#anyway I felt like it was immediately my responsibility to hit her with the Josh hutcherson whistle image after she texted it me.

[tabooki]

[hockeywhy]

4 times you faked a relationship + 1 time you didn’t; m.tkachuk

WARNINGS: language. WORD COUNT: 17.2k. A/N: So, I didn’t want my effort for this fic to go to waste and I’ve decided to re-write it for Matty because he and the fake dating trope work so well together. I had to, so here it is.

one.

“I’d only be asking Matthew if I had no other options and needed a last resort,” you said. “Until then, I’m not even contemplating it.” 

“Kind of sounds like you’ve just about reached the bottom of your list, right around where you’re keeping Matthew, Y/N,” your friend, Anna, responded and though her tone said sympathy, the look on her face reflected anything but sheer elation. 

The invitation landed on your tabletop with a loud slap while you deposited yourself in a nearby chair unceremoniously, glaring at the decorative paper as if it offended you. Actually, scratch that. It did offend you. Greatly so. Honestly, it may as well have come in the form of one of those boxing gloves that sprung out of a box immediately upon opening and decked you square in the face. That’s how much it offended you. 

The golden letters inked on the thick paper warmly requested the pleasure of your company to witness the love of Josh Reynolds to Louise Jones six weeks from now. The location stated was a hotel you knew only through word of mouth: one of those fancy establishments that served ridiculously priced plates that were more canapes than actual meals. 

You doubted there would be much pleasure from your company.

You and Josh called it quits just over a year ago after a relationship that became increasing rockier, significantly more emotionally exhausting. The two of you started dating in high school and if the relationship started off with nothing but the sort of blinding fiery passion only teens could be capable of, well someone missed the memo on giving you the message that all fires eventually fizzle out. Gradually, it was the only way you could see your relationship heading and it seemed that Josh felt it too. It made the breakup easier: it was neat and mutual. Still, that couldn’t be considered an incentive for either of you to invite each other to such grand, deeply personal events. You couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that he found someone he wanted to tie the knot with so quickly but in retrospect, Josh had always wanted that while you were content as you were. That seemed to be the fork in your road with him.

On the one hand, you were angry at Josh for even considering jotting your name down on the list of attendees and on the other, you were angry at yourself for being angry about that. One moment you were dead set on declining the invite and the next, you considering that doing that would simply show you were bitter and unable to be civil about it. Besides, surely it was noted somewhere in the Rulebook of Ex’s that you just couldn’t do stuff like that. That seemed to just about do it. Like hell you’d given anyone the satisfaction of one-upping you.

You needed a plus one. Desperately. 

“Ask your brother then. Pretty sure that’s bound to impress anyone there. It’s not often many will get to say they brushed shoulders with an up-and-coming professional athlete.” 

“I don’t need that sort of plus one. If I did, I would’ve asked you—”

“Thanks,” Anna mumbled.”

“—but what I need,” you ploughed on ahead, “is, well, something that can come off a bit more serious looking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Saying the word boyfriend won’t jinx you into permanent silence, you know. You need a boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend for a day,” you agreed contemplatively. 

She picked up the invitation to look through it carefully and after concluding her inspection, she slapped the papers back down on the table, grinning. “Matthew it will be then!” 

Your younger brother, Jake, recently signed his entry-level contract with the Calgary Flames, in a way carrying forward the family tradition of starting a career in professional sports with them. Your grandfather did, your father did and now, here you were watching your little brother take on the mantle. Your family’s involvement in sport and, specifically, the team meant that you were somewhat familiar with the organization whether that meant attending home games or a few events arranged by the team. You couldn’t say you were the best of friends with them, certainly nowhere near the level your brother was, but generally speaking you were fond of the C of Red. 

That couldn’t also be said about Matthew, however.

It seemed that from the get-go, there was a personality clash between you. At first, you thought it was just Matthew picking on you, joking around as he disagreed with virtually anything you’d say but progressively, you were pretty sure the two of you didn’t even have the compatibility to keep things civil. Matthew had a way with pushing your buttons and it bothered you he could do that with so much ease, though the more you thought of it, the more it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you: you were all too familiar with his on-ice shenanigans, after all. Whenever you knew you had to be under the same roof as him, you’d tell yourself to not let him get under your skin but that resolve would last for all of ten minutes. Fifteen if you had a particularly good day. 

Much to your chagrin, it seemed your brother was closest to Matthew. Though you offered the spare room in your apartment, your brother was so warmly welcomed by Matthew. It was no doubt even Jake found your annoyance with his teammate entertaining.

The thought alone was frustrating enough. If one day, by chance, you caught sight of a white strand of hair on your head, you were dead set on blaming Matthew for it. Matthew and his smarmy attitude; Matthew and his smartass retorts; Matthew and the smirks he threw your way whenever your brother took his side, outnumbering you. 

You clenched your teeth, glaring at the invite. From the corner of your eye, you saw Anna’s outstretched hand holding your phone out to you. A groan formed in your throat and you wished you kept in contact with the handful of guys you tried dating after Josh. None really stayed. Or better said, none managed to draw you in. It was as if Josh had put a jinx on you. If that was the case, you hoped that this whammy would disappear if it meant watching him watch someone else walk down the aisle towards him. 

Anna waved the device at you insistently. “Do it. Come on. Even you know nothing says fuck you like turning up there with Matthew. Scrappy when he wants to be and he’s not bad to look at either. You know it.” 

You arched an eyebrow up at her. “More than Johnny?” 

She flushed visibly. Johnny and Anna were still a relatively new thing, dancing around their relationship carefully as if they were both doing this rodeo for the first time. It was pretty cute. “Don’t change the subject.” She placed the device down on the table in front of you then patted your shoulder. “I have a feeling you won’t regret it. If he gets on your nerves too much, well…it can’t be worse than watching your ex get married, right?” 

“Ouch,” you winced, but chuckled, knowing you were defeated. Matthew was the last resort, and you knew you were at the bottom of your list before you even started going through it. “You do realize if he declines, I’ll probably make a start on packing my bags and moving to Montana, right? The only time you’ll hear from me is when my handwritten letter goes through the nine circles of hell that is our postal service.” 

Anna fixed you with a stare that could only read as ‘do it’. “I wouldn’t be so insistent on this if I knew Matthew would say no. I have a feeling he’ll surprise you.” 

With a heavy sigh, you unlocked your phone and scrolled through your list of contacts, thumb hovering over his name when it came up. Anna wasn’t wrong: Matthew wasn’t bad to look at all, that much you could admit. But god, if he turned you down…. you knew you wouldn’t be able to ever show your face in front of him or the rest of the team ever again. 

“I think I’ve had enough surprises from him to last a lifetime,” you mumbled but tapped the call symbol anyway.

He answered on the third ring. “Hel—

You didn’t let him finish. “I need your help,” you ground out, eyes closing while you rubbed at your forehead with the tips of your fingers. 

There was silence on the other end of the line that had you biting your lip in anxiousness. You shouldn’t have done this. You really shouldn’t have done this. All it would take would be just hitting the ‘resume my account’ link on one of the dating apps you signed up for a while ago. Someone was bound to be attracted not only to you but the promise of an open bar—

“Music to my ears,” Matthew’s response came through. You could practically hear the smile in his voice and knew you’d regret it; you could easily tell from the tone of his voice. 

You sighed quietly, leaning forward to rest your elbows on the table, eyes glued to the invitation. Fuck it, you could get someone else; easily, no doubt. The world of online dating was vast and there would always be takers.

“Uh, yeah actually, never mind—”

“No, no. Come on, Y/N. Pretty sure this is the first time you’re calling me first so can we take a moment to just let that sink in?” Silence again, then a chuckle. “Okay, now that we did. How can I help you?” 

It wasn’t as if Josh had put you in the position to ask Matthew for a favor but still: fuck Josh, anyway. In a split second of sheer pettiness, you considered aiming to host the most extravagant, unforgettable weddings when your turn would come just to show him who does it better. 

“Are you free the third weekend in June?” you asked tiredly. 

“Don’t know. Depends what for and who you’re asking for.” 

You should’ve asked him face-to-face. At least then, he would’ve had the chance to see you roll your eyes, turn on your heel and walk away. “I’m obviously asking for myself. Could you just be straightforward for once and answer yes or no? You’re making me hold the line for longer than I anticipated and I’m happy to ask someone else,” you lied.

“Let me get this right—” Here comes, you thought exhausted. “You’re calling me for the first time since you have my number to ask me if I’m free the third weekend in June? As a favor for yourself.” 

“Matthew, I didn’t stutter—”

“What’s happening in June?”

You don’t know what it was about his words that downed you. It was nothing but a simple question yet the only thing you could think of was: the first boy I’ve dated and so far, the only one, seems to have moved on quicker than I anticipated and while I’m still trying to build myself back up, I’m sitting in my kitchen looking at a wedding invitation and wallowing in self-pity because regardless of how hard I try, of how much I’ve amended my standards, no one seems to do it so what if this is it for me? What if this is just the way it’ll be from now on? And now, I’m resorting to lying just to make myself feel better but also put a façade in front of someone who I know no longer cares about me like that. And really, nor do I about him but here we are. So, nothing much is happening in June, Matthew. Hopefully we get a lot more sunshine though!

What you responded with instead was, “just an old friend of mine getting married and I need a plus one. Nothing serious. Just go there for an hour or two, say some hellos and leave. It’s a quick in-and-out thing.” 

More silence on the other end of the line other than the muffled shuffle of what sounded like bedsheets. “Why not ask your brother then?” 

“Asked him already, said he’s got something lined up already. So, are you free or not?” you lied, quickly pressing on even if you knew that sounded a lot like desperation.

“For you, at a price.” He was smirking. You knew he was and more than ever, you wished 2021 was the year you could just reach through the phone and shake the person on the other end. 

“Uh-huh. Right. No, just forget it. Forget I even—”

You were going to end the call when Matthew laughed, quickly calling out a “no, no! Nothing weird, I promise. Just owe me a favor in return, is all.” 

“Do I get a choice?” you mumbled, more to yourself than towards him.

“I think we both know that you don’t. Text me the time and place,” he instructed and then, just as you were really about to end the call, he added, “hey, send me a photo of what you’re wearing also. I’ll match my tie to your dress, free of charge.” 

“Can you maybe ditch the jacket while you’re at it? Just want to make sure your tie’s within reach so I can strangle you with it.”

Even after you cut the call, Matthew’s laughter rang in your ears. 

-

Matthew matched his tie to your red dress. The color of the silk around his neck was so striking, you would swear it was made from the same material as your outfit. You sent him a photo of the material of the dress, more as a joke than having any expectations attached to it so you were pleasantly surprised to see he made the effort. For a moment, you allowed yourself to bask in sheer joy knowing that to any eye, the two of you could easily pass as a couple. At least, from looks alone if not from attitude. You were a proud person; fiercely so. Knowing you were now in debt to Matthew however he saw fit dealt a pretty impressive blow to your ego. You don’t let yourself linger too much on that thought, though. It was already difficult enough to loosen up and relax your stance as you climbed into Matthew’s car as soon as he texted you of his arrival. 

“You look good,” he commented after you fixed the seatbelt on. He turned in his seat as much as space would allow so he could look at you properly and in return, you arched an eyebrow, refusing to give way to his stare. “Are you trying to one-up the bride?” 

“Ha, ha. Funny. You didn’t even see the bride. I didn’t even see the bride.” 

“Didn’t see her but I’m seeing you, so,” he shrugged, by way of explanation before correcting his position. 

If asked, you wouldn’t deny that Matthew also looked good. Very good. But only if asked. It was impossible that someone with a face like that didn’t know they turned heads easily wherever they went. Matthew’s suit fit him as if it was sown on him. If the two of you had a better relationship, you would even dare ask him what it was he was putting in that hair of his that made it so shiny and gave those curls so much definition, taming them almost perfectly when he really put his mind to it. Whatever it was, you had a feeling he didn’t strain as much as you had earlier that morning to tame your hair and though you could give yourself credit for how well it turned out, your arms weren’t thanking you for it. 

Thankfully, much of the drive was pleasant. Though you hated small talk, you decided to make an effort if only to ease your nerves as the navigation system indicated you were drawing closer and closer to that glitzy hotel. You learned that although the season was over, Matthew, Brady and the rest of the family would spend a few weeks in Canada before heading back home to St. Louis. In turn, you told him that some of the days off you booked from work would be spent somewhere just as sunny and warm but with more beaches. It was safe ground. That, you could do although progressively, you were becoming more and more distracted, and less focused on the conversation the two of you managed to keep. 

“Want me to pull over?” Matthew asked suddenly. 

“What,” you mumbled, turning your attention from the road ahead to Matthew who seemed amused by the situation. “Why would I want you to do that?” 

“I’d want you to do that. You look pretty pale and honestly, I’ve just had the interior cleaned so—”

“Fuck you, Tkachuk, keep driving. I’m just a little…cold. How high do you have the AC on?” 

He fixed you with a stare while waiting for the lights ahead to turn green, eyebrow arched. “It’s June, Y/N, and uncomfortably warm. If it makes you feel better, though, I could turn it off and we can roll down the windows instead?”

