#minimal landing page

[sktthemes1]

Is Naturo the Best Minimal WordPress Theme for Clean, Fast, and Focused Websites in 2025?

If you're building a modern website and value simplicity, clarity, and performance, the Naturo Minimal WordPress Theme might be your best solution. In an era when digital clutter overwhelms users, minimalism stands out. Whether you're launching a portfolio, blog, or business site, Naturo provides the tools to create a streamlined experience that is both beautiful and effective.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore Naturo’s strengths, real-world use cases, and how to optimize your content with modern SEO techniques to stay ahead in 2025.

Why Choose a Minimal Theme Like Naturo in 2025?

Minimal WordPress themes are increasingly popular due to their clean design, fast performance, and better usability. With search engines now rewarding speed, mobile usability, and clear content structure, Naturo delivers on every front.

Naturo is designed to:

Eliminate distractions and keep content front and center

Load quickly across all devices

Be highly customizable without bloat

Work seamlessly with SEO tools and page builders

It offers the perfect balance between visual appeal and technical efficiency.

2025 Performance Benchmarks for Naturo

PageSpeed Insights Score (Mobile): 97

Desktop Performance Grade: 99

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): 1.6 seconds

Time to First Byte (TTFB): 180ms

Accessibility and Best Practices: 100 across Lighthouse scores

These stats confirm that Naturo is optimized to meet the latest Core Web Vitals standards.

Key Features of Naturo

Lightweight and fast-loading layout

Clean HTML5 and CSS3 code

Elementor and Gutenberg compatibility

WooCommerce-ready

Translation and RTL support

Custom header and footer options

Color picker and Google Fonts integration

Whether you’re a developer, blogger, freelancer, or business owner, Naturo offers the essentials needed to create a high-performing and user-friendly site.

Customization Without Complexity

Naturo allows customization without needing to code. From changing typography and colors to editing page layouts and templates, users can:

Use over 950 Google Fonts

Pick custom colors with the built-in color picker

Choose from boxed or full-width layout styles

Modify headers and footers to match branding

Its compatibility with Elementor and Gutenberg makes layout editing intuitive and fast.

Optimized for SEO in Every Aspect

Modern SEO goes beyond just keywords. Naturo is:

Fully schema-ready (Article, FAQ, Breadcrumbs)

Built with clean semantic code

Optimized for fast load times and mobile usability

Compatible with Rank Math, Yoast, and SEOPress

Integrated with OpenGraph and Twitter Cards for better link previews

You can further optimize posts by adding internal anchor links, short paragraphs, subheadings, and FAQ sections to increase time on page and reduce bounce rates.

Content Structure That Boosts Engagement

Naturo supports:

Pull quotes and blockquotes

Bullet lists for easy skimming

Custom widgets for testimonials, calls-to-action, and services

Sidebar and footer widgets for navigation and engagement

This improves the site’s structure and readability for both users and search engines.

Real Use Cases for Naturo

Minimalist personal blog with distraction-free reading experience

Freelancer portfolio with services and client reviews

Small business website with lead generation tools

Clean WooCommerce store for products or digital downloads

Writer or author site with books, testimonials, and contact form

Each use case benefits from the theme’s minimalism, speed, and customizability.

These resources will help users explore more options and stay longer on your site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Naturo mobile-responsive?

Yes, it’s fully responsive and optimized for mobile-first indexing.

Can I use Naturo for an online store?

Yes, it supports WooCommerce out of the box.

Does Naturo support RTL and multiple languages?

Yes, it’s translation-ready and supports RTL languages.

Is Naturo beginner-friendly?

Absolutely. With one-click demo import and compatibility with page builders, even non-developers can build professional websites.

What SEO features are built into the theme?

It includes clean code, fast load times, schema support, and plugin compatibility for complete SEO optimization.

Final Verdict

If your goal is to create a fast, clean, and professional website that engages users and ranks well in search engines, Naturo is one of the best minimal WordPress themes available in 2025. It offers all the essential features without the unnecessary complexity.

You’ll spend less time managing code and plugins and more time focusing on your content and business growth.

[pleasureable]

Star Shopping !

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ in which you’re asked to star in Thanos’ new music video

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ you were a well known Instagram model, with your career being launched after you had posted a random selfie of you taken on your digital camera

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ the virality of your picture practically launched you into virtual stardom with you gaining a pretty big following after that

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ your followers loved you for your beauty and style, as your instagram page was littered with pictures of you posing in clothing items such as big fur coats, mini skirts, leather tops and bottoms and bikinis

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ you were pretty popular amongst rappers for some reason, with some even asking for permission to use your pictures in promo for their music

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ you had been familiar with Thanos for a little while now as you had seen his performances a couple times—more specifically his performance at Rolling Loud fest. you liked his music and you thought he was pretty cute but you had never really interacted with him before

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Thanos was practically obsessed with you, though. he would always like your posts, even commenting “😍😍” on some of them—of course, fueling some rumors of hidden romance between you two

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ he had finally messaged you one day, his name popping up in your dms

@thanos

u down to be in my music video, pretty ?

@y/n

sure why not lol

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ after a few days of exchanging messages you finally booked a flight (that he, of course, offered to pay for) to L.A—where the video would be filmed

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ once you had landed and settled into your hotel room a bit, you and Thanos had met up for coffee—he explained the vision he had for the video, as well as telling you what he wanted from you in terms of your appearance in it

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ “I’m thinkin’ of like, just having you as the main focus of the video” he said. you were incredibly flattered, how couldn’t you be? a big, hotshot rapper like him wanted to plaster your face all over a piece of his work. “main focus?” you asked, a touch of uncertainty in your voice. you had been in some music videos before, but just as a background character, never the lead girl. “Of course, I wanna showcase your beauty as much as I can.” he responded.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ your nerves were at an all time high as you drove to the filming location the day of the video shoot. once you got there the makeup artists began to work on you, minimal makeup, just as Thanos had earlier requested (he did want to showcase your beauty, after all)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ the on-set costume designer had chosen to dress you in a tight, mini white dress—a ushanka style hat being placed on your head to finish the look

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ the music video idea followed two lovers who spend the night recording each other on a camcorder, engaging in stupid shenanigans around a mansion, showcasing and capturing carefree moments of each other

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ walking onto set, you could feel thanos’s eyes all over you, admiring the way your body fit your dress and how the ring lights placed on set perfectly highlighted your facial features

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ once actual shooting had begun, the romantic chemistry between the two of you was undeniable

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ the romantic poses you were placed in by the director and Thanos himself obviously weren’t doing anything to dampen the atmosphere

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ nearing the end of shooting, you were scripted to be holding the camcorder while staring into Thanos’s eyes, an implied kiss taking place before the screen would go black, thus marking the end of video

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ though, once you got close enough to his face to the point where the tips of your noses were touching, the sexual and romantic tension had gotten unbearable. you had been very much aware of Thanos’s attraction to you prior to him asking you to be in his video, and you never quite expected you and him to be in the predicament you were in now.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ without even thinking, Thanos smashed his lips against yours—to your delight. pent up frustration causing the kiss to be slightly lewd, though you both quickly pulled away before you got carried away

“that definitely wasn’t scripted mr. Thanos.”

“Of course it wasn’t, pretty.”

[neolithicsheep]

I've been meaning to write this down for some time because there are some fundamental errors that people keep making in crowdfunding/sales that shoot their campaigns in the foot. So here's a list of easy principles.

Who am I and why should you listen to me? I am a freelance chaos marketer who has raised well over $100,000 when totaling up various crowdfunding campaigns, mostly for aid to Afghanistan. In addition I've managed to successfully market everything from stuffed plush koalas to hydration salts. Why am I putting this out here for free? Because despite a years long track record of success in social media marketing no one will hire me because I don't have a college degree, so I might as well help people out who can't afford to hire full time marketing. 

If you'd like to hire me to help you evaluate your marketing and sales and teach you better skills on a 1 to 1 basis then hit me up, I am often willing to barter, esp with artists in a variety of mediums! 

Anyway on to HOW TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU MONEY:

TL;DR: use positive messaging that humanizes everyone involved and make it as easy as possible for people to give you money.

1. Shame and guilt are demotivators. They will not inspire people to give you money. “Why aren't people helping” “I guess people don't care” “This isn't getting enough shares/donations” etc etc. Online fundraising is often frustrating, heartbreaking, and will make you angry, especially when there's a humanitarian crisis involved. It is critical that if you are raising funds for someone else that you have a place to vent that is not the audience you would like to donate to the cause. 

2. Use motivating messages instead! “You can help!” “Even a small donation is important because it tells Recipient they're not alone, and people care” “We can't fix the whole world, but we can make this one thing right, and that means something”. Emphasize that this is a problem that the reader can help fix with even a small effort. With items for sale, tell a story. "I drew this thinking about how safe I always felt under a tree in my childhood backyard". "I chose the colors in this shawl to remind me of sagebrush and piñon pine in my favorite place."

3. Make it easy for people to give you money. Never talk about your product or cause without a link that leads directly to where people can give you money. They should be able to click one link on your post and land at the fundraiser or your shop. Every required click is going to lose people, so minimize the number of them required. This also means if you have a list of fundraisers for people to choose from the ones at the bottom will be neglected - people will hit the ones at the top. Be sure to take those off when they're met or periodically shuffle the list around to make sure everyone gets a chance to be in the first 5 spots. In online stores people will often only look at the first page or two of items so be sure to shuffle things around and remove out of stock items that are taking up prime real estate.

4. Humanize the recipient - this can be tricksy when raising charitable aid because you don't want to be exploitative. But to use my last Afghan campaign as an example, “We need to raise $500 for an Afghan family” is less effective than “This Afghan family's home was damaged in heavy rains that caused extensive flooding. They only need $500 to repair and rebuild so they can stay in their home and not become displaced.”  If possible, tell as much of the recipient's story as they consent to. Eg “Fred is seven and loves dinosaurs. His favorite is brontosaurus, and he carries a stuffed one with him everywhere. He wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up and discover a complete brontosaurus skeleton that he can give the same name as his stuffed friend. Unfortunately he's also a trans boy living in Texas and his family needs $1500 to rent a Uhaul and get to Colorado so he can grow up in safety and do that.”

5. If you're not the recipient, humanize yourself while you're at it! “I'd be really grateful if you all could share or donate” “This fundraiser really means a lot to me because…” “Thank you so much for any help, whether sharing or donating” 

6. Treat the audience like humans. Speak to them like they are people you're having a conversation with, not ATMs. This ultimately is the goal of not using shame/guilt and humanizing yourself and the recipient. 

7. Set low goals and bump them up when met. One of the weird things about people is they prefer to give to successful fundraisers. Yeah I don't know either. So you're more likely to get the full amount you need if you set a partial goal initially and then raise it when that's met. Raise it in small increments and raise it repeatedly as those goals are hit to keep momentum going. You can't always control this so if you're boosting someone else's fundraiser you can do it artificially via asks like “Hey y'all can we get together and put $500 on this?”

[luveline]

Hi!! Sometimes in ur bombshell reader fics she talks about how she has nervous energy would u ever write a bombshell reader fic where she has one of those days where she just woke up wired and Spencer tries to calm her down?

“Spencer,” you whisper. 

“What?” 

Spencer turns another page. You, across from him with your legs crossed, slouched, poke at his leg gently with your foot. “What are you reading?” 

“It’s just a book on Wyoming land boundaries.” 

You nod. Spencer watches you from across the top of his book, at first without worry, and then an attentiveness that furthers all the reasons you may or may not be in love with him. 

“You okay?” 

Everything should be fine. The case is solved. You’re heading home, without turbulence, two hours at most from touching down after a job well done. “I’m fine.” 

“You sure?” he asks. 

You smile fraughtly. You try your best to be the perfect image, to put that best foot forward, and you nail it ninety nine days out of a hundred. Nobody knows about your nervousness besides you, and that’s how you’d like it to stay, but Spencer clearly cares about you too much to look away. 

He closes his book and sets in on the table, pushing a glass into his hand. “Here,” he says, leaning forward. “It’s not poisoned.” 

You take it. Feeling his gaze, you drink a little sip that immediately goes down the wrong way. Your coughing swallow perturbs him worse. 

People tend to look at Spencer and see someone who needs more help. Even the people closest to him can doubt his ability, but as far as you’re concerned he’s proven to understand emotion quite well. He won’t shake a stranger's hand, he can’t flirt to save his life without notice, but he can make you feel better. He’s good at taking care of you, even if nobody else can see it. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, leaning right over to touch both your knees at once. He pushes your skirt up a half inch with the movement, but his eyes are on your face. “You have the jitters?” 

“Think so,” you murmur. 

“Maybe it’s the air pressure.” 

You’re sure he knows you get like this sometime, but his explanation is kind. His hands on your knees are somehow strangely placed and still a natural feeling. Just like sitting together at his place to watch TV, or elbow to elbow on the train into New York, your boundaries with one another are eroding. 

“Wanna come and sit by me?” he asks, like he’s thinking the same thing. 

You laugh softly. “In all that space?” 

The seat is big enough for a larger person, but not you and Spencer together. 

He squeezes himself right to the side. “Come on,” he insists, sitting back, “just sit with me.” 

“I’ll squish you.” 

“So squish me.”

You think about it before setting your traded glass down. You don’t know why you have these weird moods, you don’t understand what it is about Spencer that can make them feel better, but he’s offering to make it go away. You have no real reason to turn him down. 

In the end, you sit in the chair beside him, ignoring Hotch’s perturbed look as you stand and then quickly plop yourself down at Spencer’s side. Your thigh has to go completely on top of his, but otherwise, it’s not so bad. It’s more room than you thought. 

It works quicker than you could imagine. With both of your heads held back the space between you is still minimal, which means his face is in detail. His hair brushed back and with the barest traces of gel, a little curled, what had Hotch said? His boyband hair.  

Spencer turns toward you, eye shadowed as he presses his forehead to the chair. “Is it just jitters?” he asks. 

“Sometimes I think I get… weird,” you say. 

“Me too.” He pulls your leg further into his lap. You’re shocked at first, but it’s a friendly move that takes the strain off of your knee. “Can I tell you something?” 

“Of course you can.” 

“I’ve started to care a whole lot less about being weird since I met you.” 

You fight the urge to touch his hair. “I don’t think it’s about caring, Spence, I just.. don’t feel right.” 

“Okay.” He nods sincerely. “Okay, well, we can work it out. We’re still hours from Virginia, you can turn your brain off. We can work it out.” 

You’re relieved to have him promise it. This isn’t the sort of thing you can work out, but it doesn’t matter, Spencer caring this much makes all the difference. You take a deep, deep breath, and you give him a grateful smile, before you rest your cheek on his shoulder. That’s just wanting, no weird feeling or jittering at the root of you as he lets a warm breath kiss your forehead, his nose pressing into your skin. 

“Don’t let anybody see,” you mumble. 

His next breath is a little shaky. “I won’t.”

See what, you’re not sure. But soon you start to feel less like you’re gonna try popping open an emergency window, and that’s enough for now. 

[meowrimo]

☽◯☾ - CAT AND MOUSE

꒰ synopsis ꒱ : Mihawk has returned from his latest mission but nothing sets his adrenaline off more than chasing you around the Manor. Better start running now.

꒰ content ꒱ : MDNI. mihawk x reader ; predator/prey elements, implied yandere mihawk, unprotected sex, minimal prep, use of pet names (love, little pet, darling, dear), slight choking, brief mention of overstimulation, creampie : WC — 2.2k

⭑ 𓂃 ꒰ Waxing Gibbous ! ꒱- Kinktober Masterlist

The manor at night was a labyrinth, each turn taking you further and further away from any of the exits. The hallways seemed to stretch longer, the floorboards creaking under your feet as you ran through the desolate hallway.

The dimming candlelight you were holding was doing nothing to help, only illuminating the space a few feet out in front of you. Who’s to say what was lurking in the darkest spots, watching your every move and more than ready to pounce on you.

And you knew he was somewhere.

The man who owned this house had come back from his latest mission to find you reading in his library, curled up like a docile housecat as you blissfully sifted through the pages of the book that held your attention. The attention that should’ve been on him.

Now you were racing through the halls, the sound of your nightgown swishing in time with your frantic pace that couldn’t compare to the sound thumping in your chest, blood rushing through your ears.

You round the corner, and land against something solid, the candle tray you were holding loudly clatters to the floor as you’re roughly pinned up against the wall with a shrill squeak.

“Hello my dear.” Mihawk purrs, his impermeable grip locks you in place so you could hardly move. “You didn’t really think you could escape me, could you?”

“Mihawk—“ You gasp out, a sound which he consumes swiftly, crashing his lips against yours. 

The kiss left you powerless, a divine hunger that has him feasting on you, determined to taste every inch of your mouth. A mix of teeth and tongue that churns your head dizzy, spinning uncontrollably as you part your lips and allow him access to all of his desires.

And he wastes no time, enclosed fists bunching up your nightgown until you hear the distinct rip of fabric in his rush. A shudder runs down his spine as he comes into contact with your bare cunt, gliding his lithe fingers over your slick folds.

“Such a naughty little thing.” He coos down at you, his voice dripping with a chilly condescension that has the hair on your skin rising heavenward. “Leaving yourself ripe for the taking like this. You’re lucky it was me that found you, otherwise I would've killed anyone who dared try it.”

You helplessly whine and squirm, knowing that when he was in a mood like this, you wouldn’t put it past him.

“Just for you-“ You meekly manage to offer out just as two of his fingers bury themselves in you, mercifully preparing you for the real thing.

“Oh darling, of course it is.” Mihawk's gaze sets onto yours, the dwindling candlelight catching the almost voracious intent in his gilded eyes — the eyes of a predator who was about to feast upon the spoils of its prey. “Because you’re mine.”

His fingers swiftly slip out of you and you whimper at the loss, your bottom lip jutting out as he starts to unbutton his breeches. There’s a small shift in his expression, his gaze softening ever so slightly by the crinkle of his eyes as he takes in your pitiful pout. But his hunger prevailed, the canines of his teeth pulling against your lip and dragging it out before releasing it. A warning nip that told you he wasn’t in the mood to cater to your every whim. 

The truth is, he needed you right now. He longed for you to remind him that the world isn’t as cruel as he just experienced it. All the fighting and the bloodshed swirls around his brain and he so desperately wants to cling onto something else, something good, something like you.

The love of his life who indulges his every whim; that lets him hunt you down and take you as he pleases whenever the adrenaline kicks in and he has to burn it off somehow. For someone so cool and collected, you had a nasty little habit of bringing out this side of him. It only fueled his frustrating desires and fed into the primal need to fuck you as soon as he caught you between his hungry jaws.

“Please.” You breathe out, clinging onto him. Mihawk doesn’t wait another second before bullying his cock into you. The stretch was always a lot to take whenever there was minimal prep but he never gave you any time to dwell on it.

His lips found purchase in your neck, sucking and biting away as he bottomed out to hide his own sounds of pleasure. Your mewls were heaven to his ears, basking in the way your angelic cry of his name has him growing impossibly harder. 

There was no way he’d ever want to let you go, not something as good and pure as you were. After so many years of solitude and isolation, the world has provided him a gift he wouldn’t intend on wasting, squeezing  every bit of bliss out of it just to return it tenfold.

The distinct sensation of his beard rubs against your collarbone before Mihawk buries his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent like it was the salvation he had been searching for all this time.

“Absolutely marvelous.” He murmurs, before showing you no mercy. A skilled fighter who never pulled a punch was now unleashing his vicious attacks on your poor cunt. A haze washes over him like it does every time he returns back to you, a primal entity taking hold of his soul as he devours you inch by inch. “You were created for me to claim, to corrupt. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

“Yes.” The mewl bursts from deep within your chest, pleasure coursing through your veins as he begins to rut into you with a possessive desire — fingers clawing into your hips, clinging onto every inch of your divine body.

“Little vixen.” He pants, ragged with need. the dagger that lays on his chest begins to slap against his skin, the cool metal brushing along yours for a fleeting moment. “I don't think I ruined you enough before I left.”

Mihawk hastily spins you around, pushing you against the wall and getting drunk off of the surprise gasp you unleash. You can barely hold yourself up, hands meekly grabbing onto the slots within the stone. but nothing would ground you, the force of his thrusts caused the paintings that hung there to rattle, threatening to fall as he sped up.

“I won't be making that mistake tonight.” Mihawk bites your shoulder, the pinch of his teeth sinking into your skin before his tongue glides over it.

There's no stopping the cries that slip past your lips, letting one of the strongest men take what he needs from you, losing himself into a frenzied madness.

“M-mihawk—“ You pathetically call out, your vision blurring as you feel yourself growing closer to the edge you’re being forcibly thrown off of. 

“Yes? Use your words.” Mihawk presses himself deeper into you, the heat of his desire surrounding you and clouding your mind.

“A-ah! I’m—“ You try to warn him how close you are but he gives you a raspy chuckle. He could always read you like a book, hanging off of your each and every word, knowing exactly how to fill in the blanks.

“Oh I know you’re close. I can feel how tight you’re getting, how your legs tremble with need. You’ve always been a desperate little thing.” He growls gripping onto your hip. “I almost want to give you mercy but you’re not going to finish until I tell you. Is that understood?”

“Y-yes!” You wail out, trying to keep yourself from tumbling over the edge, knowing better than to go against his wishes. He'd only take away your release, not giving you another drop of bliss until he deemed fit.

“Good, that’s my good little pet.” The praise only worsens things — and he knows it. He continues to relentlessly drive into you, the feel of his pulsing cock keeping you split open as he takes everything you give him.

Mihawk grips the front of your throat, using it to pull you back so your head rests on his strong shoulder and causes your back to arch into him. With a slight pressure, he squeezes the area near your panicked pulse, breathing against your ear.

“Poor thing.” You drink up his voice like a shot of spiced rum, letting it burn all the way down your throat and already parched for more. “You’re practically shaking. Do you want to come?”

“Yes! Mihawk, please, I need—“

“Then come.” 

The order leaves you locked up in his embrace, the only place you truly belong. Caged by your desire and his obsession, you let go as your legs finally give out under the weight of your ecstasy. Mihawk collects you in his arms, his fingers dancing along your clit as you ride out your euphoric high.

A mantra of gratitude flows past your lips as you lean on him, entirely dependent on him.

“That’s it, surrender to me.” If you weren’t so gone, you’d be able to hear how wrecked he sounded, impossibly close to his own release. “Your pleasure belongs to me, you belong to me. you’re mine.”

One last forceful snap of his hips and the strongest swordsman in the world spills into you, fingers clawing into you as he unloads everything he’s pent up and saved just for you.

The same hands that have spent the last week doing the most unspeakable things now gently caress your back with a gracefulness forged from his deep admiration for you. Mihawk lifts you up, safely cradling you in his arms as he takes you back to your shared bedroom.

The room that felt so dark and disturbed in his absence breathes in a new life as the moonlight filters throughout it, casting everything in a heavenly glow as you properly reunite with your lover.

Mihawk doesn’t waste another moment as he lays you down in the bed, slipping himself back into you as he peppers your body with kisses. The pace he sets is slow, letting the slight bite of overstimulation roll over into a new path of pleasure, your body beginning to crave his once again.

You’re not sure how much time passes as he stays nestled in your cunt, murmuring the softest of praises with his deep, raspy voice. The man had come to claim you in a rapture that left you breathless, patiently waiting for you to return back down to him before resuming his conquest.

The sporadic fluttering of your walls gives him the go ahead, your head lifting up ever so slightly upon the plush, silk pillows that adorned your shared bed. A brief moment of silent communication, eyes expressing far more than words could ever say as the two of you were linked by the harmonious beat of your hearts.

Mihawk slowly rears his hips back, agonizingly so as his length leaves your cunt, feeling a sense of emptiness and need before he abruptly snaps them forward, once, twice, thrice. Each time burying himself deeper into you, his cock nudging its way in until he’s fully bottomed out. 

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the Warlord of the Sea had come to steal away all the oxygen you held in your lungs, the blood that ran through your veins, every single thought that’s ever crossed your mind.

He had you in his clutches. Mind, body, and soul.

Luckily, it went both ways.

“My love.” He gasps out, towering over you as you sink deeper into the mattress. Beads of sweat trail down his face, his necklace dangling before you. His fingers curl around your chin, moving you so your attention falls back to his mesmerizing eyes. “Are you still with me?”

You give a delirious nod. The earlier round had been much more heated, no room to stop as he took you against the walls. But now, back in the sanctuary of your shared bedroom, he melts into you.

“‘m here.” You slur, drowsiness starting to seep into you. But you didn’t want to stop, you couldn’t — not until he was satisfied. Your fingers trail along his face, twirling the slightly overgrown beard between your fingers. “And you need to shave.”

Mihawk laughs lowly, his cock twitching in you at the sudden sweet domesticity. He truly had been away from home for too long and missed your tender and caring nature.“Let’s worry about that after, hmm?” He leans down to kiss your neck, slowly. Taking his time as his lips press along your skin, leaving little marks as he goes. “I'm far from being done with you.”

tags : @thesunxwentblack @autumnstuffs @bontensh0e

[lukehughes]

The Secret of Us (LH43) 3/3

aka the sequel to let it happen

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

>PART ONE< / >PART TWO<

the pain of, the reign of, the flame of us

WC: 31k (I need therapy atp)

General Warnings: angst!!! did we expect any less for the final instalment of the epic highs and lows of this criminal situationship? (god bless the anon who sent me that line I think of it daily) cursing probably, inaccurate timeline of events regarding hockey and all but it's fiction just play along lmao, mentions of jack's injury, meddling friends, miscommunication final boss, hypocrisy final boss, jealousy and avoidance final boss and an ending 🙂

A/N: guys I wish I could put into words just how much joy writing this fic has given me, I have so much love and gratitude for the way you all responded to it. writing fic can sometimes be such a lonely and stressful experience in a weird way, especially something as long as this, and you guys turned it into this giant team effort and I felt like you were pushing me along the whole way!! this is such a corny a/n but I really love you all so much - thank you for being so kind to me, thank you for discussing every single element of this fic with me, thank you for loving (or hating lmao) the characters, and making them real enough in my head that they just flew onto the page. thank you to everyone who recommended this fic to anybody else, or who loved it so much that they went through everything else I've written and liked that too!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I hope this final part is loved as much as the rest, and I can't wait to talk to you guys about it!! my ask is always open for lih/tsou discourse!! these two will live with me for the rest of time lmao but I do now feel the need to run and hide because I'm terrified to post this actually so hope you like it lol

You can’t remember the last time you ever felt so lost in your life.

You’ve always been someone that finds your way - lands on your feet, figures things out - because you’ve had no other choice, before. Forced to be independent before you ever needed to be, you can usually work your way out of sticky situations with minimal scarring.

But Luke Hughes has somehow managed to crush you beyond recognition.

You thought things were finally going well, you were taking this monumental leap into something more, kissing him like you’ve been denying yourself for too long, and then all of a sudden you’re struggling to get your words out, letting him assume the worst of you and running with it, because what other option do you have now, knowing that he doesn’t want you back?

You’re a little caught of guard at the initial rejection, but the words that follow make you speechless, entirely, gaping open-mouthed like some dumb-struck idiot as he tells you that he’s moving on, and you only want him because you don’t want to lose him.

And you’re so consumed by this wave of renunciation that you can’t even fight him on it.

And then he’s gone.

The silence that follows Luke’s departure from the porch almost makes your ears pop - pressure building and building to the point of eruption inside your head, and you’re so caught up in your mind that you’re barely functioning otherwise.

It’s below freezing out, a cold wind whipping at your cheeks, and every breath you take feels rough and textured like you’re rubbing coarse sandpaper at your chest cavity - you really shouldn’t be out here, exposed to such harsh conditions, but what does that matter when you would be hurting anyway, no matter where you are.

You don’t even know how you got here.

One second you were running through the house with the best news of your life and only one person in mind to share it with, and the next you were out in the cold - key moments from the night playing in your head like some horror movie sequence. 

Ellie’s warning of, he’s gonna crush you when he starts seeing someone and you get left behind.

The way she’s been keeping it to herself that he already is seeing someone, or speaking to her, at least, whatever that entails - because, the two of you speak. You speak every day. 

Seeing Victoria with her hands on Luke, sinking her claws into him while he gave her one of those cute, toothy grins - the kind that made his eyes gleam and crinkle in the corners. 

And then, I don’t want to be with anybody but you tonight, I promise.

How can anybody possibly hear that and not want to kiss him?

Sure, it was some weird, territorial spur of jealousy that consumed you and forced you to take that final leap, but it’s not like you haven’t thought about doing it before. Sat on your bed watching Wall-E on your birthday, the plush he had bought you tucked into the crook of your elbow and your hand brushing repeatedly against his in the bowl of popcorn. Or when he’d snuck out of your house the morning after, only just managing to evade being caught by your sorority regime and holding you against him with a kiss to the side of your head as the two of you said your goodbyes on the porch.

Does it really matter what the final catalyst was if the finished result was what you’ve both been wanting this entire time? Plus, it’s not like he hasn’t encouraged those feelings before - Mr Tell me that the thought of me even talking to another girl makes your skin crawl.

But that’s the problem. You’re probably too used to acting impulsively with Luke - doing first, thinking later -  and he’s starting to realise it, too, growing tired of your stretched out resistance and finally throwing in the towel.

We both have to find a way to move on.

Maybe it’s not what you’ve both wanted the entire time.

Maybe Luke hasn’t wanted it for a while - has wanted to move on and find someone new. See someone else - speak to her, or whatever.

God, you feel pathetic. 

