty six, and I'll need to see some ID." 

You pull your passport from an already opened purse and offer it to him. While the cashier's checking it over, you peek at Eddie, and you don't smile but you don't not smile, a formal quirk of the lips. 

"You're American?" the cashier asks. 

"I'm visiting for the festival," you say. 

Apparently having passed his test, the cashier hands your passport back and accepts your card. 

"Are you paying together?" he asks, nodding at Eddie. 

Eddie grins unconsciously, worse when you say quickly, "Oh, no, we're not together." 

"Your brevity wounds me," Eddie says.

You snort with a similar geniality. "You don't need me to pay for you, do you? I heard you're rich now." 

There has been an improvement in Eddie's finances lately. Your album breaking into the Billboard top 100 does that. 

"I thought you didn't know who I was?" 

"I thought that was kinder than what I really would've said." 

He hates how your snark makes him smile. You're not looking at him, waiting for your change with your eyes forward as the cashier clicks a couple of buttons on the till. 

"What were you really gonna say?" 

The cashier hands over your change. You slip it into your purse, put your purse in the pocket of your coat, and slide your hand through the weak blue handles of your plastic bag.

"Thank you," you say sincerely. You take a step like you're going to leave, but you pause, and you look Eddie in the eye and say, "I would've said you were mean." 

His jaw drops. You look hurt, and you leave with a discomforting frown. 

He puts the drinks he's carrying down on the cashier's desk and says, "I'll be right back," before following you out.

You've pulled your hood up to defend against the thickening rain, walking with your face angled down. Eddie beats along the wet pathway. 

"Hey! Hey, wait, wait a second, princess." 

"You can't be serious." 

"I'm so serious," he says. 

He weaves in front of you and stops. You look cold as he feels with his red-tipped nose and stiff fingers, your arms drawn together over your chest. You look pretty and he's so sick of thinking it and not saying it. 

"You're hot when you're mad." 

You glare at him. "I wish I could say the same." 

"Hey, hey, okay, we had a spat, but we got off on the wrong foot, you know?" 

"I thought that too," you say. 

He smiles. "See, we're– you're fucking with me. Nice." 

You start laughing, edging around him. He moves in front and you shrug, stepping off of the sidewalk and into the leaf litter clogging the gutter. 

"Don't be stupid," he says, hands held up in surrender "get back on the sidewalk." You keep walking. "Come on, don't get hit by a car. That would really put a damper on the festival." 

You take a step further into the road, the kind that would make a collision unavoidable. He checks both ways for cars and sees none, knowing you're fucking with him and hating it anyway. The two of you are locked into a stand off, grey skies above you and wet ground underneath, your face partially occluded by your scarf and your hood and the dribbling rain. If he listens, he can hear the small sounds of the festival preparations a half a mile away, guitars hooked up up an insane array of speakers and the pounding of a beat through the floor. 

You start walking again. He follows, treading backwards to keep your attention. 

"Seriously, come on." 

"No." 

"No?" he asks. 

"No. I don't have to listen to you." 

"You're being stupid." 

"Eddie, I truly, honestly, don't care." 

"Sure." The sound of tires on the road draws his eye. A car appears behind you, approaching fast. "It's your funeral."

"What do you get out of this?" 

He bites his top lip, shaking his head from one side to the other. "Out of what?" 

"Tormenting me." 

"Tormenting you? Sweetheart, we hardly know each other." 

"Exactly!" You almost trip over your own shoes. "Exactly, you don't know me, but you thought you could say all those things–" 

"You started it." 

You laugh again and Eddie would be pissed but the car is still coming, headlights beaming through the light downpour. He huffs and grabs your wrist, tugging you up onto the sidewalk with his second hand on your waist. He doesn't mean to rag you about, feeling especially apologetic when your face knocks into his chin. The car spins close and validates his concern. You have enough sense to realise what's happened, watching over your shoulder as the car beeps and whizzes past. Still, you yank your arm out of his. 