“No, sorry—you’re right. It’s fine. Just leave the AC as it is.” 

The laugh he gave was nothing short of incredulous. “Repeat that back for me. Actually—hold on, do that when I can press record on my phone so I can have that on repeat. Did you admit I’m right?” 

“God, you’re making me regret inviting you,” you muttered though without heat. 

An uncomfortable silence slipped between the two of you or maybe, it was just your perspective on it. Matthew seemed perfectly at ease minding the road, only occasionally throwing a cursory glance towards the car’s navigation system whenever it announced a turn. Doing this seemed more and more like a bad idea. A terrible one. No one would’ve held it against you if you denied the invitation. In fact, you thought that was more expected than accepting it and turning up to the party as if you were seeing an old friend, not an ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t too late though. Matthew could still turn the car around. 

“Listen, Matt—”

“You have now reached your destination. Your destination is on the right.”

You released a breath you weren’t even aware of holding, then threw a quick look towards the main entrance of the hotel. Already, a few guests whom you recognized were crossing into the lobby.

“You really don’t look okay at all,” Matthew repeated and there was less humor in his voice and more concern this time around. Even you weren’t ignorant to how much your mood kept fluctuating over the course of the drive: often, engaged in conversation but occasionally, withdrawn, barely just catching on to whatever it was Matthew was saying. Sure, he probably didn’t know you well enough to read you, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out something was amiss. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I felt like there’s more to this thing than you’re telling me. You could’ve asked your brother, yet you didn’t—” 

Damn it. You made him swear to play along. You made a quick mental note to get back at him about it whenever you felt energized enough to do so.

“Matthew,” you said, your voice suddenly clear, tone neutral. You didn’t dare look him in the eyes so instead, you kept your stare fixed on the revolving doors ahead. “I’m only going to say this once and I hope that you won’t make me repeat it now or ever again. I’d prefer that you don’t mention it to anyone either. The person getting married today is my ex-boyfriend. Up until last year, we’ve been together since we were teenagers. I loved him. Since we broke up, I kept trying to look for parts of him in others, but I couldn’t find even a trace of who he was. I feel as I’ve been jinxed, and I felt that maybe if I come today, maybe if I see him with someone else, I can confidently say I’m fine with that. It hurt my pride when I received the invitation, so my first thought was to lie. If, for just a few hours, I can pretend I’ve also moved on and I’m not stuck in this…fucking weird limbo, then maybe it becomes true. A fucked up self-prophecy. So.” You pause, clearing your throat. Your mouth suddenly felt dry from your speech, yet you couldn’t feel a pang of regret in your chest or heat behind your eyes. “So. If you want out, that’s fine. After all, I’m asking you to pretend to be my date out of spite, I guess. And embarrassment. It’s childish and unfair and ridiculous but—”

You came to a halt when you felt a finger under your chin, and a gentle upward push forced you to raise your head up a little more. When you turned towards Matthew, you looked at him with a look of confusion on your face. 

“Keep your head up. We have a wedding to go to.” 

His encouragement sunk in faster than expected and as your expression relaxed, a smile formed on your face. 

Yeah. The two of you had a wedding to go to. 

-

The event hall was decorated minimally yet tastefully. It made everything seem even more personal and you received that impression from every detail: from the flower arrangements to the music, everything was a testament to a life united by love. Maybe your emotional outburst earlier accounted for it, but you felt lighter even as you watched the newlyweds glide along the floor for their first dance. Sure, you felt a desperate pang of want but it was distant. Muffled. 

Despite your initial thoughts, having Matthew at your side felt very much like a safety cushion. It surprised you to watch him settle into his role with so much ease that eventually, even you didn’t have to remind yourself to not withdraw whenever his arm wrapped around your waist: sometimes loosely, sometimes a little tighter, reeling you in closer.

Fish, here is your bait, you thought wildly as you stood tucked at his side while he accepted flatteries from one of the guests who swore had been a fan of the Calgary Flames since before he could even talk.

“You must be so proud,” the man turned towards you. “Your family’s truly one of a kind to have all played for the team and now—” He gestures towards Matthew as if to say all of this. “Must be something about those Flames!” 

You laughed tightly, just as Matthew squeezed your side. By that move alone, you could tell he was eating this up. 

“Yeah, just can’t get enough of them,” you concluded, pitching your voice just a little higher towards the end. To the man, it was as genuine as could be, but Matthew cautioned you silently with the slightest narrowing of his eyes, effectively warning you to be more realistic. “Hey, I’ll get us some refills? Try to be a little more inconspicuous in the meantime. Remember this isn’t your day,” you joked. 

“Only practicing for when our turn comes,” Matthew responded without missing a beat and released the hold he had on you. 

Once at the bar, you allowed yourself some extra moments to catch your breath. Even off ice, Matthew was a force to be reckoned with. He struck conversation with others easily, drew their attention with seemingly little effort and easily set the mood for whatever situation or person the two of you would run into. A part of you thought his profession had a lot to do with his mannerism, but a bigger part knew different:  mostly, it was really just Matthew. 

He had a way with words and with people that you haven’t been witness to before and couldn’t help but wonder if it was all show. He was, after all, a face for the public: familiar with interviews, familiar with the attention, apparently not overwhelmed even by less conventional questions. Watching him play this role was fascinating to say the least. It certainly took your mind off the circumstances so credit where credit was due. 

“Hey, it’s good to see you here.” 

You turned from the bar and came face to face with Josh. His jacket was off, and his sleeves were neatly rolled up past his elbows; behind the knot of his tie, you could see he’d undone the top button of the collar. You’d seen him make countless rounds across the entire floor, greeting guests and ensuring everything was running smoothly. Occasionally, you watched him dance either with his wife, or family members, or even guests you recognized as work colleagues. 

You smiled. “Thanks for the invite. It was a bit weird to receive it, I can’t lie about that, but I’m glad you sent it.” It surprised you to learn you weren’t even lying about that. Through the course of the evening, it dawned on you that maybe, it was more the thought of being here that made you anxious; the event itself, however, proved just how right you were. It felt…fine. You felt fine. 

“Yeah—uh, I wasn’t… I wasn’t really sure but, well, before…” He trailed off into a sigh. 

You chuckled softly. “Would you like to buy a vowel?” 

That made him laugh. Truly, genuinely laugh. “Sorry. I guess it’s a bit weird for me also. But, well, before you and I were, well, you-and-I, we were friends. I would’ve hoped we’d still be friends even after…” He waved a hand in the air by way of explanation but that was sufficient for you.

“Won’t hurt to be friends. Whatever happened between us—well. Thing of the past. Build bridges and get over them, right?” 

“Right. Function of a bridge and all.”

“Hey. Congratulations, by the way! I’m happy for you. Really. I wish the two of you all the best. She seems really great.” 

“She is,” he agreed and cast a glance towards the room, eyes undoubtedly searching for her. “Are you—”

“Here you are.” 

Saved by the bell. A weight fell around your waist that, by now, was warm and familiar. Unconsciously, you leaned into Matthew, flashing a wide smile at Josh. At first, he seemed surprised by the sudden appearance but then his features settled into something more comfortable; something so much like relief that for a moment, you wished you could just come clean about it. You and Matthew were less than meets the eye.

Before you could even introduce them, a kiss was pressed to your cheek, knocking all air from your lungs and almost making you choke because of it.

What the hell.

“You were gone for some time, so I thought to check on you,” Matthew informed you, all matter of fact. To Josh, he said, “congratulations on the wedding. Must be pretty great to finally get to this point. You two look great together.” 

“Oh? Yeah. Yeah, thanks man. So glad you could come along today.” Josh turned to you, an eyebrow perked in interest. “I didn’t know you two were together.” 

“Oh we’re just—” 

You began but were promptly interrupted by Matthew. “We like to keep it lowkey. It hasn’t been that long for us but that’s not much of a problem when your gut tells you this is it. You know it well, right?”  

You were entirely caught off guard. Instead of responding immediately, you bought yourself some time by taking a sip from your glass of—whatever it was. Strong though. Just perfect for the situation you suddenly found yourself in: ex-boyfriend ahead, fake boyfriend to the side, promising sweet nothings that you knew would come back to haunt you at some ungodly hour. You wished you could step on his shoe; pull on those shiny curls of his real quick, knock some sense back into him. There was a difference between play a role well and clearly, playing it too well.

Matthew pushed ahead. “It’s pretty good timing for us though. We could take some notes for when our turn comes, right babe?” 

“I’ll let the two of you to it, then. Thanks again for coming.” Josh made a move to step away but before he did, he turned to you and caught your eyes. “I’m really happy for you, Y/N. You look good together. Just make sure you don’t take too many notes.”

“Wouldn’t dream to,” Matthew responded, and you could read the slight bite in his words. When Josh was out of earshot, he looked down at you. “You dated him? Just him?” 

“Hey, what’d I say about not bringing that up again? And save your dick measuring contests for the locker room, Tkachuk. Now’s not the time nor place.” 

“Now’s definitely the time and place,” he countered, making you roll your eyes but there was a smile on your face you couldn’t quite wipe off. “Come on. Let’s continue taking leaves out of their book.” In one swift motion, he took the glass from your hand and set it on the bar while above, the LED lights dimmed, and the playlist switched to a slower song. 

You threw him a cautious look, easily reading where that was going. “I’m not dancing.”

“Sure, you are. You want to give the impression of being happily in love? You need to start pulling your weight in this thing.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Atlas. Do your shoulders hurt from carrying the burden of our relationship?” you mocked, yet still allowed him to lead you towards the dance floor. Right in the center of it given the bride and groom appeared to sit this one out; you expected nothing less from him. You weren’t even surprised when he made an entire show out of it, forcing you to do a pirouette when the two of you claimed your spot. 

“You can’t even imagine the pain you put me through,” he sighed near your ear as the two of you began swaying to the music. 

“Well, you’re still standing so clearly it can’t be that bad.” 

“Baby, it’s torture.” 

You were grateful the two of you weren’t exactly face to face or you were sure Matthew would never have let you live down the flush you felt rising to your cheeks. Sure, he didn’t use the pet name in a genuine manner, but just hearing it roll off his tongue like that… You stopped that thought before it grew into a whole new different monster. 

After a few moments of silence passed, Matthew lowered his head closer to yours, his warm breath colliding with the skin on your throat. “Do you think now’s the right time to kiss? Are enough people watching?” 

You stepped on his foot. Not hard, but just with the right amount of pressure to draw a wince from him. Satisfied, you leaned back just a little to look at him properly. “Don’t even think about it, Tkachuk—”

“Thought about it already.”

Through clenched teeth, you hissed, “you. Are. Incorrigible.” 

He raised his eyebrows, surprised. “If only you could meet yourself.” 

You snickered quietly then leaned back against him. “Thanks for doing this. I know it’s not the most convenient of things… and it wasn’t fair to tell you the full truth of it right on the day of. But—well, thanks.”

“That sounds like it was pretty difficult to let out. It’s very…. heartfelt.” 

“Just fucking accept it as I gave it to you, Tkachuk,” you complained, more amused than annoyed.

More silence followed, filled in only by the general buzz of the room and the slow melody. “And now?” Matthew questioned a short while later. You allowed an extended silence to fill in for your confusion. He picked up on it within seconds. “Do you still feel jinxed? Stuck in the same place while he goes on ahead in life?” 

You took some time to think through your answer, time during which the song faded into yet another slow one. Matthew didn’t give an indication of wanting to move away from the dancefloor, so you saw no purpose in you doing that. 

“Not really,” you concluded. “Just seems like we’re both following different trajectories. Doesn’t mean I’m left behind if I’ve not yet met someone to settle down with like he did. Maybe I just need to be here to come to terms with it. Good for him though. I’m genuinely happy for him and his wife. I think lots of people imagine going through this very same moment.” You ended with a shrug but then, to lighten up the moment, you added, “don’t mock me for it. Between the two of us, I’m the one with the pointy shoes.” 

Matthew laughed, a low, pleasant laugh right by your ear. “I’ll give you a free pass for what’s left of today.” 

“Your generosity astounds me. Please could you also sign my jersey?” 

“Is it my jersey?” 

“Why would it be your jersey when I have my last name printed out on one at the expense of my brother being roughed up a little?” 

“Don’t tempt me. That favor you now owe me? I might just use it to have you get my jersey so I can sign it since you so generously asked.” 

“Your call,” you shrugged. “Just know it’s going straight in the wash right after you scribble on it.” 

Matthew took a few small steps back, only to pull you back towards him. You played along and spun as you landed into his hold once again.

“You say that now, but when you’ll see yourself with it—”

“I’ll auction it on eBay.” 

The laugh you got out of Matthew stayed with you through the rest of the night and like never before, his good disposition easily transferred to you.

two.

When the elevator doors slid open, your brother and Johnny weren’t the only ones to step into the hotel lobby. Matthew accompanied them, flashing a smug smile as the trio approached and his eyes landed on you. You cast a quizzical glance from your brother, to Johnny, to Matthew and then looked towards Anna as if to ask are you seeing this? She only shrugged at you in silent response, though she was grinning from ear to ear. At least someone was certainly enjoying this.

