#with a split ink bottle on his table

[lilhughesy]

Baby, It’s You. | Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader, (feat. Ethan Edwards x Best Friend!Reader)

warnings! enemies to friends to enemies to lovers, angsty, mean!Luke, mentions of drinking, stress, slow burn lol, oh and Luke being a dick. word count: 25.5k (im so sorry)

summary: You are the sports media intern for the UMich hockey team which is so great because your best friend, Ethan Edwards, plays for the team. However, his friend and your arch nemesis is also on the team and his name is Luke Hughes. He gets the most joy by pestering you without realizing the effects it had on you.

a/n: another lukey fic for you guys! I tried something new by changing up how I typically write Luke and how I wrote this in general and I am so sorry that it is so long and lowkey super repetitive... I wanted to capture the push and pull between them but I think I went overboard. This was my first time writing enemies to lovers so please be nice if it’s actually awful😭 Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!

The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, casting a sterile glow over the too-white walls with scratches from chairs scraping against the paint a couple of times, and the scuffed linoleum floor of the student athlete resource center. The buzz of the printer echoed in the mostly empty area in addition to the occasional crunching of the paper jamming halfway through the rollers. The place smelled faintly of printer ink, stress, and forgotten coffee cups.

You stood at the front of the print station, one hand clutching onto the edge of the table, the other pressing the Reprint button repeatedly, “I swear, this machine has a personal vendetta against me.”

Ethan Edwards laughed behind you, the sound warm and easy, like it always was with him, “Maybe it just knows you’re not officially on the team and feels threatened.”

You shot him a playful glare over your shoulder, “Hey, I’m helping you with your disaster of a paperwork situation, you should at least be nice.”

He grinned with his expression unbothered, “You're right, I’m sorry. You’re an angel. A queen, and coach would have my head if I forgot to bring in these papers again”

You snorted, rolling your eyes at him, “These forms are the only thing standing between Michigan Hockey and NCAA travel sanctions.”

Ethan leaned on the counter beside you, his Wolverines jacket slightly rumpled, a half-empty shaker bottle in one hand. His eyes were crinkled at the corners from laughing too much. You’d met him in Sport Management 101 your first semester of college. He’d been one of the only athletes who actually participated in discussion and didn’t act like the class was a punishment. You’d bonded over a shared love for Canadian sports teams, given that you two are both from Canada. He was the kind of friend who texted you links to ridiculous sports Instagram posts at 2 a.m. and brought you a spare umbrella when the forecast betrayed you. Ethan never tried to be more than your friend, never crossed a line, and in a major where networking often blurred into flirting, that made him gold.

“You still owe me for this,” You said, stacking the semi-wrinkled waivers into a neat pile.

He nodded, “A week of bagels, I know. I’m thinking cinnamon sugar. Toasted. Maybe with a cold brew as a chaser?”

You handed him the last sheet with an amused smile, “And this is why you’re my favourite.”

“Tell that to Luke,” Ethan mumbled under his breath. You stiffened slightly at the mention of his name, but before you could reply, the door swung open with a squeak of the hinges.

Speaking of the actual devil, Luke Hughes walked in, dragging the sharp chill of the fall air with him. His team hoodie clung to his frame, still damp from sweat. His skates were slung over his shoulder by the laces, the metal blades clinking faintly with each step. His curly hair was a mess of dark blonde, his jawline sharp, his eyes sharper.

His eyes landed on you instantly, and his expression shifted from neutral to unmistakably irritated in a split second.

“Oh,” He said flatly, “It’s you.”

You didn’t even flinch, “Unfortunately.”

He turned to Ethan, “You ready? Coach is losing his mind about ice time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ethan replied, picking up the forms that you had stacked up for him, “We’re good. She helped me print them.”

Luke glanced at the stack in your hands, then at you, eyebrows arching like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “Didn’t know they taught you how to print in sport management.”

“Didn’t know they taught you how to be a dick in hockey, I guess we’re both learning new things today,” You shot back with your eyebrows raised. 

Ethan shifted his weight uncomfortably, clearly sensing the growing tension, “Okay, cool. I love this banter. Let’s… save this energy for the game tomorrow, Hughesy.”

You took a step forward, plopping the stack of papers in Ethan’s hands a little harder than necessary, “Here, good luck with whatever this season turns into.”

You were halfway out the door when Luke’s voice followed you, as smooth and smug as ever, “You know, some of us are actually going places.”

You stopped in your tracks and slowly, you turned around to face him. He was still leaning against the wall like he had all the time in the world, arms crossed, half-grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

“My skills come naturally, y’know,” He said. “It’s basically genetic, like my brothers both play in the NHL and I’m already drafted. So while I’m signing pro contracts, you’ll be figuring out how to pay off your student loans for the next ten years.”

The words landed like a slap. But instead of backing down, you met his eyes and smiled sweetly.

“Wow,” You scoffed, “Was being an asshole also mandatory when getting drafted? Or is that just the online hype getting to your head?”

Something flickered in his expression, barely noticeable. You didn’t wait for him to answer, you turned on your heel and walked out, letting the heavy door swing closed behind you.

Outside, the crisp late September air bit at your cheeks, but you welcomed it. Anything to clear the residue of Luke Hughes off your skin. He was the only person who could make a hockey rink feel like a battlefield.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You hadn’t meant to walk past Yost.

The smart thing would’ve been to take the long way around, down State Street, away from the thick smell of rubber pucks, melting ice, and testosterone. But your marketing lecture had let out early, and your shortcut to your apartment required you to go straight through the arena’s lobby.

The glass doors creaked as you pushed them open. Inside, the air was cooler, the walls were lined with black-and-white photos of championship teams and action shots of hockey legends frozen in time, and Luke Hughes among them, of course.

You kept your eyes down, footsteps quiet on the slick floor. The rink was alive behind the glass, with players slicing across the ice, barked instructions from a coach echoing off the boards. The clatter of sticks and skates blended with the distant hum of the Zamboni, like the building was vibrating with movement.

You were halfway across the lobby when a familiar voice cut through the static.

“Hey,”

Your shoulders tensed before you even turned around. He leaned against the wall just outside the locker room, damp curls sticking to his forehead, sleeves of his Michigan hoodie pushed up his forearms. He looked like he’d just walked off the ice, and right back into your personal space.

You paused, “Don’t you have calls to argue about or something?”

He grinned, all sharp edges and irritating confidence, “I was hoping you’d swing by. Wanted to thank you for earlier, your printing skills were truly elite.”

You tilted your head slightly, “You’re still hung up on that? You must be exhausted from all the grudges you’re carrying.”

Luke pushed off the wall with lazy ease, “Not a grudge. Just a public service. Thought I’d give you a little reality check before your delusions got out of hand.”

You blinked, stunned by the sheer nerve of him, “Excuse me?”

“You act like you’re some rising exec by being in sports management,” He said, stepping closer, “But let’s be honest, you hang around the team like it’ll magically get you somewhere. Like it’s just your golden ticket to the press box, or maybe to dating someone on the roster.”

Your pulse pounded in your ears, “I’m in this program because I actually want a career in sports,” You snapped with your voice low, “Not that I owe you an explanation.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, clearly unbothered, “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“You think being drafted makes you untouchable. But you’re just another kid with a big name coasting on your back.”

That landed. You saw it, the moment his jaw clenched slightly. His smirk dipped for half a second. But then it was back,

“Don’t act like you know me,” He told you with his voice firm

“Oh, believe me, I don’t want to,” You shot back, “But unfortunately, you keep making that impossible.”

“Wow. You guys really going for Round Two today?” Ethan appeared at the end of the hallway, his hair still wet from a post-practice shower. He looked between you and Luke like he’d just walked into the middle of a fight he hadn’t agreed to referee.

Luke stepped back, his eyes still locked on yours, “Just offering her some career advice.”

“Yeah,” You muttered, brushing past him, “Let me know when you’re finally qualified to give it.”

You pushed through the exit doors, cold air hitting your face in an instant, wind threading through your hair like ice. It wasn’t just that Luke was rude. It was that he saw you and chose to treat you like you didn’t belong. Like your ambition was cute but pointless. Like you’d never belong in the world of sports. 

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You stood near the long folding table by the windows, clipboard in one hand, your other hand rifling through a pile of jerseys that weren’t in the right order. Your hair kept falling in your face, sticking slightly from the humidity that rose with the sheer body heat in the room. You pushed it back absently, scanning the team media schedule you’d printed that morning.

Behind you, Ethan Edwards was laughing at something one of the freshmen players had said, but he still caught your eye every few minutes to make sure you were doing okay. You appreciated that about him, how he always managed to make sure you didn’t feel like just background noise.

He wandered over to you between photoshoots, “You surviving the chaos?”

You laughed lightly, “Barely, they keep knocking the sponsor signs off the walls. I’ve re-taped the same Tim Hortons logo four times.”

“Honestly, you’re the only reason this thing is running at all,” Ethan said, peeling the backing off a fresh name tag and handing it to you, “They should put you on payroll.”

You shrugged, “It’s just part of the internship, it helps my resume.”

“Still, you didn’t have to stay this late, I thought you’d be long gone by now.”

You smiled at that, “You said you wanted to hang out after, remember? I figured I’d earn it first by helping out your team”

Ethan looked like he was about to say something else but then the locker room door swung open with a solid thud, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. Luke Hughes walked in, late as always. His shoulder pads still on beneath his school-branded jersey, a helmet tucked under one arm. His cheeks were flushed from the cold of the rink, and his eyes landed on you almost immediately.

Something in his posture changed, but you didn’t look away. Luke’s gaze dragged across the room, and then his voice cut through the chaos, smooth and loud enough to turn heads, “Oh. She’s still around? I thought she would’ve made other friends by now.”

The words floated in the air for a second too long. Your heart dropped and you froze, caught in that horrible space between wanting to say something and not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten under your skin.

A few of the guys laughed awkwardly, but most went quiet.

Ethan’s face dropped instantly. “Hughesy, chill dude.”

Luke shrugged as started unlacing his skates, completely unaffected.

You tried to brush it off, and try not to let the tears build up in your eyes. But the room suddenly felt too loud, too bright, too small.

“I should just go,” You said quietly to no one in particular as you quickly wiped the threatening tears away from your eyes while you shoved your things into your bag.

“No, hey,” Ethan stepped between you and the doorway with his hand out, “No stay, c’mon you said you’d hang out today.”

“Maybe on your walk back, you can meet some girls you can actually be friends with,” Luke chirped without looking at you, “Then you’ll have someone to hang out with instead of showing up here every day.”

Silence fell again but this time, no one laughed. Not even Mark, who normally matched Luke’s sarcasm beat for beat, looked down at his phone and said nothing.

You felt your throat tighten as you clutched the strap of your bag, “I just—” You started, barely holding your voice steady, “I should go… I’m sorry Eddy, maybe another time.”

You shoved the clipboard you held gently into Ethan’s chest and turned toward the hallway, footsteps echoing too loud in the silence that followed. You didn’t hear Luke say anything else, though whether he actually stopped or you just blocked him out, you weren’t sure.

Ethan caught up with you a few seconds later, his brows furrowed with a mix of concern and quiet frustration. You shook your head at him, biting the inside of your cheek hard enough to sting.

“Are you okay?” He asked softly

You looked up at him, “I’m really sorry, Eddy. I just… I don’t want to be there if I’m not welcome. I don’t get why he’s still acting like this,” You told him before you paused as your voice cracked slightly, “It’s been over a year. I was hoping he’d drop the bit by now.”

Ethan sighed, running his hand through his hair, “Me too. I thought he had.”

You crossed your arms, hugging yourself without realizing it, “I don’t even care that he doesn’t like me, but I know that I don’t deserve to be humiliated in front of half the team.”

“You don’t,” Ethan’s jaw tightened, “And if he says anything like that again, I’ll call him out harder.”

“I don’t want you to fight my battles,” You told him gently, still trying to hold onto your pride, “I just want to do my job and not feel like I’m a joke for showing up.”

Ethan nodded, like he understood on a level deeper than just sympathy.

You took a breath, mainly to steady yourself, “Thanks for coming after me.”

“Always,” He said with a gentle squeeze to your shoulder, “You’re not alone in this.”

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The post-media day haze settled like a fog over the house as each of the boys slowly walked in, dropping their hockey bags by the door. A half-eaten pizza box lay open on the coffee table, the TV screen glowed with some muted sports replay, and the clatter of video game controllers had faded into nothing. The guys were around, with some on their phones, others talking in low voices, but for once it wasn’t loud.

He hadn’t said a word since you left Yost. Not when Ethan went after you with that look on his face. Not when Mark gave him that sharp, disappointed shake of the head. Not when no one cracked a joke to break the tension in the media room.

He sat slouched at the end of the couch, bouncing his knee, a lukewarm Gatorade bottle clutched in one hand. The kind of silence that stretched on too long had always made him feel itchy, like he was standing on a sheet of thin ice, and everyone else could hear it cracking but him.

God, what the hell had he said? He reflected on how the words had come out fast, too fast. That smug, sharp tone that always cut too deep when he let it. He hadn’t meant it the way it landed. Except maybe he had.

The front door opened, cool night air slipping in as another one of his housemates entered the house. He heard them shut it behind themselves with more force than necessary. The guys kept their heads down, Luke didn’t look up until Ethan dropped into the chair across from him.

“You seriously need to cut the shit,” Ethan told him, his voice wasn’t loud, but there was an edge in it and disappointment. A lot of it.

Luke exhaled, slow and heavy, “It was a joke.”

Ethan’s laugh was empty, “You think that was funny?” He asked, “Making her feel like garbage in front of everyone?”

Luke shrugged, jaw tight, “She doesn’t need you to defend her. She gives it back just fine.”

“Yeah, she does. But that’s not the point, Luke,” Ethan leaned forward as elbows pressed onto his knees, “You don’t get it, do you?”

Luke didn’t answer and Ethan continued to stare at him, “You think she’s just some girl hanging around the team for fun?”

“She’s always around,” Luke mumbled, with a roll of his eyes, “It’s not like-”

“She’s around because she’s doing work,” Ethan snapped, “The kind of work no one thanks her for. The kind of work that makes our lives easier.”

Luke blinked, clearly taken aback from Ethan’s tone.

“You ever filled out a compliance form? Coordinated team travel with six guys forgetting to turn in their info? Talked to a professor to help get someone excused from a class for away games?” Ethan’s voice rose, “No? Because she does all of that. Quietly. Without complaint.”

Luke opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“She goes to class, works a part-time job, handles internship stuff, runs media days, helps keep the coaching staff sane, and still finds time to show up and support this team more than half of the people getting scholarships to play here.”

Luke stared at the floor, his throat dry and his fingers fumbling with the silicon bracelet that surrounded the rim of his gatorade bottle.

“And you treat her like she’s in the way,” Ethan’s voice had dropped to a low tone, “Like she’s some annoying fan who doesn’t belong.”

A beat passed, then Ethan added, “She told me the other day she thinks you hate her.”

Luke sat back further into the couch cushions. He hadn’t realized she thought that, but he remembered the look on her face from earlier. The way her voice cracked when she said she should just go. The look in her eyes when she apologized to Ethan, like she was the one at fault. Like he hadn’t just dragged her down in front of the entire team for a quick laugh.

“I don’t hate her,” Luke said, but even to his own ears, it didn’t sound convincing.

“Then what is it?” Ethan asked, softer now, “Because if you like her, you’ve got the worst way of showing it. And if you don’t, then why can’t you leave her the hell alone?”

Luke didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to explain the way something in him twisted up whenever he saw you laughing with the guys, how he hated that it felt like you fit in better than he did sometimes. That you didn’t carry the weight he did, of the Hughes name, the fourth overall draft pick, the spotlight, and still shined like it came naturally. Like you didn’t have to try.

That when you looked at him, he couldn’t tell if you saw Luke Hughes, third brother, NHL-bound golden boy... or just Luke, who didn’t know what the hell he was doing half the time.

“She didn’t want to make it awkward,” Ethan told him, “She just wanted to help and you made her feel like an inconvenience.”

Luke looked up from his lap to his friend who was already staring back at him.

“You’re gonna go pro,” Ethan continued as he kept his voice gentle, “You’ve got everything lined up. But if you keep pushing people like her away, you’re going to get there and find out you lost something way more important.”

And with that, Ethan stood and walked down out of the living room, his footsteps fading up the stairs and into his bedroom. Luke sat in his same position on the couch, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor as he thought back to your interactions that day.

You didn’t go to the rink the next day, you didn’t even leave your apartment. Your desk lamp was the only source of light in the room, casting a warm glow across your cluttered desk, dimly lighting over your half-finished notes. Outside the window of your bedroom, morning had come and gone, unnoticed. The sky was overcast, soft and heavy with the threat of rain and occasionally, wind rattled the loose pane in the top corner of the glass.

You pulled your sweatshirt tighter around your frame with your legs tucked beneath you in the chair by your desk. One hand rested on your trackpad, aimlessly scrolling through your mock proposal for University of Michigan Sports and Athletics’ Management Department though you hadn’t read a word of what you have written in the past twenty minutes.

It didn’t matter. You couldn’t focus. Not after yesterday. Your mind drifted back to the locker room, the scuffed tile floors, the sharp tang of sweat and men’s deodorant in the air, the echo of camera shutters, of laughter that didn’t feel like it included you. And then, his voice. That perfectly timed jab that landed like a punch to the chest, right in front of everyone.

“Oh she’s still around? I thought she would’ve made friends by now.”

You hadn’t said anything. Just laughed awkwardly, a fragile sound that cracked at the edges. And then you left, before your throat could fully close and before anyone could see your face fall.

You were drawn out of your trance when your phone buzzed for the third time that morning.

Ethan :) : Hey, you good?

Ethan :) : We’re doing promo photos. You usually run the form chart, remember?

Ethan :) : Melanie said you haven’t been in all day, where are you?

You bit your lip, staring at the screen, thumb hovering. The memory of Luke’s smirk flickered in your mind, rather than responding to Ethan like you usually did, you opted to turn your phone facedown. Let them figure it out without you for once.

The air in your room felt heavier than usual, like it hadn’t been moved in hours. Maybe it hadn’t. You hadn’t opened a window and you didn’t shower in the morning like normal. The coffee from this morning was still sitting in the mug beside your laptop, now cold and untouched.

It wasn’t just the embarrassment that was chewing away inside of you. It was the accumulation. You’d worked your ass off all freshman year to prove you could hang in the sport management world, especially one so saturated with guys who either underestimated you or overestimated your interest in them. But you did it. You'd navigated the politics of team culture, built trust, juggled fifteen-hour weeks between your classes and your assignments, and somehow made it all work.

And still, with just one careless comment, Luke Hughes had managed to reduce all of that to nothing. Like you were just there, tagging along, tolerated but not wanted. Worse, no one really stood up for you.  Even Ethan, who you knew meant well, had tried to smooth it over like it was just Luke being Luke. It wasn’t some harmless teasing joke anymore, not when it had chipped away at your confidence, your joy, and your reason for showing up.

You exhaled shakily and clicked to your email inbox. One new message notification.

From: Coach Email Subject: Missed you at the rink, everything alright? Hey Y/N. Noticed that you didn't show up today for team photos. Just checking to see if you're alright.

You hesitated, your fingers hovering over your keyboard as you debated your options. You could lie and say you had a midterm or caught the flu. Something they’d believe, no questions asked. Instead, your fingers typed something honest.

From: Y/N Email Subject: Re: Missed you at the rink, everything alright? Hi Coach. Would it be possible to reassign me from hockey media duties for a few weeks? I think it might be good to rotate to another varsity team. I’m happy to take on football or rugby if coverage is needed. — Y/N.

You stared at the blinking cursor for a moment before pressing send while inhaling sharply, within seconds, a response message appeared in your inbox

From: Coach Email Subject: Re: Missed you at the rink, everything alright? Understood. Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll switch you to football for now. Hope all is well.

You leaned back in your chair, your eyes still glued to the email as you tried to accept your changing reality.

Outside, the wind finally delivered on its promise. Rain began tapping against the window in soft, uneven rhythms. First as a drizzle, then steadily, soaking the glass and blurring the view of North Campus in watercolor streaks.

You watched students walk by on the sidewalks in front of your house, each under umbrellas, some sprinting for cover, some strolling like they had nowhere to be. Each of them moving, existing, belonging. And you? You felt frozen and stuck in a space you had once loved, now made hollow by one boy’s casual cruelty.

Your phone vibrated against your desk again.

Ethan :) : Wasn’t the same without you today.

Ethan :) : Let me know if you want to talk.

You stared at his text message, you sighed and typed out a reply, deleted it, and tried again.

You: Hey. Sorry I’ve been off. Yesterday just kind of… sucked.

You didn’t know what else to say to Ethan, and Ethan, ever the fast replier, his response came.

Ethan :) : Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, he was way out of line. I talked to him last night.

Ethan :) : You didn’t deserve that, okay?

You closed your eyes and you wished you could believe him. You wished the ache in your chest didn’t twist tighter at the thought of walking back into that locker room, or bumping into Luke in the hallway, or sitting next to players who had laughed but said nothing.

So instead, you stayed wrapped in your hoodie, feet curled beneath you, fingers tracing the rim of your forgotten coffee cup. You opened your planner and started filling in blocks with highlighters, pretending that color-coded to-do lists were enough to restore control, but you found yourself staring blankly at the pages. And for the first time in a while, you let yourself cry.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The locker room had long emptied out, but Luke stayed in his locker with his phone in hand as he texted his brothers. His curls were sticking to the back of his neck and his hoodie was draped over his lap. The air reeked of sweat and stale Gatorade, the blinding lights above casting their dim yellow tinge that made everything look more tired.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t left yet, even though he was certain that his teammates and housemates had already gone back. Just that something about the silence tightened the knot in his chest. Then he heard Ethan’s voice from down the hall, “Hey, hey, slow down. I can barely hear you.”

His tone was unfamiliar, nothing like the playful Ethan that Luke was used to hearing. His voice was gentle but strained. Luke sat up straighter.

Ethan was near the coaches’ offices, standing in that narrow hallway with his phone pressed tight to his ear. His back was to the wall, shoulders slightly hunched like your voice on the other end of the call might crack if he breathed too loud.

Luke didn’t need to ask who he was talking to, he already knew.

Your name wasn’t said. It didn’t have to be. There was a trembling edge in Ethan’s voice, and in the silence between his words, Luke could hear you sniffling, breathing in those tiny hitched gasps that meant you were crying and trying not to be and something cold twisted in his gut.

“Where are you right now?” Ethan asked you, there was a pause that was filled with silence. Luke looked away. He hated himself for listening, hated himself even more for wanting to, “You don’t have to apologize, alright? You’ve done so much for us, hell, we’d be lost without you half the time.”

Another pause, “I mean it. None of the guys know what you're juggling. You show up early, stay late, you handle everything. And you never ask for anything in return.”

Luke’s heart dropped like a stone in his chest. He had noticed those things, every one of them. He’d noticed how you always showed up to the rink earlier than anyone, laptop in hand, hair still wet from your morning shower. How your shoulders stiffened every time the locker room doors opened and you had to brace for whatever mess someone left for you. He noticed how you never complained. How you always figured it out and he’d respond with sarcasm and smug little digs, like an idiot.

Ethan’s voice was quieter, “I'm coming to get you, okay? Just tell me where you are.”

Luke turned slightly, just enough to glance around the corner and that’s when Ethan saw him. The glare he sent felt like a slap. It wasn’t fury. It was disappointment, deeper and sharper than anger ever could be.

Ethan shifted the phone slightly away from his mouth, “You hear that?” He asked him, “She’s crying right now because of the way she’s been treated around here.”

Luke couldn’t breathe and his jaw remained clenched. Ethan stepped forward, voice rising just enough to slice through the stillness, “You think this is just some joke? That teasing her is funny? You think she didn’t show up today for no reason?”

Luke opened his mouth, but the words dried up before they formed.

“She skipped today. Reassigned herself to another team,” Ethan snapped, “And I don’t blame her.”

He looked Luke up and down, shaking his head, “You have no idea what she gives up for us. She stays late editing your goddamn interviews. She helps organize schedules, puts out fires we start, reminds guys about deadlines we all ignore. She makes this entire operation work, and you make her feel like a fucking joke.”

Luke couldn’t look him in the eye because every word was true.

“You act like you’re the only one under pressure. Like your problems are heavier than everyone else’s. And maybe they are. But that doesn’t give you the right to treat her like she’s beneath you,” Ethan stepped toward the door now, phone back to his ear, “I don’t know what your problem is,” He mumbled, half to himself, 

“But if this is how you treat someone who gives a shit about you… maybe you’re not the guy I thought you were.” Ethan told Luke firmly as he threw his letterman jacket over his shoulder and grabbed his bag. He headed out of the locker room and gave one last look over his shoulder, “You want to be a leader? Then stop pretending you don’t care now that she’s gone.”

And then he left. Luke sank back into his locker, the weight in his chest collapsing in on itself like an implosion. Your voice, choked and quiet, haunted the edges of his memory.

The house was silent with your roommates out for the night. You sat curled up in the corner of your couch, knees tucked close to your chest, a throw blanket draped over your shoulders like some kind of protective armor. The tears had come and gone, leaving your eyes dry and sore. Every time you blinked, you felt the sting of regret, the regret that you couldn’t just brush it off. The way Luke had treated you, the way he’d smiled with that arrogant little tilt of his head. You had almost convinced yourself it didn’t matter. That it didn’t hurt.

But it did.

A soft knock on your door jolted you from your thoughts. You didn’t even have to check the time to know it was Ethan. It had been twenty minutes since you’d hung up with him, and you could feel the weight of his concern lingering even through the distance between your two worlds.

You stood, letting the blanket fall from your shoulders, and walked over to the door. Your legs felt heavy, like they weren’t entirely your own as you unlocked the door.

Ethan stood there, the cool night air behind him, carrying the faint scent of rain. His eyes softened when he saw you, his brows pulling together in a way that made your chest tighten. He looked like he was trying to keep it together, just like you had been trying to do.

"Hey," he said, his voice gentle but firm, like a steady hand reaching through the chaos, "I’m here."

You nodded, stepping back so he could enter. The door clicked softly behind you, sealing you both inside the small, dimly lit home. Ethan didn’t waste time. He walked toward the couch and when he sat down beside you, the space between you felt vast despite how close he was.

“Are you okay?” He asked, his voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid the wrong question would send you further into yourself. You wanted to lie, to say you were fine, but you couldn’t at least not to him. You shook your head, not trusting your voice. Instead, you wrapped your arms tighter around your knees, curling into yourself.

The silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that felt like understanding, like Ethan knew you didn’t need words right now, just presence. He’d always been that way, a friend who could sit with you in your mess without expecting you to explain.

After a few minutes, Ethan sighed deeply, and when he spoke again, his words were measured, like he’d been holding them back for a while.

“Listen… I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but you need to hear it.” He hesitated as you glanced at him, his gaze steady but full of something else. Worry? Pain? You weren’t too sure, but it made your throat tighten.

“I hate seeing you like this,” He told you, “I hate seeing you put yourself last just to clean up our messes. You’ve been doing that for way too long.”

You blinked, unsure of how to process his words. You weren’t sure if you’d ever heard him talk like this. Ethan continued, his voice growing more intense, “You take care of everyone else, Luke, Mark, all of us. But who takes care of you when you’re the one falling apart?”

The truth of it hit you hard, but you couldn’t let him see that. You didn’t want to seem weak, especially not now, “I’m fine, Ethan,” You said, your voice shaky but trying to sound confident, “I’m just tired.”

His eyes softened, and he shook his head lowly, “No, you’re not and you’re burning out, and I can’t stand watching you do that to yourself.”

You swallowed thickly, biting your lip to keep the tears at bay. But they were there, just below the surface, and you could feel them threatening to spill again.

“Luke…” you started, your voice soft and shaky, but you couldn’t finish. 

Ethan didn’t interrupt. He just looked at you, his gaze understanding, “He’s an idiot, you know that, right? You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who doesn’t make you feel like you’re invisible just because you’re not on a damn hockey rink. You’re smart, you’re hardworking, and you matter.”

The truth in his words, the way he said them like they were facts, made something break inside you. You looked down at your hands and holding your tears back,

“He’s not a bad guy,” You whispered, your voice so small you barely recognized it, “He just... he doesn’t see me, Ethan. Not really.”

Ethan’s face softened, his hand reaching out to gently pull your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze, “He does see you, but he’s too scared to admit it.”

