#Traffic cone man | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burntheedges · 4 months

Text

Maintenance Request: Chapter 1

Joel Miller x f!reader | new chapter every Friday (fic is complete!) 18+ (minors DNI) | ao3 | main post & chapter list chapter word count: 2.4k

summary: Hot Construction Guy is the bane of your existence - he seems to only pop up at the worst possible moment for you, every time you see him.

There’s no way there could be something more there.

Right?

a/n: here we go, folks. this was my 2023 NaNo project. I’ll post a new chapter every Friday. there are 23 chapters and an epilogue. there is eventually quite a bit of smut, but it’s going to take us a little while to get there. see the main post for more info and/or the bottom of this post for a note about the reader. let me know if you want to be on the tag list! chapter tags/warnings: banter, drink mention (coffee), misunderstandings, romcom vibes, academia AU, modern AU, no outbreak AU, no use of y/n, mention of bra

Chapter 1

Wednesday, September 4 Second week of the semester

The day you saw him for the first time, you were running late.

It was almost one of those mornings, when everything that could go wrong did. But it hadn’t quite hit the tipping point just yet. Sure, your coffee maker had sputtered, smoked and heaved its last gasp before dying ignominiously on your counter rather than providing you with any coffee. And yeah, stopping for coffee had almost made you late enough to hit the bad traffic on the bridge. And of course, you were arriving just in time to have to park in one of the annoying spots on the ramp in your parking garage.

But none of that was a real dealbreaker. The day was still salvageable.

You took a deep breath as you turned on your blinker and finally turned onto the street with your garage. This was the homestretch — just a couple of minutes and you’d be parked and walking towards your office, not so late that you wouldn’t have time to finish prepping for your first class. The morning was still salvageable.

To your surprise, though, you turned the corner and saw nothing but red taillights. The entire block leading up to your garage was packed with traffic. You sighed as you joined the long line of cars, all completely stopped in front of you. You strained your neck to see why no one was moving forward and the hint of orange cones you saw near the garage was not encouraging. Even less so was the slow realization that all of the cars in front of you were being directed to pull a U-turn, one-by-one, and head back down the block away from the garage. The drivers of the redirected cars coming towards you looked frustrated, to put it mildly.

As you slowly crept towards the front of the line, you realized the problem was bigger than you thought — it wasn’t just the crowd of people in hard hats, or the cones blocking off the entrance. There was a spout of water reaching into the sky, 30 or 40 feet high, coming from the hydrant right in front of your garage entrance, hidden by the trees lining the sidewalk to either side. You sighed and closed your eyes. It was pretty clear you weren’t getting in there today.

You were definitely going to be late.

The driver in front of you began to pull their U-turn, and you finally saw the man directing this mess. In your mind he slotted right into the stereotype of a construction worker: dark jeans, flannel shirt, and orange reflective vest, topped off with a hard-hat and sunglasses. You barely noticed any of his features otherwise. You took another deep breath as you rolled down your passenger-side window. He didn’t step closer, so you leaned into the passenger seat and tried to make eye contact. He started to motion for you to turn around before you could even open your mouth but you pressed onwards.

“Any chance of getting into the parking garage?” You knew it wasn’t likely, but you had to ask. Leaned uncomfortably over the middle console, your voice came out a little more strained than you intended, so you tried to smile to lighten your tone. It felt more like a grimace. He was already shaking his head before you finished talking.

“S-” his voice came out raspy, and he cleared his throat. You figured he’d probably told at least a hundred people to turn around already this morning. “Sorry, ma’am. There’s an issue with the water line, no one’ll be able to drive through here for the rest of the day, most likely.” His explanation sounded rote, like he’d come to expect a bad reaction. You couldn’t tell if he was even looking at you at all behind his sunglasses.

You closed your eyes and took a long, slow breath. “Do you know where we might be allowed to park, since we can’t get in?” You tried to ease the frustration from your tone — the unexpected geyser wasn’t this guy’s fault, after all.

He nodded, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. “They’re redirectin’ everyone to the South Garage.” He gestured and opened his mouth to say something else, but one of the cars behind you honked before he could.