"Don't touch me," you say quietly. 

He dips his head to force you to meet his eyes. "Next time I'll let you get hit by a car. Great idea." 

"I wasn't going to get hit by the fucking car." 

You're infuriating. 

Infuriating, and yet he feels bad for pulling you around. He lowers his voice, softens his tone. "Sorry," he says. "I don't know why this happens, everytime I see you, I…" 

You look intensely uncomfortable. "I have one of those faces, I guess." You shrug away from his reach. "Try to play well tomorrow? I don't want to go on to a dead crowd." 

His mouth snaps closed. "If you need me to warm them up for you, just say that." 

—

You go to watch Eddie's set because you're awful. You want it to suck. You want Corroded Coffin to bomb it and you want it to be his fault, anything to wipe that pretty smile off of his face, smother the electricity of his bouncing steps as he bounds from one side of the stage to the other. He's entranced by the crowd — it's hard not to be. Ananya had told you on the plane that UK festival audiences are a different kind of enthusiastic, eager and loud, and it's obvious now that she was right, and that Corroded Coffin had more than a few loyalists in the sea of people. 

The barrier bends under the force of it, thousands of warm bodies throwing themselves against one another despite the terrible weather, mud to the shins and sliding. You've never seen so many people happy to be covered in dirt. 

Neither Morgan nor Ananya had wanted to join you so you stick to the shadows with your lanyard pass. You refuse to think about why you've dressed the way you have, a black, stiff corset type top to cinch your chest, exposing the soft hills of your breasts, and the flare pants Morgan had insisted make your thighs acceptable. You're bedecked in pretty jewellery and your hair looks perfect, and it's all for your show, you swear, all for your set straight after his. 

Eddie's dripping with sweat and rain at this point, darker curls wet and slick and sweet around his face. His brows are furrowed like he's in pain, and his thumb has split on the strings, blood like cherry juice running down the body of his guitar, a Warlock NJ Series electric with a red and black tortoise shell design. It shines like mother-of-pearl. 

You're impressed by him, and worse, there's a heat stirring in your abdomen you despise. He's attractive, you've always thought him pretty, but on stage he's something else entirely. The passion transforms him, makes him a different person. No trace of agitating smugness about him. 

And he's good. You're not a critic, an expert, and your opinion hardly matters, but if he's this good now you'd love to see him at Hammet's age, at Hanneman's. He could be one of the greats. 

You're riddled with jealousy. Bass and rhythm guitar are not the same, and they're comparable in some ways, incomparable in others, but you know you're not like he is. You want to be the next Entwistle, the next Ian Hill, but practising You've Got Another Thing Comin' until your fingers bleed is never going to give you what Eddie plainly has. 

You hide your bandaid covered fingers in your back pockets and shake your head. You can pinpoint the moment Eddie notices you on the side stage despite the small audience they've attained. His neck snaps to the side, and his eyes bore into yours for a split-second. 

You could pretend you aren't here. If he ever calls you out on it, you could lie. You want me so bad you're seeing me places, Munson. 

You don't do that. 

You wave. 

You've never been the prettiest girl. You know you aren't model material, people aren't shy about letting you know that, and so, you're practised in the art of quiet flirtation. Your wrist straight, you wiggle your fingers sweetly, a face of fresh make up and your sweetest smile, like he's a guy across the bar and you're trying to get a ride in his passenger seat. 

For a split-second you adore him. It's the meanest thing you can do. 

You aren't expecting him to fuck up. His hand slips down the neck and that's it, one missed second of sound. He throws himself back into it and doesn't look your way again, a storm of emotions clouding his handsome face. 

Not what you'd meant to do, and yet. There's a cruel satisfaction in knowing you'd had any sort of power over him.

There's a ten minute gap between sets, twenty because of the shitty weather. Morgan and Ananya are nowhere to be seen as Corroded Coffin pour off of the stage and down the short stairwell where you're waiting, picking at your clear nail polish absentminded. You don't look up, and the resulting quiet makes you think they've all left. 