A feeling that worsens when Ethan finds you, teary eyed and shaking - too consumed by your own humiliation to feel just how cold it is outside until he shrugs a jacket over you, holds it closed in front of your torso and peers down at you with nothing but concern in his chocolate eyes.

His mouth moves, but all you hear is muffled noise alongside the sound of your racing heartbeat, and you try to read his lips, but it’s hard to see through the blur of tears. His hands start rubbing at your arms, and the friction brings everything back into focus, a little. The cold night air, the cologne rubbed into the collar of the jacket, the voice of the caring boy in front of you.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he mutters, “Let’s get you home.”

You nod wordlessly as you accept his help, a guiding arm around you that ushers you off the porch, helps you down the steps and pushes you gently to the edge of the yard until you’re walking side by side down the street. You sniffle, not even realising that you’re crying until you try to remedy the dryness in the corner of your lips and taste the salty tears that have fallen there, and you end up crying the whole walk, trying not to be obvious about it - arms wrapped around yourself and head dipped to watch your feet as they move along the sidewalk.

Ethan doesn’t try to talk it out of you, for once, which you’re grateful for, and he walks you all the way up to the front door, turning away without any prompt so you can fetch the key you hid under one of the plants before you left

“Thanks,” you mutter, once you’ve retrieved it, standing back up and watching as he spins back around. “For walking me back, sorry that I got upset and weird.”

“It’s alright,” he shrugs, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans to maintain some semblance of blood flow, the below freezing temperatures making it almost painful to breathe. “Lot of tears for a guy you’re not into, though.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, because what’s the use in denying it anymore. It hasn’t done you any favours this far. You fumble your key into the lock and shoulder the door open, leading him into the house with a silent invitation, thankful that he follows without any hesitation and seals the heat back in behind him. “Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it’s quick, I got a beer pong championship I need to retain, I’m on for a three-peat, kids in this town will be talking about it for years.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to hold you back from greatness,” you scoff, offering a lighthearted chuckle as you shrug off the jacket he had slung over your shoulders before. Luke’s jacket, you’re pretty sure, that in any other circumstances, you’d keep, but the smell of him is probably going to suffocate you if you inhale it any longer. You hold it out to Ethan, quirking a brow when he frowns down at the garment. “You’re off the hook, it was stupid anyway.”

“No, come on,” he prompts, “I was kidding.”

He blinks slowly at you, dark eyes warm and encouraging as he steps a little further into the foyer, leaning against one of the pillars by the door. He’s settled in, and he’s giving the kind of energy that it’s hard not to reciprocate - open and receptive to whatever it is that you want to talk about. 

“Do you guys talk about, like, girls and stuff?” You ask, brows creasing almost immediately at how dumb it sounds to even bring it up. God, you’re starting to hate what he’s turning you into. “I mean, like, if he was into somebody, would he tell you?”

His eyes go darker, somehow, amusement flashing through them as his lips quirk, and he can try all he wants, but it’s so obvious he’s biting back a smile. “He doesn’t have the track record for it since he moved away, no, but Luke’s a pretty private guy. Even when he was here, he was never really big on talking about that kind of stuff.”

“Oh.” You sigh, because great, you’ve just made an idiot out of yourself for no good reason - to Ethan, of all people, who’s been trying to eke information out of you all year. 

“Awful poker face, though,” he adds, “Like anybody could see from a mile off that he is into somebody.”

That doesn’t make you feel any better. If he isn’t talking to the boys about any girl he potentially is interested in, why would he tell you? Maybe you had been wrong, when Ellie brought up him speaking to somebody back in Jersey, maybe he wouldn’t have told you. Maybe he’s a pretty private guy, like Ethan said, and that privacy extends to you in the same way it does to the guys - where Luke keeps his cards close to his chest, just like he had back in summer, when the two of you were a thing. 

“Ellie told me that he was,” you lament, leaning on the pillar closest to Ethan’s, crossing your arms over your chest, “I didn’t believe her, I thought he’d tell me, but now I don’t know.”

“Is that what you’re upset about?” Ethan’s eyes narrow, “That he didn’t tell you?”

“I guess maybe he did,” You sigh, replaying his words over and over in your head. We both have to find a way to move on. I don’t know how long I’m supposed to wait for you to figure it out. It hadn’t been explicit, but the sentiment was there - like he was laying the foundations of something he’d be more ready to build onto at a later date.

Maybe this thing with Yasmin is early days, still. Maybe you put him so far off the idea of letting anyone else in on what could be a good thing - through fear of it all coming crumbling down, just like his relationship with you had done - that he won’t tell anybody until he knows for sure.

“I feel like an idiot.”

The idea of him letting go of his feelings just as you started to come to terms with your own hurts, but you can hardly be mad at him. He had been right - you’d told him in no uncertain terms that you weren’t willing to take things further again, and even though that was almost 6 months ago, now, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve withheld your feelings, since. You don’t even remember what you were trying to protect yourself from, because it can’t have been as bad as this.

“Maybe you should talk to him before he leaves again, tomorrow,” Ethan suggests, “I can try talk some sense into him if you want?”

“You’re good,” you decline, figuring you’ve done enough invading his privacy for the time being. You need to let him figure things out on his own, you think, instead of acting out of impulse and making everything explode in your face. “I’ll call him in the morning, thanks though.”

Ethan straightens up as he starts to get ready to leave, but just before you can say goodbye, he turns at the door. “He really cares about you, you know.” He tells you, “In case he didn’t tell you that, either. He can be an idiot, but he cares.”

“I know,” you breathe, smiling softly to try and reassure him - because if you do know one thing about Luke in this whole fiasco, it’s that he cares. Whether it’s too much, or not enough, you’re not sure, but it’s there, nonetheless. 

You thank him again, because you really are grateful that he walked you back, and that he was so willing to lend an ear to your stupid questions without making you feel entirely stupid for them, and grins back, boyish and sweet, before he leaves. 

The house is unsettlingly quiet - the rest of the girls either in bed or at the party - and you just want to go to bed, yourself to shut out the unbearable silence, but your room doesn’t provide the kind of escape you thought it might.

One of Luke’s sweatshirts is slung over the back of your desk chair, and even without it being there, you think you’d see him in every corner. He’s in your reflection in the bathroom, brushing his teeth by your side and nudging you out the way to spit the residue into the sink. He’s poking and prodding at your skincare on your vanity, reading the bottles and asking what they do. He’s sat at your desk, looking at your little calendar and telling you that you really need to take a break for yourself when he realises just how many spaces are filled in. And he’s in your bed, his scent in the sheets you’re yet to wash since he slept in here on your birthday - and even that isn’t giving you reprieve like it had the night before.

You can’t get to sleep at all.

And it’s probably morbid curiosity that will be the end of you, because as you lay in your bed, tossing and turning and trying to drown out your thoughts so that you can finally drift off - there’s some stupid, sabotaging part of you that thinks it’s a good idea to open up instagram. And then it seems reasonable to check Luke’s profile, knowing that he hardly ever posts, but heading straight to the accounts that he’s following.

You type her name before you can convince yourself how bad the idea is, watching as the results narrow down to just one with only a few letters, and you click straight through to the profile that remains.

It’s unassuming, initially. Her name is Yasmin Keating. Her bio suggests she’s a student, her location says North Carolina, and most of her feed is dedicated to her time spent decked in blue and white playing basketball at UNC. And she’s gorgeous. She’s athletic, and would probably understand all of his weird sports references more than you do, would probably understand his lifestyle, and the stress he’s under. She’s sociable, probably wouldn’t hide him away and make him feel like some dirty secret.

And one of her latest posts is tagged in New York, from a couple weeks ago. A carousel of photos, each as pretty as the last, and you hold your breath as you swipe through them for any sort of sighting of the curly brown hair you know too well.

The sighting doesn’t come, but as you scroll down a little, you find something just as bad. 

Liked by lhughes_06.

If you were hesitant to accept Ellie’s word for it, confused by Luke’s own reluctance to let you in, and Ethan’s shifty explanation of his best friend’s privacy, then this is the confirmation you need to finally accept the truth.

Luke is moving on.

And maybe you need to let him. 

When Luke wakes up the morning after, his head is pounding. There’s a relentless thud between his ears, and he swears his brain feels loose, like it’s rattling around his skull at even the slightest shake of his head.

He doesn’t think it’s a hangover - he’d had a few drinks, but not that many, and had ended up coming home a lot earlier than anticipated, his party spirit dampening as soon as you left, anyway. He’d fallen asleep with his phone in hand, staring at your message thread and trying to figure out if texting you would be a good idea, so maybe it’s staring at a screen for almost an hour that gave him such a headache, he thinks.

But all his usual remedies aren’t working.

He drinks a full bottle of water straight from the refrigerator, chugging the contents down until the plastic is squeezed to within an inch of its life in his hand, and manages to swallow down some Tylenol with it. He showers, letting the water spray directly onto his neck and shoulders to try and relieve the tension there, and spends a little longer than usual to try and wash the pain away. He even makes himself a decent breakfast to try line his stomach, but by the time 10am rolls around, he still feels like crap.

He is supposed to fly back to Jersey in the late afternoon, and as the hours tick on, there’s a panic that stirs within him - a feeling like he’s forgotten something, already, even though he doesn’t have to leave for a while. His bags were packed yesterday - he had figured he’d get ahead so that he isn’t stressing - and he doesn’t have to worry about returning a rental car, because he’s been driving his dad’s while they’re out of town and is supposed to leave it at the airport, anyway. He’s checked all the windows around the house, and the settings on the heater - there are no dishes in the sink, no clothes left in the washer or dryer, and it’s about as tidy as it was when he arrived last week. 

And it’s only when he checks his phone for what is probably the 20th time that he even realises he keeps doing it - realises what he thinks he’s missing.

You.

He probably would have been with you, if things didn’t blow up last night.

He’d have been at your house, or you’d have been at his, and you’d have kept him busy all the way up until the point he needs to leave. He’d have slept by your side, like he’s pathetically getting so used to doing, now, and would have woken up to your pretty eyes slowly blinking back at him. And he figures that’s why he felt off as soon as he opened his own, with the sun peering into his bedroom through the thin curtains, and the  slight chill that wracked through his body without yours to keep him warm.

You haven’t even text him - the last message on his phone being from Ethan, last night, after he’d dropped you off, one Luke had seen as he sat in the back of his Uber home, all desire to be around anybody swiftly drained as soon as you were gone. 

His hands start to shake the longer he thinks about it, and the more he remembers - pushing you away and watching you leave - and he can’t even rationalise it all, anymore. 

Summer might feel like a lifetime ago, but if that’s the case, then it’s a lifetime of Luke still wanting you. It’s months of trying to fan the flames of your affections, trying to keep the spark alive, despite all the ways you had told him it was long blown out. 

He knows. He’s always known that there was something left.

But he’s tired of being the only one who believes in it, anymore.

Jack doesn’t support him, his parents are none the wiser, his teammates barely have time for their own relationship dramas, let alone his, and the only person who had ever encouraged him to pursue more with you lives on the other side of the continent. 

But right now, the last remedy that comes to mind is a call with his oldest brother - one last ditch attempt to clear his mind before he flies back to Jersey and throws himself back into hockey for the last few months. 

He’s found himself calling Quinn much more while he’s been home alone for the past 10 days, with Jack busy with the tournament, and his parents busy watching them - he thinks there’s a common ground there, with Quinn, where he’s sort of detached to the point of novelty when it comes to Luke’s life. 

He offers a fresh perspective, gives unbiased advice - helps him make pancakes over FaceTime for the girl in his bed who isn’t his girlfriend, and doesn’t make snarky comments or push him to talk about it. 

And so he’s pressing on his contact before he can think better of it - waiting until Quinn’s face pops up on his screen, seemingly propped up while he makes himself a breakfast smoothie all the way over in Vancouver. 

“Lukey, what’s up?”

“Hey man, you got a minute?”

“Sure, let me just back away from the blender before I try to multitask and blitz my kitchen.”

He watches with a grateful smile as Quinn makes his way through his apartment, walking into the living room himself and throwing himself down onto the seat in the bay window.

“Surprised you found the time to call me, thought you’d be spending your morning at a certain sorority or something.” His older brother laughs as he lowers himself down onto the couch in his apartment, the view behind him that of a misty Vancouver, the sun barely seeping through the clouds.

It makes him feel a little closer, to see it - peering through the glass at the front of their parent’s house, himself, and looking up at familiar grey skies.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Luke frowns, hating the way his gut twists guiltily at the vague memory of last night - of your elation turning into evasion, and the way he still thinks he can taste you if he swipes his tongue across his bottom lip. “I don’t think she wants to see me right now.”

“What did you do?”

“Why do you assume I’m the problem?” 

“Are you not?”

“I don’t even know.” He groans, looking back on the evening with a lot more clarity than his beer-goggles had allowed him, before. “I sort of blew up at her last night about something, I had a couple drinks, and I think I was pretty harsh. She left the party early and we’d usually text by now, but I think she’s probably avoiding me.”

“You’re gonna have to quit being so vague if you want me to help you out, man.”

The look Quinn is giving is like the virtual version of a brotherly swat, a blank but bold stare at the screen that’s his own silent way of telling his little brother to just spit it out, already.

And Luke takes little convincing - despite all the months he’s held back from doing so. This is technically a boiling point, and keeping this whole thing between the two of you such a secret has done absolutely nothing to serve him, so far. He could really use the help, he thinks.

“We’re supposed to be friends.” Luke sighs, “Back in summer, we had a thing, like we were sort of, almost together,” he cringes as he says it, unable to think of a better way to lay it out. Sure, he’d spoken to Quinn a little about you, back then - had admitted to having a crush, at least, but he hadn’t shared much past that. And it’s different with his older brother, he thinks, on the other side of the continent, oblivious somewhat to Luke’s day to day, and just how much it probably involved you by now. He needs to explain it for it all to make any kind of sense. “Like we were hanging out together all the time, and sleeping together, and it sounds like a mess but it was perfect when it was just us.”

“Are you waiting for me to be shocked or something?” Quinn queries after a moment’s pause, quirking a brow with narrowed eyes pointed straight at the camera. “Because we all knew you were sort of, almost together, you couldn’t have been any more obvious about it if you tried. Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“I don’t even know anymore,” Luke huffs out an elongated breath, the whole thing feeling like a waste of time, right about now. Keeping you hidden, abiding by your rules of saying nothing about whatever was going on between the two of you. What was the point in kissing you behind closed doors and rushing you back to your bedroom in the mornings if everybody knew, anyway? What could the two of you be, now, if you hadn’t held yourselves back? “I really fell for her, though. Hard. Like the worst hit I’ve ever taken in my life. And I fucked it all up by being stupid, and I said some pretty awful stuff about her that she overheard,” he winces, hating even looking back on that stupid conversation with Cole, not wanting to slip and indulge too much to his oldest brother about it through fear of valid judgement. “And it took her a while to let me back in, and she said that we’d only ever be friends, and obviously I want to be more, obviously I’m still in love with her, but she made it pretty clear we’d never cross that line again, and I can’t spend the rest of my life standing at the wrong end of a bridge I can’t cross, do you know what I mean?”

“No,” Quinn deadpans, “I’ve never heard anything so dumb in my life.”

“She kissed me, last night, Quinn,”

“Sounds horrific.”

“And I pushed her away,”

“Sounds idiotic.”

“You don’t get it,” Luke’s jaw tenses, glaring at his brother through the screen. “She only kissed me ‘cause she didn’t want me to kiss somebody else. She saw me with this girl she hates and I found her after, she was pretty upset.”

“Lukey boy,” Quinn chuckles, giving an amused, crooked smile on the other end of the call, “You’re so full of shit, the hot girl that you like kissed you, it’s hardly the end of the world.”

“Don’t be a dick, Q,” Luke scowls, trying to push past the flare of agitation that lights within him at his brother referring to you as the hot girl. Even he can see how hypocritical it is, but it’s instinct - he can’t exactly fight it.

“No, come on,” his older brother starts, straightening up where he’s seemingly reclining on the couch, a surefire sign that he’s about to give some sort of lecture. “You spend your whole summer obsessed with her, and God-knows how long before that, and you fuck up so monumentally that the girl doesn’t talk to you for like 6 weeks, and then by some miracle she lets you back in and you fuck it up again.”

“Jack said I should move on,” Luke huffs in response, some attempt at trying to rationalise how stupid he had been to push her away last night.

“Jack’s an idiot.”

“He said that she��s probably moving on, and he made out that it was all sort of one-sided, and you know how much him and Ellie talk, I figured it had to have come from somewhere-,”

“It came from him being an idiot,” He repeats, “And it must be contagious, because why would you not just talk to her instead of letting it all blow up like that?”

“I tried,” Luke whines, “We went to a game together last week, I asked her about dating and stuff,”

“And?”

Luke frowns as he tries to remember the crux of the conversation - you’d joked that you wouldn’t go to a hockey game on a date, that you hadn’t been going to games on dates, and it never really expanded further than that, his attempt too specific to the situation and not the wider issue. 

“I guess she said she wasn’t, but I probably wasn’t asking the right question.” He admits, blinking slowly as he tries to come up with any other reason why he had acted so irrationally the night before.

“So let me get this straight,” Quinn’s voice brings him back a little, shoulders stiffening in preparation of the verbal lashing he’s no-doubt about to receive. “You two spend a whole week together, like every waking second in her company when she’s not in class or with her friends, she spends valentines and her birthday with you, she tells you that she isn’t dating anybody else, she gets so upset about seeing you with somebody else that you find her almost in tears, and you somehow ignore all of the evidence that she is, in fact, into you, only to push her away because Jack implied she might have moved on?”

Well that sounds fucking stupid, Luke thinks. 

“But she-,”

“She what?” Quinn asks, raising an expectant brow. “She snuck you into her house all week, despite the fact we both know how strict those girls can be about having guys over? She spent every day doing things that were important to you, trying to learn about the things you like, hanging around your friends, coming to you when she was upset?”

“You don’t get it,” Luke huffs, regretting all the information he’d been sharing with his brother throughout the last week right about now - not realising the little parts would be pieced together and used against him like this. “She told me she only wanted to be friends, she told me multiple times, and she only ever wants more when she is upset, like I’m just there to comfort her, or something.”

It had been the same back in summer, initially - you only ever sought him out when you were agitated or emotional over something you wouldn’t talk to him about. You followed him up to his bathroom after seeing him with Victoria, you brought him upstairs to his room in the middle of a party after an argument with Jack - and he had been fine with it, at the time - encouraged it, even, trying to flare up your jealousy to prompt you to give in to him, taking whatever scraps of your affections you were willing to give - but this feels different. 

He can’t keep carrying on like this.

“Don’t you want to comfort her?”

“Of course I fucking want to comfort her,” he scoffs, because it isn’t about that. He loves you, he’ll always want to comfort you if you’re hurting or upset, but he can’t keep himself on stand by to be available to your methods of avoiding your problems only for you to keep pushing him away, otherwise. “But, I don’t know, there has to be a line, you know?” He sighs, “I have to put a line there before I fall any further and she pulls the rug from under me when she does start dating. Like she just saw me speaking to some girl she doesn’t like, and then she said she doesn’t want to see me with anyone else, but she still wants to be friends! I told her that we both need to move on, I don’t even know why, I don’t even think I want her to.”

“You need to talk to her, man,” Quinn frowns, “You need to tell her that.”

“That’s what last night was-,”

“No, last night was impulse,” he sighs back, “It was you after a few drinks, and both of your emotions at a high, and you blew up at her out of nowhere. Sure, she probably shouldn’t have kissed you, but you’ve got to give her a chance for her to think about what she wants instead of just telling her she needs to move on because she didn’t give you the right answer in the moment, Luke.”

You weren’t there, Luke wants to say, you don’t understand.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe an outsider’s perspective - someone like Quinn, who is fair and reasonable, who doesn’t let his loyalty to or protectiveness over his little brother cloud his judgement, who always understood the depths of his relationship with you before Luke could ever admit it to anybody - sees more than Luke could, himself.

“Go over, before you head to the airport,” Quinn says, his tone suggestive, but classically authoritative, “You don’t wanna leave it like that, trust me.”

“Yeah,” Luke breathes, “Thanks, man, sorry for dumping all of this on you.”

“It’s fine,” Quinn smiles back, crooked and familiar, bringing the kind of comfort Luke finds himself craving, sometimes, when his other brother is being a dick. “I’d rather you come to me than Jack, he just ends up making a bigger mess that I have to clean.”

Luke gives some attempt at a laugh that doesn’t quite seem right with how heavy everything else feels, and lets his brother carry on with his own morning routine with no more whining from him. 

He gets himself ready, loads his bag into the trunk, and makes sure everything is locked up and secure before setting off across town on a route he now knows like the back of his hand. He sits in the car, parked up across the street from your house, for 10 minutes - trying to think of how he can possibly clear everything up before he leaves - when he sees something that makes his breath catch.

You come out of the house, bundled in what looks like a bunch of layers and his sweatshirt on top, your backpack slung over your shoulder, and you’re smiling as you turn back to speak to someone following you out of the house. Even from as far away as Luke is, the sight of your smile calms something within him, but that calm quickly turns frigid as he takes notice of who is coming through the door behind you.

Ethan is wearing the same clothes as last night, his hair is shaggy and unkempt, and Luke recognises the kind of wry grin he’s flashing your way from back when the two of them lived together when he was in college. It’s the kind of smile that follows a phrase Luke can still hear in the back of his mind, as if it were last uttered to him yesterday, and not almost 2 years ago. I don’t kiss and tell.

And that swirl of panic comes back tenfold - fingers clenching against the wheel as he starts the car back up and drives off as quick as he can, not wanting to watch anymore of whatever scene that was between the two of you unfold. 

If he hadn’t regretted last night before, he sure does, now - because he understands you more than ever - 8 familiar words ringing around his skull like a siren sound. 

I don’t want to watch you move on, you had told him, pupils blown and lips swollen as you spoke, the surface of them still slick and pink from his bruising kiss. And being the idiot he is, he had encouraged you to do just that - had thought it would be what’s best for you both, what’s healthy and right.

But he doesn’t want to watch you move on, either.

And now it seems like he has no choice.

Trying to distract yourself from the fact that Luke is actively avoiding you is harder than you ever thought it would be.

You lived so much of your life before him that it really shouldn’t take a lot of effort to try and reignite some form of your old routine, but as the days pass by - and the conversation lulls, the texts dwindle into short responses, and the FaceTimes cease entirely - you think you might have forgotten what your world was ever like without him. 

You throw yourself back into your school work for a couple weeks, but it doesn’t really work the same as it used to, and you find yourself thinking about your future too much - about your grades, about NYU, about all the plans that involved him and now don’t seem as certain as they once did. You get back into the groove with your sorority responsibilities, spend a lot more time with your sisters, helping to plan the activities and events like you did a lot more last year, but you find yourself checking Luke’s game schedule more often than you should, trying to make sure nothing clashes even though he probably doesn’t care by now and he no doubt has Yasmin to support him instead of you.

And then you try to do things for yourself. You get back into your routine at the gym, you pick up swimming again and even volunteer on your one day off a week to teach a few lessons at the rec centre, thankful for those few hours you spend with a bunch of kids who just want to splash around and dive for the random items you throw into the deep end for them. 

You manage to find some semblance of balance, but he’s always in the back of your mind, and before you know it, weeks have passed - whatever spark you had left with Luke fading as they do - and the last text you have from him is from 5 days ago. You’d tried to lure him into a movie night, asking about his availability, and he’d said he would let you know. He never did. And that is what led you to tonight - going out to the movies instead of sitting on your bed and thinking Luke should be beside you, and you figured it was the safer option, going somewhere that you never went with him.

You even ran into Ethan while you were out - and where the initial sight of him might have previously made you a little nauseous just from the connection to Luke, the last few weeks have alleviated that, somewhat.

After Ethan had dropped you home that night of the party, you’d left your bedroom to find him hiding behind a corner at the top of the stairs while the rest of your sisters lingered around at the bottom. He had been wearing the same clothes from the night before, and was close enough to your friend Megan’s room to understand that he had spent the night there. And you know Megan well enough to know she probably kicked him out and left him to his own devices, too exhausted to try and sneak him out of the house, herself.

So you did the honours - you figure you’d gotten good at it with the amount of times you had snuck Luke in and out the week prior - and helped him navigate his way out without getting caught, leaving the house with him on your way to class. He’d offered to drive you as repayment, and you’d gladly accepted, and the two of you ended up speaking more often - finding comfort in the way you didn’t really have to hide from him, anymore. He’d seen a vulnerable part of you that you no longer had to cover up, and it had been nice to have someone else that you didn’t really have to pretend around.

The local IMAX was playing The Martian, one of your favourites - so what if it was something you watched with Luke all the way back in summer? And you’d just planned on watching the movie and going home, but bumping into Ethan had stretched out your plans a little. 

You’d both been hungry after the movie, despite the copious amounts of popcorn you ate and the giant soda you drank, and he suggested grabbing burgers. And then the burger place he drove out to was right beside an arcade, and he’d wandered in there first, really - you just followed - but you don’t regret it. 

You ended up having a lot of fun - the weightless kind, where Luke sort of slipped from the back of your mind. And it wasn’t even just Luke that slipped - it was the stress of school, of your finals coming up, of finding out your dad was going to be on vacation again when you were due to graduate, and you’d gotten into a fight with your mom about NYU and turning down the job you had lined up back in Chicago. It was all the things that you’d been bottling up now that you didn’t really have Luke to talk to, and forgetting them for even just one night was nice.

Ethan had dropped you home after the arcade, and left you at the side of the street in front of the sorority house with the stuffed animal you had won just for Ellie, because she’d seen the little duck in the back of the picture you sent to her of your whereabouts. 

And you’re just about to knock on her door when it swings open - Ellie’s eyes red and her cheeks puffy with fresh tears, alarm and panic in her features that immediately elicited the same in your own. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask, heart seeming to thud to a dramatic stop as you watch her lips tremble and she ushers you into her bedroom.

“It’s Jack,” Ellie sniffles, “He got hurt, it’s pretty bad.”

“Oh, El,” you reach out to take her into your embrace, rubbing at her back as sobs wrack straight through her spine. “What happened?”

“He took a hit and went straight into the boards, I can’t bring myself to watch the replay, they’re saying on twitter that he passed out, and I can’t get a hold of anybody. Could you watch it for me? Could you tell me if he looks alright?” You hadn’t even realised there was a game on tonight - too consumed in your plans and your determination to have a night off from thinking about Luke to even check.

“Oh, I don’t-,” You break away, trying to think of how best to get out of it. You’re really not the best with injuries, and if it’s bad enough for her to be this upset, you have a feeling it’s going to make you feel sick. “Maybe I should ask Ethan to come over and watch it for you, I-,”

“Please?” She pleads, eyes round and welling with tears, a surefire way to get you to agree. “I just need someone to be honest with me.”

“Yeah,” You resign, holding out your hand for Ellie to give you her phone, seeing the video is already loaded once she’s unlocked it. “Yeah, alright.”

Ellie turns away with her hands covering her ears as you press play, and you watch as Jack skates toward the net, readying himself for the puck to be played towards him, not expecting the way he’s being approached from behind all of a sudden, and can’t bring himself to a stop before he’s colliding straight into the boards, the opposition player bumping straight into the back of him.

You try not to wince at the impact, at the way Jack’s body goes limp and he has to be turned over by the other player. You try to focus on the positives before you assemble your thoughts - he gets up, he can skate on his own, he isn’t bleeding anywhere - but it’s hard when you know him. 

It’s hard when, as much as you and Jack don’t really get along, you’re similar in more ways than you’d like to admit, and you know that seeing him express even the slightest bit of pain must mean he’s in absolute agony.

She said that she wants honesty, but you know Ellie - she doesn’t want to worry, you don’t want her to worry, not until she knows all the facts.

“He’s up, he’s skating off,” you tell her, glancing up and offering what you hope is a comforting smile, a slight twist of your lips that does little, probably, to hide your own concern. “I don’t think it’s the same shoulder he hurt last year.” You remember how much she stressed about that at the time - about his surgery, and the aftermath, and you’d been living with him back at the beginning of summer, enough to know which side he previously had in a sling, or which side he avoided doing much activity with in the earlier weeks. “It doesn’t look great, but at least he can take himself off the ice, right?”

Even from clips of the incident, you can tell how much it worries the people around him - players on the ice, fans in the stands, and you wonder for a second about Luke, about how it must feel to watch from the bench and have to carry on without knowing what’s happening. 

And now you’re worried about him. 

You hand Ellie’s phone back over, watching as she chews nervously at the inside of her cheek, spinning the device in her hand and fidgeting erratically.

“I’ll wait with you until we hear something,” you promise, placing a hand gently on her lap to try and stop her knee from bouncing. You hand the stuffed animal you’re still holding out to her, and she takes it with a limp smile that comes nowhere close to reaching her eyes. “I’ll get you a drink, do you want something warm to calm you down? I can make you a sleepy tea, if you want?”

Ellie nods, eyes glistening as she maintains that weak effort of a smile, and you smile back, an attempt at reassurance before you hand her phone back and head downstairs to the kitchen. You’re thankful it’s empty when you finally walk in, able to wait around while the water boils and try to calm yourself down. 

You know it’s selfish as soon as you start to think it - your best friend in pieces upstairs about her boyfriend being hurt - but all that flashes through your mind is Luke. That could have been Luke. How would you feel if Luke was hurt? How do you feel that he’s potentially, probably hurting now, even thought it isn’t him? How are you supposed to help him through this from so far away, with everything going on, afraid to even text him first, anymore? Would he even want you to?

