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randombush3 · 6 months

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ubi amor, ibi dolor

alexia putellas x reader

part one

words: 11455 (SORRY THERE WAS A LOT TO FIT IN)

summary: alexia and you as posh + becks part two x

content warnings: it’s gets a little sad but tbh the next part is the one you should be worried abt 🤘

notes: this one covers 2017-2019. i apologise if it’s a bit jumpy because if i covered EVERYTHING you’d be sat here reading for days. also, this part was so slow to be finished because i abandoned it for ages and only just decided i should probs get to finishing it. the next part is the last one!

It’s about three months later, and there is not a silence that can’t be filled with the sound of Alexia’s voice. You don’t know how to prove this, because you leave none to be filled, instead seeking to occupy every spare second granted by your tour schedule to call her, to text her; to talk to her.

You spend your nights on balconies all over the continent. Your smoking habit is worsening but the excuse of getting some fresh air to do so is a perfect way to weasel yourself out of parties and clubs and late-night chats with your friends. You much prefer to spend your time finding out more about the woman you quickly become obsessed with. She often verbalises her disdain for your disregard for your lungs – something that transcends the language barrier with an overwhelming clarity – but she is glad that you are talking to her either way.

A few times, you go as far as to hop on a secretly booked flight. You never step outside the airport, leaving Barcelona very much stamped in your passport but not on your list of places you have explored, but Alexia is more than content to pursue your hooded figure as you lead her into hidden corners of the arrivals lounge she begins to associate with the racing feeling in her heart when she sees you. Kissing against walls and on hard airport seats is not what feeds most budding romances, but you don’t care. You happily fly to her whenever you have a spare five minutes, and she is more than content to make the time spent physically together worthwhile.

The tour is nearly over. Five shows in three weeks, and then you can traipse back to London to fight off the delayed hangover in the comfort of your own home with meals cooked by your parents to keep you going. One of the worst things about being on the road is the food (or lack thereof), and your athlete gi… Alexia, is unimpressed with your nutrition. You find that she does not agree with most of your lifestyle, yet she seems captivated by it; like she is discovering a different, scarier world, and she can’t close her eyes.

Alexia’s birthday is soon.

She has enough dread for the event to have communicated it far more efficiently than usual, with most conversations needing to be doubled in length to get past the all-too-familiar grunts of unrecognition. The streets of Barcelona are filled with whispers of a women’s league, and she is unsure of the pressure that is starting to grow on her shoulders. A birthday is inconvenient, she claims, though you only laugh.

You tell her about Virgil – she knows you love him, she knows you love most things to do with him – and his famous quote. “Labor omnia vincit,” you say, finding it ironic that you are only able to talk to her right now because you skipped out on soundcheck and a run-through with the backup dancers. “Work conquers all. It reminds me of you.”

Her lilting Spanish laughter fades as she actually thinks about it.

“Es verdad,” Alexia replies, and you are glad to understand. “Quiero ser la mejor del mundo así que ‘labor omnia vincit’.”

“You’re speaking Latin with a Spanish accent.”

“You love my accent.”

You smile. It’s true.

…

It hasn’t settled in Alexia’s mind that you, who calls her whenever you can because you miss her opinions and her jokes and the face that you can picture when she speaks, are the same person as the one she sees on Jenni’s phone as the team crowds round the screen to watch a viral video from your concert last night.

“A birthday present for you, eh, Ale?” Jenni jests, clinging on to Alexia’s admission months ago about her crush on you. She doesn’t know about the reality of it all. No one does, as of yet.

“Who puts them in these outfits?” asks Leila, mildly outraged at the bedazzled lingerie you’d been dressed in. “There’s nothing to them! They might as well go on stage naked.”

“It’s fine. They get hot while they’re performing anyway,” Alexia dismisses, not wanting to delve into your issues with your stylist. Well. Her issues with your stylist, who seems to not care about dignity or have any faith in the world’s imagination. (That, and Alexia is not sure she likes this idea of sharing, though she is aware that nothing defines you as hers.)

“Oh, did they tell you that themselves?” She glares at Jenni, and shoulders her way out of the huddle. It’s not Jenni’s fault that her mood has been easily soured, because tomorrow is Alexia’s birthday and then, the next day, she has to get to Madrid for her national camp. The Euros later this year is going to be in the Netherlands, and her dreams for her country are currently far-fetched. It hurts, and you’re well aware of her misery.

In fact, you are so aware that you are on a flight from Oslo on the fourth of February. It’s too special a day to miss. You have once again abandoned soundcheck.

Alexia receives a text as she slides into her mother’s old car, considering flinging the device out of the window at one of her teammates’ heads after they sang to her at training without the mercy of letting her forget that she is one year closer to the end of her career. At this rate, the career will be full of wasted potential. She is in a terrible mood about it.

And then she looks at her phone.

You have really tried to up your game with the Spanish of late, enlisting the help of a private tutor who Skypes you twice a week with new phrases and grammar that mildly resembles that of a dead language you carry more than a passion for.

You: Estoy aquí!

The only thing she can think to do is slam her index finger on the call button of your contact, nail bending painfully on the glass of the screen.

Your instructions are clear: “Airport. Now.”

She drives.

She drives at an embarrassingly desperate speed, because just over a week is too long a separation and her day has been awful and there is something so magnetic about your presence that she would be going against nature to do anything other than find you. Obviously, find you she does: right in the arrivals lounge, same black hoodie as always disguising your identity. It’s not any busier than usual, and you catch sight of her the minute she pushes her way to the front of the crowd of expectant faces.

With a weary grin, you walk towards her, and she knows that this game is only temporary. There will be privacy close by, and you can speak then.

She turns with a nod, and you follow as she takes the usual route, but suddenly there are fingers intertwined with her own and you are stopping her in front of everyone.

“Feliz cumpleaños,” you say with a pronounced failure and a hilariously concentrated expression. Alexia giggles, and the storm cloud above her dissipates, but the kiss she wants to press to your lips will have to wait. There’s somewhere empty just around the corner, and she tugs your hand to get you to come with her – to match the same haste she has – but you don’t. “Al coche. So we can go to your casa.”

Her eyebrows raise.

“It’s your birthday,” you explain, stepping towards her so that the people around you see a couple instead of two women walking in a vague direction. Alexia swallows, body tingling at your proximity. Her body always tingles when you stand near her like this. “It’s your birthday, so I am here for the night. My flight is tomorrow.”

She understands you entirely.

She all but drags you to her car.

Alexia does not even remember what it’s like to be miserable. She is set alight by your presence, by your lips, your hands, your soft greeting that you whisper in her ear when she pulls away to drive you to her flat. It’s a new place, and she is free from the fuss of her mother.

You smile when she pulls you out, taking your bulging handbag in one hand and grasping yours with the other, and she kisses that smile as she presses you against the mirror in the lift. The bag hits the floor with a thud, your overnight things spilling out because of her carelessness, but you pay the rolling Dior lipstick no mind, too caught up in the way her tongue swirls in your mouth. How her hands grip your waist.

She’s stronger than last time. She gets stronger every day: she is going to be the best footballer in the world. She is dedicated to her sport.

Your palms travel up the back of her t-shirt, cold from the metal you’d previously had them pressed against. Alexia flinches as your fingers brush a particular spot, the skin there slightly raised.

“¿Que pasó?” you ask, head tilted to the side as she draws back, panting. “Are you hurt?”

She examines your eyes. Deeply inquisitive. Full of something that may resemble love in the future.

Alexia smiles – an expression that she wears mostly when she is thinking about you. You watch as she turns around, the lift jerking to a halt as if to hurry up her slow movements. As she lifts up her t-shirt, you eye the tattoos you are aware decorate her back. There are going to be more someday, she has always been clear about that.

And, oh.

You’re not usually so attached. Alexia, it’s apparent, is a complete exception.

She asks you if you like it. You lean forward, and kiss the four words (she must have researched the quote, because you excluded the last when you mentioned it), tongue running over the redness as if you are going to heal the irritation. She moans quietly, more surprised than anything else.

“Do I get the credit for it?” She shakes her head, which you catch in the mirror opposite, and, before you can voice your protest, she is facing the right way again and kissing you as she leads you to her door. “You know, there’s another quote from him that I much prefer to that one. ‘Labor omnia vincit improbus’ is… Do you know the word workaholic?” Again, her head shakes. She backs you against the wall next to her door, lips attached to your neck as you keen under her touch.

She slots her leg between yours, and you forget your next sentence.

It’s a heated kiss. It promises tonight’s activities to you, and you cannot wait for her to unlock her door.

Your lips run along her neck as she jams her key into the lock. You suck and bite, spurred on by the moans she bites back with a clenched jaw. You find it sexy: her determination to get you inside. And it’s her birthday, after all. She deserves it. You have another gift for her in your bag, but she is grateful for this anyway.

“Inside,” she gasps as you smooth your tongue over the newly-created hickey you just gave her, kicking her door wide open and hauling you through the gap.

The flat is pitch black, but Alexia knows it well enough to chuck your bag towards the dining table and have you on your way to the bedroom without needing to switch any lights on. But your hands wander, and she gets distracted. She stops you in the middle of the flat, only half a second into your journey, and her life feels so full (especially when you moan like that). The room feels so full.

The room is full.

The room is…

“Moltes felicitats, moltes felici–” sings (and abruptly stops) a whole choir of Alexia’s friends and family, the lights switching to bathe the two of you in total mortification.

Alba’s hand covers the eyes of her cousin’s six-year-old, whose mouth has formed a perfect circle.

Silence washes over what looks to be a surprise birthday party. One which Alexia was assured yesterday was not going to happen. By multiple guilty attendees!

Alexia looks helplessly between you, her mother, and the shit-eating grin on Jenni Hermoso’s face, remembering herself promptly when Eli’s eyes drop to the placement of her hands on your bum. She almost jumps away from you.

“Fuck off,” you mutter under your breath, stewing in the terribly awkward silence as Alexia’s eyes only grow wider and wider. “Alexia.”

She breaks from her frozen state, thawed by the husk of your voice.

“Jo…”

The crowd explodes, and you let the tsunami of Catalan wash over your ears. There is so much noise, and so many people, and you can only watch as Alexia tries to answer all of their questions. She shakes her head, nodding at the same time, switching between two different languages to cover the shrieks from Jenni and the absolute bollocking her mother is giving her in front of everyone about dignity and respect. You are famous, says Eli, and you do not need Alexia’s horny motives to embarass you like that.

“She’s a celebrity,” Eli chides with a glare at her daughter, eyes softening as you continue to stare at the sea of faces blankly. You are backed against a wall with nowhere to run. “Alexia, introduce us to your girlfriend. Now.”

“You guys don’t need to be introduced to her!” Alexia replies like a petulant child, nearly crossing her arms and stamping her foot. “You know her name, and you’ve seen her. So you should all leave, really. Mami, I told you I didn’t want a party.”

Eli’s hands fly from her body to halt the departure of the guests as they catch on to how unwanted they are. “No, we are still going to have this party,” she insists. It’s the final decision. “So, go on. Introduce us.” It’s definitely not a question.

You clear your throat, wanting to save Alexia somehow. “Hola,” you begin, and every face breaks out into a beaming grin. “Um. Soy Y/n. Y… soy de Inglaterra?”

“Sí,” Eli says with a swell of encouragement that you can feel from two metres away.

“Alexia,” you plead.

“Guys, this is Y/n. She doesn’t speak Spanish, and she definitely does not speak Catalan, so either you practise your English or we cut the cake Mami has made and then you–”

“I am a big fan!” Jenni squeals, accented words loud and piercing as she surges towards you, sparking the movement of the entire body of people. No one listens to the rest of Alexia’s declaration.

��

There is a reason you are so well-liked, Alexia determines. She can see it as you interact with her family and closest friends. You smile and you listen and you remember things about people that they would deem insignificant. And it helps that you look breath-taking while doing it all.

Sitting at her dining table, Alba on one side, her mother on the other, she watches you flit around her flat with a talent for socialising, charming every person you speak to.

“She doesn’t know how you feel, does she?” Eli comments, noticing the hesitation in her daughter’s expression.

“I don’t know how she feels,” is what Alexia replies, because there is no way you can ignore the emotion she pours into your conversations. It exceeds that of a simple crush or hormone-fuelled desire. “She is incredible. I am me.”

“You are Alexia Putellas.”

“And she at least likes the way you kiss her,” Alba chimes in, her contribution unnecessary but making Alexia blush at the memory. The fact that her entire family saw that, most of them knowing where you were heading, is something she might be tossing and turning about at night for a while yet.

“Your father would love her.”

“I think so too,” Alexia says, chin resting on her palm as the world melts away, your eyes briefly meeting with hers as one of the children giggles at the face you have just pulled behind their mother’s back. A pang of disappointment reverberates in her chest as she grieves momentarily over the loss of her favourite person on Earth, wishing he could have shared the traumatic experience of today. He would’ve laughed so hard at her face when the lights went on.

“She seems lovely, really. Very polite. Is it because she’s English?”

“She is very…”

“I suppose the Latin came from her?” Alba asks with a smirk, prodding the fresh tattoo over the thin material of Alexia’s t-shirt, grinning as her sister hisses in pain.

“Next time, we can go somewhere quieter and talk properly. I know that you’ll be busy when tonight is over.”

Both Alexia and Alba shudder. “Mami!” her little sister groans, suppressing her gag.

“Sex is nothing to be ashamed of, Alba.”

“Never say ‘sex’ in front of me again,” Alexia tells her smug mother.

“Well, never get so caught up in the moment that you don’t notice the balloons taped to your flat number.”

Alexia bolts outside to check, and hates herself when she sees them.

…

“Dance with me!”

You grab Alexia’s hand, pulling her towards you. The party has lasted longer than she’s happy with, and you have seemingly forgotten about what you could be doing. You love to dance. You love music.

The little boy who’d been your partner up until now sticks his tongue out at Alexia, and she reciprocates the gesture. She is the birthday girl, after all.

You don’t understand a word of the music, but the beat flows through your hips as you move them against her. She runs her hands up and down your sides, your tank top now the only layer between your skin and her impatient fingers, hoodie having been stripped off the minute the party became interesting.

“My mother likes you,” Alexia whispers into your ear as you sway in time to the rhythm. Her lips brush your ear lobe, and you shiver despite the growing heat between you.

“This was very much a surprise,” you giggle in response, possibly answering wrong because her Spanish didn’t quite catch.

“Mhm.”

“I can’t wait for them to leave.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “You are not having fun?”

“I am,” you reply with a nod, a smirk slowly creeping into your content expression. She holds her breath, reminding herself of the presence of her family as you grind into her. “But I also can’t wait to fuck you.”

Alexia shudders.

“I will tell them to go.”

They cut the cake.

They sing again, completing the lyrics this time. You are even taught them before-hand, pushed out to the side of the crowd, very much silently told that you currently hold no place in Alexia’s life in comparison to these people. They all love her. You aren’t there yet.

But, she values your presence.

Alexia doesn’t care much about the people here tonight. She sees them almost every day, and she knows they are constants. What she does care about is you.

You, in that tank top. You, with your hair down, face fresh even though your day must have been exhausting. You, with a red mark on your collarbone that no one knows how to point out to you in English.

Soon, everyone is gone, and you are panting underneath her. Her lips capture yours, muffling the groan that comes with the movement of her fingers inside you. Your legs wrap around her body tighter, heels digging into her back.

Her hair falls around you; encapsulating you, surrounding you with only her. Her smell, her taste, her fingers.

You moan as her determination to destroy you becomes apparent. She hits every spot that has been neglected for the past few months, and though it is the first time the two of you are doing this, it’s as if Alexia has studied your body for years already.

She breaks apart from you as you come, your back arching off the mattress, chest pressing against hers. She wants to see your face for the first time. If she had a camera, she would have used it. You look beautiful.

Nothing on Earth compares to the cliff you have just been pushed off, and it is as if you are falling for eternity.

She goes again, and again, and again. She’s an athlete.

She ruins you, but her strong arms hold you together afterwards.

You fall asleep, for the first time in a while, with someone by your side. Whose hands find purchase on her favourite part of you, pulling you on top of her as she whines at your own tired attempt to make her feel good. Alexia whispers that she has been given enough, that she doesn’t need it, and she thinks you fall asleep to the sound of her incomprehensible, breathy Spanish. You cling to her.

…

The tour ends.

You couldn’t be happier. The final show is a blessing, and the tears in your eyes are of joy. You, Gio, and Anya are going home at last.

However, the well-decorated flat you walk into lacks everything possible, because there is no Alexia standing in the middle of the living room. She can’t be here, though you wish things were different. The season has been successful for her so far, and she is busy.

You really miss her. One night wasn’t enough. It will never be enough, and you are starting to realise the gravity of your blushes.

You like Alexia, and you have fallen hard and fast.

“You’re not coming back with us,” your brother says knowingly, skiing beside you down the picturesque blue run in Les Gets. You have come here every year since you were eight. April is a little later than usual, and the snow often turns to slush towards the afternoon – though one could argue that is simply a cue to move onto apres-ski – but it is pleasant to be on holiday with your family. People try to bother you, but it is easier to pretend you don’t see their waves when you have your ski goggles pulled over your eyes.

Your brother coughs, not pleased that you are ignoring him, reducing him to ‘everyone else’. (His ego, far too preened, far too large, cannot handle the idea of that.)

In front of the two of you, your father turns with precision and great technique. You can’t relate: you’re drunk. You have been since this morning.

“Sorry?” Your innocence is pretence and he rolls his eyes behind his Oakleys.

“Your flight. I saw it was booked to take you somewhere else. Somewhere you’ve been going a lot.”

“You’re not subtle.”

“You’re not subtle,” he replies, skis dangerously close to yours. You have to swerve, sending you onto the off-piste section of the run much to your irritation. With the excuse of tackling the jumps, however, you are lucky to evade further questioning, watching as he glides off into the distance, reaching the banner and skidding to a halt to wait for you and your mother. Your mother prefers to drink more than ski. She is always holding up the rear.

When you return to the chalet, bought by your parents a decade ago to solidify their roots in Les Gets, your brother seems to have remembered your conversation from earlier. Your parents have gone out for dinner, leaving the two of you to make something for yourselves. He is glad to have you alone.

“You don’t like lads, do you?” And, in truth, it’s an insightful question by his standards. He cares; he just does not know how to show it.

Pausing the construction of your sandwich for a moment, you allow him to see you for who you are. He’s your brother, after all. “Not at all,” comes your response.

He hums. “Thought so. You’d have gone out with half of England’s football team otherwise. God knows that they don’t mind.”

“England has a women’s team.”

“Gross.” His lips purse as he thinks about his little sister’s love life, and he decides that he would like to know more about Barcelona. “Are you buying a villa?”

“What?”

“Well, you go to Barcelona a lot. Are you buying a villa with the girls? Is that what celebrities do?”

You roll your eyes. “Mum and Dad buy villas. It isn’t just celebrities who splurge on property.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

“I wish you’d never become a lawyer.”

He laughs – hearty and deep. His laugh reminds you of dark forests for some reason; tall trees that dwarf your body, but keep you safe nonetheless. “I wish you’d never gotten famous. My life would be so much quieter if half my mates weren’t trying to squeeze something or other out of my connections.” His pride is profound in his misery, and you smile, blushing. “You’re not buying a villa.”

“Well done, genius,” you taunt, assembling your sandwich once again in hopes that the baguette will kill the buzz in your mind. You can’t really think when you’re drunk, and, recently, when there is nothing else to occupy you, your mind wanders to Alexia. What is she doing now? Does she miss you? Is she excited to see you in three days?

It dawns upon his face with an amusing animation. “You’re seeing someone,” he accuses.

“Maybe,” you shrug. “She’d be one lucky girl.”

“One unlucky girl, you mean. I’d better find out who she is and tell her to run for the hills. You’re about two decades overdue for an exorcism, and it shows.” He swiftly appears behind you, despite his lumbering limbs, and flicks your ear as your teeth sink into your dinner. You squeal, pushing backwards to get him away from you. “What’s her name? Who is she? What does she do?”

“She is… classified.”

He reaches for his phone. “I’m going to find a list of Spanish names and see which one turns you into a tomato.”

“She’s still classified.” You prod your index finger into his shoulder.

“Hey.” You retract your finger, surprised by the tenderness of his tone. “You can tell me, you know. You’re my little sister. I really don’t give enough of a fuck to spread it.”

With great shame, you absolutely do not need to be told twice to talk about your favourite Spanish woman on the planet at the moment. He actually has to beg you to stop.

…

Things with Alexia are good.

Not just in terms of your relationship, but in general, too. Walks are more enjoyable, and so are mornings, afternoons, evenings. She likes that you feel comfortable to chill in her flat while she goes to training. She likes that she comes home to you. She likes that you spend your days with a pencil between your teeth, a blank page set out in front of you.

Now that the tour is over, it is clear what comes next. The new album will be the best ever made, you have decided, because you might finally understand the lyrics that you sing. They could resonate.

They will resonate.

Alexia asks you to be her girlfriend when she drops you off at the airport. Your plane is private and she can kiss you goodbye when you agree.

You love being Alexia’s girlfriend. You repeat your new identity over and over as you fly back to London, and it is a mantra that plays on loop in your mind as you get on with life back home.

The girls tease you mercilessly when you spill it. All three of you are on the balcony, though this time there is a joint placed between your fingers rather than a cigarette. Slightly high, more so giddy about Alexia, you confess. They’re happy for you, but Gio can’t help but text Anya later that night.

Gio: Have you seen the new plan?

Anya: What plan?

Gio is sitting upright in her bed, ensuring that her panic is quiet so her new boyfriend does not wake up. Her fingers hover over the keys shamefully, but she has to tell someone and it can’t be you.

Gio: The publicity plan.

It’s at your studio session the next day when all comes to light. Your manager/publicist appears, which is honestly quite rare. She’s not fond of the claustrophobia of the small room, nor the darkness it becomes shrouded in when you, Gio, and Anya are trying not to murder each other.

Dave swivels around on his chair, bored with the bickering. You aren’t sure about a lyric, but they disagree, even if Anya knows you have a better point than the third member of your group.

Your manager clears her throat. “Y/n, may I speak with you? It’s quite important.”

“Do this lyric without me,” you grit out to Gio.

“It’s your solo.”

“I don’t care.”

With that, you follow your manager into the corridor.

They hear your protests from the studio, the shout of frustration piercing through the small gap underneath the door, overcoming the supposedly impregnable sound-proofing.

There are tears streaming down your face upon your return. Fuck her, and fuck him.

Anya and Gio can’t look at you. Their chins dip to their chest as they slump in place, succumbing to the predetermined guilt they discovered last night.

“It’s not fair,” you cry to them as they refuse to turn around, throwing yourself onto the sofa with a heaving sob. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair. She’s going to hate me — she’s not going to love me anymore, and I… I love her.”

Anya’s mouth opens with a sob of her own. She had thought Alexia was a dalliance. She hadn’t realised.

It’s fun to have someone, she knows, but it is painful to love them.

You are clearly not enjoying yourself now.

“You love her?” she asks, though she is sure of the answer as another gasp leaves your body with a chilling desperation.

“Yes, I fucking love her. It was obvious.”

“But you—”

“Because I’m not out!”

“So what did she tell you?”

“They want it to last a few months. Enough to draw the attention away from my aversion to men and his relationship with some blogger.”

Anya gulps. A few months is a lot to endure, especially for the footballer whose heart you’ll be breaking. “You’ve said no, right?” she tries, paling as she grips onto the mic stand, trying in vain to remember the harmony she is supposed to sing. “You’ve told them… You’re you, of course you’ve said no!”

“Of course,” Gio adds, equally in denial.

You can only shake your head.

You were not given a choice.

Telling Alexia is hard, and not just because of the tears running through your words as you try to get them out over the phone.

In Barcelona, her head hangs in disappointment. She is never going to be good enough for you, she tells herself. The world will soon slot you by the side of another celebrity, and you will be pictured together as many times as humanly possible. No one will know that she is the one you call when you need to talk to someone, or that it is her rose that is pressed between your favourite copy of Little Women, saved from Sant Jordi. No one will be any the wiser to the girlfriend you keep in Spain, nor assume that you are visiting the country for a reason other than tourism and partying with your favourite foreign men’s football team.

It goes like this for months.

It sours the second- place finish in the league even more; makes the Champions League semi-final exit soul-destroying; and completely ruins her joy about winning the Copa de la Reina (worsened by a picture of you and him released the morning of the final).

She is still your girlfriend, but she is always one step behind you. She is in the shadows of the crowd when you sell out Wembley for the first time, and is just out of frame in the picture captured backstage of you and your lover embracing. His muscles do not feel the same as Alexia’s, but he becomes a friend, you guess. He isn’t fond of the arrangement either.

Then, when Alexia feels as though she might explode from the jealousy she harbours, she is tested once more as you go radio silent for a day. It’s unbearable. You usually text her every hour.

She misses hearing you greet her with ‘I took a smoke break’. She misses the taste of your lips, and the heat of your breath, and the swell of emotion you cause inside of her when you show her that you really care.