“Sorry,” you said, leaning back into your seat and starting to turn. “Let me get out of the way.” You didn’t even glance back as you drove away, putting him out of your mind. Of course, it had to be the South Garage, you thought as you somewhat viciously turned on your right blinker at the end of the block. The South Garage was the farthest from your office and would take you about 20 minutes to walk from. Getting sweaty in your work clothes was always terrible, and the idea of it was threatening to turn your already mediocre-at-best morning into one of those mornings after all. And now you were definitely not going to have time to do any work before you had to rush off to teach your first class.

Ugh. You were going to be so late.

…

By the time you parked, gathered your bag and your coffee, and hiked all the way back to your building, you were a mess. Sweat was dripping down the small of your back and you knew your hair did not look like it had when you left the house this morning. You tried to remember if you’d replaced your office deodorant when you ran out last month — maybe? Shit. You hoped so.

You crossed the final path on the quad in front of your building, looking left down the sidewalk as you turned right to head towards the steps. You had no excuse, later, for not looking where you were going — just the relief of finally reaching your office clouding your mind and blocking out your surroundings.

At first you could only register two feelings: the sudden impact of running into something firm, and the unpleasant sensation of lukewarm liquid splashing down the front of your body. Without thinking you reached forward and grasped whatever you’d run into to hold yourself steady. You blinked. Looking down, you realized that yes, your coffee, which you had gone out of your way to get after your coffee maker broke despite how late you were, was no longer in the cup. It was all over you, splashed down the front of your white blouse. You blinked again.

Looking up, your eyes traveled across the torso of a very tall man whose (miraculously dry, coffee-free) shirtfront you held bunched in your fist. You took in his dark jeans, flannel shirt, broad shoulders, and scruffy beard, briefly glanced at his tousled brown hair, and finally, met his warm brown eyes. Somewhere distant in the back of your mind you registered that this guy was hot. Like, mind-blowing, turn-your-spine-to-liquid hot. Exactly your type hot.

You opened your mouth to say something but he beat you to it.

“You alright there, darlin’?” As he asked, he steadied you with a hand on the arm holding your now useless coffee cup. You might have been distracted by the endearment, or even the accent, if you hadn’t recognized his voice. That voice.

In your defense, spilling your coffee all over yourself was the final straw that tipped your morning from mediocre to actually awful. You could feel the heat climb up your spine and rise in your cheeks.

“You!” The word ripped itself from your throat before you consciously thought it. The volume almost made you wince. “Parking garage guy!”

He looked taken aback for a moment, before nodding. “Yeah, suppose that’s me.”

Your fist clenched more tightly around his shirt without you consciously noticing. “This is your fault!” If possible, he looked even more taken aback. “Do you know how far away the South Garage is from this building? Do you see the state of my shirt?” Your voice was reaching a pitch that your best friend Beth sometimes referred to as “channeling your mother” and you tried to take a deep breath to rein it in.

The man tilted his head at you and squinted a bit. “I am sorry about your shirt, darlin’. Didn’t mean to run into you, but you came around that corner like a rocket.” On another day you might have found this charming, but today it just added to your ever-growing mountain of small annoyances. It set you off again.

“Oh, so it’s my fault? You’re the one that made me so late I had to basically run to get here!” You took a breath. Ok, you needed to get inside. You really were channeling your mother if you were starting to blame people for things that didn’t even make sense. “Wait. I mean—” You started, planning to try and regain some footing in this conversation, maybe walk that back or even apologize, but he interrupted you.

“Nothing I can do about the water line.” He looked at you, and then looked down at where your hand was still fisted in his shirt. When he met your eyes again he had what could have been a smile but looked to you like a smirk hinting around his mouth. “Can I buy you a new coffee, at least? To make up for it?”

You forced your hand to let go and stepped back from him. Your shirt shifted unpleasantly as it clung to your chest where it was still soaked with coffee. “Um, no. That’s, that’s ok,” you muttered, not sure why he’d want to buy you coffee after you’d just yelled at him on the street. You cleared your throat and opened your mouth again, to say what, you didn’t know, but once more he beat you to it.