 Your cellphone burns a hole in your back pocket, the urge to reach out is practically making your fingers itch, and you cast a glance to the clock that flashes on the little screen on the range. He’s probably back in his hotel, by now. Or he’s with Jack and the medical team. 

You could call him. Just so you’ve at least tried. Just so he knows you’re there if he needs you, and that the last few weeks of minimal contact mean nothing if there’s any potential of something happening to him.

Sitting around and dwelling on the fact that he hasn’t tried to call you is pathetic, you think. It’s self-centred and petty, and you need to be better than that. He deserves better than that.

So, as Ellie’s tea is brewing, you reach into your pocket, swipe at your phone with muscle memory and bring it up to your ear, waiting for the beep of his voicemail so that you can leave some sort of message, even if he probably won’t listen. 

“Hey,” his voice cuts at your spiralling thoughts, low and tired, more like a sigh than anything else, and your body straightens against the counter as you rush to respond.

“Hi,” you say, a weird flutter in your chest at the mere sound of his voice after so long. “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

He doesn’t reply other than a little huff, and you’re sort of thankful for it - if he doesn’t reply, he can’t say something you don’t want to hear, like how he doesn’t want to hear from you.

“I just got back to the house and Ellie told me about Jack, I wanted to check on you.”

“Pretty late to be just getting back,” he murmurs, and you hear a little shuffling, like he’s moving around, before you hear the soft clasp of a door in the background. “You overstay your welcome at the library again?”

“No,” you breathe out a little laugh, leaning against the counter as you watch steam rise from the mug of tea sat on top. “I finally followed your advice, actually,” you tell him in the hopes that hearing that might perk him up just a little. “Ditched the books for a day, did a whole lot of not studying.”

For as long as you’ve been stressing about school, Luke has been trying to guide you towards some sort of balance - giving yourself a little grace to actually have a breather - and maybe your main stressor hadn’t been studying, this time, but he doesn’t need to hear that, right now. 

“Oh, really?” You can hear his smile through the phone, small but sure, and the sound of it eases a little of the anxiety swelling in the pits of your stomach. “You get up to anything cool?”

“Yeah, actually,” you stir at Ellie’s tea absentmindedly, hoping you’re offering some sort of distraction. “They were playing The Martian at the IMAX, I got all up close and personal with Matt Damon and his shitty potatoes.”

“Sounds like you had fun,” he snorts, and you’d like to think you can hear the soft semblance of a smile, even if his heart isn’t entirely in it.

“It was great, we went to go get burgers and play pinball after, which is why I’m so late home.” You sigh, only just starting to feel the exhaustion from it, hoping this sleepy tea does its wonders on Ellie so that you can both go to bed pretty quick. “I feel like I haven’t done anything fun like that all year.”

“Who’d you go with?”

“Just Ethan,” you scoop the teabag from the water and dispose of it, frowning as you realised you’ve somehow made this whole call about yourself, guilt seeping into your subconscious. “But enough about me, how’s everything with you? How’s Jack? Ellie said she hasn’t been able to reach him, which is why I thought you wouldn’t pick up.”

“Uh, they think they’re gonna send him back to Jersey,” Luke laments, “He’s gonna miss the game in Dallas, he’s convinced his season is over, so he’s pretty down right now. I think he’s about to give El a call and tell her.”

“What about you?” You bite your lip, hoping Ellie is occupied upstairs and you can stay on with Luke a little longer. This feels less charged than the last few times you’ve spoken - easier, despite the heavy topic - and you just want him to know that this sort of stuff is still on the cards. At least, you hope it is. “Can’t have been easy, watching him go down like that.”

“I’m fine.” The way he says it is short, obviously a lie, and you try to tell yourself not to take it personally. Luke never usually lies to you. Sometimes he doesn’t really talk about stuff, but he’s never hidden his feelings from you. But this isn’t the kind of thing the two of you have really had to navigate, before. Maybe it’s even the kind of thing he doesn’t want to navigate with you - maybe it’s something friends don’t navigate together. 

“You know you can talk to me if you’re not,” you assure him, in the hopes that he won’t shut you out. “I told Ellie I’d stay with her for a bit, but I can always call you after, even if you don’t want to talk, it’s been a while, I-,”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, even shorter this time, his tone clipped, and the silence that follows feels like it goes on forever. 

“Okay,” You croak after a moment, hesitance creeping up on you, again, all joviality from the previous conversation drained.

“I gotta go,”

“Luke, I-,” you don’t even know what you want to say, but there’s this voice inside that’s screaming to say something. To put up some sort of fight, to make sure he knows you want to be there for him. But this sudden reluctance is all consuming. It’s debilitating, even, and it overpowers that meek, unsure voice in a booming, unavoidable roar, that tells you he doesn’t want your help. He wants to move on, and you’re not letting him. And so all you can bring yourself to say, again, is “Okay,” like a whispered resignation. 

He mutters out some form of goodbye before he hangs, up, and you find yourself staring at the billowing steam rising from the mug of sleepy tea until a hand on your shoulder shakes you from your reverie.

“Was starting to think you’d knocked yourself out with this stuff,” Ellie huffs out a weak laugh as she steps up to the counter beside you, taking the mug by the handle and bringing it to her lips. You watch as she takes a sip, as the line of frustration between her brows smooths itself out, and her shoulders slump a little, relaxed and soothed. “Just spoke to Jack, he’s flying out to Jersey in the morning for further evaluation, said he’ll update me after.”

“Oh,” you shake yourself out of your own head, feigning ignorance as you cross your arms over your chest. You can’t tell her about your call with Luke, partly because you don’t know what Jack has told her to try and ease her worries, and partly because talking about Luke with Ellie fills you with unyielding dread every time, and it’s the last thing you need. “Does he have any idea what’s wrong?”

“Won’t know until tomorrow,” she sighs, “He thinks he’s gonna need surgery, though.”

“Shit,” you mutter.

“I think if that’s the case, I might ditch spring break and go spend it with him. Help him out while I can, you know?”

You nod, pressing your lips together. The two of you were booked on a trip to Cabo, your last spring break together as seniors, and a few of your sisters were going, too, so you won’t be on your own if she does have to ditch you. You can’t hold any resentment about it. 

You’d do the same, if it happened to Luke, you think. Not that he probably would want you to, anymore.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s right about boundaries, and blurred lines. Maybe you’re taking things too far.

“Of course,” you try to offer comfort, a reassuring smile that doesn’t feel as authentic as you’d like and a gentle pat to her shoulder, hoping you don’t reek of condescension.

Ellie chews at the corner of her bottom lip, like she wants to say something else, but nods, instead, diverting her gaze as she sips at her tea. “I’m here for you too, you know,” she says, after a few seconds, eyes peering up carefully to meet yours. “If you need me.”

“I’m not the one with the broken boyfriend,” you chuckle softly, thankful for the smile she gives back, a little of the tension eased from your shoulders. 

The fact that you’re the one with the breaking bond goes unspoken, but you can tell Ellie is thinking it - it’s why she offered, in the first place, more perceptive of your situation with Luke than you probably give her credit for.

But you don’t want her pity - you don’t deserve it. You made your own bed with Luke, and all you can really do now is lie in it. He doesn’t want you anymore - not in the same capacity he used to, not like summer, whenever he cast a heated glance your way, and you’d feel it all the way through to your bones. You don’t think you’ll ever go back to that, it’s too late to get that back. You need to give him the space he so clearly desires, and maybe the two of you can find your way back to something resembling the friendship you had before you monumentally fucked it all up.

And maybe Ellie can give you the perfect distraction to do just that - focusing on fixing your relationship with her instead of investing all your efforts on a guy that no longer wants you back.

Luke knows it’s a selfish thing to say, but Jack’s injury has been hard on him.

For the second year in a row, his brother has had to end his season early, at the most crucial, cut-throat point as the team battle to make it to the playoffs, and Luke has had to shoulder a lot of the aftermath on his own.

There’s media, who are constantly asking him about it, waiting to trip him up, make him share something he’s not supposed to, or say something he doesn’t want to, and every time there’s a camera or a microphone shoved into his face, he dreads the social media discourse that follows. 

There’s commentators and people in the league themselves, providing a constant reminder that the Devils are at some sort of disadvantage, and have to work twice as hard to make up for everyone that’s slowly succumbing to the brutality of the sport as they finally near the peak.

There’s coming home to an empty apartment while Jack’s away getting his surgery, and trying not to worry or overthink what he’s going through.

And then there’s Jack himself, when he returns - a grouchy, bitter mess of a person who can’t see the wood for the trees, can’t focus on anything other than where he’s stuck, watching his team persist in his absence and wishing more than anything in the world he can take someone’s place - that the misfortunes that keep finding him lose track, just once - even though he would never want anyone else to hurt like that. 

And trying to juggle accommodating his brother's situation with his own is rough. Back to back losses following Jack’s departure, increased pressure on Luke as he takes on more responsibility within the team, and if you throw all of that in with the loss of his own coping mechanisms, Luke has found himself in a rut.

He isn’t sleeping the best, and he’s distanced from everyone - too in his head about seeing you and Ethan together to reach out to either one of you where he usually would - and he’s losing himself as the weeks blur by, and it isn’t until Jack mentions that Ellie is around that he lets himself think about you - about everything that happened in his bye-week, about how he’s been a pretty shitty friend to you, since.

“It’s spring break,” Jack says as Luke comes home to find him up and dressed for what seems like the first time since he got back from his surgery - struggling to shrug into a jacket while he only really has use of one arm. “She came out to spend it with me, gonna go over to her rental and watch a movie, you’re coming too.”

“Dude, I’m exhausted,” Luke huffs, throwing his keys into the bowl by the door as he watches his brother glare back at him, “I just want to go to bed, you don’t need me around when you’re hanging out with your girlfriend, I really don’t want to be seeing all that.”

“Lucky for you, there’s nothing to see,” Jack scowls back, “Ellie brought hell-spawn over with her, that’s why she isn’t staying here. Need you to work your magic as you seem to be the only one of us she can tolerate and I’m not in the mood for her bullshit.”

You’re in Jersey?

“I thought they were going to Cabo?” Luke frowns, too in his head about the fact that you’re in Jersey without telling him that he doesn’t call Jack out on how stupid he sounds, stopping in place as he watches his brother shrug in response.

“Ellie wanted to come out and see me, I guess she followed.”

And before Luke knows it, he’s driving the two of them over to the condo the two of you have rented for the week, and Ellie is answering the door with a giant grin on her face, cooing at Jack as she ushers them inside. 

He’s looking around like a madman until she tells him you’re in the kitchen, and that you’re gonna need some help getting the snacks and drinks together - and despite it only being a few feet away, Luke feels breathless as he barges through the door, like he can’t calm down until he sees you in person.

Your back is to him when he enters, but the commotion he makes is enough to draw your attention, and your eyes are wide when they land on him, and not in the way that he usually likes.

Something about this whole situation makes him uneasy - the weeks of minimal contact, the lack of closure, the way you’re looking at him like you don’t know what to say. 

You’ve never not known what to say, not when it comes to him.

“Hi,” he offers, because it’s the easiest thing for you to respond to, and the rest of the problems between the two of you are his own fault, so he may as well be the one to start to fix them.

“Hey,” you give back, the microwave pinging behind you, and you turn back to retrieve the bags from in there before you transfer them to the side. “I didn’t realise you were coming.”

“I didn’t realise you’d be in town,” he frowns, “Last you told me you guys were going to Mexico, your big senior spring break trip.”

That had been last month, and he has been a little distant since he left Michigan, but if you’re around, he would want to know about it. He can’t fathom why you’d be in the same city and not even tell him that you’re around. 

He also can’t fathom why you’d give up something you’ve been looking forward to all year.

“Yeah, well, Ellie wanted to be here for Jack,” you shrug, busying yourself by emptying the popcorn out of the bag and into a few bigger bowls. He can’t remember ever having a conversation where you didn’t give him your full attention, and he feels a little nervous as he watches you focus on anything but him. “And I want to be here for Ellie, she shouldn’t have to miss out on her last spring break.”

“You couldn’t have told me?”

“Thought you’d be busy,” you reply, still not looking his way, “You’ve been busy most times I’ve tried to reach out the past few weeks.”

He wants to tell you that’s different, but it isn’t. He’s been avoiding you, and it’s obvious to the both of you that he’s been using the distance as the perfect excuse. He technically has been busy, but it’s no more than he was before that night in Michigan, and he managed to make time for you then. Sure, he’s been on the road, and there’s been a string of some pretty shitty games, but he’d had the same in January, too, and the two of you still kept up texting, at least.

“I mean, I’m playing like every other day this week,” he pouts, “But I’d still want to see you.”

He watches as your brows knit together, your movements coming to a halt as you stand in front of the counter, still not sparing him a glance. You pull your bottom lip between your teeth as you contemplate a response, and he wants to give you the time to think of one - doesn’t want to rush you again into saying something you don’t entirely mean.

He might have ignored Quinn’s instruction to clear up this entire mess before he left Michigan, but the rest of that conversation has still been weighing on his mind - about how he had been impulsive, and unfair, and he hadn’t considered all the ways you showed him things, without necessarily telling him. 

“There is this art installation I wanted to visit,” you tell him, hesitantly meeting his eye, “We could go together, if you’re free at all?”

“As friends?” He asks, because he can’t help himself, watching as your eyebrows raise a little, like you’ve just been hit by an unexpected impact.

“Yeah,” you nod, although you don’t look entirely sure. “As friends.”

And he hates how he can’t even withhold the disappointed sigh he gives, your own shoulders slumping as you notice the reaction, and you retreat a little into your previous distance, eyes darting down until he can no longer see your irises. 

“Maybe we should do something else,” he mutters, trying to push down the immediate need to backtrack when you don’t even respond, “You could come to a game, or something? An installation sounds cool and all, but that’s the kind of thing you do on a date, and we’re supposed to be moving on, right?”

“Are you?” You ask, peering up at him, again, “Moving on?”

He nods before he even realises he’s doing it, but it’s too late to stop before you notice, and all he can think about is the day he came back to Jersey, when he’d seen you leave your house with Ethan. All he can think about is losing you, and for some stupid reason, he thinks this is the only way to stop that. “I’m trying,” he shrugs, like he isn’t actively saying the most insanely stupid lie he’s ever told, “It’s what we said we’d do.” And he only says that to make himself feel better, he thinks - that you were only ever following the rules that he laid out for you, because it helps him to be delusional like that.

“Oh, okay,” you breathe, stepping back with a pained attempt at a smile and dodging his gaze, again, even quieter in your acceptance of his rejection, and it sort of makes him panic. “Yeah, it was stupid, this was stupid, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he frowns, the way he so quickly needs to correct you when you try to shrug him off coming by instinct, now. And he doesn’t like where this is going, now - misses the way you used to just roll your eyes and call him an idiot when he’d act like this, choosing the wrong path at every turn. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you call yourself stupid, and he has to try to reassure you. “It’s not stupid, it’s cool, it sounds like it would be fun, it’s just-,”

“Not together,” you bite back, “I get it.”

He sighs out your name, regretful and apologetic, “That’s not-,”

“Are you guys almost done in here?” Ellie huffs as she shoulders her way into the kitchen, features curled into a soft scowl as she stomps toward the counter, and Luke bites down on his tongue, fighting the sudden urge to tell her to go away. Her and his brother both have the single worst timing he’s ever known in his life. “Jack won’t shut up about how hungry he is." 

“Yeah, sorry,” you mutter, “We’re ready.”

And Luke steps back to let the two of you carry some drinks and snacks through to the living room, holding the door open for the two of you and trying to meet your eye as you slip past, his chest aching all over when you don’t. He grabs whatever’s left and follows the two of you out, watching as you sink down into one of the smaller loveseats, 

Jack and Ellie are taking up most of the couch, so he walks straight over to the seat opposite yours, an entire coffee table separating the two of you where you’d usually sit together, and he tries not to think about the last time you watched a movie - your birthday, when you’d been squished up against his side in your bed, the Wall-E plush he got you smushed between you as you watched the film, itself. 

The last time things had felt easy - the last time any of it had felt right.

And then he’d gone and ruined it.

Jack tees up Good Will Hunting, huffing and puffing when the remote isn’t working like he wants it to but refusing to accept anyone’s help on the matter, and Luke busies himself with his phone while it starts, trying to sort some tickets for his next game so he doesn’t let you down on that front, either, and every time he peers over at you, he thinks the tension grows, somehow, your jaw set and your eyes focusing only on the screen. 

He dips in and out of the movie, waiting for an update so that he can hopefully set about bridging the gap between the two of you tonight, and he only tunes back in at random intervals.

He’s seen it before, it’s one of his favourites, and he probably could quote it back to front without assistance, but certain parts have a new meaning when he really hears them, this time. 

Especially when it comes to a certain monologue, the comforting voice of Robin Williams ringing throughout the room as his character sits beside Will in the park, watching the swans and realising just how short Will’s perspective on life is. 

“If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favourites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.”

He tries not to glance your way, his jaw tight as he blinks slow, recollections of waking up by your side flashing in his mind like something out of a dream. A blissful peace he hasn’t quite experienced elsewhere, his eyes flitting around your features as you slept, trying to study every inch of your face to commit it to his memory, never knowing if each time he got to experience it that it might be the last.

“I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.”

He thinks of all those times he sought you out for his own personal comfort - after back to back games that drained every ounce of his energy, long stretches away from the comfort of his own bed, the constant comparisons to his brothers, and how he’d always come up short - but he was always first, to you.

Even when the two of you were caught up in the in-between, whatever you were before - friends, or something more - he always felt like a priority to you. Always wanted you to feel like a priority to him.

“And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever, through anything.” 

The night of your birthday, the light in your eyes when he gave you those gifts, the soft but beautiful curve of your lips as you told him he was your best friend. The way you were worried he’d get tired of you, and he had promised that he wouldn’t. 

“You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.”

He hopes with everything in him that this isn’t the same - that he isn’t losing you. That his own immaturity and impatience hasn’t ruined the best thing he ever had in his life.

Because he does love you. He’s loved you for a long time, now.

Since the night of his cousin’s wedding, he thinks, when you’d opened up to him for the first time. Back when you laid in his arms in the dead of the night, your head on his chest and his arms around your body, and it finally felt like you were equals. Like he could stop chasing you, like you’d stop running.

He’s never felt the way he feels with you about anybody else. He doesn’t want to, doesn’t think he possibly could.

He doesn’t know why he ever made out like he could move on. 

But he’s too familiar with saying things he regrets, now. It just keeps happening. Mouthing off to Cole back in summer, agreeing to be just friends in the fall, telling you that he can’t wait around for you at the end of winter, that he’s trying to move on. 

Quinn was right, that morning when he called - he keeps doing stupid stuff out of impulse. Keeps letting his emotions get the better of him, and not giving you a chance to figure things out for yourself. 

When he finds the courage to glance your way again, he just about catches you before you look away - a blink and you’ll miss it moment where he’s not even sure if he imagined it, but he keeps trying for the rest of the movie, a lot more focused on the ending than he previously was on his phone.  

He thinks when it ends, and the credits start to roll, he’ll be able to find a way to ease the tension - to get you alone and talk it out, but his stupid brother opens his stupid mouth, and things escalate before he can even make sense of what’s happening. 

“Stuff like that just doesn’t happen in real life,” Jack huffs, giving his thoughts on how Will chose to leave and go after Skylar, despite their mess of a relationship and how much he hurt her before, “These big love confessions, this whole corny, I gotta see about a girl, thing, why wouldn’t he just be honest about his feelings in the first place instead of trying to sabotage himself? Would save them a lot of trouble.”

You scoff from your own corner of the couch, and Luke’s eyes dart over just in time to catch the distinct roll of your eyes, barely even sparing a glance to Jack as you say, “That’s rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack winces as he straightens up, Ellie frowning from under his good arm as she follows suit, and Luke feels his own shoulders stiffen in anticipation of an argument - Jack’s been riled up to have one since he got injured, and you’re walking straight into a trap without knowing it.

But you can handle yourself, he thinks, especially when it comes to Jack. 

Only something in you deflates when he looks again, the usual tenacity dissolving right before his eyes, and he watches as your gaze softens, flicking between the couple at the opposite end of the couch. “Forget it, doesn’t matter,” you mutter, your jaw set and your attention diverted back to the screen as the credits roll. 

“That’s what I thought,” Jack grumbles back, accepting the swat Ellie gives to his good side to tell him to reign it in.

Luke doesn’t know why he stays silent, the urge to speak up for you is so strong it’s making his fingers twitch, but you sink into your place against the arm of the seat and fold your arms over yourself, like you’re giving up entirely. 

“I was just saying, he’s a smartass, he’s hard work and she isn’t cut out for it, it shouldn’t be such a struggle to get somebody to open up, their relationship probably wouldn’t last a month once the movie’s over, if she even lets him back in when he goes to California, that is.”

Luke can see as clear as anything that Jack’s only using the film to vent his own frustrations - that he’s angry, and he’s exhausted, and he’s upset at everybody and everything - but he only understands that because it’s his brother. Because he’s known him his whole life. Because he gets where he’s coming from as a player - and Luke thinks he would be the same, if his season came to an abrupt end when he was on such a high, and all he’d known for the past month was loss and pain. He’d be angry, he’d snap at people, try to get them to hurt just a little bit so that it means he’s not alone. And it’s shitty, but he gets it - if his words were spoken to hurt Luke, he’d probably just shoulder the blow.

But they aren’t.

They’re meant to hurt you.

And when Luke looks over, and you’re staring at the wall with a distant, glassy look in your eyes, your lips twisted to stop them trembling, and your arms wrapped around yourself so tight that your shoulders are all hunched up, he can’t really bite his tongue anymore.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” he spits, eyes narrowing as they focus in on his brother, “You’re hard work, and you’re lucky Ellie isn’t running for the hills,”

“Whoa,” Jack frowns back, lips pouting as he diverts his attention across the room, “Chill out, man, it’s just a movie, I’m just saying my thoughts on it.”

“No one asked for your thoughts on it,” Luke scowls, “You’re being a dick for no reason, you don’t always have to spout your opinion on every little thing like it’s fact and shut down anyone who tries to argue with it.”

He expects to have caught your attention, seeing you move out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t expect for you to push yourself up and leave the room entirely, your feet padding softly against the carpet until the sound of them disappears completely, and the door to the kitchen swings closed behind you. 

“Clearly touched a nerve,” Jack mumbles, and even Ellie pushes herself off of him, rolling her eyes until she storms off after you. 

Luke almost wishes she hadn’t - wishes that he could be the one to go and comfort you, but after your conversation in the kitchen, before, he’s not sure if that’s what you would want. 

And he knows it’s his fault for this wedge that’s between the two of you, after pushing you away and telling you to move on and getting all in his feelings about you potentially doing so, leaving Michigan before the two of you could actually talk about it and neglecting to patch up the now gaping hole in your relationship - but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

He doesn’t know how he can sit around and pretend like everything’s fine.

“You really can be an asshole, you know,” Luke snaps at his brother, using the situation as a cover for the way he wants someone to tell him the same - wants you to say it, for you to tell him that he’s dumb, and an idiot, and that he’s hurting you. He doesn’t want you avoiding eye contact and sitting on the other side of the room and coming to Jersey without even telling him. 

“It’s not that deep, Luke-,”

“Seriously?” He scoffs, standing from his own seat and glaring down at Jack, his good arm sprawled across the back of the couch like he’s trying his best to make himself bigger, like Luke can’t see straight through the facade. “I get that you’re having a shitty time of it right now, but you don’t have to take it out on everybody else. You asked me to come with you to try and keep things from blowing up, but all you do is make digs at her for no good reason. I don’t get why you can’t just be nice.”

“I asked you to come with me because I thought you two were friends,” Jack lowers his voice, mindful of the fact that there’s only a wall that separates you and Ellie from the two of them, and he’s obviously on the verge of being in his girlfriend’s bad books after his behaviour. “She was annoyed about something before we even started the movie, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what when she won’t even look your way, Luke. I’m sick of you blaming me for her pissy attitude and not just having it out with her.”

God, he wishes Jack would just butt out of his business, for once.

Why can’t there be a middle ground between his unrelenting cynicism and Quinn’s blind hope?

If there was just one distinct voice for him to listen to, one clear instruction for him to follow, then he’d be able to make sense of everything swirling around his brain. 

He thinks that voice would probably be yours, and he’s going to fall apart if you keep it from him much longer.

“I think you two should go,” Ellie’s voice carries softly over from where she’s come back out of the kitchen, “You have that appointment in the morning, Jack, and you have a game tomorrow,” her eyes are cautious as she casts her gaze toward Luke, raising a brow as if pleading for his help in getting his brother out of the way.

“Yeah,” he mutters, cursing himself for not being the one to go straight after you, instead.

Jack doesn’t put up much of a fight other than his usual huffing and puffing as Ellie helps him into his coat, and Luke gives the two of them a second to say their goodbyes as he stands to the side, keeping an eye on the door you’re yet to reappear through. He wants to give you space - knows that he shouldn’t follow you in there to corner you again, but if you peek your head out, maybe he’ll feel a little less anxious. Maybe then there’s hope.

“Could you let her know I got her a ticket for the game tomorrow?” He asks Ellie before he leaves, “I can get you one, too, a couple of the guys from Michigan are gonna be there, I’d love it if she came.”

“I’ll let her know, Luke,” Ellie’s smile is apologetic, but it just makes him feel worse, and he drives him and Jack back to their apartment in the most uncomfortable silence of his life, his jaw set so hard it aches when he’s home, and he storms straight to his room with a dramatic slam of his door.

He opens up your text thread as he lays awake for what feels like an hour, staring at the keyboard and willing some sort of explanation to come to his head as to why he’s such an idiot.

And that’s how he ends up falling asleep, phone still clutched on his hand, and no further clarification on what the hell is going to happen with the two of you.

When Ellie had told you last night about Luke’s invitation to his game, it had felt like a no brainer at the time that you’d skip this one out. 

You don’t really know how many more knock backs you can take from him after telling him about the installation - an exhibit you’d seen online months ago, that would only be in town for a limited time following its success in Europe, and Luke had been the only person in mind you’d have ever wanted to go with.

But he doesn’t want to go with you.

He wants you at a safe distance, with distinct boundaries, and while you’re grateful for his attempt to try and lessen the blow of his rejection, you think foregoing the game entirely is the safest distance you could possibly wedge between the two of you.

As friends? He’d asked, almost immediately, like he was rubbing your face in it - like the mere thought of you wanting to go as anything more wasn’t even worth entertaining, anymore. And agreeing had been your last attempt to save face, because the last thing you were gonna do was put your heart on the line with his dickhead brother only one room away. You’re not that much of an idiot.

Plus, Ellie has taken your place - and she said some of the guys from college would be there, anyway. He probably won’t even notice you’re not there, just like how he’s managed to pretty much ignore your existence since he left Michigan.

And you can enjoy your first night of peace during your spring break, the others so far consumed by Ellie - not that you mind, all that much, it’s been kind of nice for the two of you to be away from everything, even though you’re within dangerous proximity to her demon boyfriend.

The rental she found is nice, too - the kind of place you could see yourself living in when you move over this way - spacious but cozy, with a giant TV that you can’t wait to watch your heart-shredding movie marathon on.

You set the space up as soon as Ellie left for the game, blankets thrown onto the couch, an array of snacks on the table, My Best Friend’s Wedding on the screen, and you’re about to settle in when there’s a harsh knock at the door, shattering your illusion of peace in an instant.

You grumble the whole way to the door, making sure the chain is on before you open it - all too aware you’re on your own in a city you aren’t entirely familiar with, and it would be just your luck to be murdered, probably.

But when you open the door, you almost wish it was a masked killer.

Jack Hughes stands on the porch, eyes narrowing as you peer at him through the crack in the door, his hip popped impatiently and foot tapping against the floor. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Are you gonna let me in?” he asks, raising a brow as he huffs out an irritable sigh, “Considering I’m paying for the place, I really shouldn’t have to ask.”

You frown as you move, unlatching the door and giving him enough room to pass you without the risk of bumping your shoulder and agitating his. “I didn’t know that,” you mumble, annoyed even more so now that Ellie had chosen not to tell you that. You suppose it’s your own fault for not asking, but she of all people knows how you are about others paying your way. “That you were paying, I’ll pay you back if it’s a problem.”

“It isn’t.” He rolls his eyes as he stands in the room you thought was actually nice before he arrived, and now you sort of hate it. 

“Alright, well you didn’t answer my question,” you glare, “Why are you here?”

“I’m supposed to be checking up on you,” he says, rounding the couch before he throws himself down onto it, kicking off his shoes before he swings his legs up. “Usually when I have a headache so bad I can’t leave the house, watching the TV is the last thing I’d be doing.”

“Yeah, well, some of us are built different,” you scowl, “I’m fine, you can go ahead and crawl back to whatever pit you came from, I’ll let Ellie know you fulfilled your supportive boyfriend duties for the month.”

“Can’t actually,” he shrugs his good shoulder, reaching forward and grabbing the remote from where you left it. “Game’s starting in ten minutes, I won’t make it back to my place in time so you’re stuck with me for the next few hours.”

“Great.”

“Plus, Ellie didn’t send me, Luke did.” 

You don’t exactly know how to feel about that. Jack couldn’t be more obvious in his distain for you, and you couldn’t have made it any clearer that you aren’t his biggest fan either, so why Luke would send him of all people instead of just texting you and asking if you’re alright, you don’t know. Especially after the movie last night - Jack is the last person on Earth you would want checking up on you.

“Sorry he wasted your time, then,” you sigh, “I’m gonna go to bed.”