It’s a hard day. The Euros have started, and Spain has won their first two group stage matches. Vilda is terrible as usual, but it is nothing in comparison to the cavity left in her chest where you have carved out your notifications. Alexia has never wished to be distracted from football before, but today is clearly Judgement Day.

“Is this about your girlfriend?” Jenni pesters, mocking Alexia’s frown by exaggerating it on her own face. “She’s not pinging your phone every five minutes and now you’re inconsolable.”

“I have many things to be upset about,” Alexia replies moodily, though Vilda’s earlier berating has had no effect on her mood because it simply cannot get worse. “Our coach is shit, and we don’t get treated like England or Holland does.”

“And your girlfriend hasn’t texted you.”

“Yes, Jenni. She hasn’t texted me.”

She sighs.

Jenni is repulsed by the fire in Alexia’s belly seemingly having been put out. Her grimace is noticeable as she bends down to unlace her boots, glancing around the shoddy locker room, imagining what Alexia claims a few of the other teams have.

“Maybe she’s busy. She is, like, famous. She could be out for lunch with Shakira!”

“No, that was last month.”

Jenni pauses for a moment, awestruck at her friend's seriousness, before collecting herself and trying another approach. “Why don’t we do some shooting practice while you wait for her to call? That way, Spain gets more goals, and you’re…”

She doesn’t get to finish, cut off by the alarming brrrp of Alexia’s phone. Her friend saddens at the volume, pitying Alexia for how loud she has turned her ringer up just in case she had been missing your notification all along.

Alexia swipes her phone up from the bench, and hurries into the toilets.

Throughout the five months you have been dating, Alexia has become increasingly more aware of your intense reactions to emotional situations. You feel when you feel. She admires you for your work ethic, as you do her, because you fly from Barcelona to London and back again, all while writing songs, humming melodies, and holding together your high-profile life. Unfortunately, your determination and tendency to give everything and more has bled into every aspect of your life. And you are a wreck when she finally gets a word out of you.

“Tranquila, cariño,” she tries as you suck in a pathetically shallow breath. She knows exactly how many kilometres away from her you are, and she wishes she could sprint the distance. “Tranquila. What has happened?”

“I… I fired her.”

“Who?”

“My manager.” Alexia’s hand balls into a fist and she quietly celebrates. Well, until you sob again. “I mean, we all fired her. But now we have no manager and Dave is concerned about the structure of our group and the album sucks and it’s shit and HE tried to kiss me yesterday, even though he’s got a girlfriend too!”

“Búa, más slower, por favor. I’m not inglesa!”

Life, even if you are upset right now, starts to look up. You even get to spend a month with her, practising your Spanish (mejor-ing your nivel de español), meeting her family in a more appropriate context, and even watching the first match of the 2017-2018 season. Which Alexia is adamant they will win.

…

She proposes in November; a year after you kissed.

It’s not a hard decision to make. Not when you have built IKEA furniture together, and spent a week in Menorca with her, her mother, and her sister. Not when her English is littered with your vocabulary and references to Virgil and the like, and your family can all shout at you in Spanish because they’ve heard her do it so many times. Not when ‘I love you’ is the easiest sentence she’s ever said. Every minute of her life that she gives you is like exchanging part of her soul for pure, complete bliss.

You’re fucking freezing, and befuddled at the fact that Alexia has requested to take a walk in the park near your flat. Your Spanish girlfriend, the same woman who finds summer too temperate in England, has somehow turned into a snow-lover, even if there is only damp grass and a biting wind. Alexia wishes England had white Christmases, but it’s a myth, she has discovered.

The ring sits in her coat pocket. She chose it with Alba before she left the warmer climate of Barcelona, and her sister did not ask her whether she was rushing into things. It’s not too soon; if anything, she should’ve asked a year ago.

“Fuck me, it’s cold,” you groan as you shiver. She takes your hand, her woollen gloves itchy against your bare skin, but it warms you up. “We could be inside, in bed. There’s a new series we could start, or, I don’t know, don’t you have some football game to watch?”

“I hate watching football with you.”

You part your lips to respond, but she is not lying and she has said it before. Some bullshit about you supporting all the wrong teams.

“Well, I hate it when you drag me out into the freezing cold for no reason. If you want a dog to bring on walks, just say so. We can go to Battersea before you leave tomorrow.”

“Don’t,” she murmurs, halting you both near the inky water of the lake you have been circling for the past five minutes. It sucks that her visits are temporary, even if you are technically moved into each other’s homes (she has your keys, you have hers). With the remaining time left before her flight tomorrow at noon, she has worked up the courage to do it now.

It’s like scoring a goal: receive the pass; dribble; gear up for it; shoot.

“What’s wrong?”

Her free hand reaches into her pocket. “Nada.”

“No, you’re acting weird…” You blink a few times as if to adjust better to the dim light coming from the distant lampposts. A plop sounds from the water, and she jumps. She’s on edge.

“No.”

“Yes. Jesus, you haven’t decided to break up with me in the middle of a park at night, have you?” Your question packs an unnerved insecurity, and she feels a little guilty about the suspense. She fiddles with the ring in her pocket, and then she takes a deep breath. “Hey,” you try tenderly. “Seriously, Ale, what’s wrong?”

“Te lo dije. Nothing.”

“So what’s in your pocket?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

She sighs, “here,” and she grabs your hand to press it into the soft warmth inside. And there’s a piece of metal, heated by her fingers. With a chunk of rock on top of it. It feels like an engagement ring. You’re probably not getting broken up with tonight.

“Are you proposing?”

“Are you saying yes?”

“Yes.”

“Hòstia.” She frowns, and you consider pushing her into the lake. “I am going to say it now.”

“But you already—”

A quick display of her athleticism, for the muscles exist despite being buried underneath all those layers, and she is down on one knee. Her joggers will have wet patches, and she hates the squelch of the mud beneath her, but she has a perfect view of your surprise. Your tears.

“Bueno. Your brother helped me to… write the speech,” she starts, and her rehearsal is adorable. Although, honestly, you don’t hear what she has to say because you have already made up your mind.

You tell her yes in as many languages as you can.

And she thanks you with breathy moans into your mouth as you guide her towards a bench, and then your flat, and finally your bed.

When you are finished, well into the early hours of the morning she will have to leave, you climb out of bed, missing the firm grip of her toned arms the minute you’re out of it. There is a burning, overwhelming sureness inside of you that you can’t escape. You know it is soon – probably too soon for most – but there is a person out there for everyone, and yours is right in your bed.

Your guitar, slightly dusty from the neglect because of your frequent visits to Barcelona, rumbles when you pluck it from its stand, collapsing into the armchair beside your bed with a groan, feeling the ache of your muscles that only affirm just how good a time you’ve had with your fiancée.

You don’t play anything interesting, but the noise is enough to rouse Alexia from her heavy slumber. She lifts her head from where it has been buried within the silk pillows of your bed, and watches as your fingers pluck the nylon strings with vague allusion to one of your older songs. The weight of her ring – your engagement ring – does not seem to affect your playing: in fact, Alexia realises your hand was naked without it. You hum, fingers beginning to itch for a cigarette the minute the guitar starts to bore you, and she clears her throat.

Her grin is self-satisfied and certain. “Me voy a casar contigo,” she says into the dark stillness of your bedroom.

“I love you,” you reply.

…

Being engaged is fun.

Like, really fun.

You stay in Barcelona in December, hiding from the bitter chill of England. No one questions it, and the absence of a manager grants you so much freedom. The girls pop to the city one weekend to brainstorm a song, but, other than that, you are content to forget your own identity and become Alexia’s fiancée, one of the regulars at the increasingly more popular Barça Femení games (only the team know you’re there, able to see through the caps and sunglasses).

There are still rumours circulating about you and him, though their credibility has lessened ever since he revealed himself to have been in LA for a while. To the world, you’re sort of MIA. They catch you occasionally when you return to London for photoshoots or just to chat with your friends and family, but they get nothing more. Your Instagram posts are few and far between, and the most recent paparazzi picture is of you leaving Gio’s house to buy her a pregnancy test.

When the test is positive, something is tweaked inside of you, and you return to Barcelona – a place that is now your home too – carrying a lead-ish guilt.

Alexia loves her football, and Alexia is obsessed with her career. You are too, but you have done what you can, really. The BRIT nominees will be announced tomorrow, and you know that you and the girls are on that list. You have your fame, you have your money. But Alexia has neither, and she should. Especially when her male counterparts are raised high and mighty on large, golden platforms.

You know just how ambitious she is, and that is why you lack surprise when you enter her flat to find her hunched over her iPad at the dining table, replaying the same twenty-second clip over and over until she has identified every single fault and created a plan to correct them.

She barely registers your presence, but you don’t mind how absorbed she is in her footage. It is nice to make the ever-composed Alexia jump when you slink up behind her, pressing your lips against her neck. She dissolves herself in the fuzzy feeling you give her.

“Hola,” she says, regaining control when she spots another mistake, grasping her pen tightly as she scribbles down Spanish words you can’t be bothered to read.

“Hola,” you reciprocate, though you are a lot more enthusiastic about it. “Tengo una pregunta.”

“Oh no.” You wrap your arms around her shoulders, and she relaxes. Your ring reflects the light from her screen as if to remind her that you are hers, and that softens her previous sternness slightly. Another kiss to the skin behind her ear, and she is more open to talk.

Clicking your tongue, you think of where to start. “Okay, first, I have news.”

“About Gio? Is she okay?”

“She’s… pregnant.” The emergency you were recalled to London for was actually a pleasant surprise for her and her boyfriend. You’re unsure about how committed they are to each other, and whether a baby is a great idea, but you held your tongue when Anya shook her head at you.

“Uf. Pobrecita, ¿no? She loves tequila.”

“She does love tequila,” you agree with a chuckle. You extend your hand slightly and press pause on the footage. Alexia pushes back against you. Her chair scrapes against the wooden floorboards, but there is a gap between her and the table now. She motions for you to sit in her lap.

She tilts your chin up and kisses you gently: a welcome home kiss. “¿Qué pasa, mi amor?”

“What would you do if I told you that I was pregnant tomorrow?”

“I would ask you if you have been cheating on me with a man,” she replies instantly. You laugh, head falling forwards, resting on her shoulder. She runs her hands up your sides, fingers firm, thighs tensing underneath you.

“But hypothetically. If it were possible,” you continue, a smirk working its way onto your lips, guilt forgotten. You may have spent your plane journey scrolling through pictures of Alexia with the various babies in your life. It was a self-indulgent act, and it has very much led you to now.

Her eyebrows furrow with the adorable crinkle in between them, and she is seriously trying to work out if she is missing something. You go to London, you come back, you want a baby?

But she loves you. And she is very intrigued.

“Is it mine?”

“Yes, it’s yours.”

She watches the smirk on your face blossom into a smile, and she feels a matching one tug her lips upwards. “Is it going to support España or England?” The latter is pronounced in your accent, and you make a mental note to ask Jenni if she has been doing impressions of you to her teammates.

“It can choose when it’s older,” you say, waving off her stupid football question. Since dating her, your interest in football has decreased. She has sort of put you off. You only really watch it to watch her now, or when United are playing an interesting game and your father is antsy enough to text you every minute.

“No, it can’t.” You blink. She pulls you into her. “It chooses now. Spain or England, and Manchester United or Barcelona. There are right answers.”

“Manches–”

“Wrong! I think I will have to make sure the baby is not brainwashed.”

You panic for a moment. “Wait, you do know I’m not really pregnant, right?!”

Alexia is not the most ready for children, but she is always prepared to give you everything you want. “If you want a baby, mi amor, let’s make a baby. Sin chicos.” You giggle coyly as she hoists you up – the display of strength exuding an unbearably sexy cockiness. “And after,” she says in between kisses as she stands, “we can look on the Internet for options.”

“¡Vamos!”

…

The Barcelona women’s team congas its way back into the Home team changing room of the Joan Gamper, following a 7-0 win. Alexia kicked off the goal-laden game in the sixth minute, and she is on cloud nine. Victory is the sweetest taste in her mouth, and one where she knows you are watching is even better.

Mapi flicks her shoulder as they dance to the music bursting from someone or other’s speaker. “You’re so happy,” she says, her grin wide and eyes shining. They dance topless, most of them, but Alexia has subtly been rushing to get dressed and find you. Barcelona is a beautiful city, and she has promised that you can take her to dinner somewhere now that your morning sickness has subsided and only started to affect you when it is supposed to.

“We just won,” she explains over the shouts of joy from her teammates.

María León joined from Atleti this season, but she has known Alexia longer than that, and she can tell when there is something more to football in her emotions. Though it is a well-kept secret, Alexia has two obsessions, and you are one of them.

“Yo sé. But you have been very happy recently, in general. Except, you don’t come out for team nights or hang back to practise more after training, so it is definitely to do with Y/n.” Alexia’s absence in her teammates’ lives is actually unusual, seeing as you are very encouraging and a firm believer in the ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality. Your urging is what sends Alexia to bars and clubs with the girls, though she has neglected all of these outings ever since you showed her your positive pregnancy test (best belated birthday present ever). “So… what’s going on?”

“You’re so nosy.”

“I’m interested. I love her, and I want to know how she has made it so that you haven’t had a bad day for the last three months, even when we lost to Bilbao. Is it sex? Does she suffer through–”

“No!” Alexia interjects, cheeks reddening. Mapi smirks at the twenty-four-year-old, proud to have embarrassed her. She still claims that she is not a prude. Her phone buzzes on the bench – you’re asking how long she is going to take.

Mapi swipes Alexia’s clean clothes from her grip, holding them behind her back as she giggles at her friend’s exasperation. “Tell me, or go outside like that.”

“Good thing it’s May,” Alexia shrugs, grabbing her phone and bag, knowing you won’t at all mind spending time with her in just her sports bra. She is pulled back by Mapi, who has hooked her finger into the waistband of Alexia’s shorts and yanked hard enough for them to have stretched.

“Ale, tell me.”

“No. You’re a gossip.”

“I’m not a gossip.”

“You so are.”

“Am not.”

“So it wasn’t you who told Leila about Patri’s crush when I made it clear that we weren’t even supposed to know?” Mapi shifts uncomfortably, letting go of the shorts. “And it definitely wasn’t you who let everyone find out about my engagement because you don’t know what an inside voice is?”

“Hey, you never specified that you were going to be sneaky about it!” she defends, as she has done ever since the entire canteen went silent in shock and then, two seconds later, broke out into a clamour of pleas to be bridesmaids and to get Bad Bunny invited to the wedding.

“It was implied,” Alexia shoots back with a glare.

“Fine. Be annoying. I’ll just ask Y/n.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. She’s got better things to do.”

“Ouch,” Leila says, patting Mapi on the back as she shoves her way into the conversation. The two are partners in crime, and Alexia hates that she is now outnumbered. “But tell us. Please, Ale.”

“We’ll even not nutmeg you for a week.” They love to try. It’s their highest priority mission.

“A month,” Alexia negotiates.

“Yes! Just tell us.”

“Y/n is pregnant.” Three months down the line is not necessarily when she wants to announce her personal business to the entirety of Spain, but you both know that it’s safe to tell people now.

Mapi laughs. “Ay, Alexia, you don’t have to lie to us.”

She looks at her friends blankly, having not expected this reaction. When she told her mother, the woman at least had it in her to take it seriously (albeit with quite the cautious ‘are you sure?’). “I’m not lying,” she then says, more to Leila than the giggling Mapi in front of her.

“You’re not…?” Leila tries, grappling with it. Two pairs of eyes drift down to Alexia’s crotch, squinting at the material as though some previously concealed appendage is going to jump out at them.

Alexia clears her throat.

“I’m sorry. How?!”

“The normal way most lesbians–”

“She’s, like, actually pregnant? Like, de verdad, she is pregnant?”

“Or she’s smuggling a lime under her shirt.” Her nod is small and she has the glimmer of a smile on her face despite Leila and Mapi’s gobsmacked expressions. Her phone buzzes: it’s you again. “And, if you two don’t mind, I don’t want to leave her waiting for me outside.”

“Because she’s…”

“Exactly.”

When she finally escapes the changing room, she climbs into her car. With heartbreak from both you and your dad, you have sold your i8 in favour of getting Alexia a Land Rover. Most of your money is in savings. You earn loads, but it is hard to find things you want to spend it on, and a lot of it goes towards private jets to get you to and from Alexia.

You are sitting in the passenger seat. “Jugaste bien,” you say as her hand moves up from its instinctive resting place on your thigh, settling on the growing swell of your stomach. “I’m so hungry. I could eat a horse.”

“A horse?”

“Or a house. Or, I don’t know, an entire cavalry. Feed me.” Her alarm — a mistranslation — causes her to almost run over the steward directing her out of the car park. “Tengo mucha hambre, Ale.” She nods with a roll of her eyes. She’s been warned about pregnant women.

…

In the bustling excitement of Estadi Johan Cruyff, which has slowly filled with more and more fans in the time you have known the plastic seats and improving pitch, you find yourself in the midst of an unexpected turn of events. With your due date approaching and Alexia’s insistence that you are surely made of glass, you have been forced to part from your sisters (Gio and Anya) and live in Barcelona. She wants the baby to be born here. You’ve negotiated that the next one will be had in London.

Alexia’s mother notices the deep breath you take in, well-acquainted with the horror on your face having worn that same expression twice before. ¿Estás bien?” she asks you, the steadiness of her voice comforting to the flurry inside your head.

The whistle blows and the game kicks off. This can’t be happening now.

It’s too early. There’s a… What are they called? Braxton-hicks?

“Sí,” you affirm with a curt nod. The not-contraction doesn’t hurt that much, you tell yourself. You settle in the seat and focus on the match in front of you, using the rhythm of the crowd’s cheers (it can now be called a crowd!) to keep you grounded. With a reassuring smile, Eli offers you her hand. You take it and try not to crush her metacarpals.

It’s definitely possible that you are in actual labour, considering the increasing intensity of your contractions, but you are not about to leave the match. Alexia would notice your absence. This game is important for her team – it’s the last before the Christmas break.

At halftime, Eli quietly reassesses you, tricking you into seeing the team’s medic when guiding you to the ‘toilet’. Already briefed on the situation, the medic asks you a few questions in accented English, much like that of your newly trilingual fiancée. “Don’t tell her,” you beg quietly through a huffed sigh, gladly taking the seat offered to you. “I’ll wait until it’s finished.”

“There is another hour left.”

Your ears burn and another contraction shoots through you. You shake your head, fending off the pain while you do so. “He can’t be a Barcelona fan,” you insist. Eli grins at the knowledge that her first grandchild will be a boy, but you do not see it, too focused on convincing the medic to keep the child’s other mother in the dark about what is currently happening in the Barcelona medical room. “I’ll wait.”

Eli hands you your phone per your request. You call Gio, whose daughter is only two months old. “Don’t tell me,” she starts when you fail to greet her. The sound of her voice, her accent, her tone is relieving, though you are incredibly grateful for the woman who continues to hold your hand as though you are her own daughter. “Nah, nah. Where are you? I’m gonna jump on a flight, alright? I’ll call Anya and we’ll be there soon.”

“Don’t… rush,” you groan.

“Babe, we are going to rush. Where are you?!”

“A match!” You try to remember the breathing exercises you learnt for this exact moment. “Her match. Second half’s only just started. She… She doesn’t know.”

Gio’s loud, boisterous laugh rings out, and you can tell that she is not at home. No one with a newborn baby can afford to make noise at that volume. “Fucking hell. Ever heard of sense?” You don’t respond, embarrassed that you are in too much pain to think of a comeback. “I’ve left Mia at my mum’s, so don’t you worry. Want me to bring anything from home? Cadbury’s, maybe?”

“One of those massive bars?”

“Yep, done deal.” She pauses. “Hey, babe, I’m gonna ring Anya now, alright? Call your mum – or your dad, if you two haven’t yet made up. I’ll see you soon. Tell Alexia her baby’s on the way!”

Your protests are cut off by the final beep of her hanging up, and your head drops back as another contraction, your body squeezed as though some giant rubber band has just snapped back into place. Eli stands up, worried now.

Before you can tell her that you are alright, a gush of water hits the sterile floor with an unnerving splatter. The prospect of having to care for another life suddenly becomes very real. “Tenemos que ir al hospital.”

“No.”

“Soy la abuela. Yo sé que hacer.” Even the medic, who has nervously stayed by your side, much more experienced with ACLs than broken waters (and stubborn pregnant women), looks intimidated by the firmness of Eli’s words. “Por favor”: she softens her blow.

You glance around the room, slowly descending into agony and helpless against the wrath of rationality from your fiancée’s mother. “How long’s left of the match? ¿Cuántos minutos quedan?”

The medic holds up all ten fingers. You grapple with your body, begging the baby to sit tight for a moment. “Let her finish. We can go when the whistle blows.”

Your contractions get closer together.

Eli’s frustration leads her to ask God for the baby to not have inherited your stubbornness. She also loves you more for it; admiring your insistence to keep Alexia from missing everything.

You don’t call your own mother. You simply type out a shaky text to the family group chat; blunt and to the point. ‘Baby. Now.’

Half of your universe storms the web, booking flights to Barcelona. Anya and Gio are almost at the airport already — a few steps ahead of your panicking parents and your brother, who has been enjoying dinner at the Savoy with his clients. Those who serve as your planets, revolving around you like you are the sun, do you a favour, letting Dave know that you probably won’t make it to the Skype call scheduled for tomorrow morning. Dave, in turn, now expanding into management, informs your newly-hired publicist (good riddance to the old one). The world has expected a pregnancy announcement ever since you failed to appear at your most recent awards show, despite winning in your category.

It's almost an eternity later that Alexia, football boots clacking against the floor, flings open the door of the medical room. Eli calls out, warning her daughter about slipping on the sizable puddle that has spread out beneath you.

Your fiancée is valiant in her attempt to mask her sheer panic.

“Have you called an ambulance?” she asks her mother, stepping over your amniotic fluid and placing her hand on your shoulder. You squint, trying to open your eyes though this contraction has been the most excruciating so far.

“We were waiting for you. She was adamant that you finished your match.”

“No football match is more important than her!” If you understood Catalan (and weren’t in labour), you’d have teased her for being a sap. “Call an ambulance, Jesus Christ. Look at her — she needs a doctor.” Her composure revisits her fleetingly, and she turns to the medic. “Thank you for looking after her.” There is no answer because it is drowned out by her barking more orders her mother’s way.

“No ambulance,” you declare before your mouth opens in a silent sob. “Drive me. Not an ambulance.”

The last glimpse the Estadi Johan Cruyff gets of Alexia Putellas in 2018 is her carrying you to her mother’s car, your face buried in her team-issued jacket in case anyone is waiting outside to take pictures of the players.

Eli drives; something she doesn’t like doing often but feels is necessary with the nervous bounce of her daughter’s legs in the backseat enough to convince her that they’d speed like the Flash if anyone else ended up behind the wheel. She knows Barcelona, can navigate it with her eyes closed, and you are at the hospital before you can begin to tell Alexia how much you think you can’t do this.

“I really fucking can’t do this!” you cry out, situated in the delivery room. Sweat rolls down the side of your face, already dampening your hair. Alexia thinks you look beautiful, and she has been made proud of the last two hours. You’ve also helped her a lot with English swearwords.

“You can.”

“I can’t.” You’re told to push again. “Alexia, you are having the… next… fucking… beach ball.” Each word is punctuated by a guttural moan.

Waves of intense pain contort your face in agony, and the midwife continues to talk you through your task as though instructing you how to park a car. “Estás haciendo muy bien, mi amor,” she tells you, ignoring the possibility that you may have rendered her left hand boneless.

“There’s a baby coming out of my vagina,” you shout, “don’t even try to test my Spanish, you twat.”

The midwife shoots your fiancée a pitiful look. “She’ll take it back,” she says in Catalan.

“She’s getting quite inventive.”

“There’s been worse.”

You can imagine the conversation taking place in the middle of you delivering her literal child. “No, I won’t! It’s breaking me in half.” You grip her hand harder. “Never. Again.”

But, with a final, visceral (and heavily encouraged) push, the room is filled with the sound of life. Nico comes into the world screaming at the top of his lungs. All Alexia can think to say is, “definitely yours.”

…

Life is a lot more tiring trying to juggle being a mother and a pop star.

The press have a field day when you announce the birth of your son with a simple Instagram post, your engagement ring second only to the swaddled lump on your chest. The caption (‘ours’) sparks debate on who exactly is the other parent. Well, father. Alexia’s teammates, while waiting to finally be allowed to meet your bundle, spend a good two months teasing her mercilessly about it. Most notably, Alexia almost loses La Reina to Papi.

2019 comes with change — a lot of it.

You hire a new manager so that Dave can focus fully on the last album 2sday will produce. The group has been together for six years, and you have made your millions.You seek neither money nor fame, but it comes knocking on the door of your quaint apartment in Barcelona anyway, along with a record deal only for you. A solo act.