“Um,” he started, clearly trying to bite down on a smile and looking very intently into your eyes. Like he was trying not to look elsewhere. “You’ll probably want to change before class, I guess.” You looked down, taking in the damage now that you had put some space in between your bodies, and realized that your white blouse had become absolutely sheer. Right over your bra. Your lace-covered bra.

The noise that came out of you at the realization could have charitably been called a squawk.

Sweaty, coffee-covered, thoroughly done with a day that had barely started, and now flustered because you had basically flashed this man you didn’t know after yelling at him for no reason, you scrambled to cross your arms in front of you. The last, sad bit of your coffee sloshed out of the cup and landed on the sidewalk with a wet slap.

“Well, I— you— ugh. I have to go.” You closed your eyes and sighed before starting to turn away from him. Out of the corner of your eye you saw his eyes widen as you turned away, and you thought he might have started to say something, taking a step towards you.

Embarrassed, you didn’t wait around for him to find out what it might have been. You started walking briskly towards the door to your building, already trying to remember if you had a random t-shirt somewhere in your office from some campus event or other. Anything you could wear. Maybe from that Creative Writing Club event last month? As you opened the door, you glanced back at where he’d been, unable to keep yourself from glancing at him one more time. He was standing right where you’d left him, now facing you, clearly watching you go. You took in the shape of him and struggled against the knowledge that this was the hottest man you’d seen in months, maybe years, and you’d just made an utter fool of yourself in front of him.

You met his eyes once more and this time, he did smile at you. You felt your cheeks start to heat again and you tore your gaze away from his. If you were lucky, you’d never see him again, anyway — it didn’t matter how hot he was. He was probably just a contractor. What are the odds he’d even be on campus again, after the water line issue was fixed? You shook it off and started down the hall towards your office. Never mind whatever he was doing outside of your building.

You had a t-shirt to find. And a class to teach.

…

you (9:26 AM): [picture of a coffee covered white blouse, flopped on the carpeted floor of your office]

bestie (9:35 AM): shit (9:35 AM): wtf happened to you

you (10:32 AM): I ran into, and I mean LITERALLY ran into, the hottest man I’ve ever seen and spilled my coffee EVERYWHERE

bestie (10:33 AM): 😭💀 (10:33 AM): did you get a pic

you (10:35 AM): of the guy??? (10:35 AM): no I did not ask the random hot man who witnessed me pour coffee on my shirt if I could take his picture

bestie (10:36 AM): ok but how hot was he for real

you (10:38 AM): 😵‍💫 he was exactly my type, Beth (10:38 AM): like, could not have imagined him better myself (10:39 AM): he had a BEARD and an ACCENT and SHOULDERS

bestie (10:40 AM): shit (10:40 AM): I mean how bad could it have been, really

you (10:41 AM): my shirt was completely TRANSPARENT (10:41 AM): he could see my BRA (10:42 AM): and I yelled at him that it was his fault in that tone, you know the one

bestie (10:43 AM): 😬 you didn’t

you (10:43 AM): I did 😫

bestie (10:44 AM): ok well what did he do

you (10:44 AM): he offered to replace my coffee and I ran away

bestie (10:45 AM): 🤦🏽‍♀️

you (10:45 AM): shut up ok I know (10:46 AM): he pointed out my shirt ~issue~ and I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life ok

bestie (10:47 AM): well if you see him again don’t yell at him next time

you (10:48 AM): I don’t think I will I think he’s just some construction guy. I don’t know if he works here (10:48 AM): and anyway if I see him again I’m running the other way and hiding

bestie (10:49 AM): sure (10:49 AM): I totally believe that next time you see Hot Construction Guy you’ll run away (10:49 AM): absolutely

you (10:51 AM): shut up

…

You sent the same picture of your sad blouse to Ellie and she just replied with a laughing emoji, five skull emojis, a coffee emoji, and a thumbs down. You smiled and headed out the door to your class.