“Last I remember, there were only two of you,” you commented.

“Was that before or after your third drink?” your brother chirped back.

Instead of humoring him, you shift your gaze to Matthew. “What gives, Tkachuk? Can’t be left at home unsupervised during family vacations?” 

“My house training has only gone so far,” he responded smartly, then nodded his head towards Anna and Johnny who were caught in a half-hug, apparently entertaining by watching you and Matthew bicker as if watching a tennis match. “They’re not family.” 

Anna feigned a gasp on your behalf. “Y/N and I are part and parcel, Matt. Thought you’d know that by now.” 

“Well, the three of us are part and parcel also, Anna. Thought you’d definitely know that by now,” he responded but you were already leading the way out of the hotel lobby and towards the busy square outside.

It was a hub of activity: from street vendors to dance and music performers, there was something to see regardless of which way you looked. Although you arrived at your holiday destination the previous day, the flight south coupled with the warm, sticky evening made you want to steer away from the busier parts of the town. Instead, you opted to lounge by the pool with Anna, having perhaps one too many cocktails to kickstart your vacation. Perhaps you missed Matthew’s arrival at some point then, though for the life of you, you couldn’t remember anyone mentioning he’d come along also. Not that it bothered you greatly.

Since the time you asked him to be your plus one some few weeks ago, the relationship between the two of you warmed slightly. Sure, he still knew which buttons to press to get a reaction out of you, but you saw it as being less ill-intended and more good-natured fun. You kept up with him easily and whenever it felt as if he was cornering you, you conceded with a roll of your eyes but never admitted defeat. You didn’t consider the two of you friends, but something changed on the day of the wedding right around the time you had spilled out your feelings about the entire deal to him. Looking back on it, you found it strange just how easily you did that, no second thoughts, no wishing for takebacks. You knew you owed him the truth given the position you put him in without plenty of heads-up, but you could’ve easily just simplified the entire thing. 

It wasn’t difficult to stick together as a group but eventually, you wandered off towards a few stalls on your own that have caught your eye. Though you wanted some more time to have Anna to yourself, it was technically her first vacation with Johnny. You could catch up with her later in the room; surely, she’d have even more swooning to do over him by then. Not that you blamed her. Johnny was an incredible guy. 

First, you stopped at a stall selling a range of baked goods that you simply couldn’t turn away from. And for good reason: the sour cherry churro you settled for was a dream come true. From there, you strolled towards a few small stores selling a range of products ranging from colorful graphic tees to earrings made from vibrant, colorful gemstones. You held a blue pair next to your ear, turning one way then another to watch as the light reflected off the gleaming gem. 

“Those suit your complexion,” the attendant commented and when you looked towards him, he smiled bashfully. 

A gentle heat crept up your neck, unable to keep the grin off your face but you couldn’t look away from him: his skin was lightly tanned, and a dusting of freckles covered the bridge of his nose and upper cheeks. His blond hair was messy in a way you could easily tell was styled to appear as such. He was cute in a sort of conventional way, but you liked the way he smiled at you, all shy but certainly genuine.

“Funny you say that. I always had a feeling blue was my color,” you responded, and his smile widened. 

“Here for vacation?” he asked. 

You nodded. “Yeah, I just got here yesterday, and I’ll be around for a few days,” you added, a little hopeful. 

Hey, if you could score some good company while in the area, then you weren’t going to turn down the opportunity to flirt a little and make good with someone more local.

“Good. That’s really good to know.” He regarded you for a moment and you were certain that caused your blush to deepen though at the same time, it made you feel a little…exposed. “Hey, are you free—”

“The red ones are nicer.” 

You squeezed your eyes shut, frustration quickly replacing the feeling of near euphoria. You could recognize that voice anywhere. Of all times he could have run into you, the universe fixed it so he popped up when you least needed that to happen. 

“I prefer the blue,” you countered, then held them up against your ear again though you knew you didn’t need to double check if they suited you. 

“No, trust me with the red,” Matthew insisted, and you saw him appear behind you in the small circular mirror you were looking into. He was so close. “Goes well with that little number I got you the other day.” 

You sputtered. “W-what?! Stop messing—”

In the mirror Matthew’s eyes flicked from you to the attendant. “Yeah, you know the one. I left the box on the bed in our room, thought to surprise—”

“Tkachuk, just shut up. There isn’t an our room—”

This was so painfully uncomfortable. So frustratingly annoying, you felt the blood warm in your veins, that familiar wave of anger coursing through your body.

“I’ll ring those up for you,” the attendant said, his voice carefully polite while he accepted the red earrings from Matthew’s outstretched hand. 

You hated him. Passionately hated him. It was easy for Matthew to play games like those because he could easily get just about anyone, but you? It wasn’t quite as easy to not be a pro-athlete who had pretty much everything lined up and going for them. You tried catching the store attendant’s eyes again but he was busy accepting the cash from Matthew after packing away the earrings in a small paper bag. You knew he wouldn’t catch sight of it, but it didn’t stop you from casting a longing, apologetic glance towards him before leaving the store. 

It felt as if for every two steps you took, Matthew only needed one and despite the crowds, he caught up with you easily, holding out the bag towards you while you powered ahead. 

“Come on, don’t be mad. The red ones are definitely better than the blue ones,” Matthew tried to reason with you while holding the hand stretched out to you, insistent on his offer. When you didn’t respond and instead, tried to rush further ahead, Matthew pressed on. Him managing to keep up with your pace only added fuel to the fire. “Don’t tell me you’re upset over Ron Jon back there.” 

You came to a halt, turning to glare up at him. “I am, Matthew. You didn’t need to do what you did back there. There was no reason for it. It was shitty of you, and I need you to back off while I try to enjoy the rest of my night.” You clenched your jaw, trying to suppress the overwhelming feeling of anger that normally resulted in tears. “You could at least pretend to be sorry about it.” 

With that, you turned on your heel and squeezed your way through the crowds, ignoring Matthew’s calls to stop and come back and that he was only joking. 

Too late for that, you thought bitterly, making a turn towards a street popular for its dining and bar venues. 

-

The part of the archipelago more popular with tourists was truly a sight to behold as the sun went down, coloring the sky in some of the warmest, most calming shades of orange, red and yellow you ever saw. It seemed as if everyone gathered on the promenade, phones at the ready while taking photos of the sky, selfies and group shots. Even you couldn’t resist it and after taking a few well-centered selfies, a passing couple offered to take your photo which you immediately posed for. 

Later, once the sight sunk in, you moved towards a nearby bar, first attracted by the pink, purple and blue neon lights and then, the music. A good cocktail, good music and a gorgeous sunset were all it took for you to feel more relaxed, leaving behind the event from earlier. He wouldn’t be the first cute guy you’d see, nor the last and indeed, it was easy for you to settle in the more crowded area of the locale where people were dancing either solo, with a partner or as part of a group.

Not long after you weaved your way onto the dancefloor, you felt a pair of hands settle on your hips, drawing you in. You went easily, accepting the embrace, accepting the way you were being led into the dance, swaying your hips along with his. You didn’t even miss a beat when he spun you around, but you kept your hands pressed against his shoulders, rather than wrapping your arms around his neck. You were tipsy, no doubt, and admittedly felt touch-starved but you weren’t quite in the mood for anything more. You even dodged his mouth when he tipped his head down to your lips so instead, he landed a kiss on your cheek. Still, he was pretty relentless. The dance took a turn that was significantly more sensual, crossing a line into discomfort, and you felt that was your cue to try and remove yourself from him. It was easy initially. You threw him a small smile and when he caught hold of your hand, you simply motioned you were only going to get a drink, hoping that would keep him where he was with the knowledge you would return. 

When you finally pulled away, you made a bee line towards the exit of the venue but again, you were a step too slow. The guy caught you just at the door.

“Where are you running off to, pretty?” he slurred, his voice louder above the thumping of the music. 

“Oh—Um, just getting a breath of fresh air, is all,” you said quickly and immediately wished you didn’t venture off in a place like this alone. It was as if you suddenly forgot everything that was common sense, pushed towards it by earlier frustration. 

“Doesn’t look like it to me.” He frowned, but there was no clarity in his eyes. He was entirely out of it and his fingers squeezed painfully around your wrist. You flinched visibly, squirming under his touch and even if you tried pulling your arm away, it was useless. He overpowered you even through the drunken haze. “Wanna go? Fine, then let’s go together.” 

“No—uh, I’m actually here with my friends. I’ve just—I saw them so I’m going to catch up with them. They must be looking for—”

“Then we can go to them together, sweetheart. Here, point them out to me.”

“No, really. I’m going to them alone,” you emphasized and put all your force into trying to free your hand. It may have taken him by surprise that led to his loosened grip, but as soon as you turned on your heel, you found out there was more to it than just that.

You almost faceplanted right into Matthew’s chest when you tried making a run for it. He stood there, eyes flicking between you and the guy with an unreadable expression on his face. Your heart was hammering wildly in your chest and instinctively, you almost glued yourself to his side. It wasn’t the first time someone tried to force a move on you, but it was the first time it was done so in such a thoughtless, drunken manner. Perhaps your fear was also enhanced by being alone in an unfamiliar place. To see Matthew this time felt like a blessing.

“Babe,” Matthew said by way of greeting, pulling you to him when he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. 

You didn’t realize you were trembling until you stood so close to him, legs suddenly feeling like jelly in front of your salvation. Matthew could easily overpower the guy; even if they were roughly the same height, there was a big difference between the body of an athlete and the swaying one of a drunk guy. Still, it didn’t mean you wanted Matthew to get caught up in anything he’d later regret or would affect him in any way, so you pressed a hand to his chest trying to put some pressure into guiding him away from the scene.

“She yours?” the drunk guy slurred, head tilting back, chin pointing towards your general direction.

“Yeah. So, guess that makes the situation even worse for you,” Matthew responded. His tone was light, seemingly non-threatening to someone who didn’t know him but you did. You knew him and you could read him crystal clear in this moment. 

“Matthew, please,” you muttered, looking at him almost desperately while trying to put all your body weight into guiding him away. 

The guy scoffed. “You’ve gotta do better than that, buddy.” He snickered. “You’ve gotta keep ‘em on a tighter leash unless you want them to go—”

Matthew made a move towards him, but you quickly stepped in front of him, essentially forcing him to halt. “Matt, please. Let’s go, okay? Please. I really want to leave. Right now.” 

He glared at the guy for a moment longer but the hard look in his eyes softened as soon as his gaze fell on you. You took the liberty of placing most of your weight against Matthew, allowing him to remove both of you from the situation and towards a less crowded area. That was easy to find: with the sun having long set, most of the crowds cleared away from the promenade so there was plenty of space for you to collect yourself in peace. 

He didn’t pry into the situation, didn’t even make any smartass comments. Instead, he let you slip away from under the safety of his arm while you pace around a small area, trying to work off the anxiety as much as you could. You had to count your breaths, remind yourself to breathe in then out slowly. You were okay. You were far from that guy, and he couldn’t hurt you. At least, no more than he already did. Your wrist felt a bit sore, but you’d take that over anything worse. 

“You okay?” Matthew asked at last, tone careful. “I can go back there and pull him out, you know, get him to apologize.”

“No!” you said loudly, desperately, then cleared your throat and lowered your voice. “No, don’t go. Please. I just need a moment, that’s all. Just a little. Could you not leave? I’ll be fine in a moment. Just—just need to catch my breath—"

“Hey, hey—relax. It’s over. He can’t put a hand down on you now, or ever.” Matthew took a few steps closer to you as if apprehensive to approach you in the first place. You knew what you must’ve looked like: pale, still shaken by what happened. He held a hand towards you, palm up. “Can I touch you?” 

You looked from it to his face, then said, “don’t get any funny ideas,” but it lacked your usual punch. You took his hand though, letting yourself be drawn to him. Matthew smelled like the sea. You couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he’d gone down to the beach earlier to take a dip. You wished you did that rather than try and drink your frustration over missing out on a random guy. God, you could sleep right here if sleeping while standing was a thing. “I’m sorry for reacting the way I did before—with, uh—what did you call him?” 

Matthew chuckled, a low, deep chuckle. “Ron Jon.” 

“You’re awful, Tkachuk.”

“And you have a funny way of expressing gratitude.” 

“Sorry—”

He laughed louder. “I’m messing with you.” A pause, and then, “I’m sorry I rained on your parade earlier with the guy back then. If you really liked him…” He trailed off, as if to let you fill in the sentence for him.

You laughed weakly, waving a hand dismissively. “Thanks. Again. Seems like nowadays, I just keep having to thank you for one thing or the other.” 

You felt him shrug. “Fine by me. You keep adding to these favors you owe me.” 

“It’s only one. Well. Two if you want to be a dick and count this one too.” 

You took a step back, detaching yourself from him to run both hands through your hair. You felt exhausted, drained of energy yet relieved. Who would’ve thought you’d be pleased to see Matthew pull another one of his appearing out of the blue acts?

“You give me no other choice but to be one,” he joked. “Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. Everyone’s wondering where you were, so you kind of lost your right to vote on dinner for tonight.” 