You blinked up at him, confusion and disbelief swirling in your chest, “What do you mean?”

He sighed, running a hand across his jaw, frustration flickering across his features, “Luke doesn’t know how to handle someone like you.” His words came slowly, as if he was trying to choose them carefully, “He’s not used to people who don’t fit into his world of high expectations and constant pressure. You’ve got it all together in ways he never will and that makes him uncomfortable. So he pushes you away,”

You opened your mouth, but Ethan quickly cut you off.

“I know you think it’s you, but it’s not. It’s him, okay? He’s the one who’s scared.”

Your chest tightened at the weight of his words. For the first time, you wondered if maybe it had never been about you. Maybe it was always about him. You took a deep breath, the air feeling thicker now. You had no idea what the next step was, or if there even was one. 

Ethan’s eyes softened as he watched you, his hand still resting lightly on yours and giving your hand a reassuring squeeze, “You don’t have to do this alone,” He told you softly,. “I’ve got your back. I always will.”

You squeezed his hand back, grateful for his unwavering presence, but still, part of you wished you could just step away from the mess of it all. 

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The sound of your phone buzzing on the table in the library barely registered at first. You were focused, as always, on the pile of work in front of you. A mix of emails, assignments, and team-related documents from the last few days had kept you buried in your thoughts. But when your phone buzzed again, the name that flashed across the screen made your stomach twist.

Luke.

You stared at the message for a long moment before reluctantly tapping on the notification. It wasn’t the first time he had tried to reach out, but the sting from his words and actions still hurt you enough to make you not want to reply.

Luke Hughes: Can we talk? I’m sorry. I really need to say something. Meet me at the rink?

You didn’t know what you expected, but something about seeing him try made you hesitate. But the words that followed weren’t what you had hoped for. They felt like empty promises. And you had spent far too much time dealing with apologies that came too late.

You typed back a quick reply before you could talk yourself out of it.

You: Fine. But I’m not sure there’s anything left to say.

He stood at the edge of the rink, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, the cold air nipping at his face. The glow from the bright lights above reflected off the ice, casting a soft sheen on everything below. His gaze flickered back toward the entrance, where you were supposed to meet him. His heart pounded, he wasn’t too sure why, but the weight of this conversation felt heavier than any game he had ever played.

It wasn’t like him to apologize. It wasn’t even something he was good at, but Ethan’s words had been haunting him for the past few days, replaying in his mind with every mistake he’d made, every moment he had taken for granted. If there was one thing he knew about himself, it was that he was good at running away from his problems.

When you walked into the rink, your face was hard to read. The walls you’d built up around yourself were even stronger now, like you were trying to make it clear that you didn’t even want to be there. You stopped a few steps away from him, arms crossed over your chest, your eyes studying him with an unreadable expression.

"I’m here," You said flatly, your voice echoing slightly in the large space of the rink, "So say what you need to say."

Luke swallowed, trying to push the lump in his throat down, trying to find the words that he had been avoiding, "I—" He paused, running a hand over his face, "I’m sorry. For everything. The way I’ve treated you. The way I’ve acted. I know I’ve been a complete asshole,"

He looked at you, trying to read your reaction, but your face remained neutral, like you were shutting him out, guarding yourself from getting hurt again. It made his chest tighten. You didn’t immediately respond. Instead, you let out a slow breath, your arms uncrossing, but your body language was still closed off. You stared at him, your eyes full of something he couldn’t quite place, maybe it was the look of hurt.

"You’re sorry," You repeated, your voice calm but with an edge that made him wince, "That’s great, but I’ve heard it before and I’m tired of hearing it."

Luke flinched, the words landing harder than he expected, "I know I’ve said it before, but," He took a step toward you, "This time I mean it. I don’t want you to think I don’t care, because I do. I just-"

You cut him off before he could continue, and your words stung like a slap across the face, "Have you ever thought that maybe not all people care about sports? Some of us care about more important things in life. Family. Friends. And working to support our living. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to screw up and have everything handed to them because they’re good at a stupid game."

Luke blinked, clearly stunned by your words and for a moment, he couldn’t find a way to respond. All of his usual defenses like the sharp retorts and the sarcastic comebacks felt useless.

You shook your head, the cold rink air swirling around you, "I’ve been doing this for so long, Luke. Watching you walk around like the world owes you something, pushing me to the side like I don’t matter. But you don’t get to just pull me back in with an apology, I’ve spent enough time trying to make myself fit into your world, only for you to push me away again."

His chest constricted as you spoke, each word feeling like a blow to the gut. He had always seen you as strong, independent, someone who could handle anything thrown her way. But hearing you say those words, he realized he had never really seen the pressure you were under, the sacrifices you had made just to keep everything in balance.

"I’m sorry," He told you again, the words coming slower now, "I was an idiot. I don’t expect you to forgive me right away. Hell, I don’t even deserve it, but I want to make it right. If you’ll let me."

The air between you and Luke felt colder than the rink’s steel beams above you. Luke’s apology lingered in the space between you, but the bitterness you had carried for so long wouldn't let you accept it. You shook your head, staring at the frozen surface beneath your sneakers, your arms once again wrapped tightly across your chest. If you let yourself believe him this time, if you let your guard down even a little, you’d be putting yourself at risk. And you couldn’t do that anymore.

"I don’t know why you expect me to believe that, Luke" You said to him, "You’ve apologized before, and you’ve said the same damn thing before, and look where it’s gotten us. You never change."

You looked up at him, your gaze hard, "It’s exhausting. Always waiting for you to actually do something to prove it but you never do, so why should this time be any different?"

Luke opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. The anger and regret mixed into something like desperation as he took a hesitant step toward you, "I get it and you should feel that way because I’m the one who’s messed up, and I’m the one who has to fix it. But please," He hesitated while his eyes searched your face, "Give me a chance. I will prove it this time."

“I don’t know, Luke,” You whispered, your voice softer now, the walls you had built around yourself slowly starting to crack, “I just don’t know.”

The silence stretched between you both, thick with the weight of everything unsaid. But then, just as you thought you were about to leave the conversation behind you, Luke’s voice broke the quiet.

“Please,” Luke said with a gentle tone, “At least come back to the team. It’s not the same without you. The team misses you. I miss you.”

You could hear the genuine plea in his voice, but even then, it didn’t sway you easily, “I don’t know if I can, Luke. It feels… complicated now.” You shifted your weight, “It’s not just about me being there for you anymore. I need to take care of my own priorities.”

“I get that,” Luke replied, stepping closer, “But you’re not just some background figure. You’ve always been a part of the team, and it’s weird without you there. I miss working with you, with everything you do for the guys. It’s not the same without you.”

You stared at him and despite yourself, you felt a small flicker of something, something like warmth, something like a reminder of the bond you once shared. But it was buried beneath so many layers now, so many wounds, that it felt almost impossible to touch.

“I don’t know, Luke. I just… I need some time.” Your words were softer now, quieter, but no less firm. “I don’t know if I can just pick up where we left off like nothing’s happened.”

Luke took another step, just a fraction closer, and his eyes softened with understanding. “I don’t expect you to, I know I’ve lost your trust but I just want to make it right.”

You looked down at your feet, the weight of his words pressing against you like a physical force. Maybe, just maybe, you could give him a chance, but you weren’t ready to let him back in just yet, “Let me think about it, okay?” You said quietly before turning toward the door. 

He nodded, the silence between you both growing heavy again before you pushed past the glass doors and started heading home for the night. 

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You hadn’t expected to feel so out of place, but the moment you stepped back into the team’s office for your internship, it was like you had never left. The familiar hum of printers, the clutter of gear bags stacked in corners, the whiteboards covered in tactical diagrams, it all looked the same. But the atmosphere felt a little different now, like everyone was walking on eggshells around you.

Ethan and Mark were the first to notice you walk in, their heads snapping up from their conversation as if they had been waiting for you to return. Ethan’s face immediately broke into a smile, his expression clearly thrilled that you decided to come back rather than work with the football team. Mark, on the other hand, gave you a short nod, his eyes scanning the room before landing on you with a protective, almost assessing look.

"Hey," Ethan greeted as he walked over to you, making a point to stand a little closer than necessary, his broad frame almost shielding you from the rest of the room. It was a subtle gesture, but you noticed it, "Good to see you back."

You smiled weakly, "Thanks, Eddy, it’s good to be back."

Mark’s gaze flickered toward the door, his expression hardening slightly. You followed his gaze just as Luke entered the office, his broad shoulders filling the doorframe. The room seemed to tighten in response, a collective shift in the air as everyone adjusted to his presence.

You could feel the old tension immediately. Luke’s eyes briefly met yours, but you didn’t acknowledge him. You weren’t ready to let him in, not yet. Instead, you turned to Ethan and Mark, who seemed to sense your discomfort instantly. Ethan leaned closer, lowering his voice to make sure only you could hear.

"Just let us know if you want to step out, okay?" Ethan told you, his tone barely above a whisper, "We’ve got your back."

You nodded, grateful for the quiet support, but you didn’t want to make it obvious to Luke that you needed it. That would give him the satisfaction of knowing he was still affecting you, even now.

"Hey," Luke said, his voice uncharacteristically soft for the first time in a while. "Can we talk for a minute?"

You didn’t answer right away, and instead, your eyes shifted to Ethan and Mark. Both were standing just a little too close to you, their arms subtly brushing against yours in a way that felt comforting. They didn’t say anything, but the protective stance they took was clear. They were not going to let you be alone with Luke. 

 "You can talk to her later, Luke. Maybe after the team meeting." Ethan told him with his tone that was casual yet protective, "We’ve got things to do now."

After a long breath, Luke nodded, giving you a final hesitant glance before turning to walk toward the back of the office, muttering something under his breath to one of the coaches. You could feel the weight of the conversation lingering, but you couldn’t bring yourself to follow.

Mark gave you a brief glance, "You okay?" He asked you

You nodded, though the tightness in your chest told you that you were anything but okay, "Yeah. Just a lot to figure out."

Ethan, ever the optimist, gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze, "You don’t have to figure it all out right now. We’re here for you, and don’t worry about Luke. He’s not going to get in the way of what you need to do."

You gave them both a small smile, feeling the weight of their protection and support settle over you like a blanket. As the hours passed, you kept your focus on the work at hand, doing your best to ignore the tension between you and Luke, even as it lingered in the air, thick and unspoken. Ethan and Mark were there, making sure the space around you remained safe, and though you appreciated their efforts, you couldn’t help but feel the pull of something unresolved, something that needed to be addressed sooner or later. For now, you were surrounded by the team again, your internship resuming with a new sense of wariness, and the fragile thread of your relationship with Luke hanging in the balance.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The arena was nearly empty, the echo of your footsteps echoing off the cold and concrete walls. The usual hum of activity from the hockey excitement had long since dissipated, the buzz of the game had been replaced by the silence of late-night work.

You should’ve been home hours ago, but there was always more work to do. Always another form to fill out, another task on the checklist to complete. The workload never ended for you, not when there was always something else to be done, another deadline to meet. It was the price you paid for being one of the few students with an internship tied to the hockey team. The job wasn’t glamorous, but it was yours, and you were determined to prove you could handle it. Even if it meant spending a Friday night buried in paperwork while everyone else had already gone home to their weekend plans.

Your back ached from being hunched over the desk for so long, your eyes heavy with exhaustion. You ran a hand through your hair before pulling it into a messy bun and adjusted your hoodie over your frame.

The facility felt colder now, quieter. The team’s locker rooms were dark, the zamboni machines in their corners waiting for their next shift. You sighed, rolling your shoulders back to loosen up the tension. It had been a tough week, just one of those weeks where everything seemed to pile on top of you at once. You didn’t even have the time to think about the tension between you and Luke, let alone confront it.

The sound of sneakers padding against the cold concrete broke the stillness, and you didn’t have to look up to know who it was.

"Late night, huh?" Luke asked, his tone wasn’t the usual sarcastic you’d grown used to. He sounded... neutral, maybe even a little concerned.

You didn’t have the energy to deal with it tonight. Not with everything already weighing you down. Not with the frustration you had bottled up every time he had pulled that same smug attitude around you.

You looked up at him, annoyance flashing in your tired eyes, "What do you care?" You snapped, your voice sharper than you had intended, "Shouldn't you be getting some rest for your next game or at some frat party?"

Luke blinked, taken aback by your tone, but he didn’t pull back as he just stood there, his gaze softening slightly as he studied you, "I wasn’t trying to make fun of you," he said slowly, his voice almost hesitant now. 

But you were too far gone, already on the edge of your limits. All the exhaustion, all the stress, all the things you’d been bottling up came crashing down on you in that moment, and before you could stop it, the words slipped out.

"It’s not just hockey," You breathed out, your voice cracking slightly, a tear you hadn’t even realized falling down your cheek,  "It’s everything, I’m always running on empty, trying to do everything for everyone, trying to prove I’m good enough for this stupid internship when no one even thinks I belong here in the first place. It’s too much."

You blinked your eyes quickly as you tried to stop yourself from letting the tears fall, but it was already too late. The tears came, spilling over in frustration, exhaustion, and all the pressure you had been holding in.

Luke’s expression shifted to something softer, more vulnerable in his gaze now, something that made you pause even in the midst of your breakdown.

“Hey,” He said, his voice low and steady, stepping closer to you, “Please don’t cry.”

No one had ever said that to you before, not like that, and not with that kind of genuine care, like he wasn’t trying to fix you, but just to be there for you. You tried to brush the tears away, frustrated with yourself for even letting them fall, but it was impossible to stop now. You were too tired, too broken down, too stretched thin to keep up your mask.

Luke hesitated for a moment, and then, without saying another word, he moved closer, his presence suddenly surrounding you. He was still quiet, his steps tentative as though he wasn’t sure whether to comfort you, but it was clear he wanted to. He just didn’t know how to do it without making things worse. But the hesitation, the careful nature of his actions, was almost comforting. 

“You’ve been doing this alone, haven’t you?” His voice was soft, almost like he was reading your mind, “All of this pressure and you’re carrying it all by yourself.”

"I’m sorry," You mumbled out, your voice trembling as you were embarrassed by the tears, "I shouldn’t be acting like this."

Luke’s hand suddenly appeared on your shoulder and this touch was gentle, “It’s okay,” He told you and his eyes were sincere, like he wasn’t just saying the words but actually meant them for once, “I never really understood what you’ve been managing, but I can see it now and you’re doing your best. You’re doing something a lot of people wouldn’t even think to do.”

The quiet sincerity of his words hit you like a wave. For the first time, in that moment, you felt seen. The tension between you that had been simmering for a while now, it didn’t matter anymore.

You sniffled, wiping at your face with the back of your hand, and nodded again as you tried to regain your composure. Luke stood still, not rushing you, just waiting. When you finally looked up at him, you saw the same hesitant expression, but there was something else in his eyes now, like something more gentle and less guarded.

“Let me walk you home,” He offered suddenly, which broke the silence that fell between you two, “It’s late and you shouldn’t be walking home alone.”

You hesitated, there was a part of you that wanted to turn him down, mainly to maintain your distance. But, at the same time, you were so tired, and the thought of walking home in the dark alone didn’t feel safe.

You looked at him and for the first time in a while, you felt that maybe he wasn’t the same person who had been so rude to you earlier in the year.

"Okay," You nodded, the word slipping out easier than you expected it to, "Thank you."

Luke gave you a small and genuine smile that tugged at the edges of his lips, and for the first time since you had met him, the tension in your chest seemed to loosen a little. Tonight, he wasn’t the enemy, rather he was someone who was there, offering to help you find your way home. The two of you left the arena side by side, the cold night air surrounding you, and for the first time, you didn’t feel like the defenseman hated you.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The campus was quiet the next morning, the kind of quiet that only came after the rush of classes and team practices. The late autumn air had a crisp to it, carrying with it the faint scent of fallen leaves and the promise of cooler days ahead. You walked across the quad, your backpack slung over one shoulder, the late night still fresh in your mind. You had spent the rest of the evening trying to shake off the exhaustion that seemed to have seeped into every part of you. You somehow felt lighter. Maybe it was the fact that for the first time in weeks, you didn’t feel like you were holding your breath, constantly bracing for the next blow from Luke. Maybe it was just the relief of finally not being alone in your stress.

When you turned the corner of the crosswalk, you spotted Luke leaning against the brick wall with his hockey bag at his feet, eyes scanning the campus like he was waiting for someone. The moment he saw you, he pushed off from the wall and made his way to you..

"Hey," He greeted with his voice a little rough, like he hadn’t quite woken up yet, "I thought I’d catch you before you headed to class."

You nodded as you unsure what to say, you weren’t exactly expecting to see him this morning. Last night had been a turning point, but it felt too soon to figure out what it all meant. Was it just a random moment of kindness? Or was something changing between the two of you?

“Oh, thanks for last night,” You said quietly and Luke’s expression softened.

“Don’t mention it," He told you before clearing his throat, "You were... you seemed like you needed someone. It’s no big deal."

The easy, almost careless way he dismissed it made you smile despite yourself. It was almost like he was trying not to make a big deal out of his actions, but you could tell by the slight shift in his tone and the way his gaze lingered on you that he was at least starting to understand. Before you could respond, a voice from behind you interrupted the moment.

"Really?" Ethan called out, you turned to see him approaching the two of you with his eyes narrowing slightly as he caught sight of Luke. 

"You’re really gonna start acting like a good guy now?" Ethan scoffed, but Luke didn’t flinch. He just stood there with his jaw clenched like he was trying to hold something back.

“Ethan, it’s okay,” You reassured him while keeping your voice steady, though you could feel a tiny shake of nervousness running through you, “I’m not a kid anymore, you don’t have to defend me from everyone.”

Ethan’s brows furrowed, his gaze flicking between you and Luke, searching for any signs of insincerity from either of you, “I know you’re not a kid, but you’ve been through enough with this guy. He’s not just going to suddenly change and become your best friend, just because he’s decided to play nice now.”

You felt a lump form in your throat at his words, but you had to admit, Ethan had a good point. You had your doubts too, although you felt like something was different this time. The apology wasn’t just a word, you had felt the sincerity behind it.

“I know, Ethan,” You sighed, “But last night when he helped me, it wasn’t like how he used to act, I just need you to trust me on this.”

“Doesn’t matter,” He told you as his voice stayed low, “I’ve been watching you get pushed around by this guy for the past year and whatever number of months, I don’t care if he’s showing up with some half-assed apology now. He hurt you (Y/N), you can’t just forget that.”

Luke didn’t say anything at first, just stood there, letting the silence hang between them and for a moment, you thought maybe it would escalate into something else, but then Luke broke the tension, his voice quieter than it had been before.

“Dude, I get it,” He said as a sigh escaped him, “I don’t deserve forgiveness, and I don’t expect it to come easy. I’m trying to do better for her. I just need a chance to show I’m not that person anymore.”

You glanced at Luke as you searched his expression. There was no arrogance there now, just an honesty that made you think maybe  he was telling the truth. Ethan was still hesitant, his gaze hard, but his posture softened as he looked between you and Luke.

 “I don’t know,” He mumbled, with his eyes still on you.

“You don’t have to,” You reached out to place a hand on Ethan’s arm, “But I trust him, okay? I need you to trust me, too.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything but with a slow nod, Ethan stepped back, still wary,

“Fine,” He breathed out but still not fully convinced, “But if he messes up again, I’m not letting you go through that again.”

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

Luke sat next to you on the wooden bench in the hallway outside of the locker room, with his legs stretched out, a half-empty Gatorade bottle dangling from his fingers. Practice had ended nearly an hour ago, but you’d stayed behind, sorting through a pile of tangled jerseys and team media requests at the small table. You didn’t notice he had stayed behind too until you turned around and he was leaning against the wall, watching you without saying a word.

That used to annoy you, with the quiet way he hovered, like he was too good to speak unless it was to make a snide remark. But now it felt slightly different. He was still quiet, still awkward in his stillness. But his presence wasn’t sharp anymore. It was softer, less suffocating. He didn’t speak unless you looked at him first. He didn’t push. He didn’t tease. He was just there and honestly, that meant more than you could say.

“Here,” He said, finally breaking the silence as he offered you the bottle. You took it without thinking, the plastic cool against your palm even though you weren’t even thirsty.

“Thanks,” You murmured as you kept your eyes on the hallway floor. You were just tired, drained from balancing everything: classes, your internship, the emotional strain of still trying to believe Luke wouldn’t shoot some insult to you at that moment.

“You always stay this late?” He asked quietly.

You glanced over at him, “Lately, yeah.”

He nodded slowly, “You ever get a break?”

You gave a dry laugh as you typed away at your laptop, “Not really.”

He went quiet again, and for a moment you worried he’d say something backhanded or smug. That old instinct to brace yourself coming up, but it faded as you caught the way his brows pinched slightly, like the idea of you constantly overworking yourself actually bothered him.

“You shouldn’t have to do all of this by yourself,” He commented as he fiddled with his phone, “The team relies on you for everything. I didn’t realize how much until you stopped coming around.”

You shrugged, “No one really noticed before.”

“I noticed and I was a dick,” He added, “To you for no reason.”

You stayed silent, your fingers curling around the edge of the table in front of you.

“You were always just so good at everything, smart, and confident. People actually wanted you around. And I don’t know, I guess I hated that.”

You blinked as the words continued to fall from his mouth.

“I mean, not hated,” Luke corrected quickly with his cheeks slightly flustered, “I just  resented it. You didn’t have to constantly prove yourself the way I do. You’re not expected to be some golden child or carry a last name.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, the words spilling out now, “And Ethan, he’s always been close to you. He talks about you like you’re this genius superhero, and it pissed me off. I told myself you thought you were better than everyone, but you weren’t. You were just doing your job. You’ve always worked harder than the rest of us and never asked for anything back.”

You stared at him for a moment as you felt your chest tighten

“That doesn’t make it okay, but I need you to know I know that now.”

You took a slow and slightly shaky breath. The hallway in Yost was so quiet you swore that you could hear your own heartbeat. You didn’t want to forgive him, not entirely, however a part of you recognized how hard it must’ve been for Luke to say any of that. You gave him a small nod, “Thank you.”

He nodded back and gave you a small smile.

Over the next few weeks, things began to shift between you and Luke, not all at once, but slowly. A conversation here, a shared laugh there, just the little things.

He stayed behind after practice more often, offering to help with things you knew he probably hated, like paperwork, setting up video equipment, and adding transcripts on video footage. He didn’t complain, though. He just did it.

One evening after another long day, you handed him a media release form with a weak smile, “You do realize you don’t have to be my assistant, right?”

Luke smirked, “I don’t mind, it makes me feel useful.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t stop him. What surprised you most wasn’t the change in behaviour, but it was how easy the silence between you had become. It was comfortable and friendly, and it didn’t weigh you down anymore. If anything, it started to feel like something you could lean into.

Of course, Ethan still kept a close eye on you. He noticed every time Luke lingered a little longer in the media office. Every time he offered to carry a stack of folders or filled your water bottle without being asked. Every time his gaze lingered on you like he was trying to learn your behaviours and habits that he’d never bothered with before.

One afternoon, as you and Luke stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the gear room, laughing at a crooked helmet sticker, Ethan walked in and froze.

He crossed his arms, eyebrows raised, “You good?”

Luke grinned with amusement, “Better than ever, Eddy.”

You shot Ethan a glance, trying to silently reassure him. You could see the conflict on his face, his desire to protect you and the fact that you weren’t pushing Luke away anymore.

Later that day, as you were packing up your things, Ethan pulled you aside.

“You sure about this?” He asked you gently.

You nodded, “Yeah, it’s different now and I can tell he’s trying, I’m not saying we’re best friends or anything, but I want to see where it goes.”

Ethan sighed as he leaned his head back against his locker, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“I know,” You whispered, “But I don’t think he wants to hurt me.”

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The rink was quiet again as it was nearly midnight. The majority of the team had left hours ago, and you should’ve been gone too, but the pile of rosters and unfinished budget forms on your laptop had kept you longer than intended, yet again.

You sat in the small lounge next to the training room, legs curled beneath you on the old leather couch, the only sounds were the hum of the vending machine that stood in the corner and the shuffling of papers on your table.

You didn’t hear Luke come in, it was only when you looked up, when you saw him leaning the the doorway with his hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows, a quiet sort of tired etched into his features.

“You live here now?” He chuckled as he leaned further against the doorframe.

You managed a half-smile, “Sure feels like it.”

He gave you a smile before he walked in to grab a chair, and sit across from you like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like being here with you, even past midnight, was exactly where he wanted to be.

You closed your laptop slowly, sensing something different in the air tonight, “You okay?”

 Luke looked off as if he was debating whether or not to tell you about the thoughts running through his head, “I used to think if I wasn’t the best, I was nothing.”

You blinked as you were startled by his confession.

He stared down at his hands, picking at a thread on his sleeve, “My brothers, Jack and Quinn, they’ve always been incredible. NHL stars, everyone talks about them like they’re gods. I love them, I do. But growing up in that constant shadow, it messes with your head.”

You stayed quiet, sensing he wasn’t finished as his mouth opened and shut a few times in the silence, 

“I got drafted and everyone said I’d made it. But I still feel like I’m just trying to catch up, like no matter what I do, I’m always just Luke Hughes, the little brother.” He looked up at you, eyes drooping slightly from fatigue, “You probably think that’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t,” You told him softly

He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his jaw, “You always seem like you have it figured out, Ethan thinks you’re the glue holding this whole program together.”

“That;s not true,” You mumbled, “I’m just holding myself together long enough to get through each day.”

His brows furrowed as you spoke, you took a shaky breath, the words slipping out before you could catch them, “My parents are barely getting by at home, I’m working this internship unpaid, taking on shifts at the student center, applying for scholarships every semester just to stay here. Some nights I don’t sleep, so I just try not to drown.”

The room fell into a weighted silence, you looked at him and you saw not just the hockey player. Not the cocky, golden-boy persona he typically wore. You saw the boy behind it all, tired, afraid, trying so hard not to fall short of the people around him and it felt a lot like looking into a mirror.

“I think we’re more alike than we realized.”

Luke met your gaze, something soft and quiet flickering in his expression, “Yeah,I think so too.”

Neither of you moved for a long time, you didn’t need to. It felt safe and it felt like the start of something new.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You weren’t even sure why you agreed to come.

The hockey house was already booming with music by the time you got there, windows glowing blue and gold from the inside, bass thumping hard enough to feel in your chest. They were celebrating yet another win. You hadn’t been to one of these in a while, but Ethan had asked, and the way he’d looked at you with that half hopeful and half protective look, made it impossible to say no.

Besides, you missed this, not the chaos and not the sticky floors or the overpowering cologne clouds. But rather the people and the moments when you could just exist without carrying everything on your back.

“Come on,” Ethan had said, slinging an arm around your shoulder as he led you into the house, “We’ll stick together, just like old times.”

For the first hour, it was fine as you stayed near the kitchen while Ethan handed you a solo cup with something vaguely citrusy inside. You talked with Mark and Dylan, laughed with a couple of the rookies who had no idea how much of the team’s media magic was your doing. You felt seen and in a way you hadn’t for a while.

Then Ethan got pulled away, something about someone stealing his speaker and you found yourself standing alone by the counter, your cup mostly empty and your body buzzing more from exhaustion than the drink you held.

Luke showed up like he always did, the sleeves of his black t-shirt hugging his biceps perfectly, curls still damp from a shower, and his usual smug energy was replaced by something lighter. He didn’t say anything at first as he just nodded at you like he’d been waiting for a moment like this all night.

You raised a brow, “What? No sarcastic comment about how I’m slumming it with the peasants?”

His lips curved into a slow smirk, “I’ve been working on that.”

“Your sarcasm?”

“No, not being a jackass.”

You snorted, and he laughed, the sound warm and open in a way you hadn’t heard from him before. A few people brushed past you as the hallway was tightening with bodies, so he shifted closer, not too close, but enough that you could feel the heat radiating from him.

“Ethan ditched me,” You told him as you glanced around, “So much for sticking together.”

Luke tilted his head with a small knowing smile, “Guess that makes me your emergency contact now.”

You gave him a side-eye, “That’s a terrifying thought.”

He grinned, “I’m excellent in emergencies, watch this.”

Before you could ask what he meant, he darted away and returned seconds later with a fresh cup with same citrusy drink, but colder this time.

“See? Life-saving,” He said while handing it to you with a cocked bow.

You rolled your eyes but took it, “Heroic.”