...

a/n: see you next Friday for chapter 2! update: I changed the formatting for the texts, I think it reads better? prev | next

note about reader: in this fic you’re a college professor, vaguely of English literature and poetry. You like live music, you like to read, and Ellie is your niece. You have a best friend named Beth, a sister who is having a rough time, and a difficult mother. I’ve avoided physical descriptions and most clothing descriptions, except when plot-relevant. You are vaguely shorter than Joel. No age is specified, but I imagined 36-year-old Joel here (and 14-year-old Sarah), and most English PhDs wouldn’t get to this type of position until they were 28 or 29 at the earliest, even if they went to grad school right out of undergrad. So you can imagine reader any age from there to mid-30s, or whatever you want, really.

hope you're ready for a long fic! we're at 80k and i'm finishing the edits on the rest.

tag list: @jupiter-soups (let me know if you want to be in the tag list)

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #tlou fic #my fic #maintenance request fic #x reader

234 notes · View notes

eiraeths · 5 months

Text

do you guys want some of my cod 141 headcanons you’re getting them anyways

SOAP

-puts stuff in his mouth a lot to hold it when he runs out of hands (this includes when he’s making explosives, it stresses everyone out)

-gets cute aggression and bites people

-will also bite in a fight

-has bits and pieces of rubble from explosions that he thought looked pretty

-is feral, like he takes a hit to the face during a spar and grins with blood trickling into his mouth

-had a graffiti phase as a teen that never fully left and because of it he writes in all capital letters. this is great when they need something written down where no one can read it. (the 141 probably had a meeting where they went over how to read his handwriting)

-has dreams so realistic he wakes up confused wondering if it was a memory he forgot about even if it didn’t make sense

-military grade anger issues

-never fully grew out of his punk phase

-his childhood room was full of road signs and traffic cones

-is actually a hardass when it comes to training recruits (i think the proper term for privates in the sas is troopers but im calling them recruits cause that seems to be the term everyone uses)(everyone thought his bright attitude meant that he’s laid back and easygoing. no. he’s not. yall ever seen those videos of drill sergeants coming up with the most creative insults? thats him)

-randomly says “i am normal and can be trusted around military grade weapons”

-his journal from the og games is a must in the remaster sorry i don’t make the rules

GHOST

-can play guitar super fucking well, im talking full on fingerstyle ballads

-major staring problem, if he doesn’t want to talk to someone he’ll stare until they go away. sometimes stares at people for no reason. also stares when he wants something. he’s always watching.

-would be interested in getting into blacksmithing if he didn’t grow up poor and hates spending money on himself that isn’t out of necessity (seriously you need like 30k to start a forge)

-can and will obsess over damascus patterns in blades (i feel like his favorite pattern would be fish bone or those really complicated mosaic patterns. he gets soap into it too by showing him fireball patterns)

-never grew out of echolalia and because of this is amazing at mimicking noises (he mimicks smoke alarm battery low noises and phone chimes to troll people sometimes.)

-road rage, but its quiet fuming comments that make you grip the oh shit handle for dear life (“you better turn off your fucking highbeams or i can’t be blamed for the head on collision that’s about to happen”)(no one can tell if he’s serious or not)

-hates tin foil, hearing it or touching it makes him clench his jaw because it feels like he can feel it in his teeth

-secret sweet tooth, but it comes and goes. sometimes he’s disgusted by anything sweeter than white bread and other times he can fuck up an entire box of lil debbie cakes

-can hand sew efficiently and fast as fuck

-his favorite type of blanket is a heavy quilt

GAZ

-is aggressively hydrated and is one of those people who carry around those big 128 oz water bottles

-gets competitive over karaoke (it took him months to convince everyone to join and he only got the idea after finding out soap wanted to be in a band as a teen and that he spent days learning how to properly vocal fry)

-says WOO! when he’s super fucking excited (will throw his arms up as well if soap is around because the two of them are an echo chamber of emotion)(the WOO! might actually be canon theres a voice line in warzone)

-probably the most up to date on modern fashion trends (get this man a long cashmere coat he deserves it)

-he does own a bedazzled cap he found at a gas station though (it’s hideous)

-elaborate skin care routine (he’s conned everyone to have some sort of routine. especially ghost. he got so concerned when it hit him that ghost was always wearing the eyeblack)