“We both know you don’t have a headache,” Jack calls over his shoulder, “So you can give up the act. You’d really leave a guy in a sling on his own for hours? What if I need a drink?”

“That’s what your good arm’s for,” you smile, sardonically, a quick flash of sarcasm that drops as soon as Jack rolls his eyes, “So lucky that you have two.”

“Please?” He asks, uncharacteristically, the sudden shock of him actually being polite instead of demanding causing you to still, “I don’t like watching the games on my own, it makes me all tense, which makes everything hurt a whole lot more.”

And the sudden vulnerability from him seems to hypnotise you, huffing out a petulant fine and sitting as far away from him on the couch as you possibly can.

You’re leaning against one arm, and he’s leaning against the other, and the two of you sit through the build up and the first ten minutes in complete silence until he notices that you’re actually watching, unable to help himself from being a dick, apparently, and asking, “Do you even know what’s going on?”

“No, I just watch for the hot guys,” you scoff, “Thank god you’re not there to lower the average anymore.”

The genuine laugh he snorts out in response in unexpected, and you side eye him until you can feel his attention is completely diverted, the two of you settling back into the quiet until a play towards the end of the first period stuns the two of you.

Luke has the puck, and he’s going so fast you can barely focus, gliding in between the opposition seamlessly until he’s advancing on the net, and just as he’s about to shoot, a much bigger body slams into him, knocking him back until he collides with the boards and crumples over, and a sickening sense of deja vu creeps up on you so quick it makes you dizzy.

You watch the aftermath wide eyed, the whole thing blurring together as Luke takes himself off the ice, and disappears down the tunnel.

The game carries on, but you can’t move - you don’t even think you’ve blinked in a minute - and your mouth is still gaped open like an idiot, the inside of it drying so much that you feel it all the way down your throat.

“He’ll be alright,” you hear from the side of you, a hesitant, reassuring tone that you don’t think you’ve heard come from Jack, before. You turn your head to meet his eye, and his body is fully angled towards you, his gaze scrutinising and intense. “It’s just a knock, he’ll be back on after the intermission probably.”

“Reassuring coming from the guy who just had to have surgery after a knock.” You can’t help but snap back, little bite in your own inflection, but you ache from the tip of your tongue all the way down to your stomach. It didn’t look like just a knock - you’ve seen Luke take knocks before and never have to go off for medical attention - it looked way worse. And all they’re gonna do for the next 15 minutes is replay it over and over.

You feel sick.

“Lukey’s made of harder stuff,” Jack responds, the same relaxed lull to his voice. “That’s what my dad’s always said, anyway. Quinn would tell you the same, there’s something about him that always just bounces straight back, pisses me off a little sometimes, if I’m honest.”

You should probably know that better than anyone - for all the times you’ve pushed him away. But you’re starting to lose faith in that fact, a little. 

“I just don’t want him to be hurt.” You mutter, trying to swallow past the stinging at the back of your throat, gulp down the growing insecurity that maybe you’ve made him weaker, maybe, somehow, this too is your fault.

“My phone’ll probably go off during the break” Jack sits up a little straighter, gesturing out to his cell that sits on the coffee table in front of the couch. “They’ll text me as soon as they’re done taking a look at him. I promise they’d know by now already if it was anything serious. I’d have gotten a call, our medical team are seriously good, they can tell stuff like that in an instant.”

It might be the fact that you’re relying on Jack Hughes of all people for reassurance that forces the tears to start welling in your eyes, your view of him blurring a little - or maybe the fact that he’s actually wilfully giving the reassurance, but either way, you don’t really want him to see you cry.

You sit in an uncomfortable silence as you watch the rest of the period, fidgeting in your place on the couch and picking painfully at the skin beside your fingernails, and it’s only when the last few seconds tick down that you can see Jack shuffle himself in your peripheral, turning until he’s properly facing you again.

“You really care about him, huh?”

You try to blink away the remaining threat of tears before you turn, yourself, meeting Jack’s eye across the couch and trying to muster up some sort of strength to shrug off this awful feeling that you can’t shake. “I’m not the heartless bitch you think I am, Jack,” you denounce, “Of course I care about him.”

He narrows his eyes in a glare, and you can tell he’s biting his tongue, careful not to goad you into some disastrous argument that neither of you really want. Last night had no doubt scratched his itch to lash out at somebody, and you don’t really think you’ll manage a round two.

The two of you stay locked in a heated, silent exchange for a few extended seconds, his jaw tense and your teeth chewing at the corner of your mouth in anticipation.

“Do you love him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you sigh, like it’s instinctual at this point, and you wince, even, once the words come out. They feel wrong. They feel like a bare-faced lie. Like some foreign language you have no business even attempting to speak. “I’m hard work, you know that, he knows that, and I think I’m all out of chances to try and convince him otherwise.”

“He doesn’t think you’re hard work,” Jack replies, “Trust me, I’ve been trying to convince him of as much since last summer, and he refuses to listen.”

“He said it himself to Cole,” you huff, hating how quick the memory comes to the forefront of your mind, hearing him say those things about you like it was nothing, replaying them over and over in your head like they were everything. “I heard it, Ellie heard it, he said that I wasn’t the kind of girl that he would date, and that I wasn’t worth the hassle.”

“And I’m sure he told you after that he didn’t mean any of that,” Jack tries to defend, brows furrowing as he thinks of any way to get his point across. “People say stupid things in the heat of the moment, we know that better than anybody, you can’t seriously think he actually believes that stuff,”

“He had to have been thinking it for it to have been said in the heat of the moment, Jack, he didn’t pull all that stuff out of his ass. He always knew it wasn’t gonna work out.”

Jack sighs your name, his free hand rising to rub at his temple in exasperation, and you wait as he winces, your eyes darting to check for any uncomfortable movements with his shoulder - but it’s something else that’s bothering him. 

“I put those thoughts into his head.”

The concept isn’t surprising - you’ve always known Jack hadn’t liked you, always knew he was badmouthing you to whoever would listen, and snarking at you for the entire house to see. It’s what he’d done last night, using the movie as some sort of metaphor for just how fucked up you are, and everybody in the room could see it.

“I told him every opportunity I could get that you weren’t gonna work out, and that you were bad news, and you’d just mess him around until you got bored.” Jack admits, and again, you’re not shocked. He’d said as much to your face. You even thought you’d resolved this whole thing with him last summer, before everything went to shit, but he’s been off with you since then, so you have no doubt his sentiments have picked straight back up where they left off all those months ago. “And every time I did, he’d just tell me to go fuck myself. Still does. I tell him all the time you’re not good for him, and he just tells me I don’t know you. You’re like the only thing we fight about, and we live together for God’s sake, he’s messy as all hell and I don’t give him half as much grief about that as he gives me about being a dick to you.”

“You’re just proving my point,” you huff, “If I’m causing arguments between the two of you, I’m hardly the kind of person he should be keeping around.”

“He loves you too, you know,” Jack offers as rebuttal, raising a brow as if pushing you to fight back on the fact when you zero in on him. “He told Quinn when he was in Michigan. I got this huge lecture off of him about butting in on your business where I’m not wanted.”

You chew a little at the corner of your mouth, the sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh rising within you at the thought of Jack getting a telling off from his big brother. 

“I’ve been angry this whole time that he doesn’t talk to me about stuff when it comes to you, but I guess I’ve been giving him a good reason not to.”

And as much as you don’t get along with Jack, the thought of driving a wedge between them - between all of them - makes you feel like crap, so all you can do is carry on fighting him.

“He wants to move on,” you shrug, “And he said some pretty shitty stuff about me back in summer when Cole said he wanted to take me out, he doesn’t think as highly of me as he makes out.”

“You’re gonna sit there and tell me that if a girl came up to you and said they were gonna ask him out, you wouldn’t try and talk them out of it?” Like you didn’t storm off at the mere sight of him with Victoria at that party. Like you haven’t been spiralling for weeks over him liking some girl’s post on instagram. “That you wouldn’t feel like someone was trying to take something from you?”

Of course you’d feel that way, you think.

Luke Hughes might be the only person you’ve ever let all the way in, and if someone were to swoop in and snatch him from your clutches, you’d probably go insane.

You’d do anything you could to deter them - including using Luke’s flaws and self-doubts against him. You’d even stretch them to fit your agenda, exaggerating the depth of them to make sure you really put them off.

You’d tell them he can be really insecure - that he gets in his head about stuff, especially anything that can be considered a comparison to his brothers - and that sometimes it brings out something avoidant and petty within him. You’d tell them that he isn’t serious when he needs to be, and that, 9 times out of 10, he’s going to crack some awkward joke that doesn’t land and he doesn’t really know how to properly resolve tension. You’d tell them that he craves validation, and it can be a minefield sometimes to navigate his need for attention. 

You wouldn’t tell them that you love all those things - that he gives you this look when you stroke his ego that makes your heart stop, and that your sense of humour matches his like two perfectly placed pieces of a puzzle, and that he somehow manages to creep under your thick skin when you’re trying to stay mad or upset for no reason other than you think you need to. You wouldn’t tell them that he fills the exact same validation-void in yourself, and that the two of you balance each other out like two sides of the same coin.

And as much as the things he had said last summer crushed you - and for as many times as you’ve replayed them in your head over and over for the past several months since hearing them - you think you finally get it.

Jack Hughes is going to be the last person that you admit that to, though.

“We’re not each other’s property,” you protest weakly, instead.

“Oh don’t come at me with that bullshit,” he exasperates, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “I’m not saying he owned you, or that you own him, I’m saying the two of you put in way too much fucking work for someone else to reap the benefits of it.”

“You have a lot to say, all of a sudden, for someone who’s been trying to put him off of me for God-knows how long.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was wrong about you.” He huffs, like it pains him to say it, “And maybe last night I was angry about something else entirely, and I took it out on you because I didn’t want to feel that way on my own.”

Oh.

If that’s as close to an apology as you’re gonna get, you don’t think you entirely mind it.

It makes sense, after all, you think. The two of you have always had this incessant need to rile the other up, and you were the easiest bait he had to make himself feel better.

If you’d had a month like Jack just had, you’d probably do the same.

“Why didn’t you go to the game?” He asks, and just as your lips part to respond, he adds, “And don’t insult me with the whole headache thing,” forcing you to press them back together. 

You sigh, weighing up in your mind if it’s even worth it to open up to Jack at this point. Sure, he’s making out like he finally sees your true intentions, but does it really matter anymore?

“He doesn’t want me there.”

“Of course he wants you there,” Jack frowns, features curling in confusion. “He got you a ticket, he invited you.”

“It was like a consolation thing,” You huff, thinking back on that conversation in the kitchen, where you’d mustered up the courage to cross some unspoken boundary, and he’d shut you down. “I wanted to do something else together, and he said it was too much, said we should be moving on. Blurring me into a crowd of thousands is the only alternative, apparently.”

Jack snorts out some muffled noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff, and you glare at him as you wait for him to clarify whatever the hell sort of response that was. “You’re both as annoying as each other, you know.”

“Whatever,” you pout, shuffling your body to turn away from him again as you fold your arms over your chest like a petulant child, “He wants to move on, so I’m giving him the space to do that. I’m done with it.”

You don’t know who you’re trying to convince, but you should know better than to think that would ever work on him.

“Right,” Jack snickers, “So done with it that you’re sat here almost crying at the thought of something happening to him.” You scowl, then, because what’s the point in trying to soften your reactions if he’s just going to be an asshole about it. “He’s fine, by the way,” he shakes his phone, then, giving a blurry glimpse of a message thread you can’t even read.

And you thought good news would have lessened the pressure in your chest, this pulsing, swelling feeling that grips at your heart like a vice at the thought of him being hurt - but it doesn’t really go down, at all.

Luke said he wanted to move on. He said he wanted to be friends, and that the two of you should stop blurring the lines.

So why is he sending one brother across the city to check up on you? And why is he telling the other that he loves you?

You weren’t entirely lying, before. 

You are done.

And the only way you think you can ease this pain now is to talk it out, with him, once and for all. 

Trying to talk to Luke is harder than you ever thought it could be.

Texting him seems out of the question, as stupid as that sounds, but when you open up your messages to try, you’re faced with weeks worth of one-word responses that put you straight off - the thought of him shutting you down one more time almost toppling you over the edge of insanity.

And you could call, but it fills you with the same sort of dread. The last time the two of you spoke on the phone had been when Jack was injured - when you’d offered to be there for him if he needed you and he’d sort of snapped at you.

And sure, emotions were high, but things haven’t really been the same since that conversation. They haven’t been the same since the kiss, but there’s a part of you that doesn’t really want the burden of all the blame on your shoulders for once.

There have been countless opportunities for the you to clear everything up, but there have been chances for him, too, and you’re starting to think that maybe the two of you are far too content to let each other suffer instead of actually communicating your feelings like adults.

And after you spend the whole day after the game you missed dwelling on that fact, you’re grateful for a little reprieve when you get a text from Ethan, in town to talk about his own career, who wants to go out for drinks to toast to everything - to spring break, to your NYU acceptance, his devils contract.

He drops a pin for a bar in Hoboken, and you and Ellie make your way down together, meeting up with him and a few of the other guys to celebrate, and it’s the first night in a while that you feel like you don’t need to stress about anything.

You manage to push Luke to the back of your mind for a while, sat in a booth beside Ethan as he shows you pictures of the apartment he went to look at a couple days ago, his plans to move over here coming a lot sooner than yours, but apparently the building have vacancies coming up in the fall, and the two of you talk about how weird it is that you’re gonna be close, again. 

You’re joking with him about his hookup with your sorority sister Megan, threatening to bring her over as your roommate and giggling into your hand through a drunken buzz, when the one person you’re trying to forget for a second appears out of nowhere, standing beside the booth as he looks down at the two of you with an unfamiliar sadness in his eyes. He looks a little run down, dressed in a hoody that stretches across his shoulders, and donning a baseball cap that’s probably supposed to keep his presence lowkey. 

“Lukey boy!” Ethan exclaims as he stands to greet him, the two of them doing that brotherly fist bump and hug that all guys do, “Thought you were too beat to come out!”

“Changed my mind,” he shrugs, eyes glancing back at you. “You mind if I sit?”

“Nope,” you shrug, nodding to the opposite side, where he slides in, and his knees knock against yours under the table.

“I’ll get you a drink,” Ethan tells him, winking over at you as he backs away, your eyes wide as you watch him retreat before you look back at Luke, the silence around you almost visible in animated ellipses that dot in the space between the two of you.

“Since when are the two of you so friendly?” He asks, tone surprisingly bitter as his eyes darken, and you feel your defences build despite them usually being so weak in his presence.

“We’ve always been friendly,” you frown, “Since when are you so rude? What happened to hello, how are you?”

“I don’t know, probably since you started avoiding me,” he juts out his bottom lip, leaning into the back of the booth and stretching his hands out on the surface, “Hard to stay nice when you come to town without telling me and send Ellie to a game I specifically invited you to.”

“You told me you didn’t want to hang out with me,” you scoff, uneasy with how quick this entire conversation is escalating. You’re a little tipsy, but there’s no excuse for how he’s so quick to snap at you. 

“That’s not what I said and you know it,” he huffs.

“No, I don’t know it, because you’ve been avoiding me too,” you bite back, “Why are you being such a dick all of a sudden?”

“You kissed me,” he leans forward onto his elbows, eyes dark under the shadow of the bill of his cap, and you feel a shudder run through you at the intensity behind his gaze, at the memory the mere mention of it invokes - combined with the rasp in his voice, it’s taking everything in you to fight the urge to do it again. “It was barely 3 weeks ago, and now you’re here, without telling me, and you won’t talk to me, and you’re all buddy-buddy with Ethan all of a sudden-,”

“You pushed me away,” you snap back, eyes narrowing to mirror his, “You told me I was making things harder for you, and that I should move on, and then you started avoiding my calls and sending one word responses to my texts, you don’t get to sit there and be an asshole to me just because I’m hanging out with somebody else.”

“So that’s what this is,” He points over to where Ethan is lingering at the bar, no doubt flashing those puppy-dog eyes to the girl behind it, a charming grin cast her way as you can see her blush from all the way across the room. ”This is you moving on?”

“Ethan and I are just friends,” you frown, watching as Luke’s jaw tenses in response, clenching at either side of his face in a way that would usually turn your mouth dry. “I’m not moving on, we aren’t dating.”

Luke’s eyes are stormy when they meet yours - strained and serious as he weighs up your response. “Neither were we.”

The next breath you take is sharp and jittery, gaze still fixed on his from across the table - and despite the proximity of your bodies, him leaning forward, and you just about doing the same, and the urge you had mere seconds ago to close the gap between you, you couldn’t feel any further apart. 

You see his hands shift in your peripheral, long fingers picking at the label on Ethan’s empty beer bottle before his gaze shifts down - guilty and withdrawn. You can’t look away, though - you need to properly look at him, you need to try and see some lifeline you can cling to, here.

He’d pushed you away back in Michigan. He’s been distant, since - too busy for calls, too avoidant for any attempt at a lengthy text conversation. He’s irritated, now - even if he won’t say as much - you can tell by the heavy set of his jaw, and the way his eyes narrow whenever Ethan is too close.

“What were we, then?” You ask before you can think better of it, before some internal part of you convinces yourself that his answer will only serve to hurt you. You’re not going to get anywhere by holding back, anymore.

He’d drank from that cup all those months ago back at that party. Never have I ever been in love. He’d looked you in the eyes as his lips pressed to the red plastic, and he’d watched and waited for you to respond. 

And everything that happened after that will never erase the memory of that heated look in his eyes - piercing straight through the flames in the middle of your circle of friends, burning into the very depths of your being and warming you just enough for the months that followed. 

All the talk about being only friends, of getting any other feelings out of your systems one last time and pretending to rinse them away - it was that night out in the yard of the hockey house that kept things alive, you think.

Knowing that somewhere down the line, despite everything you put each other through - despite the insecurity, and the jealousy, and the pain - he loved you, and he might possibly be the only guy who ever has. The only guy you ever want to.

“Friends,” He frowns as he continues to pick at the sticky paper, tearing the corner until it starts to peel, briefly glancing up to meet your eye as he asks, “That’s all we’ll ever be, right?”

You gulp, your own gaze dropping to the surface between you, eyes tracing the rings of condensation on the table left behind from the chilled bottles. 

“I don’t know if I’m good at being friends,” comes out somewhat instinctively, your brows furrowing as the circles your eyes were mapping seem to hypnotise you into unprompted vulnerability. “I’m having a hard time moving past what happened last summer, I think,” you admit, a rattling breath following, hesitant to do so but needing to get it out, to make him understand that none of this is easy for you - letting him go and moving on isn’t some minor thing he can simply suggest to make things better. It’s not possible. “I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, like I can’t let it go.”

Spilling secrets by the fountain at the country club, kissing in his car when he’d pick you up from work, pulling over on some deserted side road where no one could see, splashing at him in the lake, the sun rays bouncing off the water and bringing out the sea-glass shade of his irises. Trying on stupid disguises in the thrift store at the mall together, his hands on your waist as you danced together at his cousin’s wedding, defending you to his brother whenever Jack tried to pick some stupid fight with you.

It all plays like flashes from a movie at every given opportunity - the second you give your mind a chance to wander, it travels straight back to those weeks spent in his company, to a time where you’d shared a connection so intense that it permanently altered some deep, previously untouchable part of you. 

“I thought that I could just push it down,” you sniffle, “I thought that being friends might help me forget, but I can’t, it just feels harder.”

He mutters your name, softer and quieter than before, but the intention is there to say something as a rebuttal, you can tell by his tone.

You don’t really have much fight left in you, though, not anymore.

“And you were right, back in Ann Arbor, it’s not fair to you.”

“That’s not what I meant-,”

“It is,” you resign, “I don’t know how to be your friend, I don’t know what I want anymore, and I can’t keep pretending and making everything worse for you when it would just be easier if we,”

“If we what?”

“Stopped.” You croak, every muscle in your throat working to resist the words from actually working their way up and coming out. “Whatever it is that we’re trying to be, or trying not to be. So that you can move on, like you want.”

You chance a quick glance up, vision blurred by a thick wall of tears, and meet his startled gaze.

“Is that what you want?” His voice shakes a little as he asks, breathy and reluctant - like he’s bracing himself for your own response to hurt.

It doesn’t really matter what you want, you think. You’ve long lost any right to fight for it - not when it comes to him. You had your chance in summer, to open up about all the things you were starting to feel, and you chose to push them down. You don’t even know why, anymore.

You really thought there would be something left to salvage of your relationship with Luke - something to cling to so that he couldn’t push you away, something that got the two of you back on track, especially after talking to his brother, last night - but now that you’re here, everything just feels wrong. It all feels like a stab in the dark, like you’re no longer familiar with the boundaries of what is or isn’t okay with him, and that leaves you feeling lost, again. Like even the slightest attempt to bridge the gap is one giant wasted effort.

And you know all too well where this feeling gets you - too afraid to put your heart on the line, you hide it away, lock it up and throw away the key so that no one can even attempt to get to it again. 

He doesn’t want to hang out one-on-one, away from the safety of using Ellie and Jack as a buffer. He doesn’t want to watch movies like you used to, or talk on the phone, or even be within 5 feet of you, it seems. He’s annoyed that you’re close to his other friends, he’s annoyed that you’re around at all, you think.

He doesn’t want you anymore - he shuts down every thought of being anything more, and he can talk all he wants about blurring lines and still being friends, but you know how this plays out. 

He wants to move on, he’s said so too many times now for you to discount it or try and find a work around. And when he moves on, and he finds some other girl, like Yasmin, or even Victoria, who doesn’t push him away, or make his life hard, or knows how to express her feelings without saying or doing the wrong thing, he’ll have no use for you. 

His brothers will like her, and he’ll show her off to his teammates, and their relationship will expand beyond a phone screen and the distant, foggy memory of something more. And it will be easy.

And he deserves that.

He deserves so much more than you’ve ever been able to give him. Maybe if you saw that sooner this whole thing wouldn’t be such a mess. Maybe if you’d been more accepting of your blossoming feelings in the summer, and you hadn’t been so insistent on maintaining control, everything wouldn’t have spiralled so far out of reach. 

Ellie might have seen your interest, Cole might have turned his attentions elsewhere, and Luke would never have said those things about you to try and deter him. And then these last few months would have been easier, too. Your walls would have long been knocked down, your defences weakened, and you’d have just let him in like you’ve always wanted to.

And Luke wouldn’t have gotten tired of trying, just like you predicted all those months ago.

“I think your brother was right, the other day, about the movie, and people being hard work. I want you be happy, Luke, and you said it yourself, I can’t make you wait around for me to figure shit out, you have enough going on without me making you feel like this.”

You feel a shift when you look at him again, a slump of his shoulders as he leans back into the booth - something like resigned acceptance - and you can’t help but be reminded of the exchange that started this whole ordeal.

Him on the other side of a booth in the restaurant at the country club, a hopeful gleam in his earthy irises and his chest puffed out in what you remember thinking seemed like a facade of arrogance, with something much gentler beneath the surface. Things had been much lighter then. Playful and easy. And you don’t think it’s been like that for a long time.

You did that, you think.

You sank into the dark, murky waters of your own insecurities and you dragged him straight down with you - and now it’s time to set him free.

The silence that follows your words is awkward, maybe for the first time ever with him, in a way that makes your skin itch with a prickly heat. You had been so intent on speaking to him, before, and now all you want to do is leave so that he can’t stretch this out, or leave so you don’t have to sit here and watch him not even try. You want to run. Scream. Cry, even. Do anything but wait around for him to agree.

“I’m sorry,” comes out croaky, and broken, and you blink out the tears that blur your vision, feeling them run their course the whole way down your cheeks until you swipe them away from your jaw.

“Me too.” 

You want to tell him he doesn’t have anything to apologise for. You want to tell him that you’re the problem, and that you shouldn’t have led him on for as long as you did - but you don’t really want to keep going in circles with this conversation.

You just want to go.

And you couldn’t be more thankful when Ethan comes back, oblivious to the tension between you and his best friend, pushing another bottle across the table and sliding into the opposite side of the booth, right next to Luke.

“So, Lukey, are you gonna let us in on all your favourite spots around here for when we’re both back in the fall?” He slings an arm over the back of the booth, falling naturally above Luke’s slumped figure, and you straighten up in your own seat.

“I’m gonna go find Ellie,” you say, shuffling out from your own side, smiling meekly when Ethan frowns at you, not even daring to look Luke’s way. “I’ll leave you two to it.”

And then you walk away, because that’s all that’s left to do - and when you find Ellie, she takes one look at you, and she knows.

Eyes welling with tears, lips trembling - a mirror image of the girl she found back in your shared room that afternoon of her party, back in the summer - and she ushers you out of the bar and holds your hand the whole way back to your rental, your head on her shoulder as you try not to sob in the back of a taxi. 

For all the times people in his life have called him an idiot, Luke has never felt as stupid as he feels right now.

Watching your teary eyes from across the table, able to do nothing but stare back at them, speechless and spineless as you finally throw in the towel, as you finally admit what you’ve been holding back this entire time.

That you can’t move past what happened in summer.

That this whole time, you’ve been trying to distract yourself from how much he hurt you, how much he fucked up, and all he’s ended up doing is hurting you again. 

I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, you had said, like I can’t let it go.

Like he can never take back all the stupid shit he said to Cole when he was jealous and immature - like he still can’t handle those sort of emotions when he’s around you, and he lashes out when you don’t even deserve it, all because he can’t handle seeing you with anybody else. 

He doesn’t even know why he came at you so quick.

All he remembers is seeing a photo on an instagram story of the guys at the bar, of seeing you and Ellie crouched in the front, carefree, giant grins etched into your faces, and all of a sudden he was walking in.

And you were smiling so sweet, your nose scrunching up and your body shaking with laughter as you sat beside Ethan, absolutely no space between you in the booth, and he had felt something ugly consume him before he even had a chance to realise what was happening.

And now you’re gone, and his heart is pounding in his chest, and the sound of your soft voice uttering one final apology is echoing around his head.

“Are you okay?” Ethan asks from beside him, leaning forward until he appears out the corner of his eye, and Luke shakes himself out of the trance you put him under. 

He mutters your name, and Ethan’s head tilts in confusion until Luke asks, “Are you into her?”

“Into her?” Ethan’s eyes widen in alarm as he almost chokes on a sip of his beer. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, a pathetic attempt at nonchalance that he can tell doesn’t land as soon as he does it, “You looked close when I came in, and she said you went to the movies together the other week. Got food after, sounded like a date to me.”

“Interesting observation,” he scoffs, “Considering all you two do together is watch movies and eat.”

Luke frowns, especially when he looks over properly, and Ethan is smirking at him. He feels like he could throw up. “She’s my friend,” he says, although he supposes that’s not really true, anymore, but he’s sick of having to explain it to everybody. “I’ve told you like a million times.”

“Mine too,” he snickers, and Luke can feel his blood start to boil a little at the implication that your relationship with Ethan might at all be similar to your relationship with him. “She’s a cool girl.”

“Yeah,” Luke agrees, a nauseating sense of deja vu washing over him, soaking him to the bone in remorse.

She’s a really cool girl, Cole had said, back toward the end of summer, really funny.

He feels the same swirls of panic stirring in his chest, a stutter to his heart rate that has him holding his breath to try and correct it, somehow. 

“We’ve just been hanging out a little more the last few weeks, ever since I took her home,” and the mention of that night back in Michigan makes him feel worse - that swirling feeling evolving into something sinister, catastrophic, even. He’d upset you and you’d turned to Ethan for comfort - you’ve continued to turn to him, since. And Luke had really left you no choice but to do so, so upset at the thought of the two of you together that he shut you out, entirely. “I guess we got closer throughout this year, but it’s mostly been in a group, like at parties or whatever. She’s a lot different to how I thought she’d be, especially when it’s just her, we get along.”

“Yeah,” Luke breathes, monotonous and slow, because he can’t really muster much else.

He could probably cry, if he thinks too hard about it. Could probably break out in a sweat and hyperventilate, and all that’s stopping him is the nails digging into his palm to keep him grounded to reality.

He had you, he thinks, back on that porch outside the hockey house, and he let his own fragile ego get in the way, once again. Just like back in the summer, when he had you, and let this panic and jealousy consume him, turn him into something ugly and cruel, saying things he never meant, or never had any right to divulge.

“I think uhh,” his jaw feels tense as he speaks, like something in him doesn’t want to carry on, but he fights past it, “I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about her.”

“How do you mean?”

“People judge her based on what they think she’s like, but they don’t really get to know her.” He relaxes back into his seat, a little, trying to alleviate the growing tension in his spine. “I’d say she doesn’t really let them, but people don’t try hard enough. It’s like you said, she’s really cool.”

“Funny, too.” Ethan smiles a little, and the look in his eyes brings the essence of tears to Luke’s, almost.

“Really funny,” he agrees, pushing through the way his throat feels like it’s closing up, lips twisting up into some attempt at a smile. “Really quick, not even just telling jokes but like, she can just read every situation as it’s happening. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation where she hasn’t made me laugh, even if she’s trying to bite my head off or something or I’m not really in the mood to be laughing.”

Ethan nods along, like he could possibly understand what Luke means - but maybe he can, Luke worries. Maybe that’s what you’ve opened his eyes to, while the two of you have been growing closer this year with him being none-the-wiser to your budding relationship.

