#no i'm kidding i don't think there will be any hate...probably...lol...

[bereft-of-frogs]

alright. omens and all kinds of signs is finished!

time to work on what's sure to be deeply, deeply unpopular fic for The Acolyte

until whumptober prompts come out lol I said I wasn't gonna but you know I'm gonna

prayer circle I -- at the very least -- don't get any hate on it lol

[sysig]

My fourth wall OCs! ♥ (Patreon)

I tried to put everything in the tags but ended up being too long-winded lol, so here it is instead!

For this year’s big behind-the-scenes project, I realized I haven’t given colour references to a lot of my 4th Wall characters! There are...a surprising proportion of femboys who are aware of their existence here now that I look at it lol - I mean technically only Cory and Mint count there but that's still 2/8 - a fourth is kind of a lot! Their sizing is pretty funny to me as well, Cory’s proportions make everyone else look tiny by comparison, he’s just got a very large eye! Set right next to Gijat too, Vortians are so compact - he’s fully grown he’s an adult he’s just small!

Okay, for actuals now, starting left-to-right - while they’re obviously organized by height, it's funny because Cure is also the oldest by creation date. She's front of the line on everything! How silly. She's larger than your average plush bear but only by a little - just enough to be like Mildly intimidating if she approached haha. Puntable - and yet unpuntable lol. It's not just her being the oldest of the lot that makes her more powerful (although that is a contributing factor - she’s aware of her status both in and out of character!). It's not just Kids Rules either since she was made such a long time ago - y'know like ''Oh yeah well my character is [very powerful for X reasons]'' - although yes Also That lol. She's a Fourth Wall OC down to her roots, always intended that way - not everyone here can say that!

Tala also has that edge! Though in a very different way haha - she's also the only one here with a physical counterpart, which is fun :D Means she can go on “actual” adventures and bring that knowledge back with her cartoon versions - both are as real as the other! I keep forgotting her bow, agh, I need to take some more pictures of her sometime so my mental picture of her is more up to date haha

I guess my blankslate HF expression kind of counts?? Lol, it’s mostly for funsies, they’re more like a Concept As Person so?? Sure lol, With Accessories of course lol - haven’t been fighting it much lately so that’s all for now ♪ I wonder if they’ll stay so lucky in the near future hmmm

Gijat! ♥ He ended up being an accidental fourth wall character actually haha, he wasn’t designed with that in mind! He's not meant to know such things, but he did fairly well with it while he was part of the main rotation :) He was designed to be a story character but he ended up being my favourite comfort character so he got a few glimpses out <3 He hasn't for a while though! He's been retired for a long while actually - he's the second oldest character in the lineup after Cure but she had more staying power, sorry Gi <3 I did draw his fairy version not all That long ago tho! It’s hard to let go of anyone for Too long haha

Cory ♥ My sweet special boy <3 He's also the third oldest here! He was the first one to assert himself as a fourth wall OC haha ♪ Cure didn't really congeal into an OC for a long time - she stayed a concept and Gijat was on accident - whereas Cory purposefully and clearly looked outward from the start. He Has a story but it's never been all That developed - he has some non-4th Wall character-friends but his main focus is other, unrelated characters. He's always been very interested in other OCs, a lot of which stems from Bar actually haha - he and Bar are near-contemporaries - they're both featured here for a reason haha

Mint >:| He's...fine. He was inspired from a weird source and has therefore always Been weird - and also asserted himself like Cory. Same story - he has canon story elements but for the most part he's interested in others! Usually in a Pursuit kind of way, and not just limited to my OCs >:/ He needs to behave himself is what - he also has like 1000 outfits and they rarely repeat, ugh, pick one! I wasn’t familiar with the eGirl aesthetic at the time I made him, but he 100% fits it, look at him in his elf ears and heterochromatic contacts smh. I don’t actually know his real eye colour, or hair colour! He wears contacts and dyes his hair and won’t tell me, he even started dating a non-4th wall character without asking! He’s a real wild card

Erase is probably the babiest of the list despite Tala being newer and younger - everyone else was made before Erase! They’ve had had less screen time and less development than everyone else too.They're an incredibly light and oddly harmless fourth wall presence lol for all the danger They pose in Their story :0 They're fairly polite all things considered. They actually have a degree of respect for the fourth wall - unlike Some people (Mint) - probably from acknowledging The Player/Character vs. developer. If there's a hierarchy capable of being distinguished then Erase is going to place Themself in the safest spot. Y'know - to cause problems from lol. I do need to play with Them more - They're fun! But fun isn't quite enough to be full-fledged Interesting just yet, more to do, more to do

It's almost unfair to have Erase right next to Bar lol - possibly my most Interesting OC of all time. First created in 2015 quite soon after Cory, even in the same notebook! He retired in 2017, I think? 2018 at the latest - and then was revived in 2020 and has been here again since. And that's just his timeline! Not counting everything that went into him character-wise. Obviously my sonas don't count as 4th wall OCs because y'know - they're me - but Bar falls kind of unclear of the line between OC and sona, he's always been a weird one. He was initially meant to be an RP character and then over time he developed into a 4th wall OC/sona of a Kind. Nowadays he's a fully-fledged 4th wall OC by design - his change in design from his 2020 revival was meant to represent his transformation thereof - but he's always been weird! If I had to pick a character that I’d consider “overdeveloped” or put too much of myself in - even more than some of my sonas - it'd be him. He's one of my favourites because of that but it's hard to quantify how exactly I feel about him haha. I love him! It's painful! He's great! He's awful! He's very important to me and he'll never return to being what he was first created for again. I do quite like his new design <3 Paying homage to the video that sent him crashing back into relevance for me haha

It was fun to draw everyone :D And it's nice that they all have colour references now! Mint has definitely been the longest without one, everyone else has had at least Something - even Erase! And They're way newer! I did make Mint in a couple online dollmakers but that's not quite the same thing haha, he really needs his clothes hand-drawn :P

It's good to have them all :) They're a fun bunch and I like all of them <3 I think it’s kinda funny and a little strange how few crossovers they’ve had with each other though! So far it’s really only been Tala-Bar-Cory - the rest are aware of each other but haven’t really met, how strange, considering what they are!

[kaizokuseb]

i reread my biggest posted fanfic last night and then went and found the chapters i was working on before i quit years ago. it's weird because i have basically an entire finished chapter and another almost finished, but i was never quite happy with them, so they're just sitting there. i don't have any desire to write more, but part of me wants to post it because i think i would like that if i was subscribed to a fic i really liked? i also reread the comments and some of them were so enthusiastic, i imagine they would like more even though it isn't finished.

idk. i did really enjoy reading it again, so maybe i can work up the motivation to write at least another chapter. it would be a very different ending than i planned and would probably feel rushed, but maybe that's okay

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

This one goes out to all the bitches who love some good Safehouse Era Horror. It's me, I'm bitches. I want Jon and Martin to be fucked up and eldritch but I want them to be fucked up and eldritch and loved

(Notes under the cut because I can't help myself. Heads up, I do go into some detail of how Jon gets injured so I can explain my thought process for how I designed his scars. All canon-typical and fairly clinical in tone.)

Here's how I picture Safehouse Jon!

He doesn't need glasses anymore by this point, so he should just be wearing empty frames, but I drew this before I settled on my glasses headcanons. This drawing looks better with the reflection anyways.

He hasn't gotten a haircut since before his promotion to Head Archivist. He doesn't love the weight of it on his neck, but he also uses it to fidget, and he really doesn't want to go through the whole process of cutting it. He's disliked haircuts since he was a kid (People: Bad. Small talk: Bad. Touching: Bad. Loud sounds: Bad. People talking all at once: Bad) and since his time with the Circus he's only grown more reluctant to go and get it done.

At this length his hair is naturally pretty curly but he is. Not taking care of it. I actually put a lot of effort into trying to make it look brittle and tangled (I have a lot of experience lol, my hair is quite thick and I've always hated taking care of it. Yes I am also projecting my feelings about going to a hairdressers onto him why do you ask.)

The various scars were a bit of a strange task, but anyone who has seen my takes on The Bad Kids knows I'm not averse to selective realism in my fiction. Easiest one was the neck, I always pictured Daisy making a vertical cut based on "through the voice box". The larynx is longer than it is wide, so I think Daisy would go for the method that dealt damage across the largest total surface area. Yes I am aware that I'm speaking the same way Martin does when he explains his corkscrew.

The worm scars were easy because I barely drew any. There are a few marks on his cheek, but they're just surface bites. I picture most of his encounter with Prentiss showing on his legs, particularly on the right side, with enough damage there that he starts using a cane after the incident to keep weight off his right leg. More research to be done on this particular detail.

Finally the burn on his hand from Jude. This was the weirdest one to figure out just because of the nature of the injury. How do you quantify the damage done to an epidermis by a living manifestation of sometimes-boiling wax that can heat and cool at will? I settled on it being a second-degree burn that healed supernaturally fast, containing the damage to the space Jude had direct contact with. He'd probably have some mobility issues there as well. I know there are ways to help with mobility and pain after a severe burn, but I don't know how much of it Jon would actually. Do. Like I said, definitely further research to be done on these last two.

Hey so I'm gonna ask you to stop and consider the horror of the watcher. The helplessness. The guilt. The inherent terror of being a spectator, a participant by proximity but not by action. The horror of not being able to look away, of being a bystander. Jon forgets to blink sometimes. But wouldn't it be so much worse if there were no eyelids at all? That's how I interpret the description of The Archivist being "All Eyes" :D

I love a good Many-Eyed Jon, so I whipped up my own interpretation here. I think the more he Becomes the more he starts to resemble the thing from the dreams. He has a lot more control of it in S5, but it still creeps up on him and he has to consciously go back to a human shape.

[bratbarzal]

Let It Happen (LH43) 1/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

If you're ready, all I mean is we could go, I've never craved someone's attention as much as yours.

General Warnings: an almost unbearable amount of sarcasm and snark, even more idiotic shenanigans, many affectionate empty threats of murder/violence, fluff, mentions of golf 🤢, cursing and I'm pretty sure that's it for this half

A/N: in line with the general consensus lmao this has been split, part two will be posted as soon as it's finished (lol) but it's best read as one whole fic, it isn't a multi-part situation really!! it was originally supposed to be my submission for the eras tour fic challenge (hence the graphic I'm too attached to to change) but took a different direction to the song I was given, and I missed the deadline, and I pretty much listened to the secret of us exclusively while writing this whole thing. also dropping an overwhelmingly summery fic in december might actually be my brand. keep your eyes peeled for a christmas fic in july.

very special shoutout to shea @sleepretreat I made a random comment one day that luke gives seth cohen energy, and she fanned that flame like a full time job. ily shea!! I hope this lives up to any expectations and I owe a lot to your instigating!!

AS ALWAYS!!! never proofread!! I'll probably get around to it when the thought of a spelling mistake keeps me awake at night. and also!! please let me know what you think I am like a teeny tiny little plant that can only thrive under the constant shower of validation and you don't want me to wither and die do you? (I’m kidding) (I’m not)

You kind of, sort of, think you might hate summer.

You haven’t always felt this way, though. Growing up, it had always been your favourite time of the year. 

No school? Check.

Going on vacation, sometimes multiple, all expenses covered by your parents? Double check.

Getting to do all the cool things you don’t have time for in the school year with all your friends? Concerts, festivals, beach days, bonfires on the evenings. Check, check and check again.

But 4 years ago, your whole world as you knew it was torn apart, and summers have never been the same, since.

A season that was once filled with light and companionship, never ending plans and joviality, became darker - isolated, getting yourself out of the house even if everyone else was busy, driving just to drive and making the best of your own company. 

School ended up becoming your escape, especially since you had started college - your studies and the chaos of Greek life distracting you from the calamitous state of your home life, making new friends that became like family and sticking to them like glue, where possible, clingy and possessive to the point of ruin, almost - and so the lack of it in the summers now actually sends you into some sort of warped spiral.

It’s manageable in the winter and spring, the breaks no longer than a few weeks at a time, but going home for summer is somewhat of a nightmare.

It’s hard to go back, hard to ignore the mess your mind has become when it’s just you and your mother - or, you, your mother and whatever bottle of pinot she’s 3 glasses deep into at any given time of the day - and you’re sat in a house that’s a cold reminder of the warmth that once filled it. 

But when Ellie - your best friend since moving to college, the girl who took the sister part of sorority sister to the next level at all possible opportunities over the years - found out you’d put your name down to be the caretaker for your sorority house instead of going home, she had put her foot down on your summertime sadness session.

Which is how you end up moving into her family home - spending the first few weeks integrating yourself into their routine while trying to grip desperately onto some form of your own - trying not to get too used to the feeling of such a big family when you know it won’t be forever.

You braid her little sister’s hair everyday, kick a soccer ball around with her little brother when he needs someone to stand in goal, wash the dishes with her mom, talk sports with her dad, and before long, you blend like a chameleon into their dynamic.

You pick up a summer job at the country club to cling back onto your independence. Your commute provides the solitude and quiet you‘ve grown accustomed to in the years before, a bus journey through town with headphones on, watching the scenery and admiring the greenery until you get to work, donning your navy blue polo and tucking your little notepad into your hip apron as you serve tables at the clubhouse restaurant and bar. 

It’s a much needed escape from Ellie, if you’re honest.

You love that girl with all your heart, appreciate her housing you more than you’ll ever be able to say, but if you have to hear her sit and mope about how hopelessly in love she is with Jack Hughes for even a second longer, you’re going to vomit. Or scream. Or both.

Jack and Ellie grew up together - their families close, Ellie’s dad best friends with Jack’s uncle, or something - and she’s been into him since he had teeth missing - a point she loves to hammer home when it comes to you always listing that as one of his (many, if it’s up to you) cons. Considering his job, and the fact he already lost one, not too long ago, a toothless boyfriend seems like a massive ick, if you’re honest. 

But Ellie is beyond reason when it comes to him. She worships the ground he walks on - talks about him non-stop, messages him every day, regales you with stories you, awfully, but realistically, couldn’t care less about - and it’s the only real problem about living with her.

Even beyond the summer, you two had shared a room your first two years in college, still live in the same house - and it’s a year round problem.

But being unable to escape, having your days tied to close to hers, and knowing that it’s bound to be worse with proximity, Jack back in Michigan for the summer, himself, she’s starting to drive you up the wall.

It wouldn’t bother you if you had never met Jack, but the two of you don’t exactly get along. He’s rude, and self-absorbed, and had looked down on you the first time he ever laid eyes on you, and you really shouldn’t let it get to you, but you do - the thought that your best friend is in love with an asshole, and that she won’t let you hear the end of it. 

Won’t stop whining about how he’ll never feel the same, or that she can’t handle another summer of biting her tongue, of being around him, feeling the way she does, and not being able to do anything about it.

She deserves better. 

Ellie has a heart of gold, and she deserves someone who handles it with care. If Jack Hughes doesn’t like her back, that’s his loss - but you’re kind of getting sick of telling her that.

Getting through a whole summer of it is going to be hard, you think, but it’s better than the alternative. Better than being entirely alone. So you put on a brave face, use work as your escape in the same way you usually do with school, and avoid blowing your top for as long as you can, suffering through the late nights and heart to hearts where Jack is the sole topic of discussion, and bask in the good stuff.

In the chaos of her siblings, in the closeness of her family, and the way they’ve welcomed you with open arms.

This summer could be okay, you’ve just got to give it a chance. 

Luke Hughes loves summer.

He loves being back home in Michigan, spending his days out on the lake, or making the trip out to parade around Ann Arbor, catching up with all his college buddies, making the rounds at all the UMich sporting events he now gets a VIP pass to thanks to his last name.

The routine of it all is familiar, and warming, and it restores a sense of normality that playing in the NHL for the past year has so brutally ripped from him, already. 

He had enjoyed starting his summer overseas - making the team for the world championships and competing beyond the abysmal end to his rookie season - had enjoyed the time away from his brothers, if he’s honest. Quinn and the Canucks making it a few rounds into the playoffs, and Jack back home recovering from getting surgery on his shoulder - and it’s the latter he needed the reprieve from.

He does love living with his brother.

Jack looks after him in ways he’ll never really be able to make it up to him for. He always has, Quinn has too, but ever since Luke got drafted to the Devils, Jack has helped him adjust to the chaos of his career without much fuss or hardship.

And he really is grateful for that.

But, God, can he be annoying.

Especially when it comes to his infatuation with his best friend, Ellie.

Jack and Ellie have always been close - despite the fact she’s Luke’s age - and grew up thick as thieves, spending summers together, especially when the family moved to Michigan, and Ellie’s family were just on the other side of town. 

He’s always been obsessed with her, even if it hasn’t always been love - but these last few years have been different. Like a switch flipped in his head when Jack saw what Ellie was like when he came to visit Luke in his freshman year of college.

A version of Ellie that was no longer just his - no longer exclusive to their summer bubble, and lived in a world beyond lounging by the lake and hanging out with the Hughes family.

A version of Ellie who liked partying, liked schmoozing and charming everybody she came into contact with, liked being the centre of everyone else’s attention, not just Jack’s.

And it’s that version of Ellie that has driven Luke’s brother crazy, which has, in turn, started to drive Luke crazy. He talks about her non-stop, and it was those much needed weeks away in Czechia that almost had Luke forgetting just how stupid his brother has gotten about the whole thing.

Until he came home to Michigan, and Jack, in all the commotion with his shoulder, with ending his season early and starting his summer off alone, has worked himself into such a stupor about the whole thing that merely a week into his return, he has driven Luke up the wall. 

He’s grumpy, all the time - which leads to him being snarky, all the time. He huffs and puffs around the house so much Luke is starting to think he might need an inhaler, and he really can’t take any more.

Not when he’s making such a show of his irritation, stomping around with heavy feet and slamming doors that don’t need to be shut in the first place. 

“What crawled up your ass and died there?” Luke frowns as he follows Jack into the kitchen upon his return from therapy, holding out for the doors he swings open with a little too much vigour so that they don’t swing back into his brother’s slinged-shoulder. “I thought the physio is going alright?”

“It is,” Jack huffs, storming over to the fridge and yanking it open, the jars and bottles in the door clanking together in a way that makes Luke cringe. “I’m fine.”

“Tell that to all the hinges you’re testing the limits of.” 

“Don’t start with me, Luke, I’m not in the mood.”

“You just said you’re fine.” Luke rolls his eyes as he starts to scroll through his group chat with his friends from college, trying to check who said they might be free today to get him out of this vicious circle.

“It’s nothing.”

“Clearly not.” It’s interactions like this that confirm to Luke just how annoying Jack has become - because what reason does he have to be so evasive? Luke is handing him the opportunity to air out his grievances on a silver platter, and he’s rather slam cupboards and create creases in his forehead from frowning 24/7.

“Fine, it’s Ellie.”

Luke wishes he never bothered asking, although he has been wondering why he’s been seeing way less of her already this summer. He had figured Ellie was away with family until he saw her at the gas station the other night - had watched from the car as Jack had what seemed like a heated conversation by the entrance. 

“She’s refusing to hang out with me.”

“Has she said why?” Luke asks, although he doesn’t really care. He’s just asking to get it out of the way in the hopes that Jack talking about it might lighten the load, might make his own life a little easier. 

It’s the bitter muttering of your name that captures Luke’s full attention, his neck audibly cracking at the speed in which his head shoots up, no longer caring what could possibly be going on with the boys in the group chat. 

“She isn’t going back to whatever fiery hell pit it is that she comes from for the summer, and she’s staying with Ellie’s family, therefore Ellie isn’t staying with us.”

Luke hasn’t heard your name in a while. Not since he left college last year, not since he got caught up in the whirlwind life in the NHL, when a schoolboy crush on a girl he interacted with once in his entire college career became the least of his worries.