PRICE

-listens to black label society (i won’t budge on this its not even a head canon to me anymore its fact it was revealed to me in a dream)

-plays solitaire (he’s a very high level and it took him less than a year to get there. no one knows where he found the time to play for that long)

-drives a manual and shames people who don’t know how to work a stick

-literature nerd (im talking all the classics and philosophy books this man can get his hands on)

-discovered tennessee moonshine and has thought about it ever since

-smacks people on the back of the head when they’re doing something stupid

-if anyone makes a negative comment on his facial hair he gives them the dirtiest side eye

GEN/MULTI

-gaz and soap carry those big contractor waterproof sharpies and leave gaz was here or soap was here everywhere they go (this stemmed from soap’s graffiti phase and gaz turned it into a competition. they once got into a competition on who could leave the most signs until price called them muppets and confiscated their sharpies)

-ghost put soap in air jail once, it was very effective

-gaz and soap go to the gym together and take photos in the mirrors after they’re done (somewhere there’s a photo of the time they got ghost to join and they even got him to flex an arm)

-ghost and soap are professional assholes to each other.

-none of the 141 are allowed play card games and gamble with each other because they’re all dirty charlatans

-price tried to stop smoking only once and carried around gum and peppermints. ghost stole the peppermints and soap wouldn’t stop asking for gum

-gaz and ghost are the only ones who really try to adhere to the lights out rule. price and soap can be seen drinking coffee throughout the day

-all of them can hold a grudge for life

-ghost clears his throat loudly when any of them smoke by him. or stares. depends on the say

-if any of the smokers see another outside smoking and decides to join them it turns into a drawn out conversation about the most mundane topics

-the 141 can have full conversations of pure sarcasm nons

#task force 141 #cod headcanons #call of duty #modern warfare 2 #cod modern warfare #modern warefare ii #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #john soap mactavish #soap cod #kyle gaz garrick #gaz cod #cod price #john price #i need more gaz headcanons #modern warfare headcanons #cod 141 #141 headcanons #ear headcanons

211 notes · View notes

sunrisemill · 25 days

Text

♡ The little things ♡

Summary: Matt has always been pressured to live up to his father and everything that he expects him to be. Y/n has always been very quiet and has been pressured by her whole family to step out of her comfort zone and live her life free from her worries. What will happen when they unexpectedly run into each other at a random ice cream shop?

(Warnings: Toxic family members (Nothing happens though dw it’s only mentioned)

Pt.2

(Matt’s POV)

“You want me to leave?! Fine then, I’m done dealing with this shit.”

I shout out across the house before slamming the front door behind me.

This is the third fight we've had this week.

Ever since my dad found out I've been ditching classes he's been on my ass about everything.

So what? I skip a couple of art classes. It's not like it actually matters.

The thing is my dad is a stern man. Ever since I was a child he told me that I needed to learn how to be a real man.

So that means I shouldn't ever talk about how I feel. I should just suppress my emotions, so I do that.

The only downside is that my emotions come back up in bursts of anger that I can't control.

It's not like I want to be this way, it's the way I've been wired since I could remember.

But the truth is I’m scared.

I’m scared that I’m never going to escape these emotions.

Everyone is going to forever know me as the miserable grump, Matt Sturniolo.

I wish I could change it around but nobody gives me the chance.

Maybe… when the opportunity arises I might have a chance, but I know that's not true.

As I start to spiral into worse thoughts, a hot pink neon sign in the shape of an ice cream cone catches my attention.

I find myself squinting my eyes as I try to make out the letters.

“Gelato Galore”

No way they’re being serious…

GELATO GALORE?

That's ridiculous but I might as well try it, all I want is to be alone and what better place to be alone than an ice cream shop during winter?

I step through the door and I’m instantly overwhelmed by the bright colours, I feel like I’m drowning in an ocean of pink.

It’s everywhere I look!

As my eyes dart around they land on the only person in the shop besides the workers.

It’s a random girl and she seems upset, I feel like I know her from somewhere but I can’t place it.

The way she looks is something you could only describe as a depressing portrait made by a struggling artist, her hair falling in front of her face as tears roll down her cheeks.