You ended up finding a quieter spot in the corner of the living room, where the music wasn’t as deafening and the couch cushions didn’t smell like beer yet. The two of you talked, like really talked. About stupid things, like the worst pregame pump-up songs on the team’s playlist. About more real things too: how overwhelming classes had been and upcoming exams and deadlines.

At one point, you were both laughing so hard your drink almost spilled. Luke was telling a story about Mark locking himself out of the team bus in only compression shorts, and you could barely breathe, cheeks aching from the large smile that was stretched across your face.

“I forgot you were funny,” You said between giggles.

“I forgot you could stand being around me,” He replied.

You looked at him and there was no mask this time and no shields. Just Luke, and it startled you how comfortable you felt because of how easy it was to be near him when the tension was stripped away.

Someone bumped into the couch which caused some of the cushions to shift. You swayed slightly, your shoulder brushing his, and he didn’t move but neither did you.

“Hey,” He added after a moment, voice low, “I like this.”

“This?” You asked, pretending not to notice the closeness of your bodies.

“Being around you when I’m not screwing it up.”

You swallowed hard as your heart skipped a beat or two while you didn’t know what to say. You enjoyed it too, it was easy and comfortable. The way your laughter hung in the air between you. The way the noise of the party blurred into the background. The way Luke looked at you like a person he wanted to get to know.

You were content to stay right where you were.

The party had started to thin out by the time you stepped outside, the music still humming behind the walls like an echo refusing to die. The night air wrapped around your shoulders like a relief, it was cool and calm, scented faintly with pine and wet pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a car passed by, headlights cutting briefly across the sidewalk before disappearing into the dark.

Luke stood beside you. He hadn’t said anything when you pulled your jacket on. Just followed you to the door like he’d already decided he wasn’t letting you walk home alone. You didn’t argue. It was late, and your limbs were heavy with exhaustion and a few drinks, and, if you were being honest, a small part of you wanted him there.

You walked in silence at first, shoes scuffing along the uneven pavement, his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. Every so often, your arms would brush. Neither of you pulled away.

“Thanks for not letting me sit in a corner all night,” You finally said, your voice quiet in the hush of midnight.

Luke glanced over, eyes catching the glow from a streetlight, “You were holding your own pretty well.”

“Still, you didn’t have to hang out with me.”

“I wanted to.” There was no edge to his voice. No teasing. Just honesty. 

You glanced down at the sidewalk, counting cracks to keep your thoughts in order. You weren’t used to this version of Luke, the one who didn’t talk like he was trying to win a game. The one who laughed without smugness, who looked at you like he actually saw you and was doing things to your chest you didn’t want to think about.

At the corner of State Street, the world felt softer and quieter. A few golden leaves skittered past your shoes. You slowed your steps.

“You’ve been different lately,” You told Luke while keeping your eyes straight.

Luke exhaled, like he’d been expecting that, “Yeah. I know.”

“What changed?”

“You did,” He answered

That landed harder than you expected. You looked at him, and he was already looking at you. Something bloomed in your chest, small and uninvited. A warmth that had nothing to do with the drinks earlier or the brisk November air. It curled around your ribs in a way that made breathing harder.

“Well,” You said, mustering a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes, “don’t get used to me being impressed by your emotional growth.”

Luke laughed quietly. “Noted.”

You reached the steps to your house with the yellow porch light flickering overhead. You paused, turning back toward him, “Thanks for walking me,” 

He shrugged, but there was something almost shy about the way he stood there, rocking slightly on his heels, “Anytime.”

The silence stretched again but it wasn’t awkward, just filled with something that wasn’t there before. Like something had shifted between you and hadn’t quite settled.

You gave him one last smile and turned toward the door, but as you slipped inside and leaned against the back of your front door, heart beating a little too fast, you realized something.

You were starting to feel something for Luke Hughes and it terrified you.

So you shoved it down and buried it deep beneath school and work and exhaustion and self-preservation, because caring about Luke meant giving him the power to hurt you again. You weren’t sure you could survive that twice.

Luke had watched you disappear behind that door, a quiet click sealing the space between you, but he didn’t move right away. Just stood there on the sidewalk, staring at the empty step like it might give him an answer. The walk back to his house felt longer than usual. The November air had dropped fast, cutting through his sweatshirt and nipped at his skin. He shoved his hands deeper into the front pocket, footsteps loud against the quiet streets. The city was asleep, but his mind? It was restless.

He wasn’t sure what was happening, all he knew was that something had shifted between the two of you.

He could still hear your laugh echoing in his memory from the party earlier, the way you leaned into him when Ethan disappeared, trusting him enough to stay by your side, and the way you were starting to let him in, piece by piece.

It scared the shit out of him.

By the time he made it home, his head was buzzing. Not with adrenaline, not with nerves before a game, but with you. With thoughts of how tired you looked tonight, how you still stayed until the end, how your smile lingered even when you tried to hide it behind sarcasm.

Luke plopped onto the mattress of his bed, stretching his legs out before relaxing. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was Jack, so he pressed the green button without thinking.

“Yo,” he mumbled, one hand on his forehead.

Jack’s voice crackled over the speaker, “How was the game?”

“Good. 4–1 win. Felt solid.”

“You looked sharp, I saw the clips.”

Luke let the compliment pass, the game already felt like a memory and the only thing still playing in his brain was you.

“You good?” Jack asked after a brief moment, “You sound off.”

Luke hesitated, “I walked her home.”

Another pause, “Her?” Jack repeated and Luke could practically hear the grin forming on his brother’s face, “Wait, like the girl you’ve been beefing with since freshman year?”

Luke ran a hand through his curls and sighed, “Yeah.”

“No way.”

“She’s not who I thought she was.”

Jack laughed, “You’re telling me the girl who’s been busting your balls for a year suddenly has your attention?”

“It’s not sudden,” Luke said a bit more quietly like he was afraid that one of his teammates would hear him through the thin walls, “She’s always been something. Smart. Sharp. But tonight I saw her actually relax. She’s amazing, Jack.”

“Damn,” Jack mumbled, “You’ve got it bad, dude.”

Luke didn’t argue as he leaned his head back on his headboard, eyes on the ceiling, “She stays late for the team. Does stuff no one even notices like Ethan was telling me, she makes everything run smoother and she never complains. Never asks for credit. She’s just there, holding everything together.”

Silence stretched for a moment too long which made Luke’s stomach twist since Jack was typically quick at saying something back.

“She sounds awesome,” Jack told him carefully, “But Luke...”

“I know.”

“You don’t know when the call’s coming.”

Luke shut his eyes. The call. The inevitable weight of it, like the clock he couldn’t see but always heard ticking in the back of his head.

“It’s gonna be soon, I can feel it. Like you could be in Jersey next week. You don’t want to get attached, man.”

Luke swallowed hard and his voice was dry, “Too late.”

There was a rustling on Jack’s end like he was pacing his apartment, “Just be careful, alright? I know you want something real, but you’re not in a normal situation. Don’t give her something you can’t promise, it’s not fair to her.”

Luke didn’t respond right away because he knew that Jack was right. And it hurt.

Because in the flickering light outside your door, Luke had seen something he hadn’t let himself want in a long time, you. The one person who didn’t expect him to be anything but himself and still somehow made him want to be better.

He didn’t know when the call would come, but for the first time, he kind of wished it wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” Luke said eventually, “I’ll figure it out.”

Jack sighed, “Alright, I gotta crash but you’ll be okay.”

“Night, man.”

The call ended. Luke stared at the dark screen as you were still lingering in his thoughts. And now, you were in the one place he didn’t know how to guard anymore, which was his heart.

He should’ve kept his distance, but it was already too late.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You noticed the shift.

It started subtly like a slow retreat, soft and quiet and careful. Luke still showed up. He still flashed that crooked, boyish grin whenever your paths crossed in the hallway outside the team room. Still bumped your shoulder with his when he passed by and still called you “rookie” even though you were both well past that title.

But there was something different now.

His texts used to come quick — fast, teasing replies in the middle of the night or a random meme that made you laugh until your stomach hurt. Now they came late, hours after the conversation had moved on or sometimes they didn’t come at all.

He used to lean against the wall and talk to you until the equipment room emptied, until it was only the two of you in the entire arena. Now, he always seemed to be somewhere else. Skates half-laced. Phone in hand. Eyes drifting toward the exit like he had one foot already out the door.

“It’s just the Frozen Four,” Ethan said when you mentioned it offhandedly, “He gets like this before big games, like hyper-focused and shit.”

And maybe that was true, maybe Luke was just locked in and chasing the championship that had been dangling in front of them since the start of the season. Maybe it had nothing to do with you at all.

But still, something in your chest curled in on itself every time he passed you in the hallway without stopping. Every time you said hi and he said hey back but didn’t linger around you.

Tonight was worse.

You were alone in the equipment room, the dull lights making your eyes ache. The clock on the wall read 10:03 PM. The arena had long since emptied, the hum of the Zamboni now replaced with the occasional sounds coming from your typing. Everyone had gone home, except you.

Your laptop was open, with its battery almost dead. A spreadsheet full of media schedules glared back at you. You’d been finalizing graphics, sending press requests, and rewriting email drafts for the third time, your brain foggy with exhaustion. You couldn’t remember the last time you blinked.

A cold can of Diet Coke sweated on the desk beside you, untouched and you were so tired.

Not just physically, but in that deep, bone-heavy way that comes from caring too much and never knowing where you stood. You told yourself you didn’t care about Luke, about the distance and the confusion, but it was a lie you were starting to trip over.

You cared and you cared way too much. You blinked hard when your eyes started to sting. The door creaked open, and your head snapped up, heart skipping a beat.

Luke stood in the doorway, cheeks flushed, hair damp from his shower, his stick slung casually over his shoulder. His eyes found yours instantly.

“I didn’t think anyone was still here,” He said, voice lower than usual.

You swallowed, fingers dancing over your keyboard, “Just wrapping stuff up.”

He stepped inside as his footsteps echoed softly against the floor, “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” You mumbled, “I lost track of time”

Luke glanced at your screen, “You’ve been working on that all night?”

 “Someone has to.”

There was a pause. Something shifted in the air, it barely a breeze but enough to unsettle the dust.

“You okay?” He asked carefully.

You let out a bitter laugh, “Are you seriously asking me that now?”

His brows furrowed, and he stepped closer to you, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Your voice cracked, and you hated it. You stood abruptly, pushing the chair back with a soft scrape, “I mean don’t act like you care when you’ve barely said two words to me in days. Just say what you want to say and go.”

Luke looked stunned, like you’d slapped him.

“I-” He started, but you were already lowly shaking your head.

“I’m tired, Luke. I’m tired of trying to figure out what version of you I’m going to get every time I see you and I’m tired of pretending like I don’t notice you pulling away.”

His expression faltered, “I’m not- I’m just focused right now. With the tournament and the pressure and-”

You laughed again, but it came out shaky and broken, “No, it’s fine. I get it. You have hockey. You have everything. I’m just the girl behind the spreadsheet who makes your life easier and then vanishes when you don’t need her.”

“That’s not fair.”

You looked up, eyes glassy, “Isn’t it?”

And then, without warning, the tears came. You’d been holding them back for hours, maybe days, and now they blurred your vision and burned down your cheeks before you could stop them.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Y/N” Luke said suddenly, voice cracking in the process. Luke didn’t try to explain himself again. He just stood there, frozen for a moment, then quietly set his stick against the wall and crossed the room. You felt his presence beside you before you saw him, and then gently,  he wrapped his arms around you.

You froze, your breath catching in your throat but then your body gave in, softening against his chest as your hands clutched the fabric of his hoodie. You didn’t sob. You didn’t collapse. You just stood there, trembling quietly while he held you.

“I’m sorry,” He whispered, and it felt too late and not enough and somehow still everything.

After a while, you felt him shift.

“It’s late,” he said, still soft. “Let me walk you home.”

You hesitated, but then nodded.

He didn’t try to talk on the walk back, just kept his steps steady beside yours, hands tucked in his hoodie pocket, glancing at you every now and then like he was making sure you hadn’t changed your mind.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The locker room buzzed with pregame energy, the thuds of tape rolls hitting the floor, the music playing off of one of his teammate’s speakers, the echo of chirps bouncing off the walls. Familiar chaos.

But Luke barely heard any of it.

He sat at his locker stall, lacing his skates with more focus than usual, jaw tight, muscles already coiled from the morning. His hands moved methodically, over-under, tug, loop, but his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

More specifically, with you.

He’d seen the way your hair fell slightly into your face as you worked on your laptop the night before, the soft glow of your screen casting delicate shadows across your cheeks. You’d looked tired but determined. 

“You gonna stare a hole through the floor, Hughesy?”

Luke blinked, pulled from his spiral by Ethan’s voice. The guy was leaning casually against the stall next to his, arms crossed, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Luke looked up from his skates, “What?”

Mark plopped down on the other side, grinning, “You’re acting like you’re about to propose. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Luke mumbled.

Ethan gave a low whistle, “You know she’s here, right? Upstairs. Putting together final media edits before puck drop.”

Mark wiggled his eyebrows, “Ohh, is that why you’ve got that dreamy little look on your face?”

“I don’t have a look on my face,” Luke muttered, yanking a little harder on his skate laces than necessary.

“You totally do,” Ethan said, nudging him. “It's the ‘I’m trying not to smile because I might give myself away’ look. Classic move.”

Luke sighed, “You guys are insufferable.”

Mark leaned in closer to the curly headed hockey player, “We’re just saying it’s nice to see you two spending good quality time together in the arena”

“She deserves better than that,” Luke told them before he could stop himself.

Both Ethan and Mark exchanged a glance, a quick flicker of surprise and something else. Ethan’s expression softened, 

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said in weeks,” Ethan chuckled, “But for real, man. Don’t pull her into your storm unless you’re gonna be the one to give her calm too. She’s been through enough.”

Luke met his eyes and nodded, “I know, I’m trying.”

Mark clapped a hand on his shoulder, “Then try harder. 'Cause if you screw it up again, Ethan and I have already agreed to run you into the boards. During practice, accidentally.”

“‘Accidentally,’” Ethan repeated with a grin.

Luke rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah alright.”

From the hallway beyond the locker room, he heard your laugh just faintly, carried on the air like a thread pulling him forward.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The energy in the arena was a living, breathing thing. It surged in waves, pulsed through the crowd like an electric current. You could feel it, even sitting in the media box, the blaring music, the chatter of excited fans, the scrape of skates on the ice, it all blurred into a constant roar.

But amid the noise, there was a moment of perfect, ringing clarity, it came when the puck dropped and everything snapped into place.

You glanced down at the ice, your fingers still tapping away at your laptop, but your attention fully absorbed by the game. The Michigan Wolverines were skating fast, tight, focused, the kind of play that made your heart race in time with every stride. You were typing out updates without really thinking, eyes flitting back and forth between the rink and your screen.

You didn’t expect it to happen so suddenly.

One swift pass. The sound of blades cutting ice, the swift snap of a stick, and the puck was heading toward the net with such force you could hear the wind whistling past it. The goalie was out of position, his eyes locked on a different angle, and you knew that this was it.

The puck hit the back of the net with a sharp, satisfying thunk. The crowd exploded into noise and then you saw him.

Luke.

You’d been watching him all game, but this was different. This was something else entirely. He was skating toward the corner, arms raised in victory, his mouth open in a shout of celebration. His face was flushed with exertion, his eyes gleaming with the kind of pride that could only come from the buildup of hard work and focus.

But then he looked at you and it wasn’t some offhand glance or a passing acknowledgment.

His gaze found yours from across the rink, as if the rest of the world had fallen away, as if there was only you and him in that entire moment. The noise, the celebration, the flashing cameras, it all faded into the background. His expression softened, just the slightest bit. His lips curled into that small, hesitant smile that made something warm unfurl inside your chest. It wasn’t cocky. It wasn’t arrogant. It was just… Luke.

The smile wasn’t for the crowd. It wasn’t even for the game.

It was for you and it melted something in you.

You couldn’t stop the smile that grew across your face, the one that started in your chest and spread through your limbs, the one that mirrored his without even thinking. For a second, it was just you and him, standing on the edge of something delicate and raw, something neither of you had been ready for until now.

The smile that passed between you both said more than a thousand words could. It was a silent agreement. An understanding. Something unspoken but clear.

And just as quickly as it had come, the moment passed. Luke turned back to his teammates, joining the celebration, the roar of the crowd crashing back into your senses like a wave breaking against the shore. The noise was overwhelming again, fans chanting, clapping, the buzz of excitement reverberating in the rafters.

But you didn’t turn away.

Even as the game continued, and even as Luke disappeared into the cluster of his teammates, you could still feel that moment between you both lingering like the aftertaste of something sweet.

You had to look down at your hands to steady yourself, fingers trembling slightly as you typed out the next update, but your thoughts were far from the game. They were with him and with that smile.

It was a small thing. A fraction of a second, but it meant everything.

The game moved on, as games do. Goals were scored, hits were delivered, and the clock continued ticking toward the final buzzer. But no matter what happened, no matter how many times the puck crossed the line or how loud the crowd cheered, you couldn’t shake the weight of that smile.

The final whistle blew, signaling the end of the game. The players were already heading off the ice, their faces flushed with adrenaline and victory. But Luke didn’t leave with the rest of them. He stopped just at the edge of the tunnel, looking back over his shoulder, as if searching for something in the crowd.

You didn’t want to admit it, but you knew he was looking for you.

And, somehow, in that moment, you realized you were looking for him too.

The media room buzzed with its usual energy after the game. Reporters crowded in, shouting questions at the players, capturing every moment, every word that might matter. The players, flushed with victory, moved through the room with that familiar mix of exhaustion and adrenaline. They were still riding the high of the win, but the overwhelming noise of the media was enough to dull the edge of excitement.

You sat at your desk in the corner of the room, hunched over your laptop, fingers moving quickly as you typed out the post-game details. The rink lights were still shining into your vision, the feeling of the crowd’s roar still ringing in your ears, but here, in the quiet corner of the media room, the world felt distant. For a moment, you could breathe.

There was a shift in the air. The room was full of voices, but you could feel his presence through the noise. You looked up to find Luke standing at the edge of the room, still in his full gear, sweat glistening on his brow, his jersey clinging to his chest. His eyes scanned the room, but the moment they landed on you, they softened.

You didn’t expect him to approach you, not tonight at least. The high of the game, the energy that had been building between you both, was still there but you’d expected him to be swept up in the aftermath, caught up in the celebrations, like every other player.

But he wasn’t. He was here, standing still, like he was waiting for something.

Waiting for you.

He pushed through the crowd with a natural grace, his broad shoulders brushing past the reporters, his movements easy but purposeful. And then, he was standing in front of your desk, slightly out of breath, his eyes on yours in a way that made everything around you feel still.

“Hey,” He said, his voice soft but thick with emotion that wasn’t just adrenaline

“Hey,” You replied, blinking as you tore your eyes away from his, trying to focus on your laptop. Your fingers hovered over the keys for a moment, unsure of what to type, unsure of what to say but nothing came out.

There was a quiet beat. You could hear the buzz of conversations behind you, but in the space between the two of you, it felt like everything had gone silent.

Luke shifted slightly, his gaze flickering between you and the chaos of the room. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he seemed to hesitate.

"Great game," You told him as you broke the silence. It was all you could manage. It felt awkward, out of place, but it was all you had at the moment.

Luke gave a tight smile, but his eyes betrayed something more. There was a weight behind them, something deeper than just the game, "Yeah," he replied, his voice quieter now, "It felt good. But  I’ve got to admit, it felt better when I saw you smiling."

Your heart stuttered at the words. You glanced up at him, trying to gauge whether he was teasing you again, but there was no hint of sarcasm, no playful edge. Just the raw sincerity in his eyes.

"You saw that?" You asked, almost breathless.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on yours, "I’ve been seeing a lot of things lately."

The air between you shifted again, something unspoken passing between you like an electric pulse. The words you couldn’t say, the things you’d been dancing around for weeks, felt almost too close now. It was as if the game had peeled away a layer, making it impossible to ignore anymore.

Before you could say anything else, one of the reporters called out to Luke, breaking the tension in the room. Luke turned briefly, acknowledging the noise before glancing back at you.

"I’ll let you get back to work," He said, "But I just wanted to say thanks. For being here. For everything."

You opened your mouth, not sure what to say. You weren’t sure if you should say anything at all. But before you could form the words, he was already moving toward the door. Just as he reached the doorway, he turned back. His expression was a little more serious now, a little more vulnerable than you had ever seen him.

"Hey," he called softly, and you looked up, meeting his gaze again, "I meant it, about the smile."

You nodded, something tightening in your chest as his words lingered between you.

"I’ll see you after," He added with a small smirk on his features, before disappearing into the hallway, leaving the chaos of the media room behind.

You sat there for a moment, the hum of voices, the clatter of equipment, and the soft scrape of shoes on the floor all feeling distant. You stared at your screen, but your mind was elsewhere with Luke, with that smile, with the unspoken words that hung between you.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The excitement of the quarterfinal win was still lingering in the air, thick with the scent of victory and the hum of celebration. The locker room was filled with shouts, high-fives, and the victorious clinking of water bottles against one another, but you weren’t really paying attention to the noise. You were standing to the side with your camera bag slung over your shoulder, trying to make sense of the blur of emotions from the game.

You were drained, but in a good way. The tension, the stress of the past few weeks, had all melted away after the final buzzer. And it wasn’t just the win itself. It was the way everyone had worked together, the effort, the adrenaline.

But what kept you there, sitting on the bench, wasn’t the excitement of the team. It was Luke.

He’d scored that crucial goal in the third period, the one that solidified the lead and kept the game in their favour. You could still hear the roar of the crowd when it happened, the way his eyes immediately sought out the stands with his eyes looking for you. 

The locker room was starting to clear out now, with the guys starting to head to the showers and preparing for the post-game celebration. You reached over to grab your things, your hands still a little shaky from the excitement.

Just as you turned to leave the room, you felt a presence behind you. You glanced over your shoulder to see Luke standing there, his damp curls falling over his forehead, a slight crooked smile on his lips. His jersey was soaked with sweat, but he still looked so effortlessly cool, like the victory was just a part of his routine.

"Hey," He greeted you softly, "You’re not leaving already, are you?"

You shrugged, the familiar comfort of his voice making your heart flutter a little, "I’ve got some stuff to finish up with the media team. You know how it is. But it looks like you guys are having your moment."

Luke chuckled, rubbing his jaw with his hand, "Yeah, it’s chaotic in there but you’re not the type to get caught up in that, are you?"

You smiled at him, feeling a warmth spread through you at how he seemed to understand you so well, "Not really. I’m more of a behind-the-scenes kind of person."

Luke nodded, his gaze softening as he looked at you, "Well, I noticed that today with how you were right there the whole game, capturing everything, even when I didn’t expect it. It’s like you’re always one step ahead of the rest of us."

You raised an eyebrow, not sure if he was teasing or being sincere, "Really? You’re not just saying that because you scored?"

He shook his head, the smile on his lips deepening, "No, I mean it. You capture the moments that people miss. And I’ve seen it in the locker room too, how you’re always making sure everything’s running smoothly. You don’t get enough credit for it."

You felt your cheeks warm as they flushed a light shade of pink, the genuine praise catching you off guard, "Thanks, Luke, that means a lot."

He took a step closer, and for a moment, the buzz of the locker room seemed to fade into the background. It was just you and him, standing there in the quiet after the storm of the game. Luke ran a hand through his curls, his smile turning sheepish for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure how to act in the softer moment between you two.

"You know," He said slowly, "I’ve been thinking about how we don’t get many moments like this. All the chaos, the games, the practices, and it’s easy to get caught up in it. But after today, I realized I don’t want to just be another face on the team. I want to be someone you can count on. Someone who’s there for you."

"You are someone I can count on," You told him, "You’ve been there for me a lot recently."

"I know I was a pain in the ass," Luke added, "I didn’t make things easy between us."

There was a long silence before Luke looked back over at you, his blue eyes steady, “I don’t know what it is, but you’re real with me. I don’t have to pretend and I don’t want to mess that up."

A small smile tugged at your lips, "You don’t have to try so hard. Just be you."

Luke grinned, stepping a little closer to you. He was inches away now, the air between you charged with something soft, something both of you had been trying to ignore for far too long.

"That’s what I’m trying to do," he said, his voice quiet.

The moment hung there, delicate and fragile. Then, without warning, Luke reached out, offering you a fist bump, his playful side creeping back into his voice.

"To the win," He said as his grin returned.

You laughed, the tension finally breaking. You bumped his fist with yours, the laughter easy and comforting between you.

 "To the win," You repeated.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The Frozen Four semifinal game was underway, and the intensity of it all gripped the arena like a vice. The Michigan Wolverines were up against a fierce opponent, both teams hungry for victory, and the air was thick with anticipation. Fans in maize and blue filled the stands, chanting, cheering, and holding their breath with every second of play.

You were seated near the glass, the smell of fresh ice and the sound of skates cutting across the rink blending with the loud noise from the crowd. As much as you tried to focus on the game, your attention kept shifting to the players, Luke in particular. You could see the tension in his movements, the fire in his eyes. It was clear that he was giving everything he had, but you could also see the toll it was taking on him. The pressure of this game weighed heavily on his shoulders.

The game moved fast. There were hits, fast breaks, and thrilling shots on goal. Luke was everywhere dodging his opponents, pushing the puck up the ice with precision. You could hear the heavy breathing from the players as the game wore on, every moment stretched thin by the stakes.

The tension was unbearable as the final minutes of the third period ticked down. The score was tied 3-3. The whole arena was on edge, holding their breath with every shift. Fans jumped to their feet as Michigan pushed for one last offensive drive, hoping for a miracle to break the tie. And then, as if the game had a mind of its own, disaster struck.

A last-ditch effort by the opposing team ended with a quick goal and then Michigan was trailing 4-3, with only seconds left on the clock. The crowd gasped, disbelief washing over them. You could feel the collective sinking of hearts, the weight of reality crashing down.

Luke didn’t even flinch. His eyes were locked on the ice, his jaw clenched but you could see it, he was devastated. The final buzzer rang, and the arena exploded into an unsettling mix of cheers and groans. Michigan had lost in the semifinals of the Frozen Four, and the weight of that finality was immediate. The stands slowly emptied out, the cheers of the opposing fans echoing louder as the Wolverines stood there, crushed, trying to comprehend the game that had just slipped away from them.

You stayed in your seat for a moment, letting the sound of the crowd wash over you, trying to hold onto something familiar. There was no denying the sting. You felt the loss in the pit of your stomach, but your thoughts quickly turned to Luke. You’d seen how much he had poured into this game with his effort, the focus, the pride in every play, and you knew this loss was hitting him harder than anyone else.

As the players began to file into the locker room, you stood up slowly from where you were seated. Ethan was already looking at you, his brow furrowed in concern. He was trying to hold it together, but his frustration was evident. You could see him glancing toward the locker room, his eyes darting to Luke, who had already disappeared inside.

“Let’s go talk to him,” Ethan said, "He’ll need someone."

You nodded, but as you walked together, you could feel Ethan’s unease. He was trying to be brave for both of you, but you knew he was hurting, too. You could see the subtle tension in his posture as he approached the locker room and when the door swung open, the cold, sterile air of the space hit you — the smell of sweat and ice mingling with the stench of defeat.

You saw Luke right away, slumped in his locker stall, his face twisted in a mix of anger and disbelief. His usual relaxed self was gone but replaced by something else, something you didn’t recognize. He didn’t even acknowledge you at first, his attention fixed on the floor. The space around him was tense, and even Ethan seemed unsure of how to approach him.

You stood there for a moment, unsure whether to speak or not. The silence was thick, suffocating, but Ethan broke it with a heavy sigh.

"Hey, man," he started, his voice trying to stay calm, "We’ll get ‘em next year. It’s not the end of the world."

Luke didn’t respond immediately, but you could feel the shift in the air with the heaviness in the way Luke pulled away from the words. His jaw clenched, and when he finally spoke, his voice was strained, biting.

“Yeah, whatever,” Luke mumbled, not looking up from the floor, "Next year, great. I just don't know why I bother anymore."

You felt the sting of his words even though they weren’t directed at you. His frustration wasn’t aimed at Ethan, not at first, but there was an obvious sense of anger in his tone, like he was trying to push everyone away. Ethan glanced at you, his eyes softening, but he knew better than to push further. Instead, he turned to you, his gaze asking for a sign.

You walked over to Luke, your steps slower, more cautious than usual. The air between you two was tense, but you had been through too much together to leave him alone now. You tried to meet his gaze, but Luke wouldn’t look up.