You sighed heavily. “Let me guess: you all ganged up on me in my absence and settled on lobster?” 

Matthew grinned. “Can’t vacation in a seaside town and skip out on that.” 

“Ugh. Sea critters.” You pulled a face, drawing yet another laugh from Matthew. It made you feel oddly accomplished but you cut that train of thought there, forcing it to derail elsewhere, to place more familiar to you, more comfortable. “Matthew, I mean it when I said thank you. That was—it was scary,” you admitted as the two of you started walking back towards the hotel. You pulled your wrist into your hand, rubbing at the skin gently. Focused on the road ahead, you missed Matthew frowning down at the gesture. “I don’t know how that happened. It’s just—it’s not my thing to do. Go out alone, especially in a place like that. Good instincts by the way,” you tried to joke but it fell flat.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, voice tight. “I don’t want to think about it again if I can help it.” 

You cast a confused stare in his direction but by then, it was his turn to look ahead, a frown marring his features. You didn’t push any further though. 

Later that night, after you and Anna decided to call it a day and switch off the lights, you lay in bed glancing a look up at the ceiling above. You didn’t think back on the evening’s events but rather, thought back to how a familiar small brown paper bag was taped to your room’s door before dinner. Anna had fixed you with a knowing stare as you plucked it off the door, tipping its contents into the palm of your hand. 

Then, you thought how during dinner, Matthew had claimed the seat next to yours and complimented the earrings you wore, remarking how awfully familiar they seemed though he could swear he didn’t know where from. For the first time, you had an inside joke to share with him and neither of you bothered to offer any clarifications to everyone else around the table as they tried to press for details. 

three.

The Flames’ first game of the season was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas and with a few days left of vacation, you couldn’t skip on the opportunity to return to the city you were inexplicably fond of, as well as watching your brother play on the third line. The night promised to be unforgettable, and you wouldn’t miss it for the world. Although there were plenty of things to keep you busy throughout the day, your eyes would occasionally wander down to your watch, counting down the hours until the start of the game. It seemed like most of the city was doing the same.

Often, you’d spot handfuls of people donning Knights jerseys and occasionally, there would be a few Flames fans wandering the streets and locales. You’d only spotted one person wearing your brother’s jersey but that was more than enough for you – he was a fairly new face in the professional league, but he certainly pulled his weight during every shift he had on ice whenever given the opportunity. Luckily, you managed to take a quick photo of their back before they disappeared into the crowds, sending it to your brother along with a thumbs-up emoji. 

He didn’t respond immediately, nor did you expect him to. You could only imagine how quickly he racked up pre-game nerves and he had a pretty strict routine, which included avoiding his phone until after the game. You couldn’t really make sense of superstitions even if each member of your family who played, whether professionally or otherwise, had their own. Naturally, you were surprised when your phone pinged, indicating a new message almost half an hour later. Except, it wasn’t quite who you were expecting.

Matthew is that your way of saying good luck?

You frowned, but all it took was a little more attention on your part to notice you hadn’t sent the message to your brother but rather, to Matthew. Lately, he was one of your top contacts for frequent messaging.

You wrong number

You good luck to you too though, i guess :/ 

Matthew busy?

You don’t you have practice to get to?

Matthew [attachment: photo of an ice rink where a few players were captured in motion]

Matthew [attachment: photo of his skates, taken from the players’ bench]

Matthew on break, where are you?

You hanging around

Matthew what are you wearing? 

You [emoji: middle finger] 

Matthew ice cold

Matthew nice, i can handle ice cold

You then go handle ice cold so you don’t get handled tonight

Matthew wish me luck too

You i already did

Matthew i need it twice, it’s my superstition 

You that’s a bullshit superstition

Matthew if we lose tonight, it’s on you

You [emoji: angry face]

You good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Matthew :) 

You dropped your phone on the table with a low groan, slouching in your chair. From across the table, Anna shot you a confused stare which quickly morphed into understanding when you rolled your eyes, shooting your phone a look of frustration as if the device itself was to blame. 

“Anything interesting?” she asked in a singsong tone. 

“If you count Matthew being his usual self interesting, then that’s what’s up. Otherwise, nothing new.”

“By his usual self, do you mean engaging? Funny? Witty? So good with his words that he yet again takes your attention and keeps it while the rest of us, mere mortals, struggle to do that for longer than a few minutes tops?” 

You arched an eyebrow, somewhat amused. “All that – just empty words.” 

Anna leaned back in her seat, taking her glass with her while twirling the straw, looking ahead somewhat thoughtfully. “You know what the two of you remind me of? Those two kids in the playground who think love can only be expressed through pulling hair and making snide remarks.” 

“First of all, that’s a shitty way of trying to get someone to realize you have feelings for them and second of all, love is a pretty big word. You managing to carry it okay?” 

“Okay, maybe not love. But like? It has to be like. Say what you want to say but it looks different from the outside.” 

“Okay, you keep staying out there and let me know what you’re seeing. I like your imagination. Very vivid,” you commented but there was no bite to your words and Anna threw her head back with laughter. 

You didn’t think much of your exchange with Matthew throughout the rest of the day, nor did you try to linger too long on Anna’s interpretation of your relationship with Matthew. You let it wash over you, knowing it’d give her too much satisfaction if you fretted too much over it and anyway, many of your thoughts seemed to fly towards the evening’s game. 

By the time the two of you made your way to the arena, however, you moved from anxiety to excitement within the space of mere moments, apparently. Even if this wasn’t your first rodeo and you’d been to countless games before, there was nothing quite like the thrill of an opening game. You and Anna had spaces reserved in the upper stands along with other family members and significant others but both of you chose to watch the warm-ups close-up, so you hung around by the glass at ice level. 

The Vegas Knights and the Flames stepped on the ice to a combination of cheers and the thump of a loud electronic mix. You spotted your brother almost instantly. He did a quick lap around the team’s half of the ice before pulling a puck towards him with his stick, sliding it this way and that before shooting it over towards the net. Once sufficiently warmed up, he cast a searching look around the rink and you quickly waved both arms up in the air to try and get his attention. You knew he’d spotted you, but he made an entire show out of looking over you until you smacked a hand against the panel. You knew the sound wouldn’t be heard over the general noise of the arena, but he still laughed. When he skated over, you held your phone up, giving it a quick shake and mouthing “selfie?”. 

He flashed a thumbs up and you quickly turned around to take the photo, but it wasn’t until you inspected it afterwards that you noticed you were photobombed by Matthew himself. You had every intention to look up from the screen and somehow try and get his attention only to glare at him, but he was a step ahead. You almost jumped out of your skin when you noticed Matthew standing right there by the glass, smirking at you.

“Asshole,” you mouthed, not daring to voice it out given you were surrounded by kids.

Matthew winked, skated to collect a stray puck then threw it up over the boards towards one of the kids standing right next to you. The kid was clearly thrilled by the gesture, bouncing up and down with the puck held over his head as if it were a trophy. You couldn’t help it: your heart melted at the sight, so you simply nodded once at Matthew, apparently just in time as the warm-up countdown reached zero.

You weren’t surprised the home team were putting on such a show for the opening night. There was a little bit of Vegas in every opening act: from the fireworks set off outside the arena to the showgirls and mind-blowing animations projected down on the ice, it felt more of a Stanley Cup playoff game than the start of a regular season game. This was Vegas and no one did it quite like Vegas did, you had to give that to them. 

Both teams were almost evenly balanced throughout the first period but stepping out of intermissions and into the second, the Flames started powering ahead. It was as if something had clicked together even better and they functioned as a well-oiled machine, both in offence and defense. By the end of that period, they were leading the Knights 3-2 and you were more than elated your brother had earned himself an assist. Like all games, tensions formed quickly, and the third period saw both teams play aggressively. On several occasions, you caught sight of players clearly chirping each other even while heading towards their respective benches after the end of a shift. Once, Matthew seemed to be involved in a seemingly endless yelling match with a player on the opposing team. There were more checks against the panels, an impressive number of penalties drawn by both teams, and it felt as if the atmosphere was just tethering towards a fight.

It happened right after the Flames scored the fourth goal with just two minutes left of the game. 

The moment the puck was dropped at center ice, you watched as Matthew charged ahead towards one of the Knights players who didn’t hesitate to drop the gloves. Between them, Matthew had the faster instinct, and he landed the first punch, effectively forcing both players to fall to the ice while the referees scrambled to try and split them apart. They were there a moment too late, just mere seconds after you caught sight of knuckles scraping along Matthew’s mouth on the big screens above. At first, it seemed to be nothing more than a graze but once he was separated and made his way towards the Flames bench, you noticed several spots of blood on his jersey on the screens above that made you almost jump out of your seat.

Sure, this was a familiar sight, but it didn’t alleviate the sheer shock and restlessness. Whatever had happened between them must’ve been a pretty big deal to set Matthew off the way it did. There was no way of sugarcoating it: the fight was vicious. More than ever, you wanted the period countdown to reach zero so you could go down to the lockers. It wasn’t just a few nagging feelings towards Matthew that led you to react the way you did. He was a friend, after all, so worrying for him was simply natural. An expected way of responding to a situation like that. 

“He had it worse before, remember?” Anna reminded you as you followed the small stream of relatives and friends down towards the players’ rooms.

“Still looked pretty bad to me,” you responded, briefly pulling your lower lip between your teeth. Before she could continue being the voice of reason, you added in a light tone, “I just want to see if he had any teeth knocked out of his mouth this time around.”

It took some time before the players filed out and as you watched them come out one by one, you almost wished you saved this for somewhere less…well, public. Sure, you were just a friend checking on a friend, but you wished you could do that without an audience. 

Your brother emerged first, beaming, no doubt pleased with the win, and you hugged him tightly, easily sharing his joy. 

“He’s just getting ready to come out now,” he informed you, heading nodding back towards the locker.

You blinked. “What? Oh—no, I’m just. I was waiting for you to say congratulations. What are you even talking about,” you mumbled but inevitably, your eyes were drawn towards the locker room as the door swung open and Matthew stepped out.

His hair was still damp but already curling again. He was dressed in the same suit he probably arrived in, a simple light grey number that fit him perfectly. He had his backpack on also and in one hand, he carried an apparently ice-cold bottle of water while the other was pressing an ice pack to the corner of his mouth. When you made eye contact, he frowned lightly and for a moment, seemed almost hesitant to approach you. This time, you were a step ahead and cornered him before he decided to walk away.

You nodded your head once, indicating in his general direction. “What? You’re trying to add to the family’s hefty dentist bill by getting a few teeth knocked out already?”

Matthew shrugged. “It’s not hockey without a few scraps now and then.”

“For a guy who got a goal and an assist, you sure don’t look too pleased with that.” 

At that comment, Matthew’s expression shifted, lightening up considerably. “Are you keeping track of my stats now?”

“What? No, Tkachuk. I was doing what everyone else in that arena was doing: paying attention generally speaking.” 

Suddenly, his entire face scrunched up in pain and he almost doubled over as he groaned. Instinctively, you reached out for him, eyes widening a little when bending down a little to try and look at his face. 

“Oh my god—Matthew. Are you okay? Do you need me to get a medic to check—” 

You frowned as soon as you felt his shoulders tremble under your touch. Slowly, it dawned on you he was laughing. Laughing. You slapped his shoulder lightly, the gesture more a tap than anything else and you started walking down the corridor quickly, trying to catch up with everyone else as they filed out of the arena. 

“Hey, hey, wait, Y/N! Come on, don’t be mad,” he called out after you and you heard him jog to catch up with you. When he did, he took a couple more steps ahead then stepped in your path, walking backwards to match your pace. “I was only messing around. I couldn’t not do that. You should’ve seen your face, honestly.” 

“My face? Hope you’ve seen yours. I’m not mad. Me being mad would basically mean you managed to get to me which you really didn’t, so don’t give yourself any credit, Tkachuk,” you responded. “You just reminded me you’re still a dick so thanks for that.” 

“Give me a free pass. I’m injured.” 

“If you’re searching for sympathy, you’re looking for it in the wrong place,” you informed him, side stepping him so that he resumed walking at your side instead. After a few moments of silence, you conceded with a sigh. “Seriously speaking. How’s your mouth?”

“Don’t think I’ll need fillers, let’s just say.” He removed his hand from his mouth, and you looked over. 

Thankfully, it seemed that putting ice on it quickly was paying off. The area was somewhat red, but no significant damage seemed to be visible to the untrained eye. He was certainly miles better than he was just months ago. 

“Looks okay, I guess,” you shrugged. “What happened? Honestly, it looked pretty intense from the outside.” 

Matthew didn’t respond and you didn’t press him for details even after you stepped out into the balmy Vegas night. If he chose to not share with you, then you guessed it must’ve been either pretty personal or pretty stupid. You leaned more towards the former. You didn’t even complain when he followed you to the car you hired, claiming the passenger seat. Before you also stepped inside, a message pinged in from Anna informed you she had taken off with Johnny for dinner but promised to be back in the room in a few to catch up.

You didn’t start the engine when you fixed your seatbelt and instead, leaned your head back against the rest, watching a few other vehicles pull out of the car park. In his seat, Matthew was looking out of the window to his left, heading resting against a loosely formed fist propped up against the door. 