A wooden board creaks. 

You look up. 

"Hey, you–" 

Eddie takes your shoulder into his warm, big hand and pushes you back. You wobble and rush to correct your posture, hand clamping around the crook of his elbow. Even though he's soaked through, wet to the skin, his hand is a blistering heat. 

Your shoulders collide with the wall under the stairwell. It's a snug fit, dark and out of view. 

"What gives?" you seethe, pushing at his chest. 

"You fucking–" Eddie tucks a lock of wet hair behind his ear, and his hand stays at that height, hovering between you. "What's wrong with you?" 

"What's wrong with me?" 

"You want to mess with me, is that it?" 

His hand takes to your face, index finger following the line of your cheek, his thumb along your jaw. He isn't kind. He isn't cruel. He's touching you, just touching you, and your mouth is bone dry at the sensation, the stuttering beat of your heart. 

"I don't want to do anything to you, Munson." 

"We both know that's not true." You've never heard his voice like this. It's scratchy– pleading. It's a desperation. 

He's breathing hard. Your proximity means you feel each one as it comes, heat fanning over your lips. You look to his, find them parted, the barest hint of pearly teeth between pink dewy skin. They look soft. 

You lift your chin. 

I dare you. 

His hand slides down. He presses his thumb into your bottom lip and inclines his head. You close your eyes, fine stands of his hair drawing lines of wetness against your face as he boxes you in. 

"Are you going to–" 

"Shut up," he says, crushing his lips to yours. 

It his nose you feel more than anything, the force of it as he moves in, bridge sliding down your own. His hands, and how they tighten, fisted in the slope of your shoulder and clutching at the underside of your jaw like you might slip away. His touch brings you in, his hips force you back, wedging your spine tight to the panelled wall behind you. 

You let him kiss you, let his lips work over yours, let him take what it is he wants. Your fingers slide softly up the chilled leather of his jacket, coveting the wet mess of his hair. You weave your fingers into it, their tips pressed to his roots, and pull him away. 

You steal the gap between you and try to take control. You don't know how to kiss like he is, you don't know where all that meanness comes from. You force his hand from your face and nip at his bottom lip, imprecise, stammering pecks that reveal too much. 

Eddie inhales hard, pulls the breath from your mouth. 

"Don't play games," he says. 

He presses a firm, hard kiss all lopsided into your lips and pulls away, yanking your hand from his hair and setting it against the line of his waist. 

"You like games," you argue. 

He tilts your head to one side a millimetre at a time, tilting his own to follow you. A teasing light burns behind his eyes, a playful flare of his lashes that worries and excites at once. 

His thumb haunts the column of your throat, pressing, releasing, pressing again. Never enough to hurt. 

"Stay still." 

You stay still. You aren't expecting him to weave the other way, the hot and unapologetic scratch of his teeth against your pulse. You laugh at the feeling, find it gets all clogged up when he starts to bite. The hand that isn't anchoring your head roams down your shoulder, your back, falling into the small of it as though it were made to be there. His fingers spread and pull and your pelvis pushes hard into his own. 

"Is that a–" You cough on your murmuring, chastened by his thumb outside your windpipe. "S'that a micronta quartz in your pocket, or are you just," —you hiss as his hickeying turns brutal, hand pawing ar his waist uselessly— "happy– Happy to see me?" 

Your shuddering makes him smile. He lets your bruised skin slip from between his lips only to scandalise you further, kissing and nipping, licking a humiliating stretch until he's under your ear, speaking into it. 

"I'm never happy to see you," he murmurs, hand turned, the back of his index knuckle stroking a tender back and forth. His forehead kisses your temple. "You should know that by now." 

A picture of composure but you know what you feel. You roll your hips to revel in his subtle groan. 

"You want me to mark up the other side?" he asks. 

His question sounds so genuine, you almost say yes. He laughs at your silence and kisses wherever he can reach, crescent moons, spit-damp and branding. 