“You did your best,” You told him quietly with your tone full of the comfort you wanted to give him, even if he didn’t want it right now, “You all did.”

He scoffed, his shoulders tensing as he finally looked up at you. His eyes, usually so full of fire, were dull now, clouded with frustration. He shook his head, the words coming out rough, “You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like to put everything into something, only for it to slip away at the last second," His voice cracked slightly before he quickly masked it with more bitterness.

You could feel his pain, his anger bubbling beneath the surface. It wasn’t just the loss; it was everything else he was dealing with like the expectations, the pressure, the constant feeling like he had to prove something to everyone. But you didn’t back down, instead you nodded and tried again to comfort him

“Maybe not,” You hummed, “but I know what it’s like to have everything riding on something, to try your hardest and still feel like it’s never enough, but you can’t keep beating yourself up. This isn’t all on you.”

He looked at you, his eyes flickering between anger and something softer, something that made your heart ache. But before he could respond, Ethan stepped forward, his voice much lighter.

“Come on, Hughesy,” Ethan’s hand clapped onto Luke’s shoulder, “We still have next year, right? We’ll get ‘em then”

Luke didn’t even smile, he didn’t meet Ethan’s eye. His gaze was stuck somewhere far off, locked on nothing in particular. The air was thick with the weight of his frustration, but he wasn’t ready to let anyone in.

You gave Luke one last look before turning to Ethan, “I’ll be outside, okay?” You told him as you kept your voice gentle. 

Ethan nodded and gave you a look that said it all, he was worried about you too. He was always protective, but this time, he was just as vulnerable as you were. As you walked out of the locker room, the sound of Luke’s heavy silence lingered in your ears. It seemed as though Ethan opted to follow you, his arm wrapping around your shoulder in a comforting gesture. He squeezed you once, then sighed deeply.

“He’s taking it harder than I thought,” Ethan murmured, almost to himself.

You nodded, “I know, but I think he just needs some space. He’s not used to this feeling.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed quietly, “But just be careful, okay? I know you two have been getting closer, but he’s got a lot going on right now. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

You stopped walking, glancing up at Ethan, "I won't get hurt. I just want to be there for him, you know?" You gave a soft sigh as you rubbed your eyes, "But I’ll be careful."

"Alright, I trust you. Just don’t let him shut you out completely, okay?"

You nodded and headed toward the exit, the cool night air outside a sharp contrast to the warmth of the locker room. Despite the sting of Michigan’s loss, you couldn’t help but feel like this moment, this shift between you and Luke, was something significant.

The rest of the night would unfold in its own way, but for now, you knew you’d be there for him. Even if he wasn’t quite ready to let you in yet.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You were hunched over your laptop, the glow of your laptop screen casting a soft light against your tired face. These late hours were taking their toll on you with your eyes burning from exhaustion, shoulders stiff from too many long nights spent in front of the screen. But you were almost done, and there was one more media release to finish before you could head home for the night.

The door to the media room creaked open, and you didn’t need to look up to know it was Luke. But tonight, the usual warmth in his approach had been replaced by a quiet and cold, almost detached energy. He didn’t say anything at first, but the silence that hung between you two was deafening.

Ethan was keeping you company but was currently grabbing both of you something to eat from a cafeteria in a residence building, and you thought that maybe you could escape the awkwardness that had been lingering between you and Luke for the past few days. You finally looked up from your work, meeting his eyes. You didn’t know what to expect anymore and you were growing tired of this push and pull relationship that you and Luke had going on for the past month or so.

“What?” You asked him

Luke’s lips curled into a smirk, “You still here, huh? Thought you had better things to do than sticking around this place.”

You frowned, feeling the sting of his words, “I have work to do, Luke, you know that I’m not here for fun.”

He scoffed, pushing off the doorframe and stepping into the room, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, sure. Work. Like we need your media expertise around here. You could be doing something more... important, don’t you think?”

The words cut through you like a blade. You knew Luke had his moments of teasing and joking around to keep things lighthearted. But this wasn’t his playful teasing, it felt like he was deliberately trying to hurt you.

“Excuse me?” You shot back, “I’ve been working with your team for months now, Luke. I’m doing my job.”

“Yeah, your job,” He repeated putting air quotes around the word like it was a joke, “I didn’t realize media work was so important when you’ve got a bunch of guys on the ice doing all the hard stuff. But hey, what do I know?”

You clenched your jaw, trying not to let his words affect you, but the weight of them was unbearable. You opened your mouth to respond, but before you could get a word out, Ethan walked back into the room with two white take out containers in his hands and a look of confusion crossing his face as he took in the tension between you two.

“What’s going on in here?” Ethan asked, eyeing Luke, who had now turned his back to you, clearly ignoring the situation.

Luke shrugged, still keeping his distance, “Nothing, just telling her the truth of her position. Media work’s not as important as she thinks.”

Ethan’s gaze flickered between you and Luke, his brow furrowing, “If you’re going to talk out of your ass like that, at least turn around so I can hear you better,” 

Luke’s eyes narrowed, “What’s your problem, Edwards?”

“My problem?” Ethan stepped forward, his voice becoming more firm, “My problem is you being a jackass when she’s just trying to do her job, and you being an even bigger one when you’re talking down to her like that. I’ve had enough of your shit, Hughes.”

You didn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated. You hadn’t expected Ethan to step in, but part of you was grateful. It didn’t make the sting of Luke’s words disappear, but at least someone was standing up for you. Luke shifted uncomfortably but didn’t back down, “She doesn’t need you to protect her, man.”

“I’m not protecting her. I’m telling you to stop being a dick,” Ethan snapped.

But Luke didn’t seem to care. He just scoffed again as he said something just under his breath, and walked out of the room without looking back. You stood there, staring at the door long after he had left, the coldness in the room making it hard to breathe.

Ethan stood beside you, his expression softening, “You okay?”

You nodded, though it wasn’t entirely true, “I’m fine.”

“Don’t let him get to you. You don’t deserve that.”

“I know,” You mumbled, but the weight of Luke’s words still hung in the air, “I just don’t understand what’s going on with him and I’m so sick of this back and forth we’ve been having. Like we’re fine for one week but the next he hates me again”

Ethan let out a long and tired sigh as he placed the food onto the table for both of you, “I don’t know either, but you don’t have to take it. You’re doing an amazing job here, don’t let him make you question that.”

You smiled weakly at him, appreciating his kindness, “Thanks, Eddy”

He gave you a quick embrace before motioning towards the food, he reopened his laptop to continue the movie he was watching as he ate. You sat back down at your desk, trying to focus on the work in front of you, but all you could think about was Luke. His coldness. His sharp words. It hurt more than you cared to admit.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The phone buzzed in Luke’s pocket, and for a moment, he thought about ignoring it. He had just finished a grueling practice, the kind that left his legs burning and his head buzzing with exhaustion. But something in the pit of his stomach told him this call was different. Something was going to change. He pulled the phone out and glanced at the screen, the name Tom Fitzgerald flashing in bold letters. He was the general manager for the Devils, meaning this call could be the opportunity Luke had been waiting for, but never truly expected to happen.

“Hey, Tom,” Luke answered, his voice tight as he tried to control the sudden surge of adrenaline in his veins.

“Luke, listen. We’ve been watching you closely, and we think it’s time. We want you to play next Wednesday”

The words hit Luke like a freight train. His pulse quickened, and he had to grip onto the nearest bench to steady himself, “Wait… what?” He asked as the disbelief made his voice crack.

“We’re calling you up, Hughes. You’re going to join the team. It’s official. You leave in two days, I’ll have Jack send you your flight tickets. We’re excited to see you, kid”

Luke’s mind raced, his heart pounding in his chest. He had always known this day would come and he had always dreamt of it. But now that it was here, it felt like his world had just shifted beneath his feet. The weight of the moment hit him like a ton of bricks, and for a second, everything else faded into the background. He had worked for this. Had put in the hours, the sweat, the pain. Every early morning and late night, every sacrifice. It had led him to this moment. The New Jersey Devils. The NHL.

But then his thoughts drifted as they always did these days to you.

The sudden warmth he felt for you was buried beneath layers of confusion. He had been shutting you out, pushing you away, and now here he was, about to leave without even telling you. The thought made him feel selfish. Maybe it wasn’t just about the career move or maybe it was more than that.

“Alright, thanks, Tom,” Luke breathed out, his mind whirling with thoughts he wasn’t ready to confront, “I’ll get the details from you and I’ll tell my coach and team here”

The conversation ended, and Luke stared at the phone in his hand for a moment, the weight of his decision sinking in. This was it. His future was set. But it was a future he’d be leaving behind everything and everyone for, including you.

Later that day, Luke stood in front of his teammates, the weight of the moment settling heavier with every passing second. His coach was there, standing at the front of the locker room, a rare expression of solemnity on his face. The team had just finished another intense training session, but now, the room was full of hushed murmurs. Everyone could sense something big was about to happen.

Luke stood tall, feeling the eyes of every single player on him, their curiosity evident in their faces. They all knew something was off, they knew he’d been distant lately, snapping at them for reasons they couldn’t quite figure out. But this was something different.

“Alright, guys,” Luke began, his voice steady, but a slight tremor betrayed the emotions brewing inside of him, “I’ve got some news, big news.”

The room went still.

“I’ve been called up,” He continued, letting the words hang in the air as a small smile crept onto his face, “I’m heading to New Jersey to play for the Devils the day after tomorrow.”

A collective gasp echoed through the room. The weight of the announcement hit the team like a wave. There were slaps on his back, congratulations, but Luke felt strangely detached from it all. 

Mark grinned as he slapped him on the shoulder. “Look at you, man. Going pro. Gonna leave us in the dust.”

Luke forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes, the excitement of the moment felt distant.

Ethan, always the emotional one, stepped forward with a grin for his friend, “That’s awesome, Hughes. You’ve earned it, I’m really proud of you.”

Luke nodded absently, trying to hide the storm swirling inside of him. He had expected this moment and had rehearsed it in his mind a hundred times. But none of those scenarios had prepared him for how empty it would feel.

“Thanks, man,” Luke nodded.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

You sat in the seat in front of your desk, staring down at the scattered papers in front of you, but not really seeing them. You were supposed to be working, supposed to be focusing on the media notes for the team, but every time you tried to concentrate, your mind would inevitably drift back to Luke. His sudden departure felt like a punch in the stomach.

It wasn’t just the fact that he was gone, but rather it was the way he left. No goodbyes, no explanations. You had barely heard from him since the day he told everyone he was leaving for New Jersey and even then, it was brief. The Luke you had once known as the one who could light up a room with his sarcastic humor or annoy the hell out of you with his attitude felt like a memory now.

The door creaked, and Ethan stepped in, his presence immediately filling the empty space in the room. His smile was soft, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. You could see the concern in his gaze as he took a seat next to you.

“Hey,” Ethan told you gently, nudging your shoulder, “You doing okay?”

You nodded, but the tightness in your chest told a different story, “I’m fine.”

Ethan didn’t believe you for a second, and you knew it. He had been there for you through it, with the games, the late nights, the times you had gotten frustrated with Luke and even the moments you had found yourself falling for him. But now, after Luke was gone, things felt different. It was like the silence was suffocating you both.

Ethan let out a breath, running a hand through his hair, his eyes still fixed on you, “You don’t have to lie to me. It’s okay to not be okay.”

You glanced at him, forcing a small smile, “I know. It’s just… it feels like everything’s changed.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Ethan said as he sat back, stretching his legs out in front of him. “It’s not easy. For any of us. I mean, I know you two had your… issues, but he’s gone now and that’s gotta hurt.”

You swallowed hard, your throat tightening at the mention of Luke. You had thought that with time, you’d be able to move on, to get over the emotional rollercoaster that had been your relationship with him. But instead, his absence felt like a gaping hole in the team, in your life, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that things would never be the same.

“I don’t know why it hurts this much,” You admitted, your voice barely above a whisper, “It’s like he was never really there, but I still feel this emptiness now that he’s gone.”

Ethan’s gaze softened, and he leaned in slightly, “It’s because he mattered. Even when he was a jerk, you cared about him and that doesn’t just go away overnight. Hell, it doesn’t go away at all. But I’m here for you, okay? I always will be. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

You took a shaky breath as you nodded, “I just don’t understand him, Ethan. One minute he’s pulling me in, and the next he’s pushing me away. I thought we were getting somewhere, but then…” You trailed off, your voice cracking slightly, “And now he’s gone, and I feel like I’ve lost something I didn’t even know I needed.”

Ethan’s eyes flickered with something that resembled a mixture of sympathy and concern. He placed a hand on your shoulder, his grip firm, but not overbearing.

“You didn’t lose anything,” Ethan said softly, “You gained something. You gained a lesson. You learned how to not let someone else’s bullshit affect you. You learned that you’re strong enough to survive even when things don’t go the way you want them to.”

You met his gaze, the intensity in his eyes giving you a sense of comfort you hadn’t realized you needed, “But I still care and I don’t know how to stop.”

Ethan’s smile was small but genuine, “It’s not about stopping. It’s about moving forward, one step at a time. You’ll get there, I promise.”

You let out a breath, leaning back against the bench and closing your eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of everything start to lift, “Thanks, Ethan. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Ethan didn’t respond right away. Instead, he sat leaned against the wall next to you, the two of you staring at the rink in silence, the occasional sound of skates scraping against the ice breaking the stillness. It was comforting, in a way. There was no need for words, just the presence of someone who understood.

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

Life with the New Jersey Devils was everything Luke had dreamed of. The adrenaline of skating out onto the ice, the roar of the crowd, the pressure of each game, it was the stuff he had worked for since he was a kid, and now it was his reality. His brother, Jack, was right beside him, and it felt like everything was falling into place.

The mornings were filled with drills and team strategy, followed by afternoons spent lifting weights and studying film. It was a routine that Luke had grown to love, each day a reminder of how far he’d come. Playing with Jack was something he had always fantasized about, and now that it was happening, he found himself enjoying every moment. There was an unspoken understanding between them, like a shorthand that allowed them to communicate without words, a bond that made everything on the ice feel effortless.

But for all the things he loved about this life, there were moments when the noise of it all quieted down, and the emptiness of his decisions crept in.

It was late one evening after a team dinner when he found himself alone in the locker room, sitting on a bench, his skates still on as he stared at his reflection in the locker room mirror. The hum of the arena was faint in the background, and the sound of his teammates talking and laughing in the distance seemed so far away. He felt restless, like there was something missing.

The chaos of the NHL, the intensity of the games, the pressure, it was all exhilarating but something inside him was unsettled. He ran his hand over his face, eyes drifting to the messages on his phone, his thumb hovering over a number that used to feel like second nature.

Your number.

The last few weeks had been a whirlwind. Getting drafted, making the roster, joining the team, all of it had happened so fast. He hadn’t allowed himself the time to slow down and think about anything beyond hockey. The reality of playing professionally, of having this spotlight on him, had consumed him. But in these quiet moments, the weight of his own decisions was heavier than ever.

He had been cold. He had pushed you away when you needed someone, when you had been there for him more than anyone else had. He had told himself it was for your own good, that you deserved someone who could give you more than he could, but deep down, he knew the truth. It wasn’t about that. It was about him. He had been afraid. Afraid of letting someone get too close. Afraid of needing someone who wasn’t a part of his world, afraid of the vulnerability it brought.

And now, here he was. The NHL was everything he had wanted and everything he had worked for, but a part of him missed you. He missed how easy it had been to talk to you, to laugh with you, and to be around someone who saw him for more than just the player. He missed the way you would text him about the little things, like how your day went, how classes were going, how you were looking forward to the next time they’d hang out in the media room.

He missed your laugh and the way you made him feel like he was seen, like he wasn’t just the hockey player everyone expected him to be.

It was strange, this feeling. He had never been one to question his decisions. He had always been focused on what was in front of him, never looking back. But now, as he sat in the locker room, it was hard to ignore the tug of regret.

Jack’s voice broke through his thoughts as he walked in, tossing his bag into his locker, “You good, man?”

Luke looked up, forcing a smile, “Yeah, just tired. Long day.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, he knew his little brother better than anyone, “You sure? I mean, you’ve been a little off lately. You’ve been kinda quiet.”

Luke leaned back against the locker, his eyes flicking back to his phone for a moment before he put it down, “I don’t know, dude. Just thinking.”

“About what?” Jack asked with more curiosity evident in his tone, “You’ve been killing it out there, Luke. First season and you’re already making an impact. I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Luke let out a sigh, running a hand through his curls, “I know I do, it’s just… I don’t know, Jack. There’s this feeling I can’t shake, like something’s missing.”

Jack tilted his head, “Missing? What are you talking about?”

Luke hesitated, his thoughts drifting back to you, “I don’t know, man. I thought I had it all figured out. I pushed some things aside...people aside, actually. But sometimes, it feels like I might have made a mistake.”

Jack’s face softened, understanding the weight of his brother’s words, “You’re talking about her, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, Luke,” Jack said, his tone gentle but firm, “You’ve been acting off ever since you got here. You’ve been so focused on the game, I get it. But you don’t have to shut out everyone else, especially not her. You made a decision, I know, but you also know that sometimes the hardest thing to do is admit when you’re wrong.”

Luke’s jaw clenched, “I didn’t want to drag her into this. I didn’t want to risk messing things up because of my career. She deserved better than me, especially with what I’ve got going on right now.”

Jack shook his head, “I get that you’re trying to protect her, but Luke, sometimes you can’t protect people from how you feel. You’ve got to decide, do you want to keep running from this, or are you going to do something about it?”

Luke didn’t answer right away. He stared at the floor, contemplating his brother’s words. The silence between them was heavy, filled with the weight of unspoken thoughts and feelings.

“Maybe you’re right,” Luke finally said, his voice hushed, “I don’t know what to do, but I can’t stop thinking about her, Jack. I think I might have messed things up too much.”

Jack gave him a knowing look, his hand resting on his brother’s shoulder, “It’s never too late to make things right, Luke. But you’ve got to decide if you want to fix it or if you’re going to let it go.”

₊˚ˑ༄ؘ

The late night breeze brushed against you when you stepped outside the arena that night, the air causing your hair to blow around your head. The sky was dark, and the world around you was quiet and you were tired of pretending you were fine, tired of trying to move on from something that had never really ended.

You weren’t expecting anyone to be waiting outside of Yost, but there he was.

Luke stood just outside the parking lot, hands shoved into the pockets of his joggers, his head down like he didn’t quite know if he had the right to be there. He looked up when he heard your footsteps, and for a moment, neither of you spoke.

Your heart slammed against your chest,

“What are you doing here?” You asked with your voice barely audible

He stepped forward slowly, “I needed to see you.”

You swallowed hard, “You left.”

“I know,” His voice was thick, his eyes filled with desperation, “And I regret it every single day. I thought I was doing the right thing by choosing the career, staying focused, keeping you from the mess I was becoming, but all I did was hurt you and God, I hate that I did that.”

You stood still, breath caught, as he spoke like you couldn’t quite tell if you reached the level of exhaustion where you started hallucinating.

“I’ve had everything I ever dreamed of handed to me in Jersey but none of it feels right.,” He sighed as his eyes locked on yours, “Because I don’t get to share it with you. You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like more than just the youngest Hughes brother. You saw me. You made me feel grounded and real, like I had a place to land after all the chaos and I tried so hard to forget that and to move on, but I can’t.”

His voice dropped to a whisper, “Baby, it’s you. It’s always been you.”

A tremor rippled through you as your heart skipped a few beats and your cheeks reddened.

“I love you. I’ve loved you for so long I don’t even remember when it started. I was scared. I thought if I let you in, I’d lose focus, I’d mess it all up, but losing you… that’s the only thing I got wrong and I can’t stand not having you in my life.” Luke confessed with his voice dropping a bit as his throat tightened

Your voice was shaky, “You broke my heart.”

“I know. And I swear to you, if you give me even the smallest chance, I will spend every day proving that I’m worth trying again for.”

You were crying now, but it didn’t feel like the pain you’d carried for the past weeks, it felt like release, like everything you’d bottled up was finally being let out. You stepped toward him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, “You’re such an idiot.”

He let out a broken laugh, chest shaking, “Yeah. I am.”

And then you kissed him.

Not gently. Not cautiously. It was a collision of longing, of anger, of all the unsaid things finally being spoken in the way you knew best. His hands cupped your cheeks, your fingers twisted in the collar of his sweatshirt, and the breeze swirled around you as if the universe was finally giving its blessing.

When the kiss broke, your foreheads rested against each other, his breath warm against your skin.

“I love you too,” You whispered.

His lips curled into a smile, soft and a little stunned, “God, I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

[ink-n-shadow]

listen—my brain had a thought, and I had to bring it to life🤷‍♀️ i kinda wanna make this into a text!au... (or maybe just it's own au)

SWIPE RIGHT

𝜗𝜚 the one where you swipe right a man almost 10 years older than you

𝜗𝜚 pairing: hookup!simon "ghost" riley x gn!reader 𝜗𝜚 cw: very bare bones smut (minors—DNI), age gap (reader is in early/mid 20s; simon is in mid 30s), gentle and casual sex, possessiveness (if you squint), some aftercare, some feelings caught, slightly nervous!simon

you would meet hookup!simon on a random wednesday night, mindlessly thumbing through dating apps while draining a bottle of wine by yourself. it wasn't your fault that you were bored, pent up, and fresh out of a long-term (and rather toxic) relationship. you didn't even remember how you ended up setting your age range to 30s.

hookup!simon would have like three pictures maximum—one of his rugged face, one of his toned muscles in the gym mirror, and the last one of him and his german shepard puppy. he wouldn't even have a bio, just his name, age, and that he was looking for something short-term.

hookup!simon would be surprised when you match back with him, eyes bulging out of his skull as the notification blinked across his screen. he fully expected to never see your pretty little face ever again—but there you were, sitting innocently in his messages and begging him to tell you his dog's name.

the first time you meet hookup!simon in person, he's all shaky hands and sweaty palms—despite the fact that you're sprawled out naked across his mattress not long after he led you up to his apartment—muttering a breathless “i don’t do this often” under his breath as his calloused fingers crawl down your thighs.

hookup!simon would be so juxtaposedly gentle, soft caresses and breathless kisses smeared against your skin as he gently sinks his leaking cock into your prepped hole. his harsh and rough exterior doesn’t match the way he treats you like porcelain, careful not to break you in two as he split you open on his length.

you didn’t expect the way hookup!simon treated you after—turning on the shower and letting it get warm enough for you to slink into, putting your sticky underwear and pants into the laundry while you showered, making sure a cold glass of water was on the bedside table before you lumber back into the bedroom.

hookup!simon would offer to drive you home once you were out of the shower and your clothes were dry, insisting that you didn’t have to stay if you didn’t want to (but he really wouldn’t mind if you did). his eyes nearly pop out of his skull when you say you wouldn’t mind spending the night.

spending the night leads to you and hookup!simon talking for hours, your body sandwiched between his and his german shepard puppy (“his name’s riley—i know, s'not very original”) as you both ramble on about your incredibly different lives.

hookup!simon only takes you home after fucking you into his king-sized mattress one more time, intentionally (and rather possessively) littering your chest with hickeys and imprints of his crooked teeth in hopes of driving away your other hookups.

hookup!simon almost forgets about you and the night you both shared as two weeks (and another deployment) pass. it isn’t until he comes back to his flat and gets a random tinder notification, seeing your name illuminating his phone, that he becomes enamored all over again.

bonus: hookup!simon has a thing for being the best fuck you’ve ever had—the ego boost he gets from hearing you talk about how well he fucked you and how much you missed it >>>

©️ ink-n-shadow 2024

do not copy, plagiarize, steal, borrow, or repost any of my work without my expressed permission

[v1kastr4p]

smoke in her lungs, ash on her hands // 1

sevika x fem!reader enemies to lovers

Chapter 1: Smoke, Steel, and the Scent of Lavender

Zaun never truly slept.

The Undercity was alive with the grind of machinery, the hiss of exhaust from shimmer pipes, and the ever-present buzz of life just clinging on. Y/N knew the rhythm of it better than her own pulse. Her boots tapped a staccato rhythm down rusted metal grates as she crossed the narrow bridge into the market district, satchel hanging from her shoulder and curls half-tamed beneath her shawl.

She wasn’t dressed like much—a faded brown wrap, loose pants tucked into weathered boots, her belt jingling slightly from scissors and vials she hadn’t had the chance to put away. Her fingers still smelled of antiseptic and sage from a poultice she’d made that morning. She was tired. She always was. The kind of tired that settled in your marrow and made you crave silence, warmth, something sweet.

But just as she turned down a quieter alley, she saw it.

Blood. Not pooled—dripped. Fresh. Bright arterial red.

It led behind a stack of rotting crates behind an abandoned shimmer lab, the stench of chemical burn thick in the air. She stepped forward slowly, instinct overriding reason. Her breath caught in her throat as she spotted the collapsed form behind the crates—sprawled out in a patch of oil, breathing in wet gasps, hands shaking.

He was barely a man, maybe a year or two older than her—Zaun-born, inked across his throat in an old gang brand, his jacket torn and soaked with blood. One arm hung useless, bones shattered and sticking out at the elbow. His face was a mess of bruises, lips split, one eye swollen shut. He looked like death already had its fingers wrapped around his throat.

"Shit," Y/N whispered, already dropping to her knees beside him.

“Don’t…” he gasped, flinching. “She’s… she’ll come back.”

“Not if I get you out of here in time,” she snapped, already unfastening her satchel, eyes scanning the damage.

The boy was half-conscious, too far gone to resist when she jabbed him with a painkiller and started bandaging his wounds, wrapping tight with surgical gauze and splinting his arm with metal scrap from the alley. He didn’t speak again.

She carried him the whole way back—5’3” of sheer willpower and adrenaline, dragging his nearly dead weight through side alleys and rat tunnels until she made it to her little home, tucked beneath a collapsed chem processing plant. Her clinic was crude but clean. Handmade tables, glass bottles lined neatly on wood shelves. She patched him up in silence, sweat sticking curls to her cheeks as her hands moved with practiced speed.

She never asked names. Never gave hers.

That was how she survived.

But Sevika wasn’t a woman who liked surprises.

The lab was still smoking when she arrived—long strides, coat sweeping behind her, metal arm humming with leftover fury. She stepped over corpses, crushed canisters, the smell of burnt flesh and melted steel curling in her nostrils.

“Where the fuck is he?” she snarled, kicking over a half-destroyed desk.

“He was here,” one of her scouts muttered. “Didn’t die here though. Got dragged out. There's... tracks.”

Sevika’s nostrils flared.

He shouldn’t have lived.

He had information.

Schematics. Formulas. Shit his gang wasn’t supposed to know. Silco had sent her to erase the problem—clean and silent. But now the problem had legs again, and worse: a story to tell.

Her fury bubbled under her skin like a second pulse.

It didn’t take long to find the trail.

Zaun whispered. Someone had seen a curly-haired girl in a brown wrap hauling a body through the industrial quarter. Sevika followed the scent of antiseptic and blood, boots echoing through the old tunnels, until she found the place—small, barely a shack, tucked into the skeleton of a broken factory. Too neat. Too quiet.

She didn’t knock.

The door crashed open under her boot, slamming against the wall.

Inside, Y/N jumped.

She was tying off a linen wrap around her wrist when the door burst open, light from outside slashing across her face. She turned sharply, curls spilling over her shoulder, eyes wide and dark and startled.

“What the hell—?” she began, but stopped.

Because the woman that stepped into her home wasn’t just anyone.

Sevika was massive. Steel-arm massive. Her presence sucked the air from the room. Smoke clung to her coat. Her eyes were metal—sharp, narrowed, set in a face carved from anger and war. Every inch of her said: I kill for a living.

“You,” Sevika growled.

“Me?” The younger woman blinked, setting the bandage aside.

Sevika was already across the room in two strides. Her metal arm shoved her hard—not even full force, just a warning. But it was enough. Y/N stumbled, catching herself on the edge of a shelf as glass vials rattled violently.

“You patch him up?” Sevika spat. “That rat with the broken arm?”

“He was bleeding out,” Y/N said, heart hammering but voice steady. “He needed help.”

“He needed to die.”

Y/N's jaw clenched. “That’s not my decision to make. I don’t choose sides—I treat whoever walks in needing help.”

Sevika’s mouth curled into something cold. Her voice dropped low and venomous. “You think this is a fucking charity? That bastard had intel. Dangerous intel. The kind that starts wars. You think you’re helping? You're giving them ammunition."