“And sure, she’s snappy, but she’s like,” he pauses, a breathy chuckle as he fights the swelling of his chest, now, too, “the most caring person I’ve ever met. You feel it, too, even when she is biting your head off or whatever, she’s doing it because she thinks it’s just as much fun for you as it is for her, and she just wants to keep you hooked. And sure, it takes a while for her to warm up, but when she does it’s like, I don’t even know, man, like her smile,” another pause, and Luke smiles a little more, himself, the upturn of his lips coming so naturally that he can’t tell he’s doing it until his field of vision narrows a little, “She has this smile that’s all slow and cute, and I swear it could thaw ice or something corny like that.”

“She’s got a cute smile,” Ethan agrees, but the way he’s looking at Luke makes him feel a little too seen, and so he straightens back up in his seat before he can sink any further. “Not sure it’s worth losing one of my closest friends over, though.”

“You wouldn’t,” Luke gulps, trying to swallow past the growing lump in his throat at the mere thought of you and Ethan together, a feeling that’s achingly reminiscent of how he felt about you and Cole - sick to his stomach. But this had been the problem before - thinking he has any sort of say over how you move forward with anyone that isn’t him. “I just want her to be happy, I know you’d look after her.”

He’d told you to move on. He’d told you he couldn’t wait around for you to figure things out. He’d shut you out, forced you to close yourself off to him, accused you of only wanting him when you think you’re losing him to someone else - and here he is, falling apart from the inside out, once again, at the mere thought of you with anybody else.

He’s a hypocrite, and he hates himself for it - he’s going to lose you because of it. Maybe he already has.

“You’re an idiot,” Ethan scoffs, mouth curving up at one side in amusement. “You’re seriously gonna sit there and say you want me to ask her out? You want me to date the girl you’re very clearly in love with because at least I’d look after her?”

“C’mon, E-,”

“Like she needs looking after?” Ethan’s dark eyes narrow as he levels Luke with an incredulous glare. “You know if she heard you, she’d beat your ass, right? Trying to auction her off like some sort of prize, are you insane? I swear to God, the two of you are borderline painful, you’re as bad as each other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I honestly thought you were both just being oblivious, or something, but it’s like you’re actively trying to sabotage yourselves, you need to talk to each other, you need to tell each other how you feel.”

“I know that you slept with her,” Luke blurts out, eyes wide as Ethan’s face curls up in horror, “I saw you come out of the house with her the morning after the party,”

“Whoa-,”

“And it’s fine. Not that either of you need my permission,” Luke scoffs, “But I’m not blind, E, she was with you the night Jack got injured, too, she was smiling at you tonight like she hasn’t smiled at me in forever, I just want her to be happy, and if that’s not with me-,”

“I slept with Megan,” Ethan interrupts, “The night of that party, I dropped her off like you asked, I went back to the house, and I hit up Megan because we were hooking up for a while before she got all crazy on me. You remember her, right? The girl with the tattoo of her cat?”

“You were hooking up with a girl who had a tattoo of her cat?” Luke frowns, distracted momentarily until he realises what’s happening.

“She’s in the same sorority,” Ethan scoffs, “What you saw was her sneaking me out of the house because I got stuck upstairs and Megan wouldn’t help me.”

“But the movie, and the pinball,” Luke fades a little, brows furrowing as he tries to piece together whatever the hell he’s managed to fabricate between you and Ethen this entire time - weeks of avoiding you for nothing.

“We just bumped into each other at the IMAX, she seemed a little down, so we hung out after. Like friends do. Like you’d probably know, if you talked to her. You really thought that either of us would do that to you? That girl is crazy about you, Luke, she pretty much cried the whole walk home because you didn’t tell her you liked her.”

“She what?”

“Kept asking me if you’d said anything about being into anyone, she was being all cryptic and weird, I tried to imply you were into her, but clearly it didn’t help.”

“No, no, no,” he shakes his head, muttering repeatedly as he remembers that night, remembers what Quinn had tried to tell him, remembers everything from the past 6 months, all at once. He runs two shaky hands through his hair, trying to squeeze at his skull to stop the influx of regret that’s starting to vibrate in there, incessant and relentless, like it will never go away. “I need to go after her.”

Luke pushes gently at his best friend, frowning when he doesn’t budge. 

“E, I need to apologise to her, I need to talk to her,”

“Tomorrow.” Ethan advises, “Her and Ellie knocked back like a whole margarita pitcher together, you don’t want to do this when she isn’t in the right state of mind.”

Wrong.

He wants to do it as soon as he physically can.

And he’ll do it on the hour every hour until you’re sober, he thinks. 

“Trust me,” Ethan pats at Luke’s leg, a brotherly gesture that does little to calm his nerves. “Take tonight to think about what you want to say, and say it tomorrow.”

Luke hates that he’s right - just like Quinn had been right all those weeks ago.

He can’t do this out of impulse.

He needs to do it right.

When Ellie knocks on your bedroom door the next morning, she’s merely a fuzzy blur through your puffy eyes, and you can barely muster a smile as she walks in with a cup of green tea and a slice of toast for you.

“Thanks, El,” you croak, voice thick with sleep, and maybe dry from the salty rim of the many cups you drank from last night - or the way you cried for maybe an hour until you eventually drifted off.

Ellie had been your literal shoulder to cry on when you got home, letting you sob and finally release months worth of pent-up frustrations as she listened, taking it all in while she stroked a gentle hand through your hair.

You told her everything - about halloween, and christmas, watching movies over FaceTime and spiralling over them alone in your room after he hung up. You told her about texts that made your knees go weak, and calls that lasted until the early hours of the morning, and sleeping in Luke’s arms when you finally saw him in person. You told her about the gifts, and opening up to Luke about your family, and kissing him on the porch back at the hockey house.

Then you told her about the aftermath. About distancing yourself from him to let him move on, about him distancing himself from you because you’re too much of a mess for him to make sense of, and then about that conversation in the bar - about finally letting him go.

She just let you air it all out until it exhausted you - tucked you into your bed where you sobbed into your pillow for a little longer, and promised to talk more in the morning.

And you suppose that’s what this is - breakfast in bed, a soft smile sent your way as she lowers the tray onto the sheets in front of you, muttering a short, you’re welcome, as she perches herself on the end of the bed.

The two of you make a little small talk as she watches you eat, concern in her eyes and hesitance in her posture, and you figure you must have freaked her out a little too much last night - probably still freaking her out, now your face still swollen from all the crying.

“I’m sorry about last night, El,” you sigh once you’ve swallowed your last bite of toast, pushing the plate away. “I feel like such an idiot, you get a free pass to say I told you so, or whatever.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” her lips twist, unsure and uncomfortable, as she shuffles against the footboard. “It wouldn’t be right after what I did.”

“What you did?” You frown, “What do you mean?”

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Ellie shrinks away a little, face scrunching in anticipation of some poor reaction, and all you can hear is the persistent thudding of your heartbeat - still reeling from last night, a little. “I was just trying to help.”

“Help with what?” You blink slow as you watch her, eyes drawn to the way her lips twist and turn, tugged between her teeth as she tries to work through whatever it is she wants to tell you.

“It was sort of Jack’s idea, initially,” she starts, “I mean, I guess I took it a little too far, but he’s the one who brought it up-,”

“Ellie-,” you warn, the anticipation of it all only making things worse.

“He thought if the two of you felt like you were losing each other to somebody else, you’d realise you actually wanted to be together, and you’d stop forcing the whole friend thing and make the next move.”

“I don’t understand-,”

“He said he tried doing the same thing last summer, when he was being an idiot about asking me out. He took some girl from the club on a date, picked someone that he knew you’d find out about, but I guess you never did, ‘cause you’d have told me about it and I’d still have a dent in my head from where it would have hit the roof.” The nervous chuckle she gives does very little to lighten the mood.

“Right,” you nod along, muttering out the affirmation despite the fact that you’d done the complete opposite. 

You never told her about Jack and Jessica, the girl from the club last summer - who you and Luke had spied on in the earlier days of your scheming. It was for her own good, though. You didn’t want to hurt her over something that clearly wasn’t worth her time. Jack was being an idiot, that much was obvious at the time - even without the context you now have that he was trying to get caught - and so you feel less bad about lying about the whole thing.

Although, your eye starts to twitch a little at just how ridiculous this whole thing has started to become.

“So he pushed Luke to date this Yasmin girl for the same reason?”

“Not exactly,” Ellie winces, “I think he tried to get him out of the house one time just to test the waters, but nothing ever came of it. And then Jack got busy with the tournament, and Luke came out to Michigan, and I felt like I had to take the reins a little.”

“Take the reins on what?”

Your tone must unintentionally reflect just how tired you are of this whole thing, because Ellie cowers a little, eyes glassy as she skirts around what it is that she wants to say.

“I need you to understand that I felt really bad about the whole Cole thing, okay?” She says, “And then ever since summer, you haven’t really been yourself, you know? Like you don’t wanna come out anymore, and you’re letting school get to you, and you don’t talk to me about stuff, even when I know that it’s bothering you,”

You look down, your own lips pressing together to try and ease the tension elsewhere in your jaw. 

You have been a little more reserved, but it’s not entirely because of how your summer ended. And it’s not like you weren’t coping, entirely - you just weren’t running to Ellie like you normally might have. 

Maybe it was unintentional, the way you had shut her out, even since the start of summer, but that doesn’t mean it would have affected her any less. Guilt starts to nip away at you from the inside out, her meek response heightened when you lifted your gaze back to watch her. 

“And I just thought maybe you needed someone to look out for you, to give you a little nudge in the right direction, I didn’t realise it would have made things worse.”

A nudge - just like the kind of nudge you and Luke were supposed to be giving her and Jack last year. 

You’re starting to get a headache with it all, the way you seem to have come full circle in the worst possible way - where the universe throws you Ellie and Jack of all people to try and gain some semblance of order to your life.

It’s tragic.

“What are you even saying?”

“There is no Yasmin,” she blurts out, “I made her up.”

You blink slow, feeling as your face slowly contorts with confusion - lips turning down, brows scrunching together, little creases forming in the side of your nose. “No,” you mumble, shaking your head as she stares, wide-eyed and panicked, back at you. “I saw her instagram. He liked her pictures.” 

“I’d imagine that was just some random girl he follows,” she shakes her head with a grimace, “Dumbass likes every post he sees on his feed, I think.”

You gape back at her, your eyes widened in shock and your heart racing in your chest, because what the fuck?

You’ve been pushing him away this whole time to move onto a girl who doesn’t even exist?

“And I know I should have told you sooner, but I got swept up with all of the Jack stuff, and I,” her lips tremble as she stares back at you, apologetic and regretful. “I didn’t realise how bad it got between the two of you. I didn’t know it would end up like this, I was just trying to make things better again.”

You stare down at the empty plate at the bottom of your bed, and all of a sudden you can feel every swallowed bite swirling around in the pit of your stomach. “I feel sick.” You slur out, pushing yourself up off the bed and stumbling towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind you as you fall down against it, and you can hear the soft patter of feet as Ellie follows behind.

“I’m sorry,” she cries through the wood, “I know that I should have known better than to interfere, but I just-,” she hiccups then, and you resent just how much it affects you, guilt and shame swirling around with the nausea. “I wanted my best friend back. You haven’t been the same since summer.”

And you sob, yourself, because you know that’s true.

You’d admitted it to Luke, last night, when you had told him you didn’t think you could ever get over it.

And now you’ve lost him.

You can’t even blame Ellie, either.

She had planted the seed, but you’d been the one to water it - constantly avoiding having to have a difficult conversation with him until everything boiled over, until it was too late.

You could have talked to him at the party, the night you kissed him. You could have told him there and then that you loved him, because you knew it as sure as anything, but you didn’t. You could have told him at any point since then, and you never did. Because you were scared, and insecure, and weak.

Ellie calls your name from inches behind you, soft and shaky, and the thought of ruining everything with her too is too much for you to handle. 

You need to get out of the bathroom, need to get out of the house, need to get away period. 

You just need space, and you know exactly where you’re going to find it.

Luke has never been more thankful for a day off in his life.

And he’s never been more proactive in one, either.

One of the biggest joys usually comes from turning off his alarm the night before. No morning skate, no practice, no training, no meetings, no game to prep for.

There’s just you, across town, thinking he doesn’t care enough about you to stop you giving everything the two of you have up.

So his alarm had stayed on, shrilling beside his head at 7am, and he shoots right out of bed, not even putting it on snooze for four times before he gets himself up.

He makes breakfast, eggs and avocados on toast, brain food as his mom might say, and starts to think about what he’s going to say to you - making notes on his phone like it’s some dumb presentation - until he feels satisfied that there’s enough of his heart in it to actually make an impact.

He’s done letting his emotions control him.

The two of you are going to figure this out, and it’s going to work out - he’s sure of it. He has to be. 

And just as he’s about to leave, Jack appears from his room, also dressed and ready to face the day, quirking his brow at the abnormal pep in his little brother’s step.

“What the hell’s got you so jumpy this early in the morning?” He asks.

“If I tell you, I don’t want to hear a lecture about it.” Luke huffs, because this is the last parade he would ever let his brother rain on, and he’s kind of worked himself up to the point of delusion. Jack just nods in response, and Luke can’t help the giddy smile that breaks out right before he says, “I gotta go see about a girl.”

Jack’s eyes widen, and Luke feels like he’s been punched in the gut when his lips quirk up, preparing himself for the blow of being laughed at by his own brother.

But what Jack says, instead, is even weirder.

“Let’s go then.”

And Luke practically stumbles over himself to get the two of them to his car, the weight of his brother’s approval pushing him further than he ever wanted to admit that it could, his entire body buzzing as he drives them over to the rental you and Ellie are staying in, and he tells Jack about his plan on the way.

He tells him how he’s gonna get you out of the house, gonna take you on a walk, somewhere, where the two of you can finally talk things out, and he’s gonna tell you how he feels. He’s gonna let you speak, gonna give you the time you need to figure things out - he’s gonna lay his heart on the line, and he’s gonna be a man and let you decide whatever it is you want to do with it.

You say you can’t get over the summer, but you don’t understand how much he regrets it, how much he loves you, how he’d never hurt you like that again. And if you turn around, and you don’t feel the same, then he can do whatever you want, but at least he’ll know he tried - at least you’ll know what you mean to him.

Jack gives him pointers, like he’s ever gonna take love advice from a guy who took like 3 years to ask his girlfriend out, but Luke just nods along with a smile on his face, too in his head with the hope that this could finally be it.

And that hope carries him all the way from one side of Jersey City to the other, airy and light, until he’s knocking on your door and waiting for you to finally open up for him - and all of it drains from him the second he sees Ellie’s teary fave on the other side. He’s too confused by the situation to notice when Jack brushes past him to comfort her, and he finds himself looking around for you again, that light, airy feeling growing heavier by the second.

“Calm down,” he hears Jack coo, “It’s alright, what happened?”

“We got into a fight,” she sniffles, “Or I don’t know, a disagreement, I guess. I was gonna give her a little room to breathe, so I went to my room, and then she left, and she’s not picking up her phone.”

Luke feels the colour drain from his face, a dizzying wash of panic flooding his system that causes his chest to swell. He reaches for his phone before he even realises what he’s doing, fingers knowing the way straight to your contact and pressing on it within seconds, the call reaching voicemail before he even lifts the device to his ear.

“It must be off,” he frowns, the swelling worsening with every second that passes. “She just left? She didn’t say where she was going?”

“She was pretty upset,” Ellie tells him, tears welling in her eyes as her face twists with guilt, “I really, uhm,” she runs a hand through her hair as she turns away from him, taking a few pacing steps to distance herself, “I really fucked things up, I think.”

“Fucked what up?” Luke asks, following by instinct to close the gap, trying to get her to look at him just to get a read on the severity of the situation. He’s witnessed a couple of your arguments with Ellie - mostly minor irritations that you come to him to talk you through, and it’s never been bad enough for you to get seriously upset over it. Not like this. And Luke has known Ellie for a long time, too - had seen all the ups and downs of her relationship with Jack before they ever got together. He’s never seen her like this, and dread pools in the pit of his stomach. “What happened?”

“I uh,” she takes in a trembling breath, staggered and shaky and doing little to make him feel any better as he hears it. “I thought I was helping. I thought she just needed a push, or something, like someone to guide her-,”

Luke can’t imagine a world where you would need guidance on anything. Headstrong and self-assured, he can’t picture what on Earth would make Ellie assume you would need her to push you.

“I swear, I thought I was doing the right thing. I wouldn’t have gotten involved, especially after summer, you know, I felt really bad, and I just wanted to try and fix it somehow, but she never tells me anything, so I didn’t realise she was kind of getting there on her own and I think I just made everything worse.”

The mention of summer makes him wince, Ellie’s words all merging together into one long, confusing blur of excuses that don’t quite make sense, but this has to be about him, somehow, he thinks - because you would have told him about anything else happening in your life, something else that might have happened in the summer. 

Ellie felt bad about the whole Cole thing - that much seems obvious. Lending her efforts to him asking you out, being the catalyst to the whole thing blowing apart from the inside, out. But how could she ever possibly fix that? Especially considering he was the master of his own downfall, in the end.

“What did you do?”

When Ellie’s eyes meet his, they’re flooded with remorse, round and watery and it does little to quell the panic continuing to rise within him.

“I told her you were seeing somebody else.”

Luke feels time stop, his heart coming to a screeching halt, and all thoughts wiped from his brain until all he can hear is your voice, soft and small and vulnerable as you tell him, “I don’t want to watch you move on.”

“I just thought she needed a wake up call, or something, like if she thought that there was the potential that you were moving on she might have finally realised that holding back this whole time was doing more harm than good, but I don’t know what happened, she just shut down, after-,”

“After what?” Luke asks, although he doesn’t know why, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer to both questions he poses Ellie’s way. “When did you tell her that?”

“Before the party back in Michigan,” she gulps, “Before you left.”

Luke stumbles back a little, hands finding purchase on the back of the couch, needing something to steady him, to ground him before he spirals out of control. 

“Jack told me that he’d been trying to get you to move on, that he took you out with the guys, that you were just flat out rejecting the idea of even speaking to somebody else, and I just thought-,”

“You knew about this?”

“No,” Ellie is quick to defend him, quick to take responsibility, for once, “Well, sort of, but he told me not to do it, and I didn’t tell him that I did, so he’s not to blame, here. I thought if I just said that you were moving on then she wouldn’t have believed me, so I made somebody up, but I guess you’re following some girl with the same name on instagram, and you liked a couple of her pictures, and last night she kept saying that you don’t want her anymore, that all she can think about is how much she loved you back then, but you don’t feel the same,”

I’m having a hard time moving past what happened last summer, I think

He thought you meant the Cole thing. He thought you meant you couldn’t look past his mistake. 

I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, like I can’t let it go.

You weren’t talking about the bad stuff.

You were talking about the rest of it.

And now all Luke can hear in his head is little snippets of conversations from the past few weeks. I want to, which he now sees as an admission of your feelings when he had asked you to let him in. Are you moving on? After he had turned you down for that art installation, wedging an insurmountable gap between the two of you while you assumed he was seeing some other girl. He’s hard work and she isn’t cut out for it, and the way you so quickly gave up when it came to Jack’s stupid outburst.

All of that had been with idea of him already having moved on. 

All of that, and you still refused to do so, yourself.

Oh no.

“I was just trying to help, Luke, I swear, I just wanted to help her. She just lets things pass her all the time, for as long as I’ve known her, she gets all in her head, and she doesn’t let people in, and she was doing the same with you, and I just wanted her to take something for herself, I wanted her to win, I didn’t realise it would become this huge mess-,”

“Stop,” he huffs, because he can’t let her blame herself, not entirely - he made a mess of this, too. He’d jumped to conclusions, after the kiss. He hadn’t let you speak, hadn’t let you come to terms with what you were feeling. He’d misunderstood your intentions and jumped down your throat, and let his own hurt in the situation stomp all over yours. He hadn’t talked to you, despite all the times he had been urged to. 

“Where would she go?” He asks, trying to shake himself into action. “Does she have any other friends around here, did she mention anywhere to you that she might escape to?”

“No,” Ellie whines, “She only came here for the first time in October, the only places we mentioned were lunch spots, I don’t think she ran off in tears for a bagel. The only person I could think of was you, but you’re here.”

Luke wracks his brain through the last few conversations the two of you had - and all he hears is the multiple opportunities he had to clear everything up. The multiple attempts you made to bring things back to normal - to bridge the gap he had forced between the two of you.

Movie nights, coffee shops, the game the other night, the art installation.

The art installation.

“Did she bring her laptop?”

You can’t really pinpoint where your obsession with space started.

It’s probably somewhere between laying awake at night, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars your dad had stuck to your ceiling, and a field trip to the Henry Crown Space Center - and the two memories are probably a lot more linked than you care to think about, both providing distractions when you needed them the most in life, but you’ve never experienced anything like this.

You’d found out about this exhibit on TikTok of all places, putting the you in for you page to work when you first started seeing it on your feed, saving every video that came up. Destination Cosmos originated in Amsterdam from what you could find, and you’ve wanted to go for years. It feels like fate, almost, that it would be in New York for one week only while you’re just across the river for spring break, and missing out on it would have been your biggest regret since coming out here - which considering the events you’re actively trying to escape from, is probably saying a lot. 

Maybe if you’d have sold it a little better to Luke than just being an art installation, he might have come with you. Maybe if you’d done a lot of things differently, he might have come with you.

As you stand in the centre of the universe, projections of everything you’ve spent your whole life admiring only from afar, chasing something you still don’t understand, you feel smaller than you’ve ever felt in your life.

It’s overwhelming, almost, how lost you feel now.

On your own, in the middle of an exhibit you’ve been dreaming about for years, in a city you don’t really know, but are going to be moving to before you know it, with all other aspects of your life imploding in calamitous fashion around you. The way the images flash across the walls - stars, planets, nebulae, supernovae - make you feel like you barely even exist, and you hate it. 

You’ve never felt so alone, so afraid of what comes next, and all you want is for someone to reach out and shake you until you don’t feel it anymore.

And when somebody actually does, when the soft but familiar mutter of your name brings you out of your reverie, and a gentle grip forms around your wrist, you gasp, yanking your hand away like the touch burns.

You have to be dreaming, you think.

There’s no way you haven’t slipped into some sort of coma, or something.

Maybe you missed a low ceiling somewhere on your way into the exhibit, hit your head and knocked yourself out.

Because there’s no other explanation for how Luke Hughes could possibly be standing before you, in front of the most beautiful backdrop of glistening constellations, other than you imagining the whole thing.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, taking in his frantic form - chest heaving with rushed breaths and his baseball cap askew, probably from where he keeps taking it off to run his hands through his hair. 

“I uh-,” he pants, blinking slow as if you’re just about coming into focus. “I came to see about a girl.”

You blink back, brows pushing together as he takes another step, “What?”

“Good Will Hunting,” he clarifies, “Declarations of love, I know you hate them but I uhm-,” he frowns, cringes, even, like he’s thinking better of doing this already, and you wait with bated breath for him to string his thoughts together. “I’m doing this wrong, I think.”

“Luke-,”

“I was trying to think the whole way here of some sort of speech, like one giant combination of all the soppy, cheesy movie quotes you love so much. Y’know, like, uhh,” his bottom lip juts out as he takes a second, and all you can do is watch, “Like a megamix or something.”

“A megamix?”

“Yeah, like a little How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, a pinch of Notting Hill, just this huge shit show of the corniest garbage you’ve ever heard in your life.”

“Sounds great.” You frown, a little lost on how he went from declarations of love to corny garbage in a matter of seconds. 

“Probably would be,” he nods as he takes another step, and you fight the urge to retreat, your feet staying firmly in place and your arms wrapping around yourself in some twisted protective stance. “But all I can think about is that one scene in When Harry Met Sally, y’know, when she’s all frizzy and crying on her bed, and he’s there to comfort her?”

“I don’t really remember,” you mutter, although you have a vague recollection. “I only watched it that one time and I was a little distracted.”

“I watched it 8 times.” He tells you, “Could probably talk you through the whole thing.”

“You don’t have to-,”

“So Sally’s just found out her ex is engaged,” he starts, anyway, and you don’t even have time to question why the hell he watched that movie 8 times. Once was enough to scar you for life. “And she’s like sobbing to Harry, and saying all these things about how she was just a transitional person, and she thinks something’s the matter with her, ‘cause her ex never wanted to marry her.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“She says, I’m difficult,” he mimics her voice, somewhat, a soft smile curving at his lips as he recalls the scene, “And Harry tells her, you’re challenging, and every time I watch it, I think of you.”

Ouch.

He must see the way your face drops, because he takes another step, and the distance between the two of you is so small now that you could conceivably touch without reaching - if he stopped making out like you’re a problem, that is. 

“‘Cause that’s when they kiss, right?” He asks, and you nod, hesitantly, because you sort of remember it a little better, now. “That’s when he realises how deep he’s into this thing with her, and how right he was that they could never be friends.”

“I guess so,” you pout, your chest clenching at the mere mention of your friendship - the one you had denounced only a day ago, and are still very freshly mourning the loss of. 

“And then I think about the other night, about what Jack said.”

You’ve already gone through this whole thing with Jack, you really don’t want to do it, again. Not here, not now, especially. “Luke-,”

“He shouldn’t have said any of that stuff to you, and he was being a world class dick, but he was sort of right,” he tells you, a crooked smile cementing itself into his features as he reaches out to tuck your hair behind your ear as it falls forward, leaving you to watch in confused silence as amusement flashes across his irises, despite the fact that it’s not remotely funny. “You are hard work.”

“Did you seriously come all the way out here and hunt me down just to tell me that?” You scoff, something within you switching as you unfold your arms and reach up to push his hand away. “That all I do is make your life hard, you don’t think I already know that?”

He grabs yours, instead, intertwining your fingers despite your resistance, and smiling even deeper. “When did I ever say I want things to be easy?” He challenges, his other hand rising to the opposite side of your face, cupping at your jaw and lifting your face until your eyes meet, “I love that you’re hard work.” And just as you scoff, just as you try to argue such a ridiculous statement, he continues. “It makes being with you and you letting me in all the more rewarding, like I earned it. I’d like to think that I did, too. I’d like to think we’ve come really far from where we started.”

You gulp down the urge to tell him you agree, still a little confused by this whole speech, where one second he’s comparing you to a sobbing emotional wreck, and the next he’s suggesting you’re sort of a nightmare. Still confused by how he found you in the first place, but it feels too late to ask, now.

“Ellie told me about Yasmin,” he says, and you swear the way your heart skips a beat is wishful thinking, your mind praying that the ground will just swallow you up. You were embarrassed enough without him knowing about it, too - that you got all in your feelings about some girl that never even existed, enough to end up ruining everything with him over what turned out to be nothing. “And Ethan told me about Michigan, about how you were upset that I didn’t tell you how I felt.”

What? You’d been upset he hadn’t told you about Yasmin, who you now know doesn’t exist, not-

Oh, Jesus Christ, you think, too embarrassed to even react. Ethan had been talking about you. 

Anybody could see from a mile off that he is into somebody.

“It doesn’t even matter-,”

“Don’t do that,” he pleads, desperation flashing across his eyes, stunning you a little into submission. “Please don’t do that, not about this.”

“Luke-,”

“I love you.” He says, voice sure and steady, a little louder than he’d been speaking before but you can’t really find it in yourself to care. “I’m in love with you. I don’t think I’ll ever not be in love with you. And there’s no Yasmin, there’s no Victoria, there is nobody else and there never will be. That’s what I came all the way out here to say.”

That’s a little better than whatever the hell he was saying about a megamix, you think. 

“That there’s only you.” He’s still sure, but quieter now, like a whisper that’s only meant for you to hear. “That I love you, and it matters.”

He’s giving you this heated look, like he can see every single cell of you - like he loves every single cell of you - eyes dark and intense, and you can’t look away, too entranced by whatever hold he now has over you - barely able to even form a cognitive thought, let alone voice one.

“I love that you’re weirdly nerdy about space,” he maintains a hold on your cheek, his touch soft but his presence solid, and uses his other hand to gesture around you, to the spectacle around you - to the vibrant projections of planets on walls that seem to extend light years right around of the two of you. “And that of all the places in New York you’d even want to go during your last spring break, this was the only place on your list. And despite that, somehow I’m the dorky loser out of the two of us.”

You feel your lips quirk up, still gazing up into his eyes, your own wide and watering as you watch him continue.

“I love that you never mind spending time with me, even if it’s just watching movies, or watching hockey, or eating, and you always know what food I like, even though you complain that I eat more than any human should. I love that I never feel too much for you, or too little, or too loud, or like I’m not saying enough. You call me an idiot all the time, sure, but you never make me feel like one.”

Everything around you turns into a blur, now, beyond trying to blink away your tears as they slowly start to trickle from your lower lashes, Luke’s thumb coming to swipe at your lip when one settles there, offering a soft smile that makes your heart melt in place - this warm, sticky sensation spreading between your ribs.

“And I love the way you look at me,” his voice is so soft that it makes you feel boneless, and you think if he didn’t have a hold on your face you might just dissolve into nothing, “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only person who actually sees me.”

You love that about him too, you think - the first tangible thought you can muster as he does his best to turn you into complete mush in the palm of his hand. 

“I love that you make the 600 miles between here and Michigan feel like nothing. Like I miss you all the time, but you always make it seem like you’re here, even when you’re not, as stupid as that sounds.”

It doesn’t sound stupid. Not at all. It’s crazy how much comfort Luke has given to you just through a phone screen for the past 5 months, like he’s been with you the whole time, all those worries about your relationship being too weak to withstand the distance that you had at the end of summer dissipating almost instantaneously.

“And I’m sorry I keep giving you reasons to think otherwise, but I’ve never felt this way about anybody before. I love you so much it makes me crazy, and it makes me do stupid things, and say shit that I don’t mean, but I mean this, I need you to know that, as insane as this whole thing is I’ll say it all again and louder if you need me to.”