But one utterance of it has his spine straightening, just like it would have done just over a year ago.

You’re in Michigan. You’re at Ellie’s, on the other side of town. You’re barely two degrees of separation from him.

“Why can’t Ellie bring her here?” Luke asks, throat dry and voice breaking so subtly that he hopes Jack doesn’t notice. That could be fun. Would make up for the hell his brother has been putting him through since he got here. 

Maybe a little glorious sunshine might finally get you to notice his existence. He wouldn’t mind third wheeling Jack and Ellie if you were there, too. It would give him the perfect opportunity to prove he’s worthy of your attention - too shy and too scared to do so, back in college, but he’s different, now. Confident, almost. More sure of himself.

“She hates me.” Jack huffs, “Last time we met she was giving me the stink eye all night.”

And of course it would be his brother to ruin his plans, yet again. You’ll probably hate him, too - a hatred so strong for Jack that it seeps through his entire bloodline, because Luke of all people knows he can be annoying like that. 

“Trust me, she probably doesn’t care enough to hate you,” Luke scoffs, not realising the spool of information he’s just given Jack to unravel. 

“You know her?”

“We had a class together. I know of her.”

Not the truth, but not exactly a lie.

Luke knows a lot about you. It’s borderline creepy, the observations he can still remember, even after so long.

He knows you like only like coffee if it’s iced, had seen you with too many clear plastic cups to count, had watched plump lips chewing at straws by the time you had finished the drink. He had even, one time, tried to zoom in on a picture of your order printed on the side in one of his many states of delusion where he had been trying to build himself up to ask you out. 

He knows you can hold your own in an argument, had watched you debate with the best of them in your business comms class, has watched you shoot down most guys that approach you with a sharp tongue and even sharper wit, and has watched you take down a frat guy or two, usually in defence of your sorority sisters - who Luke noticed you’re the most protective of. 

He knows you match your perfume to the colour of your outfit, had notice you smelled citrusy like lemons in yellow, floral like roses in pink, sweet like candy in purple, and clean like fresh cotton in blue. 

He knows the pieces of hair that frame your face curl when wet from the rain. Knows you used to volunteer at the pool on the weekends it was open to the kids of the community, would teach them how to swim. He knows you listen to Taylor Swift and has heard you humming just about every song of hers he knows.

But he doesn’t really know you - not on the level Jack is assuming, when his eyes widen and hope flashes across his crystal irises.

“You know how I’m your favourite brother?”

“No,”

“And I let you live with me all year?”

“My name’s on the lease.”

“Maybe you could talk to her for me?”

Luke sighs, shoulders heavy and eyes rolling practically to the back of his head. “I already told you, I don’t really know her like that.” 

“C’mon, you could at least try! I’m dying here, Luke! She’s hogging all of Ellie’s time, and she won’t give me the time of day if I try!”

If only Jack knew how much time you’d ever given Luke, he wouldn’t be asking him such an absurd request.

You’re so out of his league, it isn’t even funny. He probably couldn’t convince you to light a candle in a power cut, much less to give his annoying brother a shot to prove himself.

“You’re wasting your time, Jack,” Luke responds, “I’m gonna meet Dylan at the club. No, you can’t come.”

And by the time Luke makes it out to his car, he’s relieved to have ditched that conversation, entirely. He knows what’s waiting when he gets home, what his brother is going to be like for the next few months to come, but a temporary relief is all he needs.

He had already been planning on getting a few late morning holes in at the club, and meeting up with Dylan had been a white lie, needing some alone time away from Jack’s incessant whining to think about how he was going to survive the summer - and seeing you on your break, perched on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard by the clubhouse bar, basking in the sun and talking with your co-worker, he feels like he might have just struck gold.

Since when do you work here?

He supposes since you decided to spend your summer with Ellie’s family - it only makes sense. Ellie doesn’t live too far from the club - not as close as the lake house, but closer than Ann Arbor, at least. She’d worked in the club shop last summer, even when Jack insisted he’d pay for whatever she needed while she was staying with them - had said it was nice to pass the time with something else while they all went off doing whatever - and he assumes you’re doing the same. 

It’s the first time he’s seen you in a while, outside of coming across your pictures on his Instagram feed occasionally, or the flash of your figure in Ellie’s stories. 

He had thought that, after the year he’s had, he’d be over schoolboy crushes like this - would be over the way his breath catches just at the sight of you, over the way the hairs on the back of his neck prick up and stand to attention, over the way his throat goes dry as he watches your eyes crinkle from afar, watches your lips curve up into a heart-stopping grin.

But it’s like he’s picked up straight from where he left off at the end of his college career, pining after you from afar with hearts in his eyes and feet that start to shuffle at just the thought of approaching you.

If he’s going to do this, though, he needs to be clever about it, he thinks.

Approaching you on your break, limited to the amount of time he can use to put his point across, wasting yours, doesn’t seem like something that will work.

Which is how he finds himself bypassing you completely and walking straight into the bar, offering a friendly nod to the guy stood at the front of house, and letting him point him toward the right section to be served in. 

It isn’t long before you’re in front of him, sidling up to his booth, and he had almost forgotten how pretty you are up close. Hair clipped up with loose strands framing your face, chewing at your plump bottom lip as you scribble on your notepad to get your pen to work. And your honeyed voice settling deep in the pit of his stomach, warmth spreading throughout as you introduce yourself, like he has no clue who you are, and tell him you’ll be his server, “What can I get for you?”

“Five minutes of your time?”

The Luke that spent his college years obsessing over you might have stuttered - his voice might have broke, squeaked or choked in your presence - but while his throat does feel a little dry, he’s able to maintain his cool now, even when you look up from your scribblings to meet his eye. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he has matured.

His heart might jump in his chest, his mouth might tingle, his spine might stiffen, but he holds your gaze, hoping if you see a reflection of confidence that you might give him the time of day.

He’s seen you interact with guys before, has familiarised himself with the ten-foot walls you have in place, has seen others fold and try find a long way around, but he thinks that maybe matching your energy is the way to break through. 

Who doesn’t love a shortcut?

Your eyes narrow back at him as pouted lips form around a response, looking him up and down before tilting your head, and coming back with, “I all of a sudden feel the need to inform you we do have security here,” you point the tip of your pen to the entrance, where he was greeted on the way in. “I meant a drink.”

“Water’s fine,” his gaze flickers to the movement of your wrist as you click the other side of your pen, not even writing it down. “Maybe with a side of conversation?”

“I’ll go get your water,” you offer a smile, and the insincerity of it does little to cool his bravado, even if you head off with mutterings of why do I always get the creeps?

He watches you as you make your way over to the bar, not creep-like whatsoever, and he channels the nerves that sneak up on him, now that you’re distanced, through fiddling with his fingers on the table, pinching at the tips of them when you glance back over your shoulder, probably telling the girl behind the bar just how lucky you were to once again get the weirdo in your section.

It surprises him how little he cares, possessing more of your attention now than he ever has before, and if he could tell the Luke from two years ago, who spent every shared Principles of Marketing class ritualistically watching you chew on the end of your pen, that he’d be able to make eye contact without dribbling and breaking out into full body sweats, he’d have lost his mind.

He embodies a strange level of dislocated arrogance that manifests itself in his body language, sinking into the booth with arms outstretched across the back, a dangerous smirk teasing the corner of his mouth when you return, placing a pitcher of water down on the table and a glass with ice. 

“I’m Luke,” he tells you, placing a hand on his chest and doing his best to ignore the thudding he feels beneath it. “Hughes. Jack’s brother,” and when you look back over to him with a raised brow, he adds, “Ellie’s Jack.”

“And who’s Ellie?” You ask with a tilt of your head, your voice dripping in teasing sarcasm. 

“Funny,” he quips, biting back the urge to call you what he actually means. He can hardly call you cute, you’d probably pour that water straight over him. “I went to UMich, we had a couple classes together.”

Your eyes narrow again, and he knows it’s an intimidation tactic, a way to make him feel smaller than he’s acting, shrinking him down to a version of himself you can stamp your authority on, but he finds himself being resilient for once, carrying on like he isn’t affected.

He is. Massively, in fact. Just not in the way you probably want. Your indifference drives him in a way that presses into his spine, an inner voice pleading, notice me, I’m breaking through!

“Bauman’s class, Business Comms, you sat in the second row, I sat in the third, you dropped your pencil one time and I-,”

“I know who you are.”

So he’s been yapping on at you for no reason? Fantastic.

He can’t let his momentum slip, though, so he forces the corners of his lips into a victorious smile, and counters, “So you know I’m not a creep.”

“You literally memorised my seat in a class from 2 years ago, so…” 

“I have a good memory,” he’s quick to defend, fighting the urge to let his eyes linger on your pouted lips.

“Right,” you roll your eyes, “What is it you want, again?”

“I came to talk about Jack and Ellie.” He nods to the other side of the booth, and has to roll his shoulders so that his chest doesn’t inflate with misplaced hubris when you shuffle into the seat with a huff, discarding your notepad to the side as you level him with another raised brow.

“What about ‘em?”

“About how they’re hopelessly in love with each other and doing nothing about it.”

“You got hopeless right. What’s that got to do with us?”

Us. Oh, he likes that.

“I’m thinking they need a little shove in the right direction. And maybe we could be the shovers.”

You presses your lips together in faux-apology, a lopsided, patronising, adorable frown taking over your expression. “No can do, I don’t shove, I’m a pacifist.”

“A nudge, then?”

He isn’t giving up easy, no matter how much sarcasm you try to throw his way. You wouldn’t have sat down if there wasn’t something about this situation that irks you, too.

If Ellie is being only half as annoying as Jack is, he knows that you’re having a bad time of it. And you’re supposed to spending her summer with her - it can’t be easy, having your friend constantly pining over someone and refusing to do anything about it, if anything, making it your problem.

“Are you here to eat or annoy me?”

“Both,” he smiles, “I just figured a problem shared is a problem solved, and all.”

“How profound.” 

“C’mon, you sat down, you at least agree they’re into each other, and I know you’re staying with her this year, so I know you’ve been getting the same grief I have.”

“I’ve been on my feet 4 hours, I wouldn’t look too deep into me sitting down.” 

“Jack’s been moping around about her for years, I can’t listen to it anymore, he’s all, she’ll never like me back, this, and, I’ll never find a girl like her, that,” he whines, imitating his brother’s voice in the most annoying, high pitched tone he can muster, “I can’t take one more breakdown of her snap stories, especially not if it’s all summer if she’s not gonna be staying over, I’m gonna lose my mind.”

“How supportive,” the sarcasm in your bite does little to hide the beginnings of your smile, your glare softening into what he hopes is the start of some sort of bond, a shared feeling of exasperation. Finding your footfall in common grounds.

“It’s relentless, we can’t go a single conversation anymore without him bringing her up,” he sighs, slumping into his seat, finally giving in to all the ways this is starting to grate on him. “I don’t get why neither of them do anything.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, too, relenting a little. “She talks about him so much it kind of makes me nauseous.”

“How supportive,” he mimics, nerve endings set alight when your eyes meet his over the table, and narrow in a different way, almost appreciative, almost respectable.

“Can it, Hughes,” you scoff, “Me even entertaining this conversation right now is support enough, I’ve had it in my ear for months about how she doesn’t know how she’ll make it through another summer.”

“That’s what I’m saying. If we can get them together this summer, then we’re both better off. No more whining or crying or earaches for either of us.”

“I’d hope you didn’t make your way out here with the mere promise of no more earaches, Luke.” He tries not to preen at the way you say his name. “What’s in it for me?”

“You and Ellie can stay at our lake house.” He suggests, straightening up before he leans onto the table, elbows extending so that he can rest on them, “It’s closer to the club than her family’s place, it’s gotta be better than having her siblings running around you all the time, I can even drive you to work when I’m free, if you want?”

You blink at him slowly, as if to say, and? “So I can stay at your glorified frat house, and you can be my chauffeur?” You ask with an unimpressed raise of your brow, before letting out a humourless scoff of, “What more could a girl want to do with her summer?

“What do you want?” He asks, leaning further forward.

“To go back to work and not worry about strange guys propositioning me, funnily enough.”

Luke laughs, a deep, breathy laugh that rises from the depths of his chest and comes alive in an almost-bark, and he doesn’t miss the way your eyes flicker to his mouth when it comes out.

This is fun. 

There’s no way he’s letting you leave this table without agreeing - just the thought of one more singular interaction keeping him on his toes.

“Why don’t we make it interesting, then?”

“It’s about time you tried.” The quiver of your lip tells him everything he needs to know - and that’s without the entertained glint in your eye that accompanies it. You’re enjoying this, just as much.

“We could make a competition out of it.”

“A competition?” You ask, with a curious tilt of your head.

There it is, he thinks. Interest: piqued. He practically has you in the palm of his hand. Who would ever have thought, the way to a sorority girl’s heart would be a friendly little wager?

“Whoever actually gets them together, wins.”

It’s all he can think of in the moment - petulant and part-planned, but it seems to be enough.

“Wins what?” You lean onto your elbows, your gaze levelling his as he mirrors your positioning, having to slouch a little further forward in his seat to meet your pretty eyes. 

“Whatever you want.” He doesn’t intend it to come out as low as it does, doesn’t realise how close the two of you have gotten over the table, but he sees the flicker of something cross your features as your head tilts again, eyes still locked on his as yours begin to narrow, still just as pretty even when they’re glaring at him.

“It’s what you want that concerns me.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” he jibes, watching the way your lips part in preparation of another witty comeback. “What do you say?” He asks, not giving you the chance, seeing the way it makes your skin crawl that you weren’t quick enough, for once. “Are you in?”

You heave out a sigh, shoulders slumping - a tell-tale sign that you’re about to acquiesce - and Luke starts to feel his chest puff out in victory. This feels like a shut-out. It feels like the best performance of his life. 

“You’re gonna make me regret this, aren’t you?”

“Oh definitely,” he smirks, eyes tracking you as you lean back into the booth, retreating from him in defeat, a hand running through your hair as he promises, “You’ll warm up to me soon enough, though.”

“I can’t see that happening.”

“I can,” he shrugs, leaning back too. “I’ve been told I’m inevitable.”

Luke can remember, like it was yesterday, the first time he ever saw you.

Freshman year, the week he moved into his dorm at Michigan, Jack had sent him across campus to check in on how Ellie was getting on. He had arrived with some extravagant gift basket in tow, plastic wrapped, a giant blue bow tied around the top and an assortment of snacks inside, and was left knocking for at least five minutes before you showed up.

“Please tell me you’re not another stripper-gram.”

If his throat hadn’t gone so dry all of a sudden, he thinks he would have had more wits about him to have questioned the use of another - a concept that had stuck in his head for weeks until he caught wind of a story of pledges for Pike being sent around campus and forced to lure girls to their house through way of humiliating song. 

But God, you were pretty. 

Siren eyes narrowed toward him, glossy lips pouted pensively, long lashes blinking impatiently as you awaited some kind of response that didn’t come in the form of an open, drooling mouth.

“I’m Luke.”

“Right.” You had sighed, pretty eyes rolling at him. “You’re blocking my door."

“Oh, I’m-,” he stuttered, immediately stepping to the side for you to come forward and insert your key into the lock. “Does Ellie live here?” He asked, confusion etched into his features as he watched you swing the door open, turning in your place to look him over again.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“I’m Luke.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I know her.”

“Clearly.”

“This is her basket.”

“Does she need to sign for it?”

“No, I-,”

“I’ll make sure she gets it, thanks, Lu!”

And when you had taken the basket from his hands, he had been too distracted by the way your skin brushed against his to properly respond, or worry if you had called him that as a nickname or had already forgotten his name, entirely.

He then spent days thinking about you, looking for you - at parties, in the campus coffee shop, online, despite not knowing your name - trying to commit to memory the way your eyes had sparkled when looking his way, until his first Business Communications class.

He had been a little early, first week nerves playing out and his constant craving for positive validation coming to the forefront, and was watching the door waiting for the professor to arrive. He had been slouched in his seat, chin in the palm of his hand, foot tapping rhythmically against the floor, and he had almost given himself whiplash when you walked in. 

He learned your name from there, learned a lot just from watching you in that class, but never really captured your attention.

And if the Luke that has been driving you to work every few days, who has been living with you for the past two weeks - who sits around the same dining table, laughs at the same jokes cracked when you’re all lounging around the house, sits out under the same sun, drinks from the same carton of orange juice in the morning - could tell the Luke that sat pining after you all that time, all the little ways in which he’s captured your attention lately, he’d probably have an aneurysm. 

When you and Ellie moved in, Luke had been the only one allowed to touch your stuff - and there’s a part of him that knows it was mainly because you enjoyed watching him work like a packhorse, hauling your cases up the stairs and dropping them in front of you with a huff, but there’s a larger, more delusional part that thinks you preferred him to the others, maybe even trusted him.

He’s taking credit for how quick you’ve adapted to the dynamic of the house, too. Of all the different faces coming in and out - Quinn’s friends, Jack’s friends, his friends, sometimes even his parents. If you’re around, you’re pleasant. You abide by house rules, some of them stupid, but set by the brothers so long ago that they just work now - like no phones outside of your rooms so that you can be more present. You insert yourself comfortably into conversations, you form your own relationships with everyone - you and Quinn trade book recommendations, you and Jack bicker while Ellie mediates. You do your fare share of chores - laundry, dishes, cooking, even. 

And he’s so caught up in just sharing space, just being around you, even, that for those first couple weeks, he forgets why you even agreed to be there in the first place.

At least, he forgets the incentive part - because he watches mindlessly as you interfere in Jack and Ellie’s dynamic, without a care in the world for the fact that it means he’s losing.

He watches you push one of them out of the way to claim whatever seat at the table or in the car forces them to sit beside each other. He watches you taunt Jack to just the right point where Ellie interferes, coos at him protectively and he melts into her affections. He watches you agree to plans he knows you wouldn’t in a million years follow along with, just to get them together - and all he can do is admire how easy you make it seem. 

He admires when you come out wakeboarding with the group, when you let him fasten you into a vest and don’t flinch when his fingertips brush against bare skin. Watches you bite your tongue over the fact you just got your hair blow dried - a fact you have no problems relaying back to him when he drives you to work the next day, and you’re muttering in his passenger seat about lake water giving you frizz - just so you’re not dampening the mood.

And when you agree to tag along to the golf course on your day off, despite the fact it’s so close to work if could be considered triggering, and you stick by Luke’s side so that Ellie can feign some sort of incompetence until Jack takes it upon himself to correct her form.

You stand by Luke’s side, the two of you watching with mirrored expressions of almost-disgust as Jack wraps his arms around Ellie’s body, and send a shiver down his spine when you lean in for only him to hear as you say, “I’d ask if you’ve put any more thought into what you want out of our bet, but I so have this in the bag.”

The bet.

Luke hasn’t thought about it since that day in the restaurant, if he’s honest, but he had known what he wanted then.

He’s hardly going to tell you, now, though. 

If he’s ever going to take you out on a date, he doesn’t really want to force your hand - not that he has a chance, he’s fallen so behind with this Jack and Ellie thing that it isn’t even funny.

He needs to up his game, if only for the fact that you’ll no doubt catch on to his lack of efforts, soon.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he taunts, because it’s what he does best, “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“And how long do you plan on keeping them up there?” You call him out so easily, tilting your head when his eyes meet yours, mischief highlighted by the sunshine that speckles in your irises. 

“Maybe I’m luring you into a false sense of security,” he shrugs, “Maybe I’m letting you do all the heavy lifting so I can swoop in when those weak arms get tired.” He pokes at your side, basking in the way you scowl like you pertain any sort of threat to him.

He has you figured out, by now. 

“I didn’t have you pegged as being lazy, Hughes.”