“I’m giving them a chance to live,” Y/N snapped.

Wrong move.

Sevika was in her face in a heartbeat, breath hot with rage, steel fingers curling like she was fighting the urge to grab her by the throat. Y/N refused to back down, though every inch of her trembled.

“You just made my job harder. And I don’t like that, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” Y/N said, voice cracking like fire over frost. “And maybe if your job involves murdering bleeding people in alleys, someone should make it harder.”

A beat of silence.

Then Sevika laughed. A low, dangerous thing. No mirth in it—just disbelief.

“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that,” she said, circling her slowly like a predator. “But you just interfered in my business. You don’t get to cry innocence when that comes back to bite you.”

“I’m not innocent,” Y/N said quietly. “But I swore to help people. I don't ask what gang they belong to.”

Sevika stopped. Turned.

And for the first time, she looked at the girl.

Really looked.

Not at the shawl. Not at the clinic. At her.

Young, maybe mid twenties. Too soft for this world. But eyes like tempered steel, and a stubborn fire in her that hadn’t been stamped out yet. Sevika had expected some old crone, a babbling alchemist, a medtech dropout with more ambition than brains.

Not this.

Not dimples and defiance in the same breath.

She hated how surprised she was.

“You keep this shit up,” Sevika said, voice a low rumble, “you’re gonna end up dead. You hear me? Someone’s gonna gut you just to make a point.”

“Then they’ll have to try harder,” Y/N said.

Another beat.

And Sevika stepped back.

Not much. But just enough.

She tilted her head, cracked her neck like a wolf losing interest—for now.

“I see you patch him up again,” she said coldly, “I’ll come back. And next time, I won’t just shove you.”

“I won’t stop doing my job,” Y/N said, lifting her chin. “Even if you threaten me.”

Sevika’s smirk was dark. “Yeah. I figured.”

She turned and walked out, the door creaking in her wake, heavy boots thudding into the distance.

Y/N exhaled. Hard.

Her knees buckled as soon as the sound of footsteps vanished.

And yet, even as her hands shook, even as she went to pick up the vials that had fallen from the shelf… she couldn’t get those silver eyes out of her head.

Or the way Sevika had looked at her.

Like a warning. Like a promise. Like a storm just beginning to form on the horizon.

next part

[mileygoneblogger]

ghosts don't knock ✉️

A/N: hey everybody <3 i know i've been kinda slow with putting out new things for domestic disturbances, and i just wanna say: thank you so much to everybody who's been supporting me and my silly lil writing hobby and i promise i haven't forgotten about you guys. so, here's a gift! a lil angsty snack from me to you while you all wait for the next chapter ^_^ (it's wartime flavoured)

p.s: this is lowkey the beginning of me experimenting with the idea of 20th century WW1 jack (and maybe meg... heheheh) rather than modern au. let me know if you guys would be interested in seeing more of this <3

warnings: mild language use, alcoholism, grief, emotional trauma, hallucinations, canon-compliant angst + my own headcanons, RDR1 SPOILERS MENTIONED AHEAD. TREAD CAREFULLY.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

beecher’s hope, 1917.

the morning is quiet. not peaceful—just the kind of quiet that settles over a place that hasn’t seen joy in a long time. the wind moves through dry grass like a ghost. a storm’s gathering somewhere, but it hasn’t broken yet. just hangs there, heavy in the sky, waiting to break.

jack’s out by the chopping block, sleeves rolled up, sweat clinging to the back of his neck despite the chill. the wood splits clean under the weight of the axe, over and over. he likes the rhythm of it. the simplicity. it’s one of the only things left that makes sense.

crack.

crack.

in the distance, wheels crunch gravel. he doesn’t look up.

crack.

"jack marston?"

his name lands like a stone in his gut.

he wipes a hand over his face, turns toward the mail wagon. the young courier doesn’t meet his eye as he hands over the envelope—plain, cream-colored, with a thick red seal and his full name typed neat across the front.

mr. john 'jack' marston. beecher’s hope, blackwater.

he stares at it for a long time.

something about seeing the name he inherited in ink makes his stomach churn.

the woodsmoke from the chimney makes his eyes sting, but he doesn’t blink. doesn’t speak.

the wagon rattles off towards the main road.

he opens the envelope with a slow tear, like he’s hoping the world might stop before he finishes. it doesn’t.

the letter reads:

"greetings: you have been selected for induction into the armed forces of the united states…"

his breath leaves him in one sharp exhale, like he’s just taken a hit to the ribs.

he doesn’t finish reading.

he doesn’t need to.

-----------------------------------------------

inside the house, the floorboards groan under his boots. everything’s too still. the table hasn’t moved since his mother last set it for dinner. the fireplace is cold. his father’s rifle still hangs on the wall above it, dusty, untouched. like some kind of shrine.

jack drops the letter on the table without looking at it. his hands hang at his sides. limp. lost.

he stands there for a long time.

then, like something in him finally breaks, he kicks the nearest chair—hard. it crashes to the floor. a plate tips off the counter and shatters. their family portrait swings softly on the wall. he doesn’t flinch. doesn't dare make eye contact with their photo.

he grips the edge of the table with both hands, shoulders shaking.

"guess i really ain’t meant to have nothin', huh?" he mutters, half-laughing. the sound is cracked down the middle. bitter.

his voice echoes in the emptiness.

the ghosts of this place don’t answer.

-----------------------------------------------

armadillo. upstairs in the saloon, later that evening.

the bottle’s half-empty. or half-full, depending on how bitter you feel that night.

jack doesn’t even bother with a glass anymore. the whiskey burns the whole way down, but he likes it that way. it means he can still feel something. that he's still real.

he sits slouched on the edge of the bed, the same one his father used to sleep in whenever he wasn't home. same dusty room above the saloon, same oil lamp flickering against cracked wallpaper. the window’s open just enough to let in the desert wind and the sound of some poor, drunken bastard getting thrown out onto the street below.

jack barely notices.

the draft letter lies crumpled on the nightstand, stained with spilled liquor and maybe something else.

"you'd be real proud, pa," jack mutters, voice thick, wet with drink and something darker. his smile curls up the wrong way. it doesn't reach his eyes. "yeah. look at me now. all grown up."

he raises the bottle in a mock toast, letting the whiskey slosh. "bein' forced to go god knows where to die for the damn military of all things. 'serve my country,' my ass. country didn’t do shit when you got gunned down like a dog. didn’t do shit when ma was coughin' her lungs out, slowly witherin' away like she was nothin', all while i'm holdin' her hand the whole damn time."

he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. just emptiness, scraped raw.

"and what, now they want me to play the good little soldier for 'em?" he spits the words out as if they tasted like rot on his tongue. "to carry a gun and march off to die for a place that’s done nothin’ but take from me? fuck that."

" 'you’re a man now, jack,' " he mutters, mocking. " 'take care of the ranch, jack. be strong.' "

he takes another drink. the bottle’s already lighter in his hand.

"i did all that. i did everything i was s’posed to. and for what? no one left to see it. no one left to care."

his voice trails off.

silence, except for the storm beginning to build outside.

and then–

"that how you see it?"

the voice comes soft. gravelly. familiar.

jack’s eyes snap to the corner of the room.

and there he is.

john marston.

leaning against the wall, arms crossed, hat low over his brow. dressed in the clothes he was buried in—just like jack remembers. just like the last time.

jack blinks. shakes his head once, hard. but the figure stays.

"i ain’t drunk enough for this," jack whispers.

john tilts his head. "ain’t about the drink, boy. never was."

jack scoffs and rubs at his eyes. "you’re not real."

"maybe not. but i’m here, ain’t i?"

a long silence stretches between them.

jack downs another mouthful of cheap, rotgut whiskey, hoping that maybe the figure would dissolve in the amber. he doesn’t dare meet his father’s eyes.

"why didn’t you tell me it’d be like this?" he mumbles. "you made it look so easy. like it meant somethin'. like dyin' for somethin' made it all worth it."

john’s voice softens. "it wasn’t easy, jack. and it sure as hell wasn’t worth it."

jack looks up. and for a second—just a second—he’s a boy again. lost, scared, aching for a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"i don’t wanna go," he says, voice barely there. "i don’t wanna be like you."

john walks over. sits on the edge of the bed beside him. his presence doesn’t creak or dip the mattress. he doesn’t smell like sweat or whiskey or blood—just dust. just memory.

"then don’t be," john says gently. "you got the chance to be more than i ever was. you still got time. use it wisely, son."

jack laughs again. bitter, hoarse.

"what time?"

john doesn’t answer. he just looks at him—really looks at him—and says:

"you’re allowed to want more than survival, jack."

a beat.

and then—quiet, almost tender:

"and you know you’d make your mother real proud."

jack shuts his eyes.

when he opens them again, he’s alone.

the bottle is empty.

and it's still raining.

[possumsandprose]

Secret Santa

@shedoessoshedoes surprise! I'm your secret santa!

I did have to split this fic into two parts, but the next part will be out when I get back from my trip (middle of January). I promise the next part will have a happy ending and lots of fluff, but until then, I had to go with my speciality-some good ol' angst.

With all that said, enjoy your fic!

Nesta Archeron was about one more snide comment away from slapping this muscled, leather clad idiot upside the head with his own maps, pouring the ink bottles all over his perfectly polished leathers, and then ramming the quill through the Adam’s apple that was currently moving as he droned on and on about something she had long since stopped listening to. 

Regrettably, Elain seemed to like this one, and had a particular fancy for the elder of the brothers-she was no fool, and she saw the looks they had exchanged over the dinner table and in passing when they thought no one was looking. However, no matter how happy Elain was (and Feyre, she supposed, since it was her “family”, as she called them), Nesta was absolutely done with them. More specifically, the brute Cassian. The big idiot with his wavy black hair, glowing red gemstones like the dying glows of the falling sun, the brown eyes as warm and inviting as melted chocolate, the thick muscles lined faintly with the scars of a thousand long-forgotten battles, and the-

Nesta shook her golden-brown hair slightly. What had gotten into her? She should not be thinking of him in this way. He was an annoyance, an inconvenience, a problem, a pest, a burden, a distraction- but what a pretty distraction he is, her traitorous mind whispered.

She let out a slight huff. Enough of this. 

“-and with supplies from Rask and troops from Montesere, we can-” Cassian was saying as Nesta interjected,

“That feels like a lot of assumptions. We can’t base any hope on these plans until we receive confirmation, and if we are denied then it seems more than likely these Hybern people have already won them over, meaning that not only can we not rely on their help, but will have to plan against them.”

Soft murmurs of agreement rose from around the room, and Nesta noted how Elain’s head turned to the eldest brother, Azriel, for his reaction. 

Cassian gave her a curious look-she supposed he hadn’t expected her to be paying attention, or if she was, to have given it much thought.

“You’re correct, I guess, and so with that said, shall we simply wait until we receive news from the Continent?” Cassian asked the room at large, which was met with support from all, everyone clearly done with another long day of what seemed like fruitless strategizing.

Everyone began to file out of the room towards their respective sleeping quarters, until eventually only Nesta, who was cleaning off the surfaces that had ink on them, and Cassian, who was rolling maps back up and sealing them, were left. 

“How long do you anticipate you’ll need to be here, then, since I presume you won’t bother going all the way back to wherever you came from without the letter having come?” Nesta asked grumpily.

“A week, at least, maybe more. Officials aren’t known for their quick responses. I sent Rhys a request to have a broken lamppost fixed by my training studio in Velaris since he sorts all that out, and he didn’t get around to it until 76 years later. We still tease him about it to this day,” Cassian responded.

Nesta let out a snort at that, she could definitely see it happening. But then she focused more on the first part of what he had said.

“A week? Seriously? You’ve already been here for 2!” she exclaimed angrily.

“Sorry princess, that’s just how it is. Believe me, I want to be out of your pretty blonde hair as much as you want me out of it, but there’s nothing I can do,” Cassian said, attempting to sound sincere, but Nesta didn’t miss the subtle smirk on his face.

“Don’t call me princess,” she snapped, “and you’d do well to remember that I am graciously hosting you here of my own free will. If you feel the need to be glib, find somewhere else to stay.”

“Apologies, milady,” Cassian said with a dramatic bow, “consider me chastised. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get my beauty sleep. I suggest you do the same, who knows, tomorrow you might even be able to look at me without being filled with hatred and anger-”

He cut off as Nesta’s finger jabbed him hard in the chest, she having marched over in a fit of anger.

“Watch your tongue, you pathetic excuse for a mammal, or I will cut it out for you. If your goal here was to persuade the humans that the fae are not as bad as we have been raised to believe, then I must say, you have failed quite spectacularly in that task,” Nesta spat at him, but Cassian wasn’t listening. He felt something. Deep within him. He’d never felt it before in all 500 odd years of his life, but he knew without a doubt what it was.

Mating bond. Mating bond. Mating bond.  His thoughts chanted at him over and over again, and his head was spinning. As he racked his brains for something to say to her, he realized she had already stormed outside, presumably to blow out the lanterns swinging outside before going to bed.

As he watched, though, a sight so horrific it would play in his nightmares for the rest of his life unfolded in front of him.

From seemingly nowhere, out of the sky, a massive black raven, the size of a large horse, swooped down and snatched Nesta in its claws. She struggled and kicked and beat, but to no avail. With one flap of its mighty wings, the raven sailed away into the sky.

Cassian knew that raven. That was one of Hybern’s ravens. And it had just taken his mate.

@acotargiftexchange

I hope you enjoyed! And apologies if this isn't amazing or goes against something you asked for-I've been super sick for the past month and it has been taking its toll on my cognitive faculties.

Love,

Possum

[secretly-a-catamount]

Let Me Avow

(This Story Can Also Be Found Here On Ao3

Part Two Can Be Found Here

Part Three Can Be Found Here)

  Annabel laughed and took a long sip of her wine. Red as the lipstick stain she left on the crystal glassware, red as her dress, red as the earrings that dangled from her ears and split the ink-spill of her hair by reflecting the dying sunlight like manicure stars. He’d brought the jewelry for her earlier after seeing the way the hand-carved rubies had caught her attention in the shop window of Paris’s most famous boutique.

  “What's next on our grand world tour? Where are we going?” Her laughter, her happiness, her lack of fear — the fact that she was here and whole and healthy — were a balm on the festering wound that had hollowed Malcolm out for nearly his entire life.

  “Anywhere. Everywhere. Anywhere you want to go we will. You go, I go. You go, I follow. You know that. You know that.” He was desperate to reassure her that he would not question her, would not abandon her. Not again. Not this time.

  There was a moment of silence broken only by the soft, whistling sound of Annabel sucking air through the endearingly crooked gap between her frontmost teeth. “And where do you want to go?”

  Instead of answering Malcolm reached to take her hand over the café’s tabletop of intricately overlapping metal scales. He forced his heart to calm, forced himself to sculpt his face into an easy smile.

  The skin on the back of her hand — soft in some places and rough and scarred in others — was cold when he lifted it to his lips, the kiss nothing more than a feather-light breeze of a touch. He imagined she smelled like a tomb, dust and moonlight. He imagined she tasted like death, cold water and endless silences. He wouldn’t know. His senses weren’t as sharp as they could have been, they never were here.

  “That’s not an answer, Malcolm, and you know it.” Her tone was playful, but her smile was rueful, an old sadness buried in the depths of her blue-green eyes, coiled around her bones, torn on the sharp edges of her teeth.

  Nearly knocking the bottle of wine out of its bucket of melted ice, condensation bleeding through his jacket’s fabric and sticking it to the skin of his elbow, Malcolm flipped Annabel’s hand over and kissed the base of her palm. He traveled downwards until he reached the tender, fragile skin at her wrist, lips brushing against blue blood veins and a belled-sleeve, against freckles and a bracelet.

  The movement of her chair closer to the table was accompanied by a thin, metallic screech of its metal legs scraping against the bricks that constructed the sun-warmed patio.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I know you hate it when I talk like that.” The idea that he was somehow lesser because he was a warlock, that he had somehow deserved to be owned by her family, that it had somehow simply been his place to have been the Blackthorn family’s servant, their slave, their thing to use and then simply discard. He hated it, hated them all, the thoughts they’d sawn in his mind like seeds in a field before he was old enough to really know better. He knew that he had as much worth as any person, but it was just so easy to fall back into that pattern of thinking — of being purely reactionary, of being nothing more than a dog whose only purpose in life was to follow her around — when he was around her, if for no other reason than the fact that she was better than him, not because she was a Shadowhunter and he was a warlock, but because she was Annabel Blackthorn, and Annabel Blackthorn was better than anyone he had ever met or was likely ever going to meet, as close to perfection as any person could be in Malcolm’s opinion.

  “I do, and just so you know, if you keep saying shit like that I might just have to wring your neck.”

  He gave a gasp that would make any actor jealous and pulled his hand out of hers to place it against his chest as if wounded by her words. “Cursing? From your virtuous, maidenly lips?”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “With any luck later I’ll have been.”

  It was at that moment that the server decided to make his presence known, a thin, white paper held in his hand.

  “The ticket, Mademoiselle?” His dark caterpillar-like mustache bunched unattractively over his top lip as he spoke.

  Malcolm busied himself with his own wine glass, long fingers wrapping around the stem as he cringed internally. If he had been alone or been with literally anyone else he would’ve taken the server aside and tried to . . . tried to . . . well, Malcolm didn’t know what he would do, what he would say, but he’d have done something to help the poor boy. But he wasn’t alone nor was he with anyone else, so he sat, and suffered, and wondered if Annabel was even more offended by the man’s monstrosity of facial hair that he was. She was a painter, after all, an artist, a woman who brought forth worlds that didn’t exist into reality with brushes and oils and water, a woman more affected by the beauty of sight than he was as a writer.

  Annabel dug in around in her bag for an ink pen. Malcolm fought throught his secondhand embarrassment, refocused, and hooked his ankle around hers underneath the table in a silent apology: Sorry, I’ll remember next time. I really will. I promise.

  She seemed to understand, flashing him a slow, soft smile — he felt a stab of relief at her returning comfort, maybe he hadn’t ruined the night after all — as she scribbled her name on the ticket and handed it to the server.

  “Ready to go, handsome?” She slung her purse over her shoulder, adjusting the straps (Malcolm had been carrying it around earlier, knowing that it hadn’t gone with her day wear), and offered her hand.

  He stood and took it. “Only if you are, beautiful.”

  “I am.”

  They went walking through a forest of people, and then running once they burst from the front doors of the restaurant, Annabel dragging him by the hand and the heart, the two of them racing along the riverside. The ran until Malcolm was really laughing for the first time since he’d left her, the tips of his nose and ears pink from the chilling whiplash of the wind, running until Malcolm (who did not have a Stamina Rune, unlike a certain Shadowhunter with a taste for footwear and fallacies) collapsed to a desolate stone bench, bearly managing to get a question out between his wezzing gasps.

  “Italy?”

  Annabel’s lopsided lips pursued quizzically as she considered her lover sitting just outside the halo of the street lamp. “What about Italy?” Her hair was nearly iridescent underneath the electric light, glinting the thousand different under-shades of raven feathers.

  “Where we could — go next. I want — I want — to take you to a—“

  “Masquerade,” she gasped, cutting him off, her cheeks flushing a shade that was particularly delicious against her skin, strawberries and cream, peaches and porcelain, “you remembered. You actually remember. That was so long ago, I can’t possibly believe that you remembered my birthday wish.”

[duplicitywrites]

snippet from repayment in full, featuring baby tom letting harry play white knight 😌

“Tom? Tom!”

The low hiss reaches his ears from across the library. Tom doesn’t look up right away—he waits for Harry to draw closer.

“Where’ve you been?” Harry asks. The anxious, flustered edge to Harry’s tone is highly satisfactory. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“One of Pucey’s friends split my bag open,” Tom confesses. He had let it happen, of course. Dawdled in the halls until one of them happened across the easy opportunity. “My ink bottle shattered, which ruined one of my essays. I’ve been here all afternoon, rewriting it all.”

Harry’s face falls. “Oh no, Tom. I’m so sorry. Do you—do you need anything? New supplies? I can fetch them from Hogsmeade for you, it isn’t any trouble.”

“I’m fine,” Tom says, dropping his eyes to the table. His essay is actually fine. He isn’t stupid enough to leave his things unprotected. But if Harry ever follows up on the story with the other Slytherins, it will hold true, which is what matters.

Harry pulls out the closest chair and drops into it. “Really, Tom. I know you must not have much—er, I mean, it’s just if I can help in any way, then I want to.” His cheeks flush with chagrin upon referencing Tom’s poverty. “I want to help you.”

“You’ve already given me plenty,” Tom says. “After the holidays we’ll have our lessons. I can survive until then.”

Harry frowns. “You said you were scared. Before.”

Tom shrugs and keeps his gaze downcast. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Harry fish around in his bag until he produces a silver key dangling from a thin rope.

Harry taps it with his wand. “Geminio.” A second key pops out from the original. “Here,” he says, holding it out. “I want you to have somewhere safe to go, alright? You can have this so long as you promise only to use it when you need to.”

Tom allows his delight to blossom across his face. “Really?” He is careful to pluck the key out of Harry’s hand with delicacy. “Thank you, Harry. This means so much to me.” His hand clutches the key close to his chest, to imply how precious it is to him.

Harry smiles back, a pleased thing that is only slightly tinged with hesitancy. “You’re welcome.”

[dazeddazai]

She was alone; lights out, tables cleaned, bottles set in rows. Only the moonlight peered through the half tinted windows, filling the room with a cool, waxen glow— coating the wood in pale translucence as if strained through melted silk.

The bar had been closed for quite some time; dust hung in the air uninterrupted, save for at the corner of the room where Makino sat, eyes downcast, teetering on the edge of fatigue. The better part of her judgment implored her to make her way up the weathered staircase and into her bedroom, near forgotten, but she stayed seated and silent— drifting off to the sea salt breeze.

The table in front of her lay empty, with the exception of a clear water glass. It bore, in its wake, a single white snowdrop and a pale yellow marigold. The snowdrop had long faded— spine curved and threads snapped into split ends; it lay on its last life, drinking from the glass in earnest— the final breath of hope, undistilled. 

It had been a year since she had seen him last— the promise of return etched deep into her lips as he had bade her goodbye.

“Wait for me,” he had whispered in earnest, “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”

But as soon as he could had turned into weeks, then into months, and still Makino sat into the late hours of the night, lashed glazed with sleep-coated tears.

It was hard not to worry when she knew of the danger that lay in the shadows of his journey. The perilous exploits of the infamous few drew the attention of the masses— making for rowdy conversations amongst the bottles of dry mead— and though she tried to tune it out, the name of the man she longed for was no stranger to every household on the island.

Before long, Makino could no longer read the paper without feeling a hint of restlessness. Dread clouded her thoughts and overtook her mind, and soon, to preserve her faith, she did away with the news all together. Instead, she reread his letters and thumbed through the memories that he had left behind, tainted with the ink blots of forgetfulness and frosted over with the scenes of her own imagination. 

She spent days— weeks, even, in her head, all at once— so much so that she could barely make out the reality of everyday life. Customers came and went in flashes of sound and color, but she barely registered their presence until they were slumbling from the bar, a drunken farewell lost upon their lips. 

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

Makino started and looked up from the table. Her breath caught in her throat. 

Shanks stood in the doorway, relaxed and charming- a relic of the memories that she had been living in for almost a year. She stood up, almost knocking the chair to the floor. She wanted to run to him, to embrace him without a single care in the world, but she could not will her body forward- scared that if she moved too close, he would vanish into thin air. 

Instead, she composed herself, and after a brief hiccup in time, she spoke.

“Where were you off to this time?” She asked, trying to squash the unintentional shaking of her unpracticed voice with an uneven smile. “Somewhere dangerous along the Grand Line, I’d imagine.”

Shanks returned her smile and shook his head.

“Visiting an old friend. Making sure that my affairs are well in order.”

“Well in order for what?”

He didn’t answer but instead turned to face the bar. 

“How is everything over here?” He asked, “Does the old man still come around to visit from time to time?

“Sometimes— when he’s not busy.”

“And the boy?”

“He looks more like you with every passing day.”

“That’s nice,” he replied, and Makino felt a lump form in her throat. 

​​"Could you just hold me for a while?" She whispered. “Just once, before you leave?”

Shanks smiled soft— gentle and contrite.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” 

“I miss you. Everyday.” She said, and then there were tears tumbling freely down her cheeks. “I miss you so much that I can’t breathe.”

“I know,” He replied, voice husky. “I know and I’m sorry.”

“Won’t you stay? Just a little while longer?”

“I’ll stay for as long as you need me to.”

“I love you.” She whispered, her voice breaking upon the last syllable. “I’ll always love you.”

Shanks gazed at her, eyes soft and clouded—

“I know you will.”

“Will you ever come back?”

He paused before answering. Then, reaching out and grazing the snowdrop, he said-

“I think today has to be the last time.”

As he spoke, Makino noticed that the snowdrop had finally fallen from the stem. It lay, wilted and white- now no more than a relic to be brushed off the table and onto the floor. 

“What if- what if I’m not able to let you go?” She said, her voice smaller than it had ever been. 

Shanks didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up and began to make his way towards the door. 

“I’ll be waiting for you.” He said simply, “Come for me whenever you’re ready-” 

Then, before she knew it, he was gone just as quickly as he had come.

Makino awoke slowly to the moon shining through the open door. With all the effort that she could muster in her neglected body, she pushed herself up and began to make her way to the staircase. She could barely remember what she had dreamed about last, but she could feel the trail of stale tears, etched upon her cheeks.

As she walked past the bar, all she saw was a blur of stained glass mixed with molten light- a light that cast its gaze upon a single cockled paper, stained in salt, breaking the news of what she had feared so long ago.

[fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction]

Afton-Herrera Moments 5

Time: Unknown Location: Somewhere in Florida

.

.

“That last job should have us set for a while,” Panther mused aloud, relaxing at the makeshift table that had been made for eating meals. Router remembered asking about it when he first moved in with the mercenary duo and being told Tiger had built it after getting fed up with Panther leaving crumbs in the couches from eating there. It wasn’t very pretty, just a plain flat surface of wooden planks nailed to a wooden frame and coated in wood stain and sealant for protection, but it served the purpose well. “Good payout and I got a new weapon out of it too!” the man went on with a pleased grin.

“Do you get a new one on every job?” Router sighed in exasperation, giving him an annoyed glare. New ‘weapons’ meant more mouths to feed, meant the money had to stretch a little further to cover living expenses, meant he’d be focused on spreadsheets and balancing bills instead of fortifying their online defenses. How was he supposed to erase traces of themselves online when he was busy pinching pennies on the food budget?

“Feet off the table, Sydney,” Tiger grumbled as he finally swept into the room. He carried a large tray laden with plates of food, grilled chicken and salads and baked potatoes. The job had been good enough that Panther’s brother had splurged on the celebratory dinner. Router perked up at the sight of the food even as he very firmly ignored any mention of Panther’s true name.

Panther sighed as he lowered his legs from the table surface, more scoffing in sound than anything. While Tiger set out the servings for the three of them, he reached into the nearby cooler and pulled out fresh beers to add to the table. Router accepted his with a quiet thanks and a wry grin.

It was kind of nice to be part of this ‘family’ dinner. His own hadn’t always been peaceful, as for some reason his mother liked to use them to vent her frustrations about anything that annoyed her, which ranged from the good-for-nothing man that got her pregnant and then ditched her to Router getting less than perfect grades in whatever subject in school he was struggling to understand. Getting away from her and gaining control over his life had been the most freeing thing, and now he could enjoy more fun dinners like this.

“Next time, get a weapon that can also cook,” Tiger suggested dryly, splitting open his baked potato and scooping up part of the fluffy innards with a piece of chicken, “I could use more hands in the kitchen to feed all these strays you keep bringing home.”

“I got Sweets, didn’t I?” Panther protested, gesturing aimlessly in the general direction of the cellblocks where he kept his ‘stock’. “She’s good at cooking! One of these days she’ll even keep up our stock of meds and poisons!”

“She’s also eight and labels her shit with stickers,” Tiger pointed out flatly, jabbing his fork toward his affronted brother, “I’m not putting that kid near our food when she’s holding a bottle with a unicorn on it and I don’t know if that means sugar or anthrax.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who gave her the stickers!”

“She’s a kid and needs toys and playtime, you can’t just stick them in a room and expect them to be okay like the adults you nab.”