“He was talking shit about you,” he said at last, but didn’t turn to you when he spoke. 

“Who was?” 

“The guy on the other team. He made a comment about you towards your brother at the end of the shift. Something about… I don’t know, something crude, vulgar. Don’t really remember it.” 

You didn’t quite believe him on the last part, but you allowed it anyway. “Okay… Well, I don’t know the guy anyway, so it didn’t matter, Matthew. You should have let it slip by or left my brother to deal with it.” Then, out of curiosity, you asked, “why didn’t you?”

More silence. Occasionally, the muffled sound of a passing car would cut through it but it, too, would be gone in seconds.

“Because I couldn’t.”

You pursed your lips and your fingers clenched then unclenched in your lap. You placed your hands on the steering wheel, then dropped them away before settling them back on it after starting the engine. 

“Thanks, I guess. You just keep making me owe you favors.”

“You don’t owe me—”

“So, I’ll clear that now with dinner. Just please don’t tell me you’re going to need to be on a smoothie diet. I’ll feel bad eating something really good while you’re there with a strawberry and banana drink. Not that I’d stop eating though, just so you know. But it’s the thought that counts,” you said and finally, finally he chuckled quietly. 

“No smoothie diets this time.”

You sighed dramatically. “Maybe no smoothie diets ever?”

Matthew shrugged. He was still not meeting your eyes but that was okay. “Can’t promise that. Kind of comes with the job. Just in case though, I like the sweeter stuff more. Triple chocolate, Oreo pieces, peanut butter.” 

“Thanks, Matthew. I’ll file that under information I don’t care to know about.” 

“I’m injured. Show some sympathy,” he demanded without heat, finally turning to you. 

You cooed then reached out with one of your hands to pat his cheek lightly. “Aw, really searching for it in the wrong place.”

“I’ll make do with what I can get,” he allowed, and you could swear he leaned into your touch, but you tore your hand away before either of you got too comfortable. 

four.

Matthew called in his favor after a few of his teammates agreed where to host their Halloween party. 

“Kind of sounds like you’re the one asking for a favor,” you commented, planting yourself at your kitchen table while securing the phone between your ear and shoulder.

Matthew sighed on the other end. “Sort of. Who does a themed Halloween party anyway? The theme itself is Halloween.” 

“You’re not wrong about that. Could be fun though, a bit more unique. So, what’s the theme for this year?” 

“Couple outfits,” Matthew replied without hesitation. 

You stilled and were grateful he wasn’t in the same room as you. It took you a great deal more energy over the course of the past few months to convince yourself that Matthew didn’t attract you in one way or another. His looks aside, it was rare you came across someone who could easily keep up with your snide remarks and the more you got to know him, the more you realized that there was more to Matthew than just being a typical athlete with his share of well-deserved fame. He was funny, dedicated and undoubtedly, caring. You had some first-hand experience with the latter. After all, he didn’t owe you anything to make him obligated to jump into whatever weird situation you found yourself in.

You warmed to him little by little. If you found him attractive, well that was for you alone to know though it made everything just that more difficult. Thankfully, Matthew seemed pretty oblivious to it or at least, he was doing a good job at pretending he didn’t catch you staring at him on several occasions or the few times you took a discrete step back if it felt like you were too close to him. Knowing he was asking you to go together as a couple (pretend couple, you corrected yourself) only added to the difficulty of coming to terms with your…crush. 

Puppy love, you assured yourself. It’ll go as quickly as it came. 

“Y/N?”

“Sorry, still here. Guess it sucks another year will go by without the opportunity to bring out your Fortnite costume.”

“Oh, come on. I wouldn’t dress like a game character!”

“Matthew,” you warned.

There was a pause, then, “okay, fine. Maybe I would. So, can you come?” 

You shrugged, then remembered he couldn’t see it. “I owe it to you, don’t I?”

“Great! Hey, choose something good for us. There’s going to be a prize for best dressed and I have my eyes on it.”

“I think we can both agree my creativity will not let us down. I’ll text you my idea. You just make sure you actually stick to it, so I don’t end up looking stupid.”

“Don’t worry,” he started, “I won’t dump you on Halloween.”

“Good to know I won’t end up traumatized and have my favorite holiday ruined,” you said, by way of goodbye.

-

“Hey, spin around for me once. You look good. Blonde’s not bad on you.” 

“No color’s bad on me,” you responded but refused to entertain Matthew by complying with his request. Instead, you rang the bell to Noah’s apartment after the door didn’t budge when Matthew tried the handle. 

“Come on, just a spin,” Matthew insisted, nudging his elbow into your own then pressed the doorbell himself once again – hard, as if that would make it ring louder.

“Only if you dance for me and do the entire Greased Lightning choreography without missing a step.” 

Matthew feigned a groan and you shot him an amused look. Before you could even comment on that, the door opened, and Noah stood at the threshold. The ruckus from inside spilled out into the corridor and from what you could see beyond him, it was a full house of all sorts of characters. 

“Wow! Sandy and Danny! Finally, someone with really good taste,” Noah said by way of greeting and he looked towards you pointedly. 

You flashed him a grin. “Always a pleasure to exceed expectations,” you responded and stepped into his open arms, a clear invitation for an embrace that was shortly broken apart by Matthew.

“Hey, none of that man,” he said, pulling you back and easily holding most of your weight as you broke into a laugh that had you stumbling into his side. “I didn’t even get to tell her she’s the one that I want.” 

“Yeah, well, you better shape up ‘cause I need a man,” you responded, without missing a beat though you couldn’t help but replay his words in your mind. They sounded a lot like a broken record that you desperately wished to stop immediately before this…thing went way too far and spun out of control.  

You were both led towards a photo wall and if you had any nerves about striking good poses without at least some liquid courage first, all that vanished. To your surprise, Matthew easily took the lead initially, falling to his knees in front of you in an attempt to recreate the part where a smitten Danny fell before Sandy, completely and utterly overwhelmed by her presence. Despite it being difficult to control your laughter, you played along with ease. At first, you were simply grinning down at him but you couldn’t let all his in-character effort go to waste, so you turned, casting a glance down towards him over your shoulder. To your side, Noah’s flash was going off every few seconds as he tried to capture the two of you from the best angle, together with cheers of encouragement. For your second pose, you rested your arms on Matthew’s shoulders once he rose back to his full height and his hands held on to either side of your torso. Again, the flash went off and again, the two of you changed pose into something more casual: him, standing behind you with his palms on your hips while you place a hand on his face, grinning at the camera. The flash went off again and he whooped loudly.

“I’m never inviting both of you to a party with this theme again,” Noah muttered, feigning disgruntlement. “You can’t come into my home and kill it like that.” 

“Blame the one who came up with this idea in the first place,” Matthew defended, holding both hands up in the air in a gesture of innocence. 

It was true. The idea to dress as Danny and Sandy from Grease came to you fairly quickly. You knew the two were a popular go-to, but you enjoyed the movie greatly. Plus, it was a great opportunity for you to pull out a pair of red heels you invested a hefty sum of money into. And, well, admittedly there was something about Matthew that made you think he’d suit the role just fine. When you shared your idea with him, he was on board from the start without complaining or suggesting alternatives. You were grateful for that: when Matthew picked you up earlier, dressed in an all-black outfit, leather jacket and hair styled to rival John Travolta’s, you gave yourself a mental pat on your shoulder. If any photos would go up on the internet, you were pretty sure Instagram would be grateful to you. Certainly, you knew Chantal and Keith would get a kick out of it for sure.

“Guilty as charged,” you acknowledged. “I’m going to look for Anna. Catch you later.” You gave a wave to the both of them before making your way towards the hub of activity where couple costumes ranged from peanut butter and jelly to superheroes. 

She was fairly easy to locate, in part because she told you she and Johnny would dress as Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. The red, blue and gold of her outfit were unmissable even in a sea of costumes. As soon as she spotted you approaching, she made a beeline and wrapped an arm around yours.

“Tell me you and Matthew will recreate the entire You’re the One That I Want scene,” she pleaded. “Please tell me that at some point this evening, you’ll tell us to clear the dancefloor so the two of you can have your moment.”

You rolled your eyes, dragging her along towards a table hosting drinks and small bites. “There’s no moment we’re going to be having.” 

“Because you don’t want to or because you want to so badly that you don’t know how to ask him? I’m pretty sure he’ll say yes.” 

“Neither,” you muttered but even you’d be able to hear the lack of conviction in your tone from a mile away. 

To take your mind off it, you poured yourself a glass of red wine, taking a tentative sip from it. Across the room, Matthew had deposited his black leather jacket away and started making rounds around the room. You took a longer sip from your wine and looked away. 

Anna fixed you with a knowing stare which you refused to acknowledge, but she knew you like the back of her hand. “It’s okay to say you like him, you know,” she advised, and you hated the soothing tone she tried to take when saying that. It felt more pitying than anything, as if you hadn’t already had your share of disappointments in love—or, relationships better said. 

“Who said anything about liking him? He’s not bad to look at I’ll admit, but that’s where it stops.” You frowned, looking out of the nearest nearby window that gave a broad view of the city below. “That’s where I want it to stop,” you admitted, this time quieter. 

You were well aware that you were occasionally trying to look for a narrative that was most convenient for late night thoughts when you had the peace and privacy to think of him as you wished. The reality couldn’t be more different, though, and you knew that. Matthew was helpful to you before because he was good friends with your brother and eventually, you realized that it was just part of his nature. Beyond being successful, beyond his fame and recognition, Matthew was kind and funny and respectful. It was just that you didn’t give him the chance to before and now that you got to know him better, you suddenly realized that…what? You’d like the first man who gives you a helping hand? If that were the case, you should’ve gotten the memo sooner: it would’ve been easier liking the tech guy from work who once debugged your laptop.

It wasn’t doing you any good to try and look for a ‘but’ in every situation: Matthew is helpful because he’s good friends with my brother but it’s not like that should force him to act as if we’re romantically involved not once or twice or thrice but now, four times. Regardless of how you looked at it, that reeked of desperation. You were in that weird period in your life where it felt as if everyone around you was in a relationship, so maybe that mood translated to you. 

That’s right, you settled. That’s what was possibly behind these thoughts of yours. You found Matthew attractive – and what? So did plenty of other people. You saw him surrounded by girls after practice, after matches, while out. What you felt was nothing special. It felt easier to think of it that way, even if for a few hours to truly enjoy the party without having that lurking at the back of your mind. 

You mingled easily, danced with Anna, danced with other players’ girlfriends and wives, danced with your brother, even attempted a few traditional Russian dances taught by Nikita, Artyom and a few of their friends, that left you breathless by their rapid pace and intricate footwork. 

“I’m done!” you declared, breathless and almost swaying on your feet when another Russian folk song came to an end but thankfully, you managed to hold steady before you could catch a ride on the hot mess express. “Absolutely wasted. Knocked out.” You stepped away, tired but euphoric and dropped rather unceremoniously on one of the available couches pushed against a wall. 

“Having fun?” Matthew asked and there was a light flush on his cheeks you knew wasn’t from dancing. There was even just a slight slur to his speech.

“The most,” you replied, breathless, and accepted the drink he held out to you. You took a sip without questioning him what was in the glass, only to find out for yourself he was settling for harder stuff tonight. “But never let it be said that anyone can keep up with Russians because let me tell you,” you whistled quietly, “we’re a couple of steps behind. Plenty of steps behind, actually.” 

Matthew flashed a lazy smile and you briefly spared a moment to envy him for how kept together he remained despite being evidently buzzed. “’s okay. At least we’re the better dressed ones so we lose in style.” 

You took another sip from his glass, holding it out to him with a smirk. “Tell me about it, stud,” you said in what you hoped was a low, alluring tone of voice but no sooner did you think that, and you were reduced to embarrassed laughter. “Forget about that! Forget it, forget it! Where’s the delete button?” 

“I didn’t come equipped with that,” he declared proudly, finishing off what was left of his drink. “C’mere, you can show me a couple of those steps you learned.” 

He stood, a little unsteadily initially then held a hand to you. You knew he wouldn’t have the strength to pull you up properly, so you stood easily fully intent to actually lead him through some of the steps. Except, Matthew was definitely swaying more than you thought he would. There was something inexplicably amusing about the situation and instead of directing him towards the center of the room, you steered him away from it and towards a small bathroom you were shown to earlier that night when you needed some time to re-touch your makeup. 

“Where’re we going?” he asked curiously, looking over his shoulder towards the living room with a look that could only be read as longing. 

“To cool down a little and then you can learn as many folk dances as you want. Believe me, you need to be alert for them. Can’t miss a step,” you advised, trying to steady him by wrapping an arm around him though the difference in weight between the two of you couldn’t compare. Still, you managed to get him into the bathroom safely without either of you making a mess of yourselves or the room. 

“Are you gonna cool down too?” he questioned. 

“Sure thing, definitely need it.” 

“Good, we’ll cool down together.” With that, he made a move to open the glass partition for the shower cubicle but thankfully, you were significantly more alert than he was and managed to prevent him from doing anything more than that.