“You spend a lot of time thinking about me, huh?”

“You wish,” you scoff, shoving when he dares to get too close, and it’s when Luke is biting back a full-blown grin that Ellie comes back over. 

“This sun is crazy, I think I left the sunscreen in the locker room and Jack’s nose is going all red, would you come back with me?”

You smile sweetly at your best friend and agree, only glaring at Luke over Ellie’s shoulder when she’s distracted with saying her brief, temporary goodbyes to Jack, and once you’ve turned and made your way over to the cart, he lets his eyes linger on your figure as you retreat.

The soft sway of your ponytail, the expanse of smooth skin along your legs, he’s completely hypnotised, and he needs to pull himself together, he thinks.

He tries to regain focus as he and Jack work their way through the next couple of holes, caddying their clubs around without the cart, and chatting mindlessly until Jack sighs heavily, like he’s been waiting to bring something up.

“I want to take Ellie out on the boat tomorrow,” He states as Luke tees up, resting on his club as he squints against the sun to watch his little brother, “Just the two of us, so we can talk about stuff.”

“Sounds riveting,” the disinterest in Luke’s tone is amplified by the lack of attention he’s giving overall, looking out across the green and trying to measure his swing before he takes it. “Have fun.”

“I was thinking I’d need your help for it to work.”

“I’m not being your boat-butler again,” Luke scoffs, mind immediately going to all the times their parents would make Jack take Luke out with him and his friends, and all the times he was made to wait on his older brother hand and foot to make up for crashing his hang-outs.

“I’m not asking you to tag along,” Jack scoffs, “You third-wheeling would be the ultimate buzz-kill. I thought you could be of use elsewhere.”

“You’re making whatever it is sound so fun.” 

Luke takes his swing, driving the ball and watching it soar to his desired point with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. Jack watches too, stepping to Luke’s side to measure how far from his own ball it lands.

“Nice,” he mutters appreciatively as the two of them load their clubs into their stand bags. “I need you to keep Regina George busy, distract her or something, she’s stuck to Ellie like glue, it’s beyond annoying.”

If only he knew, Luke thinks, a worry in the back of his mind about how his brother owes more to you than he even realises. 

“You worried she’s gonna make her see sense?”

Jack swats at his arm and rolls his eyes.

“I’m worried she’s gonna ruin the good vibes like she usually does and I won’t be able to bite my tongue from saying something and looking like the asshole.”

Distracting you isn’t the worst thing he could be doing with his time, Luke thinks. It’s not like he has to go all out, you’ll no doubt be hanging out around the house and the two of you can hang together. All he has to do is keep you off your phone. Shouldn’t be too hard. You’ve adapted pretty well to mimicking the guys when it comes to staying off theirs.

It ticks off the box of trying to fight for a scrap of your attention. With no one else around, you’ll have no choice but to entertain his company.

And it puts him in front of your little race - lending a helping hand to Jack’s plans to talk to Ellie is surely the same as getting them together. It’s all falling so perfectly into his lap. He isn’t being lazy.

But he can’t let Jack know that, so he heaves out a sigh and offers a slow shake of his head for dramatic effect. “Fine,” he groans, “But you owe me. Big time.”

You’re starting to find it harder and harder to pretend like you don’t want to be at the Lake House.

If you’re being honest, you don’t entirely know why you’re even trying to keep up pretences, but using your disinterest as armour has become like second nature over the years, and you’re hardly going to stop now.

Even if there are already so many little things about being there that are starting to wear you down.

Quiet, early mornings, for one - birds chirping just outside your open window, sun rays pouring in through sheer curtains that flow in the slight breeze, that light feeling that blows through your chest when you’re sat out on the deck behind the house with a fresh cup of coffee, looking out over the still lake and basking in the peace of it all.

And even when it’s not so peaceful, when the kitchen is full of bodies swerving around each other to try and throw together some sort of breakfast spread - pastries and fruit, bacon and eggs, various boxes of cereal on the counter. Quinn had even made a whole batch of pancakes one morning, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t come down every day since hoping to see him donning that same frilly apron that Cole had draped around his waist and working his magic with a pan. 

You’ve never really been a part of such a full house. You had been an only child for so long - and by the time your parents split, and it was just you and your mom, on the days she wasn’t already at work when you got up - and were so ingrained in your own routine in the morning that you think you might actually need the chaos to function better. The rush of bodies, the arguments over who drank the last of the juice, the bickering over who’s turn it is to do the next grocery run - it’s a kind of entertainment you haven’t been privy to in a long time. 

Being kind of disconnected from everything else isn’t as bad as you thought it would be, either. You’re not attached to your phone, checking socials to see what everyone else is doing, to see if your dad has sent any messages yet this summer, and you find yourself connecting a little more with the people around you and leaving your family stress on the back burner. You’re more focused on what’s in front of you, and your relationships with other people. With Ellie, with some of the guys in the house, with your friends at work, even.

And it’s nice to be closer to work too. You don’t have to rush around trying to make the bus - Luke has been keeping his word and driving you to the club most days, and where he can’t, either somebody else has offered, or you’ve just ridden one of the bikes in the garage that the boys said were free to use - the helmet hair is an easy fix when you have access to the locker rooms.

It’s an adjustment, for sure, getting used to being in a full house. Especially this one - with a constant revolving door of faces, friends of the brothers switching out week by week to come and stay, departing just as you’ve started getting to know them with a promise of dropping by again soon.

So far, you’re almost at double-digits for the names you’ve had to memorise. Some of them you were already familiar with, guys from Michigan who you already knew or knew of, but others were more Jack or Quinn’s friends that you’d never had the pleasure of meeting before now.

Cole Caufield being one of them. 

He had arrived a couple of days after you and Ellie moved yourselves in, closer to Jack than the other two brothers, you had noticed, and was going to be staying longer than any of the other visitors - having his own designated room in the house, similar to you girls.

You like Cole - he’s good fun, can take a joke unlike his supposed best friend, and has the kind of smile that almost gives you a buzz whenever it’s flashed your way. Your first few interactions with him were seemingly pleasant, despite Jack constantly in his ear with a hardened glare pointed your way and no doubt unsavoury words uttered. Cole would just shrug him off, laugh, meet your eyes and drop a wink your way - a gesture you’d usually squirm and cringe at, but Cole kind of pulls it off. 

He joins in when you chirp Luke, too - which, if your honest, is your main source of entertainment since arriving, so your interactions with him grow day by day.

You haven’t really spent any one-on-one time with Cole yet, though. You were hoping to, before he left to visit home for the weekend - for no other reason than to get the scoop on something you’d happened upon at work last week - and had planned on asking him to hang out on your day off. But with Cole now gone for a few days, Jack and Ellie off doing god knows what, Quinn and Luke working out wherever, you have no choice but to spend your free Sunday lounging around the house, trying to find something to suppress your growing boredom.

You start with your nails, painting them a summery orangey-red and doing your toes to match, then do your laundry, abiding by house rules that you rotate the loads between the machines, and fold out whoever’s clothes were last in the dryer and place them in the hamper on the side. 

You’re hoping you haven’t had to fold Jack’s underwear but you decide to live in blissful ignorance - trying to identify the load based on the rest of the clothing in there is impossible when they all share, so it kind of works in your favour. 

You FaceTime your mom for almost an hour, getting an update on what she’s been up to with work, and giving her updates on how your summer is going, trying to focus on your time at the club and Ellie so she doesn’t worry too much again that you’re spending your summer in a house filled with boys. 

And by the time Luke and Quinn come back from their workout, you’re in the lounge, 50 pages deep into a book you really couldn’t care less about, but there’s something in you that refuses to beg one of them for company, so you suffer in silence.

Even when Luke does join you, throwing himself down onto the opposite side of the couch you’re occupying and pushing your feet off his side like it’s his sole purpose just to annoy you.

“I was comfortable there, asshat,” you frown, lifting your feet back into their previous position and using one to give him a light kick to his thigh.

“Yeah, well, I hardly want your feet all up in my business while I’m trying to relax,” he sighs, sinking into the cushions with hands clasped behind his head, biceps flexing and tightening the arms of his t-shirt in a way that momentarily catches your eye. You’re thankful for his closed eyes, chewing at the inside of your cheek as you divert your attention back to the mundane words on the pages in front of you.

“And yet here you are when there are 2 other couches.”

“Yeah, well, I know how much you like to be near me.”

You try to ignore him, pulling your feet a little closer to your body and focusing back on the book, but it’s hard when Luke has such a presence. You feel the little looks he keeps sending your way like a physical touch, and the couch shifts with every slight movement he makes, so when he constantly shuffles, you start to think he wants your attention.

Of course he wants your attention. This is Luke Hughes.

“Are you just sitting down here to annoy me?”

He lights up, like he’s just been waiting for you to ask, and shuffles in his seat to face you, fully, bouncing in place like a puppy being teased with a tennis ball. 

“I’m actually trying to distract you, if you must know.”

“Bold of you to assume you have enough of my attention to be distracting in the first place,” you scoff, trying not to react to the way he smirks in your peripheral, the words in front of you all blurring together. If you were actually focused on them, you’d have lost your place, already.

“I think you pay more attention to me than you’d like to admit.”

“That’s some ego you’ve got on you, Hughes,” you narrow your eyes as you look above the edge of your book, “Is that what you spend that big NHL paycheque on, charisma classes? How to flirt for dummies?”

“Oh, is that what we’re doing? Flirting?”

Damn. You walked yourself right into that one. 

Sometimes biting back at Luke comes like second nature, words first, thoughts after - and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like it that way. It’s easy, the back and forth, and you can’t really think of an instance with him where you’ve sat in a lingering, awkward silence. You’ve really grown to hate silence, lately.

“You wish.”

“You think I’m charismatic,” he teases in a sing-song voice, knocking at your knee and wiggling his eyebrows when you glare at him. 

“I think you’re an idiot.”

“You’re not gonna ask what I’m distracting you from?”

“I don’t really care,” you lie, eyes darting back down and diverting the attention he so desperately craves away from him.

“Jack wanted to take Ellie out on the boat.” He says, ignoring your attempts to ignore him - pushing your buttons like a full time job. Like an operator for your last nerve.

“Good for her.”

“Alone.”

“No shit.”

“To ask her out.”

“Whoop-de-doo.”

“Whoop-de-,” Luke straightens up, like a whack-a-mole with his head positioning itself over the top of your book, and you kind of wish you had one of those soft mallets right about now. It would be so satisfying to bonk at his head, you think. “What do you mean, whoop-de-doo, is this not what you agreed to be here for? To get them together?”

You scoff, flicking to the next page of the book in feigned disinterest. “He isn’t asking her out today.”

This is the exact something you had wanted to talk to Cole about - whispers in the staff lounge at work earlier in the week doing the rounds would imply otherwise, but your main source is kind of a gossip, and you’re not entirely sure of their reliability, despite the few degrees of separation to the subject at hand. 

Mutterings of Jack and Cole and their little country club connections. 

You can hardly ask Luke of all people if his brother is as much of a man-whore as everyone is making out. Cole was a safe bet - he’d probably just tell you straight up what they’re up to, wear his pride like a shining gold medal. He’s upfront about his promiscuity, at least. Luke is more protective. Of himself, of his family, you’re not entirely sure. There haven’t been as many whispers about him. 

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he’s a spineless idiot,” you retort, eyes flicking up momentarily to take in his furrowed brow. “No offence,” comes out of nowhere, and you surprise yourself with the instinct to lessen the blow of your words for the first time in forever.

“None taken, he’s only my flesh and blood,” Luke huffs, “You’re just jealous I’m winning our bet.”

“Sure,” you drawl, eyes widening to emphasise the sarcasm as you make a point of angling your head to the next page, like you’ve taken a single word in for the past five minutes. “He’s been talking to one of the girls from work. There’s no way he’s doing that and asking Ellie out, unless he’s completely brain dead.”

And when you look back at Luke, that furrowed brow has shifted into a full blown frown, pouted lips and eyes cast down as if he’s trying to figure everything out in his head. 

It’s probably the pout that has you cushioning your words, once more.

“Again, no offence, I doubt it’s in your DNA.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m no bio student but I don’t think there’s a genetic marker for being a fuckboy.”

“No, about him talking to one of the girls at the club. He didn’t tell me that.”

Why does he have to sound like that? Let down and unsure, quieter than you think you’ve ever heard him. It’s like the tone he carries goes straight to your fingers, clasping the book closed without marking your page - because what business do you have carrying on that charade?

“Do you guys tell each other everything?” You ask as you throw the book until it lands on the coffee table with a gentle thud, shuffling until you’re sat against the arm of the couch with knees bent in front of you, giving him your undivided attention and feeling guilty that it might not be enough.

“I thought we did,” he scratches at the back of his head, nervously, “He literally told me yesterday he was taking her out to talk about stuff, why would he make a point of asking me to keep you busy if he’s not serious about asking her out?”

“You don’t want to hear my answer to a question about your brother not being serious.” 

“Who’s the girl?” He asks, ignoring your comment despite the slight ghost of a smile you see flash into the corner of his mouth. 

“Jessica, she works at the pro shop, apparently they’ve been texting all summer.”

You know for a fact that since you’ve started paying attention, you’ve seen Jack on his phone a lot for a guy who chirps you for your own screen-time, and who has enforced the house rule of no phones outside your room like a prison guard yells out no touching at visitation. So it sort of checks out. You’ve tried to sneak a peak, but he’s protective of his stuff like a yappy little dog with attachment issues at the best of times, so you haven’t really put too much effort into it.

“There were a few people talking about it in the lounge at work the other day,” you shrug, “One of the girls talking about it is Jess’ best friend, so not exactly from the horse’s mouth, but I don’t think she’d be spreading lies about her friend around like that.”

“Can you find out?”

“You ask that like I haven’t been trying.” That gets a full smile, a small chuckle that lifts his shoulder, even, “I was gonna grill Caufield about it but he’s gone. But I know you guys have plans when he gets back tomorrow, so if you want to take Cole I’ll hack away at the grape vine at the club?”

“Does this mean we’re teammates?” 

“No. It absolutely does not.”

Hacking away at the grapevine is really a lot more like plucking absentmindedly at an overgrown patch of grass when it comes to workplace gossip. 

By the end of your shift, you’re leaving the club with a fist clutched full of loose blades, fingers stained green from the amount of information people were willing to ‘fess up.

Liam who works behind the bar had overheard a conversation where Jack had mentioned Jessica, but could only give you useless tidbits, like how he had to stop by the shop for a new putter, and Jess had been the one to ring him up.

Hardly incriminating, but you had a feeling it would be a small piece of a way larger puzzle. That, and guys are notoriously useless at gossiping, there’s definitely more to that story than Liam could even comprehend in his tiny man brain.

Cassidy who works at the front desk had seen Jack and Jess talking in the main lobby last week, definitely flirting, she had said - with hair flips and giggles galore - and way too familiar to be new. 

Much better.

Paola who has the alternative shifts in the pro shop was more than willing to take up ten minutes of your time ranting how Jess’ work is never fully done when it comes to a handover, and she spends half her time on her phone. Kiran, who works the bev cart every Monday, said Jack is always one of the most charming in their golfing group, so it’s no surprise if he is exchanging texts with girls from the club. 

You get dirt from most corners of the place, and it leads you all the way back to your station, to reservations set for the restaurant, where tonight’s list - unfortunately a shift you’re not set to work, although you very much question the serendipity of that - has Jack’s name down at 7pm. A table for 2 in the back corner, shielded from prying eyes and intimate.

And if it weren’t for the fact you’ve already worked a full shift, you would consider staying just to get the full scoop. 

You know Ellie isn’t going to be the one sat across from him, she’s been sending you pictures all day of her various hauls for her quiet night in. New paints and pencils, a sketchpad, some candles - she has all intentions of working on her watercolour technique.

So it has to be for him and Jessica.

Imagine his face, you think, picturing wide, panicked eyes as you roam up to his table to take his order. He’d actually crap his pants. 

But, it’s another set of eyes that you picture when you start to enjoy the scheming a little too much. The sad, teary eyes of your best friend, when she finds out the guy she’s been hung up on for half her life, who she has all but convinced herself isn’t interested, and is - absurdly - ‘far too good’ for her - yeah, right - is dating other girls while taking her out on not-so-platonic boat dates only the day before. A boat date that she had come back to your room, flung herself onto her belly on the bed, and kicked her feet as she gushed all about it. 

So you make your way back to the house after a long day, and resign yourself to the fact that you’re going to have to, yet again, get all your information on Jack’s date second hand.

You primed Cara, your colleague in the restaurant, to keep an eye out, and she promised to send updates on her breaks, and you have been holed up in yours and Ellie’s shared bedroom trying to keep her busy when there is a persistent knock at the door, and a mop of soft, curly brown hair pokes in before his eyes meet yours.

“Hey, Luke!” Ellie chimes, cheery and all too blissfully unaware of the potentially horrific circumstances you’ve stumbled upon. “You need to borrow my conditioner again?”

You scoff from your position on the bed, watching a slight pink hue flush up Luke’s neck.

“What? No,” he denies, running a hand through his hair and seemingly frowning a little at the way it feels. “I’m going to the store, wondered if either of you needed anything?”

“Nah, thanks, we’re good,” Ellie smiles, attention diverting straight back to where she’s drawing in her sketchbook, missing the way Luke widens his eyes and tilts his head as if to encourage you to take him up on his offer.

“Can I come with?” You shuffle from your position on the bed, swinging your legs out from beneath you and over the side as Ellie looks back at you.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise you wanted something.”

“Someone’s got to show the poor guy what’s what on the haircare aisle, El.”

And you’re thankful that Ellie has settled herself in for the evening already by 6:45, showered, pyjamas on, otherwise she might have tried to tag along, too, just for something to do.

You swipe her phone before she can notice and hide it under your pillow before you leave, thinking it might reduce the risk of her getting bored and texting Jack, or, worse, checking his location.

A trip out gives you the chance for you and Luke to debrief each other on your findings of the day - or, as it turns out, just you, because Luke Hughes might be the worst information-gatherer on planet Earth.

Finding his life’s niche in hockey is fortunate, because he definitely wouldn’t cut it as an investigator.

“He just said he didn’t know anything,” Luke shrugs of his earlier encounter with Cole, and you try not to gape at him in disbelief as he fiddles with the screen in his BMW, scrolling through the interface in search of the nearest store. 

You swat his hand away with a scoff, typing in a destination, “And you believed him?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“You’re about as useless as a chocolate teapot, Hughes. What is it with guys and gossip, are you all really that dumb?”

“That’s the address for the club,” he points out, ignoring your jibe as he starts driving.

“Well done, you can read.”

“Why?”

“Because, thankfully, one of us is a good detective.” You snark, “Jack’s there.”

“So?”

“He’s on a date.”

“No he isn’t,” Luke frowns, attention momentarily taken from the road as he looks over at you. “I’ve been with him all afternoon, he would have told me if he had a date, tonight.”

“Oh yeah? Where’d he say he was going when he left, earlier?”

He hadn’t been home when you got back from work, but that had been around an hour ago. You figured if he was sneaky enough to book into the restaurant when you’re not working, he’d have his wits about him to avoid you, entirely. Whenever the two of you cross paths, you can’t help but try get on his last nerve, and he’s hardly going to want to start his evening in a foul mood.

“To get his hair cut.”

Jesus Christ, you think, he’s so lucky he’s cute.

“You’re so clueless. He’s at the lounge with Jessica, the girl I told you about yesterday.”

“And what are we supposed to do about that?”

“We’re gonna supervise. And maybe interfere, if necessary.” 