“She’s just new, she’ll catch on,” Panther dismissed with a huff as Tiger rolled his eyes and went back to his food. Router watched the back and forth with an amused smile. Even though it kind of sounded like his mother’s ranting at first, the way the two of them bounced back and forth with their words seemed more like a loud conversation over the care of Panther’s new ‘weapon’. Wasn’t the first time Router saw a kid running around the place with Panther’s signature tattoo painted on them with ink, but it was the first time on a job he saw the guy just scoop one up after taking a look at them and their room and announce them as his bonus for the job.

Router still felt his skin crawl at the look of one of the other mercenaries at Sweets, but once Panther had her nobody else dared come near. As far as the hacker was concerned, she was in the safest place in the world now and would be learning some good new skills as she grew up. The fact that she was smiling now as the bruises were healing was already proof she was happier.

It just made his respect for Panther grow even more.

“You did good work, kiddo,” Tiger spoke up and Router looked over at the older man as he lifted his beer in toast of him, “Keeping those cameras off him, can’t have been easy with the way he just barges through everything.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Router replied with a grin, soaking in the praise, “Panther can count on me to watch his back on the web and anywhere there’s a system to crack.”

Tiger nodded at him, then gave Panther a narrow-eyed glare of irritation. “As for you, no more new weapons for the next few jobs,” he scolded, “This was a good score but our overhead’s gettin’ high for keeping your shit in good condition so we gotta build up reserve cash again for maintenance.”

“No promises,” Panther waved his brother’s words off before digging into his food. Router hid his grin with a sip of his beer, feeling relaxed and in a much better mood now that his partner was being reigned in on his ‘spending’ by his older brother. It was interesting to see the dynamic as an only child. What would it be like, he wondered, to have an older or younger sibling?

And then he dismissed the thought as silly to think about; he was basically nonexistent to the people who called themselves his parents so what was the use of thinking about family now?

.

—----------------------------------

Present Day Hurricane, Utah

.

Fingers moved stiffly, one after another, and Freddy had an expression that somehow managed to convey both focus and frustration in the limited movement of facial features. Gregory and Alex both studied the workings of the animatronic arm that replaced Freddy’s usual limb, then checked the readings on the laptop connected to it.

“It’s gotta be a hardware issue,” Alex muttered, “You wrote the software correctly, even if it’s got more lines of code than I’d use myself.”

“The claws don’t retract though, and that’s what the software’s supposed to do,” Gregory countered with a pout. “Freddy, that software isn’t messing with anything else, right?”

“No, I have it isolated from the level of access needed for the rest of my body while we test,” the animatronic replied and huffed. “I feel resistance to the language this was written in. Most likely, the base code I was built upon is not fully compatible with this language.”

Alex sat back with an exasperated sigh, lifting his feet to rest on the coffee table while he considered Freddy’s words. “What language was used then? How was your coding written?” he mused aloud.

“I learned,” Freddy replied, the tone of his voice taking on a strange quality, “I was born in a nursery and taught how to behave as the Freddy they wanted me to be. The base software I possess.. do other endoskeletons have the same software? Can they be raised to also behave like Freddy Fazbear? And if that is the case, then what stops me from learning the behaviors of another and then taking on that identity instead? Could I just as easily be a Monty instead of a Freddy?”

“That’s a mood,” Alex muttered under his breath as Gregory rushed to soothe and reassure Freddy of his sense of self. The words were uncomfortably reminiscent of his issues with his own identity and also of Sydney and his connection with his past as Panther.

If Sydney didn’t really behave the same as Panther, then was he even that Panther? And if he was no longer Panther, then did Alex bring him back wrong with his deal? Did he trap a stranger into this existence instead of give a second chance at life to his old friend?

“Maybe we should ask Mr. Fitzgerald for those files and see if there’s a clue in there about Freddy’s software,” Gregory suggested, grabbing the tools to disconnect his homemade arm and reconnect Freddy’s usual one. “I told you we should have taken lemon cookies and made peace with the guy the last time we had him and Mr. Woods do a maintenance check.”

Alex scoffed at the idea, but it was probably something he’d have to do sooner than later if they were going to get any idea of what base software was used for Freddy. Understanding that would go a long way to fixing anomalies in it for the others, since Gregory was still fixated on the idea of going into the Pizzaplex to recover the programming chips of the other Glamrocks. That was something already being worked on by the other Guards as well; Woods had been studying some recent photos of the ruined Pizzaplex during that last visit, which meant his roommate was hearing about it and he’d be telling his sister and his sister would gossip about it to Meera since they were best friends and if Meera heard about it....

He grimaced at the idea of Circus Baby hearing about it and joining in on the operation. Much as he didn’t like being around his father’s digital self, Alex knew that the artificial spirit was their best counter to the Master File’s control over the Pizzaplex network.

There was knocking from across the room that drew their attention and Alex raised his eyebrows at Sydney standing at the entrance to the den. He moved his hand from the wall to his mouth, tapping his knuckles against his lips in signal so Alex could fish out his phone and hold it up, his custom app open for translating Sydney’s sign language. Once the phone was up, Sydney went on with signing, a disapproving frown on his face.

“/Feet off the table/,” the phone spoke in translation and Alex scowled even as he pulled his legs down. A flicker of deja vu revived an old memory of him and Panther and Tiger from some months before that tragic job at Freddy’s, and the scowl grew more bitter.

“Oh, hey, you guys are back!” Gregory greeted as Sydney moved aside enough to let Vanessa pass by him to enter the den, her hands gripping a pair of bags of takeout food, “How’s the Pizzaplex looking? Are those tacos?”

“Yeah, Sydney said these were more authentic than that brand-name place,” Vanessa replied as she set the bags down on the coffee table, gently nudging aside the disconnected arm. “As for the Pizzaplex, we scouted around it for any way in but most of the regular entrances are either locked or blocked off. Might have to literally break in to get access again.”

“Could bug Woods and his friends for help in that, even if some of that help means Vincent and the asshole will tag along,” Alex suggested, accepting a container and popping the lid open to reveal a few tacos and the customary sides.

A dark glass bottle extended towards him caught him by surprise and he reached for it more out of familiarity before realizing that the glass was clear, the liquid inside dark and bubbly. A soda. Alex glanced up at Sydney holding the drink out to him, his brother giving him a concerned look over how he’d gone still.

“Thanks,” he muttered awkwardly, taking the bottle and setting it on the table near his food.

Another sort-of family dinner. Alex sat back with his set of tacos, taking a bite as he looked over the group of people that he lived with. An unlikely bunch getting along; Alex didn’t think he’d ever be okay with living with a pair of Aftons, even if they were technically forced to be Aftons. Aftons got him and Panther killed, trapped as ghosts tethered to an animatronic rabbit and bound to yet another Afton siphoning their energy for his gain, and it was that Afton’s plan that ended up with Panther being so thoroughly shredded of Remnant and memories that there was almost nothing left of him to reincarnate with.

But here they were, and at least he still had Sydney, even if his memories were severely lacking.

Just... would it really be so bad to wish Sydney had more of Panther back? That confidence and control Alex remembered and admired; Sydney could really use some of that to get over being so afraid of himself.

[magiefish]

[LAST PART]

[NEXT PART]

A cliffhanger for the spooky ooky day ;)

And also an update! This part is definitely shorter than the last and that’s because I’ve decided to split these uploads into smaller parts so I can get them out more regularly. I’m entering the years where I do my Big Tests (TM) and I just have. So little free time. And ADHD doesn’t make drawing massive uploads easy because of my short attention span, so overall I figured this was the best decision. Anyway, see you sometime in the future!

[strangerhottotties]

Punishments - E.M.

Summary: You and Eddie share an apartment. He kind of acts like an annoying kid brother and you have to pretend like your not head over heels for the goof. Today, however, is a tough day and you come home to him snooping in your room.

Warnings: a little angst?, dirty smut, 18+, minors dni, Virgin!Eddie (you don't know that yet), Eddie being a little perv, cockwarming, sex toys, everyone is aged up/ out of high school, teasing, sex punishments, pinv sex, tiddy play, sub!Eddie, dom!reader, uses of 'mama' in a sexual way.

I meant for this to be a drabble, just some thots, ya know?.... oops... also it's like 2 am n I'm dead tired. I'm sorry but I'm too lazy to do tags. I'll be better about it later. Good night.

Great. Just fan-fucking-tastic. The elevator was down now? Was anything ever going to go right for you today?

You kick the metal door with little effort, mostly just scraping the toe of your heel against it and feel like crying. The yellow caution tape strapped across it was enough. Nothing ever got fixed in this building so you doubted this one would take long.

Your head lolls to the side as you eye the door to the stairs. Your feet ached. You had a pounding migraine. You'd cried twice at work today, once from being yelled at by a horrible customer, the other because nothing went right. The copy machine broke half way through the day and not in the stopped-working way but the shit-ink-everywhere kind. Which lead to being reprimanded. Worse yet, you cracked your windshield on the way home in the wicked thunderstorm and nearly crashed when a tree narrowly missed your car.

All you wanted was a cup of tea (or a bottle of wine), to sneak one of your roommates pre-rolled joints, and to reacquaint yourself with the silicone friend that resided on your bedside table. The next best thing besides being fucked within an inch of your life.

A decent orgasm should help with the pounding in your skull though.

With a deep breath, you slipped out of your shoes and made your way into the dimly lit stairwell, praying for nothing else to go wrong.

Thankfully, Eddie had a gig tonight. Fortunate enough for you, you'd get the apartment to yourself until he was dragged in by Garrett and Jeff, usually too wasted to speak as he passed out on the couch or in his bed. You'd probably get a rude awakening a few hours later when he felt needy and climbed into your bed again, demanding like a petulant child to be held.

You don't know that you had it in you tonight. If anything, you wanted nothing more than your annoying (and shockingly sweet) roommate to hold you. A reoccurring wet dream lately it seemed.

How your messy, obnoxious, metalhead roommate had wormed his way into both your heart and subconscious, you had no clue.

The creepy, dirty stairwell made you second guess taking off your heels. But the truth was, you felt like your toes had been split apart already and the idea of walking bare foot up these suspiciously stained stairs was more appealing than actually putting those heels back on.

"God help me," you whimper to yourself before treading carefully up the stairs.

You made it up in one piece, however, only having to yank twice on the heavy door to get it to open.

It was half way down the hallway you heard the familiar sound of Black Sabbath blaring and your heart sank into your gut. "Fuuuuck," you whine as you unlock the front door. Eddie was undoubtedly home.

Throwing open the door, you take in the messy apartment and lack of your roommate in the immediate vicinity. "Eddie?" You call, creeping in.

No answer. Relief floods you. He must have just left the music on. You head towards the stereo system, happily just turning it down to a reasonable level.

Despite all of your protests, you didn't actually mind his taste in music. Some bands you actually liked, but you wouldn't tell him that.

Eagerly, you head towards your bedroom, ready to strip first and get off second. The moment the door swung open though you gasp in horror.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you."

"To be fair, I was looking for my more of my guitar picks that you always sneak." Eddie grins at you from where he's lounging on your pillows. He wiggles the bright pink vibrator at you as a greeting. "Pink is definitely your color."

Your bag drops from your shoulder and hits the top of your desk with a thump.

"Don't you have a job to do?" You snap at him, to exhausted to fight as your cheeks burn.

"Power went out at the bar, we got canceled for the night. This is kinda small don't you think? They make bigger ones." You roll your eyes at him.

"I haven't washed it, you know?" Your jab makes his eyes fly wide and he glances down. You half expect him to throw it, but he inspects it closer.

"So the last thing this touched was your pussy?"

"No," you chirp, irritated, "it was my asshole."

Shock plasters to his face. "Oh shit, are you serious?" he hums and much to your dismay, it stirs something low in your belly. Your taunts haven't had the right effect at all.

You finally move to the edge of your bed and snatch it from his hands. "No, you perv. Now get the fuck out." He seemed shocked by your sourness. It's not surprising, your demeanor usually sweet and shy. Sure, you liked to fuck with him every once and a while, but today, no.

Without waiting for a response you head to the bathroom to wash it.

"Wait," he calls after you and the bed squeals at his apparent moves to flip off the bed. You hear the thump when he hits the floor but have little energy to actually care. "Wait," he repeats upon appearing in the bathroom doorway, breathless and flustered.

"No." Your response is cold as you flip on the sink and grab soap.

"I really was looking for my guitar picks. It was just sitting right there on the side table and I've never actually seen one in person."

"So it gave you the right to go through my shit?" You snap.

"No," he grunts quietly. "I just... thought it was hot."

That short circuits your brain, frazzling out your anger beyond repair. You freeze with your hands under the water. Your eyes meet his dark ones in the mirror, red saturating his cheeks.

The silence stretches on uncomfortably for him as you just blink in disbelief at what he just admitted.

"Hot?" You finally squeak.

He nods vehemently, eyes huge.

You can't help it. The dirty thoughts stirring up your mind. The near violent urge to jump his bones. You don't even register your next words.

"Do you want to have sex with me?" Your eyes are narrowed on him in the mirror, watching his body language shift to something... shy? That was a rarity. He was suddenly very interested in his bare feet, fingers fidgeting.

"Would you hate me if I said 'yes'?" Flutters quietly out of his mouth. You can't help the sharp intake of your breath as you rinse the toy in the water.

"Strip. On my bed." Your order makes his eyes snap to you in the mirror. You see it barely in your peripheral as you duck your eyes back down, pretending to be nonchalant.

"What?" Comes his breathless reply.

"Just know," you sigh, frustrated, giving him a final opportunity to back out, "I'm gonna use you to get off."

The ruckus has you glancing up and you get a glimpse of him scrambling back towards your bedroom immediately. You can't suppress the grin on your face as he goes, it's adorable in a way. Shutting off the sink, you dry the toy on your own bath towel and then move towards your bedroom.

He glanced over his shoulder at you, shedding his flannel shirt. You meet his gaze head on, as you follow his lead, unbuttoning your own blouse. He's practically buzzing with excitement, no idea of the sweet torture you're about to inflict on him, it seems.

You watch him drag his tank off his back. He slows, dropping the fabric to the floor as your itchy, lacy bra is exposed to him. You were suddenly very happy with wearing the underwire, despite the ache you have from it. The way it further rounded your breasts, making them look fuller, heavier. His breathing stuttered and even with the dreadful day you had, you felt sexy.

He's popping his belt at the same time your unzipping your skirt. You may be more nude, but the way he's slowly shedding his layers makes this feel more sensual than you'd intended. You weren't going to complain about that. Not when you both had rising anticipation.

He was far less nervous than moments ago. Already buzzing with furious excitement.

His boxers fell away and your eyes met with the holy grail of cock. Your eyes widen and you felt your mouth water when his erection bobs into the air for you. He was already fully hard and you hadnt even done anything to him yet. "Whacha say? Will that do for you?" He chirps, as if the eager way your chest rose wasn't answer enough.

"That'll definitely do," you hum, striding forward. He grins. You're heart threatens to stop when he lunges for you, sealing his mouth to yours in a soft, lingering kiss that last just a moment before he's landing himself where he was just minutes ago.

You reach up, more than happy to discard your bra with the rest of your things.

Should you be fucking your roommate? Absolutely not. The hellish day you had made you want to be vengeful. And vengeful you'd be.

Eddie practically vibrated as lace pulled away, then he frowned at your relief. "It left imprints?" He hums. "Do they hurt?" His sweetness made you want to soften with him for a moment but you wouldn't relent.

"No speaking unless spoken to." Your next order is barked. He snaps his jaw closed and nods once as affirmation. "Good boy."

Oh, the way his eyes blaze with need.

Deciding to further tease him, your panties slide down your thighs painfully slow. His dark eyes are honed into your pussy regardless. "I'm going to punish you, got it?" He nods again, this time vehemently as you climb up over him, toy still in hand. "You're not gonna cum until I say so, understood, Eddie?"

"Yes," he replies.

"Yes, what?" You urge, curious to know now that you hover naked it his lap.

"Yes, mama."

That sparks something inside you. Your brain fried. Then you can't help lining yourself up with him and he's shaking, hands snapping to your hips. Not guiding, not pushing, just holding and stroking circles with his thumbs and it feels so nice you let him. How can you stop him?

"What do you say?" You tease him, sinking to slide him through the outer wetness of your lips. His head launches back into the pillows as he gives a strangled cry that makes you throb.

"Please, mama! Please! Please! Please! Pleeee- UHHHHH! FUCK!" He quakes when you sink your pulsing cunt down on top of him, moaning with him as he stretches you out harshly. His whole body arched up off the bed, seating himself in as deep as he could go. His sob of pleasure nearly had you coming on the spot. This torture wouldn't last long for you, not with him twitching wildly inside you.

He sinks back against the pillows for a moment, panting. You sink onto him as he does.

"I'm...," you start breathlessly, "I'm gonna... come around you. This is gonna be your punishment for going through my shit, got it?"

"Yes, mama. Yes, mama. Yes, mamaaaaa." He shivered below you as you flexed your walls around him, eyes rolling back into his skull.

He looked so pretty when he was desperate. His hands fumbled over your thighs and waist. And only because your breasts ached, you snatched his hands up and pressed them against them with a whine of your own. His hands barely fit around your tender breast, as he massaged and lifted them for you. It eased the pain in them, especially when he brushed his thumbs over your nipples.

You hum out in relief.

His quiet noises capture your attention. Glancing down to see his eyebrows knitted up and together. "You feel so good. So soft. So fucking wet," he whines and it makes you shiver.

"Mmm. About to be even wetter," you reply and lean back enough to turn on the toy and nestle it in the perfect spot against you. His lip got pulled harshly between his teeth as a long whine left his lips, no doubt feeling the toy vibrate with you.

Maybe you were a bad dom, not sticking to your rules, but how could you when he looked so pretty like this. Made you cock drunk already.

You adjust the setting, hips widening and thighs tightening. This was it. "Thought..." he starts "thought you were gonna use me?" It's not a taunt. Just confusion. You can see in the way his face bunches as he squirms with discomfort below you.

"Oh, pretty boy," you coo, at him, "I am using you. You're gonna lay there and give me what I need and what I need is something to cum around, got it?" He whimpers, face crumbling with devastation and in a tiny voice that threatens to destroy you completely, he replies.

"Yes, mama."

If he begged you right now, there isn't a doubt in your mind that you'd give him exactly what he needed. His normal back talk with you washed away to whiney neediness. It was stunning.

You're already so close as you lean back, desperate to cum yourself. Desperate to feel that release you've been craving all day. Desperate to know what if feels like to come on his cock, especially when you leaned back and braced yourself on his thigh, making the head of his cock nudge a spot deep inside.

You couldn't wait to actually ride- wait, no! This is a punishment, you remind yourself.

Turning it to your favorite setting, you press the vibrator hard against your clit and feel your legs shake. Eddie is reduced to a trembling moaning mess as you flutter around him. You can see the effort it's taking for him to hold back, hips twitching and face contorting. His mouth hangs open and you can't help but lean forward, pinning the vibrator between you both as you cradle his face in your hands.

He shaved today, his skin smooth. And you rock against him just a bit. The vibrator is nearly to much at this angle, nearly pressed completely against him. Rocking slight to roll it to the right spot left you jerking back with oversensativity and it made tears well in your eyes.

Your arms tremble to hold you up when your hands snap to your bedspread. It nearly felt like you were already cumming as you pressed yourself against him. You were an unintentional mess on top of him, moaning loudly and nearly sobbing as you finally duck your face against his neck.

"Please, please, please," he whimpers. "Pleeeeease cum, mama, gotta feel you. I need it. I need it so fucking bad, please cum, please, your pussy's so hot around me I can't take it, pleeeease." And there's the begging that finally sets you off as he mutters it against the apex of your neck, arms secured down your back. Hands locked on the globes of your ass to press you harder against him.

Normally, you'd cum by now. Normally, that band in your belly would snap but your orgasm just kept building more, and more. Your brain was aware that you were certainly in for it and when it did snap you were going to be utterly ruined.

"I'm so close, Eddie," you manage to sob.

He bucks into harshly then and it's over.

You cum, hard. Soaking everything between you with sticky cum as your pussy weeps around his cock. Eddie arches, crying out, you hear his palm slamming into the wall as explitives shutter out of him mouth. His babble distant to your ears as you have to snatch the toy out from between the two of you.

It takes a few minutes of both of you twitching before you can even sit up. It makes him hiss as his still-hard cock rubs inside you. You're oversensative and want to jerk away when he bucks slightly into you.

You pant as you look down at his tear streaked face, pink flushed cheeks and trembling lip. "Baby," you hum softly, reaching up to stroke his face. "You okay?"

It takes him a moment to gain his bearings. "Hell of a first time," he finally croaks out. It sobers you immediately and you snatch his face into your hands, forcing him to look at you.

"Eddie," you demand, utterly horrified, "did I just... take your virginity?"

"First kiss, too," he whispers, looking so vulnerable. You sit up right, hand fluttering over your mouth in utter mortification.

"Eddie," you sigh, frustrated, "you should have told me."

"But... you wouldn't have fucked me." Your heart nearly shatters at his pitiful expression.

"Baby, you deserve so much more than that," you mutter and before he can start crying more, because you can see those alligator tears rising in his eyes, you pull off him and roll onto your back, holding yourself open for him. He whimpered. "Come here."

And then Eddie's on you, burying his wet face in your neck as you wrap yourself around him. He shutters. "Can I?"

"Yes," you bless. It's tender as he adjusts himself and he sobs as he sinks back inside of you. Your breath hitches and you moan as he hits the end of you and pushes past it. He whimpers your name.

"I need... I need to-"

"Take what you need, Eddie." He shivers and draws back. It hurts a little when he jams back in but it's well worth it. It's just because he's so big and he's grinding himself as deep as he can. He's a mess on top of you, clinging desperately to you as you press kisses to any part of him you can reach.

He rocks into you only a hand full of times, desperately babbling. "Pussy s'wet. S'tight.. wet 'n tight, wet 'n tight, s'wet 'n tight, 'm gonna cum." His words are slurring like he's wasted. "Can I cum? Can I, oh, please, mama." And it hit you how much he must love this.

Always a perv. The idea makes you smile.

"Cum in me, pretty boy."

A sound tears out him so harshly as he rams himself into you as furiously as you can that you clench around him. It's not even a shout, it's a wail as he locks up and presses as deep as he absolutely can. He stills and you can feel the pulsing inside you, the dirty feeling of his cum filling you like this.

He slumps against you, both of you panting wildly. You think he's going to lift off you, but he only adjust enough that he nestle himself between your breasts, pressing his head against you. "Sorry," he murmurs, "was too quick." You can feel his breath panting against you.

"In case you forgot," you tease lightly, feeling like sunshine beneath him, "I came before you did."

He giggles goofily. Then you both gasp when he slides out, you feel his cum leaking out behind it. Then he leans down and latches on a nipple, suckling on it, eyes sliding shut.

"Nn, Eddie, you're gonna make me horny again," you whine weakly.

"I've got fingers and a mouth," he offers eagerly, eyes lighting up. It makes you smile, especially when his cock twitches against your leg.

"Get up here and kiss me, please." And you can see the way he melts into you. His nose bumps yours affectionately before he presses his mouth against yours fiercely. It's sloppy, inexperienced, but wonderful all at the same time.

"I love you," him grunts against your mouth. It's muffled but it makes your heart sing.

"I love you, Eddie," you hum back, nearly crushing him against you.

Not how you expected your night to go, but certainly it was making up for the tremendously awful day you'd had.

[kassandras-one-braincell]

Eivor x Fem!Reader - Ink Me Up

Oh, what to do when the Norwegian woman tattooing your thigh is insanely attractive, clearly gay, with a criminally good bedside manner?

Warning: about tattooing and obviously needles.

Word count: 4363

Can be found on AO3 here.

Heavily inspired by this post here. The tattoo itself is purely self-indulgent. Eivor is stupidly attractive and it's not fair. (Y/N) replacer safe.

After months of saving and deliberation, the time had come. For the longest time you had dreamed of getting something big, bold and beautiful permanently inked into your skin. Something meaningful. And you wanted someone talented to tattoo it.

Thus, you found yourself scouring the web for reputable tattoo shops, hours upon hours poured into searching artists’ portfolios, hoping that someone was skilled enough at black-and-grey realism within a relatively close radius. If you were going to pay a hefty sum for a tattoo, you wanted it to be perfect. Your desktop was flooded with reference images of sword lilies – the subject of your desired ink – and about a dozen different parlours, tabs whittling down one by one during your search.

The final tab was the website for a slightly pricier shop, but one of the artist’s Instagrams utterly captivated you. Their artwork was extraordinary, the details in their pieces stunning and intricate; you decided investing a little extra cash would be worth it. Eivor Varinsdóttir, handle @wolfkissed_ink. Grinning, you emailed the artist, requesting a consultation.

You explained to the artist during that consultation that you wanted a composition of black-and-grey realistic gladioli on your left thigh. Sword lilies represented strength, after all, and you wanted to commemorate overcoming a difficult part of your life with something gorgeous and symbolic. That and, well, flowers were pretty. Within the week they had responded with a sketch that was beyond what you could have possibly thought up yourself: two stunning, bloomed sprigs of the flower with petals floating either side, lifelike as a monochrome photograph. Smiling ear-to-ear, you booked up your first appointment.

Unbridled excitement led to the time before your appointment soaring by, with you opening up the file of the sketch almost every day. Bringing us to the present: you stood anxiously outside the parlour door, 12:50pm, ten minutes before your scheduled appointment. Sucking in a shaky breath, nerves both good and bad, you stepped inside.

The tattoo shop was sleek, modern and decked wall-to-wall with flash sheets, the small designs varying in style, colour and detail. Everything was spotless, as one would expect, with shining awards dotted about. Just seeing the various trophies did well to quell some of your anxieties, knowing you were in good hands, that you’d end up with a lovely piece on your thigh. A stout man covered neck to foot in swirling Japanese designs manned the front desk, smiling warmly at you, obliterating any stigmas you had heard from older relatives about tattoo culture.

Biting your lip, you made your way to the desk, mustering a nervous smile. As thrilled as you were about getting the tattoo, the whole pain aspect was still rather daunting. “Hey, one o’clock appointment for (Y/N) (L/N)?” You fidgeted with the hem of your shorts while the gentleman checked his desktop.

“With Eivor, right?” he verified. You nodded.

“Sorry I’m a little early—”

“No, not at all! Rather you be early than late,” he chuckled, clearly sensing your worries. His eyes flickered across a clipboard. “She’s not with a client at the moment, so I’ll send you through now, if that’s alright.”

“Sounds good, thank you,” you bade, pulse quickening. Come on, you’ve wanted this for so long, you can’t pussy out now.

The guy asked you to wait by the desk as he ventured down a long corridor, the black paint giving off an ominous vibe that did nothing for your nerves. A few seconds later, he returned, cocking his head for you to follow. Your knuckles were white from gripping the strap of your purse so tightly.

He led you to the room at the end of the hall, holding the glossy black door open for you. “Go easy on her, Eivor, it’s clearly her first,” he called out, flashing you a wink, before letting the door close behind you.

Holy shit.

She was hot.

Eivor was nothing short of a modern day viking. Tall, rippling with muscle, late twenties to early thirties, blond hair strewn into an unruly braid with a strip on the right shaved clean to the flesh, revealing a fucking skull tattoo of a bird…a raven? Her face was stupidly handsome, eyes blue and icy but warm with greeting, a long and gnarly scar cutting into the flesh of her left cheek with a smaller nick protruding from her upper lip. Hell, the nape of her neck was marred with an even more vicious looking scar. She wore a tight black t-shirt that strained around her deliciously grizzled arms, which were adorned with Norse-looking runes and text curving into circles, ink that carried on to her hands and neck. The smile she offered you made you weak in the knees.

“(Y/N), right? I’m Eivor, a pleasure to meet you,” she greeted, voice deep and gravelly, decorated with a rasp that to you sounded like butter. Fuck me, she’s a tall, tall glass of water.

You shook her hand when she extended it to you, marvelling at the patterns and blacked-out bands on her long, thick fingers. Her nails were cut extremely short, confirming the strong lesbian vibe she gave off. “Likewise,” you squeaked, cursing yourself for acting like some bloody schoolgirl.

She sauntered over to her setup, weight carried in her shoulders, consolidating her already intimidatingly attractive butch energy, sanitised her hands and pulled on a clean pair of gloves. “Come on over,” she said, grabbing a disposable razor from a box. “I’ll just need to make sure the area is shaven, if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” you replied, joining her by the leather chair, covered by a sheet of cellophane. It was a relief to see all the hygiene precautions taken in the shop. Eivor picked up a disinfectant wipe.