“Not that sort of cool down. Here, sit here,” you encouraged, lowering the lid on the toilet so Matthew could drop down. You doubted you’d be able to hold much of his strength above the sink if you were to help him splash some cold water on his face.

“But I want that sort of cool down,” he slurred. “With you. Us two. You said you want to cool down too. Could be a couple activity.” He grinned, as if proud of himself. 

Thankfully, Matthew was buzzed enough to miss the flush on your face, the slight shake of your hand as you arranged a towel around his neck to prevent too much overspill before turning the tap on. 

“Can’t do that, Matthew. Here, this will be much better, I promise.” 

“Wanna try though,” he mumbled but was still compliant as you pressed a wet, cool palm against his forehead, then either of his cheeks. “Not cool enough.” His complaint was accompanied by a frown which only morphed into a lazy smirk when he leaned back, trying to pull you with him. “C’mon, Y/N. It’s a couple’s Halloween night.” 

“Matthew, we’re not a couple,” you said gently, pushing your palms against his shoulders in an attempt to free yourself from his hold. Before it was too late. Before you allowed yourself to get drawn into a drunk man’s ramblings. 

“But I wanna be. A couple, with you.” 

You put all your strength into breaking away from his hold and thankfully, managed to do so. Your heart was hammering in your chest as if desperately trying to release itself from the cage of your ribs. 

“Matthew, you’re drunk. Here, splash some cold water on your face so you can come back to your senses.” 

“But I’m not drunk,” he insisted and as if to demonstrate, he stood up quickly. He swayed on the spot, stretching out his arms a little and once he found his footing, he looked towards you with an expression that mixed pride with hopefulness. “See? Definitely okay—”

You frowned, feeling a little caged in. You should’ve left the door open at least. “Okay, then let’s go back out there, yeah? I can get an Uber and I’ll take you home if you prefer that?” 

“Yes,” he said, then leaned back against the door. “Only if you come with me.” 

You exhaled, suddenly tired as if the exchange was working every ounce of energy out of you. “I’ll come to make sure you’re okay and can make it to your bed okay.”

“I can though. I can definitely make it there even on my own and you know why? Because I’m not drunk,” Matthew insisted and when you shot him a look of disbelief, he peeled himself away from the door. “Look, look I can prove it to you I’m not drunk.” 

Before you could even ask him to walk a straight line without stumbling his steps, Matthew’s arm wrapped around your waist while his other hand pressed on the back of your head, bringing you closer until your lips met. Kissing Matthew was like everything you imagined and more. He even did that with the same passion with which he skated on ice, chasing puck after puck. It left you breathless how well he worked his lips against your own as if all along, he knew how to do that in such way that it’d leave your legs feeling like jelly. Beyond that though, it felt comfortable. Not forceful despite him having not asked if he could do it in the first place, yet it still felt right. You tasted sweetness on his mouth and the sharp tang of whiskey. Vaguely, you knew nothing else could compare. It was that thought that made you push away from him with as much force as you could muster, ducking under his arm and towards the door. 

“I’ll ask someone to take you home,” you said without even looking his way before leaving dashing out of the bathroom.

“You okay?” Anna asked you when you ran into her. Quite literally. 

“Uh—yeah. No, actually. I think I feel a bit unwell so I’m going to head home, okay?” 

You made a move to leave but her arm stopped you. “Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Above her shoulder, you saw Matthew emerge from the bathroom, a little dazzled, eyes searching the room. Before he could even spot you, you quickly freed yourself from her hold and nodded. “Will be. I’ll text you when I get home. Don’t rush back, okay? Tell Alex I said thanks for the invite.” 

You didn’t stumble a step in your heels as you jogged towards the door, making a swift exit before you attracted even more attention.

+ one.

Matthew left no calls and no messages, but that was fine. You didn’t spend time trying to build your expectations of anything like that happening because drunk words weren’t always sober thoughts. The event was just something you had to deal with and if you had to do it alone, then so be it. Reasonably speaking, you and Matthew went from nothing to friends and if you caught feelings along the way, then that was your mistake for letting yourself slip like that. You were left broken hearted once, you really didn’t want to go through that again especially over someone that wasn’t even really and truly yours to begin with.

So, the next morning, you woke up at a reasonably early hour despite the late night but felt energized enough to sweep through your apartment and collect the garments you tossed carelessly on your way to bed after arriving at home. You said a heartfelt goodbye to Sandy, apologizing that in this scenario, her and Danny didn’t end up driving off in a red convertible. After that, you showered and changed in a fresh set of clothes even if the day would most likely be spent indoors. It was a fitting conclusion to the Halloween weekend, and you could do with some downtime, really.

Anna must’ve stayed with Johnny because regardless of how much noise you made, she didn’t emerge from the room and after fixing a quick breakfast and brewing coffee to continued silence, you knew you were right. It didn’t bother you. You’d make full use of the couch and stretch out on it properly as you flicked through your Netflix account and for the sake of sticking to weekend morning traditions, you selected a lighthearted sitcom. You were halfway through the third episode when your doorbell rang. You could’ve sworn Anna had a spare key of her own unless she misplaced it or forgot it home. Not entirely out of question.

Except, it wasn’t Anna who greeted you when you opened the door.

“Oh.” You coughed lightly, crossing your arms then unfolding them, then leaning one against the doorway before dropping it to your side. “Hey—uh. Hey Tkachuk, isn’t it a bit early for you to be out and about? You were smashed the last time I saw you.” 

Matthew looked over your shoulder into the apartment, as if checking to see if you were alone. “Can I come in?” 

Defeated, you stepped to the side and cleared the way for him to step inside before pushing the door closed. Part of you wished you’d dressed up as if you were ready to head off somewhere. You weren’t quite ready nor willing to face whatever music Matthew had in mind for you. 

In the aftermath of the party, out of the flashiness of the costume, Matthew seemed to be perfectly clear-headed despite the state you’d left him in. The curls atop his head seemed soft despite the natural frizz and as he passed by, you caught a whiff of sharp cologne and fresh bodywash. 

“Is Anna here?”

“Are we playing twenty-one questions?” 

“No?”

“Kind of sounds like it, though?” You laughed quietly, trying to lighten the mood. It was bad enough the weather outside was gloomy, autumn settling in full force. Now, you had to deal with a Matthew who looked as if he wasn’t sure he came to the right place. “Coffee?” you asked, already leading the way towards the kitchen. You heard him follow behind you just moments later. While you poured a full cup for him, he hovered by the table, making you frown at him. “What’s wrong with you? You need an invite to sit down and relax? Seriously, Matthew, you look like you should be in bed.” 

“You left last night without saying anything,” he said instead. 

“Uh—yeah. I was kind of tired and I wanted it to call it a night early so—”

“Was it because of what I said or what I did?” 

You almost dropped the coffee cup, but fortunately only startled enough for the liquid to slosh over the rim and down the back of your hand, causing you to hiss in pain. You cursed quietly and, in an instant, Matthew crossed over the room and took the cup from you, setting it down on the table before leading you towards the sink. As if used to this, he placed your hand under ice cold water and once the sharp pain numbed, you pushed his hand away, taking a step to the side in an attempt to put more distance between you. 

“It’s fine, I’ve got this,” you mumbled, holding your hand still under the jet for a few more seconds before closing it.

It was hardly worth the fuss, but it gave you a reason to make yourself busy with something other than freaking out. It couldn’t be that he remembered anything. It couldn’t be that he was standing in your kitchen, thinking that it was a good idea to just open up that subject when you were so ready to take a shovel to it and bury it six feet under. 

“Didn’t you get tired of it at all?” he tried again.

“Tired of what?”

“Of pretending. Of only acting like we’re together for one reason or the other—”

“Matthew, I asked you only once and you know why. I apologized then but if it helps you sleep better at night, I’ll apologize again for dragging you into my mess. I don’t know what the point is of this discussion—”

“The point,” he said, raising his voice but only to cut through your speech. “The point is that I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having to be by your side and pretend. It got to a stage where I don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t, and I feel as if the only time I’ll know that for sure will be when you find someone, so you no longer need to turn to me to pretend.” 

“Matthew, I’m not using you, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re coming at me with this out of the blue and I don’t even understand what this is all about,” you argued, waving a hand between the two of you. 

Matthew clenched his jaw. You watched as he flexed it and his eyebrows furrowed. “Do you need me to spell it out for you again? I thought I was pretty straightforward about what I want last night.” 

“You were drunk last night, is what you were. You could hardly put a foot in front of the other.” 

“You know that’s not true,” he retorts, lifting his arms then dropping them back down to his sides. “I was sober enough to know damn well what I said and why I said it. If you want to keep pretending even now, even at this point, then you go ahead and do that but let me be clear with you again and you take what you want from it: I don’t want to pretend with you anymore. I want to be with you. You want to know what that feels like? It feels a lot like being so close to something you want, literally having that thing dangled right in front of you only to have it snatched just when you think it’s yours. Me kissing you last night? I’m sorry I forced it on you, I could’ve gone about doing it differently but I’m not sorry for what I feel. That was all me and not the alcohol. So, you take this and do what you want with it.”

You stared at him, disbelieving your ears. It wouldn’t surprise you if that was the case: you did wake up surprisingly refreshed even after an emotionally charged night, so for all you knew, you could be dreaming this. 

“Matthew, what are you—That’s, you’re kidding me with this right? You can’t. You can’t possibly think that.” 

“And why not?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense. Are you even hearing yourself talk?” 

“Why doesn’t it make sense? Want me to go about it differently? If you let me pull your hair, I’ll let you push me in the sandbox.” 

You were suffering from a strange, ill-timed case of déjà vu. Part of you wanted to laugh at the situation but the bigger part of you triumphed, thankfully. You released a breath you had been holding, bringing both hands up to cover your face, taking some moments to yourself. Or perhaps, you’d lost track of time because eventually, you heard Matthew sigh and felt his fingers wrap around each wrist though he didn’t put pressure to tug your hands down from your face.

“Sorry. I’m just—I’m not doing this the right way. I don’t want it to seem like I’m forcing my feelings on you and that you should accept them. If I misread us—you at any point, then fine. Just, we can drop it here and I’ll deal with it but—”

You shook your head slowly. “No, I just need a moment. Sorry. You really caught me by surprise. I didn’t… I thought everything you said last night…what you did… I thought that was just, well, just the alcohol. So, I did the best thing I knew to do and, uh, left.”

“Drunk words, sober thoughts,” he reminded you quietly and this time, you dropped your hands away from your face so you could look up at him. 

He was so handsome. Ridiculously handsome in his casual clothes. Briefly, you thought back to the time you first found safety in his arms and wondered if maybe… Well, why not. You closed the distance between the two of you, wrapping your arms around him, fingers clinging to the thick material of his hoodie while you faceplanted against his chest and breathed him in.

You liked Matthew. You liked Matthew so much that the admission overwhelmed you so much that you squeezed him to you, trying desperately to bring him closer. The gesture seemed to prompt him into action, and he returned the hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head and then to the base of your throat once he’d lowered his head there. 

“Me too. I want to be with you too. Really be with you. No more of this pretend stuff,” you told him, your voice muffled against his body, but you knew he caught every word.

He chuckled, the sound low and deep, sending shivers down your spine. “We won Noah’s competition last night.”

“Bet he did it because of your long face,” you commented, unable to help yourself. “What did we win?” 

Matthew made a move to step back, but you clung to him, much to your embarrassment. It seemed as if your body acted out of sync with your mind, but who could blame it when Matthew stood right there, right before you. Turned out he only took a step back to lift you off your feet and instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his hips, arms resting loosely around his neck. You leaned in and pressed a fleeting kiss to his mouth as he stumbled away from the kitchen while you stole another kiss. And then, just because you could, a third. 

“A voucher to a seafood restaurant,” he informed you, breaking into a laugh when you groaned, throwing your head back in sheer frustration even if you had a strong feeling he was only messing with you.

“Remind me to never put so much effort if that’s what the stake are.” 

“Noted. Next time, I’ll tell you we could just stay home for Halloween and play by our rules. Outfits optional. Probably not recommended.” 

“That’s…really not what I said.” 

“I’m reading between the lines. See? We know each other so well.” 

You laughed as he carried you all the way into your room without even as much as breaking a sweat. That was definitely some food for thought at a later point.

[dykejake]

innate magic | chapter six

pairing: josh kiszka x f!reader

words: 2.1k

warnings: 18+! mentions of sexual interactions.

summary: you meet a man in a bar, who you’re pretty sure you recognize from the local trader joe’s. he says he doesn’t work there, but that doesn’t mean you two don’t hit it off.

a/n: thank you to everyone who has said y/n in this fic being plus size is important or special to them. that means the world to me, I love that you feel seen because I wanted to represent myself. much love.

as per usual thanks to @earthlysorrows​ & @fosterkidwiththebrokenjaw for proofreading, I adore you!

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

You were enjoying the casual friendship that you and Josh were sharing - two weeks had passed since you’d poured your heart out to him and cried on him, and he’d continued to be nothing but absolutely wonderful during that time. Texts, the odd FaceTime - never anything crossing the boundary between friendly and flirtatious. It felt good, and you were happy you’d decided to take this route with him.