The redness on her nose matching the small cherry on top of her sundae that she seems to be refusing to eat by the way she pushes it aside.

I feel a strong urge to check up on her but I don’t know if I should. I’ve never been good at helping people in need.

I sigh as I walk up to the counter. Whatever she's going through is none of my business.

~~~~

(Y/ns POV)

I let out a couple of sad sniffles as I push the little maraschino cherry that's on top of my ice cream to the side.

He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago…

I keep telling myself that he must be stuck in traffic or maybe he's just running late and I'm overthinking it all.

I've been repeating all the different scenarios in my head and reasons why he could be late.

My nails impatiently tap against the pink plastic spoon they gave me, I feel as though I’ve been here for hours when in reality it has only been around twenty minutes.

Why can’t he just call me or even text me if he’s running late?

That's when I see my phone light up on the table. I quickly pick it up and I'm met with his contact name.

As I read the message he sent me I could physically feel my heart drop, all of the hope I had was crushed within a second

“I can't make it.”

What the fuck? No sorry? No explanation? Nothing.

I can't believe he could treat me with such disrespect.

I feel like such an idiot…

I sigh in defeat, I place my phone down on the table and dive straight back into my ice cream to distract myself from the current heartbreak I'm feeling.

As I scraped some ice cream from the bottom of the tub, I noticed that the chair in front of me had just pulled back and someone had taken a seat on it.

“Hey, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I couldn't help but notice that something seems to be bothering you. Is everything okay?”

what? I lift my head and I'm met with the sight of a stranger.

But he's not really a stranger, It appears to be Matt Sturniolo.

Although I have seen Matt at school and around the small town that we live in, we don't necessarily run in the same social group.

I sigh as I sit up straight and put down my now-empty ice cream tub.

“I'm fine, really. Don't worry about it.”

I look back down at the table, silently praying that he goes away but he stays.

“So…you a fan of ice cream?”

His small voice catches me off guard, I’ve never heard him talk with such little confidence.

Every inch of my body screams at me to get up and leave. To ignore the boy sat opposite. To run straight back to my room and rot in bed. Run back to my comfort zone.

But I hear my mother's voice ringing throughout my head.

“Come on, Y/n. You're not going to go anywhere in life if you don't put yourself out there. Just try it once, you might be surprised by what could happen.”

So I swallow every anxious feeling screaming at me to leave.

“Yeah. I mean… who isn't?”

A small smile on my lips. I lift my head to look at him, noticing the corners of his lips curled up slightly.

~~~~

I feel a peaceful smile tug on my lips, the scent of cold crisp air filling my senses.

I've always loved the winter. It has a sense of comfort that has always overwhelmed me.

I feel myself dipping deeper and deeper into a state of tranquillity when suddenly the boy next to me speaks up.

“You never answered my question earlier.”

He peers down at me. I sigh.

“What question?”

I know what question he's talking about. I've been asked the same question for years and I've grown to become annoyed at it as I grow older.

“I asked you, why are you always by yourself? Don't you have any friends?”

I tense up and he notices. He stops walking and grabs my wrist, forcing me to stop in the middle of the pavement.

“I'm sorry…”

I watch as his face contorts into a remorseful expression. His eyebrows knitting together.

“I didn't mean to come off as rude. It's just… I've seen you around school and you're always alone, I'm curious.”

I sigh as I look away from him. This is the last thing I need right now. I don't need someone here pointing out stuff that I already know.

It's frustrating. I tug my wrist out of his grip.

“Why don't you… oh, I don't know… mind your business.”

My tone is filled to the brim with annoyance. The way his face falls causes a twinge of guilt to seep into my heart but I push it down.

“Look, I'm just trying to help.”

He speaks through gritted teeth.

That was my last straw.

Without saying another word, I spin around on my heels and walk in the other direction. Completely ignoring the sound of his voice calling out for me.

So much for trying to make a friend.