Between Nico crying, Alexia playing football, and you trying to write songs that don’t end up criminally depressing, the contract on your dining table slowly becomes forgotten about. Alexia is too stressed about the impending World Cup to grant you a moment to breathe. You spend your days in Barcelona with a baby attached to your hip, the question of his parenthood still a mystery to the public, and, ever so slowly, you begin to resent your life.

It could be postpartum depression, but you have no time to really investigate the symptoms.

Alexia, two weeks before she needs to leave for her national camp and then the World Cup in France, comes home to an eerily silent apartment.

She calls out your name, wondering if you have perhaps gone to her mother’s house. The terrible sinking feeling comes with your reply. “Can we talk?” you ask.

She finds you perched on the Egyptian cotton sheets that cover your double bed. The sheets are out of place here, greatly exceeding the original budget of the decor, and, where Alexia sees this as you adding to her life, you feel you are somewhere you don’t belong. It is fine when she is next to you, holding your hand, claiming the other half of the now six-month-old baby boy gurgling in his carseat. When she isn’t there, though, the vacant space taunts you.

“I have no friends here,” you tell her quietly. The gravity of the mood settling over you pulls her onto the mattress, not caring if the sheen of sweat she wears as her outermost layer of clothing dirties the expensive creamy white beneath her. “I have no friends, I don’t speak the language, and I think that I have played at being a normal person for long enough. I mean, it’s great to watch you and to be there for you, but, darling, that’s not who I am. This,” you gesture to the loungewear you have on, stained with dribble, “is not who I am.”

Alexia hears what you are saying. She understands; she remembers the nights where you’d call her, a cigarette rasping your voice, sparkles shining in the valley between your breasts. She has seen this coming. It would be impossible not to notice the dimming of such a strong love between you: still present, yet slowly fading away.

“They want me to sign a new deal. Alone.” The suitcases lined up in the corner of the bedroom become glaringly obvious. Nico is in his carseat for a reason. “I think it would be good for me to go back to London. I need to feel like myself again, and my parents are willing to watch him. I sold my flat – I’ve bought a house in Highgate.” Tears sting your eyes as you speak, and you know where Alexia’s shoulder is without having to look, resting your head against it. “I love you. I love you so much, but I just can’t do this anymore.”

It’s as if the ground crumbles away beneath her. Your words hang above Alexia’s neck like an axe, waiting to execute her, waiting to end everything. She can’t look at Nico, whose face crumples at his mother’s clear heartbreak.

The world, once vibrant, lays in ruins. Her funny story from training dies on her tongue, and her question of whether you wanted to visit her mother before she left for camp disintegrates, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Do you still want to marry me?” she asks, and you hate the way her voice cracks with uncertainty. “Are you moving permanently?”

“I haven’t called anything off. It’s still going ahead as planned.” She senses the but. “But I… I can’t think here. I can’t be here. I want – I need – to go home.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

She is going to be at the World Cup anyway. You and her will always find your way back to each other. She is going to be busy.

She is going to be busy.

“Yeah. It’s okay. Take all the time you need.”

She is going to fall apart without you.

#woso x reader #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas #woso #woso fanfics #barca femeni #fc barcelona

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seeker-of-stories19 · 3 months

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Autistic Ghost Headcannons

- Intentionally ignores social cues

- Scowls all the time at everything and everyone but usually not on purpose

- Takes full advantage of his ear defenders and balaclava to avoid sensory experiences he dislikes

- Incredibly restrictive eating, often chooses to go hungry rather than touch something he dislikes

- One of his favorite stims is smelling Soaps hair

- Gets overstimulated by certain things but is also very sensory seeking in other ways

- Wears tight gloves and sleeps under four weighted blankets because he likes the pressure

- Stims by making a tight fist, chewing his lips, scratching, hitting himself, leaning against things, rocking, pacing, rubbing the seam of his balaclava, tapping his ear defenders

- One track mind, he hates switching tasks and never does more than one thing at once unless it’s a hundred percent necessary

- Wears a mask largely to hide his scars and identity but it has the added benefit of keeping him from having to worry about making the correct facial expressions

- Very prone to dissociation

- Violent meltdowns, tends to have a vicious temper and destroy everything around him, hurting himself or anyone else unfortunate enough to cross his warpath

- But eventually when he’s in private he ends up just curling into himself and crying and rocking like he did as a kid

- It makes him feel incredibly vulnerable and he goes to extreme lengths to avoid the meltdowns which is a huge part of why they’re so bad

- Only Johnny and sometimes Price can calm him down

- Everyone else just thinks he has an explosive temper for no reason

- Ties his boots dangerously tight to get more sensory input

- Thrives under military routines but ignores rules that don’t make sense

- This definitely caused problems with COs in the past but Price is way more understanding and generally the 141 gets a lot of leniency on rules because of the type of work they do and the specific value of their skill sets

- Soap sleeps on top of him and always squeezes his hand a little too hard

- Hides in his room when overstimulated and shuts down completely, will literally disassociate for hours until Soap finds him

- Obsessively neat, nothing is ever anywhere other than where it’s supposed to be

- Doesn’t mind loud sounds but hates multiple sounds at once

- Explosions and gunfire are usually fine as long as he has his headphones but people talking and eating all at once in the mess makes him want to cry

- Absolutely despises crowds and will get very agitated and pissed off before eventually checking out until Johnny can get him back to a quiet space

- Soap letting him have the best vantage point when they go out because of how bad Simons PTSD and sensory issues are and he trusts Simon to watch his six

- Drinks but never to the point of being drunk

- Has the shittiest temperature regulation ever, gets so overheated but can’t figure out why and would freeze to death if it wasn’t for Soap making him put on layers because he’s basically immune to the cold

- Other than keeping his space clean which is mostly because it’s been beaten into him by his dad and then the army to the point where having a messy space will send him into a panic attack he’s a disaster. He never remembers to bring his dishes over to the tiny kitchen in the 141s rec room and routinely stares at things for days unable to complete simple tasks until he gets so pissed he ends up crying

- Price used to get annoyed by it and they’ve all three harassed him about it but once they realize that he’s genuinely struggling all three of them step in to make things easier for him, helping clean up his stuff in common spaces and wash dishes

- Soap definitely helps him with his laundry but only at 3am when he suddenly has the urge to do his own because ADHD

- His interoception is appalling, he’ll be furious and yell at recruits or just look at people like he wants to kill them on missions until Johnny leans over to subtly remind him that he hasn’t gone to the bathroom or eaten anything in eight hours

- Is fluent in BSL and uses it to communicate with Price when he’s in a verbal shutdown

- Soap and Gaz ask Price to teach them secretly and when they start signing to Ghost one day he’s absolutely shocked

- Generally he gets by with everyone else by grunting and scowling, people are too scared of him to call him out

- Most of his masking relies on peoples fear of him even though it often makes him feel even less human and it’s a vicious downward spiral

- Soap not being afraid of him was a really big deal because of this but also lead to him being really freaked out and unsure how to handle his prying

- Soap just finds him impossibly endearing and loves all the hidden little movements and noises he makes when they’re alone

- Lets Simon use his hands to fidget under the table during meetings

- Even though Soap isn’t the best at social cues himself he takes up explaining things to Ghost subtly whenever he can

- When Simon comes to his room to ask him about something someone said for the first time he’s ecstatic and considers it a great victory

- While a lot of Simons stims are more subtle or at least misinterpreted Soap will absolutely get hyped up when he’s stimming and start jumping or rocking or flapping his hands eagerly

- Soap sends him adhd x autism memes all the time and encourages Ghost to send back anything that interests him even if he thinks Soap won’t like it

- Is shocked to realize how strong Ghosts special interests are as his phone turns into a constant flood of articles and artwork about things Ghost loves

- Included but not limited to guns, puzzles, animal anatomy and bones, flowers (specifically the meanings of flowers) and many others

- Taking things apart and putting them back together, usually his rifle but will generally do it with everything from pens to knives

- Hoards weird things like old ink cartridges and bullet casings

- Has an unbelievable memory for details of old missions, can remember building layouts from over five years ago

- Soap’s room is so chaotic they barely spend time there because of how much it stresses Ghost out

- Generally they just balance each other out well with Simon being aggressively introverted and Soap being just as extroverted

- He pushes Simon a bit outside of his comfort zone and helps him socialize while Ghost reigns him in

- No one else really gets how they operate in the field except each other

- Soap was professionally diagnosed in school while Ghost was professionally diagnosed after Roba under a fake name with Price’s help so it’s not officially on his military record

- Ghost is actually very okay with how his brain works because it’s made him who he is and allowed him to surpass the regular limitations of a soldier

- He struggles more in his personal life but being around Soap heals a deep part of him that he’s buried since early childhood

- They understand each other like no one else ever has

#autistic simon ghost riley #soap mctavish has adhd #call of duty #soapghost headcannons #soapghost #ghostsoap #ghoap #cod mw2 #soap cod #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish

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straykeedz · 7 months

Text

day 3: changbin + blowjob

©straykeedz

tw: changbin’s stressed so reader literally asks him to use their mouth as a fleshlight (i’m sorry💀); oral (m receiving, duh 🙄); a bit of throat fucking; cum swallowing; mention of showering together; ♡

wc: 2,1k

this is part of my kinktober masterlist. you can find my regular masterlist here (tho it will not be updated until the end of kinktober). ♡

smut below the cut so minors dni.

🔖 (open): @linos-kitten ; @luneskies ; @kxcies-blog ; @idunnomanmynamewastaken ; @cessixja ; @stolasisyourparent ; @kookiesbunny ; @xoxo-xoxo-bunny ; @ivyskzsworld ; @mal-lunar-28 ; @leetaste ; @sunnykynnie ; @channiesgoodgirl ; @seonghwatoothless ; @mrsminho ; @seungminluv3 ; @jin-from-the-block ; @aaasia111 ; @sulkygyu ; @whosanaanyway ; @y-ur--I ; @vixensss ; @nightimescapes ; @freckleboilix ; @dreamingaboutjisung ; @yourbeomiebear ; ♡

to join the taglist you haven to be over 18 (please have an age indicator on your profile) and have a profile picture. no blank blogs. ♡

✧

When you enter your shared bedroom, you’re surprised to find Changbin sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees as his face is buried in his hands. He doesn’t acknowledge your presence in the room, too focused in whatever’s going on inside his head. You let out a heavy sigh as you make your way inside the room - the faint light of the lamp on his nightstand being the only source of light in your bedroom. You don’t know what’s up with your fiancé lately, but whatever it is - it’s starting to worry you.

You get closer to him, but he’s still not aware of you being in the same room as him, so you call his name to get his attention. “Binnie…”, your voice is sweet, and your fingers immediately find their way to his soft, curly hair, freshly washed.

He immediately snaps his head up in your direction, letting his arms fall limp along his sides as he stares at you like an abandoned puppy, big, brown eyes looking into yours. He looks absolutely wrecked, defeated, and you hate it. You want to ease the weight on his shoulders, but you’re also aware of the fact that he doesn’t like to be forced to open up about his feelings.

“Y/n…”, he calls your name softly, spreading his legs even wider to accommodate your body between them, wrapping his limbs around your figure and resting his forehead on your stomach, you don’t stop caressing his soft hair.

“Everything alright, Bin?”, you murmur, and you feel him shaking his head against your stomach. “Wanna talk about it?”

He sighs deeply. “Life’s just being a bitch lately.”, he says, tone defeated and tired.

“Something happened at work?”, you try.

Being a worldwide famous idol and producer is not easy, Changbin learned it the hard way. You honestly understand where this is coming from, and just wish you could ease some of his pressure from his shoulders.

“Not really, the usual.”, he mutters. “I’ve been feeling unproductive lately, that’s all. Can’t find the inspiration and everything I produce is shit.”

Now you get why he’s been sulking more than usual the past days. Changbin hates when he’s feeling uninspired - he doesn’t like to be forced to write lyrics or produce music, as he feels it’s not genuine. So, he find himself stuck in a limbo: being stressed because unproductive and being unproductive because stressed, and it’s driving him crazy.

“I think you should take some time off to yourself.”, you suggest, placing your hands on his broad shoulders to give him a massage, knowing he loves feeling your hands on him. “You know, just a couple of days - you’re too stressed.”

He practically moans when your fingers press on the muscles of his clavicle. Another defeated sigh leaves his mouth, and you feel his strong arms hold you tighter as he nuzzles his face against your stomach.

“I can’t do that.”, he grunts. “They need me, I can’t take a day off, let alone a couple.”, you can’t see him, but he rolls his eyes. Honestly, he wishes he could just not go to work for a while and rest peacefully and maybe enjoy a good meal instead of eating instant ramen every other day, but the agency’s been biting his ass and pressuring him into writing more music, and they’d never allow him to do that.

“Mh.”, you hum sadly, sincerely concerned about him. “This just means we’ll have to find another way to get you relaxed and to relieve some of your stress…”, you trail, the grip on his shoulder a bit more intense now, and you hope he got the hint. He snaps his head up to meet your eyes, and by the smirk that appears on his lips, it looks like he did.

“Oh, yeah?”, he raises his eyebrows, grinning. “And what did you have in mind?”, he purrs, his hands moving from your thighs to your ass, cupping and squeezing the flesh as you bite your lip.

“Mhh, I was thinking of something on the line of…”, you bend a little to whisper the following words in his ear, knowing it’ll drive him crazy. “You using my mouth like a fleshlight to get off.” When you pull away, you find him looking at you with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape, shocked by your words. “Would you like that?”

It’s a stupid question and an understatement, Changbin thinks, because you should see the way his cock practically came to life as soon as his brain processed what you’d said. So, instead of answering with words like a normal human being - he frantically nods, looking at you with big, brown puppy eyes as he licks his lips in anticipation.

“How do you want me?”, you ask, and he feels like he’s about to pass out.

“On your knees, love, please.” Changbin’s tone is demanding yet sweet at the same time - even when he’s in the mood to dominate you in bed, he can’t find it in himself to be too rough or too harsh with you, nor to offend you with words, even though you reassured him plenty of times that it’s okay if he does, that you like it.

You nod eagerly, a smile spreading on your face as you kneel before him, positioning yourself between his spread thighs - thankfully, there’s a fluffy rug at the end of the bed, so that you don’t hurt your knees when you go down on him, though it’s not the reason why you bought it. Maybe.

You automatically reach for his cock, still confined in his sweats, but rock hard nonetheless, and squeeze it through the thin fabric. Changbin doesn’t usually wear boxers to sleep, he doesn’t like how tight they feel against his skin, so that allows to feel him a bit closer. However, it’s not enough, and Changbin swiftly hooks his thumb on the hem of his sweats and pulls them off, lifting his body from the mattress just enough to let them slide off his ass and thighs.

When you finally wrap your fingers around his length, Changbin hisses and closes his eyes shut, too blessed in the feeling. It’s been a while since you’d last done that - with his busy schedule, he also had had to sacrifice long, steamy, lovemaking sessions, and your intimacy had mainly sticked to quickies or spooning sex lately, with basically zero foreplay.

You spit on your fingers to coat them in your saliva, which you use as a lubricant, before starting to jerk him off - slowly, just how he likes it. When he does it to himself, he does it fast, but when you’re the one with your hand around his cock - he wishes the feeling would last forever. He kicks his head back when you brush his slit with the pad of your thumb, gripping the sheets beneath him as you spread his pre-cum all over his cockhead.

“Mhh, like that.”, he moans, cock twitching in your hand. “I love it when you touch me.”, he opens his eyes to look at you.

You smile at him. “And I love touching you.”, you bite your lower lip as you bring your mouth closer to his dick.

Changbin feels his soul leave his body when you wrap your lips around the tip of his cock, warm, wet mouth engulfing him - sensation so good it’s almost enough to make him cum on the spot. He almost forgot how your mouth feels like around him, and the feeling sends a shiver down his spine and a pleasant tingle in his cock, all the way from his base to the tip.

“God, how I love your mouth.”, his words are followed by a shaky breath as he feels you taking him deeper in your mouth - albeit not without struggling because of his girth. Changbin brings one hand to your face, caressing your cheek with his thumb as he witness your mouth being stuffed with his fat cock.

You pull away, letting his cock fall out of your mouth as you continue to jerk him off, a string of saliva connecting your mouth to it, a sight that has Changbin biting on his lower lip. “Wanna fuck it?”, you ask, a bit breathlessly.

Changbin’s eyes widen and his breath gets stuck in his throat. “Yes.”, he responds, equally breathlessly. “God, yes.”

Changbin sucks in a breath when you wrap your lips around him once again, and he wastes no time in tangling his fingers in your hair in a very messy ponytail, careful to not pull your hair too hard as he slowly pushes you down on his cock, slurping sounds blessing his ears as you sink deeper on his length. He can feel your spit dripping from your mouth and all over his shaft, some ending on his balls, and his other hand grips even tighter on the bedsheets as he flexes the muscles of his thighs in order to control himself.

An obscene whimper leaves his mouth when you gag around him. “Oh, my God.”, goosebumps all over his skin. “Y-Yeah, just like that.”, he moans. “Choke on my cock like that.”

He kicks his head back as he continues to push your mouth on his cock to the point the tip of your nose is buried in the soft, trimmed hair on his pubic bone, his tip hitting the back of your throat with each movement as you hum around him. When your other hand finds its way to his balls, he nearly chokes on air and pulls you away from his cock, giving you time to regain your breath. When he looks at you - you have mascara running all over your face, and saliva drooling on your chin, mixed with his arousal. He thinks it’s the most beautiful sight ever, but of course he’s biased.

“Gonna fuck your throat now, love.”, his tone is sweet even when he says such filthy things to you. “Tap on my thigh if it gets too much, alright?”, he caresses your cheek sweetly.

You nod eagerly, and he stands up from the bed, towering above you. You moan when he wraps his own fingers around the base of his cock and slaps your mouth with his hard length, albeit lightly. You immediately part your lips when he aligns his cock to your mouth, welcoming him inside of you once again. Then, his hands move to each side of your face to keep you in place as he starts to rock his hips.

At first, he goes slow, his cock only halfway inside your mouth, giving you time to adjust to his length and to regulate your breathing through your nose. Once he’s made sure you’re okay, he starts to thrust inside your mouth, each time deeper and deeper until he’s fully buried inside your throat.

“You’re doing so good, love.”, he moans, pulling out almost all the way only to thrust back inside your mouth, squelching sounds filling the room together with his whimpers and your hums, clearly pleased with the way he’s using your throat to get off. After all, it’s what you asked him to do. “Looking so good with my cock in your throat.”, he pulls away a couple of locks of hair from your face, then entangles his fingers in your hair once again as he starts to thrust faster and faster, evidently close to finding his release.

“Mhh.”, his moans start to become more high-pitched, and his cock is throbbing in your throat. It’s only a matter of seconds before he shoots his load in your throat, reaching his yearned and deserved orgasm. “Go- God, I’m - fuck, I’m cumming, I’m cumming.”, he chants, knees buckling a little when he finally releases inside your mouth, hot spurts of his seed filling your mouth, some landing on your tongue, which you swallow gladly.

He pulls his cock out of you as soon as he’s made sure he’s given you until the very last drop of his cum, letting you regain your regular breathing as he brushes the skin of your face with his thumbs, trying to fix or at least clean your smudged mascara from under your eyes, smiling softly at you. He just loves you so much.

“Let me grab you a towel.”, he tells you sweetly, but before he can leave the room you stand up, legs feeling a bit shaky.

You shake your head as a no. “Come in the shower with me and then we can cuddle?”

Yes, Changbin is sure he’s found the love of his life in you.

✧

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#seo changbin smut #changbin smut #changbin #changbin hard thoughts #changbin hard hours #stray kids smut #stray kids hard hours #stray kids hard thoughts #skz smut #skz hard thoughts #skz hard hours #changbin x reader #changbin x you #seo changbin hard thoughts #seo changbin hard hours

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inkdrinkerworld · 8 months

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The hotch thoughts I have (and they might be boring and terrible so I'm sorry) is just that this man exudes safety and comfort. And like I genuinely think he would be so good at comforting someone especially someone he cares deeply about. Also this man gives the best hugs, like they're the perfect pressure and just so safe. I honestly would die to be held by hotch💛

omg yes!! something like ms.honey!reader x hotch

you’re not expecting hotch to knock on the archway of your classroom during lunch.

you’re kneeling at ben’s desk, shaking his juice and cracking the seal when louisa giggles and points to him.

“ms. y/l/n, someone’s here to see you.”

aaron blushes as you look up and shakes a bag. “i brought lunch.”

you’d forgotten to take your bowl from the fridge when you’d packed your lunch bag and when you’d mentioned it to aaron he said he’d be over for a little lunch date.

“give me five minutes?” you say and he nods, waiting just outside of the classroom.

ben turns to you, “is that your boyfriend?”

you smile at how he tries to whisper but ends up just shy of shouting. you’re sure aaron has a grin on his face and that makes you smile even more.

“yeah, he is.” you ruffle his hair when he ‘oh’s’. “be good for five minutes guys, or no colouring pages.”

you’re sure all the kids know you’re fibbing but they all turn to each other with determined eyes.

“hi,” you say shyly as you stand in front of him, back to the class.

“hi, honey,” he says softly, kissing your forehead. “i brought one of those milk biscuits you like too.”

you beam and aaron laughs when you wrap your arms around him. his arms wind around your waist slowly, but the pressure the bring to your back is comforting.

aaron rubs your back with the hand not clutching the bag of food, his chin resting on your forehead.

“thank you,” you earnestly, leaning out of the eyeline of your class to press a kiss to his lips. “you didn’t have to though, i would’ve ordered something.”

aaron rolls his eyes, “i know you were excited to have this,” he squeezes you again before letting you go. “how’re the kids?”

“good, ben has a crush on louisa.” aaron knew it. you’d both been trying to figure it out and ben had finally told you at recess.

“how’s work?” you ask aaron and he shrugs.

“we’re having an easy day so far, jj hasn’t found any cases for us yet.” you nod, rocking back on your heels.

“i hope the one you get isn’t too awful.” you know he can’t and won’t tell you if it’s too awful, but aaron appreciates the sentiment- he also knows it’s steeped in worry, but he finds that being worried about isn’t so bad.

there’s a call for you and aaron smiles, “i’ll leave you to it, honey,” he kisses your forehead again. “text me when you and jack get home?”

you nod and chance a kiss to his lips before watching him leave.

you renter the class to teasing songs of ‘ms.y/l/n has a boyfriend.’

#aaronhotchner #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x black!reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x yn #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner one shot #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotchner blurb #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner drabble #slmhuniverse

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elsweetheart · 1 year

Note

ok hi same anon and i agree, i’m not a stone but i love stone identities so much! also can i pls get some nsfw hcs of stone ellie helping her gf de-stress during exam season :))))

stone tops are the backbone of our society i salute them i also giggle and kick my feet for them🫡

combining this request with this one:

your dealer!ellie au is so so so so good !!! her talking about how pretty you are with pretty pink eyes… im literally barking rn pls do a part 2 (maybe with some smut cause im down bad) if you have the chance !!! <3 xoxoxox

it’s dealer!ellie i hope you don’t mind! gotta love our stone stoner 🤭

brief daddy kink mention + obvious usage of weed so skip if that makes u uncomfy. fem reader !

herbal therapy — dealer!ellie

🎀 smut !! reader calls ellie daddy, drugs are involved, mentions of stress

• it had been a long week, you had literally been living in the library with your head buried in your books and laptop preparing for your exams. pressure was being applied from everywhere in your life, and before you reached your breaking point you decided to grant yourself a day to relax.

• well, you don’t exactly decide — you can’t concentrate on your work because you started crying due to the stress, and in that moment you just needed your girlfriend to make it all go away.

• so, you show up to her dorm with your bag and a downturned pout, tears welling in your eyes. her brows furrowed when she saw how done you looked and slowly pulled you into her arms, eyes flickering over you. “oh! hey! you’re crying!” she whispered, eyes wide and face worried.

• she pulled you into her room and shut the door, bringing you over to her bed and sitting down, pulling you onto her lap. “talk to me, what happened?” she was sure to speak gently not knowing how fragile you were feeling. you sniffled loudly, wiping your cheeks with the backs of your hands. “s’just too much. need a night away from it all. wanted to be with you.” you tell her dejectedly and she nods in understanding, squeezing you close and resting her chin on your shoulder. “I’m yours all night, you’ll be alright.” she comfort, kissing your cheek.

• she orders you both a pizza, and god she’s just being so fucking gentle with you it makes you wanna cry everytime you look at her. she even holds you whilst you eat your pizza, her leaning her back to the wall with you laying with your back to her chest, sat up so you can eat. she doesn’t expect you to reply to her too much, but she’ll talk to you quietly in your ear about the movie you’re watching or something that happened to her earlier. her voice is so comforting it soothes you enough for your stress to start melting away a little.

• “you wanna get a little high? might help you relax a little, babe.” she all but whispers in your ear after your food had gone down, the movie on the screen illuminating the room. you turn your face to her, running your eyes over her freckles, her eyebrow scar, her pretty green eyes. it takes you a moment to respond because you’re so mesmerised by her, finally getting out a weak “mhm.” which makes her smile like she’s proud of you, pressing a kiss to your slightly parted lips.