You don’t really have a plan, but it seems like the right thing to at least get a look in as to what the hell Jack thinks he’s doing, especially if you’re going to carry on with this whole plan of getting him and Ellie together. If he’s seriously entertaining other girls while making out to Luke that he only has eyes for Ellie, your plans might have to change. You’re not sure if Luke will be on board with the new path you’re willing to take, but you’ll be happy to kill his brother on your own.

“Interfere?” Luke’s eyes are wide, but he keeps them on the road, fingers flexing against the wheel. “I just came out for chips to make nachos, not play spies!”

“Cara’s working tonight, she said she’d keep an eye on them for me. I bet if I cover her hosting shift on Friday she’d sabotage their date. We’d just have to sit back and watch.”

“Oh,” Luke’s brows furrow, as if it’s taking any consideration at all to mess with his brother. “You really are an evil genius.”

You try not to think too hard about who’s been spewing that rhetoric already in his ear, and instead you smile when he casts his eyes your way, proud and pleased. 

“Thank you.”

It takes another 15 minutes to get to the club, considering Luke’s best Driving Miss Daisy impression, so their date is already underway by the time Cara is ushering you to a booth in the far corner, where you can see Jack’s table, but he shouldn’t be able to see yours, and agreeing to play along.

“Can I get you guys any drinks?” She asks as she hands over two menus, and you’re too interested in trying to gauge the vibe at the other table while Luke looks over his.

“Two diet cokes, shaved ice, no lemon,” he says, and you can’t help but frown at the way the specificity of that order rolls so easily off his tongue. That’s your order.

“Any food?”

“Could we just get some nachos, please?” You ask, sliding your menu across the table without even looking, not wanting to give Luke too much of a chance to peruse his own out of fear you’ll be here all night. “And extra picante on the side.”

“Extra guac, too,” Luke adds as Cara scribbles the instructions on her notepad, “And some of those chicken tenders, and extra ranch. And maybe some fries. Yeah, chilli fries. And breadsticks.”

You level him with a glare, already proven right in your decision not to give him too much time to think about what he wanted. He’ll order every appetiser on the menu, if given half the chance. 

“Thanks, Cara, that’s everything.”

“Sure thing, should be around fifteen minutes. They only just ordered,” she points her pen back to Jack’s table, where Jess is leaning onto the table and Jack is leaning back in his seat - heavy on the distance but even heavier on the eye contact. That little shit.

“Does he have any allergies?” You lean onto your own table to ask Luke, quirking a brow up when his eyes darken in response, mischief swirling in his emerald irises.

“Absolutely not,” Cara interjects, “I’m doing this so you cover my job, not make me lose it.”

“Let me guess, he ordered the steak, medium-rare?” Luke asks, and she nods, hesitantly. “Char it.”

“Won’t he complain?”

“He’ll just grumble to himself about how tough it is. It’ll put him in a bad mood. That’s what we want, right?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, nodding your head to ease Cara’s worries despite what you really want is for Chef Michael to poison the cut, entirely. If Jack Hughes wants to play with your best friend’s heart, you’ll play with his gut. But you can settle for burnt meat. Luke can work some sort of magic with that, you think, convincing Jack of all people that any first date that resulted in him coming home all sour-puss and sulky should never result in a second. “Bad mood. Bingo.”

“Fine,” Cara grumbles, “But if he even thinks about asking for a manager, you’re covering my next 3 Fridays.”

She storms off to the kitchen, and you and Luke simultaneously sink into your seats, attention immediately diverted back to the table in the opposite corner of the room.

“We should have kept the menus,” Luke mutters from across the booth, “Could have hidden behind them.”

“What are we, children?” You snark, “You can’t think of any more creative ways to stay hidden?”

“I heard PDA makes people pretty uncomfortable,” he leans onto the table, dropping you a wink when you glance over out of the side of your eye, “We should make out to throw everyone off the scent.”

“In your dreams, Hughes.”

Luke sort of envies the charm you hold over people.

The way you can convince people to do your bidding with a mere flutter of your eyelashes or a flash of pearly teeth and a glimmer in your irises.

He has trouble, sometimes, skirting around his honesty or hiding his intentions - and he knows that’s not a bad thing, knows that being clear and truthful is an admirable trait, if anything - but the way you persuade others to bend to your whim with intricate white lies based on observations you’ve made or intel you’ve gathered is a praiseworthy level of genius. 

It had taken such minimal effort for you to get Cara on side, to convince her that being a little clumsy is hardly grounds for her termination, and spilling a little of Jack’s drink close to the edge of the table - close enough that it drips onto his pants and Luke can see the steams of frustration exuding from his brother’s skin from all the way on the other side of the restaurant - or bumping her hip on the edge of their table every time she passes are really just harmless irritations, not likely to cause actual complaint. 

You had used the mere tone of your voice to convince Liam from behind the bar to squeeze a little lime in Jack’s water, knowing just from observing him back at the house that he hates the taste, face curling in disgust at even the slightest hint of it, and Luke had watched your eyes gleam in delight every time Jack took a sip of his drink and tried not to spit it back out, seeking much needed reprieve to swallow down the world’s toughest steak cut. 

You’d even worked your magic on him, pouting your lips when the food had arrived at the table, and he had initially declined to share his chicken tenders with you - your grumblings at him ordering enough to feed the five thousand fresh in his memory, but so easily wiped away by the soft, sad look in your eyes, and your whining of, “But I didn’t realise how hungry I’d get. Plotting and scheming is hard work, Luke.”

You ended up eating half, but he could hardly complain - you were doing the heavy lifting out of the two of you.

He was sitting back and enjoying the show - enjoying your company, if he’s honest. Enjoying the way his gangly limbs would sometimes knock into yours under the table, enjoying the way he kept getting little nuggets of information out of you while you were distracted, sipping at your coke and making little comments about yourself, about your life, without even realising you’re doing it. 

And an unplanned, pseudo date ends up being the first time he thinks he’s had a glimpse at the real you.

The you who knows more about hockey than you’ve ever let on before, who comes back to his stories with contextual questions about the game, even has references to a few games of his back at Michigan, and keeps the conversation flowing despite your feigned disinterest, and a constant gaze cast his brother’s way.

That would usually drive him crazy.

He’s experienced it so often that he has come to expect it, people only entertaining his company to acquire the attention of his brothers, but that’s not what you’re doing. Not really.

You pay more attention to Luke than you’d ever let on.

You ask him about his time in Ostrava at the beginning of summer, even though he’s only mentioned being overseas once while you’ve been staying with him - an offhanded comment from Quinn at breakfast that you must have taken on. Ask him about all the food he tried while out there, when he mentions he doesn’t like picante, and you use it as a springboard to talk about what sort of spices he does like, or if he’s the type to try things or stick to what he knows. 

You ask him about being the youngest sibling, and it stems from an offhanded comment Luke had grumbled about always being the last to be clued in on stuff, about how Jack had probably confided in Quinn about his extracurricular activities at the club, and didn’t trust him enough to let him in on the fact he’s going out on dates. You ask if he usually figures things out himself before he’s told them, if that’s what makes him so good at observing and analysing stuff, and he hadn’t ever realised he was particularly good at those things before you brought it up. But then you reference a day in class one time, where he had picked up on something in a textbook that you never would have figured out in a million years, and his heart leaps at the praise you don’t even realise you’re giving him.

You sandwich your perceptions in your usual snark, but he doesn’t miss the slight curve of your lips anymore when he bites straight back, knowing now that there is some part of you that feels the nip of his teeth, that acknowledges his existence beyond him being a speck of inconvenience in your peripheral.

And he gets a little carried away in that acknowledgement - stops paying attention himself to what is happening on the other side of the room and tries to focus on what’s in front of him; the girl he pined after his entire college career, sat sharing nachos and pretending not to know him at a level you so clearly do.

You must get carried away, too, because neither of you notice Jack’s date wrapping up until Luke catches him hand his card over to Cara.

He’s lost count of how long the two of you have been at the club, now - way longer than it takes to get chips from the store, that’s for sure - and all he does know is that if Jack catches either of you two here, after a night of mishaps, bad food, spilled drinks and Cara’s incessant clumsiness, he’ll know who’s to blame. 

“We better get out of here before he sees us,” Luke sighs, not entirely wanting to wrap up his time with you but knowing he doesn’t really have a choice.

“I’ve just got to pick something up before we head back,” you reply, edging out of the booth at the same time Luke does, “I’ll meet you out front just give me two minutes?”

“Be quick,” he tells you before you scurry off, and he flags down Cara, who tells him you already put your bill on your worker tab. He tells her to switch it to his, and that he’ll drop by tomorrow to pay it off, promising to leave her a good tip for her stellar services for the evening. 

He waits where you asked him to, making sure to stick to the side of the entryway where he can duck for cover if his brother makes an appearance - but you show up first, skipping out from the staff lounge with a bag of tortilla chips in hand.

“Let’s go, Lukey boy!” He follows you out like a puppy on a leash, all the way to where his car is parked, almost bumping into you when you stop and turn without warning, stretching your hand out to him. “Give me your keys.”

“Are you crazy?” He snorts, “You’re not driving my car!”

“I know a shortcut!” You reason, stepping forward and making a grabby motion with your fingers, “We gotta beat Jack home, I just paid another server $20 to spill a whole drink on him before he leaves and he’s gonna be pissed. I want to see the meltdown back at the house and you drive like a nun!”

Luke doesn’t know why he gives in so easy - it could be the proximity, the way you’re so close you have to look up at him, eyes twinkling softly under the moonlight, voice carrying over to him like a siren song, or it could just be because he’s weak - but he hands his keys over with a roll of his eyes and climbs into the passenger side, sliding the seat back with a huff to accommodate his long legs and watching as you adjust the driver’s side, cringing at the way he’s gonna have to figure out exactly how he had it before.

You drive like a maniac, to the point where Luke has to screw his eyes shut as you use some back road, can hear the squelch of mud beneath his tires and squirms at the thought of having to take it to the car wash, tomorrow. 

But you make it back to the lake house much quicker than if he were driving, he’ll give you that. So quick that you feel comfortable enough to turn to him once you’ve pulled up, in no rush to unbuckle and get out to get inside before Jack gets home.

“Just so we’re clear, this is a point under my name. You’re not claiming tonight as a win.”

Luke chuckles, turning in his seat to face you, features illuminated by the dim overhead light that turns on when the engine switches off and a slight flush of exhilaration to your cheeks. There’s no pretending you haven’t enjoyed yourself, not tonight. “But the steak thing was my idea?”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be sat watching baseball and thinking he was getting a 3 hour haircut, you can’t seriously be trying to steal this from me, I thought you athletes had integrity!”

“You’re really keeping score?”

“You’re not?”

If Luke’s honest, he hasn’t really thought about your whole wager all night. He’s been too wrapped up in the idea that his brother had lied to him. Twice. And now his whole plan for the two of you all summer has potentially been messed up. But hearing you mention it, hearing you talk about it like it hasn’t been flushed down the toilet by his brother’s idiocy sparks something in him - excitement, anticipation. He doesn’t want to let this go.

“I actually think we made a good team back there,” he shrugs, eyes meeting yours to gauge your reaction to the thought of doing this together.

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you’re gonna lose,” you retort, eyes sparkling with those same sentiments he had just felt. 

“Probably,” he acquiesces, “Also ‘cause you kind of scare me a little after tonight, last thing I wanna do is go up against you when you have the power to turn half the country club against me.”

You smirk, and his eyes are drawn to the plush curve of your lips, watching them as they form around the softly spoken words, “God forbid you can’t go a round of golf without your caddy breaking down.”

“Exactly.” He mutters back, glad to see your gaze is still zeroed in on him when he meets it again. He can feel the thump thump thump of his pulse in his ears, and takes a deep breath before proposing, “Partners?”

He cocks a brow and holds his pinky out over the centre console, and you eye the digit, sceptically, narrowing your eyes into a glare before raising them to meet his. “Fine,” you grumble, then hook your little finger through his and tighten it to shake, a slight yelp of surprise filling the car when he tugs, your lax arm giving way until your knuckle touches his lips and he kisses it.

“Ew,” you whine, snatching your finger back as he fills the space himself with a hearty chuckle, wiping it on his hoody in disgust. “That’s gross!”

“No take backs,” he smiles, victorious, with his chest puffed out, primed for you to swat at with the flex of your hand, and the two of you are only pulled out of the moment by the sound of tyres pulling up on the gravel behind you, both of you stumbling to unbuckle yourselves and climb out of the car. 

Jack is exiting his own vehicle behind, and stomps down the driveway, shouldering past you until he realises who he has passed, turning back and looking at you with suspicion cast across his features. 

“Where have you twobeen?” Jack asks, glancing a curious eye between the two of you before meeting Luke’s gaze, levelling him with an inquisitive glare.

“We went to the store for chips,” Luke holds the bag up, the crinkle loud enough for Jack to hear, and he feels an insurgence rising within him, spurred on by the way his brother is looking at him like he’s the one who should be ashamed of his actions. “Nice haircut.”

Jack runs a hand through his hair, surprise crossing his features in a brief flash at the call out, like he had never even expected Luke to notice his hair looks no different to the last time he saw him mere hours ago, like he would never even need to question his alibi.

“Oh, yeah, I got the day wrong. Went out for dinner instead.”

“On your own?” You ask from beside him, your presence giving Luke the kind of back up he very much needs right now, a new target for Jack’s narrowed eyes that takes the heat off of him a little, lessens the burden of lying to his brother - despite Jack being the one who started it, it doesn’t make Luke feel any less bad, doesn’t quell the need to word vomit and admit to all the ludicrous things he had done to ruin Jack’s night. “You end up having a little accident there, bud?”

Luke tries not to outwardly laugh as his attention is diverted to the wet patch that still soaks up the front of Jack’s pants, lips quivering as he presses them together, oblivious to the steam pouring out of his brother’s ears as he immediately gets riled up. 

“One of your esteemed colleagues at the club apparently lacks hand eye co-ordination. Plus, some of us like our own company,” Jack scoffs, “Some of us can go an evening without the need to annoy anybody else.”

“It’s not news to me that you’re in love with yourself, dude,” you retort back, entirely unbothered by his jibes. “Bet you’ve got all sorts of riveting thoughts swirling around that ginormous head of yours, must keep you busy for hours on end.”

“At least I have thoughts, at least I’m not some airheaded-,”

“Hey,” Luke’s tone is authoritative when he calls out, stern and demanding, “Cut it out, Jack.”

“She started it!”

“She asked you a question,” Luke frowns, disappointed with how quick his brother had taken to escalating the situation, all in an attempt to deflect the attention from his own deception. He knows you don’t need him to protect you from Jack’s sharp tongue, knows you can very much defend yourself, but he needs to vent his frustrations, somehow, without causing a bust up on the driveway. “You could have just give her a straight answer without biting her head off.”

He feels like you’re a little closer, all of a sudden, and he doesn’t know it’s the slight brush of your arm against his or if it’s something else, something less tangible - but it warms him, all the same. Steadies the static thump of his heart in his chest at the thought of starting an argument with his brother out of nowhere. 

“Whatever,” Jack rolls his eyes, “I’m going to bed.”

And as Jack turns, Luke sees your lips part, ready to send him off with the last word until a large hand clamps itself over your mouth, and your wide eyes meet his over the sides of his fingers.

He’s not sure why he did it, why he all of a sudden feels comfortable enough to cross the boundaries of purposeful touch, but he doesn’t entirely regret it.

Plush lips press mid-word against his palm, and your skin is soft, cheeks warming ever so slightly beneath his hand.

“You gotta let him go, there’s no use fighting with him tonight, it’s better to drag it out. Didn’t think I’d have to teach you about the beauty of the long game,” he says, voice low as he watches his brother retreat to the house, waiting until he’s safe inside to retract his hand. “Not like this, anyway.”

“Your brother’s an asshole,” you grumble, “Full offence.”

“No arguments from me,” Luke concedes, holding his hands as if surrendering to the fact, himself. “What are you gonna tell Ellie?”

“Nothing.” You sigh, stepping a little down the drive and toward the house before turning back to him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, partner.”

There have only been a handful of times in your life you’ve ever been thankful for work coinciding with huge plans, but when the group had decided that they wanted to go see Zach Bryan play Ford Field, you had thanked your lucky stars you had been put down to work a full shift at the restaurant and wouldn’t be able to go.

Not only for the fact that he isn’t really your thing, but for the fact that you’re finally getting a full evening to yourself.

So far, in your time at the house, most evenings have been spent with everyone else - group dinners, game nights, movie nights, even a couple of girls nights with just you and Ellie scattered in there, but nothing on your own, yet. 

You can’t wait. And with an empty house, you have a full pamper night planned. You’ve been stocking up odd bits on your trips to the store over the past couple of weeks - sheet masks, aromatherapy candles, you’ve even picked up some flower petals from the spa at the club, in the hopes that you might even treat yourself to a relaxing soak in the bathtub. You can play whatever music you want, make whatever food you want, sit wherever you want in the house, out on the deck, overlooking the lake with a book in hand and no chirpy voices in your ear all night.

You can’t wait.

The only downside is not having a ride home, but you haven’t finished too late. The sun will still be up for a couple of hours, and a walk in the simmering heat back to the house doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.

Your feet carry you with ease down the back roads, and you even make the journey without your headphones on, taking in the scenery, the blissful peace of your surroundings, so lost in the tranquility of it all that the sight of Luke washing his car on the drive when you get home dampens your mood as quick as a torrential downpour of rain, flash floods coursing through your evening and wrecking your plans entirely. 

“What the hell are you doing?” You can’t help the bite in your tone as you approach, sneakers crunching against the gravel as Luke pauses the hose, looks over at you with the sun in his eyes, and you have to remind yourself he’s just ruined the one night you have for yourself before you get distracted by the fact that he’s shirtless.

“Washing my car?” he calls back, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Detroit right now?”

Luke shrugs, and you have to will your eyeballs not to move any lower than his neck to watch his shoulders lift and drop, lest you get too caught up in the broad expanse of his chest and do something ridiculous like drool.

“Wasn’t feeling it.”

“You weren’t feeling a concert you guys haven’t shut up about for weeks, but you were feeling washing your car?”

He’s dead. When he’s finished with his car and he retreats to his room, you’re gonna smother him with a pillow and discard of his body in the lake. You’re not even gonna let him shower, first. That’s what the lake’s for.

He’s crapping all over your plans because he wasn’t feeling it?

“It needs cleaning,” he shrugs again, and you swear you’re gonna jump in and run him over with the damn thing, “In fact, you really should be helping me.”

There’s a small part of you that feels like the thoughts of violence are worryingly aggressive, but then a larger part of you realises he must have a death wish.

“How’d you get to that conclusion?”

“You’re the one who drove us through a swamp,” he scoffs, a pointed hand flung toward the body of his car, where the sides are lined with a thick layer of dried dirt from the other night, “You get it dirty, you clean it up.”

“As much as I would absolutely love to fulfil your pervy car wash fantasy, I have much better things I could be doing with my time.”

Or you did, until Luke rained all over your parade of solitude.

“Like what?”

“Literally anything but this.” You gesture at the show he’s putting on. The suds dripping from the roof of the car, the hose in his hand, the buckets scattered around the perimeter. “I need to shower, I just walked from the club and I-,”

A death wish might actually be an understatement.

Luke wants you to murder him in the most gruesome, horrific way you could possibly muster - he has to, because there’s no other explanation for why he’d turn the hose on, point it straight at you, and drench the front of you, entirely. 

You can feel the fabric of your t-shirt dampening and sticking to your chest, and you scrunch your eyes shut to stop droplets of water slipping into them, thankful that when they open again, his own are looking back at you, and not any lower.

You’d really have a reason to kill him, then. 

“You did not just do that.” You growl, glaring back at him with a clenched jaw as the fucker beams back at you, pressing the trigger once more in a short burst that fires straight at your chest, again.

“What, that?”