He still loved voice notes, clearly, sending them to you at least twice a day. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t look forward to them every day. When your phone notified you that you had another from him, you excitedly opened it and hit play.

“Hey, y/n! My brothers and I are hanging out at mine this Saturday, thought maybe if you were free you wanted to join? They mentioned you, said it would be a fun time if you could come. Don’t worry, they know we’re focusing on friendship, I made sure to tell them. Anyways, I’ll totally understand if it doesn’t work, but just let me know!”

Your immediate instinct was to say yes - you hadn’t actually seen him in person since you’d cried on him, and you missed his bandmates almost as much as you missed him. But being actually with him again made you nervous. How would it go? Would it be weird?

You yelled down for your roomie, calling her over and asking her opinion. You knew what she would say before you even asked, but you wanted her genuine opinion anyways.

“You know what I’m gonna say, hun. You should absolutely go, have a good day. Aaaand, I mean, if you wanted to invite your roomie over…”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna go. As for inviting you…”

“No, you’re right. I’m still not over the they’re-in-a-band thing and I’ll make it weird. I will stay home while you go have a good time.”

You sent Josh a voice note right back, agreeing to the get together. He sent back four smiley emojis, and then nothing in the two days before you had plans.

Morning of the Saturday came, and you were feeling anxious. First you’d sent Josh a quick “we still on?” text message and received an almost instant “yep!” response with a smiley emoji. You pored over your outfit for hours, not wanting to come across as too desperate or confusing, just purely there as a pal. You settled on a pair of jeans and one of your favourite bell sleeve crop tops, smiling at yourself in the mirror. No makeup seemed like the best route, and your hair tended to just do whatever it wanted to so you left it as it was, then made your way over to Josh’s.

The way you were feeling on the walk there was mixed - the last time you had walked this, you had intended on never seeing Josh again. Now you were heading there again, seeing him for the first time in person since your heartbreaking discussion, and it felt weird.

You didn’t even knock before the door swung open to Josh’s smiling face, and you instantly were reminded why you had been drawn to him in the first place. The smile was radiant, enveloping you in instant warmth and comfort. You felt at home, even just as his friend.

“Hey, y/n. Thanks for coming over! Nobody else is here yet, so…”

“Oh.”

You felt yourself tense up instantly. The whole reason you felt comfortable being here was because there would be other people to offset the awkwardness. Now that you knew you were gonna be alone with him, you were…

He interrupted your cascade of worries with a gentle pat on the arm.

“Come on in, anyways, make yourself at home. I’m still making food, so you can keep me company if you want.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Your face was red as you followed him into the kitchen, the memory of being sat on his counter as he ate you out after having breakfast at the forefront of your mind. It felt weird being here again - after all, you had only been here to have sex and then break his heart - and now you were here as a friend. Just that, a friend.

He cleared his throat, pointing to a utensil on the counter. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind to pass me that quickly before this burns.”

“Sorry, I was fuckin miles away.” You quickly passed it to him and he smiled his thanks, then turned his attention back to cooking. On this side of the counter, you could help him, so you pulled yourself up to sit on the counter (actively pushing away the memory of sitting on his counter before) as he cooked.

“so… been good, y/n?”

“Yeah, been alright. Work’s work, y’know? Busy. It’s actually nice to have a night at someone else’s house where I don’t feel obligated to work whenever I have a spare minute.”

You were rambling, and you knew it, but he didn’t seem to mind. You were hoping that if you filled the silence with idle chit chat, he wouldn’t have an opportunity to get a word in edge-wise about, well, the state of your friendship. What you two were. How you felt.

How you still felt. Seeing him again hurt, actually, if you were honest with yourself. It was a direct reminder of the happiness you were not allowing yourself to have, that you were holding yourself back from.

But you couldn’t ask for him back. It was absolutely not fair to him to break his heart and then expect him to allow you back in. So, you would be thankful of the space that he allowed you to occupy in his life - as a friend, nothing more.

A friend. A fucking friend. You had to keep reminding yourself of that, keep the thoughts of him holding you, kissing you, fucking you out of your mind and exist as a friend.

You hopped down from the counter to retrieve something from the fridge for him, passing it gently to him as your fingers brushed. It felt warm, comforting, kind, and you tried not to think about it.

Finally the door opened and Sam and Jake walked in.

“Danny not coming?” You asked Josh, and he shook his head. “Nope, he’s got a date.”

“Just the three of us!” Sam quickly made his way over to you and hugged you, squeezing you tightly and rocking you back and forth. “Missed you, y/n. So nice to see you again, glad you’re staying around.”

Jake followed suit, hugging you sweetly but not near as tightly. You didn’t blame him - if someone had broken your twin’s heart but somehow managed to stay in their life, you’d keep them at an arm’s length as well.

The night carried on, the four of you sharing snacks and playing board games. Josh had quite the collection, it turned out, including some of your favourites. You were having a fantastic time, laughing and playing as strategically as you could.

You were in the middle of a fun game when everyone’s drinks were empty, so you offered to do the run to the kitchen and refill. You were standing in the kitchen, pouring water into your glass, when you heard a voice behind you.

“Hey, y/n.”

“Oh, hi Jake. Can I get you something?”

“Oh, no. I wanted to talk to you - just you - for a second.”

The colour drained out of your face and you could feel yourself getting anxious. He hated you, he didn’t want you here, he was going to tell you that you should leave and not talk to his brother again.

“Yeah, of course.” Your voice was shaky, but you turned to him.

“I’m not mad, or anything. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s fine. I just have anxiety.”

“Well, I promise I’m not mad. I won’t ask you to leave or anything like that.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t like that you pushed him away because of the way you feel about yourself. And don’t tell me that that isn’t exactly what you did, because it is. He is one of the nicest people I know, y/n, and I can say that is the 100% real and honest truth because I’ve known him for my whole life.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Jake. I feel terrible for doing what I did, I didn’t even think about it and I let my insecurity and anxiety get the better of me and hold me back from something great. I’m sorry that I hurt him, I will apologize and apologize and apologize until it’s enough, I will.”

“You didn’t let me finish, y/n. I don’t like that you did that, because it hurt him, but. You made him so happy. You still do. So if you’re looking for permission, or whatever, to ask for him back - you have it.”

“I don’t think it’s fair on him or his heart to do that.”

“I don’t think it’s fair on him or his heart to try and make that decision on his behalf. I think you should ask, and see what happens, because you make him happy and there is nothing he deserves more than happiness.”

With that, Jake turned and left the kitchen, leaving you alone with the four drinks and your own thoughts.

He was right, and you knew it. You also had the intense feeling that if you hurt Josh like that again, you would have Jake to answer to, and that was a slightly worrying thought. He hadn’t said anything along those lines, but it felt implied in the conversation.

You could hear muttering from the other room, and Josh poked his head into the kitchen mid sentence.

“Can’t believe he came here to help you with the drinks and then left without them, Jesus. I know I’m absent minded, but-“

He ceased his rambling after spotting you, eyes wide open and gripping the counter, lost in the chaos of your own brain.

“Uh… y/n?”

“This sucks.”

You were making a habit of this - speaking to Josh without processing what you were saying before actually saying it.

“The drinks?”

You turned to look at Josh, trying not to let yourself tear up.

“No, this. Being your friend.”

You watched his shoulders sag and his eyes go sad, then quickly rushed towards him as you realized the implication of what you had said.

“Being JUST your friend, Josh, JUST your friend.”

“Oh. Thank fuck. I thought you didn’t wanna be my friend anymore either.”

“God, I’m so sorry, I should’ve worded that better. Jesus Christ. No… Jake had a conversation with me.”

“So THAT’S why he forgot the drinks. He was being protective.”

“He just cares about your happiness, Josh. And apparently I make you happy.”

“Yeah.”

“And he… he wants me to ask for you back.”

“And is there a reason you aren’t doing that?”

“I mean, I’m trying to. I want to. I’m just scared.”

He softened, lifting a hand to brush your hair behind your ear, then gently took one of yours in his and kissed it.

“Of what, angel?”

“You saying no.”

He proceeded to press a kiss to each knuckle on your hand, as soft and loving as he could, like you were a song that he wanted to learn how to sing.

“No danger of that, my love.”

“Can I have you back, Josh?”

“Of course you can.” He pulled you close to him, capturing your lips in a tender and sweet kiss. You melted into his embrace, unable to hold back from letting tears stream down your face. Your arms wrapped around his neck to hold him to you, and you knew you never wanted to let him go.

He pulled away from your lips and pressed kisses to your cheekbone, your jawline, slowly down your neck, speaking in between every single kiss. “You. Are. Everything. I. Will. Ever. Want.”

taglist: @secretgvfstan​, @fosterkidwiththebrokenjaw​, @screechesincoherently​, @tlexx, @theweightofstardust, @godblessmarywanna, @weightofdreams-gvf, @prettyxvenomx, @fictional-duchess, @ascendingtostardust​, @agirlwithmanytastes, @earthlysorrows, @danny-wagners-peacesign-necklace, @fleetsonfire

[sour--disposition]

Damage Control

-

harry lewis x fem!reader

-

This is Part 2 to Bad Girlfriend, which you can find here

You looked down to your phone, rolling your eyes at the name and photo popping up on the screen. “Hello”, you sighed, answering the call and sitting back down on the sofa.

“Y/N…”, Ethan trailed off. “We really need to talk to you. Harry’s really not doing well and we don’t know what else we can do to try and help him”, he told you.

You let your head fall back against the back of the sofa, letting out a deep breath. “I know you hate me and the rest of the boys and Harry, but he needs you”, Ethan begged.

“Where are you?”, you asked heavily.

“We’re all at Harry’s”, Ethan told you. “Thank you”.

Within half an hour, you’d managed to navigate the London traffic that separated both yours and Harry’s apartments. You were still pulling the hoodie over your head when you walked into the lift and hit the button for Harry’s floor. Ethan was waiting for you outside of the front door, arms crossed over his chest as he paced around a small section of the corridor.

“Hey”, he sighed, a small ounce of relief seeming to wash over him.

“Where is he?”, you asked instead of a greeting. Ethan nodded, and motioned for you to follow him into the apartment. As you expected, he led you down to Harry’s room. You passed the living room, where a multitude of shoes and coats had been discarded, and straight into the bedroom where the rest of the Sidemen and Cal congregated.

You got a few looks from some of the boys as you walked through the group and made a beeline for Harry’s bed. “Hey”, you whispered, perching yourself on the side of his bed.

Harry looked up at you, tears immediately filling his eyes. He pulled the duvet up and around his face more, trying to hide his blotchy skin and the dried tear tracks that you’d already noticed. “What’s this about?”, you asked him quietly.

“He won’t speak to us”, Josh said, voice laced with frustration and worry. You nodded at him before turning back to face Harry.

“I can’t help if you don’t speak to me”, you told him. 

As much as Harry had hurt you, nothing hurt more than walking away from his front door after returning the cardboard box with his stuff in it. Seeing him like this, as a shell of the person you thought you were going to spend forever with, was crushing.

You rested your palm on the side of Harry’s face, feeling the rough facial hair that had been building up on his cheeks since you’d last left his apartment. “Harry”, you whispered. You left your spot on the side of the bed in favour of kneeling on the floor so you could come face to face with him, chin propped on his mattress. You let a hand rest on his hair, scratching his scalp gently. “Please”.

“I’m so sorry”, he choked suddenly. “I’m so sorry”, he repeated, just as brokenly.

Fresh tears were running down Harry’s cheeks, dampening the pillowcase under his face. “Is that what’s caused this?”, you asked him gently, swooping your thumb down to wipe away a few of his tears. Harry’s nod was barely noticeable. “Will you talk to me about it?”, you asked, voice still just as soft.

Harry’s eyes met yours before darting around the room. You could see when he’d made his decision, recoiling back in on himself. “Tell you what, I’ll bring you a brew and give you a bit and then see how you’re doing”, you suggested, standing up from your spot and turning around to make your way out of the room.

You turned back to the boys, silently urging them out of the room before pulling Harry’s bedroom door shut and walking towards the kitchen to make him the promised cup of tea.

“Shouldn’t someone be in there with him?”, Vik asked.

“No”, you told him simply. “He’s not the best with people anyway but he’ll just be overwhelmed with this many people if he’s this upset”, you explained. As you waited for the kettle to boil, back rested against the kitchen counter, you turned to Cal. “How long has he been like this?”, you asked him.

“I mean, he’s been bad since you left him”, Cal said with a slight edge to his voice. “But he’s been bad since you brought his stuff round”, he sighed.

“Are you saying that this is my fault?”, you asked, voice turning defensive. The six other men in the room stiffened. Cal hadn’t been there for the blowout between you and Harry and you doubted that he’d been informed about anything that was said.

“Maybe this is a conversation for later”, Josh tried to mediate, voice hesitant and wary.

“No, she needs to hear that this is her fault”, Cal defended. “Bog’s in there on his arse because she’s a selfish cow”, he spat.

You scoffed, turning around to busy yourself with making Harry a cup of tea. “Look”, you said, before anyone could step in and cause any arguments. “You can think what you want about me, but I’m just trying to help Harry. If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave”, you told him simply.