• she prepares it all for you, letting you get the first hit like she always does. the two of you had figured out what your limit was, and honestly the two of you rarely smoked together because she was constantly telling you it was bad for you etc — but times like this did call for a little herbal therapy. you smoked your usual amount until your eyes were all pink and hazy just how she liked it and you felt fuzzy and warm on the inside. she finished off the rest easily, her tolerance way higher.

• she leans back on the bed and you lay down with her, practically trying to climb into her clothes with how close you wanted to be. “wish you could shrink me down so i could be in your pocket all day n’you could take me everywhere.” you hum into her and she chuckles low in her chest, palms flattening against your back as she rubs up and down. “i wouldn’t put you in my pocket, come on now. i’d obviously have you sit on my shoulder like a little parrot. s’way cooler.” she theorises and you pull back, nodding with doe eyes and a serious expression which makes her laugh even more at you taking her answer to heart. “you’re so cute. my cute little lady.” she cups your cheeks with a funny voice making you giggle before she presses her lips to your puckered one’s. you melt into the kiss and it deepens naturally, her hand pushing your lower back to arch you gently into her. you take it one step further, hooking your leg over her thigh and her hands roam lower, squeezing your ass as she slips her tongue into your mouth. you whimper, the weed having you so sensitive to touch that everything felt amazing and you’d barely even started making out. you felt the warmth and wetness begin to spread in your panties and if you weren’t high you might’ve been ashamed over how easy it was.

• her lips attack your neck as she encourages you with her hands to grind against her thigh, causing you to whine in satisfaction at the warm friction against your clit. “mhm?” she cooes against your skin when you do, making you all the more wetter knowing exactly what you had in store. ellie was gonna look after you, just like she always does.

• deciding enough was enough, ellie gently rolled you onto your back— pushing herself up onto her knees as her eyes ran over your heaving figure for a second. “y’wanna take these off for me?” she pat your pants lightly, leaning over to her bedside table to drink out of her water bottle before cupping the back of your neck to sit you up a little and holding it to your lips, pausing you in your undressing. “good girl.” she praised casually, eyes on your wet lips. as she did up the cap of the bottle you were quick to pull off your pants, grabbing at her tshirt to pull her back to you. as you did this, you caught the ghost of a smirk at your desperation on her face before she kissed you again, holding herself up over you.

• her larger hand crept down you, before nudging your thighs a little wider and cupping you through your panties. you gasp at this, and she chuckles at your reaction, digging her fingers in slightly. “ellie…” you whisper against her lips and she pulls away to kiss your chin before dropping her head to look at what her hand was doing. her hand trailed up and brushed over your clit making your legs jerk slightly and her fingers curled around the fabric of your panties. before you could wonder what she was doing, she gently tugged them up, causing the material to bunch and rub against your sensitive button.

• “mm—mgh, o’mygod” you whimpered, not being able to do anything but pant for a moment. she was looking back up at you now, watching your reaction and she let the smirk grace her face once more, continuing to tug. “y’like that?” she mutters, almost slightly taken aback and you nod, swallowing down a thick gulp. “so sensitive.” she commented teasingly even quieter than before, beginning to pull your underwear off completely unable to wait any longer.

• she pushed herself off you so she could ease her way down the bed, coming face to face with your cunt. you went to close your legs, but she gently eased them open— taking your hand that covered your modesty and running her thumb along the backs of your knuckles looking up at you. “s’just me.” she cooed and your heart fluttered, nodding as if hypnotised. “just you.” you repeat in a broken whisper before her eyes are on your pussy again, thumbs coming even side of the lips to spread them apart. she was high, so naturally she was entranced by how pretty it was taking a moment to admire you as she dragged a finger through your soaked slit.

• “please.” you eventually pouted and she snapped out of it, dragging a thumb up to your clit making you moan. dipping her head down she began leaving wet kisses on your thighs, pleased hums leaving her when the sensation of this would cause you to spread your legs for her even wider trying to urge her face closer to your heat. “m’gonna take care of you. gonna take care of you so well, pretty girl.” she promised against your warm skin and you mewled, hands curling into the sheets beneath you.

• ellie pushed a finger inside your wet warmth and you melted into the sheets, for once not making sound. your eyes were screwed shut and you were holding your breath without realising, trying to focus solely on the feeling of her finger being gripped by your walls. her finger didn’t move, and you were pulled out of it when she looked up at you with a gentle yet stern expression, hazy eyes focused in one yours. “breathe.” her hand stroked your thigh lovingly and you released a shaky breath. she began moving her finger again, working you open before adding another and curling them up against your gummy spot.

• your back arched off the bed and she took that as the perfect opportunity to wrap an arm around your thigh and pull you closer until her hot mouth was on your slit, licking up any juices that had leaked from you. the substances inside you heightened the euphoria of this, tears welling in your eyes as she mouthed at you hungrily.

• you didn’t know how much time had passed, it all had blurred into one as ellie made you cum over and over. during the last orgasm she drew out of you, her hand dragged up to your tummy feeling the way it spasmed and clenched and remained tense after you had hit your peak. something in you was still holding onto that stress whether you realised it or not.

• she pushed herself up rather abruptly, and your eyes fluttered open to see her staring at you, taking in all of your features analytically like she was going to draw a picture of you. your brow was still slightly tense, your jaw too. you pressed your lips together swallowing, just waiting for her next move — because ellie always knew what to do, ellie always knew how to make it better. you still looked hungry, and she realised you needed more. “you need to get fucked.” she told you so casually like it was an obvious realisation and you inhaled through your mouth, head dizzy with just how serious she was. you couldn’t help a whine slip out your mouth as your teary eyes gazed into hers, still convinced that you were too sensitive from the orgasms you’d already received. “i know, baby.” she whispered, cupping your face as if she’d read your mind. “my girl is still all tense. y’just need a little bit of dick to let go of it all don’t you?” she cooed so gently that you felt a tear roll down the side of your cheek and onto the pillow beside you. she swiped it away with her thumb, lips still glistening from you and nodded, a pout on her own face. “yeah. need me to make it all better.” she kissed you, and your breath caught in your throat when you tasted yourself. ellie had a way of making your head get so fucked, to the point where all you knew was her. she didn’t even have to try to take charge you just naturally… gave it all to her.

• you don’t remember her getting up, you just knew she was just suddenly lazily clipping her strap on onto her harness, not bothering to remove her sweats underneath. your senses were alive and practically vibrating within you when she swiped the plastic tip along through your folds, sighing like she could feel it herself. “els, want it—please.” you heard yourself say and she didn’t keep you waiting, pushing it in slow to the hilt and holding it there, kissing you through the stretch.

• “need you to relax for me. big breath in, okay? do it with me.” she whispered and you blindly followed her. the two of you, faces close, eyes locked just breathing together. your high felt elevated, and in that moment you thought the two of you might just become one person. she seemed to give in, latching her lips to yours and sucking on your bottom lip, both hands cradling your neck like she couldn’t get enough. “you gonna let me take care of that pretty pussy?” she breathed into your mouth and you were whimpering out desperate ‘yes!’s before you could even stop to think. ellie was fucking you, slow and deep and you were crying because there was truly nothing better in the world than her giving you exactly what you needed in that moment.

• lost in the moment, she pushed your knees up to your chest and your mouth fell open as she hit your spot which spurred her on to grind her strap into you with even more energy. “‘taking me so well. look at that. look how good you’re taking it. fuck me.” she cursed, gently wrapping her hand round your chin to make you look down at the soaked plastic disappearing in and out of you.

• “mm—hmhph daddy!” you sniffled and she was suddenly kissing you again so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of you. you didn’t mean to say it, but nothing ever seemed totally off the table with ellie as she just wanted to make you feel good — she knew being ‘daddy’ was what you needed, and boy did it sound pretty coming from your swollen lips. “mhm. i’m daddy. cum for me m’right here. keep takin’ it for daddy.” she groaned against your lips, doing everything in her power to get you there. she knew snaking a hand between you and letting you hump your abused clit against it would seal the deal and it did— your ears ringing as you tumbled over your last peak. somewhere in the back of your mind you thought about the students living on the other sides of ellie’s dorm walls hearing all of this but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as she talked you through cumming. “good girl, so fuckin’ beautiful.”

• ellie got what she wanted too, a completely relaxed and limp girlfriend. it’s almost like she could see the previous, remaining stress float away from your body like steam and she smiled, catching her breath. she slowly pulled out, glancing at the mess you’d made of her strap and the blanket beneath you. “messy girl.” she tutted lightheartedly with a grin on her face and you reached weakly for her, using the rest of your energy to do so. “gotta clean you up, babe.” she reminded you but you pouted, so naturally she was crawling back over you and pulling you into her chest to cuddle. “inna bit.” you slurred, seeming drunk and fucked out which filled her with endless pride.

• she kissed the top of your head, resting her chin on it as you enjoyed the sleepy silence before she spoke. “‘that help you at all?” she knew the answer, hell— she was feeling smug as ever, but she needed verbal confirmation. she needed to hear you say it. “mhm. needed it bad n’i didn’t even know. but you always know.” you were muffled in her tshirt, practically asleep at this point.

• it was true. ellie always knows. ellie always makes it better.

• her lips attacked your neck as she pulled you to grind lazily on her thigh and you let out another shaky moan, causing her to hum an encouraging “mhm?” against you, turning you on even more. her hands were warm when they pushed up your shirt to squeeze at your tits, your moans only getting more lustful.

• deciding enough was enough she gently rolled you onto your back, pushing herself up on her knees.

• she orders you food, your favourite kind - and the two of you curl up and watch a movie, ellie doing her best to

#dealer!ellie #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams headcanons #ellie tlou2 smut

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mrswint3rs · 1 month

Note

Hello , i hope you're doing well . Can i request a step dad kakashi x reader non con with degradation please. Have a good day and dont feel pressure to write my request

𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐂𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐒𝐚𝐲 𝐍𝐨 ( drabble )

pairings- step-dad kakashi x fem! reader

content/warnings: non consensual somnophilia, slut shaming, degrading language, obv age gap but reader is always of legal age. hinted corruption kink, daddy kink, pure smut, breeding kink, very brief oral sex (r! recieving), unprotected sex, baby trapping…

a/n: title ib ’figured you out’ - nickleback! thanks for requesting anon!! hope you enjoy ^.^ also sorry this came before the boyfriend’s dad fic because it’s not flowing how i want it to atm!!tried a new style kinda?? but as always not proofread so lmk!

Hands roam across your body, feeling your every curve. You couldn’t deny him anything now. Not while you were fast asleep, as usual wearing nothing. Blankets were barely even covering you and the door was left wide open. He had every right, didn’t he?

Constantly you teased him. Teased everyone with your skimpy little outfits, frilly little skirts and the shortest, tightest tops. You’d prance around, flaunting all you had to show. You’d go out of your way to draw attention to yourself. So obviously wanted his eyes on you. But the second he gave in? Shut down. Called him the pervert because he was your stepfather.

Clearly, you were just confused. Needed some guidance and he’s more than happy to oblige…

Wet as he imagined, even when you’re unconscious you react to his touch. Needy little thing. Why did you bother trying to conceal your true intentions? During the daytime it’s almost like you get embarrassed when your eyes meet. Yet you clearly wanted them to. There was no denying the way you craved him, and he craved you just as much. Only you can’t put up a barrier now. Can’t tell him ‘no.’

His hands pry your thighs apart, revealing his goal. Too bad it’s dark and he won’t get the chance to see it bare. All the times you’ve bent over in front of him were more than enough for him to get a relative idea. But he wants you in full. He deserves you, not his overworked palm.

Lips trail up your legs, starting at your calves and beyond, towards your inner thigh to your dripping cunt. His tongue drags in your slick, just getting a taste of what’s rightfully his. He groans as you flood his senses, like the sweetest honey.

He dives back in, sloppily lapping you up without worrying about waking you. Even if you were to wake up, nothing was pulling him off of you. Every part of him needed this.

His fingers fish around your inner walls, scissoring you open and prepping you for him. May not feel it now, but you would in the morning. He sucks and licks through your folds until he’s gasping. Until his dick is so hard it hurts.

He aligns with your entrance, plunging his cock all the way into you with no remorse. He didn’t have to control himself.

“Nasty little slut,” he groans, pummeling into your tight canal with fervor. “So fucking wet for me. Making such a mess on daddy’s cock.”

Obviously you can’t hear him. But it makes him feel good imagining that you can. He wishes you could hear and feel all the ways he’s violating you.

He ruts into your depths, racing to finish. He had to sneak away from your mother and into your room for this, he’d rather not deal with the repercussions of getting caught screwing his stepdaughter. He’d never get to see you again. To feel you again.

He wouldn’t dare risk that.

“Gonna stuff you full with my babies,” his hands grip your hips bruisingly tight, using them to support his movements. “Such a whore no one’s gonna know it’s mine.” Not even you.

Each roll of his hips, the bed creaks and your body moves in delay. Your face is buried in your pillow, soft whimpers escaping you every now and then. The small reactions he did get out of you sent him over the edge. You whined like you were having a bad dream, so oblivious to what was really happening.

“Take daddy’s cum, baby. Making me feel so good,” he groans out, breathing staggered and his jaw slacking as it all pours out. He lets out a deep groan, feeling the way your insides throb around his length.

He stays buried inside, making sure to fuck every last drop of cum into you. Not letting anything go to waste before pulling out with a sigh.

His eyes peer down at you, looking at the result of his actions. Only then does he notice your hands desperately gripping the bed sheets. Face flushed and looking right back at him.

#tw.dark content #kakashi x reader #kakashi hatake #kakashi smut #naruto smut #naruto x reader #kakashi hatake x reader #kakashi hatake smut

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specialagentlokitty · 2 months

Text

Rossi x reader - trust in you

hi, I hope you’re doing well 🫶🏻 I was wondering if I could please request something where reader desperately wants relapse with sh but instead winds up talking to her father figure hotch or Rossi (or both)? No pressure if you don’t want to write it. I absolutely love your writing 🥰🥰 - @twwobsessed 💜

TW: mentions of self harm and negative thoughts

Some cases hit people harder than others, usually you were able to remain objective about the cases, put all those normal thoughts of sadness, despite, hatred for people to the back of your mind.

But your most recent case had you finding it hard to do that, it hit a little too close to home for you, and no one on the team knew that, you carried on going through it.

You saw the case through to the end, but it was hard, and you couldn’t stop thinking about it as you flicked through the book in your lap, pretending you were reading.

You didn’t really talk to anybody when you got back, instead of doing your paperwork like normal you went straight back home.

You went for a bath, made a cup of tea, tried reading a book but nothing was helping you relax.

You had resorted to pacing back and forth along your hallway, pinging the elastic band around your wrist, trying to resist the unbearable urge you had to scratch, to try get rid of this itch that seemed to be buried deep within your skin.

You knew scratching wouldn’t work, no matter how much you scratch you would never be able to get rid of that itch.

Your brain was running a million miles an hour with all the thoughts, feelings and urges you had worked through a long time ago.

But they came back.

It was like you could never escape, no matter how well you seemed to be doing they always came back, always haunting you.

Your own mind begging you to inflict pain on yourself.

You didn’t want to, you had been clean for nearly a year, you had fought this all by yourself, you had never told anybody about your struggles.

Everybody struggled, dealt things their own way and this is how you had been ever since you were a teenager, even when you went through the academy, even as you joined the BAU, where you had been for the past three years.

You kept it all to yourself.

It was destroying you.

It was going to destroy you and you knew that.

You didn’t want to do this anymore, you didn’t want to go back into that life, you didn’t want to slip into old habits.

Grabbing your keys, you pulled on one of your hoodies and went to your car, heading to the person you knew would most likely still be up at this time.

You didn’t have your phone so you couldn’t call saying you were outside, so you settled for just knocking on the door until you finally heard somebody coming over.

Lowering your hand, you watched as the door was swung open, showing the worried and confused face of your coworker.

“(Y/N) what’s wrong?” Rossi asked.

You took a shaky breath, running a hand down your face.

“I.. I.. I need help…” you whispered.

“Come here, come on.”

Rossi held his hand out for you and you took it, letting him pull you in for a hug as he closed his front door.

Tears fell from your eyes, and you quietly sobbed, gripping the back of his shirt tightly.

“I.. I can’t do this anymore…”

Rossi held the back of your head, running a hand up and down your back.

“I need you to tell me what happened…” he whispered.

“I can’t.. I don’t… I can’t.. I can’t do this alone anymore…”

Rossi pulled away, placing a hand on your shoulder to lead you to the couch, gently sitting you down.

“Wait right here.”

He rushed away to get you a glass of water, and he came back, handing it out to you and you set it on the table.

Rossi also get down a box of tissues for you, and he finally sat down, taking one of your hands in his.

“I need you to talk to me (Y/N)…” he whispered.

You sniffled a little bit, running a hand down your face as you took a deep breath.

“This case.. I.. it brought back memories…”

Rossi slowly nodded his head.

“I.. I lived the same way as the victims…”

“(Y/N) the unsub chose his victims because he believed they could never recover, he believed they were sick, and they needed help to die. You know this. He targeted people who used forms of self harm as a method to get through every day life.”

You sniffled a little bit, slowly nodded your head.

“I know… that’s why I.. I.. I couldn’t help you…”

“You said you were called away on an urgent matter.”

You shook your head.

“I lied…”

“We would have known.”

You left out a weak laugh, burying your face in your arms tapping the back of your head a few times.

“I got so used to lying that I… I learned how to tell the perfect lie…”

“(Y/N) did you do something? Did something happen?” Rossi asked.

“No.. no that’s.. that uh.. why I came here…”

Rossi slowly nodded his head and you sat up, carefully rolling the sleeves of your hoodies up.

Rossi reached out, hesitating before he gently took one of your arms.

He ran he thumb along the rigid scars that were embedded deep in your skin.

He could tell they were old, and he didn’t need to ask in order to figure out what they were caused by.

“How long were you doing this to yourself?”

“Years…”

He nodded, pulling your sleeve down for you, and he did the same to your other arm, letting you go ahead and hide them once again.

Rossi held his arms around for you.

You shuffled over, letting him hold you, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I need you to tell me everything (Y/N), okay? You can’t leave anything out.”

You nodded in agreement.

You told Rossi everything, from how and when it started, to when you managed to stop and everything in between.

Rossi didn’t speak, he quietly listened to you, and when you stopped talking that’s when he spoke up.

“Was it something in the case that trigged this emotions for you?” He asked.

You nodded again.

“Going through their lives, seeing how they all had the same trauma, the same feelings of wanting to just disappear.. knowing I had the same thoughts.. it.. it made me realise that could have been me…”

“What makes you think that?”

“Rossi he was the third therapist in my list in case I couldn’t get to the other two…”

You felt his grip tighten around you, and he ran his hand up and down your arm.

“I got the second one on the list…”

Rossi slowly nodded his head.

“I.. I can’t do this alone Rossi…”

“You’re not alone (Y/N), you’re never alone. You know this. You have a whole team, a whole family behind you, willing to support you if you asked them.”

You shook your head.

“No.. no I.. I don’t.. don’t tell them…”

“Alright, I don’t have to tell the team anything. But I need you to promise me something.”

You sniffled a little, nodding your head.

“You keep coming here, to me, if you get these feelings again. You never harm yourself again, can you promise me that?”

You nodded again.

“Good, now, I just so happened to be getting ready to cook. Your favourite in fact, would you like to help me?”

You sat up, looking at him as you wiped the tears from under your eyes.

“Do you get that funky cheese I like?”

This made Rossi chuckle a little bit.

“Yes, I got the mozzarella, and I got everything you need to make your own mozzarella sticks since you seem to enjoy them so much.”

You stood up, sorrowing up your sleeves as you followed him to the kitchen and he got everything you needed to make your favourite snacks.

Rossi noted the elastic band around your wrist, and he said nothing about it.

“Thank you for trusting me.” He said quietly.

You smiled a little at him.

“Thank you for always being there for me…”

Rossi smiled, placing his hand on your shoulder, giving it a small squeeze.

“I’m always here for you kiddo.”

You nodded your head, going back to making your snacks while he began cooking the actual meal itself

#criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x you #criminal minds imagine #David Rossi #david rossi x reader #David Rossi x you #David Rossi imagine #Rossi #Rossi x reader #Rossi x you #Rossi imagine

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fried-peaches00 · 1 year

Text

“Neteyam Standards”

Neteyam Sully x Human!reader

Ratings: SFW, Fluff

Word Count: 800

Notes: Man wtf why do I gotta indulge like this. This is me dipping my toes into the world of posting fan fiction, let me know what you think. Also I can’t figure out how to add a read more option help.

“You must’ve been the most beautiful creature on earth.” Neteyam murmurs into the crown of your head, his hand slipping into your considerably smaller one playing in the grass. You always admired the contrast of your skin tones next to each other. You scoff, “Hardly, but I appreciate the sentiment Teyam.” You left your voice drift off into the forest sounds, you prefer to let them speak for themselves but Neteyam has a different idea,

“I don’t think I could imagine anything more beautiful than you, Navi or human,” He ponders for a moment, “I wouldn't be surprised if you would rival the personified beauty of Eywa herself.” You laugh at this, sitting up to face him behind you only to be met with a drowsy, lovesick smile painted on Neteyam’s face as he listens to you with undivided attention, ”Do not say these things!” He catches your hand as you lightly shove him in the chest,

“ I can’t have Eywa upset at me, can I now? It’s hard enough just surviving on this planet without an ethereal deity out for me.” He laughs heartily, pulling you down to rest against his chest looking up into the canopy and at the sun shining through. It’s nearing eclipse, just close enough to see the first sliver of Polyphemus through the trees but not enough to worry about your return yet. Either way, you know that Neteyam could protect you against anything you may find in the dark. Out of the corner of your eye you see Neteyam’s ears twitch. Picking up all the chirps, hoots and howls of the forest. Two Atokirina dance between each other, floating down just far enough to tickle the finger tips of your outstretched hand.

“And besides, Eywa is much too beautiful. I don’t think I’d want to rival her. Nothing would seem beautiful to me if I was the most beautiful.” You add, only for your lover to squeeze your shoulder, his hand reaching out to join yours against the backdrop of the sky,

“I would like to believe Eywa thinks we are beautiful…” He murmurs before rolling on top of you, deciding he would much rather look at you than the leaves of the trees,

“Either way, you must be the most stunning creature on earth at least.” His bright eyes gaze up into yours. You can’t seem to find any hint of playfulness or doubt, he's fully sincere. So sincere it almost makes you tear up,

“Not particularly, I’m not exactly conventionally Earth beautiful either.” You give him a shaky smile, But he perseveres, cupping your face in his large hand, pressing his forehead to yours,

“I don’t buy it, my love. The way you speak of earth, burnt and devoid of life. I can’t imagine the people must be any better. All of the Humans I see here on Pandora are destructive and violent.” You hum, feeling the light rumbling of a purr in his chest against yours. You think for a moment, it might be nice for Neteyam to keep thinking that you are so beautiful that the Earth should weep for forgiveness for ever letting you leave, but you feel like you should tell the truth. That for earth standards, you were really, quite below average. Even though you don’t have to feel the pressure to look the way everyone wants you to look anymore, you would like to be able to be vulnerable with Neteyam, your mate,

“Earth… Has a very steadfast expectation on how you should look. So many humans would do anything to look that way,” You smile for a moment but it fades fast. “We would kill our planet for it. The plants and animals,” Neteyams huffs, pulling back for a moment,

“They did. Not you. This is not a matter of we.” He pouts. You will not bear this guilt alone, not on his watch. This makes you smile again,

“Whatever,” You roll your eyes. Never have you met anyone so stubborn to let you know how cared for you were, “I don’t meet that standard, Teyam, I think you would be stunned by those who do.”

Neteyam’s face softens. He can’t even fathom how you perceive yourself. To him you were the most empathetic, intelligent, caring person he’s ever met, not to mention the very love of his life. He moves to sit on your outstretched thighs,

“I don’t care about ‘Earth standards’.” He creates bunny ears with his fingers,

“In Nettayam standards, You are the most stunning being in the whole galaxy.”

#neteyam x reader #neteyam x human reader #neteyam sully x reader

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desertfangs · 5 months

Note

Since you write a lot do you have tips for people who want to write more?

Hi, anon! I can sure try and tell you some of what works for me!

Ignore advice that you don’t find helpful (that includes these tips!)

Writing is a process, but your writing process is always going to be unique to you, so if something doesn’t work for you, trying to implement it is only going to make you miserable. Like some people will tell you to write every day, but sometimes the pressure of that is going to be too much. Basically anything that doesn’t work for you, chuck it in the bin. You don’t need it.

Put your word processor in full screen

I write in Scrivener, which has a “composition mode” but you can also just put your document on full screen to minimize distractions. That way it’s harder to flip over to check Discord or Tumblr or whatever. Of course, I still exit out of full screen every time I need to look something up in the thesaurus and then I end up spending 15 minutes screwing around on the internet so you know, it's not a perfect system.