He pauses to speak into the corner of your mouth. "Mess me up again during a set and I won't be this nice." 

"You're not nice," you say, lashes skimming the skin under your brows as he stands at full height, widening the gap between you to a safe distance again. 

"Exactly…" Eddie squeezes your cheek until it aches. His eyes are unreadable. "Have a good set, sweetheart." 

Unreadable turns smug. He pats your panging cheek, gaze dancing over the sore stretch of your neck, and turns without a second glance. 

You press the heel of your palm to the cold wall behind you and blink. Once. Twice. In that moment you hate him more than you've ever hated him, hate him like you've never hated anyone, because his retreating figure is unaffected, and you're dizzy with the lingering press of his lips.

You have to hand it to him. He's good at the game. 

You'll have to be better. 

𓆩❤︎𓆪

I wrote the bulk of this really quickly so please forgive any major errors I missed during editing, I’ll go back again in future and make more corrections! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and if you did please consider reblogging or telling me what you thought, I promise it makes a big difference <3 I was super nervous about this one and I still am lol

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i’m dying. this is the cutest thing ever i can’t

reader haveing a sensory overload in the bathroom of school and mj sees her and comforts but like kind of angst and fluff

omg i wrote it and totally missed the sensory overload bit i'm sorry but i hope this works out okay!

to draw people in crisis

michelle jones (mj) x queer!fem!reader

summary: mj finds the new girl crying in the bathroom and refuses to leave until she's okay. the both of them leave with smiles.

w/c: 1.2k

notes: angst to fluff, strangers to implied future lovers, gay, jokes about straight people (it's all /j /j don't come for me pls), mentions of homophobic comments but no actual homophobia, descriptions of being effected by homophobic comments/environment

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“have you come to rub it in?” you sniffled, wiping your nose with your sleeve unattractively. when you pulled it back, the fabric was stained with snot.

mj was expressionless, though inside, she was very much freaking out. it wasn’t every day you found the incredibly beautiful, witty, enigmatic new student sobbing and hiccuping on the grimy bathroom floor.

“well? are you just gonna stand there? d’you wanna draw me in crisis, or something? yeah, i fucking know about you, michelle. i don’t- please, just leave me alone.”

mj added another adjective to her list of things she knew about you. beautiful, witty, enigmatic, and bitchy snarky.

mj raised her eyebrows but said nothing. instead, she took a seat next to you, so close that your thighs were touching. she sighed as her back touched the wall. unlike you, who was stiff and pressed at a 90 degree angle against the cinderblocks, mj was slouched and nonchalant. she stared up at the ceiling and you refused to acknowledge her presence, locking your eyes squarely in front of you.

“i’m not here to draw you. you’re not my type of subject.”

you huffed. “and what’s that supposed to mean?”

mj turned her head and was met by your stubborn side profile. your jaw was clenched but it still wobbled. “you’re too pretty.”

you rubbed your eyes delicately, careful not to smudge your mascara.

“here, use this.” mj ripped up some of the cheap toilet paper and handed it to you, all neatly folded up. you accepted the paper wordlessly.

you dabbed at your eyes, then your tear-stained cheeks, then your jaw, which had been collecting pools of moisture.

mj cleared her throat. “so, why are you here anyways?”

“i could ask the same about you,” you snipped passive aggressively, though both of you knew you didn’t mean it.

“i needed to pee.”

“m’kay then. go pee and then leave me alone,” you commanded with no real authority. “please,” you whispered, but your voice cracked.

“oh, would you look at that? suddenly, i don’t need to pee anymore.” mj pulled her knees to her chest and shuffled her body so she could face you entirely. “i know you don’t know me, or anything, but do you wanna talk about it? the perk of not knowing me is that you’ll probably never see me again, so there’s no pressure.” though i’d like to see you again, mj thought.