“You’re so dead.”

You drop your bag and launch for him, aiming to take the hose from his grip, but he fires it again out of sheer panic, the water spouting out from between your splayed fingers, cold and pressured, and it soaks the both of you, raining down as you grapple for the head and Luke remains unrelenting.

There are squeals and yelps called out into the misty air between the two of you, and you get to a point you can’t tell what sounds are coming from who, but you manage to wrestle the hose from his grip and point it straight at him as he jets away with a laugh that rumbles straight from his belly.

It’s the kind of laugh that elicits another, and you don’t realise until he’s circling back to you that the laughter is coming from you - giggling, even, as the two of you engage in a water fight like misbehaving children - and it isn’t long until all aggressive thoughts wash away with the suds that slip to the gravel, forgetting why you were even annoyed in the first place.

It shouldn’t be as fun as it is, but after the long day at work, and the tiring walk back, letting your guard down and engaging it a little mindless chaos seems to wake you up a little.

Your childish game gets Luke what he wanted, anyway, the two of you working together to clean his car when you realise he’s only running in front of all the parts that actually need hosing off and relying on you having bad aim to get the job done, and you figure getting your hands a little dirty is harmless when you’re already soaked through and in dire need of a shower.

And your pamper-plans of a bubble bath and self-care don’t entirely come to fruition, but Luke promises to make up for his petulance by ordering pizza and sticking a movie on, so you bite your tongue to refrain from voicing your initial complaints, and decide to just go with the flow, for once - he hasn’t exactly led you astray, yet.  

You take a little longer in the shower than normal, with no one around to complain about hogging the bathroom or worry about them barging in unannounced, and you suppose that’s a small victory - one little luxury you get to cling to as you bask in the steam, letting all the tension slip from your aching muscles after being on your feet all day.

And once you’re out, hair dried just enough with a towel that it isn’t going to drip or soak your t-shirt, and you’re dressed in your pyjamas, you make your way downstairs, where Luke has already set up a plethora of snacks in the living room.

Nachos, popcorn, candy and drinks scattered across the coffee table as he relaxes on the couch, hair extra curly after his shower and an old Michigan t-shirt stretched tight across his now much-broader chest. 

“Thought I’d wait for you to pick a movie,” he chimes up from where he’s sat, gesturing with a lazy point to the wall of blu-rays beside the TV. 

“Did Netflix never make it to the Hughes household?” You scoff in disbelief as you take them all in properly for the first time. You’d seen them in your peripheral when you’d been hanging out down here, before, but actually looking at them up close, reading all the titles, seeing the sheer volume of how many there are, it kind of surprises you.

“We can look on Netflix if you want. They always take stuff off, though.”

You know. All your favourite movies get taken off of streaming, and you only ever find out about it when you’re really in the mood to watch them. As soon as you realise the wall is alphabetised, you know exactly where to look.

“That’s alright,” you shrug, stepping to the side as you track backwards, through M, L, K and J. “You guys are pretty analogue, I’ve noticed.”

“What do you mean?”

“The board games, the DVDs, the whole no phones around the house thing.”

“No phones around the house is common courtesy,” he chuckles, “But I guess we’re a little weird about the other stuff.”

“It’s pretty cool,” you shrug, spotting the DVD you want and sliding it out to assess the case. “It’s old school. Probably better for the brain. My little brothers can’t really function without an iPad and they’re 5, it’s freaky, like they’re haunted by the capitalist ghost of Steve Jobs or something.”

“I didn’t know you had brothers,” Luke frowns where you almost expect him to laugh, and you spin on your heel to face him. He has this look about him like he should have known that - like the two of you have ever conversed in anything other than sarcastic quips and scrunched up faces, or whatever attempts at flirting have been on his part. 

“Technically they’re half brothers,” you shrug, “They live out in Philly with my dad and step mom, I don’t really get to see them much.”

“Didn’t know you were from Philly, either.”

“I’m not, my dad moved out there when him and my mom got divorced.”

It’s not something you really love talking about. 

The few times you’ve tried, you’ve been shot down, patronising tones scoffing at how your biggest trauma is the separation of your parents, as if your whole world didn’t crumble down with the demise of their relationship, the demise of life as you knew and very dearly loved it.

“You don’t see him even in the summer?”

“Him and his family are on vacation in Europe for 6 weeks. England, France, Spain, Germany, the boys are into soccer so they’ll be out there until the Euros.”

You don’t miss the way Luke’s face scrunches at how you call them his family, and you’re not sure you’re ready for him to start pitying you, so you throw the DVD case toward him before you can second guess your choice.

Interstellar. 

You hope he doesn’t pick up on why it might be one of your favourites. Especially not considering the topic of the conversation at hand. Something about the crippling regret Cooper has for leaving Murph behind plucks harmoniously at some unidentifiable strings deep within you, but you’re hardly about to admit that to Luke, of all people.

“I love this movie,” he smiles, almost surprised, as if he expected you to throw The Notebook his way. Maybe next time - he’d probably love that movie, too, if he gave it a chance. 

“Me too. I love space movies.”

“Like Space Jam?” He asks as he pushes himself up, going toward the TV to set up the movie with the DVD in one hand and the remote control in the other. 

“No, like movies about Space,” you say, throwing yourself down onto the same couch he just vacated and tucking your feet beneath you to get comfortable. “Although I guess Space Jam would technically fit into that bracket.”

“I didn’t realise that was a genre,” he chuckles.

“Not the scary ones, though, I don’t wanna be freaked out by space.”

“Is that like a thing? You just like any movie set in space?”

“I like anything about space, period. Movies, documentaries, books. Thinking about it makes me feel really insignificant.”

“Insignificant? Is that not a bad thing?” He asks as he makes his way back, settling into his side and angling his body toward yours.

“Do you ever think about how big the universe is, Hughes? It’s humongous! If I ever feel anxious or panicky I think about just how big it is and how I’m not even a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. If I’m so tiny, how big can my problems actually be?”

“I guess that makes sense,” he seems to mull it over in his head, the thought of him even considering it and not making you feel stupid warms your chest - makes you forget just how much of yourself you’ve shared with him in the last couple of minutes alone, makes you worry less that you’re sharing too much. “I think I might be the opposite, though. Probably the youngest brother in me, I only feel better if I feel bigger.”

You think that might be why he’s always trying to one up you - sassy comments and inappropriate jokes galore. Not that you mind any of it, not really.

“What about you? What movies do you like?”

“You’re gonna be so shocked.”

“Sports movies?”

“Look at you, knowing me like the back of your hand.” He coos, nudging at your knee with his hand. “I’ll watch anything, though. We should take it in turns, whenever it’s just us,” he says like the thought of spending time alone with you has only just crossed his mind. “Picking a movie to show each other.”

You think there’s a lot of yourself in the media you consume. The movies you watch, the music you listen to, and sharing those things with Luke feels like giving him the only other key to a high security vault. It’s something you’ve avoided so far - letting him play his songs in the car, avoiding making any sort of pick in the group movie nights. It’s daunting, and it’s a lot of pressure, and so you don’t know why you agree with so much ease - a shrug, and a casual muttering of, “Sure, why not?”

The pieces of your dynamic slowly start to slot together, and you start to realise why you’ve been entertaining his company so often, lately. Why your mood so quickly de-escalated itself, earlier. Why you’ve found yourself curled up on the same couch as him, instead of literally anywhere else in the house, doing anything other than this. Why you’re so quick to agree to letting him access all these unseen parts of you.

And why you think he might be able to read your mind, after he asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Only if I get to ask one back.”

“What were you gonna do tonight, if you were on your own?”

Thank God, you think, your heart jumping at the thought of anything else he could have asked.

“I was gonna do a sheet mask and steal the bottle of wine Quinn stashed behind the laundry detergent.” You admit with a nonchalant shrug, the plans you had been looking forward to all day seeming mundane in comparison to this. “Why’d you stay behind? You love Zach Bryan.”

“I love sheet masks and stolen wine, too.”

Your lips curve up before you get the chance to huff at his non-answer, and you feel your throat go a little dry at the way his curve, too - the way his green eyes darken when they meet yours, and you feel like he’s looking straight through you.

It’s around half way through the movie that you realise how much you’re enjoying yourself - when you look over at Luke, and the light from the screen is still bouncing off the sticky white sheet plastered to his face, only just able to make out his round eyes through the little slit in the fabric. 

You sip at your wine to hide your smile, and turn your attention back to the TV until Luke nudges at your feet with his, and your eyes meet over the tops of your bent knees. 

“You tell anyone I did this, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Your laugh ripples through every inch of your upper body, rumbling up from your belly and manifesting itself in shaking shoulders, your smile wide and your sheet mask slipping out of place. “You can’t threaten me with a good time, Hughes.”

You spend the rest of the night trying not to think about how there might just be a tiny door in your heart, eking it’s way open for him to squeeze his gangly limbs into.

>PART TWO<

another a/n: I don't want to put a timeframe on when the next part will be posted bc as soon as I do that, my brain will revolt and it won't happen, but I'd love to know your thoughts in the meantime!!! I have a lot of the rest actually written, and what I don't have written, I have drafted, so it shouldn't be too long but!!! like I said no timeframe!! I've had a lot of fun with this dynamic, and hearing any opinions would mean a lot to me!!

this was my first time writing reader insert if you saw any instances of she/her where they shouldn't be, no you didn’t. I tried as best as I could to avoid using Y/N because it takes me out of it I don’t even remember if I put it anywhere but sometimes it's hard to get around I did my best ok!!!

[retroellie]

Daddy Dixon

Summary: Daryl dixon as a dad :)

A/N: Heyyyy pookies!! It's been a while <3 but it's my yearly upload, i have some others I'm working on but idk if I'll finish them. I've been very hyperfixated on writing lately, probably my period lol. But enjoy my stinky butts!! Miss y'all

Warnings: NSFW, Dirty talk and breeding kink

Word count: 3.5K

-Daryl Dixon has never seen himself as a father. He would much rather the process of making a kid than the actual kid itself. Considering his childhood, maybe it's for the best.

-However, this man definitely has a breeding kink idc

-He loves the intimacy of cumming inside you. The way your body reacts to him filling you up, the way your eyes roll back, and your legs start to shake

-He can't help but picture how pretty you'd look pregnant as well... but he never actually wants you pregnant, he can't be a father

-When you found out, you didn't know how he'd react... you weren't sure if his obsession with cumming inside you was just that or if he really wanted you knocked up

-You tried to drop hints to him, just trying to decide if he was cool with it.

-"Jesus... fucking love your tits." He would moan out while his face was stuffed against your chest.

-"You know... pregnancy makes a woman's boobs so much bigger... cause they fill with milk and shit."...

-You weren't too good at dropping hints clearly; you made a lot of foreplay awkward with it. But how does one go about this?

-You eventually told him, you could only hide the small bump and morning sickness for so long

-To your surprise... he was furious.

-You knew he would have a lot of different emotions coming out. Hell, you did too, but the way he snapped... the way he yelled at you.

-"Are you fucking serious?? Please tell me your fucking with me girl!!"

-You couldn't tell if your tears were because of him yelling or if it was the pregnancy hormones already coming out to play. 

-You were a puddle on the floor as you watched him pace back and forth. Yelling terrible things, things that you were never even sure he was capable of saying.

-The worst thing he said... the worst thing he accused you of... was cheating.

-"It ain't mine!!! That's for damn sure!!"

-"Daryl your the only one i've been with since the end of the fucking world!! Plus you don't don't how to fucking pull out!!"

-"Nah... you've been hanging out with Spencer for a while!! Following him around like a damn puppy!"

-The whole argument ended with punched walls, slammed doors, and a sobbing you curled up on the floor.

-You hated it... But you started to think maybe he was exactly like his father. He sure seemed to act like it

-The worst part is he thought it too... but the only difference between them was he couldn't rid this ache deep in his chest every time he thought of your tear-filled eyes as he screamed.

-He cooled off for 2 weeks... he needed to. He needed to gather his thoughts, he needed to clear his head and make sure he came up with the best damn apology he could

-He eventually did. He picked flowers for you, made dinner, got down on his knees, and ate you out right on the kitchen table.

-That night he apolgized so much it was ingraved in your brain, even after all the fucking you did. 

-"I'm really sorry, y/n. I just... this is all so new and 'm scared I'm going to be like my old man. Ya deserve a good guy to raise a kid with and that baby does too... I think I'm just a little bit scared... I'm going to fuck this kid up."

-It was the most vulnerable you've ever seen him. That alone just proves how different he was from his dad... or any man that would ever do the things he did to his child.

-After that, Daryl was always with you. He stopped going on runs and on long hunting trips. He was literally connected to you. It was almost suffocating, but it was nice to have him around and not run away every chance he got.

-The very rare times he did go on runs, it was just for you.

-The stores he would scope out, he made sure to go to the mommy/baby sections first and take whatever contraptions he could

-One time he brought home headphones that go around your stomach to play music for the baby.

-"Daryl... why does the baby need music?"

-"Guess it's supposed to increase brain waves or some shit?? I don't know a woman!"

-He made sure you were as comfortable as you could be. He ran baths for you and helped you bathe, he would give you massages, and he would allow you to use him as a body pillow.

-You had him wrapped around your finger... but he couldn't deny that he loved it

-Of course he was also your personal sex toy!! Even when you were all big and pregnant.

-Any and every time you needed him, he was there for you.

-Sometimes you could only ride him; that's the only position your big belly allowed you. So Daryl would just lie down, one hand on your hip and the other in yours so you could balance... He would just watch you thrust and buck down on him as if you were a goddess walking the earth.

-"Feel good, baby? Are you hurting?"

-"Mhhh... fuck! No, please... keep... f.... keep your hips like that!"

-Sometimes you couldn't even do all that you were so big. So Daryl would lay you down, a pillow underneath your hip, and he would thrust into you so softly. yet he would still have you cumming within minutes.

-You and Daryl both decorate the nursery. There wasn't much of a theme due to the lack of baby decorations in the end of the world. But you did your best, making sure it was gender neutral due to the lack of knowledge about the gender.

-You also had so much help from the community, like so much that it was kind of like the group's baby more than it was yours

-Carol was like your damn mentor, she made sure you knew what you were getting yourself into

-"Breastfeeding would probably be best for you, I mean there's only so much formula.... and if you're already leaking then that's a good sign!! But just in case, make sure you are massaging and lotioning your nipples every night... You can even have Daryl stimulate them during sex. Just to keep them flowing and not clogging up on you!"

-You just asked about baby bottles....

-Glenn, Maggie, Rick, and Michonne all gave you hand-me-downs from their kids. Like you had a mountain of clothes by the time you were 5 months.

-There were times when the pregnancy got so overwhelming for you... like just the exhaustion and the aches and pains and the insecurity, causing you to break down in tears.

-Daryl would hold you, rubbing your stomach softly while you cried into his neck.

-"Honey... you are doing so good. You will be such a good mom... This kid is lucky to have you, I know I couldn't carry a child the way you do."

-He was never good with words, never good with emotions... but something about seeing you all pregnant made him so vulnerable. Suddenly he was a damn poet...

-You were forbidden to set foot outside of Alexandria. Like literally forbidden... even from the group?!? As if you'd want to go out there...

-But of course, you complained about it, you couldn't let your pregnancy make you soft

-The birth was kind of crazy, very unexpected and very fucking crazy

-Your water broke, Daryl rushed you over to the medic. Suddenly, Michonne was holding one of your hands, and Daryl was holding the other. Rick was throwing instruments to Maggie, who for some reason, was delivering the baby. Carol was helping, then Eugene was in there, then Glenn, hell, why not have Abraham in there as well!

-But it didn't matter because 20 minutes into pushing, your baby was in your arms.

-You were very similar to Daryl in the "I don't think I'll be a good parent" department. But at that moment, looking down at your newborn... You knew you would do anything for them.

-For the first couple of days, you spent at the medic to make sure everything was good... in those first couple of days, Daryl refused to hold the kid.

-He seemed to think he would break them, they were so fragile and frail... his hands were so rough that he felt he would turn them to dust by simply touching them. However, he was always around, always watching and making sure they were okay.

-One day, you got frustrated with it, even if you were trying to be as understanding as you could. You had just pushed out a 7 pound baby with Daryl's big ass head, you needed Daryl to hold them when you needed to pee, okay??

-You pulled him over to your bed one day, sitting him down and handing him the baby.

-"Woah!! woah Y/N!!"

-"Shush!! You're gonna startle them... Here, just support their head... There you go..."

-He melted immediately, almost surprised that they didn't break from him merely holding them. It was a touching moment, almost like the world clicked for Daryl

-After that, the baby was attached to Daryl... you didn't mind, you got some good naps.

-Daryl was a good dad, no... he was a great fucking dad. Not to mention him being the best co-parent out there.

-Like you always got a full night's rest because Daryl refused to let you get up to get the baby.

-When you were stressed, almost crying on the floor because the baby would not stop crying, Daryl would take the baby from you, give you a soft kiss and tell you to take a nice shower.

-Daryl would make you meals while you tried to get the baby down for a nap or bedtime.

-It's almost like Daryl's years of hunting and living out in the forest prepared him for this in a weird way. Days without sleep, thrown-together meals, no time to focus on himself.

-Daryl talked so softly to the baby too, he was still very afraid to hurt them because of how small they were. So he used his softest voice when speaking to them.

-"You're a hungry little thing, huh?? Aren't you, sweetheart... yeah..."

-"Oohh Shhh... It's okay, honey. Daddy's here..."

-"Is that mommy?? yeah?? You wanna say hi to mommy??"

-He definitely calls the baby "Bug", "Bunny", and "honey"... and yes, "Sweetheart" as well. Idk it just fits him

-He loves calling himself daddy and you mommy. I feel like this is nonsexual too, like it just makes him giddy thinking y'all have a baby together.

-Unfortunately, he does need to leave on runs sometimes because he is like the only one who can track, so the group needs him. He hates it though, he hates being away from his kid.

-When he gets back, he won't put the kid down, man.... he makes sure to tell the baby all about his trips though. You could listen to him talk to the baby for hours.

-"Daddy rode his bike all the way back home with Uncle Rick on his bike!! Even though daddy almost flung him off the back of it many times.... what?" He said, watching you stare at him from afar.

"Nothing... nothing at all, Dixon." You said, smiling down at the dishes you were doing.

-Of course Daryl still makes time for you, no matter how busy he is... he doesn't care. He has to give the mother of his child love too.

-After the baby was asleep and he knew the baby would STAY asleep... he had you on that bed.

-Daryl was much softer now. Long drawn-out session with eye contact and soft caresses... he was a dad now, he was just softer in every aspect.

-However, daryl dixon is still the wild and dirty fucker he has always been. So if there ever is a time where you just need to be fucked nice and good, or even a time when daryl KNOWS you need to be fucked nice and good... trust he will.

-Like one time, you were so very stressed out. The baby would not go down for bed, the laundry needed to be folded, the dishes had piled up from dinner, one of your milk ducts was clogged, your hair hadn't been brushed for days... you were a tired mom.

-Daryl noticed it as soon as he got home; the stress just radiated off of you.

-He took the baby from you, rocking them gently as he ghosted his lips over your ear.

-"Go to the bedroom... I'll be there when I get the baby to sleep."

-It was not a suggestion, it was a demand, and you were not going to pass up on that.

-It was 2 hours of pure Daryl... a couple of breaks in between so Daryl could check on the baby, but other than that it was just him.

-I'm talking, rope, spankings, choking, praising mixed with some degradation, folding you in half, soft kisses, and face being pushed into the mattress so you wouldn't wake the baby.

-You were feeling much better after that :)

-I just want to draw some attention to domestic Daryl :) Like Daryl doing laundry or dishes while you take care of the baby.