(A/N: omg this literally took me weeks to finish 😭 I’ve been having an INSANE and extremely frustrating writers block but she’s done 😋 thank you so so much for reading <333)

Tags: @guccifrog @junnniiieee07

#matt sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo fluff #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo fluff #the sturniolo triplets #christopher sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #matt sturniolo angst #matthew sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo x you

80 notes · View notes

bradenschneider · 1 month

Text

ᴏꜰꜰ ʟɪᴍɪᴛꜱ

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴘᴇ x ɴᴏᴇʟʟᴇ ꜱᴄʜɴᴇɪᴅᴇʀ

ᴛᴡ: ᴄʀᴇᴇᴘʏ ᴅʀᴜɴᴋ ɢᴜʏ & ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴ ᴀɴxɪᴇᴛʏ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋ

ɴᴏᴇʟʟᴇ ꜱᴄʜɴᴇɪᴅᴇʀ ᴘᴏᴠ

I stood in the dimly lit club bathroom. A man had been bothering me for the past half hour, and anytime I tried to get away from him, he ended up right back beside me.

I fumbled for my phone in my purse and dialed Braden's number. "What, Noelle?" Braden's voice was sharp, but I could hear the concern underneath. "C-Can you come pick me up?" My words came out in a rush, tears threatening to spill over.

"Are you crying? What happened?" Braden asked. "Please just come pick me up. Th-This dude won't leave me alone and I-I don't want to be here any longer." I could hear him say something to someone and him moving around. "Share your location." "I already did." "Alright. Matt and I are on our way. Stay on the phone with me."

Braden stayed on the phone with me the whole drive from our apartment to the club. "Where are you at?" "The bathroom. Do you want me to-" "Stay in there. He's outside waiting." The call dropped and I could hear the man's voice outside, his words muffled through the door. My heart raced as I waited.

Finally, someone knocked on the door. "Elle, unlock the door. It's Matt." I unlocked the door and opened it. Relief flooded through me as I threw myself into his arms, trembling with anxiety. "Are you okay?" Matt asked, his voice gentle. I nodded, clinging to him as we made our way through the crowd, my hand in his so he didn't lose me.

By the time we got to the car I was shaking. "Wh-Where's Braden?" I asked, feeling an anxiety attack coming on. "One of the security guards needed to talk to him. Just focus on your breathing, Ellie, he's fine."

My breathing quickened, and Matt was trying to think of everything he's ever seen Braden do to calm me down. "What are five things you can see?" He questioned, his voice steady even though he was panicking himself, worried that it wasn't going to help me calm down. "You, car, streetlight, cup, traffic cone." I told him. We continued to play the 54321 game, and my breathing slowly returned to normal.

Braden finally got into the car, his eyes immediately searching my face. "You okay?" I nodded. "Yeah. I had an anxiety attack but Matt helped me through it." I told him. My voice was still shaky, but I knew everyone was safe and able to fully relax now.

We got back to the apartment. I murmured a quiet "thank you" to Matt and Braden as I headed straight to my room, wanting nothing more than to bury myself under the covers and forget that this night ever happened.

As the hours ticked by, the exhaustion of the night caught up with me, and I drifted off to sleep. But the peace was short-lived, shattered by my nightmare.

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴘᴇ ᴘᴏᴠ

I was startled awake by the sound of Noelle crying. I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I should intervene. But when her cries grew louder, I knew I had to do something.

"Elle?" I called softly, gently pushing the door open to see her thrashing in her sleep, tears streaming down her face. Without hesitation, I walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Ellie, wake up. It's just a dream," I whispered.

Noelle's eyes flew open, her breath coming in short gasps. "H-He was here," she choked out. "It was just a dream. He wasn't here," I reassured her, sitting down on the edge of her bed. Noelle sat up and looked at me, her eyes filled with tears. Without a word, she threw her arms around me.

"You're okay," I told her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close, her body shaking with sobs as she buried her face in my chest. "You have nothing to worry about, Ellie. He wouldn't even make it two steps into the apartment with Braden and me here."

Noelle clung to me as I continued to reassure her that she was okay and that Braden and I wouldn't let anything happen to her.

Eventually, she drifted back to sleep and I knew that moving would wake her. So, I leaned back against the headboard, my arm still draped protectively over her, and closed my eyes.

#matt rempe #matt x noelle #off limits au

62 notes · View notes