Work on several things at once and don’t be afraid to step away if a story isn’t working

Granted, my writing method is like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, so I tend to start a lot of stuff that fizzles out after a few paragraphs (or a few thousand words 😭😭) and I know juggling multiple things does not work for everyone.

I personally usually need at least 2 current WIPs, so I can switch to the second when I get stuck on the first. This means even while I’m ruminating on one fic, I’m writing another. But I have friends who literally can’t write on more than one project at a time or their brains will explode, so again, it’s just about what works best for you.

[BRACKETS]

If you’re stuck on something like a detail or a fact you need to look up or a piece of dialogue (“How the fuck would Lestat respond to THAT?” is my constant refrain, my cats are tired of hearing it), just put something in brackets like [Lestat replies with something flirty or witty] or [Fact check if X] or whatever it is, and then you can move on and keep going and not lose your momentum.

Set a Timer

If you're struggling to make yourself focus and write, set a timer for 10, 15, 25 minutes (whatever increment of time works for you!) and write until it goes off. You can keep going after if you're on a roll, or your can stop for a while, but it will get you into the mindset of writing. And even if that's all you do that day, hey, you wrote for 10 minutes!

Kill your need for perfection and that critic in your brain

I am still working on this but it’s true! You can make your WIP more perfect in editing. The old adage that you can’t fix a blank page is correct. And honestly, a lot of times I will write something and think ‘ugh this is no good’ and then go back and read it weeks later and really dig it. Or I figure out what it needs to make it better. (Or sometimes it still sucks and we just pretend it never happened.) But no one else has to see your first drafts! So don’t stress about making the first draft super good or agonize too much over word choice. Just get words on the page and worry about making it better later.

I hope you find some of that helpful, Anon!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #answers in the desert #anonymous #thank you for the ask #no idea if this is useful to anyone else but it's what works for me

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ipegchangbin · 5 months

Note

Hiii Hope you’re well! Can I request reader who wants to fuck but they don’t have any condoms and hyunjin keeps refusing saying no especially since she’s ovulating and he might get her pregnant but she keeps insisting that she wants to know what it feels like to have him cum inside of her and eventually he gives in and lets her ride him. (Subby hyunjin preferably)

🏷️ cnc/dubcon. dom!fem!reader, sub!hyunjin, forced breeding & pregnancy risk. 18+ minors dni.

the box in the drawer is empty. it should have been full of contraceptives but you figured that either of you were too enthralled in the intimacy to be bothered. now, hyunjin’s face contorts into one of a quiet panic, but your hand is quick to soothe him with a soft palm to his cheek.

except, he isn’t really soothed at all, especially not at your suggestion.

“you can just pull out, you know.” your thumb runs across his mole. “there’s no need to worry about condoms.”

“but—” hyunjin gulps. “y-you’re ovulating, i…i can’t risk pulling out.”

“and? some people still become parents after using condoms and plan b.”

your hand trails down from the plump skin of his face down to the rough and stark edges of his neck, pulling him closer in a threat to cage him in. hyunjin is strong and he could easily pull away if he wanted to, but maybe just as he’s nervous, he also simply can’t tear away from you.

yet you feel like a trap that he fell into.

“i-i can’t…no, let’s not. we can try another time, i’ll just…take care of myself.” hyunjin finally tries to back away until your naked legs wrap around his.

he’s now down on your body, your skin and his pressing against each other. it makes a blush creep up to his face as, he can’t lie, he loves the close proximity despite your risky suggestions. he’ll always fall in love with you like cat to a catnip. there’s an irresistibility to you that he can’t wave for a moment, even when his mind is hazy with panicked and rushing thoughts that won’t stop running.

he isn’t ready to be dealt with the responsibility of your pregnancy; hyunjin is fully ready to trust you and take big steps with you, but the sudden and unplanned nature is causing him the worst thoughts of his life. pressure builds in his throat and he keeps saying no: he knows that you’re talking to him, insisting, but he could barely hear your sweet voice when there’s a deafening ring in his ears that he can’t defeat.

“please, please, no—ah!”

he doesn’t know how he got to the position at all. one moment, you caged him down to the bed with your body, and the next you were there. sitting on his cock, pussy filled deep with all of him.

skin to skin, inside and full — all for the first time without a condom in the way.

“god hyune, your bare cock’s so good…” you pant as your hips roll against his. a dragged whine leaves his throat as a delicious moan leaves yours. “i wanna feel your cum inside me, wanna feel it, just this once baby.”

“n-no,” he still insists. hyunjin’s chest heaves and he doesn’t know what to do, it feels so fucking good that it overrides his senses. he never knew that the thinnest condom still got in the way of feeling every single bit of you. the warmth, the velvety plush walls, the wet slick essence…it’s all much for him to take, and it leaves him breathless.

you move your body upwards only to crash back down. the thrust of your lower half sends hyunjin into a trance, making his head roll back, plump lips hung open as a string of curses leave his system in the form of a pretty curled voice. he keeps saying no, he keeps pleading for you to stop, the ringing in his ears fading in and out as the sloppy and messy noises of your cunt clashing against his sweaty cock fill the room alongside your moans. every weak attempt to pull away turns into nothing as your legs cage him in, your pussy slamming against his curved length in a beautiful pace that he can’t seem to break.

“don’t want to breed me, baby?” you threaten.

“no, stop.

you plant your hands on his sensitive sides. “don’t want to see me take you, hyunjin?”

“s-stop, stop…”

“don’t want to feel what it’s like to fill up a pretty little pussy?”

your words are filthy and you know it. they’re as dirty as they are enticing and it makes his mind spiral. hyunjin’s teary eyed now, a cry getting lodged in his throat. he feels like sobbing and yet, from both the dilemma and the pleasure, he whines out things he doesn’t mean.

“stop…s-stop—don’t…don’t stop! don’t stop, fuck, y/n, d-don’t stop…!”

or maybe that’s what he wanted all along.

you laugh and your pace picks up. you’re riding him with all your might and hyunjin feels like a slut. he was made to breed you like this, fill you up as he should. maybe you’re right, he wasn’t born with an insane amount of cum for it to be wasted.

he shoots load after load inside you, his hands pulling you down on his cock by your thighs, mustering up all the strength to empty his loads in you.

it takes you minutes before you pull out. for a while, you have to kiss him to calm him down, reassure him that he did well. the moment your cunt is off his cock, it gushes out his creamy release, and the sight makes him shiver.

he really wanted to fill you up, cum deep inside.

it’s a primal instinct that he can’t shake.

#sub!skz #sub!hyunjin #skz smut #hyunjin smut #💌 ipeginbox #<3 a lovely anon #💬 z is writimg #WHEWWWW this one was a doozy

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sheriffgrimes-archerdixon · 2 months

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Practice makes perfect

Request: please could you write one where Rick helps inexperienced reader shoot a gun and he also teaches her how to defend herself? Thank you!

A/N: hope this is okay!! Would you all like to see a daryl version of this??

Rick grimes x fem! Reader

You were new to the prison environment, you had stumbled upon the prison when you had lost your people to the dead. It was terrifying but thankfully Rick grimes and his people welcomed you in with open arms— or… well. Held at gunpoint. But that’s beside the point. You had been here for almost 18 days now and you were fitting in just right. You had found comfort within Hershel the kind man who seemed to be incredibly loyal and genuine. Not to mention his kindness towards everything was gratefully accepted during times like these. Beth too was a sweet girl but there were a few of the group who seemed a bit rough around the edges. Not that you minded of course, you were just glad you could say you had some kind of “friends.”

Here you were positioned near the gate where walkers were pressing themselves against, ruthlessly clawing at the metal structure desperate for the taste of flesh. You stood silently staring and listening to their groans and moans your hand numbly gripping onto the pistol that dangled by your side. It might’ve seemed stupid but you had never shot a gun in your life. And now that you were in this situation you wished you had accepted the many times family members offered to take you to the shooting range when the world was still normal. You exhaled shaking your head before you pointed your gun at one of the walkers heads, squinting your eyes slightly your finger resting upon the trigger as you tried to figure out how to do it, footsteps slowing just behind you— ricks scrutinising eyes examined you thoroughly before he cleared his throat. “The safety’s one” his thick accent touched your ears and you quickly glanced at him “what?” You murmured nervously “the safety’s on. That’s why you can’t pull the trigger.” He vaguely explained taking steps towards you before stopping beside you, slender fingers grasping onto the metal of the gun as he stood side by side with you his arm brushing lightly against yours “look,” he tilted the gun your way his thumb brushing against the metal before a click was heard “safety’s off now.” He spoke before slowly handing it back to you. “Try now.”

He took a step back giving you room to try but now under this much pressure you felt your nerves kick in. You were worried that because you didn’t know how to shoot a gun without looking like an idiot you’d be seen as someone lesser and be kicked out the group. But really that was just your over thinking. You hesitantly pointed the gun towards a specific walker Rick remaining silent as he observed you fingertips lightly brushing against the handle of his own gun it was just engraved into his mind to constantly do just in case he had to pull it on anyone or anything at any point. You couldn’t ever be too careful… you glanced back at him momentarily he was hard to read, you then looked forward again steadying your breath as you attempted it. And with one last deep breath you pulled the trigger the bullet flying through the air and zipping straight past the walkers a silent cuss leaving your lips as you shook your head embarrassed. “Not bad.” Rick spoke calmly, as if noting your anxious state and how you seemed to be slightly apprehensive about shooting the gun. He took a step towards you stopping beside you “have you ever shot a gun before?” He questioned and you glanced at him before shaking your head “no. I didn’t like using guns when the world was normal…” you murmur nervously and he only nods. “That’s understandable” he soon comments “I was a sheriff in Atlanta before all of this.” Rick began talking, your eyes snapping back towards him as you listened to him silently admiring him his jaw slightly clenching every now and then his baby blue eyes holding many memories within them. His eyes moved to look at you “so I was all involved in guns and protecting myself and my people.” He spoke as if trying to make you more comfortable. Opening up little by little…

“My wife…. She hated the thought of our son using guns. She refused to let him near them. Even when I offered to train him up for if anything ever happened she wouldn’t let him… even when the world went to shit… she wouldn’t let him touch a gun…” he analysed you as he spoke “until I convinced her enough… I wish I had held back slightly..” he swallowed thickly glancing down at the ground as he remembered the thought of Carl shooting his own mum. If Rick hadn’t of taught him how to shoot a gun then would Carl of shot Lori? It was a question left for speculation. No one truly knew. But Rick did feel guilt when he thought on it really hard… that’s why he tried to push it all down. Keeping it all at the back of his brain. “So I get where you’re coming from. But knowing how to shoot a gun now is… something we all need.” He spoke simply turning his back to you momentarily before he pulled his own gun out the sun reflecting off of the metal slightly making it glint every now and then “just copy my stance alright.” He spoke and you nodded watching as he put one foot forwards the other foot remaining in place almost as if he was bracing himself before he held the gun with two hands— one on the handle and trigger the other cupping it slightly as if to keep it stable. “Holding with both hands isn’t absolutely necessary but holding it with both hands keeps your focus and hands from shaking.” Rick explained and you nodded watching as he shot the gun the bullet immediately piercing the skull of the dead as it collapsed onto the ground. “Your turn.”

He spoke before backing away, and you exhaled shakily breathing in sharply as you attempted to copy his exact positioning slowly raising your gun until it was eye level with you both your hands steadying the gun “like this?” You murmured nervously Rick moving to your side his hands grabbing onto your elbow slightly “tilt” he suggested calmly making you tilt your arm ever so slightly before he moved behind you resting your hands on your shoulders knowing the force of the gun was far too powerful sometimes. He kept his hands on your shoulders “focus…” he advised gently and you nodded focusing as hard as you could. You inhaled sharply lining up the gun more straight before pulling the trigger the bullet piercing through a walkers shoulder “good. You’re getting there.” Rick praised before he reached forwards grabbing onto your hands as he positioned your hands more correctly “just remember they’re dead. Okay?” He spoke almost as if reading your mind. Knowing that you were struggling with the fact that these were once human beings. Just like you and him. “But they…” you swallowed thickly not knowing how to describe it, Rick maintaining eye contact with you “look at it this way y/n…. They don’t feel anything. They only have one job and one job only. Successfully get the food they’re constantly searching for. It’s a cycle… a painful cycle. If you shoot them you’re putting them out of their misery right?” He was right and eventually you nodded. You still needed to detach the people from the actual walkers and whom they once were but that would be a learning curve. “Alright shoot.” He spoke and you took a deep breath before squinting your eyes and once steadying your hands you shot the gun the smell of gunpowder growing stronger but you didn’t mind. You watched as the bullet pierced into the dead’s skull as it collapsed to the ground,

“Good. Again.” He spoke. The sun was starting to set and Rick knew it wouldn’t be long before more walkers started arriving. You then lined up the gun again before shooting the bullet again successfully hitting the Walker square in the head. You continued doing this over and over again until the clouds had turned a deep orangey colour rain specs starting to fall upon you and him “you did great.” Rick spoke with a faint smile “you’re going to be a pro at this soon enough. Gonna put us to shame.” He murmured nudging you playfully and you couldn’t help but smile slightly “thank you… could we do this again tomorrow?” Rick nodded slightly “sure. I’ll get you up at 7 am sharp.” He spoke and you nodded smiling as you began walking back towards the main area of the prison with him. “After all practice makes perfect.” He chuckled out lightly you could tell that helping you practice had alleviated something off of his shoulders and mind… and the same was said for you.

You walked inside with him some people eating some food and others already sleeping “I’m going to go to my cell.” You murmured and Rick nodded “goodnight. Sleep well. If you need anything just shout.” He spoke and you nodded watching as he began walking away. “Rick..” you spoke, making him stop as he turned to look at you Judith being handed to him as he held onto her securely his free hand skilfully putting his gun back onto safety “thank you. Seriously. Uh… you saved a girls life.” You spoke, Rick looking slightly confused but appreciative. “I lost my people. To the walkers…. I was close to just waiting for another herd to come take me down… you and your people gave me a reason to live.” The look on ricks face was difficult to read but he looked grateful, happy and somewhat relieved all at once. “Glad you’re still with us, y/n.” He gave you a nod lips curling up into a small smile. “Go get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave you another curt nod before turning around tending to his daughter and you silently watched him before retreating back to your bunk a small sad smile forming on your lips— grateful for him and his people who had given you a reason to survive. You got into your bunk laying down as you began getting comfortable until you heard a slight creek before the familiar teenage boy was hanging over the top bunk “hey y/n” Carl spoke cowboy hat barely staying on and you smiled tiredly at him “hey.” He then disappeared momentarily before coming back continuing to dangle off the bed “don’t fall…” you warned with a tired smile and he only smiled holding out a red packeted chocolate bar for you to take. “Just in case you were hungry.” He spoke not letting up until you had taken it from him before he laid back down on the top bunk “thanks carl.” You spoke hearing the sound of pages turning and you smiled knowing he was reading his comic… what a thoughtful boy… a thoughtful group whom you didn’t deserve in the slightest. But you knew they’d continue over and over again giving you a reason to live.

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absurdthirst · 6 months

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Kinktober 2023: October 19th

Day 19: Biting/Scratching, Piercings/Tattoos, Marking

Marcus Pike x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 1k

Warnings: Tattoos, piercings, making out, body insecurities, undressing, allusions to sex

|| Kinktober List || MasterList ||

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says 'creator chooses not to use warnings'. You also agree that you're the right age to be consuming anything here.

Marcus Pike is probably the perfect boyfriend. Sweet, attentive, kind. When he’s accidentally thoughtless, he profusely apologizes and he never pushes. Even when it’s obvious that he wants to push your relationship to the next level.

It’s kind of your issue. You want to be intimate with Marcus, but you don’t know how he will react to your body. Not because of any issues, you don’t think Marcus is the type of man to shame someone for their weight or stretch marks or anything like that. Marcus just seems so….straight laced.

He’s an FBI agent. In Art Crimes. Constantly surrounded by things that are sophisticated and classy. Now that he’s decided to go back to the smoothe jaw look, getting rid of the stubble he had sported for a while, he looks clean cut. All American. His pressed suits and neatly combed hair doesn’t speak well for accepting your….decorations.

Maybe it’s ridiculous to assume that he wouldn’t approve of it, of you, but you can’t help but worry. Marcus is possibly the best man you had ever dated and even with the ‘fuck ‘em if they don’t accept you’ mentality that you have, it would be crushing to find that he rejected you for that.

Now, you bite your lip and stand in front of the bathroom mirror. Feeling slightly sick to your stomach. He’s waiting for you on your couch, perfect hair slightly mussed from your fingers and his lips swollen from your kisses. You had asked for a moment and he had pulled back, discreetly adjusting himself in his slack so the issue isn’t his attraction to what he can see right now.

Blowing out a breath, you decide you are being stupid. You can’t stay in this holding pattern with him. It’s either he doesn’t mind it, or he does. Opening the door, you flip off the light and step back out into your living room, finding him looking at you with a soft smile on his face, exactly where you had left him on your couch.

“Hey.” He stands, obviously calmed down in the time you have been gone and steps towards you, running one hand through his hair. “I don’t want you to-” He sighs. “Feel pressured.” He admits. “If we are going too fast, just let me know.”

“I don’t.” Of that, you can certainly promise him. Marcus has never made you feel pressured and you don’t know if he could. “I-” you take a deep breath. “Do you want to stay the night?”

Marcus grins, blowing out a breath and nodding. His eyes searching yours for any hint of doubt. When he finds none, he takes your hand and squeezes it. “Show me the way, sweetheart.”

Taking Marcus into your bedroom is surreal, slightly nerve wracking and you can’t help but tremble a little as you guide him to your bedroom and stop next to your bed. “So, I - I need to tell you something.”

He looks curious, but he doesn’t protest. “Okay.” He nods. “Whatever it is, I’m here.” He promises, making you smile at the sweetness of this man.

“I- I have some….piercings.” You hum quietly.

“Your ears?” He chuckles. “I think I’ve figured that out.”

“No, um…” Your eyes lower and you hear a sharp inhale. One that you hadn’t expected and you wonder if it’s disappointment in you or…

“Can I see?” His request is kind of breathless and you look up to find his eyes darker than they’ve ever been after the most intense make out session.

“Yeah. I mean, I was planning on it.” You huff, laughing at yourself and how Marcus is immediately moving for the buttons on your pants.

“I love- fuck, you’ve got your hood pierced?” He asks, biting his lip and letting a little hum vibrate in the back of his throat. “Or you nipples, or both? Please say it’s both.”

Your mouth drops open in shock, but you don’t think he even notices, so intent on undressing you. “I fucking love body piercings.” He grunts, dragging your zipper down and starting to push the material over your hips. “I’ve thought about getting them, but I figured I would stick with tattoos.”

“W-what?” You never expected Marcus to have tattoos. What? Is he talking about one little one that makes him part of the cool club?

“Yeah. I keep them hidden under my undershirt.” He confesses with a suddenly rakish grin as he looks up from his task. “Figured if no one could see them, it wouldn’t ruin my squeaky clean image.” He tells you with a wink.

Fuck. Your knees sag slightly, always enamored with bad boys and tattoos definitely checked that box in some weird way. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” You demand as you kick off your pants and reach for your panties.

“Deal.” Marcus laughs as he starts to strip down and your mouth waters. Once the layer are peeled away and he pulls the plain white t-shirt that poses as an undershirt is stripped away you are forced to admit that Marcus is not as straight laced as you expected.

His arms are bare below his bicep, keeping with the idea of being able to hide all his tattoos, but his chest, stomach and back are covered in them. So many that you can’t can’t count them right now. Colorful, dark, they all seem to flow together, blend into one amazing mural on his skin.

Your moans are in sync, bare body revealing your tattoos since you had pulled your bra off while watching him. Revealing the metal in your skin as you clench around nothing at the sight of his inked body. “Fuck.” You whimper, reaching out to touch the beautiful artwork that is adorning his body as he reaches up to touch your nipple piercings.

“Fuck is right,” Marcus pants and you know he’s not lying when he says that he likes piercings. His cock has been twitching in his briefs as he traces the smooth metal. “We are going to enjoy ourselves.” He promises as you press yourself against him. “You like tattoos, I love piercings.” He gives a small chuckle. “I think that we are going to be very compatible in bed.”

Your moan of agreement is loud when he wraps his lips around your nipple, suckling eagerly as your nails scratch down the tattoos on his back. You had nothing to worry about apparently. Nothing at all.

#pedro pascal #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #absurdthirst kinktober #marcus pike #marcus pike x reader #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x f!reader #marcus pike smut #marcus pike imagine

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berrystiles · 1 year

Text

Right Where You Left Me

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!reader

Word Count: 10.1k

Content Warnings: Angst, Lovers to strangers kinda deal ya know, some cursing.

Summary: It's the summer before you head off to college, and there's a fear about that decision that keeps creeping in. You try not to let it drown you, spending time making summer plans for your friends and with your boyfriend Steve. It feels like you can do this, and you're happy to be staring into the summer ready to make memories that will carry you into college. However, unbeknownst to you something else is brewing and Steve has plans of his own. One unexpected breakup later and your summer now looks a lot more like trying to overcome heartbreak.

Author Note: I'm the only one to read over this, so me and Grammarly are all I have regarding editing. Also, I guess this is just what I write now! Inspired by my favorite sad girl songs, if you know them I'm sure you'll see them. I have ideas for a part 2 of this if anyone would be interested? All of this was supposed to be a one-shot type of thing, but it started getting long. Part two would be a resolution as we fade into a happy ending, and get some much needed answers.

Ao3 Link - In case you want to read it there

Steve Harrington is soft smiles passed your way over the tops of all the children he babysits heads. He is weekend movie nights spent curled up next to one another on his couch, so close that you sometimes think you could become one person if you tried hard enough. He’s not your first relationship, but sometimes when you can’t sleep at night there’s a reoccurring thought that he is going to be your last. Steve has been orbiting around your life since elementary school, close but never within reach. That was the way, only knowing him through rumors passed around the halls of Hawkins High, two passing ships in the hallway between classes. This last year though has brought him into your world, no longer is he a passing comet that you stop to stare at. Now he’s yours and your mom will chide and say it’s just high school love, but you can’t imagine a world where his hand doesn’t stay attached to yours. Call it whatever you want, but something about this just feels too real. The kind of love you hear about in novels, the kind people wax poetic structures about. You’re not sure what you did in a past life, or what karma you collected over time, but you’re thankful for the universe putting the two of you together.

The only bleak part of your future with Steve comes after summer ends. You’ve just graduated, and school is expected of you in a way that you know you can’t turn down. Steve has been more than understanding, it’s a pressure he recognizes from his parents. You have no clue what you want to do but your dad swears that you’ll figure it out when you get there. You manage to get into a good school but it’s 5 hours away from Hawkins. Your parents are ecstatic, they can’t stop talking about all the ways you’re going to grow in this next phase of your life. Your parents are the people who met in college, and even though they won’t say it there’s something about you needing to attend that feels a little like them trying to relive their glory days. You love them but you’re not sure if they know you or if they really listen when you talk.

You find that if you put on a smile and nod along to what they say though it gets you through conversations faster. It’s a small price to pay so you can escape the house and rush to Steve. Steve who you hate to leave behind, sweet Steve who has been there to hold your hand and be your rock through it all. You’re not sure if you’d be able to put up with your parents’ expectations if he wasn’t there with you holding you up. You worry you put too much on him like you weigh him down the same way your parents tend to do. Sometimes you tell him your concerns, and he’s always quick to quiet the fear.

The thing with Steve is he is so soft sometimes, and yet you can’t help but feel protected in his arms. Still though, even as he brushes your hair to the side, as his lips touch yours and he peppers you with affection and reassurance, you make a vow to yourself to try and reduce how much you complain. You can’t stop the anxiety that sometimes spikes up despite his kindness that maybe this all hurts a little too much for him. After all, his family held similar expectations for him. You know that his dad is a different kind of mean and demanding than yours. Your family feels like a small-time problem when put into the perspective of Steve’s parents.

You have a mantra you follow, reminding yourself that school, as daunting as it is, is still months away. You have a whole summer to forget about it all. A whole summer of nothing but your friends and Steve. You know you’ll be right next door at the arcade, your shifts and Steve’s always lining up because of a favor Keith owed you. There are plans in place that will carry you through. There’s the drive-in and their Friday night movie deals, sunny days that will be spent at Lover’s Lake, the regular Sunday brunch at your favorite diner, and so much more. You make sure to focus on those things, knowing that all of it will be enough to get you through that first semester of school once you finally go.

However, like with most things that seem to happen in Hawkins, your good luck runs out. You hate to say it, but you didn’t see it coming. Delusional bliss is apparently where you’ve been living and the rose-colored glasses you didn’t know you were wearing are snatched off your face without a moment of hesitation. Looking back the signs will be there in glaring neon colors, and you will hate yourself for missing them. For missing them to the point that you couldn’t even backtrack to fix where your so-called perfect relationship went off the tracks.