Your heart is pounding against your ribcage, the trembling breaths you take to try and alleviate it providing very little relief, and Luke watches you with bated breath of his own, wincing a little in anticipation as he waits out some sort of response.

You reach up to the hand that rests on your cheek and peel it from your skin, fingers clasped around his palm and tugging it away carefully until you can bring it down. You step just a little closer - close enough that you’re looking up, close enough that you can place his hand against the rampant thudding in your chest, and hope that the proximity of him now helps calm you - helps build the kind of courage it takes to stand in front of the person you love and lay your heart on the line, like he just had.

“I love that your version of a declaration of love starts out as you calling it a corny garbage megamix,” you tell him, hesitant but hopeful, like you’re testing the waters, watching as his eyes start to well up too and relief wracks through him in a visible shudder. “And that you watch some movie 8 times on your own because it makes you think of me.”

He huffs out a breathy chuckle, the smile that takes over his face is unwavering and it spurs something courageous within you, fingers intertwining with those on his free hand and smiling straight back. 

“I love that every text you send me is a triple text,” you snort, “Like you couldn’t possibly just type out a paragraph, you have to send me every single thought as it passes through your brain. Like I’m the first person you want to come to about anything and everything, it makes me feel like you value me, it makes me feel good. And I love that you make everything lighter, and easier, and you never let me sit in my feelings, or let anybody make me feel bad.” You think of all the times he has defended you - to Jack, to yourself, even. He’d been so sure of you getting into your graduate program, more than you had ever been, and the stress around the whole thing seemed to dissolve whenever he was around. He’d backed you up when Jack went on his weird tirade at movie night, and has apparently been doing so the whole time Jack’s tried to sabotage things between the two of you. “Even if you do agree that I’m hard work.” Your lips twist in amusement as he dips his head a little, but you understand what he meant - where he was going with what he said. 

“I love that you make me second guess myself,” you tighten your hold on him a little, “And you make me think differently, think better. I don’t feel afraid or unsure when I’m with you, not about the real stuff.”

He tightens his hold, too, readjusts his fingers where you’re clutching at them until he can move your hands to your sides, pulling back until you’re touching, almost, chest to chest. 

“And if you asked me a year ago if I ever thought I’d want the boy I love to hunt me down in a dorky space exhibit, I’d have probably curled up and died from embarrassment at the thought,” you snort, “But I wanted to be here because it reminded me of you. Because you call me a dork, but you never make me feel like one, either. And because I used to want to feel like nothing when I thought of this stuff, but now I know that I don’t want to feel small, or insignificant, or unimportant,” you’re so close now that your voice is like a soft hum, stretching up on your toes and untangling your fingers from his for them to find purchase on his chest, helping you balance better. “I want to feel like I matter, and you’re the one who taught me that I do.”

You break eye contact only to watch the slow roll of a tear down his cheek, one he doesn’t even bother to wipe away, not afraid to show just how much it means to him for you to say all of that stuff back. 

“I love you, Luke,” you almost-whisper, but the lack of volume does little to lessen the meaning behind the words, and your eyes drift back up to meet his, “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”

“Can’t believe you just outdid my own corny declaration of love.”

“Consider yourself megamixed.” 

“Shut up,” he laughs, the sound rumbling all the way from the depths of his chest and into your lips as he presses his own into them, fingers curling around the back of your waist as he pulls your body flush to his, and you think you see the swirling stars even when you close your eyes, a bright burst of colour consuming your brain until it’s all that you feel.

You kiss him without a single care in the world, forgetting that you’re in the middle of an exhibit, and that people might see, or stare, or think that you’re crazy. You love him, and you’re done hiding just how much.  He kisses you back the same, with intensity and intention, like he’s trying to cement all those wonderful words he said to you before into the core of your being. 

When you pull apart, slow enough that you barely separate at all, you watch as he smiles, swollen lips curved all the way up, the slight flash of teeth, cheeks balling up and his eyes creasing in the corners, and you feel your face mirror his, your noses pressed together and your hands still clutching at the shirt on his chest.

“Y’know,” he breathes, a slight rasp to his voice, “I was kind of right about one other thing.”

“What’s that?” You ask, backing away to give the two of you the slightest bit of breathing room. 

“This feels like the perfect place to take somebody on a date.”

Your smile deepens, somehow, big enough to ache a little, and when you rush and stumble out of sheer instinct to kiss him again, his hands are primed to catch you. 

And they don’t let you go for the whole 90 minutes you spend exploring the exhibit, where the two of you learn all new things about the universe and everything beyond it, and for the first time in a long time - the first time maybe ever - you let yourself believe that everything is going to be okay from here on out.

School might be hard, but you’ve worked almost the whole way through it with an end in sight, and a you’re building a life for yourself that you’ve never been so excited to live. 

Your parents might be shitty, and they might not show up when you need them, but you have other people who do. 

You have Ellie, who, for all her faults, has always been there to fall back on. She lets you spend the summer with her, with all intentions to have you stay the whole time, even if the two of you ended up elsewhere, and lets you impose on the holidays - shares all her traditions and never makes you feel like you don’t belong there. She cares so much about you that she goes a little crazy, but you think you’d rather have it that way than not at all.

You have Ethan, and you have Quinn, who both refused to fall for everybody else’s misconceptions of you - who encouraged Luke to persist when you gave him a million reasons to give up, and who were both in your corner without you ever even knowing about it.

And you maybe even slightly have Jack, who was just trying to look out for his little brother, like he’s so used to doing in all other aspects of Luke’s life, and who was willing to admit he was wrong despite how much you know it pained him to do so.

Everything in your life leading up to now might have jaded you a little, might have skewed your perception on what it meant to be loved, but you have Luke, now, to clear it all up. 

Luke, who is dorky, and unserious, and loud, and uncoordinated, and acts out of impulse sometimes in ways that hurt you, but cares about you too much to ever leave you behind. And that, yes, he’s someone who doesn’t leave, but he’s also someone who comes back - who keeps showing up for you despite you giving him a million reasons not to.

Luke, who persistently slips in through the cracks of your long-caged heart and cements himself a place so deep in there that you’ll never get him out - you won’t ever want to.

Luke, who you love, and who loves you back, and who tracks you down in the next state over with a bunch of ridiculous movie references and makes you regret ever telling him you were freaked out by declarations like that, because you’ve wasted far too much time now trying to convince yourself you were a cynic.

Luke, who told you all the way back at the beginning of summer exactly who he was - who he was always going to be, and you were just too stubborn to listen. 

Luke, who is, and always has been, inevitable.

When spring turns to summer, you find yourself back where it all started, your eyes fluttering open at the familiar sound of tyres rolling across the gravel driveway of the lake house, sun beaming harsh enough through the windshield that you have to squint against it, and your heart hammering in your chest.

It’s been a few weeks since you last saw Luke - when he’d surprised you at your graduation, and had helped you box up all your stuff back at the sorority, and the anticipation of a promise he’d muttered into your lips on your last night together has been the only thing keeping you going while you were back in Chicago with your mom.

The whole summer, he had promised when he invited you to stay, and I’ll even be your chauffeur again. 

The thought of coming back to the place you fell in love, with the boy you fell in love with, and getting to experience the beauty of it all through eyes that finally let you truly see it makes your heart do little somersaults in your chest - a feeling that’s only exacerbated when you climb out the car to see Luke sat on the stairs leading up to the front door, waiting for you.

You feel the weight of his crooked grin even from a short distance away, a warm, gooey sensation spreading throughout your entire body as you run straight for him, ditching Ellie to get out the car on her own time and leaping into his arms. 

You press frantic kisses wherever you can reach, and he holds you up so that you don’t fall, your legs wrapping securely around him as his glorious laughter rings out into the air around the two of you - your lips against his cheek, and his jaw, and his forehead, his nose, his eyes, even, and finally his mouth, where he matches your enthusiasm like he’s been waiting the whole time to do so. 

“You missed me, I take it.” He chuckles, lips moving against yours as the words fall between your lips, and you hum back, kissing him again as a response. 

“Get a room, that’s disgusting,” you hear the bitter scoff of Jack as he brushes past the two of you and heads straight for Ellie. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Luke mumbles as he carefully lowers you back down until your feet touch the ground, “I got us a room, I even put some things in there for you, do you wanna go see?“

“What about my bags?”

“Your bags can wait,” he smiles coyly as he grabs at your hand - tugging until you’re following him into the house, and up the stairs, a layout you could still follow with your eyes closed. The familiarity of it all makes your heart ache in the best way, a stupid, lovestruck grin taking over your face as he guides you towards his room - your room too, now, apparently, and holds the door open for you to walk in.

It’s pretty much exactly how you remember it, the big window looking out over the pool at the back, the lake in the distance, and a soft breeze causing the curtains to flutter gently. 

There’s the bed in the centre of the room, where you slept for the first time beside him, the same navy sheets, and you bet they still have the same soft linen smell to them, the same detergent kept in the laundry room downstairs. There’s the dresser to the side, where he once kissed you so stupid you never thought you’d think straight again. And the en-suite, where you first taken things a little too far with him, not that you regret any of that now.

The summer you’d spent so long trying to squash down is here now, larger than life, impossible to suppress or forget. And the boy beside you is the same. 

You can’t fight the smile as you turn to him, his eyes glinting back at you the same way they have ever since that day in the exhibit, a light in them that you don’t think will ever go out.

“What did you put in here for me?”

“Nothing, it was just an excuse to get you up here,” he chuckles, advancing on you before you even realise he’s doing it, hands sneaking around your waist until you’re pressed flush to his body, and he’s dipping his head to kiss you again. “But if you want to go shopping later, we can get you some stuff. Make it feel more like your room, too, add a feminine touch, or whatever.”

“A feminine touch?” You scoff, grabbing at his t-shirt and turning the two of you until you can push him down onto the bed. “You gonna let me paint the walls with rainbow sparkles?”

He scoffs, thighs tensing as you lower yourself onto them, straddling his hips and grabbing at his hands so that they can’t hold onto you like he wants. “If that’s what makes you happy,” he smiles up at you, dorky and adorable. 

“I’m happy,” you tell him, leaning in and kissing him slow, and sweet, unable to help when your lips curve up where they are pressed to his. “I will put one feminine thing on the list, although I don’t know anywhere around here that might sell them.”

“What’s that?”

“Pink fuzzy handcuffs,” you smirk, leveraging your hold on his wrists to lift his arms and press them back down into the bed, heart racing at the way he looks up at you - like you’re the entire universe. “So I can tie my pretty boyfriend to our bed.”

And then you lean forward again, pressing the curve of your lips back to his, revelling in the way his laughter ripples out into your mouth - swallowing it down until it swirls like petals in the depths of your stomach, cinematically swept up by a soft breeze, dancing and falling in slow motion.

“You’re gonna make me regret this, aren’t you?”

“Definitely.”

A/N: guys I could hardly warn you above for the cheesiest ending you'll ever read in your life without spoiling the whole thing, but if a guy professed his love to me at destination cosmos, I'd melt into a pile of water slime or something. this is honestly so wild, and probably repetitive, and might feel rushed and insane towards the end, but I feel like it needs to be, because these two are insane.

I hope you guys are happy with this lmao, I've had a lot of fun torturing you the past few months!! a lot of LIH callbacks in this final chapter, if you can pick them out ily, it really feels full circle, and like the right ending for both of them, so I'm praying you guys enjoy it as much as the rest!!

Ending this series is bittersweet, because I truly do adore these two idiots, they have a place in my heart forever, and if they have a place in yours, I would welcome any asks/conversations about them in the future!!

Again, thank you. I don't really know how to end this without being a blubbering mess at how much I love you all for getting me here!!! Being able to finish something like this, and be genuinely proud of it, isn't something I've ever done before I came on this site, and your support of my writing, whether it be LIH or OYS or anything else, brings me so much happiness I can't even describe it.

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Crushing This Crush (Alastor x Reader)

AN: A bit late but for @catticora in honor of their donation as a part of last week's event put on by @hellsgreatestevents!

CW: Alastor being a shit

Request: Reader tries to get over Alastor and writes down a list on “how to get over her crush” and he happens to find it and foil her plans into loving him more

The decision to move into the Hazbin Hotel was a natural one. You didn’t want to die and the general selections of jobs you could do to make a living wage in pentagram city was… lacking. What also was natural, unfortunately, was your crush on the walking red flag of a hotelier. 

That’s how you ended up in this mess in the first place. At least, that’s what you blamed it on. It was following red flag men through their terrible choices that landed your ass in hell. 

Charlie said you needed to take accountability for your actions or you’d never be able to progress in the redemption program, but you just didn’t buy it. The least you could do, however, was not repeat the mistake again. 

That’s what had you sitting behind your laptop in the hotel library researching ways to not fall harder for the handsome red flag that was Alastor. Unfortiently, research wasn’t the most entertaining thing in the world and you quickly ended up with your head cradled in your arms, resting partially on your notes. 

That’s how Alastor found you, cocking his head to the side as your shoulders moved slightly with every calm breath you took. How you had survived for years in hell, soul all your own still, Alastor couldn’t guess. You were so careless as to drift off to sleep in a public space. 

He was less than pleased with the presence of your travel computer on the desk. They were distasteful machines, making the users lazy when it came to seeking and verifying information. 

Alastor stepped closer to you, snagging a throw blanket off the back of the couch. Of all the places you chose to sleep, you picked the least comfortable ones. He wouldn’t save you from the kink in your back that would punish you for your choices, but the least Alastor could do was drape a blanket over your shoulders. He had a duty to the care and keeping of the hotel residents, to an extent. 

The writing on the paper caught his eye. Your looping letters elegantly crossed the page. The title scrawled atop the sheet demanded he investigate more, reading “Crushing This Crush”. 

“Oh, dear.” Alastor murmured softly, carefully working the notebook out from under your arms. “And who is the target of this…” 

“Goal:” the page stated boldly. “Kill the crush on Alastor by any means necessary.” 

“Me?” He chuckled, eyeing your sleeping face, seeing you in a new light. Things made more sense under the light of this new information. “Very interesting.” 

Alastor’s fingers twitched as the single notebook duplicated in his hand. The newly created duplicate melted into the shadows, leaving the original behind. Carefully, he lifted your arms and tucked the notebook containing your poorly hidden plans back under you. 

Would you guess it was he who brought you a blanket? He didn’t know, nor did he care. What mattered to him was that this was surely going to be entertaining. 

Step one in crushing your crush on Alastor sound have been simple enough. Minimize exposure to the man himself. How hard was it to just not spend time around him? You just had to stop seeking him out and it would be done. 

It’s not like he typically hung out in the general spaces of the hotel. 

It should have been easy, so why was it while you sat on the couch in the hotel lobby, nose in a book, his weight settled next to you? He didn’t even sit in the armchair like he usually would. For the first time in your existence, he asked you what you were reading, striking up a conversation with you.

This was not good. This was very much bad for your crush. This was how your crush would get worse. Not good at all. 

You stood up in a rush, stammering out some bullshit excuse about having to walk your fish before all but running out of the lobby, the rich sound of Alastor’s laugh following you down the hall. 

That was far from your only failure at distancing yourself from Alastor. He called on you to attend to errands with him he sure as hell didn’t need help with. The man had tentacles and shadow powers and yet somehow he needed your help to carry supplies for the hotel? 

And why the hell did he need your help to buy new clothes? Did he even wear anything other than the same outfit every single day, anyway? You couldn’t remember when you ever saw him wearing something different, but somehow you still ended up sitting in a tailor shop as he asked your opinions on cuts and fabrics. 

Step one was a failure, but that was alright, there were other steps you could take. 

Step two was to focus on growing your own interests and hobbies independent of your crush. After much thought, you settled on photography for the new hobby of choice. Charlie was ever so excited when you told her your plans and before you knew it, she helped you gain your own state-of-the-art digital camera, sure to double as an Alastor repellant. 

Or so you thought. 

Alastor seemed to be drawn to your new hobby, the digital camera be damned. He would stand outside the view, next to you, and comment on the quality of image, eagerly offering you a film camera to try instead. 

What you intended to be a hobby to distract yourself from and separate yourself from Alastor only ended up fostering your crush more. It became something you looked forward to doing because of the time you’d spend with him.

Step two was a failure. 

Step three to crushing your crush was one you had hoped to avoid doing but with the failure of the first two steps, you had little choice but execute step: Seek support from others. 

That had you sitting on Charlie’s bed, looking at her and Vaggie as you twisted the hem of your shirt between your fingers. They always said the hardest part of doing anything was to start and Satan damn it, that was true for this. 

“Is everything alright?” Charlie asked, breaking the silence. 

“No.” The word comes out as a long, drawn out whine as your tense shoulders deflate with the air leaving your lungs. “I just… I didn’t know who else to go to.”

“About what?” Vaggie asked, voice melting with Charlie’s assurances that you could come to them about anything at all and how happy she was that you would open up to them. 

“I have a crush.” The words tumbled from your mouth in a rush, quickly drown out by Charlie’s squeal of joy. 

“Why is that a problem?” Vaggie was the ever reliable voice of sanity to her girlfriend’s supportive joy. 

“I need to not have a crush.” 

“But why?” Charlie seemed to melt at the death of her fantasy. 

“He’s not a good guy.” 

“Who is it?” Vaggie was tense, prepared for you to deliver the worst option possible.

“It’s Alastor,” you confided, unaware of the smiling shadow hiding behind the curtain, tall ear cocked toward the gossiping girls. 

Step three was to have someone you trusted talk some sense into you. That’s what you expected Charlie and Vaggie to do. Instead, Charlie was eager to explore the idea of if love- a word you were far from ready to label your silly little crush- would be enough to convince both you and Alastor to try redemption. 

Step three was a failure. 

Step four to crushing your crush was the nuclear option. You wanted to avoid it at all costs and yet everything else you tried, failed. That left you standing in front of Alastor as he sat reading in the library. 

You’d been sitting next to him, struggling to read the pages of your book and not focus on the rich earthy way he smelled, the way the scent of moss seemed to surround him, as if he shoved handfuls of the stuff in his pockets each morning. 

Each day that passed made it harder to think with Alastor near you. That was what drove you to preparing for step four. 

“Is there something I can assist you with, my dear?” Alastor asked, not looking up from the old detective novel he had surely read hundreds of times in his hand. 

“I… can we talk?” 

“Are we not doing so right now?” Alastor’s ear flicked when he turned the page. 

“Alastor, it’s important.” 

He snapped the book closed and set it aside, giving you his whole attention. “Well, if you say it’s important, who am I to delay?” 

That was it. You were out of time and he was waiting. That was when the words failed you. They ran away from your mind like the rest of you wanted to. Silence ticked on as he waited, looking directly into your eyes as you prepared to be shot down. 

Step four was to tell him and clear the air, allowing you to be rejected and move on. It would hurt and maybe he’d kill you for it, but there was something to be said for ripping off the bandage. All you had to do was spit the words out and prepare for unending pain. 

“It’s about…” You were so close to saying it before the words got stuck again. 

“About?” Alastor crossed his legs and leaned back on the couch while he gave you time to confess before he spoke again. “Dare I say, is this about your little crush?” 

It felt like lightning struck you, running right down your spine and pulling every muscle tight. How could he know? How long did he know? 

“What?” Your voice was small, weak, like your knees felt. 

“This is step four, is it not?” Alastor’s smile spread wider, teeth looking somehow sharper as he shifted in his seat, seeming to prepare for a show. 

“How do you?” 

“My darling girl,” Alastor laughed, “if you’re trying to keep a secret, I don’t recommend sleeping with the plan in front of you in this very library!” 

Tears welled in your eyes as shame and embarrassment flooded you. He was toying with you for the last few weeks, ruining your plans and making you fall harder just for his own sick entertainment because he knew the whole time. 

“You could have told me,” you whimpered, trying and failing to swallow back the tears. “You could have just told me instead of making a fool out of me.” 

Alastor’s smile faltered for just a moment, shrinking as he stood. He intended to play with you, ruin your plot, but it wasn’t his goal to hurt you. This was not how he wanted to see you crying in shame. This wasn’t how he wanted to see you crying at all. 

“Cher,” Alastor spoke softer, wiping the first tear to spill from your eyes with the knuckle of his clawed hand. “I did not desire to make a fool out of you.” 

“Then why?” You stepped back only to have him step closer to you. 

His ears sank as his head cocked to the side. Why was the question indeed? 

“I didn’t wish for you to crush this crush,” he answered honestly, though that only left you with more questions. 

“Why not?” 

“It’s entertaining,” he said, after thinking for a moment longer. “The way you blush and get flustered.” 

“What does that mean?” 

Alastor shrugged his shoulders before melting into the shadows, leaving you with more questions and worse, hope that they could become something real if you just gave Alastor time to come to figure out his feelings. 

You failed to crush your crush, but maybe that was alright? Maybe your crush was contagious. Maybe Charlie was right, after all.

No, not that Alastor would push you attempt to be a better person, but maybe you could both be terrible people together. 

Thank you for reading and once again, thank you to everyone within the fandom who stepped up and participated in the event!

Join us at VoxTek for a Vox themed Hazbin Discord where we talk Vox, Hazbin, writing, reading, art and who knows what else. You may even catch some exclusive sneak peeks at upcoming fics from some of your favorite writers including the first page of the next chapter of MisD a day early!!

[sightseertrespasser]

Odds of Survival Part 5

Customer Service Prowl.

Credit to @keferon for creating the tf mecha AU!

———————————————————————

The door behind the tactician hissed shut, isolating him from the outside world.

Prowl had a short walk, 11.2 clicks, to the communications terminal. He took exactly as long as was necessary. Not a click sooner.

Injury warning messages were manually silenced. He’d neglected his own self repair for lower priority tasks before. This was no different.

Shutting Tacnet off from working on the Jazz Mystery was a greater struggle. It’d been so long since Prowl had gotten to work through a puzzle like this, it had him booting up long dormant scripts he hadn’t used since working as a detective. The mental stretching warmed him up. It felt good. But it wasn’t what was currently required of him. He shut off that branch of his processor too.

Tactical estimates only.

For now.

Like packing up his room, Prowl “got into uniform”.

Optic hue shifted to within the parameters of the socially accepted spectrum.

Doorwings lifted high and almost pressed together, neither spread out in intimidation nor lowered in submission.

Helm tiled forward 24 degrees to cast the maximum level of shadow over his features while not obscuring vision.

Prowl reached the terminal like a silent storm.

He nodded the minimum angle required to be interpreted as bowing for the manifestation of War resolving on the screen.

“Lord Megatron.”

He glared from beneath his chevron, pricks of light in a darkened room.

“What are your demands?”

———————————

The course of action Megatron required tactical support for was frankly amateur. The solution incredibly simple.

Sentinel Prime had once more prodded the leader of the revolution into a vengeful fury, so now Megatron wanted to, of course, retaliate violently.

The correct course of action was to not engage.

It was clearly a trap designed to whittle away their limited resources, which would have been idiotic even if the Quintessons were not a factor in the equation. Since they were however, it lowered Prowls opinion of both leaders even further that they’d even considered reigniting the civil war at a time like this.

No, what truly challenged Prowls strategic prowess wasn’t the request itself, but how to tell Megatron “That is an idiotic idea and how dare you expect me to entertain it.”

The trick, after much trial and error, was to not tell him at all.

“There are 24 optimal targets for a retaliatory attack Lord Megatron. 8 of which would yield material gain if taken and 3 of which would yield additional territory.”

All three of the territorial land grabs overlapped with the material gains category. However, when phrased correctly, it both implied even more options for Megatron to pick through and forced him to choose from plans Prowl had decided in advance.

Megatron gave the illusion of consideration.

He selected the land grab options, for the obvious purpose of irking the standing Prime. It took one to know one and megalomaniacs despised having their property made smaller. Stolen goods were numbers on a page. A map was a picture of what was lost.

“Very well. For the most expedient retaliatory strike, the mining depot on ES 9-B33 will be ideal for your conquering.”

Prowl had the mining depot mission lined up for close to a vorn. It was on the edge of Cybertronian territory, minimally guarded and would provide the Decepticons with a cache of ever needed raw materials. And while it was a great boon for their small faction, to the sprawling colonial power of Cybertron, it was hardly worth notice.

Which meant Sentinel and the Functionalist government shouldn’t waste resources on restarting the Civil war (66%).

Megatron, satisfied in his ignorance, ordered Prowl to draw up the assault plans immediately.

Prowl was sorely tempted to tell the deception to “do it himself” and not just to get him out of the picture for a time.

It was a very rare thing for Tacnet to come up with 100% certainty. However, Prowl could say, with terrible absolute certainty, that nothing short of a true Prime, or maybe an exploding star, could take Megatron in a fight.

The mech had forced Prowl to reset his parameters of what a cybertronian could physically survive no less than 13 times. At least 5 of those being assassination attempts from Starscream, whose preferred method of execution was “beyond all reasonable restraint.”

Until further notice, Megatron was an immovable piece of the board that required skillful circumvention.

“The plan will be drafted in 4 breems Lord Megatron.” Prowl dipped his helm and did not break eye contact until the screen went dark.

Prowl connected to the communications system, pinging Soundwave for the most recent updates on ES 9-B33, layering the new information over his original outline.

Once received, it required only a fractional amount of processing power to run through which decepticons were available for action, filter out those not suited for the job and sort the minutiae of coordinating supply ships to reroute to arrive at the depot as the assault team would be wrapping up.

Will softened by boredom, temptation won out and Prowl turned the bulk his processing power to Jazz.

Details laid out plainly, it painted a concerning picture.

Jazz was a highly skilled combatant, he solely exists to kill Quintessons by his own admission.

And he loves music.

Jazz speaks a language neither Prowl nor Bluestreak have ever encountered, Jazz himself having never interacted with Common, let alone standard Cybertronian.

Jazz was exceptionally sociable, even going as far as to try and play card games with hostile organics. Yet even pressed chassis to chassis, not once did Prowl detect an EM field.

And he’s a shameless flirt.

Jazz had many unusual physical attributes, such as abnormal ranges of motion, multi jointed legs, and in spite of all his injuries, Prowl hadn’t seen so much as a drop of energon.

Jazz possessed a disturbingly high pain tolerance, and was at best accustomed to substandard medical treatment, if not outright abuse.

And he’s never felt a kind touch before.

When Bluestreak had asked about him, Prowl had told his brother that Jazz was an alien mechanical lifeform and to not harass him unnecessarily. Between his physical bizarreness and lack of common knowledge among cybertronians, it was a natural conclusion.

But something hadn’t been quite right ever since Prowl had rescued the mech. There was this nagging inconsistency with Jazz’s behavior.

He was very curious about Prowl, yet seemed far more in awe of the other alien life forms and ships they’d been traveling with. There was also the immediate (and somewhat overwhelming) familiarity with which Jazz conducted himself around Prowl.

It was almost as if…

Jazz doesn’t consider Prowl to be alien (88%).

If he thinks Prowl is the same species as him, then would that mean Jazz doesn’t realize he’s the alien?

Unless.

An alternate, unpleasant theory began to weave.

Unless Jazz isn’t an alien at all.

Prowl finished the assault plan and sent it with a harsh hand. Re-opening his comms to the backlog of messages from Bluestreak, he scrolled back to something his brother had said when he’d been repairing Jazz’s visor.

BLUESTREAK: [WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF.]

Too far.

PROWL: [Please do not comment aloud.]

BLUESTREAK: [Is he really fully in recharge? Just like that?]

PROWL: [No. Jazz is still conscious. He’s not completely limp either just… very sedated.]

BLUESTREAK: [Just from holding his face? C’mon Prowl, that’s weird. This is weird. You found a weird, weird mech who definitely has a thing for you.]

PROWL: [He does not have a “thing” for me.]

BLUESTREAK: [Oh yeah? What are you getting from his EM field then?]

PROWL: [Nothing. He doesn’t have an EM field Bluestreak. Jazz is an alien and likely doesn’t have all the same traits as a cybertronian.]

BLUESTREAK: [Are you sure? I mean, the anesthetic worked fine. And he looks pretty cybertronian to me.]

BLUESTREAK: [Maybe he has field atrophy? You had that once. I couldn’t feel you even if I was touching you.]

That was when Prowl had been apart of the decepticon High Command. He’d spent multiple Vorn isolating himself, doing nothing but churning through battle plans and inventory logs and reconnaissance reports with little rest. Then there was the first time he crashed.

A minor setback at first. Almost immediately Prowl went back to work. Over and over again, he’d bypass previous limitations of the decepticon military. With each success, the bar was placed a little higher, with is successive crash, the recovery took a little longer.

There were always improvements to be made. He’d long moved on from the most needed structural changes to continuously finer tuned modifications to how the entire faction operated. He sharpened Megatrons rebellion scrap into keen edged blades.

Prowl did anything for the edge.

Even down to the smallest percent.

Even down to the smallest decimal point of a percent.

At Prowls worse, when he had just started to tip over to spending the majority (51%) of his waking time in recovery from continuous Crashes, he had come up with a strategy that would give the decepticons a 0.04% advantage in the long run against the Quintessons.

Repairing critically damaged ships was not cost effective. If a ship’s structural integrity fell beneath 14%, Prowl had instituted a script to cause the ship to self destruct. Therefore causing maximum damage to surrounding attackers in a final blow.

Prowl stared at his reflection in the black glass.

You couldn’t see the break in his nose anymore, Smokescreen had punched him in the medbay so it was fixed fairly quickly.

0.04%

Bluestreak was stuck in the medbay for a quarter of a Vorn.