“Left thigh, if I remember correctly?”

“Mhm, yeah.”

She dropped to one knee – wasn’t that a fucking sight – and wiped down the expanse of your thigh before gliding the razor over the flesh.

Hesitantly, you asked her what the general procedure was, desperately trying to divert your thoughts from the sapphic spiral they were travelling down.

“Alright, after I’ve finished here I’ll apply the stencil. You’ll get to check if you like the placement, and if you don’t I’ll keep going until you’re happy with it. It’s a big piece, so we’ll have to split this up into two sessions, as we discussed alongside payment.” She brushed away the loose hairs and peach fuzz. “I’ll do the linework this session, and the shading next time.” With one final pass of the razor she pulled back, tossing it into a bin.

Eivor then picked up a sheet of thin paper with the sketch printed on it. She plucked a purple pen from her table. “Give me a few minutes to trace the stencil, then we’ll apply it and see how you like it.” You nodded, trying to focus on your breathing.

While she traced over each line of the sketch, she kindly attempted to soothe your fears with small talk. “I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of a ‘gladiolus’ before our consultation. Any reason why you chose it?”

You smiled. “They represent strength. I finally got through a rough spell and wanted something to celebrate with,” you explained, heart skipping a beat at the soft expression on the artist’s face.

“All the more reason to get this perfect then,” she said with a grin. The way the scar on her upper lip quirked was positively adorable. A couple minutes passed and she re-capped the pen. “Stand up straight for me, darling.” Oh.

Cheeks burning with bashfulness, you complied. Eivor took a second to angle the stencil before smoothing it over your thigh, leaving a purple outline once she removed the paper. “Just have a look in that mirror over there and tell me if you’re happy, okay?”

You walked over to the mirror and stared at your thigh. The tattoo was large – which you expected, with the amount of detail in it – and perfectly central, the loose petals appearing to float down the length of your thigh. “Perfect,” you breathed out, giving the woman a thumbs-up.

Eivor switched over her gloves and gestured for you to take a seat on the chair. “Get comfy, then. Do you have water?” Nodding, you took out your water bottle from your handbag. “Brilliant. Still want to do this?”

“Hell yeah.” Weirdly, the nerves about the pain (not about the sexy artist) had almost wholly subsided, leaving you brimming with anticipation.

She poured some jet black ink into small caps, no larger than the tip of your thumb. “Remember to breathe through it and hold still, yeah? You picked a smart place for your first tattoo, not too close to the bone.”

“I’ll try.” Eivor opened a sealed packet containing a new, sterilised needle, inserting it into her tattoo machine. She switched it on, the buzz of the machine’s piston filling the room with a gentle hum. Looking up at you, she cocked her brow – if only your gay thoughts could bugger off for two minutes – as if to ask, ready? Affirmatively, you beamed at her.

Dipping the needle into the ink, she pulled the skin of your thigh taut. Immediately, you noted the warmth of her hand on your leg, fighting off a shudder. Then came a mildly painful scratching sensation as she brought the machine to your thigh.

Honestly? It wasn’t bad. Irritating, like an itchy eye, but not drastically unpleasant. You followed Eivor’s advice, keeping your breathing steady, averting your attention to the artwork on the walls, some of which you had seen on her Instagram portfolio. Portraits, flowers, animals, realistic-looking jewellery…the woman had mastered black-and-grey. You knew you picked the right artist. The frown of concentration on her face spoke volumes about her dedication to the art, steeled and intently focused on the lines she was pulling.

When she wiped the area and reached for more ink, she glanced up at your face. “All good?” she asked.

“Yeah, no issues here.”

“Wonderful.” She set back to work, positioning her needle over the flower’s curved stem, dragging it downwards in a slow arc. “Your skin takes ink like butter, by the way.”

“Oh, that’s good,” you breathed out. Her hand suddenly felt a little warmer. Tell me this woman does audiobooks, you thought.

After a few more lines, you tried to pepper in some small talk without breaking her concentration. Fortunately, her bedside manner was immaculate, and she entertained your questions without any grudges.

“Your voice is really soothing. Where abouts are you from?”

“Oh, thank you. I’m from Norway, moved here a few years back.” She grinned at the compliment. “It’s funny, people usually say the opposite about my voice.” You wondered if they were deaf.

“It’s a nice rasp,” you chuckled. Buzzing stopped, more ink.

“I was bitten by a wolf when I was nine,” she explained. Buzzing recommenced, scratching returned. “My larynx never properly healed from it, so I’ve sounded like some chain-smoker since before I hit double-digits, despite never touching a cigarette in my life.”

“You don’t sound like a chain-smoker, though. I mean it.”

Her grin widened. “That actually means a lot.”

An hour passed by, most of it spent in comfortable silence, with Eivor checking in on you occasionally to see how you were coping. Certain patches of nerves stung a little more than others, but none of it was unbearable. That was until her machine passed over a particularly rough area. It fucking killed, the burn of the needle seemingly deeper than anywhere else, the sting infinitely more intense than before. You hissed, gritting your teeth together.

“Ow,” you winced, clutching onto your water bottle in an attempt to relieve the pain, to no avail.

Eivor continued pulling her line, her rasp coming out in a low mantra. “Just breathe through it, nice and slow…” You tried to follow, attempting in vain to relax your shoulders. “Keep holding still for me…” Your breaths came shallow but steadily so, the stinging slowly becoming more endurable. The machine reached the end of the line. “Good girl,” she muttered, blissfully of absent mind.

Good girl.

Oh fuck.

Just when your clearly gay tattoo artist couldn’t get any hotter, she comes out with some hot-girl bullshit like that. And fuck, you didn’t think you had a praise kink before, but now this certainly awakened something. Why, why did it have to sound so good in her husky voice? No, you were absolutely not going to fantasise about your artist, not when her hands were on your skin, on your thigh of all fucking places. God, this stupidly attractive Norwegian butch was making you uncomfortably hot.

When she finally pulled away, sweet bloody reprieve, you took a sip of your water. “That wasn’t fun,” you remarked.

“Took it like a champion, though,” she beamed proudly, clearly unaware of the affect her words had just had on you. “Need a break?”

“Just a minute or two, thank you,” you sighed with relief. Eivor wiped you down and analysed her work.

“We’re just over halfway there,” she commented. Only halfway? Fuck. You allowed your eyes to wander over the black lines, all perfectly smooth from practiced precision. Yeah, this woman was talented.

“I mean, that killed, and that was my thigh…” you trailed off, making her laugh. “What was the most painful tattoo you’ve gotten?”

Eivor answered without hesitation. “My head, without a doubt. Packing solid black into that thing was agony. My fingers killed, too, but all completely worth it.” You couldn’t help but agree with that last part. Her hands looked extremely good, both with and without those gloves.

“I’m guessing places with more nerve endings and by the bone are the worst, then?”

“Definitely. The palm of the hand is the most sensitive, and it’s tough to get right. Ink bleeds, skin bleeds…and if you don’t do it well it’ll just fade. All that pain for nought.”

You gulped down some more water. Ouch. “Duly noted.”

After ninety odd more minutes, Eivor switched off her machine for good, the linework finished and utterly flawless. “All done for this session,” she announced, changing gloves once more to clean and wrap the area. There was minimal irritation around each line, and the wipe felt wonderfully cool against the reddening flesh.

Once she finished placing various equipment in a tub labelled ‘autoclave’, she escorted you to the front desk. You paid half the decided fee of the tattoo and booked your second session for three weeks’ time. Eivor gave you an aftercare kit, explaining in detail how to keep the tattoo clean, how to prevent infection, and to avoid direct exposure to sunlight as much as you could. Eagerly, you listened, trying to drink in as much of her voice as possible before departing.

“I’ll see you in three weeks, then. Take care, (Y/N),” she grinned. From the moment you stepped out of the shop, you knew that grin would be engraved into your mind for the weeks to come.

  The second appointment couldn’t have come quickly enough.

You spent an embarrassing quantity of time thinking about your dreamy tattoo artist, right up until the day you walked back into the shop, this time free of any concerns pertaining to the tattoo. The gentleman from before recognised you and asked how the tattoo was holding up, if you’d had any issues keeping it clean, to which you replied all was good. Only this time, Eivor came to greet you by the front desk.

“How’s it going?” she asked, welcoming as before.

“Really good. I just hope I’ve been doing everything right,” you chuckled, anxiously glancing down at your thigh. The redness had completely disappeared a few days after your first appointment, the black ink proudly meandering over your skin.

Eivor smiled reassuringly. “Trust me, you’d know if you haven’t. From here it looks like you’ve done a fantastic job of keeping it clean, anyway.” You followed her to her studio, mentally noting how she was wearing an even tighter black t-shirt than last time, the fabric clinging to the defined contours of her muscled back, biceps, abs… Needless to say, the gay thoughts had returned at full-force.

As before, she shaved and disinfected your thigh, but instead of a stencil she had the full greyscale reference images for the design printed and taped to a metal beam above her table. She took careful time in diluting various caps of black ink into a plethora of greys, experience shining through as she added precise amounts of diluter to each cap. There was something addictive about watching the woman work, with how methodical she was, how delicately she handled the bottles of ink.

When she unpacked a needle, you noted the shape was different to before. “Now, some parts are gonna be only a little rougher than before. Others will suck, I’ll warn you now,” she mentioned as you positioned yourself on the chair.

“Mama didn’t raise a bitch,” you joked. Eivor laughed.

“You handled it like a trooper before. I have zero doubts you’ll do the same today.”

And so she began, making multiple passes with the machine unlike before, packing in the different shades of grey in front of her, scratching into the already broken skin. It wasn’t massively painful, but Eivor was right – last time was a breeze in comparison. You rested your eyes and bore the pain, focusing on the faint music playing from the shop’s reception.

As previously, she was ever considerate, checking up on you as she worked – albeit not as frequently, now that you were accustomed to the needles – and encouraging you through the nastier patches. You tried your hardest to not look at your thigh, wanting the final result to be a surprise, but over time it grew increasingly difficult not to sneak a glance at her hands. Merely the thought of them flustered you (pathetic, you knew) and nothing would be more embarrassing than drifting off into a less than appropriate fantasy about the woman when she was simply being professional.

Time blurred together amongst your inner dilemma – to look or not to look – until Eivor’s signature rasp caught your attention. “Time for your least favourite part,” she said, giving you a knowing look, positioning her needle in one of the petals over the area that hurt like a bitch previously.

“Oh god, I forgot about that area.”

“Just own the pain and keep still, alright?”

“I’ll try.”

Eivor smirked: a wicked thing that could have killed every sapphic in a mile radius. “Squirm and I’ll pin you down. I’ve had to do it before, and I’ll do it again.”

That, under different circumstances, would be an appealing notion.

Closing your eyes once more, you tried to decipher the song lyrics resonating through the shop’s hall, grimacing when the needle penetrated the skin. Just focus on Rihanna, focus on Rihanna…

“That’s…not so bad, actually,” you mutter, not entirely self-assured of the words leaving your lips, hoping some placebo affect would take place.

Eivor chuckled, dipping into another shade. “You sound convincing,” she drawled.

“I’m – ow – serious… Okay fuck, that’s way worse.”

“Shh, it’ll be over soon. Find something to focus on.”

So you did, on what happened to be the first thing in your immediate line of sight when you re-opened your eyes: Eivor’s bicep. God, her shirt strained around the muscle, black fabric against tanned skin and the deep green runes littering her arm. Perhaps the ink had something to do with her ancestry, given that the woman said she was Norwegian – that or she was just a mythology nerd. Your eyes trailed over the spirals of script, the perfectly concentric circles. Mind wandering, the idea that she may have tattoos on her back and front piqued your interest. Then came the delightful image of Eivor without a shirt. Pinning you down. Fuck.

Before long the pain subsided, leaving a dull ache where the needle had worked at your skin. “All done, darling,” Eivor murmured, wiping the patch. Darling. You knew it was simply her bedside manner, trying to keep you as relaxed as possible, but damn was it having the polar opposite effect. Cheeks feeling impossibly hot, you unscrewed the cap of your bottle and took a sizeable gulp of water. She gave you a moment to breathe, now that the most difficult part was out of the way. Still flustered, you drained half your bottle.

Concern plastered on her face, Eivor leaned closer, inspecting your face intently. “Are you feeling faint?” she asked, evidently worried. “It’s important you tell me if you are—”

“No, no, I’m fine, really.” You were stuttering, annoyed with yourself that you made her worry. “Just being weird. I promise.”

“You do?” Her eyebrows were still upturned, not entirely believing you.

You nodded frantically. “Yeah, really. Please don’t worry.”

Taking a slow breath, she restarted the machine, relief flashing across her features. She gestured for permission to continue tattooing, which you granted, and set back to work.

Cursing internally, you let your eyes flutter shut, thoughts full of nothing but ‘good girls’ and ‘darlings’ in a husky Norwegian accent. Numbing yourself to the needles, you drifted off into slumber.

  “Hey, (Y/N)?”

A gentle pressure squeezed at your hand, slowly stirring you, bringing you back to the world of the living. Yawning, you opened your eyes, gaze brought to a gloved hand atop your own.

“Good evening,” Eivor said, retracting her hand and watching as you gasped and scanned the studio for a clock in a panic. Evening?

“Kidding,” she laughed. “I finished up ten minutes ago.” You shot her a half-hearted glare through sleepy eyelids.

“That was mean,” you pouted. She grinned.

“I do stab people for a living.”

Snorting, you swung your legs over the side of the chair, stretching them to regain a semblance of sensation. Chest pounding with excitement, you looked to the mirror at the side of the room, then at Eivor, silently asking permission to peak at the finished tattoo. She held out her hand in gesticulation.

Giddy with anticipation, you walked over and… Holy shit.

It was beautiful.

Each shade of grey blended into one another in a perfect harmony, so seamlessly that the black outline from before was barely visible. The shadows underneath each leaf, each petal looked real. Every speckle and wrinkle on the petals shone through, love and attention going into every marking. The falling petals were akin to a photograph, with the light grey background wash tying them to the main flowers, each little shadow appearing to give them different depths. It was beyond anything you imagined. All that pain, mental and physical, turned into a lifetime of beauty.

You didn’t realise you were crying until the salt of tears rolled into your awe-parted mouth.

“I’m, well… Wow.” Beaming, you turned to face your artist, who looked at her artwork with pride. “Thank you, Eivor. Thank you so much.”

She shook her head and offered you a box of tissues, from which you took one gladly. “I’m just honoured to have helped you lay that chapter of your life to rest. May the sword-lilies battle any shreds of it that remain.”

Stunned by her poetic inclination, you dried your eyes in silence, lips curved into a joyous smile. Meanwhile, she removed her gloves.

“You have tissues at the ready. I’m guessing people cry a lot here?” you asked, finally prying your eyes away from the masterpiece on your thigh.

“Mostly from the pain,” she remarked.

“You know, you could just lie to me so I don’t feel like such a fucking sap.”

The sound that left Eivor’s mouth in response was nothing if not angelic. She practically howled in hearty laughter, echoing through her studio, her eyes crinkling at the corners. You didn’t think it possible for your grin to widen further still, but her outburst was contagious in the best way.

“I’m glad you’re happy with it. Truly,” she breathed out, chest stilling from her fit.

“It’s beautiful. Happy is an understatement.”

Eivor made her way over to the desk in the corner of the studio, where a graphics tablet lay alongside a stylus. “Now, before I dress it, I’m legally required to ask you if I have permission to photograph the tattoo for advertisement purposes. I appreciate it’s a personal subject matter and completely understand if—”

“Go for it,” you shrugged.

“Are you certain?” You nodded.

“Of course. It’s a work of art.” The smile she gave you was genuine.

“This’ll only take a minute. Thank you, really.”

She knelt down and snapped a picture with the tablet, checking the quality. “All done.” Eivor then proceeded to sanitise her hands and slip on one last pair of gloves, grabbing the wipes and plastic wrap from her station. “The photo will be uploaded to the shop’s website and my professional Instagram, if that’s alright with you. Completely anonymous, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Although, it’ll be weird seeing my leg on my feed.” She chuckled.

“Feel free to email or DM if you have any concerns with the healing.” Patting your leg, she stood up to her full height, placing her gloves in a biohazard ziplock. “Well, I’m honoured to have given you your first tattoo.”

“Honoured to be your…canvas?”

And just like that, your time with the artist was up. You watched wistfully as she put together an aftercare pack at the front desk, your previously overjoyed expression drifting into a sad one. After paying, you thanked her one final time.

“Take care, søta,” she said with a wink.

The very moment you arrived back home, you whipped out a Norwegian-to-English translator and immediately tried to replicate her pronunciation of the word she called you, blushing profusely when discovering it meant ‘cutie’. And upon opening your cleaning pack, you found an addition that wasn’t present in your previous bundle:

A small slip of paper. On one side, a mobile number. On the other, in beautifully neat cursive,

I’d love to take you to dinner. Text me if you’re interested?

Yours, Eivor

[mimi-ya]

burden ~ trafalgar law x reader

1,400 words | m!reader

a/n: @wheres-mystogan i really hope you enjoy!! your ideas and characteristics for the reader were so fun and unique to write!

masterlist

Trafalgar Law loved his crew. Truly, he did. But sometimes…

“Heh, hey captain!” Your cheeks splits with a smile, “I was hoping you’d show up!”

Law glares down the bridge of his nose. You’re quite happy for someone shackled behind bars.

But let’s round back to how you got into that position.

The Polar Tang had docked at a bustling island that morning. Law had made it very clear the purpose of stopping was only to refill on supplies, and he wanted to be gone by the evening. But that didn’t stop you from stripping out of your jumpsuit the second your feet hit the sand.

“Captain! The water is so warm!” He watches as you dunk your head into the salt water before popping back up, “Come in!”

Law scoffs, not even bothering to comment on the fact he can’t join you before turning to Penguin, “Make sure he doesn’t drown.” Law waves at Bepo, “Let’s go.”

The two make their way into the large city off the coast. It didn’t seem like they were the only pirates in the area, but Law wasn’t looking for trouble. It had already been a long week of dodging Navy ships almost every other day and the last thing he needed was to start something on land.

Bepo was always Law’s first choice for supply runs. The mink had great strength to carry the boxes of medical supplies and bags of food without the complaining he would receive from other crew members. And Law was happy to realize they had crossed off every needed item from their list much earlier than expected.

“Think we have time for a drink?” Law nods at the tavern across the street.

“Please captain.” Bepo says, sweat dampening his fur “I think I’m going to overheat.” Law rolls his eyes fondly at the same excuse the mink always has.

It’s clear the tavern has seen better days, but the crowd seems lively and pleased enough with the service. Finding a table in the back corner, Law and Bepo take a seat, signaling for a couple of drinks from the server.

He had hoped the secluded corner would drive away any unwanted company, but it seemed that didn’t work when people knew your face.

“Trafalgar Law.” The large imposing man cast a shadow over the table, “Thought I could smell trash on this island.”

“Eustass-ya.” Law smirks at the little eye twitch he gets in return for the casual greeting, “Mind fucking off? You’re ruining the taste of my ale.”

Kid growls, hands clenched into fists. It looks like he’s about to lunge over the table but is pulled back by his masked crewmate. Law scoffs, smiling into his drink at the sight.

But a smirk grows on Kid’s face that makes Law a little weary, “Quite comfortable for someone who’s crew was just dragged through town by the Navy.” Kid’s eyes widen with glee when he sees Law’s confused look, “That is unless there’s some other dumbass running around with your shit jolly roger.”

“Captain!” Bepo cries, Law already flying out of his seat and charging towards the door before Kid could finish his taunting.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to find yourself in quite the precarious situations that other Heart Pirates had to help you out of. But Law had explicitly told the rest of the crew to stay out of town. Not to mention he tasked Penguin in looking after you, who will definitely be getting his ass kicked as soon as Law is through with yours.

It wasn’t hard to locate where the Navy was keeping you, especially after spotting Shachi and Penguin in the alley, in what looks to be an intense hand game to decide who would going in to save you.

“It hasn’t even been three hours.” They both freeze at the sound of their captain behind them.

“Captain!” Penguin cries, “It wasn’t my fault, really!”

“Tch. I don’t want to hear it.” Law readjusts his sword slung over his shoulder, “Go help Bepo with the supplies and have the Tang ready to depart when I get there.”

Law doesn’t even bother to wait for their response before he shambles inside. He makes quick work of the marine grunts who are sitting at desks, doesn’t even have to ask for the key when someone is offering it in exchange to be put back together.

Law leaves most of the marines in pieces as he makes his way into the basement. He can’t help but grind his teeth when he hears the familiar humming coming from a cell at the end of the hall.

“Heh, hey captain!” Your cheeks splits with a smile, “I was hoping you’d show up!”

Law glares down the bridge of his nose. You’re quite happy for someone shackled behind bars.

“Care to explain how you found yourself in this mess?”

You scramble to your feet, trying to get closer but are held back by the cuffs connecting you to the wall, “I swear captain! I didn’t leave the beach, I don’t even know how the Navy knew I was with you!”

Law raises a brow, eyes flicking down to your bare chest with the Heart Pirates jolly roger inked into your skin on proud display.

“Oh.” The chains rattle as you rub the back of your neck, embarrassment heating your cheeks, “Guess I forgot about that one.”

“You’re on bathroom duty for a month for this one.” Law mutters, throwing up the blue tint of his room.

A whine escapes your lips, “But that puts me at four months straight now!”

“Then quit getting yourself into shit like this.” And then you feel the familiar woosh accompanied with Law’s ability, the sun’s harsh beams suddenly blinding your eyes as he’s freed you from the cell.

The others were so glad and relieved to see you had been rescued. An overdramatic reunion if you ask Law, but he let them indulge in their hugs and tears for a moment before pulling you into his office.

“You get hurt at all?” Law asks, pulling on a pair of gloves.

“Ehh, I might have bumped my head a bit.” You rub the smarting bruise that’s forming on your forehead.

“Sit.” Law directs you to the examination table, finally putting the two of you at eye level. And at this angle, Law can see the slight discoloring. He gently runs a thumb over the tender flesh, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

You shrug, “Didn’t want to be too much of a bother.” Your eyes follow Law’s form as he grabs a bottle from the cabinet, dipping a finger in and pulling out a dollop of ointment, “Tried to stop the marines.” You mumble, feeling very aware of your presence as Law leans in closer to apply the mixture.

“With what, your head?”

And you think it might be some attempt of a joke from your usually stoic captain, but he isn’t far off, “Heh, well. You know I’m no good with my hands.”

Law pulls back, slight surprise and worry in his eyes, “Don’t do that (Y/N)-ya. You know you’re not a fighter.”

Your shoulders slump slightly, and you stare at the floor, “I just don’t want everyone to think I’m a worthless crewmate or some kind of burden.”

Law places the jar on the table beside you, his free hand gripping your chin to meet his stare, “You’re not worthless, and you’re defiantly not a burden. We all have our strengths.” Before letting go and returning the ointment to the cabinet.

You heart skips a beat at the seriousness of his tone, eyes wide as you watch him pull off his gloves and toss them into the wastebin.

You jump to your feet, coming up behind Law to wrap him in a hug, “You’re the best, Captain!” Before leaning down and planting a kiss on his cheek.

Law barely has time to process it before you’re out the door with that humming echoing down the hall. His hand brushes where your lips burned into his skin, and he’s sure his entire face is flushed red with his mouth hanging open a little.

“Tch.” Law mumbles to himself, praying he’ll have a few minutes of solitude to regain his composure before the next crisis, “I just meant you’re good at cleaning the bathroom.”

[kaliberfics]

Just like me. (Silco/Reader)

You're a quiet little business owner, known for print and sign making. Nothing special about you, really; unless you count the mutated eye. You've always kept to yourself and remained ignorant to the true nature of the Undercity, but what happens when a man who seems to be far more vain than your average Zaunite, waltzes into your life?

You have no idea, but hey, you're about to find out.

Ao3 Link: Here

SFW - 1,870 words

Tags: None for this chapter, it’s mostly an intro.

-Chapter One-

A hand painted sign was held up in the air, with cyan blue letters spelling out The Red Boar. “Great work s’always, kid.” An old gentleman was holding up your work, as he was the one to commission you for it. “Yer granny really did teach ya everything, huh?” You sheepishly nod.

“She was a great mentor.” He notices your reminiscing tone and sets down the sign carefully. “D’ah, kid. You’d make an old dog like me get all sad for ya— But, you’re a grown adult, and I know you’ll keep the business goin’. Sharp eye you got, and talent to match.” You blush at his honest compliment, “Thank you, Vince. It means a lot.” He rests a hand on your shoulder, “Nothin’ much to say when you just need a reminder. I’ll be around soon again to ask for some of them art pieces you like to make on the side, alright? Stay safe.” His departure was quick, but with purpose as he took the sign he ordered, and carefully exited your shop; not before leaving a neat little pouch with what sounded to be coins.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, as you wash your hands. It shows how much work you put into it, though. Paint covered apron, hands covered in ink blotches and a skewed eyepatch that was beginning to slip off; you were a piece of work yourself— Regardless, you kept an eye out for anyone coming in as the clock ticked into its closing hour.

It's a quiet night when you're closing up shop, carefully putting tools away and closing ink bottles. You're a print maker by trade, a business you inherited from your late grandmother, after taking care of your father for years until his death. A zaunite original, she'd say. She was a nationalist, and often liked to remind you to never really trust people from Piltover, despite them bringing good business. She had helped the Sons of Zaun in many times of need, but that era has long passed ever since the Sons had split in a violent manner. Since then, your grandmother hadn't heard of them past the fact that Vander was the unofficial head of the Undercity. Despite her love for her home and aspiring to see it improve from it's feeble state under the crushing boot of Piltover's people; she warned you to stay away from it all.

Seems that falling out did a number on her too, because she refused to talk much about it.

These days? You’ve just focused on busying yourself in your work, taking commissions and restocking general things, like cards, especially for gifts. Those in particular, go out pretty fast. You were a quiet worker by nature, and you often kept to yourself. Even criminals kept some respect, but you assumed it was because you didn't offer much to the table other than publishing news for some to read, and making signs and anything of the like for rising businesses, and you made enough to keep the business running. It was sufficient to pay for your medications, and put food on the table.

You didn't have any particular ailments other than your defective right eye. It was a dark gray with a broken iris in a dark red, almost like a dim light in dark fog. You can barely see out of it, aside from vague, monochrome shapes, and it hurts to have direct light hit it. But, it helps that you have a working eyelid. Despite it's mostly normal shape, you didn't feel confident about letting people know about it. Your grandmother often would mention your unique beauty, and even though you appreciated her efforts to raise your self esteem, you would keep it safe under an eyepatch, which you embroidered in little stars and a moon with crimson threads.

Most people would mind their business, but those who asked, you'd just make up a story on the spot, exaggerating it for fun. Definitely helped your case sound cooler, when in reality you were just born with that eye, with no real understanding as to why.

It was a rough and sudden transition for most as Vander seemingly lost his life, whilst Silco, a name you've vaguely heard once or twice before from your grandmother's stories, took the role as the kingpin of the Lanes, and he's bringing changes. Your neighbors, mostly gossiping, would mention how he's begun to hold a deadly grip on the Undercity through the use of Shimmer, a new, dangerous drug. Though as your curiosity allowed for it, some would tell you that it's a vice, but others say that in small doses it would help you. Nonetheless, you knew better, and you kept away from it, and away from people who would choose to involve themselves with it. It would be for your own safety, you'd remind yourself.

But a visit to the doctor in Piltover had begun to change that mindset. You've been getting headaches, migraines, even. It was frequent. It's been hard to work regular hours, as your affected eye throbbed and stabbed at your nerves with relentless shocks of pain when you concentrated on things for too long. And since the Lanes are often less than trustworthy when it comes to specialized healthcare, you had to resort to spending a huge chunk of your savings to get attended to in Piltover.

"You mention you've had this since birth?" The doctor, who had introduced himself as Jeremiah Sumner, inquired. He had lifted your eye patch to reveal your afflicted eye, and was gently prodding at the area around it with gloved fingers. "Yes. Though it's always been painful to deal with, recently it's been almost unbearable to deal with at work. I run a business by myself, and I can't afford any more setbacks." You earnestly replied as the physician paused and pulled back to take notes.