-Watching the kid grow up was hard for Daryl, like really hard... because they were so small only a year ago?!?! Why are they talking and walking now?

-He would be so excited to show you how they walk or a new word he taught them.

-"Go on, bug!! tell mommy!!" He said, excitedly holding the baby up to you as you folded the never-ending laundry.

-"f... f... fr.. oog.. froog" your baby would struggle out.

-Fortunately, everyone loved the baby!! So you had babysitters for days.

-Sometimes, carols would come over just so y'all could get some actual sleep or just a decent shower.

-Birthdays are always big for the baby, since they are your first, obviously y'all are going full on out!

-Daryl made you dress up like a princess one year and, surprisingly, got Rick into a dinosaur costume another year!

-The baby had made you both so much softer around the edges, but that did not mean you two weren't still capable of the things you were before. I would say it made it even worse, the lengths you two would go to keep that baby safe...

-There was a raider you came in contact with on a run, it was all fun and games till he brought your kid up. A rage rushed over you, and you were this hungry monster, hitting and stabbing whatever you could because no one brings up your kid like that...

-The kid was NEVER allowed outside the walls until they hit 13... that was an agreement you both made very early on when you guys had seen the innocence the child radiated. You promised to keep them that way as long as you could.

-There were nights when Daryl would get quiet, like really quiet and you weren't used to that, especially now. So when you would ask if he was okay, he would kind of shrug it off... but when he eventually opened up, it left him a shaking mess.

-"I'm just thinking about my old man..."

-"Daryl, honey... You're nothing like that. You know that, right?"

-"Yeah... yeah, no I know. I just... I look at that baby and I think, how could anyone do that to a child? Did I do something? Was I made differently?"

-The whole him having a kid thing really sent him down a spiral of his abusive childhood. Not only was he scared of becoming his father, but he was scared of the things his father had done.

-When Daryl got frustrated or angry at your kid, he would have to walk away... not that he would ever hurt them, but the slight possibility that he could snap, even just yelling... he wasn't taking chances.

-Sometimes the thought of his father made him so paranoid that he would become distant, needing space to just clear his mind because he can't be a father if he feels like everything he touches will get burned...

-You just let him have his time, making sure to be soft with him when he comes around again.

-In conclusion, Daryl is very traumatized... he's hurt and sometimes it all gets too much for him but that doesn't mean he won't try to be the best damn father out there.

-The baby just does not stop growing and before you guys know it, they're now a child with thoughts and words.

-Of course they grow up to look exactly like Daryl, same blue eyes and brown hair.... asshole wouldn't let your kid have any of your genes.

-You would think having a baby would be harder than having a child, but you would be wrong.

-There is so much that comes with having a child!! They need constant stimulation or they go insane. So your house is always a mess, toys scattered everywhere, dirty clothes, snacks they forgot to eat... not to mention Daryl's crossbows.

-Daryl gets down on the floor to play with your kid, acting out funny little scenarios with they're action figures or letting them put makeup on him.

-Bedtime stories are a must! And luckily, Daryl is very good at telling a good story.

-Daryl being a good father gets all hot and bothered, like it makes your heart flutter and your stomach twists and turns...

-As soon as the kid falls asleep, you are on Daryl, man. Like a wild animal, probably even more eager and needy than before you had a kid.

-"Woah there.... I guess princess wizards and talking donkeys really get you going, huh?"

-"Jesus christ Dixon... shut up and fuck me."

-Even though quickies have been a more common occurrence nowadays, Daryl still loves his drawn-out love-making sessions. He likes to take his time on you, likes to worship the body that brought his favorite human into the world.

-He also makes sure you KNOW you're beautiful and he still loves you, stretch marks and baby fat and wider hips and all... he thinks you're the most sexy person ever.

-"So pretty... so fucking pretty baby... you're glowing..."

-"Look at those hips bunny... makes me wanna fill you up with another one..."

-"No, no... let me see that tummy baby... Look at that, so soft..."

-He's just very understanding surprisingly, like he just knows how your post-pregnancy body has you feeling. So he makes sure he does what he can to make you feel better.

-Daryl helps the kid with their homework, math and science... he tries to help at least. He usually gets frustrated because how did math change all of a sudden?

-"No, daddy! The triangle has 4 faces! but 3 sides...."

-"How the hell..." He sighs, throwing the pencil down in defeat. "Alright...You win kid, guess I owe you ice cream huh?"

-Daryl is very protective of his kid, man... I can not say this enough because this man will literally break someone's jaw for looking at his kid wrong.

-"A kid in my class told me I had weird teeth," your kid said sadly at dinner one night.

-"What?? Did you beat the shit out of them? You better have! What about their dad?? Can their dad fight? Cause I swear to god, when I get my h..."

-"Daryl!!" You had to step in because you knew he could go on and on with his threats.

-After that, Daryl taught your kid how to stand up for themselves... The "redneck way" he explained it. It was basically just throwing punches and bringing up their mother.

-School nights at the Dixon residence are never boring. Trying to get your kid to take a bath and get them in bed is almost more impossible than trying to get Daryl to do the same. Definitely their father's kid man...

-One night on a school night, you were making dinner while your kid did their homework. You were so focused on getting the recipe for "butter squash soup" that you didn't realize Daryl was coming up behind you.

-You giggled softly as his hands found your hips, his lips found your neck and he swayed you both softly. It was a romantic moment, the first slow moment you had all day it seemed... until you heard a squeaky, "EWWWW"

-You kid laughed out, covering their eyes as they jokingly gagged.

-"What?!? I can't love on mommy?!?"

-"No!! That's gross!! Mommy has cooties now!!"

-"Oh cooties huh?? Oh so daddy has cooties..." He said as he lunged at the kid, engulfing them into a hug and covering their little face with kisses.

-The night ended with you and Daryl sneaking out of your kid's room after they had fallen asleep, one last look just to make sure they were still asleep

-"Let's have another one..." You whispered to Daryl as you watched the kids soft breathing.

-"Well... what mommy wants, mommy gets." Daryl says, dragging you off into the bedroom.

[pierregazly]

the bookworm ꨄ george russell smau

george russell x bookworm/writer!reader

the one where george couldn't be prouder to call you his, even if it seems like the whole world hates you just for doing what you love... even if they don't know the whole truth.

georgerussell63

tagged yourusername

liked by yourusername, alex_albon, f1wags, and others

georgerussell63 enjoyed the time off! would never complain about spending time with my best friend, time to get back into things 💪🏎

view all comments

username gotta go check off 'george posts shirtless pics during off szn' on my bingo card

username gotta go check off 'yn cares more about her own hobby than her bf' on my bingo card

username girl you got issues with books? can't read?

alex_albon bad hair day? or are hats your new thing

yourusername tried to convince him to go with the bucket hat, but he claims 'all the kids are wearing caps babe'

username girlypop can't even enjoy a holiday with george without being focused on anything other than him??

username he's literally NECKING her in one of the photos?????? do you want her to koala hold him everywhere???

username future wdc russell george and his future writer wife frfr

username 1/2 of these things are probably true and we both know it's not the second lol

yourusername spoiling me always, my handsome handsome man 💗

georgerussell63 wouldn't have spent the last few weeks with anyone else (even if you kick me in your sleep nightly)

username do you think yourusername pictures george as the main male character in any of the books she reads???

username if i can picture him in fanfiction, im sure she pictures him in everything else???

gisèlerosebooks

liked by yourusername, lilymhe, username, and others

gisèlerosebooks first time being on any device since my trip with my favourite person ended. the love on collided continues to amaze me, and i'm so extremely honoured to continuously receive so much love from not only the reading community, but many of the formula 1 faithful as well. this is NOT the end of the journey, either. for now, let the formula 1 season begin... and maybe find me at a race or two? 🤭

view all comments

gisèlerosebooks oh and to my incredible, amazing, handsome boyfriend, thank you so much for always proofreading my formula 1 terminology and understanding. i promise i'll give you real credit one day.

username god adrien is so charles leclerc coded, he's all i could think about this entire book

lilymhe 🏎🫶🏻

username the fact i literally could've cared less about the lil zoom zoom cars before the dirty air series dropped and now im eager for the new season.... gisèle baby why u do this to me

username miss girl???? how are we supposed to find you at any races when we don't even know what you look like!!!

username jealous of gisèle's bf is!!! his gf is too talented for the world

username not throttled being the book to get me back into reading and now i'm blessed wth a second book??? mother is mothering real hard

username this is the type of book series i'd totally read at the track and imagine an f1 driver as my husband sry

username 10/10 book!!! dying!!!

yourusername has posted a story

liked by georgerussell63, lilymhe, bestfrienduser, and others

replies

georgerussell63 wow we're so lucious and hot

yourusername luscious sweetie

georgerussell63 god i love having a hot, smart, book-writer gf. write a book about me and use that word

yourusername they're all already about you??? (handsome)

username you showed up to a race?????? shocking

gisèlerosebooks has posted a story

liked by georgerussell63, username, username, and others

replies

username omg!!!! where are you!!! dying to meet you omfg

username YOU WERE SERIOUS

georgerussell63 i saw u slip up and post this on the og account loser

georgerussell63 can i have my scooter back ya nerd

gisèlerosebooks no sorry </3 i own it now

georgerussell63 no creds in the books and now my scooter stolen???? you hate the british

gisèlerosebooks my pseudonym is an ODE to you PAL

georgerussell63

tagged yourusername and gisèlerosebooks

liked by yourusername, gisèlerosebooks, lilymhe, and others

georgerussell63 a shame that this weekend didn't go the way we all wanted it to go, i know for a fact we'll be coming out on top soon! i also know yourusername or as most of you seem to prefer (for no valid reason at all) gisèlerosebooks is pretty deep in finishing book 3 and apparently this weekend was super influential??? go me (give me book creds)

view all comments

yourusername george!!! lmao!!!

yourusername a heads up next time??? maybe?!?

username 'for no valid reason at all' so SASSY oh boy

username everyone on twitter the other day calling yourusername a freeloader is soooo not doing well rn

lilymhe the secret's out!!!! (shocked, baffled, wild, can i get my books signed now)

username (G)isèle (R)ose... (G)eorge (R)ussell... dare i say... deliberately done

yourusername 🤭

username amazing race this weekend!!! can't wait to see you on top

username no one talking about book 3 almost being done??? or the fact george proofreads all her writing??? so cute

charles_leclerc so collided... is not about me?

georgerussell63 get lost mate

yourusername has posted a story

liked by georgerussell63, alex_albon, username, and others

replies

georgerussell63 you think im a gentleman??? love you

yourusername the BIGGEST gentleman, i love you

username god this is so cute

georgerussell63

tagged yourusername and gisèlerosebooks

liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, username and others

georgerussell63 that's my little freeloading, best-selling author and future wife!

view all comments

username someone come get this chronically online man rn!!

yourusername can i be your freeloader forever??? spending my own money sucks

georgerussell63 my money's your money always my little freeloader

alex_albon emphasis on the best-selling author and future wife part

georgerussell63 you're right mate

username re-reading dirty air and knowing fully the entire book series is about george makes me so happy omg

username proud to admit i loved yourusername before AND after she was revealed as everyone's fav author (and it's not just a hobby losers)

username george doesn't get book creds until he wins a race again :)

yourusername i love this stipulation!!! georgerussell63 thoughts?

georgerussell63 you hate the british.

i had SO much fun writing this!!! i picked george after going down a george rabbit hole again (of course), so i hope you all love it!! thanks for all the love always.

i'm not necessarily taking requests right now, but if you have suggestions please feel free to send them my way.

[damiansgoodgirll]

HIIIIIII I saw you're Damian and Rhea x reader that you just posted AND I HAVE A IDEA (No rush I'm just sending it so I don't forget)

OKAY SO in the same universe as the previous fic what if backstage on Monday night raw finn starts trying to convince the reader to join the new judgment day (bc he obviously still cares for the kid) like trying to get jd or Dom to guilt trip them or even getting liv Morgan to be buddy buddy since reader had trouble making friends.

But the reader STAYS LOYAL to the terror twins 🖤

running to write this because i love it, here’s part one

the judgment day x reader (platonic) , mention of drew mcintyre

‼️finn being a good manipulator lol, family issues, fear of abandonment, angst, reader feeling insecure, brief mention of suicidal thoughts (sorry it’s a little angst)

don’t break my heart - part 2

you lied if you said that you slept the night right after summerslam. no, you were in your hotel room watching the ceiling over and over, thinking of what was going to happen now. damian and rhea made sure to stay with you a few hours after the show, helping you calm down and making sure that you would eat something.

but they were tired and angry, so you perfectly understood when they waved goodbye and went to their rooms. they needed time to think and to cool off.

5 am and you were up to board on your next flight that didn’t leave until noon. you were living off on caffeine and sugar drinks but you didn’t care. you had no idea what was going to happen on monday night raw because you weren’t supposed to have any matches that night, you knew you would go with rhea and damian but you didn’t know what your future was going to be.

once you landed and you checked in into your new hotel room, you received a text from finn, saying to let him know once you arrived at the arena because he wanted to talk to you.

you drove along with rhea and damian and they both sensed your fear as you kept quiet, “you okay there?” damian asked you.

“uh?” you woke up from your trance.

“dam asked if you were okay, is everything okay y/n?” rhea added turning to face you.

“oh yes, i’m okay, just a lil nervous…” you hated lie to them, you hated lie in general but you couldn’t tell them that you were about to meet with finn. they would probably get mad at you and the last thing you wanted was to have your best friends hating on you too, so you kept it for yourself.

damian kept driving, knowing that eventually you would open up to them when you were ready.

once at the arena you waved them goodbye and went straight to your changing room. rhea told you to get ready in case something happened and if she needed your help so you did as she told you.

you texted finn and told him he could come over if he needed to talk to you so bad and not even 10 minutes later you heard a knock on the door.

“come in…” you screamed and he let himself in.

“hey…”

“hi” you couldn’t deny that the situation was awkward. you stood there for a couple of minutes before he could talk.

“listen…y/n i’m so sorry for everything that happened at summerslam” he apologized to you but you knew he wasn’t sorry at all.

“you lied to me finn…”

“and you lied to damian and rhea because i’m pretty sure they don’t know i’m here” he smirked at you and that look made you sick in the stomach.

“are you here to threaten me? are you to destroy the little family i have left? what do you want finn…i have no time for more bullshit, please” your voice sounded broken and finn hated himself for the way he treated you.

“i know…i’m so sorry for everything and you have to believe me…i’m not sorry for damian or for rhea because i got tired of being their little puppy, dominik too…but i have nothing against you, never have, never wil…i care about you y/n…don’t you remember all the things we shared? all the things we’ve went through?”

and you couldn’t lie to him. you will always remember how kind and patient and caring he has always been with you.

he was the first person you told about your past, even before telling damian and rhea. he was the one who held you while you cried when you told him about your thought of ending your life. he was the one who comforted you and made sure you never felt left out. and he was true when he said you’ve been through a lot because he was always there for you.

but so were damian and rhea so you couldn’t understand why was finn telling you all of that.

“why are you here finn?” you simply asked him, his way of bringing back memories made you feel guilty. seeing how much you depended upon someone made you realize that you probably were better alone than with someone.

“i want you to join us…”

“join who?”

“me…y/n, me, dom, jd and liv…listen, i know you and i know damian and rhea and they will leave you at some point…they are both chasing vengeance and power, they want their titles back, they won’t be with you forever and, i’m sorry to say it but they won’t take care about you forever…you saw the way rhea treated dom or the way damian treated jd…” his words were starting to impress in your head “jd kinda likes you” he chuckled “no, i’m pretty sure he has a crush on you…and listen, liv is really a friendly person, i know you don’t like her right now but i promise you, if you get to know her you will like her more…just give us a chance”

maybe he was right.

maybe you would ended up being alone one day and he was right about that damian and rhea had their own lives apart from you. hell, rhea just got married, maybe she would like to start a family one day…maybe finn was right.

finn always cared about you, he proved it many times so why were you afraid of trusting him?

“i-i…i don’t know finn…” your mind started to overthink. you were feeling overwhelmed and despite you still loved finn, despite you still caring for him, you couldn’t betray damian and rhea.

“listen i-…”

“no finn, you listen to me. how can you expect me to choose between you or them? how-how can you tear this family apart like this? because maybe for you it was nothing but for me…for me it was everything…” tears slowly falling down your face.

finn knew that it was wrong putting you in all of this mess. he knew that no matter what he still would have a space for you in his heart but the idea of choosing them instead of him made him feel useless, like somehow he failed you.

“i can’t choose between you or them because you are the ones who broke this group apart…” more tears falling from your eyes “i-i can’t finn…i can’t” and before he could say anything else, you turned to face the door and quickly left your changing room.

drew noticed you walking down the arena corridors with teary eyes and no matter how many time he called you, your mind couldn’t register any sound or noise. it felt like you couldn’t hear anything except your heart beating in your chest.

i just saw y/n crying and going towards the emergency exit of the arena. finn balor just came out of her changing room. don’t know what happened but she seems overwhelmed, she needs you.

drew texted rhea. he was pretty worried when he saw in what state you were in. he knew that even if he chased you, you probably would have just pushed him away. he knew something about your past and he knew how the other females in the roster would give you “the looks” and honestly he felt for you, he just wanted you to feel welcomed because for him, the wwe was just a big huge family. he knew that you needed time, that’s why he warned rhea.

when she read the text, she felt her heart missing a few beats.

“what?” damian asked a little concerned when he saw the look on her face.

she was still a little shocked “drew texted me…he saw finn leaving y/n’s changing room and he said that when she left she was crying…she’s probably going’s back to the hotel, he said she’s going outside”

that was all damian needed to hear before leaving rhea’s changing room and sprinting over the emergency exit. rhea following behind, making a note to thank drew later.

they both saw you sitting on the emergency stairs and slowly they both approached you.

damian sat in front of you while rhea sat next to you “hey angel…” rhea slowly turned your face towards hers “why are you crying beautiful?”

in that moment you saw it in their eyes.

they cared.

they cared like a family.

rhea was about to cry because she couldn’t stand the idea of seeing you upset.

“finn wanted to talk to me…he, well, he basically offered me a spot to join him alongside with dom, jd and liv…” you said. you feared that they would get mad but rhea’s eyes told you the opposite.

“and what did you say?” damian asked you, gently smiling at you.

“that i can’t…i can’t leave you, i can’t even look him in the eyes, it just hurts too much and i can’t have you hate on me too” you softly spoke.

damian looked at you and saw nothing but pure intentions “y/n…we could never hate you. we know how close you and finn are, and i know it hurts right now so we won’t forbid you to see him again if you want to…”

“but i can’t damian! it doesn’t feel right, it’s not right! i’m not turning my back on you, i would never do that…you guys mean so much for me and i can’t stand the idea of losing you or hate you but…but finn said some things that made me think…”

“what did he say sweetheart?” rhea gently asked.

“well, for instance, rhea you just got married…and i can’t hold you back for the rest of my life just because my head is a fucking mess, you have your life and i don’t want you to feel the need to look after me forever…same goes for you damian, i can’t depend on you for the rest of my life…”

“that’s absolute nonsense y/n” damian said and rhea agreed with him. she was mad with finn for playing those mind tricks with you, knowing exactly that your mind wasn’t in the right place and that you would get negative thoughts very easily.

“listen” damian spoke “we are a family okay? we stay together, now, tomorrow and in ten years okay? just because we have a life outside this company doesn’t mean that you’re not a part of our life outside of it okay? we stay together instead and outside…i love you like you are my own sister, fuck you could be my daughter y/n…” damian joked making you laugh.

“damian’s right” rhea held your hands “we stay together because we care about you, now and in a million years…”

“thank you for everything guys…” you smiled at both at them.