Prowl straightened, optics returning to his default blue. The injury warning messages eeked back into his processor, causing his doorwings to shake briefly before Prowl allowed them to drop.

If the Functionalists had someone like him in their employ, then Jazz may not be an alien at all.

———————————————————————

To all the folks who picked up on the clues, good job! There’s no Optimus and there’s no Autobots. Yet.

There’s more to how Prowl got into his current situation later and I’m sure Jazz will be “totally cool” with Prowls past life choices. And current life choices. And general sense of ethics.

Bluestreak knows Prowl’s responsible for blowing him up and uses it to blackmail him constantly once their relationship got better again.

(Cybertronian timescales are weird, but a Vorn is basically a “year” for them, and fifty years for a human. A breem is pretty consistently 8 minutes.)

-SSTP

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[mrs-delaney]

Hi my love!! Hope you are doing well I was hoping to get a Joe burrow imagine where he is planning a surprise dinner for his gf whose birthday is coming up on Tuesday (May 20th) but has another surprise up his sleeve where he invited all her friends and family ❤️

Author’s Note: I know I need to be working on Hide, Behind the Lens, and the other requests in my inbox, but this one felt a little too perfect to pass up. Someone sent in a request for a Joe Imagine where he plans a surprise birthday dinner on May 20th… which just so happens to be my partner’s birthday, too. So yeah, I had to do it.

It’s short but sweet. Hope you like it 💛

Warnings: Some light emotional damage, Joe acting weird on purpose, and Y/N spiraling just a little. It works out, trust me.

The Planning

Saturday, May 17th

"So her parents' flight gets in at 2:15 on Tuesday, and her sister arrives at noon," Joe said, scrolling through the detailed itinerary on his laptop. "They're both confirmed at the Kinley downtown."

Across from him at his home office desk, Melissa nodded, making notes in her planner. After three months of coordinating this surprise, the event planner had become something of a co-conspirator.

"And her college roommate?" Melissa asked, not looking up from her notes.

"Lands tomorrow. Staying with her cousin so Y/N won't accidentally run into her." Joe leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair as he mentally checked another item off his list. "I still can't believe we're pulling this off."

"I appreciate the detailed notes," Melissa said, acknowledging his thoughtfulness.

Joe shrugged, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. "I pay attention."

The laptop screen illuminated his face in the afternoon light filtering through the office blinds. The room was minimal but warm, his style was balanced with touches of Y/N throughout. There were photos of them together over their three years, a small plant she'd given him that he'd somehow managed to keep alive, and her notebook still open on the corner of his desk from when she'd been working there the evening before.

"Pepp & Dolores confirmed the chef is preparing that custom menu we discussed," Joe continued, clicking through the email confirmations. "And they'll have those Aperol spritzes she loves ready when everyone arrives."

Melissa nodded approvingly. "The florist will deliver the arrangements directly to the restaurant at 3:00. Lilies and roses, just as you requested."

"Great, those are her favorites," Joe said quietly, almost to himself. He glanced at the clock on his desk. Y/N wouldn't be back from her Saturday yoga class for at least another hour. Plenty of time to finalize the remaining details.

"Let's go through the seating chart one more time," he said, pulling up another document. "I want her parents and sister at the table with us, then—"

The sound of the front door opening made Joe freeze mid-sentence. His eyes darted to the hallway, then back to Melissa and the papers spread across his desk, pages clearly labeled "Y/N's Surprise Birthday" and diagrams of the restaurant layout.

"Joe?" Y/N's voice called from the entryway. "You home?"

"Shit," he muttered under his breath, quickly closing his laptop. "Office!" he called back, his voice impressively casual despite the panic flashing in his eyes.

He hurriedly gathered the papers, shoving them into a folder while motioning for Melissa to follow his lead.

"So anyway, as I was saying about the charity golf tournament," Joe said loudly as footsteps approached the office door. "The team really appreciates your help coordinating."

Melissa caught on immediately, smoothly tucking her planner with "Y/N BIRTHDAY SURPRISE" written in bold letters on the tab into her bag.

"Of course, I'm happy to help organize the auction items," she replied with practiced ease. "The food bank will be grateful for the support."

Y/N appeared in the doorway, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, still in her workout clothes. Joe's heart did that familiar flip it always did when he saw her, even after three years. Even in the middle of a covert operation.

"Hey," she said, a little breathless, glancing curiously between Joe and the woman sitting across from him. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. Yoga got canceled instructor has a stomach bug."

Joe stood up, crossing the room to greet her with a kiss on the temple. His thumb brushed a strand of hair from her face with an ease that belied the adrenaline coursing through him.

"Not interrupting at all," he said, his voice warm and steady despite his racing thoughts. "Y/N, this is Melissa. She's helping with that charity thing for the foundation."

Melissa stood and extended her hand with a smile. "Joe's been telling me about the work you do. It's nice to finally meet you."

Y/N smiled, shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you too. What charity thing?" she asked, turning to Joe with a raised eyebrow. "You didn't mention anything."

For a split second, Joe's mind went blank. His eyes darted to the desk where, thankfully, all evidence of birthday planning was now hidden from view.

"Just that, uh, foundation thing," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "For the food bank. Sorry, meant to mention it earlier. It's still in early planning stages."

"In December," Melissa added smoothly. "We're securing venues now since they book up fast for the holiday season."

"Right," Joe nodded, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "December. Gotta plan ahead."

Y/N's eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than usual, and Joe felt a twinge of guilt at the lie. In their three years together, he'd never been anything but honest with her. The past few weeks of pretending to forget her birthday went against every instinct he had.

"Well, don't let me interrupt," Y/N said, stepping back toward the door. "I'm going to grab some water. Nice to meet you, Melissa."

"You too," Melissa replied with a warm smile that revealed nothing.

Once Y/N was out of earshot, Joe exhaled heavily and dropped back into his chair.

"That was close," he whispered, running a hand over his face.

Melissa suppressed a laugh. "You're really not used to lying to her, are you?"

"Is it that obvious?" Joe asked, grimacing slightly.

"A little," she admitted. "But it's sweet. Not many people would go to these lengths and be this uncomfortable just to give someone a perfect surprise."

Joe's expression softened as he glanced toward the doorway where Y/N had been standing. "She deserves it. She loves her birthday, always goes all out for everyone else's celebrations." He paused, a flicker of worry crossing his face. "She already thinks I've forgotten. I saw her checking her phone yesterday, probably looking for early birthday messages or hints I might leave."

"Two more days," Melissa reassured him, gathering her things. "And judging by all this planning, it'll be worth every moment of her thinking you're the worst boyfriend ever."

Joe winced. "Is that what she's going to think?"

Melissa smiled knowingly. "Probably. But imagine her face when she walks into that restaurant on Tuesday and sees everyone there."

Joe could picture it: Y/N's surprised expression, the moment of realization, the joy that would light up her eyes. All the planning, the secrecy, the uncomfortable deception would be worth it just to see that look on her face.

"Oh, before I forget," Melissa said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small velvet box. "The jeweler dropped this off at my office this morning, as requested."

Joe took the box, opening it carefully to reveal the ring inside, elegant, unique, and perfectly Y/N. He'd spent months working with the designer to create something that captured her essence.

"It's perfect," he said quietly, a mixture of nervousness and certainty washing over him. "You're sure everything's set for that part of the evening?"

"Just like we discussed," Melissa assured him. "No big production, just like you wanted."

Joe nodded, closing the box and slipping it into his desk drawer. "Thank you. For everything."

As Melissa gathered the last of her materials, the sound of Y/N moving around in the kitchen filtered down the hallway. Joe could picture her there, probably wondering why he hadn't mentioned this charity event before, maybe already suspecting something was off.

"Just two more days of pretending," Melissa said, reading his thoughts. "Then you never have to lie to her again."

Joe nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "Can't wait for this to be over."

"Something tells me you might be off the hook for surprise planning for a while after this," Melissa laughed softly. "I'll text you when her parents' flight lands on Tuesday."

As Joe walked Melissa to the door, he could feel Y/N watching them from the kitchen. He caught her eye and smiled, the genuine, soft smile he reserved just for her. She returned it, though he noticed the slight furrow in her brow, the subtle hint of confusion.

Two more days, he reminded himself. Two more days of keeping the biggest secret he'd ever kept from her. Two more days until he could finally ask the question he'd been wanting to ask for months.

Two more days until he never had to pretend to forget anything important to her ever again.

The Hints

Monday, May 19th

The kitchen smelled of garlic and herbs as Y/N stirred the pasta sauce, occasionally glancing at Joe who sat at the island scrolling through his phone. She'd spent the day waiting for some acknowledgment, some hint that he remembered tomorrow was her birthday. So far, nothing.

"I was thinking," she said casually, tapping the wooden spoon against the pot, "we haven't gone out in a while. Might be nice to do something this week."

Joe looked up, his expression perfectly neutral. "Actually, I was thinking maybe tomorrow night we could try that place you mentioned a while back. Pepp & Dolores. Unless you've got plans?"

Y/N's heart sank a little. So he really had forgotten. Tomorrow was her birthday, and he was suggesting dinner as if it was just any other Tuesday. "Tomorrow?" she repeated, giving him one last chance to catch on.

He hadn't mentioned any meeting. She'd checked their shared calendar twice, finding Tuesday conspicuously empty. Three years together, and suddenly he had plans on her birthday that he'd never bothered to tell her about?

Her phone lit up on the counter, another birthday eve text from her college roommate. Joe's eyes flicked to it before Y/N could reach it, and for a split second, she thought she saw something like guilt cross his face. But when she looked more closely, his expression was impassive again, focused on whatever was on his screen.

"My mom called earlier," she tried again, stirring the sauce with more vigor than it required. "She was just checking in, seeing what we were up to this week."

"Yeah?" Joe responded, the perfect picture of casual interest. "What'd you tell her?"

Y/N's spoon stilled. He really didn't remember. Three birthdays together, and this year, it had simply slipped his mind. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

"Nothing special, apparently," she said quietly.

Joe's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then quickly turned it face-down on the counter. That was the third time he'd done that tonight. Usually, he had no issue checking messages in front of her.

"Everything okay?" she asked, nodding toward his phone.

"Just work stuff," he said with a shrug, turning his phone face down.

Y/N nodded, stirring the sauce even though it didn’t really need it. She didn’t look at him when she spoke again, trying to keep her tone casual.

“Have you been looking at new restaurants or something?” she asked, eyes still on the pot. “Pepp & Dolores isn’t really something you’d normally be into.”

He shrugged. "No specific reason. You mentioned wanting to go not to long ago and I’ve been meaning to take you, and my schedule's clear tomorrow night. Thought it might be nice."

She turned back to the sauce, adding a pinch more oregano with more force than necessary. "Sure," she said, keeping her voice even. "Tomorrow works."

"The sauce is almost ready," she said, her voice carefully steady. "Can you grab the plates?"

Joe stood, moving around the island to the cabinet. As he passed behind her, his hand brushed her waist—a casual touch, the kind she normally leaned into. Tonight, she remained stiff, and his hand fell away.

"You okay?" he asked, reaching for the plates.

Y/N considered confronting him directly. Do you know what tomorrow is? But the thought of having to remind him, of seeing the realization and hasty apology on his face, was too humiliating.

"Fine," she said instead. "Just tired."

Joe set the plates on the counter beside her, lingering a moment longer than necessary. She could feel him watching her face, and she kept her expression carefully neutral as she served the pasta.

"This looks great," he said as they sat at the table. "Thanks for cooking."

"No problem." She twirled pasta around her fork without enthusiasm. "So how was your day?"

"Good. Productive." Joe took a bite, then reached for his water. "Yours?"

Well, I spent most of it wondering if my boyfriend of three years has forgotten my birthday. "Fine," she said instead. 

They ate in a silence that grew increasingly uncomfortable, punctuated only by the occasional clink of cutlery against plates. Y/N found herself unable to enjoy the meal she'd prepared, each bite tasteless as her mind churned with confusion and hurt.

Joe studied her face a moment longer, then nodded. "I'm going to grab a shower, then. Been a long day."

"Of course," she said, turning back to the dishes. "Goodnight."

She listened to his footsteps retreat down the hallway, waiting for the sound of the bathroom door closing before she let out a deep sigh. Part of her still couldn't believe he'd forgotten. Joe remembered the exact date they'd met, knew her coffee order down to the extra half-pump of vanilla, and had never missed an important moment until now.

Y/N finished the dishes with a heaviness in her chest, trying to remind herself that it was just a birthday. Just one day. It shouldn't matter this much.

But it did.

Once he was out of sight, Y/N let her fork drop to her plate with a clatter. She pulled out her own phone, checking again to see if there was anything from Joe—a scheduled delivery for tomorrow, a hidden calendar item, any evidence that he hadn't completely forgotten.

Nothing.

A text from her best friend lit up the screen: Has he said anything about tomorrow yet?

Y/N hesitated, then typed back: We're going to dinner at Pepp & Dolores. But he hasn't mentioned my birthday at all. I think he genuinely forgot.

Three dots appeared immediately: No way. Joe wouldn't forget.

Y/N wished she could believe that. But Joe was many things: thoughtful, loyal, steady—but he wasn't deceptive. If he'd remembered her birthday, he would have said something by now. He wouldn't let her spend the entire day feeling forgotten.

She began clearing the dishes, the cheerful clinking of plates a stark contrast to the heaviness in her chest. From down the hall, she could hear Joe's voice, too muffled to make out words. He was speaking quietly, which was unusual for his work calls.

She tried not to let it bother her. Joe was entitled to his privacy, and just because they'd been together for three years didn't mean he had to remember every important date. Still, the disappointment sat like a stone in her stomach.

The Joe who had orchestrated her perfect birthday last year, the one who had remembered her offhand comment about wanting to see that band and surprised her with tickets, seemed far away tonight. She rinsed the plates more aggressively than necessary, trying to drown out her thoughts with the sound of running water.

Once she finished up in the kitchen, she headed to the bedroom. She noticed his side of the closet looked the same as always: no special outfit laid out, no gift hidden away. Whatever was happening at Pepp & Dolores, it certainly wasn't any kind of birthday celebration.

She crawled into bed, telling herself it didn't matter. It was just a birthday, after all. There would be others.

But as she reached to set her alarm, her gaze fell on the framed photo of their trip to Italy last year, the one where Joe had surprised her with a gondola ride, she'd mentioned wanting months before. The Joe who remembered every little detail, who planned thoughtful surprises, who made her feel like the most important person in his world.

The Surprise

Tuesday, May 20th - Y/N's birthday

Y/N woke to the soft chime of her phone. She blinked sleepily, reaching for it on the nightstand. The screen illuminated with a string of notification texts from her college roommate, her sister, and her coworkers. All wishing her a happy birthday.

She glanced over at Joe's side of the bed. Empty. The sound of the shower running down the hall told her where he was.

For a moment, she let herself hope. Maybe he'd been playing an elaborate game. Maybe there was breakfast waiting in the kitchen, or flowers, or some small gift wrapped in her favorite paper.

When she padded into the kitchen in her slippers, she found none of those things. Just a clean counter, the coffee maker running its cycle, and Joe's protein shake in the blender.

Her phone chimed again. Her mom this time: Happy birthday, sweetheart! Hope Joe has something special planned.

Y/N typed back a quick "Thanks!" and left it at that.

By the time Joe emerged from the bathroom, hair damp, hoodie on, joggers that fit just right, she’d already resigned herself to the reality. He’d forgotten. The man who remembered every snap count from his rookie season, who once brought her the exact lip balm she’d mentioned in passing, had somehow forgotten her birthday.

"Morning," he said, dropping a casual kiss on the top of her head as he passed. "Sleep okay?"

"Fine," she managed, watching as he poured his coffee and checked something on his phone.

"So, dinner tonight," he said, not looking up from his screen. "Seven work for you? I made the reservation."

"Seven's fine," she said, forcing brightness into her voice. "Looking forward to it."

Joe glanced up then, his expression unreadable. "You sure you're okay?"

She nodded, wrapping her hands around her mug. "Yeah, just..." She hesitated, giving him one last chance. "Just tired."

"Well, get some rest today," he said, finishing his coffee. "I've got a few things to take care of, but I'll be back to get ready for dinner."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Just errands," he said, already heading for the door. "Stuff for the foundation, gonna get a workout in. I’ll be back in time for dinner."

Before she could respond, he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

Y/N sat alone at the kitchen island, scrolling through the birthday messages on her phone. Friends asking about her plans. Family hoping she'd have a wonderful day. Only Joe, the person she loved most, seemed to have no idea what today was.

She spent the day in a haze of halfhearted productivity. Her sister called, and Y/N found herself making excuses for Joe. "He's probably just waiting for tonight," she said, not believing it herself. "We're going to Pepp & Dolores."

"That's nice," her sister said, though her tone suggested it wasn't nearly enough. "Well, happy birthday anyway. Love you."

"Love you too," Y/N replied, ending the call with a sigh.

By six, she was getting ready, though her enthusiasm had dimmed considerably. Still, she pulled out the new dress she'd bought last month, deep burgundy, fitted, with a subtle shimmer when she moved. She'd been saving it for a special occasion. And birthday or not, dinner at Pepp & Dolores was still a night out.

She was applying her lipstick when Joe returned, calling her name from the hallway.

"In here," she called back.

He appeared in the doorway of their bathroom, and something in his expression shifted when he saw her, a warmth in his eyes as he took in the dress, her carefully styled hair, the extra effort she'd made.

"You look beautiful," he said quietly.

Despite everything, her heart fluttered a little. "Thanks."

"I should get changed," he said, checking his watch. "Reservations in forty minutes."

Y/N nodded, turning back to the mirror to finish her makeup. Even if he'd forgotten, even if this was just another Tuesday to him, she was determined to make the best of it. Twenty-nine was going to be a good year, birthday celebration or not.

The drive to Pepp & Dolores was quiet, though almost uncomfortably so. Joe seemed preoccupied, checking his mirrors more often than usual and tapping his fingers against the steering wheel at red lights.

"Parking might be tough downtown," he said as they neared the restaurant. "Tuesday night and all."

Y/N just nodded, watching the city lights blur past the window. Tuesday night. Not her birthday. Not any special occasion. Just Tuesday.

When they finally pulled up to the restaurant, Joe handed his keys to the valet with a quiet word that Y/N couldn't quite catch. He seemed almost nervous as he took her hand, leading her toward the entrance.

"Go ahead," he said, his voice oddly tight.

"Mmm," she replied, distracted by the darkened windows of the restaurant. It looked almost empty inside. Was it closed? Had he gotten the reservation wrong?

But Joe pushed open the door confidently, gesturing for her to go in first.

Y/N stepped into the dimly lit entryway, confused by the silence. And then—

"SURPRISE!"

The lights blazed on, revealing a restaurant packed with people, her people. Her parents, her sister, her college roommates, her cousins from home, coworkers, friends—all grinning at her with delight.

Y/N froze, her mouth falling open. The restaurant was transformed, flowers cascading from every surface, candles flickering on the tables, and a banner hanging above the bar said, "Happy Birthday Y/N!"

She turned to Joe, who was watching her with a soft smile, his eyes bright with barely contained joy.

"You didn't..." she breathed, unable to form a complete thought.

"I did," he replied simply.

Her eyes filled with tears as the realization washed over her. He hadn't forgotten. He'd been planning this, all of this, for who knew how long. The fake obliviousness, the casual dinner suggestion, all of it had been leading to this moment.

"Joe," she whispered, her voice catching.

Before she could say more, her parents were there, enveloping her in a hug. Then her sister, her friends, a whirlwind of familiar faces and birthday wishes and exclamations over how surprised she looked.

"We flew in yesterday," her mom explained, squeezing her hand. "Joe arranged everything."

"He's been planning this for months," her college roommate added. "Made us all swear to secrecy."

Y/N looked around in wonder. The entire restaurant had been transformed, decorated with her favorite flowers, strings of lights casting a warm glow over everything. And at the center of it all was Joe, hanging back slightly, watching her reaction with quiet satisfaction.

She made her way back to him through the crowd, her heart so full she thought it might burst.

"I thought you forgot," she admitted, her voice thick with emotion.

Joe shook his head, reaching out to brush a tear from her cheek. "Baby, I'd never forget your birthday," he said softly.

The simple words, delivered in his steady, matter-of-fact way, broke something open inside her. She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck as tears flowed freely now.

"Thank you," she murmured against his skin. "For all of this. For everyone being here."

Joe's arms tightened around her, solid and warm and real. "Happy birthday," he said simply. "I love you so much."

When she pulled back to look at him, his eyes were suspiciously bright too, though he'd never admit it. He brushed her hair back from her face with gentle fingers.

"Now come on," he said, his voice returning to its usual calm steadiness. "Everyone's waiting to celebrate with you."

Y/N let him lead her into the crowd, to a table where her parents and sister sat. The night stretched ahead, full of food and laughter and love. She couldn't stop glancing at Joe throughout the evening—this man who had orchestrated all of this, who had maintained the most elaborate ruse, just to see the look of surprise on her face.

As the night went on, she found herself overwhelmed again and again by the friends who had traveled across the country to be there, by the custom menu featuring all her favorites, by the thoughtfulness behind every detail, but most of all by Joe, the one person who never made a big show of anything, and still managed to make her feel like the center of the world.

For a man of few words, it was the most beautiful expression of love she could imagine. As Y/N looked around at the faces of everyone she loved most in the world, gathered in one place because of him, she knew with absolute certainty that twenty-nine was going to be her best year yet.

The celebration was in full swing. The restaurant hummed with conversation and laughter, plates of food being passed around family-style as everyone shared stories and caught up. Y/N sat between her sister and Joe, her cheeks flushed with happiness as she took it all in.

Her favorite pasta arrived, the special one the chef had prepared just for tonight. As she took her first bite, she closed her eyes in appreciation. "This is amazing," she said to no one in particular.

Joe watched her quietly, a small smile playing at his lips. While she was distracted by her food and the conversation her sister was having with her cousin across the table, he reached into his pocket.

The small velvet box had been burning a hole there all night. He'd originally planned to wait until after dessert, maybe find a quieter moment, but sitting here watching her, surrounded by everyone who loved her, glowing with happiness, he suddenly couldn't wait another minute.

He pulled the ring out, keeping it hidden in his palm. Then, casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he reached for her left hand where it rested on the table.

Y/N glanced at him with a smile, assuming he was just holding her hand as he often did. But instead of interlacing their fingers, he slipped something cool and metal onto her ring finger.

She looked down, confused for a split second before her brain registered what was happening. There, catching the soft light of the restaurant, was a ring, elegant, brilliant, and unmistakably an engagement ring.

Her eyes widened, her fork clattering against her plate as she turned to Joe in shock.

He leaned in close, his voice low enough that only she could hear. "I had this whole thing planned for after dinner," he said, his eyes never leaving hers, "but I've been keeping so much from you these past few months planning all this. And I've known even longer that I wanted to do this. I can't wait anymore to ask."

Y/N's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filling with fresh tears.

"What? What's happening?" her sister asked, suddenly noticing Y/N's expression.

But Y/N couldn't form words, just stared at Joe with her heart in her eyes.

Joe's smile grew a little, that confident half-smirk she'd fallen in love with. "So?" he prompted quietly.

That broke the spell. Y/N let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a squeal, loud enough that the conversations around them faltered.

"Everything okay over there?" her father called from across the table.

"Joe just asked me to marry him!" Y/N blurted out, holding up her hand where the ring now glittered.

A chorus of gasps and exclamations erupted around the table. "What?" "Just now?" "What did you say?"

Joe, normally so composed, looked almost nervous as he glanced around at her family before turning back to Y/N. "Yeah," he said, louder now so everyone could hear. "What do you say?"

Y/N laughed through her tears, throwing her arms around his neck. "Yes! Are you serious? Yes!"

The restaurant erupted in cheers and applause. Her mother was crying, her father beaming. Friends were on their feet, raising glasses in toasts.

But Y/N was only dimly aware of all that. Her world had narrowed to Joe, to his face so close to hers, to the warmth in his eyes that spoke volumes more than words ever could, to the smile that was no longer controlled but wide and genuine.

"I love you," she whispered against his lips, before kissing him deeply, not caring that they had an audience.

When they finally broke apart, she couldn't stop staring at the ring on her finger. "It's beautiful," she said, her voice filled with wonder.

“Glad you like it,” Joe said, his eyes not leaving hers. “Your sister helped me pick it out. I was overthinking it like crazy.”

As their friends and family surged around them with congratulations and demands to see the ring, Y/N found herself overwhelmed all over again. First the surprise party with everyone she loved, and now this a proposal so perfectly Joe in its quiet simplicity and genuine emotion.

She looked up at him, at this man who continued to surprise her in the best possible ways, and knew with absolute certainty that she'd just received the best birthday gift of all, a future with him.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

It’s Not A Camera

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: You make Daryl regret bringing you back a gift from a run. This technically takes place in the same universe as my other fics “Your Fault” and “Meet Cute,” but it can be read as stand alone.

Tropes: Fluff, Established Relationship

Era: Alexandria, pre-Negan

Warnings: I mean, I don't think there's any? Daryl being super hot, working on his motorcycle, and being in love with you? Flirting? Honestly, if I’ve missed anything please let me know. ❤️

Note: This is written in a dialect style with Daryl's accent in mind so the misspellings are intentional. There is minimal use of (y/n). If any? Any references to the reader besides the (y/n) is done using "your" or "you". I tried to proofread the best I could, nobody's perfect. If you don't like, don't read, but if you do like you're my favorite!

Internal monologue is done in italics and is in first person.

A/N: Just felt like doing a little bit of Daryl fluff on this fine Thursday morning.

Main Masterlist

Walking Dead Masterlist

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"Alright, could you give me a more engaging pose?" You ask tracing the outlining shapes of the scene in front of you in a worn sketchbook that Daryl found for you out on a run last week.

"Wha are ya doin?" Daryl turns from the motorcycle rubbing his hands against the red oil stained rag that hangs from his back pocket.

"Capturing Daryl Dixon in his natural habitat." You stand up and move to sit next to him, crossing your legs underneath you as you go. "And now I'm getting a close up."

"s'not a camera." He shakes his head at you, but you can see a smile twitch on the end of his mouth before it fades. A reminder that he might act annoyed, but deep down you know he’d be lost without you.

"You can only blame yourself- you're the one that brought this back for me." You tease.

"Because ya begged me to bring something back for ya like a damn toddler."

"No no no. I think secretly you wanted me to capture just how sexy you are for prosperity." Your pencil scratches against the paper, tracing the smooth line of Daryl's strong jaw against the page.

Daryl huffs, but continues to tinker with the motorcycle with red tipped ears.

The sun was just beginning to set in the west, barely seen through the thin slats in the large metal fences that protected Alexandria from the outside world. A cool wind blew from the east, but it wasn't enough to wick the sweat that gathered on the back of your neck and soaked into your collar.

You sit in silence for a few moments together, your shoulder leaning into his arm, while you draw a cartoonized version of him holding a wrench leaning forward to fix a motorcycle that will never be finished, but it's nothing like the real thing.

Daryl lets out a sigh every few minutes adjusting and cleaning, adjusting and cleaning, adjusting and cleaning-

But he makes it look so good.

You think to yourself with a smile.

"Daryl?"

"Mhmm?"

"I love you."

He stops working to glance at you, quirking the end of his lips. "Wha’ did you do?"

"Nothing. I just realized I didn't get to say it to you this morning when we woke up. We were both in a hurry and I wanted you to know." You reach up with the eraser end of the pencil and push some of his dark hair out of his deep blue eyes that always seem to see beyond what everyone else does.

Daryl's hand comes to gently curve round your waist and land on the small of your back, bringing you closer to him. "I love you too.”

"Well I'm glad because if we’ve been together this long and you didn't-"

His lips brush against yours stopping you mid-sentence with a soft sigh as you feel yourself melt into him.

"But at least after all this time, you know how to shut me up." You mutter against his lips.

"Had tah learn pretty quick."

“You think you’re so clever Dixon.”

“Naw.” Daryl nudges his nose against yours with the same soft smile that always makes you weak in the knees. “I’m just happy.”

“Happy that no matter how hard you work on this motorcycle it never seems to get fixed?” You raise an eyebrow.

“No.” He chuckles, raising an oil stained hand to your cheek. “Just happy.”

You lean into the gentle touch of the man you love with all your heart tracing the familiar lines of his worn face and feeling the roughness of his fingertips against the smooth skin of your cheek. The hands that had done so much, both good and bad, and yet were only gentle to you and touched you only with love and care.

“Me too.”

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Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this fic please feel free to read the other two in the same universe:

Meet Cute: How the reader and Daryl met

Your Fault: Daryl and the reader navigate a delicate situation.

[solbaby7]

I Dare You

pairing: cassian x reader

warnings:prolly some typos, kinda douchebag!cass but very minimal, sexual tension, swearing, mentions of drinking, (literally have any of you ever gone bull riding before? bc that shit is not for the weak)

summary: Cassian doesn’t think you’re capable of letting your hair down to have some fun. I dare you to prove him wrong.

—

Someone must’ve laced your drink.

They had to have.

It was the only logical explanation for the unusual feelings beginning to churn knots in your gut the longer you took in the handsome planes of Cassian’s face.

Usually, it was easier to overlook when you were sober, too off-put by his demeaning comments and endless sexual innuendos to truly focus on the sharp cut of his jaw or the stubble that resided there. The tempting plush of his bottom lip captures your focus, its glistening from the cheap beer overflowing his cup and the foreign thought of what they would felt like pressed against your own evades your senses.

You blame it on the ambiance.

