Mattheo Riddle - Imagines/OneShot

Let Me In

Word Count: 1109

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𝕄𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕚, 𝟙𝟡𝟛𝟚

The Mississippi heat clung to her skin like judgment.

Even at dusk, the air was thick with sweat, swamp song, and whispers that crawled between the wooden slats of the juke joint. Y/N kept her head low as she stepped past the porch, shoes crunching over crushed tobacco and cinders. She could feel the eyes on her-and she knew they weren't kind.

Not because of who she was.
But because of who she loved.

Mattheo Riddle.

The boy with haunted eyes and pale, restless hands. The outsider. The one who used to read with her by the river until the sun disappeared behind the moss-draped trees. He'd hold her palm like it was scripture, tracing the lines as if they spelled salvation.

He was everything she should've stayed away from.

White.
Dangerous.

Gentle in the ways Southern men weren't supposed to be.

But it was the way he looked at her-like she wasn't just seen, but understood-that undid her.

Even when the world said not to touch.

Not to speak.

Not to look.

They did all of it anyway.

And they paid for it.

Outside, the heat was stifling.
Inside, the juke joint burned with life.

Smoke curled toward the ceiling, tangling with sweat and laughter. The scent of bourbon and fried catfish lingered in the air, while the blues rumbled low from the corner band. It was a place where time held its breath. A haven carved from a world too cruel to exhale.

And there she was-Y/N.

Dancing beneath flickering lamplight, eyes half-lidded, smile soft, swaying to a rhythm older than pain. Her dress clung like memory and moonlight, her skin radiant bronze beneath the amber glow-a goddess in a world too broken to deserve her.

Mattheo watched from across the room, leaning against a wooden post, drinking in the sight of her like it would be the last.

He knew outside these walls, what they had wasn't allowed. But here-inside this crooked shelter-they could be real.