“you don’t have to thank us love…” rhea wiped some of your tears away “now, why don’t you help me getting ready uh? tonight’s gonna be a big night and i want to look perfect” she laughed making you laugh too.

“yup” you smiled and with their help you got up from the uncomfortable stairs.

rhea mentally noted to thank drew and to kick finn’s ass because he made you doubt yourself, and most importantly, he made you cry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

okay so what about part 3 with reader and drew getting to know each other and developing feelings for each other and damian and rhea acting like big parents to reader?

PART 3

[peaxhxhair]

Raising Kids with them - Overwatch Heroes

Featuring: Cassidy, Mercy, Moira, Roadhog, Junker Queen Warnings: Moira. A/n: this isn't exactly the official setting for each character - but this is fanfiction so we're gonna ignore it lol Navigation Overwatch - MASTERLIST Consider becoming a member! <3

Odessa Stone (Junker Queen)

She wouldn't be into having kids at first - thinking that something so small would make her weak.

It does - but she refuses to admit it.

You both decided adoption was probably the best option - adopting a sweet baby girl.

I think Dez would be all about teaching her kids to fight.

Even before they've learnt to walk.

"C'mon kiddo! I was fighting at your age!"

Sometimes you would find her playing with your baby - making it look as if they were both boxing.

It was quite a funny sight.

You'll come home from work and find them watching wrestling or something.

Probably swears around your kid.

Your babies first word is probably 'cunt' or 'fuck'

You're usually the one to take your daughter to school, but on the off chance Dez does - the rest of the parents are scared of her.

The kids adore her though.

She'll struggle doing stuff like diaper changes at first - as anyone would

~~~

As your daughter gets older - she grows into a mini version of Dez.

She wont call her 'mom' - instead calling her something silly like 'cunt' or 'fuckwit'

Dez gets a real kick out of it - and does the same.

Dez would be a little disappointed if your kid didn't want to fight, though she'd still be supportive - even if she didn't really understand.

Cries on your daughters wedding day - but tries to hide it.

"I'm not crying cunt, you're crying"

Mako Rutledge (Roadhog)

I think Mako would be really good with kids-

Big brooding dad & cute tiny daughter combo type vibe

Maybe she's really talkative, and he just listens.

He'd let her put clips in his hair and paint his nails.

It's giving Gru when his girls are doing ballet.

He's always the one to hold the kids when needed - since he barely has any issue.

His hands are just so big.

Even if you had like - 4 kids he would have no trouble carrying them all.

You were grateful that you could have some time alone sometimes, as Mako is a very competent father.

'crane's hand back while driving when kid opens snack' dad

Your kid might pretend to wear his shoes - and they can barely even stand properly in them, let alone walk.

Moira O'Deorain 

Does not want kids.

Only agreed because you would make a face at her whenever you saw a baby.

test-tube baby fr

Literally will not go to another doctor about her kids health.

Does she know anything about kids? No.

Does she think she knows more than the QUALIFIED children's doctors? Absolutely she does.

MIGHT agree to taking your kid to see Angela - if you're not too keen on her doing science on your kid.

HATES being called mom.

She's fine with your kid just calling her by her name.

This was weird on the first day of school - most parents thinking your kids other parent wasn't in the picture.

She was fine with that idea - meaning that you 'left' your old partner for her. Narcissist.

~~~

Your babies first word was definitely her name.

but in the cute baby way.

'Moiwa'

When your kid gets a little older, maybe they'll ask about Moira's arm.

"This is what happens when you smoke"

Your kid will never even THINK about smoking ever again.

It isn't until they're 30 that they realise that wasn't true.

Prefers to keep her kids away from science - as much as it was important to her.

She'll barely talk to you about it either - which may be hard if you're also a part of Talon.

Having to bring your kids to work with you is definitely SOMETHING.

You'd prefer for them to be with you rather than with Moira, though.

Your kids are NOSY, so you have to bend the truth a little bit.

Just to make sure they don't view their mom as the ruthless geneticist that she ACTUALLY is.

"Why is miss Amelie blue?"

"She didn't eat her vegetables"

Angela Ziegler (Mercy)

BIG on consistent check-ups.

Sometimes she'll do them herself, but she prefers the professionals.

She doesn't specialise in child care, but she does make sure that your child is going to the best doctor in the field.

Definitely enjoys shopping for baby clothes.

Works with baby on lap - letting the little guy play with her fingers.

Aeroplane noises while getting the baby to eat.

does NOT let the kid eat candy until they're like 10.

This was hard for you - because it meant you couldn't have candy in the house.

Secret stash of sweets hidden somewhere in your car.

One in Overwatch HQ too.

ALWAYS prepared.

Baby needs a snack? She's got cut up grapes in her bag.

Always has wipes and diapers.

"Hey babe? Where's their bottle?" She's already retrieved it from the drying rack.

Tiny first-aid kid in her bag at ALL times.

~~~

If your kid wants their ears pierced at Claire's. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Angela is panicked at any idea of infections - especially when it comes to your kid.

Your kiddo is made to wear clip on earrings until they qualify to be pierced by a professional.

Will always make sure places are baby safe before you take your kid there.

~~~

She's calm 90% of the time - she just cares about general safety and health.

Matching onesies with your kid.

Chilli and Bingo core :)

Angela would LOVE doing Halloween costumes for your kiddo.

They're always so CUTE.

If she has the time, she'll put together matching family ones.

Cole Cassidy

Baby carrier dad.

Like he'll just carry your baby everywhere.

Gets upset when he has to put the little guy down.

"We're just fine over here. No need to pull us apart"

Your child definitely prefers him to you - which you're fine with.

It's just so cute seeing them play together.

I'd say he's a girl dad - the type to teach her how to shoot, or play football with.

9 times out of ten, he'll fall asleep while reading her a bedtime story, so he always just ends up sleeping in your daughters bed with her.

The two of them cuddled up on the tiny mattress - he's holding your little girl so protectively.

~~~

The moms at the nursery you take your daughter to all think Cole is hot.

Too right.

They just need to learn to keep their hands to themselves.

Your kid is very protective of him - and your relationship.

If you're married, she'll be like;

"Daddy, show her your wedding ring!! Isn't it nice?"

It makes Cole chuckle every time.

Cole didn't even need to shut the women down - your kid was doing all the work for him.

~~~

Definitely the dad that all of your kids friends like

"Your dad is so cool!"

He's always invited to their little tea parties and stuff.

Yes, he will put on the crown and princess dress.

[starcurtain]

Is it just me wishing the sunday - aventiorine voice lines carried more hostility? Like if someone took me/my partner on a deadly acid trip I would not be so "forgive and forget"about it, and Aventurine especially is way way less benevolent than me lol

This ask has been in the inbox forever, I'm so sorryyyy T_T

I can definitely see why people were annoyed by the voice lines being pretty easygoing between everyone from the Penacony cast and Sunday, but I think that's less a product of "Aventurine already forgave Sunday" and more a meta decision: Voice lines don't (usually) change over time, so if they gave Aventurine and Ratio really nasty voice lines towards Sunday, it might come across as a bit odd for them to later team up with the Astral Express (including Sunday) without issue. The lines we have in-game probably represent the fact that the devs knew in advance that Sunday's allegiances would be changing and that he'd become a "good guy," so the voice lines needed to be soft enough to justify accepting him in the future.

I also think there's somewhat of a bent in the fandom to see Aventurine as a vengeful person (a lot of people still seem to be convinced that he hates the IPC and is going to betray them, for example), but we're not really given much confirmation in-game that he is that vengeful in the first place.

In his flashbacks as a kid, he mentions hating the Katicans and not understanding why they would target the Avgins, but he hasn't ever made any efforts to directly "pay them back" for what they did, nor have we ever heard him saying that the Katicans should face genocide or karmic retribution for their actions.

While he was a slave, he clearly despised the slave owner, but instead of being overtly aggressive and fighting for his freedom, he attempts to bargain his way up the ladder by going along with his master's wish for wealth--if the slave master had actually given Aventurine the 30 tanbas, I think that Aventurine would probably not have killed him; he would likely have made his master filthy rich, all while working himself into a position of freedom using the "I'm your partner in business, right? You need me!" angle until he could finally pull the rug out from under the master entirely and walk away a wealthy, free man. At the very least, it's implied that Aventurine murdered his master largely because he was pushed so far beyond what a human being could tolerate, rather than Aventurine just being particularly murderous by nature.

Even with the IPC, although Aventurine has agreed to do... something... with Boothill, we're never given any indication that Aventurine applies the logic "The IPC were the ones responsible for what happened to the Avgins" to all of the IPC. He may not be best friends with all of his colleagues in the Stonehearts, but he clearly gets along well with Topaz and Jade and doesn't seem to have any issues pursuing the IPC's missions overall--we never hear him struggle with the idea of taking back Penacony for the IPC, for example. He does not remotely seem to care about the Penaconians' freedoms being taken away lol.

I could easily be proven wrong in the future, but at least as far as we've currently been shown, my perception is that Aventurine is an extremely pragmatic person, to the point that he might see holding grudges as a detriment to himself.

The phrase that comes to mind is: "Today's enemies might be tomorrow's allies."

If you choose to hold on to animosity, you might miss an opportunity to use someone else to your advantage--and therefore you might lose the opportunity to get ahead of others entirely.

Aventurine strikes me as a character whose actions center ferociously on his own survival, his definition of accomplishment, and his own ability to "come out on top"--even if he wants to use his achievements to help his people and repay those who aided him, he needs to first experience success to be able to help others. Aventurine is extremely shrewd, extremely observant, and extremely cunning--a single glance is all it takes for him to figure out how to use the world, the tools, and the people around him to achieve his goals.

Personally, I would imagine he's quite willing to cozy up to people who've wronged him in the past--so long as they might still prove beneficial to him in the future.

Why not let bygones be bygones, friend~?

[notbojack]

Random hcs with the Lin kuei bros bc why not (gifs not from me)

Bi han

*giggling*

Anyway

His side eyes are absolutely criminal btw

When he's in a situation where he can't express his frustration, you can be sure he will send them a side eye

Yk cats when they clearly are judging you? Yeah that's him

Speaking of animals, I think if anyone retrieved some animal to the Lin kuei (cat, dog etc) he'd clearly express his disapproval bc it's a distraction or some shit

Yet he ends up being the one to take care of them (like dads with the pet they didn't want LOL that's him)

Bi han reminds me of a freaking cat so I decided he was one

A very grouchy cat that has ice daggers instead of claws-

I think he reminds me of this animal bc they can be very rude and insolent even to the people they love (saw it on tiktok srry I had to)

He was raised like that, to be tough. And though that succeeded, it still left a mark

He never really asks for help for anything even when he needs it bc he's too ashamed to admit he does need help sometimes

Kuai liang

Sigh

*tweak*

He was very obviously a daddy's boy btw just saying. It's already evident enough in the interactions so that is out of the way

But I think he really had a lot of admiration for bi han when they were kids

I saw somewhere that little siblings see their big siblings as like their second parent. I think that def happened with them

Notice how I said he HAD admiration

I think they grew apart slowly with time but it might be also bc of their mom's death that possibly made bi han even colder

He's rather similar to bi han

Haven't anyone noticed how he looks at others?? Like bro is really eyeing them down like losers lol

I think that's just how the Lin kuei raise people at this point

NOBODY is letting him cook after that one time he tried and burned down the entire kitchen

His brothers are always there to remind him randomly

"Hey can you pass me the pepper" "no I don't want you to burn down the kitchen again"

Actual interaction with his brothers btw

Still he's quite literally a heater so if you're cold yk what to do

He hates winter AND summer. He's a subtle hater of these two season (he's not)

Tomas vrbada

Oil up 😘

I'm playing (I'm not) 🤭

I think he's a humble man BUT he's a little shit

He will probably tease before fighting btw

He's mischievous as fuck. I think it's coming from being a hunter or something cuz they play with their preys or whatever

He was def playing cheeky pranks as a kid

It's why he learned his smoke abilities. He had to run FAST to not get caught after a prank (he runs really fast now bc of that) so it was easier to just disappear

That and bc bro was on the trenches in the household

I can see the Lin kuei bros "play fighting" with each other

What a gentle word to say it was a literal mortal kombat (srry I had to-)

I think he too kinda struggles to ask for help, though not as much as his brothers

He's more open minded than his brothers so I can see him acc going to see the mortal kombat movie Johnny produced

I think he's pretty interested in earthrealmers customs. He barely saw any cuz he was with the Lin kuei practically all his life so he wonders how it's like sometimes

Anyway end of my yap session. I got inspired from some mk posts. Mk fans WHERE TF ARE YOU

[ronearoundblindly]

Idk if you’ve done this before but how about assigning the cevans character to their love language?

Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Giving/Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch (and/or any you can think of)

I’m curious for your takes on who loves what 😆💕

I'm going to split this into how they give and how they receive love--which I'd like to mention are not the only ways each does, but we'll limit it to the most predominant.

*Oh dammmmmn, this was kinda difficult to narrow down but I hope I explain myself well...

No warnings. Just fun and feels!

Ari Levinson

Gives: Acts of Service

Ari feeds off the idea that being with him makes your life easier not harder; in fact, that is extremely important to him, so he prides himself on doing small (and big) things to help you out as often as he can.

Receives: Quality Time

He's a fast-paced dude who loves to do stuff: lots of excursions and new experiences, lots of hanging out with various friends he knows from a bunch of countries and very different times in his life. Being quiet, calm, and close to you is a blessing to him, something he appreciates down in his soul.

Andy Barber

Gives: Physical Touch

His job is very intense and garners him mild (if not vicious) hate. He craves closeness and is usually a little desperate to hold you after his workday. His go-to move is a hug from behind while you pour two glasses of wine, and he needs you snuggled up to him to fall asleep.

Receives: Words of Affirmation

Obviously from that description, we know touch is high on how Andy also feels love from a partner, but the top one is actually getting praised and reassured. He chose to have a career that pays well, yes, but it also requires the majority of his time and energy. Andy's heart soars when you tell him he's doing well and making you happy, when he hears you say you think his efforts are worth it.

Jake Jensen

Gives: Gifts

Tchotchke and knickknacks beyond your wildest dreams! Jake thinks about you all the time. He usually picks up small trinkets from everywhere so he can tell you the story of where they came from and what he was doing.

Receives: Physical Touch

If one of you so much as tries to argue with me on this, you will be blocked lol. You know our twitchy, touch-starved nerd is so desperate to be loved on that he absolutely requires it when you get to be together. Jake will also accept being told how much you want to touch him, via text, voicemail, or video chat, the more graphic the better...

Steve Rogers

Gives: Quality Time

Um, another 'duh' one. Steve never gets TIME, so of course he'll spend any and all that he can with you!

Receives: Gifts

Wild card for his second half though: Steve was very poor as a kid, and he was never much better as an adult--big or small. Living frugally is just...standard practice for him. However, he's a sucker for meaningful presents just for him. Secret hoarder, here, when the gifts are from people he cares about.

Bucky Barnes

Gives: Acts of Service

Bit of a two-birds-one-stone situation, but it's very important that Bucky choose what he does and who he does it for now, bonus points for it being a kind gesture for a loved one, perfect points if it's for you. I have this idea that he would actually bend over backwards to do something for you that used his abilities in a non-violent way, so you want every piece of your furniture rearranged for fung shui? Let him do it, please. And again the next month? Don't threaten him with a good time now! He's in.

Receives: Quality Time

In that same vein, someone else choosing to spend their precious time with him is more valuable than gold. He will never take a moment of it for granted. Nope. He's so grateful.

Lloyd Hansen

Gives: Words of Affirmation

If Lloyd truly, actually, really likes someone, he will say nice things to them. Not gonna lie, makes me tingle a little bit to think of this man getting to that point with anyone because it still probably sounds so damn dangerous even if he's telling you he loves you and you're perfect.

Receives: Gifts

Specifically, he only feels loved if the gifts are good and stuff he'd want or like. (Joke gifts are fun, but Lloyd just rolls his eyes at those. He find some meaning in well-thought out presents.)

Ransom Drysdale

Gives: Quality Time

The 'tell' for Ran falling in love is that he will voluntarily do stuff you like. This counts for quality time, sure, but it's all the more meaningful that he will make an effort to experience those things with you.

Receives: Words of Affirmation

Another unsurprising one, but since he did not hear very many genuinely nice things about himself growing up--aside from the fact he was a piece of crap and bully anyway,--Ransom melts like butter on hot toast.

Jimmy Dobyne

Gives: Acts of Service

Very busy, very tired, very passive when caring for himself. Jimmy will summon up energy he doesn't have to do at least one small thing for you everyday. He'll warm up your towel in the dryer while you're in the bath. He'll do the 'handwash only' dishes before you two watch some TV. He'll pick a couple of wildflowers from the back yard to put in a vase on the table for breakfast. It may not be much--he's does big things when he can but mostly it's the little things--but Jimmy is devoted to being worthy of you.

Receives: Words of Affirmation

His dad's a drunk has-been and his mother is mentally unstable; Jimmy hasn't ever had a lot of emotional support at home. Being open, encouraging him, and reassuring him all serve to bond you two closer than any blood family he knows.

James Mace

Gives: Quality Time

After all those stints training and in space, Mace will gladly be glued to you whenever he can be. The trick is that anything is quality time when he's paying attention to you, even grocery shopping.

Receives: Acts of Service

He is perfectly capable of being a self-sufficient man, no question, but there is something almost unspeakably caring about you doing something for him. The idea that anyone would help him with laundry on a terrible and packed week? Crazy. That you would water his lone plant while he's away? Shocking. You, knowingly setting up a substitute bed on the floor that's similar to his ship cot just so he can transition to sleeping for real again? Mace might cry, but you can be damn sure he'll make it comfortable enough for you to snuggle there with him.

Curtis Everett

Gives and Receives: Physical Touch

The only one on the list who has the same language for both categories, but it's not for reasons of deprivation. He's actually used to being very close and crammed with a lot of people; the difference with you is that he is purposeful in keeping you close to him and in sheer bliss when you stay connected to him even by a finger's tip.

Johnny Storm

Gives: Words of Affirmation

Johnny's are interesting because they are both things he gives to and gets from everyone to a degree, yet he does not mean them sincerely or with the same intensity to anyone but you. He's always personable, and though some of jokes might seem a little cruel or cutting, Johnny caters to getting a rise of reaction out of everybody. He doesn't necessarily care about kindness; he's looking to be memorable.

With you, however, aside from the occasional quip, never mean-spirited (but he'll outright fight if yo two a're fighting), Johnny likes to be sweet and praise you every opportunity he has.

Receives: Gifts

Again, he gets stuff all the time. He gets endorsement goodies and swag, stuff to promote. He gets gifts from hundreds of people he doesn't know for every holiday. The fan mail is a little crazy. Johnny will ploy through a crowd of people to grab his gift from you: at his birthday, at Christmas, any time at all. He appreciates that your gifts just have to do with him and not his 'persona,' all the interests he's had since he was a boy, or just a trainee, or just a NASA washout. He likes getting thoughtful but deliberately average presents, like a keychain from a band he likes or a t-shirt from each vacation.

Thank you for asking!

[Main Masterlist; Who Would... Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[strewwwberry]

I'm obsessed with shen yuan being shen jiu's reincarnation for so many reasons

- finding out would lead to many mental breakdowns

- shen yuan being a born hater is suddenly explained

- shen yuans and shen jiu's personalities are actually very similar when you take away external factors:

Shen yuan is a hater and tends to do before thinking, especially if that's insults, so does shen jiu

Shen yuan gets oddly obsessed with things, so does shen jiu

possiveness in shen jius case would be learnt behavior from having nothing, which I can easily imagine shen yuan doing the same if he grew up with nothing (which he very much didn't experience having been second gen rich kid, which even having at the very least material things, he still shows signs of posseviness with Luo binghe at times, and again, even with his internalized homophobia!)