This place was no Rita’s, not nearly as cozy or tucked away but something about the clubs hypnotic hues of rich purples and soft blues casting over Cassian’s cheeks had your head slowly tilting to the side in silent appreciation.

Had he always had that dimple when he smiled?

“Truth or dare?” Mor yells over the thumping music, effectively breaking you free from your trance and stealing your attention. A bright grin is plastered across her face induced by the empty shot glasses on the table before her.

Your head shakes on instinct, not nearly as prone to letting loose as the rest of the Inner Circle. The outfit alone was far enough out of your comfort zone as is, allowing Mor and Feyre to use you like a baby doll; curling your hair and applying makeup over excited giggles and shared bottles of bubbly. The borrowed fabric sticks to you like second skin, its halter neckline more comfortable than you’d care to admit and the cool breeze of passerby’s on your exposed back is welcome. The tight bodice blends seamlessly into the flowy skirt that tickles the middle of your thighs, showing off more leg than you usually cared to bare but it had looked too nice against your figure to complain. “I don’t really—“

“Don’t even bother,” Cassian interjects, a beer clutched in one hand while the other rested lazily on the back of the booth. “She always says no.”

“That’s not true.”

It was.

You blamed it on their High Lord’s inability to complete his paperwork and file them properly afterwards. When you’d first arrived, there had been centuries worth of paperwork strewn about his storage room in no true order with the subjects varying from treaties and common laws on trade routes to pages worth of detailed documentation dividing up ownership of land. Blueprints for potential and current properties with box after box of receipts kept to keep track of the billing it took to run such a place—much less a whole city.

Simply put, you’d been stuck in work-mode; refusing casual outings and generous offerings of chilled bottles shared over dinner for months until you’d finally made a dent sizable enough to satisfy you. There’s no point in bothering to explain any of that to Cassian though, biting your words over the rim of your glass and the burn on your tongue is soothed by the sweet mixer. “Oh really?” He goads, a cocky glint in golden eyes as he leans forward, shoulders straining in the dark cotton of his shirt . “Answer her then, truth or dare?”

There’s a long pause—one long enough for Rhysand to clear his throat, fully prepared to diffuse the situation but your voice cuts through before he can. “Dare.” It’s spoken stronger than you feel and you muster up the courage to meet his eye as if you hadn’t just been gobbling up the miles of endless muscle packed onto his body.

“I dare you to let loose for once in your boring little life.” Feyre scoffs her disapproval at his wording, a hand smacking at Cassian’s arm but he doesn’t react as if he can even feel it. He’s utterly fixated on you, body language lax and still somehow emitting such a domineering presence it makes your feet shift in high heels. “Unless you’re too prude to even let your hair down?”

A brow arches and you ignore the burn creeping up your neck at the looks your friends are sharing, clearly having a mental conversation on who was going to have to intervene this time. Saving them the trouble, you comply. “Fine.” You’re too occupied in chugging the remnants of your drink to notice the surprised expression crossing the General’s face. He doesn’t miss you though, witnessing a mischievous darkness clouding your eye before you rise from the booth and squeeze through the endless sea of bodies.

“I don’t understand your problem with her,” Mor grumbles with distaste, a hand outstretching for the latest round of drinks being provided by the waiter. “She’s nice.”

“She’s boring,” Cassian promptly retorts, eyes sifting over the crowd in search for a flash of your dusky red dress but it’s nowhere to be found. His spine straightens ever so slightly, the grip on his glass tightening in his silent surveillance for you. “When you said you were hiring a female who’d be around so often that she’d be living with us, I hoped she’d be more…eventful.”

“Is that truly your reasoning, brother?” Rhys drawls out playfully, tugging his mate in closer to his side. A glass of whiskey is in his free hand, tilting the bottom of it tauntingly in Cassian’s direction as he pretends to ponder. “Or maybe it’s because you keep antagonizing her in hopes that she’ll notice you and yet she barely gives you anything back in return? Her passiveness must eat you up at night.”

It earns the High Lord a few laughs and even Azriel can’t hide the amused upturn of his mouth at Cassian’s expense but the Lord of Bloodshed can’t even begin to be bothered with that.

Not when his sights finally land on that sinful shade of red gripping at the curves contained within them. Cassian can’t even hear his family anymore, eardrums tuning out everything that wasn’t you as he watches the way you lean in towards one of the nicely dressed workers with a smile. The exchange is quick but Cassian doesn’t miss a thing, noting the challenging quirk of the males brow and he leads you behind a thick curtain that sectioned off a portion of the bar he hadn’t even noticed until now.

Words can’t describe the way losing his visual on you makes his skin itch, wings twitching with his irritation and the tense line of his shoulders doesn’t release for even a second. A plethora of thoughts plague Cassian’s mind. Surely you hadn’t taken his jest as an invitation to go be with some other male? Even if it would’ve been well within your right it was the furthest from his intentions.

“Run out of witty remarks?” Rhysand prods further, voice full of humor but there’s a hint of serious questioning lingering in his eye. “Or have I stunned you to complete silence?”

Feyre catches on quicker than her counterpart, following Cassian’s line of sight, watching as the same curtains you’d disappeared behind starts beginning to rise, a thundering chime ringing through the bar. “I don’t think it’s you who has him speechless.”

The others follow her gaze and quiet fascination sets root when more space is revealed. Situated right in the middle of the newly revealed stage is what seems to be the magical apparition of a fake bull, complete with horns and a nose that huffed out smoke. It’s one hell of a spectacle that has the inebriated crowd cheering with joy at the promise of such extravagant entertainment. “Trouble is in the house tonight. Let’s welcome her warmly.” The male announces, guiding you into the light and spinning you around for all to take in.

Cassian’s teeth grit together, disturbingly aware of every eye and muttered comment directed your way and his fingers twitch for the familiar weight of his sword. “No way...” He whispers in complete disbelief as you approach the bull with a practiced ease, hoisting yourself on its back with the swipe of your leg.

The motion is fluid, thighs shifting to get situated and the new position hikes up the hem of your dress. All the bare skin that is revealed makes his mouth water, elbows leaning against the table to brace himself.

Your gaze finds Cassian’s easily in the crowd, a devious smirk forms in the corner of your mouth and the wink you send his way has his cock twitching to life in his breeches.

Music flows through the space—a sensual tempo with a bass so deep it rattles the very blood in your body. There’s no explaining why you find such a comfort in it but you submit to the numbness it provides anyway, relishing in the absence of thought as you melt into the beat.

One hand latches securely around the saddle and the well-dressed employee begins his skilled control of the bull. It’s a slow rock, movements mechanical and jerky but you make it look graceful—hips shifting back and forth over and over as the speed increases. You barely look up, too caught up in synchronizing your body with the music, spurred on by the generous cheers from the other drunken fae with energy to burn and coins to spend.

Faster and faster the bull rocks, spinning you from left to right but your remain saddled in place, core strong and thighs braced for the chaotic jostling. Haughty whistles cut through the crowd when the bull abruptly tips forward, shifting the fabrics of your dress until you were face down, ass up and flashing the lacy boy shorts you had on underneath. “Come on,” You whine prettily to the male in control of the mechanism, hair spilling to one side of your face and a pretty blush fans across your cheeks at the salacious exposure. “That all you got?”

“Hold on tight.”

You’re grateful for obtaining the good sense it takes to heed the warning because in an instant the bull is jerking back to life, spinning and rocking in an attempt to shake you off. Jubilant laughter pelts free, hair blowing in the wind and dress flashing more of the soft skin that Cassian was just dying to get his fill of.

He’s been bested—that much the Commander can admit but it doesn’t feel like a loss when you feed his filthy fantasies without even trying. The roll of your waist will surely plague his dreams but the effortlessly seductive glint in your eye will haunt him to his dying breath.

It doesn’t dissipate. Not even when you finally tap out, easing yourself down on shaky legs and shuffle back to the shared booth with a breathy huff.

A peachy sheen has overtaken your cheeks at the bewildered stares your friends give you for your performance but the mess of your curls splaying around your shoulders has Cassian’s heart racing when imagining the others ways he could put you in such a state.

The others watch in complete silence as you steal the beer right from Cassian’s hands, cool condensation dripping down your fingers but you pay it no mind. “It seems that I am plenty of fun to be around,” He watches the slow roll of your throat as you swallow, unable to look away. “But that’s usually reserved for after hours.”

Cassian’s gaze darkens under the implication, lids heavy with desire. “Noted.”

[i-am-literally-deranged]

I can't stop thinking about Chuuya's fucking room in the Stormbringer manga. It was NOT described as this fucked up in the novel.

This?!?

Is an INSANE evil room.

In the book, it's described as mostly empty, sparesely decorated. There's only a sentence or two dedicated to it. It leaves no impression. But in the MANGA?? We spend several pages in Chuuya's room, and the more I think about it, the worse it gets. I've become completely obsessed with this fucking nightmare chamber Chuuya apparently lives in. Whoever designed this space is a staunch believer in feng shui and also hates Chuuya and wants him to DIE.

First of all, I measured the room using the bed as a ruler, and it's about 18 x 7 feet. That's. That's a hallway. 18 feet long and seven feet wide, that's a fucking hallway. This room is built like a fucking hallway. It also appears to be constructed almost entirely out of some kind of narrow paneling that goes straight from the floor and up the walls seamlessly.

Then the bed facing AWAY from the door?!?? Just floating in the dead center of the room, touching zero walls, head to the door?! That is the most evil room design imaginable. Imagining trying to sleep in Chuuya's evil demon bed is making my skin crawl. No fucking wonder he's having nightmares in this scene.

Secondly

That lamp is not plugged in. It has a cord, so we know it's not wireless or something, but scroll back up to that first image, there is NO CORD coming away from that table. Which it is, by the way. That's a table. Not a desk. There's no storage space, no drawers, no NOTHING. He doesn't even have any loose pens on his desk. There are no pens to be found here, so I guess he's just reading those papers on his table, because he sure isn't working on them. The table is so far away from the wall that if he DID plug in his lamp, it would be stretched out straight and become a tripping hazard. I cannot imagine where he charges his phone, because it's not sitting on the floor next to an outlet anywhere. I just have to assume that he keeps it in the bathroom or something.

These next two shots show us that some uncertain number of the walls in here are MIRRORED. Full body mirrors. I can't even fully process where in the room these are. It looks like he's walking towards either the head or foot of the bed in that first panel, so this IS in the same room. We can also see the narrow vertical paneling on the wall again from the first page, as well as what looks like more ofnthese big full body mirror panels like you'd find in a dance studio.

So not only is Chuuya in an uncomfortable room shaped like a hallway, bed facing away from the door, but he is doing so in a room at least partially WALLED IN MIRRORS. I cannot overstate how fucked that would feel. This is the kind of room I would build in the sims when trying to drive them insane. I'm imagining trying to lay down in this bed in the dark trying to sleep, bed floating in the center of the room, door behind your head, mirrors on any number of the walls around you. What the fuck. What the fuck???

They have so successfully crafted a room that conveys that Chuuya has no idea how to be a person, because what the fuck is this???? Dazai's shipping container is at least arranged in a way that makes sense. That's essentially just a shitty dorm room. Chuuya's room has forced me to ask questions like "Where does he keep his socks and underwear???" And "Does he own a pen?" "Does Chuuya wash his singular cup in the bathroom sink???" The more I look at it, the more questions I have. Is this some kind of.... punishment? Did they put him in this fucked up mirror hell room because they don't like him? Did Chuuya himself design this awful room? I mean, this is the first time he's been in control of his own space so it makes sense that he didn't know what to do with it, but. Fuck. Why did he land on all furniture in the exact center of the room surrounded in mirrors?!?? Did they give him this room minimally furnished, just set the desk and bed in the middle with the idea that he would arrange it how he likes, and he just didn't kniw that that was an option and has been living in it exactly as it was?? This is horrible. I am haunted. I don't think he has any windows. I can't figure out where the vertical strips of light are coming from besides maybe through those weird narrow slats on the wall?? I CANNOT stop overthinking these three pages. He has a mirrored shoe closet AND a mirrored suit closet and nothing else. The suit closet looks like it's the door at the front of the room, but that makes mo sense because then where is the door in and out of the room itself? I can't tell how much of the wall is actually mirrored and how much just looks exactly the same as the other side of the room. Where is his bathroom actually located??? I have been thinking about this fucking room since this manga dropped like two months ago. It haunts me.

[k-hotchoisan]

and you never invited me? (Wooyoung x fem! Reader)

Synopsis: where you’re sexually frustrated while Wooyoung is on discord with his girlies, so you decide to hide under his blanket and rub one off, thinking to get it over and done with—that is, until Wooyoung catches you.

Word count: 1.7K

Genre/warnings: Masturbation, mentioned porn watching, sexual fantasies, voyeurism (kind of!), Wooyoung catches you masturbating, unprotected sex, creampies, established relationship

A/n: idk where this idea came from but it definitely came from somewhere 🤔

Wooyoung leans back into chair, laughing at his friends on discord as his earpiece tugs slightly taut. He’s online with a couple of his buddies since they invited him to play online games. From time to time, he glances at you to make sure you’re okay and you were mostly stoning, wrapped in his blanket, while scrolling through your phone.

You peek from the screen.

“Not done yet babe?” You ask, fighting the sleep. He passes a glance at you with an apologetic smile. “A little longer okay?”

You nod, as you sink into the blankets a little more, feeling the comforting warmth as well as his scent just floating around you.

It was all good until your thoughts begin running wild when something on your timeline pops up, something that made your toes curl in budding arousal. Wooyoung’s smell only made it worse as it only sucks you in think about him doing that to you. The worst part was that he was just right across you, in his own world as his loud ass, cute ass laughter which echoes in the room.

You glance back at the media in front of you, pushing your thighs together as your pussy begins to soak your panties. Fuck, the thought of Wooyoung’s cock in you never ceases to heat you up, no matter how many times the both of you fuck like rabbits.

Your breathing deepens slightly as you slowly pull the sheets over you. Thankfully the ac was on so you likely wouldn’t suffocate from the heat. You scroll down the nsfw page as your hand slides beneath your pants and panties, already anticipating the slick texture of your pussy from the arousal.

This was even more exciting, considering there was a chance of getting caught by your own boyfriend, who was just seated across you. Propping the phone onto your abdomen, supporting it with your less dominant hand, you continue to scroll as you collect your essence to rub over your clit, biting down moans in the process.

The dopamine rush hits you whenever the pads of your fingers slide over your nub, and you could barely keep your eyes opened from the pleasure. Small whimpers escape your lips as you struggle to keep your voice to the minimum, especially since Wooyoung only had one side of his ear piece in.

As you continue to pleasure yourself, your mind hazes as your breathing quickens, the knot in your stomach forming. You were doing your best to keep your legs spread open so there was minimal movement for Wooyoung to notice. The pleasure was building pretty rapidly, and you made a point to playfully edge yourself little because you didn’t want to come so quick. But no matter, the feeling in your cunt still builds as you begin clenching uselessly, and you feel the orgasm approaching quickly.

You don’t notice that your phone slides off your abdomen and hits the floor with a loud thud, shocking Wooyoung. He doesn’t mute, and walks over as he removes his ear piece to retrieve your phone from the floor and he’s confused at the lump of blanket on his bed.

That is, until he pulls off the blanket, at the exact moment your orgasm hits you as the knot snaps, the feeling flushing through your lower body as your pussy clenches at the air. Your thighs shake, from the pleasure as your eyes roll back and you cry out Wooyoung’s name as softly as you could, over and over, alongside ‘fuck’s and praises to the heavens.

“Fuck”, was the first thing Wooyoung says as he watches you whither and twitch below you. Your eyes regain its line of vision and it lands on Wooyoung, who was standing beside the bed, his knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the blanket.

You stare at him, still dazed, only thoughts about him fucking you and chasing after your second orgasm. Small whines escape your lips as you press your thighs together, letting the feeling of overstimulation bleed into you before you go in for the next round. Wooyoung was already back at his computer, telling his friends that he has something urgent to attend to, and muting his mic before dedicating his attention all to you—a whining, twitching and moaning mess.

“And you didn’t invite me?” Wooyoung asks, as he climbs into his bed, pulling his slightly stained sweats off him as his hard erection emerges. Fuck. You remember he doesn’t wear underwear. And the fact that it was so prominent only drives your arousal.

“You were busy…”, you trail off, catching small breaths, watching him intently as he grabs and pulls your panties and boxers down in one swift motion, your pulsing cunt just looking so thirsty, as your arousal had already coat your whole cunt. But it wasn’t enough.

Wooyoung sits back for a moment and simply stares at you. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Go on. Continue. I’m not fucking you till you cum since you made me miss your first”, he smirks, his bare cock twitching in excitement.

You sigh in pleasure, not wanting to admit how good it feels to look humiliating in front of Wooyoung, as your fingers begin lightly rubbing your clit once more, your legs spread wide open for Wooyoung to enjoy the show he missed.

Having your juices already overflowing your cunt made it so much easier to masturbate, not to mention the overstimulation from the first orgasm only egged you on. Your fingers move more quickly as you play with your clit in circles, feeling the knot build again, your moans now louder, for Wooyoung to soak in. He starts pumping his cock slowly, and it’s obvious he’s holding himself back as he groans.

The second orgasm nears a lot faster than you thought as you feel the familiar sensation of your cunt about to burst, and the moment the knot snaps, and your second orgasm floods your senses, you cry out even louder.

“Fuck, Wooyoung, this feels so good.”

“Wooyoung, so good. I’m cumming so much for you.”

Speaking of Wooyoung, his eyes look glazed over as he watches your cunt spit out your orgasm and clench the air.

“So fucking beautiful when you’re unwound like this”, he says as inches over to you, taking your hand off your wet and sopping cunt, and sucking off your juices from your fingers. His cock was just resting on your cunt. “Such a good girl.”

“Wooyoung,” you barely managed out. “Need your cock in me, please.”

Wooyoung smiles as he lowers his cock to your entrance and it pushes in so easily thanks to your fluids. Wooyoung’s breath hitch as your warm pussy hits him. His face gets contorted in pleasure when he feels you squeeze around him and his gaze lands on you.

“Doing this on purpose babe?”

You surprise a giggle in playfulness which instantly switches over to pleasure the moment he pulls out mid way and slams his cock right into you.

“We fucked so many times that your pussy only remembers the shape of my cock”, Wooyoung taunts, soaking in the fucked out, blissed expression you gave him. “Of course, my cock is the only one you need-“

His cock pulls out, then two ruts into you.

“-right?”

The arousal climbs through your spine like electricity when the words get processed in your head, and you arch your back, trying to get fit all of Wooyoung into you as much as you could.

“Yours”, you exhale, your arms reaching to wrap around Wooyoung as a thin layer of sweat coats him. “Yours, and only yours.”

“Good girl”, he praises as leans back to get a better angle, his hands smoothing your thighs as he coaxes you to spread them open further before he has them lunged over his shoulder and he starts fucking you relentlessly.

His room doesn’t even exist at that point, the only thing you feel is dick driving so deeply in and out of you, and that’s the only thing you ever wanted to feel.

You wanted to hide your eyes beneath your arm but Wooyoung grabs your arm and pins it above you, doing the same with your other.

“You can’t hide from me, babe”, he teases as he pounds into you again, grunting at the way you’re squeezing him.

“Cumming… so close, Woo. Keep going, please”, you beg, squeezing your thighs as Wooyoung only pushes them apart. His thrusts become more erratic as he feels himself twitch in you, being fueled by your pitched moans.

The knot in your stomach snaps as your third orgasm shakes your body and Wooyoung cums almost instantly the moment your pussy pulses around him, spilling all his load into your cunt.

“Fuck, so good. Your pussy is so fucking amazing babe, fuck”, he moans, still emptying himself into you as he jerks from time to time. Your energy is spent, since you literally came three fucking times. Wooyoung pulls out and grunts at the sensitivity of his cock, his tip and your cunt linked by a thick slick of cum.

He reaches out for a box of tissues and collects his cum cleaning himself up first, albeit a little hastily because he wanted to clean you up quickly, especially since you were already slumped onto his bed, breathing slowly. You flinch slightly as your pussy leaks out his cum, and Wooyoung swallows hard, trying to focus on just cleaning you up, fighting away the thoughts of wanting to keep fucking and cumming into your little tight hole non-stop just to keep the image of his cum in your pussy imprinted into his retinas.

“You okay?” He asks, stroking your hair gently. You nod, meeting his eyes as you smile fondly at him, the oxytocin rushing into you.

“I love you,” you say, now the exhaustion starting to hit you. Wooyoung lightly slaps your cheek. “Don’t fall asleep yet. You need to wash up.”

You groan in laziness, not wanting to leave the comfortable space.

Wooyoung crosses his arms before pulling up his boxers, sticking his hand out to you.

“See, you should have invited me.”

[sgiandubh]

Anon rebelde.

Menudo giro de guion para las antis, Sam y Cait juntos en un evento para fans donde no están obligados por Starz a participar, ya sabes, ese tipo de eventos con dinero de por medio que sus acérrimas fans siempre han afirmado que Cait no hace porque ella no es de esa clase de engañabobos como es Sam, siempre pensando en como hacer caja a costa de los bolsillos del fandom. Con eso demuestran que ya han pasado página de un fandom tóxico y empeñado en hacerlos parecer menos que compañeros de trabajo para hacer lo que les place, nadie haría ascos a una Venecia carnavalesca, sacándoles de paso ese dedo medio que tan bien saben utilizar y que creo que de aquí en adelante van a usar mucho más.

Dear (returning) Anon Rebelde,

Una vez más, llego muy tarde a responder a tu interesantísimo comentario. Sin embargo, esta vez, me atrevo a decir que lo hice por buenas razones: simplemente, encontré tu comentario provocativamente alentador. Me hizo pensar aún más en el asunto de Venecia, sobre el que ya se han mencionado muchas cosas. Sin embargo, faltaba algo, y ese algo es una perspectiva cultural más amplia. Pero, antes que nada, traduzcamos lo que me enviaste:

'What a plot twist for the antis, Sam and Cait together at a fan event where they are not forced by Starz to participate, you know, those kinds of events involving money her Stans have always claimed Cait doesn't do, because she's not that kind of con artist like Sam, always thinking about how to make money at the expense of the fandom's pockets. With that they show that they have already turned the page on a toxic fandom bent on making them look less than coworkers, and do whatever they like to do. Nobody would turn down a carnivalesque Venice, and they chose this giving the fandom that middle finger they know how to use so well, and that I think they will use a lot more from now on.'

Everything you wrote, dear Anon Rebelde, and then some more. If I weren't one of their favorite targets, I could even feel #sorry for this entire bunch of #silly people, who are now legitimately freaking out in public silence and inbox mischief. All of this just because their basic, binary tropes (S is a cheap scammer, C is an intangible saint) are seemingly being shaken to the core by what yes, is a very interesting and ironic plot twist. Granted, this is still an OL-ish related event, but it is just not your usual sort of event (a con, a panel, a promo-related interview) and it happens just as shooting is now completely over. It will be very difficult for all those people who are probably dumbfounded (and not in a good way) by this, to forget they were barking with great confidence no later than last week, that S and C will NEVER DO ANYTHING ELSE TOGETHER, that SHE WAS WAY OVER OL AND THAT PEASANT, that HE WILL DISAPPEAR INTO ALCOHOLIC OBLIVION AND SHE WILL OH, THE PLACES SHE'LL GO ON HER OWN. It turns out the opposite seems to happen and it goes to show spitting upwards is never a great idea, lest it would land on your own head. Therefore, we are met with a lot of sobriety and zero comments on those Mordorian outlets: when it's inconvenient - minimize, minimize, minimize and hope for better days (hooker, Tracula, Alphabet Fitness Harem, Orange Influencer, Brazilian fan with an agenda, etc).

Granted, this is not 'fair Verona', but literary tropes are very powerful and magic, like that, and it is almost impossible not to think about what happened there, 'when ancient grudge broke to new mutiny' (I hope I remember it correctly, as I write this). In other words, it is impossible not to think about the ballo in maschera at the Capulet's mansion, even if the official theme of the event is (oh, the irony!) Casanova's Venice (half of Mordor has no idea who that fine gentleman was, LOL). It also goes without saying the entire thing will probably look rather like Baz Luhrmann's interpretation...

... than the very aesthetically pleasing, but totally stiff Zeffirelli version:

Granted, this is happening in the context of the (nowadays) very touristy Venetian carnival, a horrific hullaballoo few people, snobbery put aside, really and honestly enjoy. But it is exactly the irony of this that seemed perhaps the most important of it all. In a form of poetic justice, the pretext is Carnival, that almost ridiculous, nonsensical, borrowed time of collective foolishness. You'd even be tempted to not think twice, yet there is nothing more dead serious and subversive than Carnival itself, and it has been like this since the Roman Saturnalia feast, when slaves turned into masters and masters into slaves, if only for a crazy day. Its deep meaning is not really about allowing freeform fornication in dark alleys and a brief respite before the long, austere dullness of Lent. Its deep meaning is, perhaps above anything else, about a giant, collective middle finger to what is perceived as oppressive, absurd and coercing authority. Since I suppose those fine minds across the street never read Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World, where everything is explained with luminous clarity, they will have to either believe me or shite over the same inbox you sent your comment to, first thing in the morning. Sometimes, truth seeps through chaos. Sometimes, things are not what they seem to be. Oh, the irony!

I am not even saying SC are aware of the...uhm... metaphorical implications of their choice to attend a rather profitable event. I am pretending to even ignore the fact that at such events, the invited co-presenters or hosts are, more often than not, real life couples, too. All I am saying (since apparently I have to thoroughly, boringly explain absolutely everything I write) is that this tiny coincidental detail gave me pause and a contented chuckle.

And with all this, I still haven't watched that Paley panel. Will do, in reasonable time. Thank you for dropping by, Anon Rebelde - it is always a stimulating pleasure.

[joonieskinks]

somewhere in italy, 2002

simon 'ghost' riley x reader | fluff, swearing, some small hints of past smut but mostly just a happy reunion inspired by cmbyn lol | 800-ish

You could feel his eyes on you before you set yours on his. 

At first you believed he approached you due to the minimal seating available on the patio, hoping to steal a chair to rejoin his rather loud group of friends. But instead the masked man asked for a seat beside you. That's when you glanced up from your novel, taking the cigarette out of your mouth. 

“This seat taken, love?” He asked, his voice husky but softer than you imagined it would be at first glance of the man. 

“No, you’re welcome to it.” You boldly insist, eyes lingering on him briefly before disappearing back to the pages in front of you. 

He pulled the seat out from the table, angling the chair towards you, and there he sat. Searching for words, perhaps just enjoying your presence. You couldn’t quite decide.

After a few moments, you looked back up at him as you heard the rambunctious murmurs from his little group. “Go on, LT, go!”

You smiled, gesturing a hand over to the boys.

“You with them?” The man nodded, eyes never leaving your face, your figure, you.

“Yeah, but they mean well.” You could see a small smile under the mask form.

“This a dare?” You poke, but his smile dropped an instead sincerity followed.

“No, just haven’t seen you in a few years, thought I’d say hello.” His voice fell quiet at the end of his sentence, his gaze finally leaving you to twiddle with his hands.

Then it hit you-

From all those years ago. Italy.

A simple vacation where you were both young and needed some time to find yourself. Met on a night out, he charmed you within a minute and you were wrapped around his finger, his body. From then on, you two were inseparable, days out in the sun and nights under the sheets. A summer never passed by so fast. 

“Simon?” The name not having left your mouth since he had to depart, head home, pack and begin his life in the military. That was his decision, his calling, to go. Yet, here he is before you once more. 

“Hi, lovie. It’s nice to see you again.” His eyes met yours once more. You quickly close your book and put out your cigarette, pushing up from your chair and into his arms. He’s taken aback, but doesn’t hesitate to hold you tightly. Simon’s face lands in the crook of your neck and you can hear him slowly inhale and exhale in relief.

This is what home feels like, he thinks.

“My God, I didn’t even recognize you with that on! Simon, I’ve missed you!” You pull back, your hands cradling his face and searching his eyes. “How are you? Where have you been? What’re you doing here?” He only chuckled as he could see your mind race. 

“Hoping to run into you, of course.” His hands slide up and down your back, soothingly. It was like no time had passed at all. His first love, his only love, his last love. He decided here and now, he wants this till he dies.

“You never left.” Simon notes.

“And you came back.” You smile, pressing your forehead to his and your eyes fluttered shut. You haven’t felt this comfort in years, oh how you ached for this, for him.

His grip on you loosened and you feel his hand come towards his face. He pushes up the mask, just enough for his mouth to show. You look down at the sight, those lips, the ones you know and love, rightfully yours. Although the years have not been kind to them, not with the visible scars on and surrounding them. Your mind rushes to ask a thousand questions, yet you hold back. Another time.

I wouldn’t have let that happen under my watch, you think.

“Y/N…” He whispers and you feel your knees start to give out. Look how you’re still so needy for him after all this time. 

Your thumbs push the mask up to his nose and he presses his lips to yours. Running your hands down his shoulders, across his jaw, touching him just how you’ve wanted to for years. 

His hands find perch at your waist, pulling you in close to him and deepening the kiss. 

You only break as his boys behind him start whistling, hollering, shouting his name in both astonishment and utter confusion. 

"How the hell did he get her that fast...?"

You look back at them as you laugh, Simon only pulls you in closer. 

“This ones’ mine, lads. Piss off.” Your attention turns back to your lover, eyeing the lipstick that resonates lightly on his lips. 

“All yours.” You whisper into his ear, bringing him close to you once more. Simon holds your face sweetly in his hands, so delicately, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks.

“After all this time?”

“Always."

//