“fine,” you choked. “bio is such a shit class. i like- well, liked bio, and i was so excited for it, y’know, ‘cause midtown’s a specialization school,” you mumbled. “but apparently the curriculum here is just as bad as the public school system, because it’s just my luck that we’re on the ‘types of reproduction’ unit. it’s not that it’s hard; i actually really enjoy the study of asexual reproduction and i’ve done some lab work on it. but i guess i should’ve known better than to get my hopes up, because obviously, the minute we start discussing sexual reproduction, everything becomes so heterocentric and it immediately opens the ground for ‘jokes’ that’s just thinly veiled homophobia and it feels like such an attack, y’know? and i didn’t come out or anything so it’s not like people know to be cautious around me, but even if i was out, i don’t think they’d bother. and the teacher’s an absolute idiot, so of course he’s not gonna do shit- oh shit, i’m rambling, aren’t i?”

“you say shit a lot,” mj noted. then she cracked a rare smile; it was the first time you’d ever seen her smile. mj was surprised at her reaction too.

“yeah, well, it was a shitty situation. i just tell it as it is.” you hesitated. “sorry, i didn’t mean to get all sjw on you. you don’t have to- sorry, i overanalyze things a lot. it’s annoying, i know.”

mj’s eyebrows furrowed and she looked at you in astonishment. “why are you apologizing? i- no, you’re absolutely correct, and i never thought i’d meet anyone who felt the same way as me. midtown’s such a ‘science-y’ environment that it’s almost like people don’t care about social issues whatsoever and i’m just- wow, i wasn’t expecting you to be so cool.”

you giggled, your tears long dried but the skin around your eyes still taunt from dehydration. “what’d you think i’d be like, then? you didn’t think i’d be cool?”

mj didn’t blush, but she was visibly flustered. “no! i mean, i thought you’d be more… ah, this is going to sound so bad. i thought you were gonna be more… airheaded.” mj cringed. “‘cause you’re pretty. all the pretty girls here are straight as fuck. and therefore, simpleminded creatures incapable of societal awareness.”

the two of you burst into quiet laughter, hyperaware of the echo chamber that the bathroom stall had created. you calmed yourself with a shaky inhale. “god, i love people like you. i’m always scared to joke like that; i’m glad i met you. even if you were straight, i’d still be glad i met you. you’re really cool, mj.”

mj held her breath, pursing her lips to hide another smile. one smile was already over her daily quota. “thanks. you’re really cool too. i’m sorry about bio.”

“yeah, me too. but it’s gonna be like that most of the time, right? so we gotta take care of each other.” you nudged her shoulder with yours. “thanks for being here for me, even though i was a bit of an ass to you at first. actually, no, i was just a straight asshole. but yeah, i’m here for you too.”

you smiled at mj once more, and for once, mj felt like her collected demeanor was going to crack and that she was going to burst into happy, girlish squeals. she didn’t, obviously. but your happiness was contagious, almost. you just had that effect on people.

mj pushed herself up. “i should go-”

you shuffled to your feet. “probably best that i-”

the two of you laughed, yours much more enthusiastic than mj’s. “i should go back to class. reluctantly.”

“and i lied. i actually do need to pee.”

you snorted, fanning your face to rid yourself of any trace of your tears. “can we be friends? because i’d really like to be friends. um, could i have your number? or you can have mine, or we could exchange emails, or something.”

it was the first time mj found herself on the receiving end of flustered. she’d watched peter blush profusely with liz allen, and ned stumble over his words with betty, but she’d never been in their positions. and she definitely hadn’t been in liz and betty’s positions.

“y-yeah. i’d like that. do you have your phone, or…?”

you pulled your phone from your back pocket quickly, all but shoving it in her hands eagerly. when mj typed in her number, she noted you’d added a little heart next to her name, and she preened.

“alright. bye.” you held your hand up in an awkward wave. “have fun… um, peeing. don’t fall in.”

with that, you jogged out of the bathroom and let the door slam behind you. mj stood there, heart slamming against her chest equally as hard.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

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