"Usually, with chronic conditions such as these, you'd need much stronger medication to work with this. How long have you had these current prescriptions?"

"Since I was a kid." You felt embarrassed to reply, but it was the truth. It's what your grandmother could afford and help you with at the time, having pulled favors for you as you had sacrificed so many things to help your father, a chronically ill miner. Your mother is out of the picture after having passed from childbirth complications, so...

You were alone, really.

"Makes sense," Sumner sighs. "I can write up a prescription for you to have the appropriate medication, or we could explore a permanent solution." You perk up towards this. "Permanent?" You asked.

"It would be to remove your damaged eye. It's a relatively safe process, but it would remove these chronic pains permanently. It's not just your eye, it's also affecting anything near it. It seems that with time, that mutation has spread." You bite your lip, considering the possibilities, but you already knew your answer.

"No, no. I... I'm not ready for that. Even then, how much would it cost?" That question was more than enough to be a deal breaker based on the medic's answer. He wrote up some numbers and the sheer cost of the stay in the hospital alone would be too much. He also wrote up for your medication, but you would only be able to afford a week's worth. You felt...lightheaded, in a way, as you considered the worst case scenarios.

This isn't terminal, you tell yourself. But, your anxiety tells you otherwise. You've let your own self-care slip from your hands, and now you’re beginning to pay the steep price of a debt you can't even amount to finish looking at. Meekly thanking the man who attended you today, you knew it'd be the last time you saw him willingly. No use in trying to bargain, you think. Piltover folks were never the type to bend in helping others that aren't their own.

Clutching the doctor's consultation notes in your hand; you've got a defeated mood, especially when it starts to rain. The papers go wet and soggy; and you fold the notes without tearing them, putting them away. Part of you considers to run home as you cross the bridge, but you're too gloomy to care, honestly. Walking in the rain brought you a weird sense of comfort and reality, as the coolness of the water alleviated your near constant pain; something you've learned to ignore. A peculiar train of thought ran through you— because despite the panic, you aren't sad. At least, not enough to cry. Yeah, you don't have a living family, and currently your life is beginning to take a negative turn, but...

You could be worse, to be fair.

Admiring the overcast skies, you trip a little over your boot as you leave the bridge into Undercity territory. Grumbling over your breath, you kneel and check your shoe, seeing it untied, and you tie it back together. In that precise moment, a shadow looms over you and the rain stops. Confused, you look up, twisting your neck to use your good eye. A tall man of slender frame held an ornate umbrella over you, shielding you from the rain. Sharp angled nose and bi-colored eyes, he was dressed to the nines— in black, red and gold. He had a serious expression, but his eyes observed you in curiosity. In what seemed to be a few short seconds, it felt like an eternity to you.

Despite your obvious and confused staring, he breaks the silence. "It's usually common sense to protect oneself from the rain, yet here you are, basking in it." His voice resonated in a low timbre, and there's a gentleness to his words. You scramble to get up, and despite standing at full height, you're still shorter than him. Adjusting your eyepatch as it slips a little, you bow slightly in gratitude. "Thank you. I...didn't have an umbrella." You were going to slap yourself in response at that painfully obvious reply. "I gathered that," he's amused. Something is familiar about him, and it's bugging you. Because of that, you decide to ask the obvious question.

“Do I know you? Have we met before…?” You ask.

The man makes a noise one could associate to remembering something. “Ah, where are my manners,” he takes your hand into his own, a contrast between skin and leather. “My name,” he kisses your knuckles. “Is Silco. I’m sure you’ve heard of me before.” No wonder he’s familiar— you have heard of him. Though, the man you sort of knew from the stories was far more different to the one in front of you. He continues, "You don't know me; but I know you. And I've a few things to discuss with you, if you allow me your time."

You’ve got a bad feeling about this, but hell, anything’s a welcome distraction from the monotony and misery of your quiet, lonely life right now. “I’ve got spare time,” you indulge, and a smirk takes the place of his mirthful expression, as he waves a gloved hand for you to follow him.

“We best get moving, unless you want to catch a cold, then.”

[mypoisonedvine]

Rough Ride | biker!Chris Evans x reader

summary: for a biker, chris is quite the romantic.  for a small-town waitress, you’re quite the rebel for falling for a biker.

word count: 3.5k

warnings: smut!!, biker gang shenanigans, references to smoking, love at first sight, a touch of possessiveness, vaguely soulmate au?? (because of aforementioned love at first sight), kinda innocent reader, shy reader, essentially a very fluffy pwp

The gang had never really scared you, even if the other girls working here were intimidated by them.  In your mind, having a motorcycle club frequent your hole-in-the-wall meant being more protected rather than more vulnerable.  Most of them were nice enough, even if their glances were less than subtle and they brought in the smell of cigarettes with them.  They tipped well, and what matters other than that?  

When you saw Chris for the first time, though, you were intimidated.  Maybe that wasn’t the right word.  It wasn’t him that scared you at all, but the rush of feelings that overcame you.  What scared you was knowing that, as absurd as it was, you were in love.

He sat at your table, as if he knew you’d be serving him, spreading his legs as he got comfortable and draping a leather jacketed arm over the worn pleather booth.  You’d tried to keep your cool, taking his order in spite of those crystal blue eyes piercing right through you.  Ink decorated his skin, peeking out from every edge of his clothing— unreadable words on his neck, abstract shapes on his wrists and hands, letters on his knuckles.  You watched from the kitchen as those tattooed fingers wrapped around the mug of coffee you’d served him, his neck tattoo shifting a little as he took a long sip.

“Do y’all want anything to eat?” you asked quietly, waiting for a chance to hear his voice.  His buddies answered first, ordering hashbrowns and bacon and their various usuals.  With no one else left to ask, your eyes met his and you waited in tense silence for him to say something.

“You got pancakes?”  

How stupid that those were the words that made your heart stop, slurred with a Boston accent, monotone to the point it barely sounded like a question.

You were in love with him.  Before now you hadn’t been the type to dream about soulmates, to wait for your Prince Charming to come save you.  But this guy had a noble steed you could ride off into the sunset with— except it was a Ducati, and sunset wasn’t for another nine hours…

“Hello?” he frowned.

Oh, had you forgotten to actually say something?

“Y-yes,” you finally blurted out, “we’ve got pancakes.  Best in the county.”

“Blueberry?”

You nodded quickly.  “Or cinnamon, or banana, or original…”

“Blueberry then,” he decided.  “Thanks.”

You shuffled to the back, spinning behind the saloon door into the kitchen and leaning against the wall with a sigh.  It was a miracle you remembered any of the other orders, since all you could think about was him and his eyes and his voice and those ridiculously lovely tats.

You passed the order on to the cook, taking off the apron part of your uniform so you could try to cool off for a second, only peering out to check that the table didn’t need anything every few minutes.  As much as you wanted to hide away in the kitchen forever, you could see that a few of the mugs were empty at his table and you needed to give them a refill.  

Sighing and grabbing a fresh pot from the coffeemaker, you ventured back into the dining area; of course it only took him a split second to lock his eyes on you, watching you come closer with a stare that made the silence so much more oppressive.

“Everything alright so far?” you asked, voice much shakier than you meant for it to be.  One of the other bikers asked about getting a cup of decaf, another wanted more creamer, but he just sipped at the black coffee and kept his eyes trained on you over the rim on the mug.  “Food should be out in a minute…”

You all but ran back to the kitchen; you could only take so much of him at once.  Looking at him was like looking at the sun, and looking anywhere else was like a waste of your vision.

You made busywork for yourself in the kitchen, rearranging utensils and refilling ketchup bottles.  You heard the kitchen door swing open behind you, the light shifting in the corner of your eye.

“Charlene, can you cover my table for a while?  I can’t go back out there—” you began, but heavy footsteps stopping behind you made you realize it was most certainly not Charlene.  You spun around to find him staring down at you, contemplating the way you shrunk into his shadow.

“Were you really gonna run so quick?  Make Charlene bring me my pancakes?” he asked with a gentle voice, stepping slightly closer.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” you explained sheepishly.

“I heard we own this place,” he returned, raising an eyebrow, “and everything in it.”

“Yeah,” you nodded, “something like that…”

Then he moved in so close— almost too close, even though you simultaneously wanted more— until you were clutching the cool metal table behind you, your eyes flicking from his eyes to his lips and back.

“Tell me something, sweetheart,” he whispered, “do you believe in love at first sight?”

“I’m starting to,” you admitted quietly.  And he kissed you, so much more delicate and tender than he had any right to be.  Maybe you should’ve feigned disinterest, but not even for a moment could you do anything but kiss him back, slipping your arms around his neck.  But that wasn’t enough to keep him close, unfortunately, as he pulled away much too soon.

“How about now?” he pressed, and your eyes were a little delayed in opening again as you tried to process the fact that you’d just experienced the most perfect kiss of all time.

You nodded a little, looking back up at him and biting your lip slightly.  “You never told me your name,” you realized.

“Chris,” he answered quickly.  You started to tell him yours but he finished it for you, making your eyes go wide.

“How did you—?”

He smirked and tapped on the hard plastic nametag pinned to your chest.

“Oh,” you giggled, “right…”

He leaned in a little closer, one arm caging you in as it rested against the wall by your head, while the other was playing with the hem of your yellow uniform.  “When do you get off?” he purred in your ear, his fingers brushing over your legs just under your skirt.

“Whenever you want me to get off,” you answered quickly, not even noticing the double entendre.

“Right now,” he decided.  “Your shift ends right now, and you’re gonna get on the back of my bike and ride with me.”

“Okay,” you nodded.

You stood a few feet away on the gravel while he started the engine, enraptured at the way his fingers gripped the handles and pumped the gas and brakes to test them.  When he guided you to get on the back, you tried not to notice the way the vibrations of the bike shot right through you, and just focused on his face as he turned back to look at you.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Your place.”

He chuckled lightly but revved the engine, kicking off and sending the bike spurring forward onto the highway.  You clutched at his torso tightly, resting your face on the leather of his jacket and watching your tiny little town roll by.

//

Normally this would be the time to describe his apartment, but you didn’t even notice it; you were too busy grabbing him by his jacket and pulling him into you the second he’d unlocked the door.  You’d never kissed anyone like this, or ever tried to, or ever wanted to, so you didn’t know if you were doing it right.  But he sure seemed to like it considering he pressed against you and moaned a little into your mouth.

Maybe it was all a game for him, his chance to corrupt an innocent waitress who bought his crap because she was gullible enough to believe he loved her.  You knew that was more likely than not, you weren’t stupid for all your naivete, but you couldn’t really bring yourself to believe it.  It felt so real, the way he pulled you closer, the way he kissed you— it didn’t feel like he was rushing you, since you were the one who helped him take his jacket off before you started to unbutton your uniform, and pushed him back onto the mattress on the floor, straddling him as you moaned into his mouth.

“Baby,” he whispered against your lips, something like shock mixed with pride painting the tone of his voice.

“I need you,” you whimpered, “I’ve never— I don’t usually— this isn’t—”

“It’s okay,” he nodded, “I get it.  I’ve never felt this way before either.”

He pushed your hands away from their task of opening the uniform, his thick and ink-decorated fingers taking over instead.  Your face warmed as he pushed the fabric off your shoulders, revealing your practical bra— not very sexy, unfortunately, but he didn’t seem to mind as he ran his hands all over your newly-exposed skin.

Not that you would’ve been especially irritated if it took him a minute to unhook your bra, but of course he did it seamlessly.  Faster than when you tried to do it yourself, even.

His palms were warm as they cupped your breasts, your nipples already hard but reacting further to being tweaked between his thumb and forefingers.  A shiver danced down your spine, and you fought between looking back into his piercing gaze or glancing away to spare yourself the intensity of it all.  You stammered out his name when he pinched a little harder, almost losing your balance but catching yourself on his chest.

He stopped and sat up to quickly pull his shirt off, and you bit your lip at the sight of his chest and torso littered in ink.  You wanted to trace each one with your tongue, but that would have to wait for another time; instantly he pushed you off of him and flipped you onto your back, caging you in with his absurdly thick arms and grinning as he hovered above you.

“You are so goddamn beautiful,” he mumbled, “did you know that?”

You stammered, never really getting out an effective reply, as he reached down and toyed with the hem of your panties.  His fingers tickled your skin while he started to pull them down, excruciatingly slow; his eyes bore into yours for the longest time, dark and brooding, until he finally glanced down and watched the fabric slide over your thighs.

With bated breath, you waited for his reaction to your nude body.  He was silent as he pushed your legs apart, finally letting out a low growl as he spread your folds.  “Fuck, baby…” he sighed just under his breath.

The moment his fingers made contact with your soaked folds, you gasped; he gathered the abundant slick he found there and spread it over your clit, drawing relaxed circles over it as you fought not to buck your hips up already.  That was impossible, though, when he slipped a finger into your soaking entrance, and then another.

“Oh—” you gasped, sitting up to watch him work as if you couldn’t really believe it was happening otherwise.

Watching his tattoos disappear inside you was… indescribable.  Your head fell back as those fingers curled inside you, his thumb rubbing over your clit roughly.  “Fuck,” you groaned, “Chris, don’t stop…”

He didn’t, in fact he only pumped and twisted his fingers faster until you clutched at the sheets beneath you and arched your back.  You couldn’t exactly keep track of what you were saying, or how long it had been going, but you were pretty sure that you were doing lots of begging and that it had not been long enough to justify the fact that you were already right on the edge of coming.  When his fingers moved a little faster and a little rougher, you moaned his name before you could stop yourself.

“Yeah, you gonna make a mess all over my hand, baby?” he growled through his teeth.

“Yes,” you sobbed, “yes, I’m so close.”

“Then do it,” he encouraged gruffly, “come for me.”

You must have reached up and grabbed him at some point, because your nails were digging into his shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark if it weren’t for the marks already there— hard to see a bruise on black ink.  Hard to see anything when you’re coming so hard that your vision goes a little spotty.  If you had realized the intensity of your involuntary convulsions in that moment, you would’ve likely been self-conscious about it, but you didn’t really notice since you were too busy gasping and moaning and writhing for him— and he didn’t even stop until you reached down and grabbed his wrist.  You weren’t strong enough to push him away, of course, but it was a clear signal, and he thankfully slowed down to a stop.  You whimpered a little when he pulled his fingers out of you; he hummed as he brought the digits to his lips and sucked your flavor from them.

Any other day and one orgasm would satisfy you, especially one like that.  And in a sense, you were satisfied; but in another (and stronger) sense, you needed more— you needed everything.  You just hoped that sitting up and fumbling with his belt would get the point across.

He didn’t help you this time, happy to sit there breathing heavily and watching you work on his belt, then his fly, then his boxers until you were gasping as you revealed his thick cock.  Maybe it was just going to go straight to his ego, but you had no interest in hiding your shock at the sight of it, a drop of precum forming at the slit; a picturesque vein running up the underside.  “Fuck,” you groaned, wrapping your hand around it and giving it a few slow strokes.

You yelped a little, in a good way, as he pushed you back onto the bed and kissed you deeply: it was needy, but not quite rough.

When the tip of him prodded at your entrance, you gasped against his lips, and yet you were still a little disappointed when he broke the kiss and pulled away, his eyes rapidly scanning your expression.

“You want it?” he asked— not a taunt, a genuine question.

“Yes,” you nodded, “more than anything.”

“This isn’t a fling,” he told you sternly.  “This isn’t a one-night stand.  We do this, you’re mine, you understand?”

“Yours,” you agreed with a breathless nod, and he finally pushed the tip into you.  He stopped when you winced, but you didn’t mind the sting so much— you wanted to feel everything, even the pain, as long as it was him.  You wrapped your legs around his hips and tried to push him in deeper, but he resisted.  “I want it all, please,” you begged weakly.

“Not sure you can take it,” he admitted nervously.

“I can, please, just need you inside me,” you whined.

He sighed a little but relented and pushed all the way in, still maintaining a measured pace; you sighed with relief when his hips were flush against yours.  The sting was nothing compared to the perfection of his body nestled in yours, the way he looked down at you before he kissed you again.  It was less rushed than before, less desperate as he savored every inch of you, like you had all the time in the world— it certainly felt like you did.

He didn’t pull out very far, focusing instead on grinding his hips against yours, which not only served to keep him so deep inside you that you could barely breathe but also pressed some very hard part of him right into your clit.  It was nearly overwhelming, but his kiss kept you grounded, along with his arms slipping under you so he could hold you tight.  You clutched at his neck and ran your fingers through his hair, kissing him back and moaning against his tongue.  It helped you relax a little, until your body opened up to his size and he could thrust a bit harder without resistance.  Even then, he kept it slow and steady, waiting until you whined and pleaded for more to start really fucking you.

You couldn’t keep up with the kiss anymore when he pounded into you like that, your head falling back and giving him perfect access to gently bite at your neck.  It only made you wetter to imagine that while he wore his tattoos on his neck, you could bare whatever marks he made on your skin with his lips and teeth and tongue.  Too bad yours would be less permanent.

“How’s it feel?” he asked you darkly, his voice rough but warm against your ear.

“So good,” you panted, “you feel so good.”

He reached down to grab your parted legs and hold them open wider, and you hadn’t realized that it would send the tip of him spearing straight into your most delicate spot.  Your back arched instantly and you made a somewhat embarrassing noise, but he grinned and nibbled at your jaw, thrusting a little faster and repeating the motion.

“F-fuck,” you shuddered.

“You’re— shit, you’re squeezin’ on me,” he groaned, and you took pride in the way pleasure affected his voice.  “Can feel you tryin’ to milk my cock.”

Lewd talk like that had never turned you on so much before, but it was different the way he said it.  Then again, everything was different when he did it, especially the way his fingertips were sure to leave little bruises on your legs from how tight he was holding.

“Look down,” he instructed as he sat up slightly, “look at how good you’re takin’ me, baby.”

You did, and sure enough, it was hard to believe that every time he pulled back, his massive cock was somehow going to fit back inside you again— or that it ever did in the first place.  But with every stroke he filled you to the brim, and when you looked back up, he was already staring down at you with those damn eyes that kept you frozen in place every time.

He pulled out suddenly, making you whimper at the loss as he stared down at you.  “Flip over, get on your hands and knees for me.”

You surprised yourself with how quickly you obeyed, arching your back as his rough hands gripped at your hips tightly.  When he pulled you back and speared you on his cock, it was like an entirely new sensation.  His cock was even deeper, stretching your walls in new ways as you keened and whimpered beneath him.

“How’s that feel, baby?” he groaned, already setting a new and much more aggressive pace.

“So good,” you cried, “it’s so good, you’re so good…”

“You like how I fuck you?” he pressed, like your mouth hung slack and your hands struggling to hold onto the mattress weren’t enough to make it obvious that you did.

“Love it,” you moaned, “please, don’t stop.”

And he didn’t, thankfully, not even close; he held your body and pulled you back onto him in time with his own thrusts forward, the sound of skin on skin rivalled only by your constant stream of moans and cries.  

Another orgasm was well on its way, though this one felt different than the first— coming on slower but stronger, making your legs shake as they fought to hold you up your weight.  

When the coil finally snapped, you didn’t feel the need to tell him you were coming again, because it was so obvious from the way you moaned and how your walls rippled and tightened on him harder than ever.  And just in case it wasn’t clear that he noticed you hitting the height of your pleasure, he leaned down a little and mumbled right against your ear: “Feels so good when you come for me, baby.”

You whimpered and let your upper body collapse onto the bed; the dramatic arch in your back was slightly uncomfortable, but your orgasm had made your whole body a little numb so you didn’t notice.

“Want you to come too,” you sighed, desperate to make him feel even a fraction as good as he’d made you feel.

“Fuck, I will,” he warned you, “god, you feel so good, gonna come inside you.”

“Please,” you sighed, “want it all in me, Chris, please…”

He followed through on his promise with a stuttered gasp, stopping his thrusts to stay buried deep in you as you felt his cock swell and flex against your walls.  Warmth spread within you as you hummed contentedly, his heavy breathing slowly stabilizing before he gently pulled out and guided you to lay beside him on the bed.

For a moment, you feared that he’d gotten what he wanted and would either toss you out or just slowly disappear from your life.  After all, he was him, and you were you, and there was something oil-and-water about it all, right?

Wrong.  He wrapped his arms around you, and pulled you into him, and kissed you one more time.  You reciprocated quickly and tried not to smile too hard.

“If I say something really stupid,” he whispered when he pulled back slightly. “will you promise not to freak out?  I mean, I know it’s impossible and it doesn’t make any sense and we just met but—”

“I love you too,” you interrupted, and he smiled back at you, letting out a sigh of bemused relief.  

“Bein’ a biker’s girl isn’t easy,” he warned you, “but I’ll keep you safe, I can promise that.”

His words were just that; words.  But the way he held you tightly and kissed you deeply made you sure that he would keep his promise. 

[harrysweasleys]

know-it-all // g.w

summary: Could you please write a fluffy fic about George and a Ravenclaw reader arguing about an answer on an exam or an assignment. And in the end it turns out George was right. And I would love it if you could include the exchange, "Don't say it!" "I told you so." "I said don't say it."

warnings: mentions of food

word count: 1.7k

a/n: i am back with my twin fics! woah! it’s been a while, sorry about that. life has been wild and i didn’t have much motivation but here we go! i hope you all enjoy!! x

[i do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other platform!]

For what felt like the billionth time of that afternoon, you dropped your head onto the table and let your forehead smack against the solid wooden surface. You could feel different sets of eyes peering in your direction from other tables in the library, all silently questioning what was wrong with you. 

The answer was simple: Potions.

Snape had set out a stupid assignment that, to be completely fair, was way out of your league. For every time you thought he was an awful professor, he sunk remarkably lower. 

The topic of said assignment was one that you guys hadn’t even covered yet, and given by Snape’s tone of voice when a student had brought that very point up in class, he really couldn’t care less. It didn’t help that you were already ridiculously occupied with other end-of-year assignments — you didn’t want to get stuck teaching yourself a whole new branch of potion-making as well. You were barely sleeping nights and only showed up to dinner every second day, the library study hours becoming your very best friend. 

It was just a lot. 

It also didn’t help that you could see the golden rays of the sunlight pouring in through the dusty library window, signalling that it was once again the end of the day, and tomorrow, bright and early, you’d be handing in the assignment that you were nearly certain you’d botched. 

Dinner was likely being prepared in the Great Hall right about now, the wonderful smell of roast potatoes and pumpkin juice running through your mind, but you honestly weren’t up to eating. You were feeling rather down in the dumps, forehead still pressed against the wooden table, and your mind reeling around the assignment.

“You look like you could use some assistance.”

You lifted your gaze, sure that there was now a bright red spot on your forehead, and glared over at George, who had just taken the seat across from you at the table. His grin was wide but his eyes were tired — you knew he was busy working on assignments of his own, as well his summer plans for opening the shop. Yet somehow he always found time to help you. 

He tilted his head to the side when you gave him an exhausted stare, blinking rapidly before you processed his question. 

“Do you remember doing this last year?” you asked, sliding over the assignment paper, giving a small cough to clear your dry throat. George, being in the year ahead of you, had quite the knack for Potions. He liked to say it was because it was just utterly fascinating and he was a purely, genuinely, naturally gifted student, but you knew he only did so well because he’s been brewing his own disastrous concoctions since he was a young boy. With practice comes skill, you always said. 

And you prayed to Merlin that said skill would come in handy right about now. 

His eyes scanned the paper and he gave a small shake of his head, “No, but I think you’ve got this wrong. You wrote Leech Juice here, but I’m pretty sure the answer is actually Acromantula Venom.”

You frowned, snatching the paper back from him — making him flinch and take a quick look at his fingers for any paper cuts — and stared down at your answer, “What? No. The obvious answer is Leech Juice. This was the only question I understood. I know the answer to this one, it’s the others that I can’t seem to figure out.”

He raised an eyebrow, “It’s Acromantula Venom, darling. That I know for sure.”

Though you were grateful for his presence and the fact that he was willing to help, you knew he was wrong about that one. Any first year could tell the answer was Leech Juice. But you didn’t feel like arguing with him any more than necessary with time running low, so you just gave your paper back and frowned.

“Can you help me with any of these? Professor Snape hasn’t said a single thing about any of these topics, and I’m sick of flipping through book after book, not even sure what I’m looking for,” you let out a sigh, “It feels like he’s purposefully setting us up for failure,” you muttered the last part under your breath, not wanting anyone other than George to hear your complaints.

His hand reached across the table and linked with yours, his soft fingers calming down the rapid, stressed-out beating of your heart, and gave you a small smile, “If he hasn’t taught you this, I’m sure that you’re not the only one having a hard time.”

You groaned, trying to pull your hand out of his, unfortunately failing as his grip was stronger than yours. 

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” you said, voice low, “I don’t want to fail, even if everyone else does. That’ll always show up on my reports.”

He pursed his lips, giving you a small nod, “Alright, I get that. Why don’t you take a break? We’ll go eat, and then finish this up later, yeah? You can head over to the Common Room with me after dinner, I doubt anyone will say anything.”

A sigh left your lips as you began to place your parchment and books into a pile, George grabbing your ink bottle and quill — which had kindly left little indents in your hand due to aggressive use — and the two of you began to make your way to the Great Hall. 

After leaving the library, you could feel a weight lifted off of your shoulders. As if the tense study environment that you had felt stuck in had now been leeched away from you. As if you could now think clearly. You gave George a small smile, thankful that he arrived when he did. 

Merlin, why was sixth year so difficult? If it wasn’t for George’s calmness and sanity, you’d probably be a melted mess of failed papers and shining blue robes on the floor. 

As you made your way into the Hall, heading towards the Ravenclaw table, George pressed a kiss to your forehead and muttered, “Acromantula Venom,” against your skin, shooting you a wink before he made off to his own house table. 

You gave a small scowl, mouthing “Leech Juice” right back at him. 

— —

“Oh, well, now would you look at that,” George grinned, looking down at the assignment you were shoving in his face. A bright smile donned your lips as you flashed the score, a bright red E. 

Exceeds Expectations. 

It wasn’t the O — Outstanding — that you were hoping for, but Merlin, did the E feel good. That meant you had done better than Snape was expecting — and better than a majority of the class, by the looks of it. They had all walked out with solemn faces and shoved their papers in their bags as quickly as possible. Even the Slytherin girl who sat behind you, the one who always bragged about perfect grades and how much Snape favoured her, had left without saying a word. That fact alone really boosted your pride. 

“No thanks to your brilliant boyfriend,” George gave himself a pat on the back, giving you your now-crumpled paper. 

“Oh, sod off,” you gave him a nudge in the shoulder as you sat down on the couch next to him, the Gryffindor common room rather silent for this early in the evening. Despite being a Ravenclaw, passing students didn’t mind your presence in their house. After three years of dating George and always being in the space, they barely even noticed the blue of your tie amongst the red ones anymore. 

“Wait, what’s this?” George rapidly snatched the paper out of your hands — revenge for when you did it to him, most likely — and his eyes lingered on question number four, “Oh, well, would you look at that?”

You scowled, crossing your arms over your chest in preparation for his comment, “Don’t say it.”

His grin was so wide, you swore his cheeks would split, “You got Leech Juice wrong! And right here, scribbled in Snape’s hardly-legible writing, what does that say? It looks like A-Acro-,” 

“Don’t,” you didn’t meet his eyes, a sour expression on your face as George rubbed it in. 

“I told you so,” he leaned forwards, pressing a light kiss against your temple, arm slinging around you to bring you against his body. His warmth radiated through his sweater and it wasn’t helping the pettiness you were feeling in your chest. 

“I said don’t say it,” you grumbled, snapping your head away from him and staring at the blank brick wall next to the fireplace. His laugh vibrated through your body, and it took everything in you not to turn around and laugh with him. 

He placed one of his hands under your chin and turned your gaze to meet his, “Come on, I’m only playing. I’m proud of you, and I knew you’d do well. You were worried for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing!” you flailed your arms, letting them fall on your lap, “He sprung this out of the blue. Of course I was worried.”

“And you did brilliantly,” he pressed another kiss to your temple, sparks fluttering across your skin as his loving touch, “You always do, my brilliant little witch.”

You cracked.

A small smile made its way onto your lips as you leaned into his touch, loving the feeling of being close to him. And it felt even sweeter knowing that you hadn’t failed — that this was a victory hug. 

“Love you,” he mumbled against your hand, bringing your knuckles up to his lips and pressing a kiss on each one. You leaned your head on his shoulder, bringing your lips to his neck to mumble the same words against his skin. 

A victory. 

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