It's a week into summer and things are not at all going to plan. Your parents are pressuring you to cut your summer short and go to school three weeks early so you can settle in for classes. And honestly, it’s not the worst idea and if you were anyone else maybe it would be appealing. However, you’re on a fixed time frame and you don’t plan to give up one ounce of time with Steve and your friends before you absolutely must. Despite schedules syncing up, there’s a distance growing between you and Steve. At the time you understand, there are kids to be driven around and then his parents unexpectedly show up back home. You don’t blame him for the distance, you take it in stride and offer your support just like he’s been doing for you. The future version of yourself, will look back and call you an idiot for not digging deeper. But why would you? In all the time, though maybe it hasn’t been that long, Steve has never once been the cause of your anxiety. Never once has he ever done anything to make you question your relationship, or whether you can trust him or not.

After a week of only seeing Steve in passing and on lunch breaks, you finally get the chance to have uninterrupted time with Steve. He catches you on a break at work and asks if you want to get dinner once your shifts end. He doesn’t carry that same glowing smile he always does when he drops these moments on you, but you brush the thought aside assuming this is the residual damage from his parents. You’re just happy at the prospect of being with Steve so you’re quick to agree, and even quicker to pull him in for a kiss to seal the deal. In your excitement, you don’t notice how this kiss doesn’t feel like a welcomed hello, and later you’ll tell yourself that it was the first sign of goodbye. But in the moment Steve is pulling away, and he’s looking at you like he's tracing and memorizing everything about you. “I’ll see you after work,” is the parting sentence before he’s jogging back to Family Video.

Steve and you meet in the middle of your two jobs, and he holds out his hand just like he always does. He leads you to his car, asking you about your day. You tell him about the party coming in, and about all the different characters of teens who came in. You prattle on and on, all the way to your favorite diner. You ask him about his day and try to get him to talk more. A quiet Steve, with eyes not shining, is a version you hate to see. You want nothing more than to pick him up, hopefully, wash off all the grime that his parents so obviously threw on him in the short week they were home. It’s always hard doing this walk and dance, the scars his parents leave him with always cut deeper than you have an awareness of. But it’s never this impossible, by the time you’re leaving the diner you’re more worried about what happened during this visit home than you ever have been. You’ve learned with Steve that when it comes to his parents you can’t poke too much otherwise, he gets spooked. Normally, he finds a way to talk about it usually when you’re both back at his place and the light is off for the night. When it’s so dark in his room that you can’t see the way his face is lined with grief, and pain that he shouldn’t have to experience. You’re so used to the pattern that you don’t mind the car ride after dinner being just the sound of the radio. It’s not unwelcomed, it’s just a part of the pieces that happen, which is why you’re surprised when Steve parks in front of your house.

“Oh, are we not going to yours?” Your brow is furrowed as you turn in your seat to face Steve. Even when you don’t stay at his place, he still is always looking at you when you turn to leave. This time though Steve’s hands are still holding on to the steering wheel, and he can’t turn to face you when he finally gathers the ability to reply. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

The radio is still on, and your ears pick up Whitney Houston singing a new song that’s been playing everywhere. “What do you mean,” your stomach feels like it’s falling right out of you and your brain is giving radio silence as you try to gain some understanding of what the hell is going on. You watch as Steve takes a deep breath like he’s centering himself before turning to face you. Every time Steve has ever looked at you it’s been with nothing but softness, an unquestioning gaze that always tells you what he’s thinking. The Steve before you though, these are eyes that aren’t that sweet look he normally gives you. Instead, this one is cold, one that you can barely recall. You have to pull at memories from his reign as King Steve to find some type of look that’s like the one you receive now.

“I just don’t think this is working,” he shrugs like this isn’t the biggest thing to ever happen before. Like he’s telling you something that should be common knowledge.

“I don’t understand, Steve.” There’s a burning feeling in the corners of your eyes. The sensation is a warning that if you don’t pull it together, you’re going to start crying. You don’t know how to pull it together because what little Steve is telling you sounds an awful like a breakup.

Steve sighs, something heavy like he’s just so tired of having to explain himself. It’s an odd sound and it rubs you raw because he hasn’t explained anything. How can he already be tired of a conversation that makes no sense?

“Look, I don’t want this to be harder than it is,” you cut him off before he can continue. “So don’t make it hard, just tell me what’s going on and why you’re saying all of this.” You don’t recognize your voice. The pleading tone sounds watery and not at all like what you know yourself to be. You don’t think you’ve ever begged someone in this way before.

“I just don’t feel the same way for you,” it’s so blunt and to the point that it leaves no room for argument.

“I don’t understand,” you’re repeating yourself and you hate that. You’re not stupid, you can usually piece things together faster than this. The phrase, ‘having the rug pulled out from under you’ rattles around in a way that suddenly makes total sense.

“I don’t know how to explain it any better. I don’t want to date you anymore. I don’t want to see you.” You didn’t realize before that the cold tone he was using still allowed for kindness. In this final statement, his words are ice, and you feel like you just took a plunge into Lover’s Lake in the middle of winter.

You have more you want to say, questions that you feel need to be asked. If you stay though you feel like you’re not going to get them, and honestly, it’s taking more energy to keep yourself together than it would be to stay. You’re not sure if you say anything else if there’s some kind of acknowledgement on your part. All you know is that your body is screaming at you to run. Staying in that car doesn’t feel like a place you belong, so you’re quick to get out. You don’t even make it to the door before Steve is peeling off and driving himself home. The action feels like the last break in any resolve you had. Your Steve would always wait until you were inside before leaving. Always telling you he'd rather know with certainty that you were safe before he ever left. It was one of those things that told you how caring he was, that showed how he loved you.

______________________________________________________________

In what will later be referred to as The Aftermath, you have the next day off. Your mom hovers at your door, knocking and knocking. The sound makes your head hurt and forces you to pull your covers over your head like it’ll drown out everything else. If you had anyone else as a mother, you might be able to convince yourself that she’s doing it from a place of concern. The truth is that this is the same woman who when you came in last night, uncontrollably sobbing and barely getting out the words ‘Steve’ and ‘broke up’, your mom was asking if this meant you’d go to school earlier like she and your father want.

The tears had stopped sometime around when you finally found yourself falling asleep. They haven’t picked back up and everything you ever learned in biology screams out you’re dehydrated. There are things you should be doing, things that you have done for yourself when other relationships ended that made it so the person you were dating was nothing more than a faded memory. Maybe if you go through the ritual of it all, the gathering of reminders, and the disposal of memories it’ll make you feel better. There should be phone calls to girlfriends, and movie nights set up to help push you through these feelings.

Instead, you continue to stay in bed. Your limbs feel like lead, weighed down and stuck, too heavy for you to move. Your curtains are drawn so tight that not even the hot Indiana sun comes through to ruffle you into motion. Your wall has your attention, and you find yourself using the texture of the paint to trace all the lines in your relationship with Steve. Maybe if you follow them to the end like a map, they’ll tell you where you are and where you go from here.

In the midst of The Aftermath, in the bed of your grief, you manage to make one phone call. Well… that’s a lie. You make two phone calls. In no surprise to the imaginary audience watching you grieve; the first call is to Steve. The phone rings and rings and rings. Steve never answers and it should be a sign. You get the standard Harrington voicemail. Steve’s mom’s voice becomes the soundtrack to your day. She tells you to leave a message, and that the family will get back to you when they can. You open your mouth, no plan on what to say but surely there’s something there in your head that will tumble out. The answering machine beep is met with your silence though, just your breath coming through, you wonder if Steve will know it’s you even if you don’t leave your name. Does he still have you memorized in all the ways that you still know him? Did he forget about you in just the span of a day? Worst thought of all, did he even really take the time to trace you down in his memory the same way you did him?

You hang up after that last thought, still no name and still carrying the hope that it could be enough. Your second call is made two hours later when there’s still no call back from Steve, even though he should be off today too. Even though, there’s a piece of your mind screaming over and over that he should have heard the silence in the message and been able to read through it. Maybe that’s unfair of you to place that on Steve, but it also feels unfair that he had the power and took action to bring you where you lay now. The second call is to Keith at the arcade, where you know he’s working since you’re off today. The favor you cashed in on is wasted because your request is for him to take back your schedule.

“I can’t work the day shift anymore,” your voice is hoarse and throat sore as the words stumble out.

“That sounds like a you problem,” you grimace as you hear Keith chewing what you know are those stupid cheese snacks he always carries around.

You hold back a groan and tell yourself your next move, while incredibly bratty, is the only way that you return to work. Your parents hate you working at the place anyway, but you like the independence, you like having your own money and you don’t want to give up another thing this summer.

“It’s going to be your problem because I’m not working any shift that overlaps with Harrington. I’ll quit.” You hate how Steve has transformed into Harrington. Hate how removed it sounds, not at all reflective of how close you had been. If you say his first name though, you know you’re going to cry.

Keith whistles, the tone way too low and drags out in a way that makes you feel a wave of creeping anger you’re not used to.

“So, you and Harrington are over then. Knew he was stupid but didn’t think he was that stupid.”

“He’s not stupid,” your defense is soft, it feels telling of where you are. It isn’t harsh in the way that it should be. It’s not your job to defend Steve anymore, he let you go from that position last night after all.

“I’ll change the schedules,” is the response you get back and it’s the nicest thing that you think Keith has ever said to you. However, you know Keith, and this feels a little too easy.

“Is there a catch?”

“Nah, just can’t afford to lose you so consider it your lucky day.” It doesn’t feel like your lucky day, but you don’t say that. Just mumble out a thank you after he tells you that your shift tomorrow will be the closing shift and Harrington will be gone by then.

True to his word, when you pull into the shared parking lot of Family Video there is no sign of Steve’s car. There’s an awareness that it won’t always be this easy, that Hawkins is too small to go all summer without seeing him. And despite Keith’s previous comments on how he couldn’t afford to lose you, there’s also a silent understanding that he’s still going to be an absolute shit about all of this for the rest of the summer. Keith doesn’t know any other way to be, and it’s a moderate price to pay for your ability to at least show up to work without breaking down.

Dustin is the first one you see in The Aftermath, and you can tell by the way he keeps glancing at you in the arcade that he already knows what’s transpired between you and Steve. You’re not sure if it’s the telltale sign of the obvious breakup look you’re sporting, or if it’s Steve’s own admittance to the teen. Could be a combination of the two though. You looked in the mirror before leaving today. You’re fully aware that you look and feel like shit, and there’s no way to sugarcoat that.

Normally, Dustin would come to chat with you. Whether he’s with the rest of the party or by himself, he always says hello. He would do it before Steve, and you hoped that he’d do it after too. Dustin doesn’t say hello though, he avoids your gaze when you catch him looking your way, and even though you know at one point, he should come to you to complain about a machine he just leaves instead. The act makes you sad, it’s the first divide between the friendships you created and thought you would get to hold on to. Dustin might be in high school now, but he’s still a kid. Rationally, a piece of you should be able to string together how his silence speaks more about how he doesn’t know what to say and less about a side he’s choosing. Reality rarely ever plays out as it rationally should, so instead Dustin just becomes the first domino that falls, and you feel like you should have known everyone else would go along with him.

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The next three weeks find you oscillating like a fan. Days spent hiding in your room, working up the courage to move and take care of yourself. Then nights of work or spent rummaging through polaroids that catalog your relationship. You always told yourself you put them in a scrapbook, something to hold the years together so in old age you’d have something to shuffle through. It sounds silly now, but the pictures sit in a shoebox of movie stubs from the Hawk, the receipt from your first date together, and the paper menu from the diner that you talked a waitress into giving you. There are notes scribbled on lined paper that were slipped into your jacket pockets when Steve would kiss you goodbye as he dropped you off at school, dried flowers from prom, and so much more. After a week of crying over the pieces, ink smudging thanks to fresh tears your body can create again now that you’re hydrated, you manage to shove the shoe box in the back corner under your bed. You had to slide it back there with the broom, but you know it’s not within reach now and that feels like progress.

You still dodge calls from your friends that you collected outside of your relationship. When they manage to catch you on the phone they whisper sweet condolences, but underneath it’s an unspoken blame of how you should have known. “He was the King of the school, he only knows how to break hearts,” your friend Val tells you over the phone one night. Val pops her gum on the other end of the line, and it sets off a chain reaction of emotions. You feel like you’re going through the five stages of grief in that moment. Val tries to invite you out and reminds you that Hawkins has more boys than just Steve Harrington. She promises you a good time, a night to help you forget all about Steve. You make an excuse and promise to go out next time, but both of you know it’s a promise you won’t keep.

Your parents seem to have set up some game plan amongst themselves. They’ve learned that they can’t tell you that your heartbreak is juvenile. Instead, they preach about how open you’ll be to new opportunities when you head to school. Your dad has the course list, where he got it from you don’t dare to ask. He tries to plan out your future over dinner, but you don’t even know what life you want for yourself. Before this you just saw Steve in the future, you had naïvely assumed you’d have time to sort out the rest. But Steve’s in the rearview now, and your parents want to know what life you plan to have in your passenger seat.

It's three weeks of juggling it all, but you still haven’t seen Steve. It should feel like the universe is still on your side, but really, it’s more of a cosmic joke. It should be finally time for some peace, instead, the world feels the need to implode again. Your parents are out of town, an annual get-together with their old college friends, and you’re home alone. It’s late, you’ve only been off work for 20 minutes when you get to the grocery store. The pantry at home is bare bones and you’ve been putting off the need to go shopping for the last three days. You’ve been supplementing meals through various fast-food restaurants on the outskirts of town. But you’re tired of driving so far away, plus the taste of grease has become less and less appealing as the days have dragged on.

The evening finds you shrugging off your name tag from the arcade and running into Bradley’s to do some shopping before they close for the night. The air conditioning hits you right as the doors open, it cools your skin in a way that summer nights never will. You close your eyes and pause for a moment, maybe you look crazy, but it’s late and you don’t anticipate anyone else is going to be poking around the store. You grab a cart and you’re on your way, trying to be mindful to be quick because you know how it feels to work a closing shift. You wander up and down the aisles of the store, with no real list in mind just grabbing what sounds good. Your diet is still in a post-break-up mode which means you’re either only consuming junk food or pushing food around on your plate still too sad to eat. Which means, it’s time to be gentle with yourself and just grab the food that calls to you. Now is not a time for healthy eating and hitting every food group on that pyramid they went over in health class.

Because of this though you aren’t paying attention to what’s in front of you. You move through the aisles of the store with your eyes on the shelves, still having confidence in the fact that it’s just you and the store clerk in here. But remember, Hawkins likes to implode both literally and emotionally. You swing your cart into the next aisle, already excited to be browsing the cereal options. You only make it a handful of steps forward, eyes already searching for the cinnamon toast crunch which you’re rarely allowed to bring into the house otherwise your mom will complain. Your cart jolts and pushes you back, and you look up to find that you’ve hit another person’s cart.

You feel silly, and your cheeks are warm in an embarrassed flush. “I’m so sorry,” the words tumble out as you drag your gaze up to see what suburban mom you’ve managed to piss off tonight. When you see who it is though you find yourself wishing it was a mom about to yell at you, instead it’s Steve, you find yourself in front of. He says your name, a hint of surprise, and what you might have previously labeled as nervous energy. You must look stupid, both of you really, just standing in silence as the hum of the grocery store lights buzz on and the radio station the store is set to plays out louder than it should. Steve’s cart is full of popcorn, and snacks that you can trace to each teen you know he babysits, there’s even Robin’s favorite chips and the beer that Eddie likes to drink. All of it slides together and reminds you that it’s Saturday, which means movie night at Steve’s.

You don’t know what to say, and you feel like a deer caught in headlights. Frozen so that you can’t even run to escape the impending collision that is about to take place. It’s Robin rounding around the corner, her voice loud and unapologetic in a way you have always admired. “Hey, dingus, should we grab some ice cream for Erica, or do you think…” her voice trails off as she catches sight of you. “Oh,” and you look to Robin, she raises a hand to give a small wave at you and smile. It’s enough to also jump Steve into movement again, saying your name and you don’t wait to see if there’s more.

You don’t say anything as you turn to leave, though maybe you should have, at least to Robin. But she’s the headlights turning off and giving you the freedom to run. You can eat another fast-food burger tonight, and you hate that you’re just leaving your cart in the middle of the cereal aisle. But you can’t, you won’t just sit there and let yourself wonder that store when it’s obviously not a safe place.

The air conditioning hits you again as you run out the doors. No time to pause this time, and you actually seek comfort in the sticky heat that greets you outside of Bradley’s. The crickets sing to you as you rush to fumble with your keys and drive away before your past tries to catch you outside. You got three weeks of no Steve, and you had been lulled into this fantasy of maybe being okay someday soon. This though, this small interaction, where you didn’t even really talk to him, has shown that you’re not close to that. When you finally manage to pull into your driveway, your hand bangs down on the steering wheel. You mumble to yourself, “that was so stupid, you just ran?”

You’ll eventually make your way into the house about 15 minutes later, after you had completely gone over the entire interaction about three times. You know it will continue to replay all night long. It’ll be inside that you realize you never even stopped to get food, too focused on seeking the safety that you can apparently only find in your room these days. Time drags on and you keep opening and closing the fridge and the cabinets hoping that food will magically appear the next time you start looking. It’s late, Bradley’s will have to be a tomorrow you type of goal. You know Steve and the group will be up late tonight which means the morning will be safe.

You’ve resigned that tonight’s dinner will be a pack of saltines you find buried in the back of the pantry when there’s a knock on your door. Your friends know not to show up unannounced, and if your parents managed to come home early, they wouldn’t be knocking. It’s Hawkins, you remind yourself as you creep to the door, but then the additional it’s Hawkins kicks in and there could be anything waiting for you. You grab your mom’s tennis racket from the closet by the front door and peek out the peephole, but your porch light isn’t on, and you can’t see anything. When you open the door, tennis racket at the ready, there’s no one there. Instead, sitting on the mat right in front of your door is three bags of groceries from Bradley’s.

The bags contain all the items you remember dumping into your cart, including the added addition of one box of cinnamon toast crunch. You can’t prove it, there’s no note, but you don’t really need it do you? There are only two people who would have had access to the cart you left behind, and only one of those two would have added in your favorite cereal. An internal debate rages inside of you, one side of you wanting to leave the food on your porch. Hoping that maybe later Steve will drive by and see it still sitting there. Maybe it will be an ounce of the hurt he's inflicted on you. The other part of you though, the part whose stomach is literally just growling at the prospect of food, wins out. You drag the bags inside and spend the night cycling between the incident in the store and what the bags of food on your porch mean.

The next day feels like a relapse, and you find yourself pacing by your phone, the internal debate to call Steve rages on in your mind. The number of times you pick up that phone and start to punch in his number is too many to count. There’s only one time when you get through the whole number, you only let it ring once before you’re slamming the phone back down and rushing off to your room. You throw yourself onto your bed, face first into your pillow, and you scream. It feels like every emotion that’s been building up since that night in Steve’s car just forces its way out of you. You spend the rest of your day in bed, Don’t Dream It’s Over plays on repeat as you stare at your ceiling and only recognize time passing by the light that streams in from your window.

When your parents come back a week later you say that you want to leave Hawkins earlier after all. They don’t even ask why you changed your mind. They don’t press the issue, which you figured they wouldn’t, but it still stings. instead, they celebrate. Your mom pulls you into her arms and excitedly tells you that it’s the second-best decision you’ve ever made. Your dad chimes in about how the first was applying to college in the first place, his hand feels heavy on your shoulder. The smile you wear feels like it was pasted on, like some macaroni art piece a kindergartener does. Your parents don’t notice though, they never do, they move on already making plans about your departure. The choice doesn’t feel right, but then again, you’re not really sure what the right choice is any more or how it should feel.

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You spend the rest of your summer forcing yourself into spaces you don’t want to be in, but it feels like you have to. You got to parties with Val, you spend summer days at the pool with your friends as you planned. It may not be all the friends that you had anticipated being with but it’s something. You feel like with each activity you do you’re adding another band-aid to your heart hoping that this time maybe it’ll stay together. There are times, like at the community pool, when you sit with your friends, and you don’t really feel there. It feels like you’re playing a part and you’ve never been a good actress, so you’re still surprised when everyone just believes it.

Time and life keep moving forward and you wish it felt like you were too, but you still feel stuck. Your parents think that time won’t start moving until you’re away at college, and your friends believe that you need to start dating someone new to feel like you’ve moved on. You don’t think any of them are right but again you’re still stuck wondering what the right move is and how it’s supposed to feel.

What you do manage is to only catch glimpses of Steve for the rest of the summer. You see him at the movies dropping the party off, and you catch him one day leaving Family Video when he’s stayed too late. There’s another day at the grocery store, where you find yourself hiding behind a display stand to avoid the awkward run-in. You see him but you don’t think he ever sees you. You’re not sure if that’s exactly what you want, but if it is then why does it still also ache? A week before you leave you seek Steve out. You spend the morning giving yourself a pep talk, you take the time to perfect your outfit and ensure that you look better than you feel. This encounter is in your control, and you want to make sure it all goes off without a hitch.

You march into Family Video. You’ve been waiting for Robin to leave for her break and for a lull in customers to happen. When all the stars align you take a deep breath, shake out the nerves and move forward with purpose. You have a week left in Hawkins and all your teen magazines have told you that if you want to start college off right you need closure.

The bell above the door rings out in a way that feels louder than you remember. You don’t let it stop you though, you move forward and watch with some satisfaction as Steve’s head pops up and surprise washes over his face. Good, you think to yourself, finally, he knows what it’s like to be ambushed. You’ve planned out what you want to say so once you’re at the counter you speak before Steve can completely derail you.

“Harrington,” the last name comes out a lot calmer than you thought it would, you feel confident. “I leave for school next week…”

“Next week?” Steve interrupts, he looks like he has more to say but you send a glare his way which is enough to have him holding back words. If you paused long enough to just stare at him, you might wonder if he's disappointed, but you don't let the silence linger long enough to notice.

“As I was saying, I leave next week for school, and you owe me some type of closure or explanation for what happened. I’ll be at the diner tomorrow night, 7 pm and I expect you to show up.” You’re proud of yourself, your voice has an edge to it that leaves no room for disagreement.

Steve just says your name and he says it in the same soft way he did when you first started dating. You feel ruffled and some of that confidence feels like it’s being washed down a drain somewhere. “No,” you interrupt him. You can feel the tension in your forehead, you know your brows are furrowed and the frown on your face is reflecting your real emotions instead of some mask you’ve been wearing.

“You just dumped me, out of the blue and you gave me no explanation. I’m leaving next week, and you owe me this. You don’t get to dump me, say that you don’t care for me, and then leave groceries on my doorstep, Steve.” Something in your words must hit a soft spot that you know Steve still has inside of him. Even if his feelings for you are long gone, Steve has always been gooey and soft like caramel on the inside.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be there.” You stare at him a moment longer, trying to figure out if you’re getting an honest response. Once you’re sure you are you nod and turn to leave. When you were dating you never liked saying goodbye to Steve, it was always a see you soon. Now when you leave there’s no goodbye, but it’s more because you don’t want to waste another word on him. Not when you need to prepare for tomorrow.

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The next night finds you showing up at the diner first. The waitress recognizes you and tells you it’s been a while since she’s seen you. You don’t have the heart to tell her the reason why, you just smile and walk to the booth that used to belong to Steve and you.

You don’t feel as prepared for your conversation tonight as you would like, but you do feel less fragile. Somewhere between yesterday and today, you’ve managed to slide into the anger stage of your grief. There are times when you’re not sure if you’re going to just hit Steve as soon as you hit him, or worse. Worse is that small intrusive thought that you have about kissing him one last time. It’s weird because you’re so angry, the angriest you think you’ve ever been before. You feel like a pot that was left on a burner too long, just boiling over the edge and sizzling when you hit the stove eye.

And yet, behind all that anger there’s still the part of you that loves Steve. That piece of you can’t even remember the last time you kissed. You have fuzzy memories of when it might have happened. Maybe a goodbye kiss as he dropped you off at home, something that happened underneath his comforter as you both tried to hide away from the world a little longer. Either of those or something more is possible. It’s just... how were you supposed to know you needed to remember it? You think that maybe this time if you knew it was the last, you’d feel more prepared this time. Maybe it’ll help you feel better.

You slide the salt shaker between your hands, watching as it glides over the table as smooth as butter. Another glance at the clock tells you that Steve is late, Steve who was never late to anything that had to do with you before. The heat starts to turn up, and you feel more and more like that roaring boil of the pot. Twenty minutes after the hour he was supposed to be there the bell chimes above the door.

You don’t give in to the urge to look, you watch the salt continue to glide over the table. You know already it’s Steve because that same waitress is telling him that his girlfriend is at the regular booth. Steve doesn’t even correct her, at least not that you can hear. Steve slides into his seat as easily as the salt continued to glide on the table. All the anger you felt feels like it whooshes out of you. You go from feeling like a boiling pot to a balloon that was blown up and then let go before the air could be sealed inside.