Being weird with relationships, im not elaborating

Trust issues brought on from ASSUMPTIONS, these motherfucks assume so much! And I can't even blame them because their assumptions make so much sense in the context they're given! But give it a bit more thought alongside action outside of just asking since they clearly love men who struggle to communicate (well done binghe for growing in that aspect) so thats just a no go

So much more tbh, and I'm not even doing this in a theory way because these two being parallels is probably (don't quote me on this coz I actually love this theory but also don't care enough to defend it in any way and them being parallels is a kinda gut wrenching shit I need lol) more canon accurate, with like everything that I'm not gonna get into rn or I'm gonna cry so sue me (don't actually, I'm broke)

But yeah I love this concept smm!! Which I find funny coz I'm a scumcum lover, sy is sj child/sibling/twin/parent/disciple/shizun/probably more, and I dunno what that says about me nor do I care 😙

Edit: also sqq(j/y) hating himself and not realising it is a different kind ironic I can't quite explain except to say its so amazingly angsty to a point is goddam hilarious

[theunholybastard]

Could you do more era 3 ghoul content??? Anything, go wild lol

Absolutely!!! Perfect excuse for me to dump all my headcanons 😈🙏 I have not written NEARLY enough for this era smh </3

Era 3 Ghouls General Headcanons

(CW - Brief mentions of sex and poly/open sexual relationships)

Omega

•Very popular headcanon I know, but Terzo and him are lovers. Duh, goes without saying.

•Open relationship, but even with permission, Omega doesn't like to sleep around much; not without Terzo, at least.

•Big softy. Biggest softy. Can't watch sad movies. Or happy ones. He'll cry either way.

•Hopeless romantic. Long walks on the beach at sunset, candlelight dinner, rose petals everywhere, the whole shebang. Needs it like oxygen.

•Loves kids. Always dreamt about being a father, having a big family. Like, a big family, 5-6 kits ideally.

•Him and Alpha are always arm wrestling in the Ghoul den. Terzo is forbidden from being watching because he enjoys it wayyyy too much.

Alpha

•Resting bitch face under that mask. He's a chill guy, but he sure doesn't look like it.

•Also loves kids, but unfortunately, kids don't seem to like him. He's just too big and intimidating, and his aura is just a wee bit less pleasant for the little ones than Omegas is.

•Not to mention he's a bit awkward around them. Like he does not know how to talk to kids at all, just treats them like mini adults. (Like "Hey man what's up" to an infant or some shit)

•Has the opposite of a sweet tooth. He will physically recoil if the tiniest bit of sugar is in his coffee. He needs it black and scalding, anything else is like desert in a cup.

•May or may not have fucked Secondo once. Or twice. Or maybe a bit more than that. Who's counting?

Mist

•Genderqueer sapphic (no I'm not projecting)

•Them and Sunshine... Yeah, lovers.

•Mist and Sunny are probs the only Ghoul couple in the Ministry that is strictly monogamous. It's against a Ghouls nature to only have one partner, Ghouls are by default poly and insatiably lustful creatures. These two just happened to defy all odds.

•Very protective. They sre small but mighty and WILL bite a motherfuckers ear off. Quite confrontational when prompted.

•Big nature lover! Especially bodies of water. (She's a water Ghoul, after all)

•When they're having a bad day, they'll just go to the nearest pond or lake and wade in the water, the sound of toads croaking and crickets chirping calming her enough to return to civilization.

•People (Pebble, mostly) have had to physically pull her out of the water because she won't stop recreating the painting of Ophelia anytime she is slightly inconvenienced. They may be a bit dramatic sometimes.

Pebble

•Evil little gay boy. Not really, but kinda.

•Pissing people off is his hobby. It gets him all giggly. #1 ragebaiter.

•He has a soft spot for Mist, they're probably the only Ghoul he won't intentionally be a little shit to. BFFs 4eva <3

•Absolutely TERRIFIED of Primo. Hides behind Alpha anytime hes around. Alpha hates it.

•Takes up a lot of hobbies spontaneously. Literally anything you can think of, he's tried out for at least a week. He's been getting real good at glassblowing recently.

•DON'T touch his drums. He doesn't trim his claws and he will go for the eyes first.

Ifrit

•Loud talker. Absolutely terrible at volume control, if he's not actively thinking about it, he's yelling every sentence.

•Lover of spicy foods, the more tongue-numbing the better. Handles it better than any other fire Ghoul, it's scary...

•Big ol' goofball. You can't take anything he says seriously, it's either a setup to a joke or an elaborate prank. Ghouls will be Ghouls, I guess.

•Secretly a huge magic nerd and is VERY ashamed of it. Pebble is his #1 bully about it. Only a select few can be trusted to see him do a trick or two. He's very good at slight of hand.

•Old ladies seem to love him. I don't know why. He doesn't either. He's not complaining though, he fucking loves being invited to bingo night.

Zephyr

•Fiber glass eater. I am so serious he thinks that shit is delicious.

•Chronic pain, mainly in his legs and back. Lucifer knew he would be too strong if he had full mobility.

•Closest with Ifrit and Mist. Other than that, he doesn't really enjoy being around that many people. Not because he's a hater (like Pebble) but because he's a loner. Fiercely protective over the few he lets occupy his company.

•Quiet. Doesn't talk often, but when he does, he's very direct and well spoken, cool and calm, never raising his voice.

•Clueless. Cannot read social cues, its takes someone starts screaming at him for him to realize he may have said something upsetting.

•Ifrit is always "borrowing" his clothes because he just smells too damn good. He pretends to be annoyed by it but in reality he's actually flattered. He's a terrible liar too, hence why Ifrit continues to "borrow."

Phil/Special

•Probably the most normal guy in the Ministry.

•Hes slightly off-putting sometimes because he zones out quite a bit and doesn't realize he's staring into someones soul. Even when he isn't zoning out his eye contact is really intense.

•Also likes to keep to himself most of the time. Nobody really knows what he does all day by himself, nobody asks. Enjoys the company of Zephyr and Alpha on the occasion.

•Cannot play music for the life of him, which is why he wasn't in the touring band. He tried to learn anything, guitar, drums, singing, and he sucks at all equally. It kinda bums him out sometimes, because he's so damn passionate about music. Its chill though, he enjoys his role in the Ministry fine enough. What is his role, exactly? Uhhhhhhhhh

-

[drop-dead-dropout]

OKAY KDJEHDHDNDZHXHX I'M DONE WITH THAT FIC NOW HERE IT IS LOL

it's like 1.5k words (look I'm trying to write longer fics but there's only so much you can write when it's just One Guy Talking okay 💔)

I just made up a fake birthday for kim, I don't think he has a canon one? lmk if I'm wrong. also I am so so sorry for the random references to a le retour fic in my drafts which is probably never going to get finished... maybe one day lmao

April 19, '78

"I made it, Harry," you half-whisper reverently. Talking any louder is hard these days, decades of smoking finally catching up to you— and besides, you know he can hear you anyways.

(He can always hear you.)

"You never said, but I don't think you believed I would. Honestly, I don't blame you. I didn't either. It was a fantasy, a story I could tell myself when I was afraid. When I wanted to imagine that everything could turn out alright. But I made it. Seventy years old in a free Revachol— well, a mostly-free Revachol, in any case. And still on two feet, no less!" You set your cane on the ground and sit down on the grass, feeling a sigh rattle in your chest. "Jean says hello. Don't worry, he'll come back to see you next week, but... It just hit him. That this summer, he'll be the same age as you were. I think he needs a moment." Stretching your arms over your head, a slight groan escapes you, your aged limbs protesting the strain. "They had him and I give a talk at some local high school. Did I tell you that? Oh, you'd laugh and laugh if you met those kids. They had so many questions, and almost all of them were very silly."

Time passes. It tends to do that. A gentle spring breeze rustles the branches of the trees above you, and you inhale, a wave of calm overtaking you. You come here as often as you can, rambling for far too long about any old thing that pops into your head. You like to think he'd appreciate it, and... It's the only place you feel at home these days.

(You wonder if this is what palesickness feels like. A bone-deep ache that you can't quite bring yourself to hate. A fond smile on your lips even as grief and yearning gnaw through your ankles like twin dogs, starving and desperate. A tender feeling in your chest as you return to your memories again and again, the green of his eyes catching the light, his arms around you, the way he said your name.)

(You don't dwell on it.)

"And yes, they did ask about you." Your voice is lilting, smug, because you know he would've asked. "The three of us are something of a legend around here, you know, especially you. Apparently evacuating a whole city, through a section of underground tunneling that no one was even sure still existed is, ah, mildly impressive. Though most of the kids were more interested in seeing if the rumors were true— about the amnesia, and the voices especially. I wanted to be honest, and Jean seemed more than happy to reminisce. But the teachers were shooting us dirty looks for telling their young and impressionable pupils about such fantastical things, so we had to keep it vague."

As you take off your glasses for a moment to wipe away a few stubborn smudges on the lenses, you blink a few times, disoriented at your sudden loss of vision. "Speaking of our reputations, did you know they have a saying these days? Le rêveur, l'aviateur, le commandant. You, me, and Jean's old titles. It basically means 'to envision what must be done, to carry yourself to your goal, and to have the strength to see it through'. I heard someone say it the other day and I turned towards them, as if they were calling my name..." You chuckle, shaking your head. "... I suppose it still shocks me sometimes, how much we accomplished. How much we mattered."

Tilting your head up, you try to make out shapes in the clouds, the way he always used to. It's a fruitless endeavor— your distance vision may be relatively intact, but you never had his imagination. But that's alright. Even if the sky is just a meaningless swirl of colors, it's still beautiful to you. "Anyways, I'm getting off-topic. I meant to tell you, at one point they asked about us. What I was to you. How I knew so much. Why we were always so close." A light puff of amusement escapes you, despite yourself. "I swear Jean was almost purple, the way he held in his laughter. Mister Kitsuragi, my sister says you were secretly brothers, but Jessica's mum told me his eyes were green, and your eyes aren't green. Were you adopted? Kids say the funniest things. If this were a decade ago, if I was still RCM, I would've just lied. Though perhaps not with such an improbable explanation. It's just..."

Your left hand drifts up, out of habit, to the twine around your neck.

But you don't wear the ring on your neck anymore, do you? You wear it on your finger, where it should be. Because you can.

"When Toussaint, the lazy old fool, finally got around to marriage equality back in '71, I personally requested that same week for the judiciary to make it official for us. I doubt they would've bothered for anyone else. It's posthumous, after all... Not useful for much other than sentiment, and a bit of an odd request either way. But, like I said before, our names carry a lot of weight." A wistful smile tugs at your lips. "So, when that child asked me that ridiculous question, up on that stage in front of a crowd of nearly two thousand, I showed them my ring and I called myself your husband for the first time. And no, it doesn't count that we were already saying it to each other," you quip. "It went over well. I wasn't worried, of course. It's '78; two men being in love is hardly a matter of life or death these days. But... It made me miss you. Not in the quiet way I always do, but in a way that hurts like it hasn't hurt in years." You swallow, more embarrassed by the naked longing in your voice than the admission itself. "So I've brought you something. Isn't that funny? Giving you a gift on my birthday. You'll have a lot to make up for when I see you again." The chiding words are undercut by the grin you can't quite hide as you dig through your messenger bag.

When you find what you're looking for— a weathered Mnemotechnique A6, torn in a few places, practically ancient— you place it on the ground in front of him, opening the cover to admire the flower pressed into its first page. "I can't believe I managed to hold on to this old thing. It's from when we first met, in Martinaise. Jean had the idea to press a flower in, so I picked a may bell. I thought you'd like it— you always used to like them, and I suppose they've grown on me, too."

Closing the notebook, you slide it closer to him, warmth blooming in your lungs like the first drag of a cigarette on a cold night. "So, let me promise you something, as if we were young fools in love, rather than the relics of the past we are." You reach out and rest your hand on the headstone, tender, like you're cupping his cheek. "I'll find you again, Harrier. I promise I will return to your side."

Bracing yourself, you attempt to stand up, but a jolt of pain sparking up your unsteady legs forces you grit your teeth and rest your achy bones for a moment.

(You try not to be secretly grateful for the excuse to stay just a bit longer. You fail.)

With a breath of laughter, you add under your breath, "Sooner rather than later, I think. But, it's as they say: après la vie, la mort..."

You lean forward and press your lips against cold, porous rock.

Somehow, for a brief moment, you could almost convince yourself that you were kissing him on the forehead— bidding him farewell, or perhaps goodnight. You like the second option better.

(You hope the morning comes soon.)

"... Après la mort, toi," you say, altering the line. It feels right. There is nothing after the pale, and you can't possibly know what's after death, but you know one thing: you will see him again. Pulling back, you stare for a moment at the words on his grave— you can't read it this close, but you already know exactly what it says, tracing your fingers over the indented lettering.

HARRIER DU BOIS

AGED 61 ('07-'68)

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN

Finally, you manage to retrieve your cane and bag and get to your feet. After a few steps, you stop, turning back around to add, "I love you, Harry," because you've just realized that you haven't said it yet. You almost want to apologize for forgetting.

It's just that it feels unnecessary. Redundant. Everything you do is loving him. You've sat here with him and rambled for nearly an hour, and you've said so many different words, and yet somehow, at the same time, all of them were the same.

A million different ways to say I love you.

Not for the first time, you find yourself huffing with amusement— Jean is right, you really have become more like him, if your this is where your train of thought is leading you. A disorganized and poetic mess. You nearly open your mouth to voice this observation to him, but... You stop yourself. You don't need to. He heard you.

(He can always hear you.)

[itsjustaninchident]

Starlight☆

Lando Norris x Model!Wife!Reader

smau

summary: Getting married means having children.... Or not? 5 months into marriage and a lot of hate and pressure has been thrown on the couple. A part 2 of To the Moon and To Saturn.

warning/s: sexual innuendos, misogynistic comments, hate comments (tell me if I missed something)

author's note: This is the most tedious and longest work I've probably done here 😭 I definitely enjoyed doing this, I enjoy reading comments from you guys and also requests are always open, I'm just not fast in making it but I'll definitely do your requests🤍

yourusername

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, and 1,321,987 others

yourusername oh sorry can't find it on the mirror where I gaf

view 63,483 comments...

user1 THE IT GIRL OF THIS GENERATION

user2 THE FUTURE KIDS WOULD SAY THEY WERE BORN IN THE WRONG GENERATION UPON SEEING THIS GIRL IN THE FUTURE

user3 scrolling through the pictures slay after slay and then lando norris

user4 i still can't believe they're married

user5 Can't wrap my head around how a man who drives for a living is dating the hottest girl alive

landonorris can't believe it either

user6 at least he's self aware

user7 you're both hot tbf

user8 why are hot people only for hot people

user9 this is just too cute

user10 their kids are gonna be good looking istg

user11 I mean the parents are both good looking so

user12 can't wait omg they're gonna look so cute😭

yourusername respectfully, no.

user13 oh.

user14 is this how I confirm they both don't want children😭

user15 yn shutting off comments suggesting kids for both of them😭 she's just like me fr

user16 yn is so real for that😭 she def saw that tiktok girl with the list

user17 THE WORLD IS SIMPLY NOT READY FOR THIS GIRL😭

user18 haters are found in the ditch i fear

landonorris

liked by yourusername, carlossainz55, and 1,239,876 others

landonorris P2 in Singapore!❤️

view 32,987 comments...

user1 congrats lando!!!

user2 definitely deserve!

user3 why is yn not present in the sg gp?

landonorris she's busy with work :)

user4 shouldn't yn be present to her husband's races, she like missed 4 races already?

user5 girl she can't possibly be with him all the damn time😭 she's got work too

user6 leave yn alone, she literally go all out whenever she can support lando in his races

landonorris she supports me even though she's across the world, it's not her responsibility to go to every race and she has her own work to tend to.

user7 GAGGED!

user8 when he never lets anyone talk shit about you>>>>

user9 they definitely deserve each other

user10 can people stop demanding for yn and just congratulate lando😭 leave the girl alone she's not doing anything to y'all

yourusername CONGRATS BABY! any requests? ;)

user11 HE'S DEF GETTING IT😭

landonorris i think i've made it clear on chat🤔

yourusername assertive, i like it🫡

user12 STOP BEING HORNY ON MAIN?

user13 they're literally unstoppable 😭

yourusername

liked by lilymhe, landonorris, and 976,890 others

yourusername let me fix my shoes first

view 21,765 comments...

lilymhe can u please divorce the L word and elope with me?

yourusername contacting the lawyers📞

landonorris HEY!!

alexalbon maybe we're the ones meant for each other, mate

user1 L WORD?!😭

user2 this is actually alex's karma for calling his girlfriend the squid game girl😭

user3 personally would be my last straw

user4 why is yn always outside, can't even become a decent wife and do her chores

user5 women should just stay in the house and cook.

yourusername you should try a challenge

user5 and what is that?

yourusername it's called shutting tf up

user6 GET HIMMMM

user7 you idiots, that's literally her job she needs to constantly attend events and model products she's not outside for NOTHING, unlike you.

user8 maybe that's why they don't have kids together lol he definitely would divorce her later on

yourusername checked your profile, looks like you're not even close to getting your first girlfriend

user9 HELP😭 OMG I LIVE FOR UNFILTERED YN😭

user10 these disgusting comments about yn... she's so strong to be able to handle all of these hate just because she's married to a well-known athlete.

user11 the absolute sickening moments ever for women, we can't have anything. The world does not want us to be happy.

user12 true, makes me think how she even deserves all the hate comments when she's been the nicest, most supportive, and loving partner to lando

user13 the answer is easy, she's a woman who married a man. All these men who never grew out of their highschool phase suddenly think they've got the right to talk shit about her just because she married their favorite athlete🙄

user14 YN CAN YOU PLEASE STEP ON ME

user15 calm down girl, my boyfriend's on this app🥵

yourusername oh honey, if your boyfriend admires other girls he's not your boyfriend anymore

user15 IM JUST KIDDING I DON'T HAVE A BOYFRIEND YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE I WANT

user16 she's an it girl and a girl's girl🫡

user17 she really said don't let any man disrespect u

via interview...

via twitter...

via article...

via twitter...

yourusername

liked by landonorris, carmmenmundt, and 2,309,674 others

yourusername baby #1 full of food

view 23,029 comments...

landonorris can't believe this is how I find out I'm gonna be a dad

yourusername thanks for feeding me ig now u're gonna have to take full responsibility

landonorris i fully accept becoming a father of food

user0 idk what's up with these two😭

user-1 they're literally the perfect match both of them goofy af

yourfriend is this for real?!

yourusername no bae ;)

yourfriend AMEN

user1 not yn trolling the whole damn nation only for it to be a food baby😭

user2 this is what the media gets for pressuring them into becoming parents when clearly they want a different path lol

user3 true, they've made it clear numerous times already that they want to enjoy their married life more and not involve kids in the process

user4 they're so real for that

user5 I remember in an interview of yn with the same question and she said something like "I just feel like in this day and age, having children isn't a priority for most people of this generation and I'm glad that most of us are realizing how big of a deal it is to have children and deciding to not bring them in this world when we are very self aware of our capabilities. It's time we should stop pressuring couples, more so women in giving birth because it's not the only thing we're here for."

user6 SHE'S SO SLAY?!

user7 MY ELOQUENT QUEEN

user8 slay after slay

user9 everyday i have to be reminded that im actually not married to yn and we dont have 4 kids tgt

user10 SHE'S LEGIT SO ICONIC FOR THIS😭

user11 a slap on the face for those nosy people up in their business

hope y'all actually enjoyed this as much as I did writing it😭 comments are highly appreciated 🫶 lovelots♡