As you sit across from him, the silence stretching on like the miles on an interstate you find yourself spiraling. People, mostly your friends and parents, have implied that it was childish of you to assume that your relationship with Steve would be anything long-term. And maybe you were, maybe somewhere in it all you got swept up in teenage fantasies. Sitting across from him though reminds you how it happened. For all the pain he’s caused, Steve Harrington is still the prettiest sight you’ve ever seen.

The people of Hawkins can gather and label you as simple-minded for all you care. Slap a label on you and shelve you in the town library with all the other romance novels, you don’t care. Because for all that they say you saw yourself creating a future with this man in front of you. Sure, maybe you romanticized it all, but God… you would have married Steve if he had given you a chance.

It’s that thought that spurs you back into the anger portion of The Aftermath. Because you didn’t build your relationship up by yourself. Steve was there too, he’s the one that layered the cement for your foundation. Steve with his endless flirting, his soft compliments, his whispered promises of forever. And even at the end, Steve left you with no explanation for this exit he took. And you can’t start your journey until he finally tells you why.

“You never really gave me a why for what happened at the end. I hate that it’s been months and I can’t let go of you, and maybe I’m just oversharing here, maybe I cared more, but I have to know. Steve, what the hell happened to us?” You’re surprised how quickly the words come out, but you’re pleased that they sound so tough. If Steve is surprised that you had to break the silence, he doesn’t show it.

“We’re young, this wasn’t going to be forever.” Steve’s voice isn’t loud, but it feels like it echoes in the diner. You want to sink into the vinyl of the booth, but you know you can’t.

“See, you say that but,” you take a breath to collect yourself to figure out how you say this all. “We talked about plans, Steve.” You look up, it’s easier to stare into the fluorescents than into Steve’s eyes. Your nerves make themselves known as you feel your fingers picking at the dry skin around your nails.

“Maybe somewhere along the way, I was looking farther into the future than you were. And if I was then I guess that’s on me. But I didn’t even know forever was an option until you gave me the words to use.” You shake your head like it’ll knock away your disbelief. Your gaze drifts from the lights to your hands gathered on the top of the table now.

“There was that time,” You lay your hands flat on the table hoping the action will stop the nerves from expanding. “We had only been together for like 4 months, and it was that really rainy day?” It’s a question, a quick uptake that doesn’t need an answer. You finally look to Steve again, waiting for some recognition to spark in his mind before you bulldoze on.

“We stayed in your bed for hours, wrapped up in one another. It was the laziest and softest day we had since we started dating. And there was that moment, and you told me that you wanted pause time.” A grimace of a smile forms, and it’s a bitter laugh that accompanies it. “You wanted to stay in that moment forever, do you remember that?”

Steve, who has been so emotionless through your every moment since you broke up, seems to finally crack. You watch emotions slide out of him as you wait for a response.

“I remember.” It’s a whisper, a barely audible acknowledgment of your past. If words could hold weight though, if they could carry more than a sound, you think those two would weigh a ton. They sound heavy at least, and for once you’re happy you don’t have to offer to carry them for Steve.

“So, when did that change?” You press on, encouraged by his response.

“I wish I could tell you. I wish there was a day or a time if that would help you. It was slow, and then it was just there and so I ended it.” Steve’s response is a rush of words, and his gaze isn’t even on you. It all collides together like a car crash. And just like a car crash once the collision hits, you can’t look away from it. It feels like a tragedy, and you know you shouldn’t stare, but human nature is human nature, and you can’t change that. Maybe there’s more to say after his confession but instead, Steve leaves without saying goodbye. His departure is quick and you calling his name is the only thing that follows him.

You stay stuck in that booth for a while, Steve’s words rolling around in your head like a tumbleweed. This was supposed to be closure, but it doesn’t feel like anything has been closed. You feel like you’re trying to piece a puzzle together but some of the pieces are still missing. Steve is the only one that has them but he’s refusing to let you see them, so you don’t even know what you’re trying to put together.

A small nagging part of you feels like there’s still more to this. Like something bigger is at play. But if Steve isn’t willing to share with the class despite all your opportunities for him to do so you’re at a loss. You have to, at a certain point, accept the fact that this is an unknown portion that you’ll never get answered. You hate that, hate how bitter it tastes, but you have no other choice than to find a way to work towards it. Because if nothing else, this night has shown that you can’t keep this candle burning when someone is actively blowing it out. It’s time to snuff the flame out yourself. You want to hope that maybe it’ll be easier once there’s some distance between Steve and yourself. Maybe if you’re no longer hiding from him at the grocery store that door that feels like it’s still wide open will start to close and you can move on.

______________________________________________________________

The day before you leave feels like a round of goodbyes. You hadn’t told anyone besides Steve that you’d be leaving early. Your friends are surprised, and you smile and tell them you’re just excited. Steve had always been your secret keeper, the only one that knew the fear you had around going to college. So, you know your lie will go over smoothly with your friends, and just like you’ve been doing for the remainder of the summer your mask of ‘I’m fine’ will help sell the story more.

It's the kids and Robin that you feel the most torn on, the ones that you struggle with when it comes to a goodbye. The breakup fractured a lot of things in your life, and it feels like maybe you lost them all somewhere this summer. They were never really yours though, so how you could have lost them you’re not sure. In the end, you solidify your resolve and even if it means nothing to them it does mean something to you. You’ve already worked your last shift, and yet you sit in the shared parking lot of your former work and the only place you’re guaranteed to find everyone you need all at once. Since the mall is long gone, this is the best place to be on a hot summer day. Unless you want to share the pool water with the rest of the Hawkins. You wait, you let Steve leave for his lunch, and you take that as your moment.

There’s no speech planned, nothing too major in your goodbye. Robin’s surprised face is what greets you when she looks towards the bell ringing. A soft exclamation of surprise escapes her and she looks confused. “I don’t want to waste your time,” you find yourself telling her. This is the quietest you’ve ever seen Robin.

“I just wanted to say goodbye. I know you’re his friend, and we haven’t really talked since… Well, you know when, but sometimes you felt like my friend too and so I just wanted to say goodbye before I left and that I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you before this.”

All your words sound so unsure, and you feel like you should be phrasing questions instead of just statements.

Silence hangs over the store, and you feel like if you don’t leave it’s just going to grow more awkward. “Okay, well then.” You mumble to yourself, and you force a smile and a wave before you turn to go. You make it to the door, it’s open and you are half in the heat and half in the air conditioning when Robin finally speaks.

“I’m sorry,” it’s not what you expect, and you throw a glance over your shoulder. Her face reflects the apology she’s given you. “We were friends, it’s just-” You shake your head and interrupt.

“It’s okay, Robin. He was your friend first, I’m glad that he had you and the kids.” You smile, and it feels real this time. “Maybe when I get back for winter break, we could be friends again?”

“I’d like that.” Robin matches your smile, and her nod is enthusiastic. You wave one last time and head fully out into the heat, you’ve got one more stop right next door and then your goodbye tour of Hawkins will be over.

The kids are right where you expect them. Tangled together around one of the games, with Max behind the controls. You wait until the losing screen comes on before addressing them. Your goodbye with the kids is just as short as your one with Robin. “You know I’m kind of gonna miss watching you all hold these games hostage,” Your tone is cheerful, not at all scared like you feel inside. The kids are quick to turn around and it’s Will that matches your tone when he calls your name. Will has always been the kindest of the bunch, and he’s quick to hug your side while everyone else smiles and says hello.

Max is the one to break the greetings, always the most impulsive of the group. “What are you doing here, do you work today?”

“Uh no, actually I came here looking for you guys.” You feel like you stumble over your words, especially as Mike gives you the most suspicious look you’ve ever seen him throw your way. He’s always hard to please, but you feel like maybe you shouldn’t have added him to the goodbye tour after all.

“I just wanted to say goodbye, I know we haven’t talked this summer but still.” You find yourself shrugging as you finish talking.

“You’re leaving already?” It’s Dustin this time, and you find yourself surprised. He hasn’t talked to you since the breakup, and you assumed that would carry over to this conversation. His tone sounds disappointed, and you find yourself feeling guilty for a reason you can’t name.

“I leave tomorrow,” there’s a chorus of groans and refusals that leave the kids. Something like regret swells up because sure these were Steve’s kids first, but they were kinda yours too. You knew them before Steve and had a whole weird dynamic with them before you even knew Steve worked next door. A part of you feels like you messed up this summer by not making more of an effort with them.

“I’m sorry about this summer,” the expressions they turn your way feel like they know too much for kids who are too young to be wrapped up in your love life drama. “We’re sorry too,” Lucas tells you. “You have nothing to apologize for okay,” you look at each one of them, the look on your face leaves no room for argument. It’s always worked with the group.

“Maybe when I get home for winter break, we could all do something together?” You offer them the same olive branch that was extended to Robin. Everyone, Mike included you’re happy to note, nods their head. You find yourself ruffling Will’s hair, he’s still the closest to you. “It’s a plan,” you tell them. “I’ll let you get back to the game, make sure you keep that top spot!” Max tells you not to worry about it, a smirk already forming on her face. You give them all one last smile and make your way out of the building.

You think you’re done, and you feel as at peace as you think you can manage under the circumstances of it all. You unlock the door of your car, plans already in mind for what is left to pack up for the trip tomorrow when someone is calling out your name. You look up and find Dustin running towards you. You meet him part of the way, and he’s throwing his arms around your waist and squeezing you tight. There’s a huff of surprise that forces its way out upon the impact, but you don’t hesitate as you return the hug.

His voice is muffled, and you rub soothing circles on his back. “Dustin, I can’t understand you.” You keep your voice soft like you’re talking to a startled animal. It’s just a moment before he pulls back, and you’re met with a teary face. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you this summer,” Dustin’s words are rushed and come out as almost one sound. You find yourself shushing him and pulling him in for another hug. “You’re all good, it’s okay.”

You give him a minute to just feel his big feelings before you push him back. Your hands rest on his shoulders and you find you don’t have to bend down too far to meet his gaze. You wonder when he started getting so tall and remind yourself it was probably sometime this summer.

“Dustin, I’m not mad or upset or anything okay?” You wait for him to nod along to what you’re saying. “I’m sorry you got caught up in all this,” there’s enough stress on sorry that you think it could take off like a jet with the force you’re pushing it out. “Steve and I were the adults, you shouldn’t have been caught up in the middle, okay?”

Dustin looks like he’s going to argue, “No arguments! This was between us, and we should have made that clear.” Dustin stares at you for what feels like a minute before he nods.

“I’m gonna miss you,” is what Dustin tells you next. “Keith is never gonna be as cool as you. Whose going kick all the older kids off the games for me?” You laugh, happy to see him joking with you now.

“I’m going to miss you too, kid.” You give his shoulders a squeeze, “I’m going to give you a secret, use it responsibly, okay?” Dustin gives you an excited look and nods his head quickly, “I promise,” he says.

“If Keith gives you any trouble, just tell him that you know about Lucy.” Dustin has questions you can tell. “Keith won’t ask you to tell him, he’ll be too embarrassed. If he asks how you know, then you just tell him I told you. He’ll do whatever you want.”

There’s a part of you that feels like maybe you’ve given him too much power, but Dustin’s always been a smart kid and Keith has always been a dick to him, so you don’t feel too much remorse. Someone should be benefiting from the information anyway, and Dustin feels like the right one out of the party to hold on to the information.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” You quote to him, it’s a quip he used to tell Steve all the time before you started dating. Something from a comic book if you remember correctly.

Dustin’s smile is blinding, “You were always too cool for him you know, it’s his loss.” You smile and hope it doesn’t come off as sad as it feels. “Thanks, Dustin.”

You ruffle his hair, just like you had done to Will. Dustin bats at your hands and you push him toward the arcade, “Go spend time with your friends. I’ll see you in December.”

Dustin starts to go but turns back just as quickly. “You promise?” The happiness that had been there before has been replaced with worry again. “I pinky promise,” you hold out your pinky to show him you’re serious. Dustin comes back just to seal the promise and then waves goodbye again returning to the arcade.

The next morning, when every spare inch of space in your car is covered in your belongings, you finally feel like you could actually leave this place feeling okay. Things are not at all the way you thought they would be when the summer first started. You also still feel a weird sort of dread about attending college, but it feels like you could conquer it. If you could do this, this weird limbo break-up, then you think college can’t be that bad.

Your parents aren’t going with you. Despite their excitement and all the ways they’ve pushed you into this decision, they have both told you they feel you have to do this alone. Everything is set up for you, your dad has given you a paper with your new address on it and a credit card for emergencies. You know in both their eyes they’ve done their job as your parents. They’ve paved the way for success and now it’s your responsibility to make them proud.

It feels fitting that you leave Hawkins the same way you started the summer, all alone. You tell yourself that this is what you need. You tell yourself a lot of things as you make your way to the town line. You try not to look in the rearview mirror, too afraid that you’ll see everything you’re leaving behind and change your mind. You remind yourself it’s a few months, and that you can do this. You just hope that you aren’t lying to yourself. You may not feel happy, but you also don’t feel completely numb either. Maybe that’s the right type of progress though.

#steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington #steve harrington angst #She's back at it again with another sad fic #but no one dies this time so progress #berrystiles writes #rwylm

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sevcasejay1chicago · 13 days

Text

Can’t spell panic without pain- Matt, Kelly, Jay

Authors note: This has been a fic that I’ve been working on the past couple of weeks. I was gonna post last week, but I wasn’t happy with it. Hopefully you guys enjoy!

Summary: The boys make sure to take care of their girl when she is panicked and in pain.

Warnings: possible inaccurate medical jargon, anxiety attack, crying, mentions ovary cysts.

—————————

You’ve been having a rough couple of days. More like rough couple of weeks, but it seemed to be getting worse the longer the weekend progressed into the week. Now, on a Wednesday afternoon, you are sitting in your car outside of the house you share with Matt, Kelly, and Jay. Matt and Kelly have today and tomorrow off. Jay got home a bit before you, having left before you when he assumed you had already left or were close behind. Since it’s been long enough for Jay to worry, your phone starts to ring over the speakers in your car. You almost miss it with the ringing in your ears, but you connect the call just before it’s sent to voicemail.

“Hey baby. I figured you’d be home by now.” Jay says casually as Matt and Kelly are heard cooking and talking softly in the background.

“I-I am.” You force out, voice strained with more unleashed tears, you gasp in a breath as you hear Jay curse and tell the others something is wrong.

“Hang on baby.” Jay says, disconnecting the call as he practically jumps down the stairs and sprints to your car with Kelly behind him.

They see the tears as soon as you’re in view. Kelly slides into your passenger seat as Jay opens your door and crouches to your level. They quickly look at each other as they slowly peel your fingers away from the steering wheel.

“Shhhhh. We gotcha now. We gotcha baby.” Kelly whispers, wiping at your tears and testing your skin for a temperature, which he thinks you have. It’s hard to tell if your warm because you are actually running a fever or if it’s because you are upset.

Jay is checking your pulse as Kelly attempts to soothe you. He knows that Matt is getting the first aid kit out of their master bathroom, which is upstairs and in the very back of the house, so he’s not worried about being completely accurate, but he wants to gauge it before he moves you. Currently, your heart rate is pretty high, but steady.

“Come on sweet girl. Let’s get you inside.” Jay says, helping Kelly unbuckle you before he hoists you into his arms. “What’s goin on? Hmm?” Jay whispers to you, but as he suspected, he doesn’t get a verbal response as you whimper like you are in pain.

Kelly pushed the push start button to turn off your car before he grabs your phone and keys, deciding that he will grab your bags later on so that he has time to jog to the door and open it for Jay. Matt is already getting the med bag open, placing a few things on the coffee table. He’s just tossing the necessary equipment onto the coffee table to check your vitals, not knowing what the issue is, but he already has his suspicions.

You have a cyst on your right ovary that has been bothering you for a week and a half now. The boys tried to talk you into staying home, especially after a scary er visit earlier in the week, but you were stubborn and refused to rest when a big case was brought to the intelligence unit.

Jay sat down, cradling you in his arms. He made sure that one arm was accessible for Matt, but he also wanted to make sure you were as comfortable as possible. Kelly was stood not too far off, waiting for something to do and giving Matt space to check you over.

Matt checked your blood pressure and stuck a pulse ox on your finger as Jay whispered softly to you, encouraging you to breath. Jay’s sweet nothings were barely audible to your other two lovers, but they also were barely making it past the still constant ringing in your ears.

“Tachy. BP is a bit high and oxygen is low.” Matt said out loud, quickly running the thermometer over your forehead. “100.3.” Matt read off, tossing everything back in the medical bag.

Jay did his best to calm you down as Kelly retrieved a wash cloth and some fever reducers. Matt sat in your line of sight, lightly rubbing the tears from your face with the pad of his thumbs. Both men were lightly shushing you and whispering sweet nothings in an attempt to calm you down. Eventually, it seemed like you started to respond to what was happening and reached one shaking hand to lay on Jay’s chest. Jay immediately started breathing at a deeper, more even, pace that was easy for you to follow.

“Baby. You gotta tell us what hurts.” Matt whispered, locking eyes with you. “We can’t help if we don’t know whats wrong sweetheart.”

You sucked in a deep breath, curing further into yourself and Jay’s lap. “I-I’m hurting and I c-can’t stop crying.” You whimpered. “It f-feels like a p-panic attack.”

Kelly came back in and immediately knew the problem. “The cyst must be rupturing.” Kelly stated, laying the wash cloth over your neck and offering you a Gatorade with your medicine. “This should help the pain baby girl.”

Matt sighed, laying a gentle hand on your knee. “Okay. Well, we know the drill. Your gonna feel really crappy and emotional for a couple days. However, we will do everything we can to help you feel better, okay baby?” Matt said, taking the hand you offered.

You nodded, leaning back into Jay. “It’s okay to cry sweet girl, but you gotta breath. Okay? Just follow me.” Jay encouraged, kissing the crown of your head as you tried to focus. “You are definitely having a panic attack, but we gotcha now. Your not alone baby.” Jay encourages, kissing your temple.

You started humming, not liking the feeling of your stomach shaking and your lips buzzing. You had gotten yourself worked up so much that the anxiety made you feel like a live wire. You knew that your boys were attempting to ground you, but it was like it was impossible to turn it all off.

“What can we do?” Kelly asked, sitting on the coffee table to get in your line of sight without standing over you. He knows that you get anxious when people stand over you on a good day, so it probably wasn’t advisable today.

“Think you wanna try a popsicle?” Jay asked, nudging your cheek with his nose. “I can feel you shaking, but you aren’t cold, are you baby?”

You shook your head no, not offering a verbal response.

“I need a verbal response sweet girl.” Kelly said, leaning forward expectantly. He knew the more he got you talking, the more likely you were starting to come back down to earth.

“Not cold. Popsicle please.” You whispered, not wanting to use full sentences, but knowing that would get your point across.

Kelly nodded before getting up and jogging into the kitchen for your popsicle. He was back in no time, having cut the plastic open and wrapped the popsicle in a paper towel. “Here princess. It’s a pedialyte popsicle. It should help hydrate you to flush all those toxins out.” Kelly explained, watching as you quickly calmed down as the cold from the popsicle helped focus your brain on the taste and sensation.

“Good girl. We gotcha. It’ll be over before you know it.” Matt praised, laying your favorite blanket in your lap to help calm you further. He knew it would be a long couple of days, but once you calmed down, they could start working on taking the proper steps to ensure a quick recovery.

Tag list:

@treehouse-mouse

@shadowmeadowsworld

@sorry-i-spaced

@zephyrmonkey

@allisonargent144

@amie134

@lane-rodgers-barnes

@pensfan5871

@dumb-fawkin-bitch

@marvel-and-chicago-fan

@daggersquadphantom

@stellakiddsblog

@100yroldteenagers

@senjoritanana

@celtic-shadow-wolf

@starset21

@mrspeacem1nusone

#one chicago #one chicago x reader #kelly severide #matt casey #jay halstead #matt casey x reader #fluff #jay halstead x reader #comfort #kelly severide x reader

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sophierequests · 2 years

Note

hey!

i literally binge read all your kaz fics so i was wondering if you could write a kaz x reader where the reader is a love interest? defiantly something fluffy if possible

maybe as a prompt the reader is a uni student and none of the crows no about her but they’ve noticed kaz sneaking out to see her so they follow him and they finally meet? no pressure at all, just a suggestion!! 🫶

i can't deny it any longer

Navigation┃Main Masterlist┃Requests

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x f!Reader

A/N: Hi, love! I noticed your Kaz binge and I really appreciated it <333 I'm so glad you like what I write. I got way too deep into this request, but I really adored writing it, so I hope you like it. Even though it's a bit long. This is just filled to the brim with pining and fluff, but I'm not sorry. Thank you for the request!

Summary: An unlikely friendship gets revealed, and the Crows intend to make more of it.

Genre: Fluff and Comedy

Word Count: 6.6K (This is the longest fic I ever wrote and I have no clue why dsaljh)

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, feelings and ripping peoples' eyes out :D

None of the Crows dared to speak on the walk back to the Slat. The job had been a complete disaster, and Kaz was fuming. Not even Inej, who had never feared Kaz’s outbursts before, attempted to talk him down. This was going to be a fun evening.

When they finally reached the Slat, he didn’t even spare them one word before he limped up the worn staircase that lead to his office. They didn’t go after him. It was best to allow him to sort things out on his own, rather than giving him another reason to lash out at them. Instead, they huddled together in the living room area to assess and treat their wounds, also bringing a few bottles of whiskey into the equation while they were at it.

Half an hour later, they heard heavy footsteps accompanied by the clicking of a cane coming down the stairs. All of them readied themselves for the berating of a lifetime once Kaz would reach their floor, but the footsteps didn’t come closer. The footsteps started to fade and become barely audible until the front door of the Slat was slammed shut. The rest of the Crows just gaped at each other with questioning glances, only Inej silently slipping towards the window, trying to spot him in the colourful crowd outside. But he was already too far away for anyone to see him.

“Phew, that was a close one,” Jesper exclaimed enthusiastically, taking another sip from his drink. “I doubt that I could have dealt with another one of his tirades on gun safety or no gambling on the job.” His voice mocked Kaz’s stern intonation, but no one seemed to latch onto the joke. He only earned a dismissive look from Wylan, who was still busy dusting the soot off his jacket.

“Where do you think he’s going?” Nina asked, her head turning to the Suli girl still residing at the window. As much as the Heartrender wanted to be mad at him, she knew that Kaz wasn’t necessarily skilled at taking care of himself or knowing when to stop, so she still felt a certain sense of dread.

“He’s probably off to get his head smashed in because he can’t take a loss,” Matthias grumbled, leaning back into the cushion of the couch, a prominent frown on his face. Nina only gave him a jab to the rips in an effort to reprimand him.

“I have absolutely no clue.” Inej began with a huffed breath. “But I’m sure that he knows exactly where he’s going.”

“What does that mean?” Wylan raised his brows.

“He’s been secretly going out a lot recently. Specifically at night or when he thinks that no one is watching. I began noticing it three weeks ago and I didn’t think it was that odd. However, by now I’m starting to get a bit worried. He always leaves when something went wrong and I just can’t seem to figure out where he’s going.”

“And you’ve been keeping that from us the whole time?” Jesper questioned, a devilish grin settling on his lips. “That is perfect blackmailing material, Inej! Kaz Brekker, sneaking out in the middle of the night to do what? Does he have a second identity that he’s been hiding from us? Is he off to go on secret jobs? Or maybe he’s visiting his secret partner?”

“Kaz Brekker having a secret partner?” Nina snorted, very much enjoying the way this conversation developed. “You don’t really think that’s likely, do you?”

“That’s the thing that you hold to be the least likely?” Wylan muttered amusedly.

“Have you ever tried to track him?” The Sharpshooter directed his question at Inej again. He was determined to know everything and would not stop until he did. “I mean, we evidently all care about his well-being,” his tone was audibly sarcastic, even though everyone knew that he actually did care, “so it would be best to keep tabs on him.”

“I did once. Somehow he knew that I was there and he told me off. From then on I didn’t feel like it would have been appropriate. He obviously doesn’t want us to know, and I think we should respect that.”

“Well, I think we should follow him the next time. Just to check up on him, of course” By now Jesper was fully convinced of getting behind his friend’s secret nights out. He exchanged a devious glance with Nina, whereas the other three Crows just rolled their eyes. They would definitely tag along, though.

On the other side of Ketterdam, you were busy finishing your last exam of the semester. It had been quite the straining term, so you were glad to finally be done with it. Once you left the exam hall, the light of the day had already subsided, announcing a bleak evening.

Normally, you wouldn’t have gone straight home after taking an exam, but none of your friends had to take the same exam, so they wouldn’t have been down for your usual visit to the local pubs. And going out alone was absolutely not an option that you would consider. Well, you would have considered it if you had the chance to visit a particular club. However, walking around the Barrel at night as a young university student with basically no self-defence skills didn’t seem like the best idea if you plan on finishing your degree. Realistically, you also had only one good reason to drop by the gambling den anyway. A reason that you were way too invested in and that probably didn’t even like you back.

You bit the inside of your cheek as your mind was invaded by thoughts about Kaz Brekker. The friendship between the two of you was fairly unlikely to anyone else. The Bastard of a Barrel being friends with a plain university student. But after you had caught him red-handed while he tried to steal classified institute information, yet still decided to let him go, he became instantly interested in getting to know more about you. At first, you assumed that he only wanted to get close to you since you had easy access to quite a few institutes and libraries. Well, it turns out that that wasn’t exactly the case. Your small flat became something close to a retreat to him. Whenever things at the Slat started to weigh down on him, he would come to you. It was an odd picture, watching Dirtyhands, one of the most feared men in Ketterdam, sprawled out on your couch, ranting about his day, but by now it was almost like a habit.

For some reason, the young crime boss had managed to fully capture your interest. In other words, you were completely and utterly besotted with him. And it was humiliating to say the least. He would never be able to love you back. Not the way you did at least.

You had been so lost in thought that you hadn’t even acknowledged where you were going until you stood at the main entrance of your flat building. You were definitely in need of a nap. After climbing the mountain of stairs leading up to your door, that is. But when you were just about to pull the bundle of keys out of your pocket, you heard a chair scraping over the floorboards inside your room. Maybe you had to scratch that well-deserved nap.

With cautious steps, you crept towards the door, pulling out the delicate dagger you kept attached to your belt - of course, a gift from Kaz. Even though the University District wasn’t too far away from the Barrel, there never had been a break-in close to your flat unit before, so the prospect of a stranger currently rummaging through your belongings scared you greatly. Slowly you pressed down the handle, allowing you to see inside the cramped flat. As your eyes roamed the small space, they were met with another pair of eyes staring back at them. You were close to letting out a shriek until you realised who the stranger was.

The dark-clad figure stretched out in one of your armchairs, discarding the book he had been browsing through. He acted as if it was completely reasonable for him to be in your home without you knowing about it. You closed the door behind you, considering whether you should scold him or whether you should be glad that he was here.

“Put the knife down, love.” Saints, how you hated him addressing you with these damned cutesy pet names. “You’d be more likely to accidentally pluck someone’s eye out than to actually defend yourself judging by the way you’re holding it.” Bastard.

“I’d say plucking someone’s eye out would be a great way to defend myself.” You dropped your bag at the entrance, walked over to the living room and sat on the armrest of your couch to calm your aggressively thudding heart.

“Not if you do it by accident. That would probably count as aggravated assault if you’d ask the Staadwatch.”

“As if you care about that the Staadwatch has to say.” He chuckled in response to that. He didn’t laugh - you weren’t even sure if he could - but a chuckle from Kaz Brekker was enough to make your head spin. Pathetic. “On another note, please tell me that you didn’t break in through the window again. I’m running out of excuses for all the scratches on the window sill.”

“I promise that I didn’t break in through the window.”

“Thank you.”

“I picked the lock on your front door this time.” You groaned, whilst simultaneously biting back a grin. “And I would also advise you to get new ones. They are way too flimsy. Very easy to outsmart. Especially for people with ill intentions.”

“Aw, that almost sounds like you care about me, Brekker.” He didn’t have one of his usual cocky comebacks at hand, so he merely gave you a warning glare, knowing that you weren’t afraid of him. As crazy as it sounded, you fully trusted him to never harm you.

For the first time this evening, you allowed yourself to take a proper look at the man across from you. It wasn't unusual for him to look like an utter mess when he pays you a visit, today he seemed just a bit more burnt out than what you were used to. There were prominent bags under his eyes, a stark contrast to the marble-like paleness of his skin. His hair was slightly dishevelled and it didn't help that he continuously ran his hand through it. All in all, he looked like he should've retired to bed a long time ago. Instead, he was here.

“Didn’t you have a job today? Shouldn’t you still be off completing some teenage criminal business?” You inquired, not necessarily caring too much about the bloody details of his work, but wanting him to continue talking. He scowled and that already told you the reason for today’s visit. “Ah, it went well I assume.”

“Don’t get me started.” You got him started. In fact, his rant almost took one hour, only allowing you to give some sparse comments in between. You would have to lie if you said that you were actively listening to what he was saying. As soon as he started telling you about how his ‘Plan F’ failed, you had already forgotten the initial intent of the mission.

“If I had stayed at the Slat any longer I would probably have ripped somebody’s eyes out,” Kaz gnarled and judging by his expression he was being completely serious.

“Good to know that coming here calms your murderous tendencies, Kaz. Even though, I believe that a good night’s sleep would have done the same thing.”

“Are you implying that you would like me to leave?”

“I’m implying that you look like you haven’t had a proper rest in forever.” You pushed yourself off your makeshift seat, walking over to the cabinet where you kept your alcohol and grabbing one of the rather fancy wine bottles. “Actually, I’m quite glad to have your company. Drinking alone is always such a bummer.” A bit clumsily, you filled up two wine glasses and handed him the slightly fuller one, which he sceptically accepted.

“Are we drinking to celebrate or to forget?” He smirked, raising the glass to his lips and taking a brief sip from it. The eye contact between you never faltered as he spoke. It almost made you forget what you actually wanted to drink on.

“Depending on the exam results, we might have to be a bit ambivalent with our reasoning.” You mirrored his previous movements, the velvety alcohol numbing your throat. You didn’t expect him to remember the fact that you had an exam today, he had so much on his mind without your insignificant ramblings, but his muddled expression told you that he did know.

“You took your final exam for this semester and the first thing you do is go home with the intention of drinking alone?”

“And you just returned from a botched job that cost you a thousand kruge, and presumably a whole bunch of nerves, yet the first thing you do is walk from the Barrel to the University District to stay at a lousy flat?” You gave him a self-satisfied smile, which he only returned with an eye roll.

“Seems like we both tend to go for the unreasonable.” He replied, a foreign sense of sobriety clouding his usually stern and cold eyes. Something clicked inside him after that conversation, but he didn’t have the will to tell you. Not right now.

Kaz only left when he caught the way your head began to slump to the side every other minute and how the time between your yawns got shorter and shorter. When he strode through the streets, he was somewhat startled by the fact that the sun had already begun to rise. He had spent the whole night with you, something he had never dared to do before, the apprehension of becoming too close - too attached - to you constantly lingering in the back of his mind. Tonight felt just right, though. Maybe he could allow himself one more weakness.

Breakfast at the Slat was surprisingly calm. As of now. One Crow was currently still missing, much to the delight of his friends’ mental well-being. Nevertheless, it still made some of them feel uneasy. What did they have to expect once Dirtyhands would join them? Was his absence just there to give them a false sense of security?

“He can’t possibly still be asleep.” Wylan groaned, genuinely just wanting to put the whole situation past him. He hated confrontation, especially when that confrontation was coming from Kaz, but he also hated the uncomfortable tension that was emitting from every single one of his friends.

“I doubt that he slept at all.” Inej returned, her voice still heavy with slumber. “I didn’t hear him coming back yesterday, so it must have been pretty late into the night. He wouldn’t go to bed at that point.”

The firm shutting of the front door made their heads turn. Realistically, it could have been anyone, it’s not like the Slat was inhabited by the Crows alone, but they all had a sneaking suspicion about who it could be.

That suspicion was confirmed once they heard the clinking of a cane coming up the stairs. And this time, the noise approached them determinedly. Kaz entered the room quietly, acknowledging the presence of the others with a mumbled greeting. There was no malice when he spoke, none of his usual venom could be found. Perhaps it was the veil of tiredness that was visible on his features, but he didn’t seem to have the intention of berating them. He looked…at ease?

“Good morning, boss,” Jesper was the first to speak up, causing Inej to give him an alarmed glance. She did not want this to get blown out of proportion, especially not because of one of the Sharpshooter’s humorous comments. “Are my eyes deceiving me or is there a certain lack of a frown on your face?” Alright, here they go again.

Kaz, who had made a beeline to pour himself a cup of morning coffee, didn’t show the underlying discomfort questions like these evoked. It was obvious that all of them were suspecting that something had changed - Saints, it was a miracle that none of them had brought his occasional disappearances up earlier - but he couldn’t allow himself to feed their theories.

“That rang true until you opened your mouth, Jesper.” He groggily replied, deciding that it would be best to avoid them for the remainder of the day.

“He’s totally hiding something,” Nina whispered as they listened to his footsteps disappear upstairs.

“Oh, he so is. But I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

To their dismay, Kaz’s secret trips stopped for the following days. But roughly a week after the uncomfortable breakfast encounter, Inej barged into the living room area, a devious grin on her lips - unusual for the normally holier-than-thou Wraith.

“He left! He’s on his way towards the Financial District.” Without wasting any more words, the Crows scrambled to their feet. It looked almost comical, five young adults that were barely done with their teenage years hurrying out of the Slat to stalk one of their friends.

Inej obviously led the party, tracking Kaz from a fair distance without eliciting his attention. Against her initial suggestion, he didn’t choose to stay in the Financial District, rather sternly crossing right through it. His target destination seemed to be the campus of Ketterdam University. But what kind of business would he have here?

They watched as he approached an outdated flat building, entering it without a second thought. Great, now they only had to figure out what room he would be in. They, meaning Inej.

“Am I dreaming or did Kaz Brekker just knock and act like a normal member of society, instead of breaking into my home as usual?” You quipped, beckoning him to come in with a warm smile. It was embarrassing to say, but even one week of him not coming by felt like an eternity of being deprived of his presence.

“I apologize, the next time I’ll just resort to throwing a brick through your window to not make you question your grip on reality.” It was a stupid joke, a terrible one even, yet you couldn’t help letting out a laugh. A laugh that made Kaz’s mind go blank whenever he heard it.

Today’s visit had no specific reason. He was starting to accept that he didn’t need a specific reason to come here, other than just simply wanting to see you. He wouldn’t say that out loud, and neither would you question it. It was enough to just be here. To hear you laugh at his dry humour. To listen to you talk about your day. Hell, even merely to enjoy the comfortable silence, as long as you were here.

Your usual routine was barely about to begin when one of the tiles on the rooftop next to your window crashed against the cobblestone a few stories lower. The sound of the tile coming down didn’t concern you. The rustling coming from right outside your walls did. You looked over to Kaz, who did not look particularly concerned. A knowing grimace graced the sharp lines of his face.

Without any warning, he pushed himself off the armchair, striding towards the window and forcing it open. You couldn’t see what he was searching for, but you spotted the exact moment when he found it. Judging by the way his jaw clenched you could only pray that he hadn’t gotten both of you into trouble.

“I know that you’re here, Inej.” Inej? The Wraith? What was she doing here? “I know that all of you are here.” His hoarse voice called into the darkness of the night. All of them? This made you a bit anxious. You joined him at the window, though you weren’t able to see anything since respecting his boundaries with touch also meant giving him enough space to move freely.

You almost jumped when a hooded figure appeared at the small platform in front of your window. The person pulled down their head-covering, revealing the apologetic face of a young Suli girl. This had to be Inej, Kaz’s unofficial second in command. He had told you quite a few things about her, but being face to face with her - well, sort of - was completely different. After she had pried her eyes away from Kaz’s menacing stare, she turned to look at you, and you could swear that the faintest hint of a smile flashed over her face.

“Kaz, listen, we’re terribly sorry for invading your personal affairs like that. We were just a bit-”

“You were what? Concerned about my safety? Or just way too curious for your own good?” His voice sounded dangerously low, a tone he had never used in your presence. “Leave. I’ll talk to you - all of you - once I’m back at the Slat.”

“Kaz, let them come in. It’s not a big deal.” Even though you weren’t sure who else the ‘they’ would entail, you didn’t feel like creating an argument over no harm done.

“They followed me here to satisfy their need for gossip and you don't think that's a big deal?"

"It's not like that." The Suli girl interrupted. "We were genuinely worried about you sneaking off in the middle of the night and just wanted to make sure that you were okay." He didn't completely believe that, but as his gaze turned to meet yours again, he let out a sigh.

"Fine." He lamented, audible enough for everyone to hear before trudging back to the couch in hopes to ignore whatever was about to happen.

Almost soundlessly, the Wraith slipped into your flat, looking around carefully as she took in her surroundings. She offered you her hand, in an attempt to at least give you the decency to introduce herself.

"Please forgive us for disturbing you like this, especially in the privacy of your own home. I'm aware that this isn't the ideal first impression. I'm Inej, one of Kaz's…friends." She was careful with her words, knowing that Kaz was listening in on everything she said. But you didn't care about his grudges. You had always wanted to meet his Crows, the few friends he was keen on telling you about, so their sudden appearance was actually quite delightful.

"Don't bother worrying about this. It's fine, trust me. There’s room for all of us, and some more company doesn’t hurt." You tried to reassure her, but a knock at the door announced the arrival of the others. Upon opening the door, you were met with the four remaining Crows, who gingerly shuffled into your small living space, greeting you with muttered apologies you didn’t pay any mind to. They were quite an interesting crowd, you had to note. The blonde mountain of a man entered first, accompanied by a radiant young woman, dressed in a red dress that fit her perfectly. Your mind immediately wandered to the many times Kaz had been talking about Matthias Helvar’s broody nature and Nina Zenik’s hatred towards his haircut - that had to be them. You identified the last two people as Wylan Van Eck and Jesper Fahey. The shy redhead, who had been the most apologetic out of the group was quickly pulled away by the charming Zemeni man, who only gave you a curt nod as he pushed past you to the seating area.

Even though Kaz was already on edge about your hospitality, you still went out of your way to hurry to the kitchen and bring out a few more glasses and a decanter of water. You wouldn’t allow yourself to be seen as a negligent host, especially when it came to the friends Kaz had told you so much about him

The whole group sat scattered around your minuscule living room area, occupying every seat but the empty space next to their boss on the couch. He noticed your hesitance and slid a bit further towards the armrest, wordlessly telling you that it was okay, maybe even a bit welcome to sit next to him. Without thinking too much about it, you accepted his offer, attaining some stunned glances from his team.

"I'm so pleased to finally meet all of you." You beamed after finally settling in and introducing yourself briefly, earning a pleading look from the man sitting next to you. A look you bluntly chose to ignore. "Kaz has been droning on about his Crows since I've known him."

The man who you had rightfully assumed to be Jesper shot a teasing glance at Kaz. Any intention of a comment leaving his lips was quickly extinguished by one of Kaz's muttered threats, which you couldn’t completely make out, but that seemed to be enough of a warning to shut him up.

“I wish we could say the same,” The Heartrender spoke up, her voice soft and pleasant as she gave you a calming smile. “But Kaz failed to mention that he had other…friends.” Her tone was reluctant and you could basically feel the man in question tense up next to you. The realization dawned on you that they were probably all thinking that you were romantically involved. A thought you had nothing against, in all honesty, but you didn’t intend on admitting that in the near future.

“Not that we would have believed him had he told us earlier.” Matthias’s thick Fjerdan accent added dryly.

“But of course, we’re very happy to hear - and see - that he isn’t the secluded hermit he makes himself out to be.” The Sharpshooter snickered, satisfied with the way this situation had turned out. “Even though we are kind of hurt that you didn’t think about introducing this gorgeous lady to us. Were you just going to keep her hidden away from us until you suffer a probable untimely death? You should have brought her to the Crow Club to meet us sooner. I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded.”

“You must be really lovely company if Kaz decided to keep you all to himself.” Nina directed her attention back to you. You felt your heartbeat pick up its pace. She was definitely insinuating exactly what you thought she was. It only got worse when you recalled that she was very likely listening in on the accelerated thudding inside your chest.

“Maybe I just didn’t think that she would enjoy your company, Zenik.” He retorted smugly, causing the Grisha to frown. I wouldn’t want her to be affected by your questionable influence.” His last sentence reeked of sarcasm and you knew it, yet the girl on the other side of the room put on her best offended expression.

“That’s rich coming from a man that doesn’t shy away from ripping people’s eyes out if they wronged him. Talk about enjoyable company.” You were no stranger to the Barrel’s brutality, even though Kaz didn’t necessarily talk that much about the bloody details of his job, so this information didn’t significantly faze you.

“If she gets along with Kaz this well, she’ll get along with us just fine,” Wylan added, enticing a chuckle from his boyfriend, who had one arm slung around his shoulder. You didn’t miss the faint hue of pink on Kaz’s cheeks after the Merchling put additional emphasis on the ‘this well’ part of his statement. Was he seriously flustered?

However, his theory seemed to ring true. The rest of the evening was spent chatting about your respective lives and a lot of jokes - most of them made at Kaz’s expense. The teasing about him sneaking out to meet you seemed to be ceaseless, and it affected him more than you would have expected. Maybe that was the reason why he was so reluctant to introduce them to you.

When the night gradually came to an end, you picked up the mugs of tea and coffee that had begun to accumulate on the living room table, moving to bring them to the kitchen. Inej, who had been rather reserved for the majority of the evening, was set on helping you. It seemed like she had something to get off her chest in private, so you blindly agreed. Your heart stung a bit when you thought about the possible discussion topics she had planned to hit you with. It was no secret that she and Kaz were quite close, but he never told you about the true nature of their relationship. For all you knew they could have been in a steady relationship for years now. However, you didn’t nurture that thought for your own good.

The two of you sauntered to the kitchen, putting all the glasses and mugs into the sink to be dealt with at some point later. She carefully closed the door behind her before she let her back rest against it. She really did want to talk to you. Mentally, you were already prepared for the worst.

“Y/N, I bit my tongue the whole evening and would really hate to pry, especially after the unlucky circumstances under which we had to meet for the first time, but there is a question that I just can’t get out of my head.” Shit, this was going to hurt. “Are Kaz and you, uhm, seeing each other?” Your cheeks instantly turned bright red. Nothing ever happened between the two of you, other than yearning glances on your part and comments that could be interpreted as flirty on his, but it had gotten painfully obvious that you weren’t entirely satisfied with that.

“Kaz and me?” You sputtered, trying to act like this was the most incredulous suggestion to ever exist. “Oh, we’re just friends - well, if you can call it that - I promise there is nothing to worry about!” Inej cocked her head to the side, mustering you with a bemused expression as you were still wrestling for the right words. You had expected her to be relieved or to not believe you and end up lashing out at you. What you hadn’t expected her to do was smile.

“What should I be worried about?”

“I mean, uhm, you and Kaz-”

“Oh no, absolutely not.” She laughed, throwing her head back as she realized what you were so unsure about. “There is nothing between me and Kaz. He’s my friend, but nothing more.” These words felt as if something heavy got lifted off your shoulders. At least you were not about to be stabbed by the Wraith for having a crush on someone she could’ve been with. Now, you would just have to deal with the feelings not being mutual.

“The same goes for me and Kaz. We’re just friends.” You tried to lie to yourself.

“I think he might be on a different page.”

“What?” Her way of speaking made you realize why she and Kaz were friends in the first place. Both of them would rather die than speak in coherent sentences.

“None of us believed that Kaz was seeing someone when we became aware of him sneaking out. To us, it would have been more likely for him to have a second identity. So when we followed him tonight, we didn’t expect…this.” She gestured around the room, her hands pointing up and down your body. “He seeks you out when he’s stressed - not because he needs to get away from us, he has his office for that and knows how to keep us at an arm’s length - but because he wants to be here. The six of us have been friends for so long, and I don’t think that he ever looked at any of us the way he looked at you. It may not be obvious to you, and I wouldn’t blame you, that man is more than emotionally constipated, but whatever feelings you harbour towards him, I’m sure that they are reciprocated.” Your head felt light. Could she be right? Could Kaz Brekker ever feel even slightly the same as you did?

“I’d like to believe that, Inej, I really would. But I promise that the feelings between us are merely platonic, and it’s better that way.”

“What a shame. It would do Kaz some good to have something consistent - something good - in his life.” With that, she pushed herself off the wood behind her, giving you an encouraging wink before she returned to the others.

Unbeknownst to you, Kaz had suffered a similar fate whilst you were talking to Inej.

The five remaining friends had waited for the door to close behind you and the Wraith, their heads snapping towards Kaz when they heard it click.

“So, Kaz-”

“No matter what you were planning to say, keep it to yourself, Zenik.” He wasn’t having this at all.

“Are you two dating?” Wylan asked eagerly, prompting Kaz to groan in displeasure.

“Y/N and I are not dating. And after all the trouble you five caused me today it’s bold to even imply that.”

“Come on Kaz, we may lack your skills in deduction, but we are not blind. We all see the way you look at her.” Jesper taunted his friend playfully, wriggling his brow suggestively.

“I look at her the same way I look at all of you.”

“I sure as hell hope you don’t. I don’t want you to give me heart eyes.”

“I’m not giving her ‘heart eyes’, Jesper.” There was audible disdain in his voice as he repeated Jesper’s words to him.

“If telling yourself that helps you sleep at night.” Even Matthias joined in on the teasing. He truly was done for.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Kaz rubbed his eyes with his hand, hoping that once he had removed it from his face, his friends would stop pestering him about this.

“That list would be too long for us to go through now. Especially if you intend on keeping your love interest.” Jesper was really playing with fire at this point.

“I’ll say it one last time. She is not my love interest. We are not in a relationship. The relationship we have is just as platonic as the relationships I have with you.”

“Because slipping out in the middle of the night just to see her is very platonic?” Nina grinned sheepishly. “Just admit that you like her and ask her out, for Saint’s sake. What are you so afraid of? Rejection? Being honest with yourself? Is that the way to defeat the mighty Dirtyhands? Should we send a message to Pekka Rollins?”

“That’s enough.” Kaz’s voice turned cold. Spying on his private business was one thing, but acting as if he owed them a heartfelt confession was too much. “This is none of your concern, it never was in the first place.”

Before he could add anything more, the kitchen door creaked open with you and Inej emerging from the room behind it. There was a shared understanding to not bring that topic up for the remainder of the night. They still hoped that one of you would make a move, but they couldn’t force you to, so they just had to drop it.

After an hour or so more of talking, they chose to leave you alone again. The Crows said their goodbyes, already inviting you to get drinks at the Club during the next week. All of them wandered towards the door, except for one.

“I’ll join you later. Go back home.” Kaz ordered, provoking Nina, Jesper and Inej to exchange giddy glances. But they still left without asking any questions. Once they were finally gone, he turned to face you, visibly wound up over everything that happened today. “I apologize for their behaviour. That was completely unacceptable, and them simply showing up with-” You silenced him with a simple hand gesture and a smile.

“Kaz, it didn’t bother me. I actually appreciated having them around, even if you didn’t- They are precisely the people that I would expect you to be friends with.”

“Fine. But I hope they won’t make this a habit.”

“Are you afraid of having to share my attention, Brekker?”

“No. I just don’t see the point in seeking relief from a headache just for the headache to follow you everywhere you go.” He replied sarcastically, relishing in the dizzy feeling your laugh gave him. Maybe he should listen to his friends for once.

“Oh, hold on a second!” You paused, hurrying over to dig in the drawers of the cabinet standing in your hallway. After a bit of rummaging, you pulled out something small and shiny. He couldn’t make out the exact shape since you kept it concealed in your fist, but he suspected that it might be for him. “Open your hand.”

“Why?”

“Kaz. Just do it.” He stretched out his arm, letting his gloved hand hover a few inches away from yours. In a matter of seconds, something long and partially heavy was dropped into his palm. It was a silver key.

“What is this for?” He questioned, pulling the gift closer to him to inspect it further. This caused him to miss the flash of embarrassment that rushed over your features.

“It’s a key to my flat.” You confessed meekly, his eyes snapping to meet yours. “I had a copy made after last week. Just so you don’t have to break into my flat anymore.” His face remained calm, but his mind was running wild. You gave him a key to your flat. A key that would allow him to see you whenever he wanted without having to risk getting caught whilst trying to pick your lock. “But you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. I just thought it would make things easier. Even if your little headaches might stop you from visiting me that often since they know where I live now.”

“No, I, uhm, thank you. It will at least make me look less like a creep.” He chuckled. If there ever was a right moment, this would be it. “But we should probably consider a different place to meet each other once in a while. Just to keep the others off my case.”

“Oh? What are you suggesting?”

“I heard there’s a new waffle place opening up this weekend, so maybe you would like to see if it’s any good? With me, I mean.” Kaz prepared for the bone-crushing reaction that would follow his offer. You wouldn’t say yes.

“I’d love to.” Saints, he did not expect that.

“It’s a date then?” The words were supposed to be sarcastic, but his brain was just beginning to work through the implications of you agreeing to go out with him.

“It’s a date.”

When he eventually managed to force himself out of the comfort of your flat, he still held the little silver key in his hand, constantly turning it over in his palm. It would take him some time to work through what had just happened. You gave him a key and accepted his clumsy shot at asking you out. The Crows would never let him live that down.

And as if his thoughts had summoned them, they were already expectantly waiting for him at the entrance of the flat building. Jesper was the first to notice the key.

“Please don’t tell me that this is what I think it is.” The corners of his lips were pushed up as high as humanly possible.

“She gave you a key to her flat?” Nina squealed, resisting the urge to engulf him in a hug.

“Voluntarily?” Wylan added in disbelief.

“And I asked her out. Are you all happy now?”

“You did what now?”

#kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker fluff #grishaverse fanfic #grishaverse x reader #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader #six of crows x reader

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