Cal was silent after that and stayed out of the way. He refused to look at the others who kept sending him funny looks and he stepped out of your way when you went to take Harry’s drink down to him. Your murmured ‘thank you’ when unacknowledged, but you couldn’t find it within yourself to care.

Harry was in the same position that you’d left him in, bundled up in the duvet staring blankly ahead at the wall. “Here you go”, you said, placing the cup down on the side table, perching on the side of the bed as you did so. Your hand returned to his hair, stroking through the messy, knotty pile of dirty blond. “I’ll come back in a bit, yeah? Drink that and see if you come ‘round a bit”, you told him, letting your hand have one more smooth over his hair before you got up and left.

You paused in the hallway after you’d shut Harry’s door. You let your head lean back against the wall as you tried and failed to fight the tears that had been bubbling just beneath the surface ever since you’d arrived at Harry’s. Seeing him in the state he was in seemed to reopen all the wounds that you’d managed to emergency triage over the last week or so and it ached so deeply that you didn’t know how to cope.

“Y/N?”, a voice asked from down the hallway. You stood up straight as quick as you could, scrubbing the tears off of your face and sniffing unattractively. “Are you okay?”, Josh asked you, coming closer.

“Yeah”, you told him, but your blotchy face and broken voice gave you away instantly.

“Freya told me how hard this has been for you”, Josh whispered, standing in front of you. “I tried to get Ethan to not call you but…”, he trailed off. “I’m so sorry”, he said.

“What for?”, you asked him, running the sleeves of your jumper under your eyes once again.

“Harry told us everything… I hope”, Josh started. “We were all awful to you and we thought we were protecting Harry. You don’t deserve any of that”, he told you.

“Cal clearly doesn’t have that idea”, you laughed sadly. “Me and Harry both kept secrets, we thought it was the best thing for the both of us. If I knew he was this bad…”, you trailed off.

“Come on, there’s a tea for you in here”, Josh said, guiding you towards the living room. He handed you a cup of tea that had been left on the side for you and went to sit down with the rest of the boys. You sat down in the free corner of the sofa, putting your cup down so you could wipe your tears once again.

“Why did you never tell us?”, Simon asked. “How bad he’d got? Why did you let us hate you?”.

“I don’t know”, you told him truthfully. “It was easier, I guess”, you shrugged.

“If we’d have known…”, Tobi started, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know, we’d have done something, though”. Each of the boys looked distressed, seeing Harry the way he was was taking a toll on everyone, but so was finding out the truth after 6 years worth of lies.

“I know that, but I don’t think he did. Or does”, you said sadly. “He’s terrified of disappointing any of you. I was terrified of disappointing him”, you shrugged weakly. “So I did everything I could to make sure that I didn’t”, you admitted.

Talking about it felt like pouring salt in the reopened wounds. “I guess that didn’t work”, you whispered to yourself, but the room was so deathly quiet that you may as well have shouted it.

“What do you mean?”, Ethan asked. “What didn’t work?”.

“Harry’s always deserved better than me, I guess he finally figured that out”, you said, as though it was obvious. 6 of the 7 faces in front of you wore incredulous expressions. “What?”.

“Harry said that he’s always thought you deserved better than him”, Josh told you sadly. “That that’s why he tried to push you away”.

You looked down to the cup in your hands, fingers tapping relentlessly as you tried to process what Josh had just told you without breaking down into floods of tears once again. “I never knew that”, you said, voice cracking around your tears. “I never thought it would end up like this”.

Nobody knew what to say to you. Josh and Simon had an idea from Freya and Talia about how hard this had hit you and you still dropped everything and came running when Ethan told you that Harry needed your help.

“I know I don’t know everything and I probably have no right to even say anything, but it’s painfully obvious that the two of you still love each other”, Josh told you. “You’re the only person he’s interacted with, let alone spoken to, in the last week”, he reminded you.

“What if loving each other isn’t enough?”, you asked brokenly. You could see the pity written across everyone’s face, even Cal’s, but that did nothing to ease the pain that was hacking away at your insides. 

It was clear that no one had an answer, so you sat up straight, took a deep breath and wiped your face. “I’ll be back in a bit”, you told them. “I’ll text someone if we need anything”, you promised.

You knocked on Harry’s bedroom door, but didn’t wait for a response before walking in and pushing the door half shut behind you. The mug on his side table was empty but Harry had curled himself back under the covers. He looked to you when you came in, before letting his eyes drift closed. He looked exhausted, but you weren’t surprised if he hadn’t been looking after himself.

“What can I do?”, you asked, sitting down next to Harry. He only shrugged in response, still not opening his eyes. “Harry, this isn’t safe, baby”, you whispered, letting your hand rest on his face again. You watched as Harry leaned into your touch, moving his head slightly so that as much of your skin as possible was touching his.

“I’m sorry”, he whispered again, voice a little less hoarse than before. “I don’t deserve this”.

“That’s not your choice”, you told him. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to”, you promised him.

“Don’t”, Harry said, voice as harsh as it could be given how weak he was. “I don’t deserve you looking after me again. Don’t lie and tell me you want to be here”, he whispered.

“Okay”, you said. “Sitting here hurts more than walking out the other week”, you admitted. “Because I still love you and seeing you like this is breaking my heart even more than it already is”.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut again, stray tears leaking out of the corners. In a change of plan, you stood up and went to the bathroom, grabbing the comb off of the side of the sink. “Let me know if it hurts”, you told him, before taking a small section of his hair and started working the comb through the very ends, working your way down to the roots.

You sat in the same position, slowly working your way through Harry’s hair, for 20 minutes. You did your best to cause him as little pain as possible, but some of the knots kept snagging on the comb because of how big they were. “Beautiful”, you smiled, putting the comb down on the side before turning back to him.

“Thank you, feels better”, he mumbled.

“I’m glad”, you told him, running your fingers through his, albeit greasy, knot-free hair. “Feel like taking a shower?”, you asked him, knowing Harry would find it hard to resist, especially if he hadn’t showered in a good few days.

“Wanna, but I’m too tired”, Harry murmured.

“Bath?”, you asked him. “I’ll get it running so all you need to do is go sit in there once it’s full”, you offered. You watched as the idea ran through Harry’s mind for a few moments, before he smiled up at you weakly and nodded.

Once you’d set the water running, you wandered back through to Harry’s room, sitting down next to him again. “Things aren’t right without you here”, Harry admitted. “Feels wrong”.

“I know”, you said.

“I wish I didn’t ruin everything”, he whispered.

“Josh said you always thought I deserved better than you, that that’s why you pushed me away”, you told him.

Harry looked confused. “Yeah”, he said, like it was obvious. “You’ve always deserved so much better than I can give you”.

“I always thought you deserved better than me”, you admitted. “How were we together for 6 years and didn’t even cover the basics?”, you scoffed.

“You thought you weren’t enough?”, Harry asked, and you could practically hear his heart breaking even more in his chest.

“You tried to push me away, I did everything I could to make sure I never disappointed you… I guess it was a cycle that just needed breaking”, you said sadly. “Your bath will be ready, go on”, you instructed.

While Harry was in the bath, you dug him out some clothes and a few towels and left them folded up on the sink before returning to his bedroom and finding out a fresh set of bedding.

By the time Harry had dried himself off from the bath and gotten dressed, you’d stripped and remade the bed and shoved the bedding into a laundry basket. “You didn’t have to do this”, Harry told you as soon as he spotted the fresh bedding.

“I know, but I need you to be okay and looking after you is the only way I know to make sure that you’re okay”, you told him honestly.

“Are you okay?”, Harry asked you bluntly, coming to sit on his bed. “Tell me the truth”, he whispered, taking your fingers in his.

“No”, you admitted quietly, eyes trained on your fingers.

“Talk to me”, he said quietly.

“I’m not ready to stop loving you yet but I’m scared that it’s not enough to try and make this work”, you said, eyes burning with brewing tears. “I don’t think I can ever stop loving you”, you croaked, tears finally spilling over and dropping onto your conjoined fingers.

Harry wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you between his legs, tucking your head beneath his chin. He squeezed you tightly as you sobbed unabashedly into his chest. Harry kept his head rested on yours, keeping you cocooned in his frame. It also meant that you wouldn’t be able to see the tears flooding his eyes at the sight of you so broken.

“I know I’ll never be able to stop loving you”, he admitted quietly, lips catching on your hair as he spoke. “I know the second tries have never worked before, but we never actually spoke about what was wrong”, Harry told you.

“Maybe breaking up and getting the whole truth out to everyone was the best thing that could happen for us”, you said weakly. “Well, I say that like you’ve not just had your first shower in a week and I’m not holding things together by a thread”, you snorted.

“I meant what I said”, Harry said suddenly after a few moments of silence. “Things aren’t right when you aren’t in my life. And it’s not just because we’ve been together for 6 years”, he told you. “I mean, like, I’ll see something on twitter and my first thought is that you’d find it funny, and how I nearly started crying in M & S because they were out of your favourite pasta shapes and then I remembered how much you hate M & S so I had to leave before I had a breakdown in the pasta aisle”, Harry said.

“I cried in Asda because I walked past a couple bickering about sushi and whether or not it was nice”, you admitted before laughing through the remnants of your tears as you sat up. “We’ve spoken more today than we have in the last 2 years”, you reminded him.

“Maybe another shot is worth it. You make me too happy to not try”, Harry whispered, resting a hand on your cheek and smiling softly when you leaned into it. “I love you too much not to try”.

Instead of replying, you leaned forward and pressed your lips to Harry’s. “I love you, too”, you whispered against his lips. You kissed him once more before pulling back and smiling at him.

You and Harry walked back out into the living room a few moments later, both still with blotchy faces and drying tear tracks and a few fingers hooked together. Harry ducked his head, a shy smile crossing his face when he saw that everyone was staring at the two of you.

Harry smushed himself into the corner of the sofa and quickly pulled you down to sit in the small space beside him. His arm rested over the back of the sofa, fingers twiddling your hair absentmindedly as you let your head drop to his shoulder tiredly.

“So... you all good, Bog?”, Ethan asked warily.

Harry turned to you briefly, an unmistakable look of bliss settling onto his features when your eyes darted up to meet his. The smile that you gave him pulled all the broken pieces back to the centre and the way you rubbed your cheek sleepily against his shoulder glued them all back together again.

Harry looked back up to Ethan, letting his arm behind your head drop down to cradle your shoulder and hold you to his body.

“Never better, mate”

[storiesforallfandoms]

baby sister ~ mark;midsommar

word count: 1929

request?: yes!

“Mark from Midsommar imagine about Christan's sister crushing on Mark and when Mark finds out they start dating. And Christian finds them making out and gets all pissed and tries to fight Mark but reader yells at Christian to stop.”

description: in which he’s very protective over his baby sister, and now his best friend is dating her

pairing: mark x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist

There were so many words that could describe my brother. Asshole was definitely the most accurate one. Protective was the second most accurate way to describe him.

I was the family baby, and when mine and Christian’s dad left, Christian took it upon himself to be the man of the house. This included being the one to try and scare away my boyfriends. Well...try and usually succeeded. It was becoming impossible to date unless I did it secretly.

Which was what I was doing with Christian’s best friend, Mark.

From the moment we met, I knew I was head over heels for Mark. Of course, trying to act on that under Christian’s watchful eye was basically impossible. Until Mark initiated a particularly steamy make out session while Christian wasn’t home.

“We can keep this a secret,” he assured me. “I don’t bring girls around anyways, and the guys don’t ask about that shit.”

“Secret romance is incredibly sexy,” I noted. Mark smiled and kissed me again.

Ever since then, we had secretly been in a relationship. No one knew, not even Dani who was my closest friend. I trusted her to keep the secret from anyone else, but Dani told Christian everything. She couldn’t lie to him, he knew her too well to fall for her lies. I knew giving her this secret would be a massive burden on her, and I couldn’t do that to her.

The secret rendezvous were hard sometimes, especially since Christian and Mark were living together. On the occasions where Christian would go over to Dani’s, and Josh would be out wherever for the night, I would go over with Mark for a few hours. But spending the night was a big risk. It was hard to know when Christian would come home, and the last thing either of us needed was for him to catch me in Mark’s bed.

I walked through the front door of the guy’s apartment and immediately called out, “Hey fuckers!”

“Hey baby sis,” came Christian’s voice in response. “You caught me at a sort of bad time, I’m about to go to Dani’s for a while.”

I gave him a worried look. “What? Why? Are you and the guys okay?”

“Oh yeah, nothing bad happened. She’s just having a rough time and I want to be there for her,” he responded. “You’re free to hang here if you want, but Mark will be the only one here. Josh is out of town with his parents for a while.”

I tried not to let the smirk I was feeling inside show. “Oh, well if it’s just Mark I’ll probably leave.”

“I don’t blame you. The guy is kind of boring.”

If I didn’t know that Christian’s way of showing affection was by insulting someone I probably would’ve been offended.

He brushed past me and said goodbye, promising to hang out with me again after he spent some time with Dani. I pretended to be following him out to my car and waited until he was far enough away that he wouldn’t see me turn around and run back into the house.

I knew Mark was home. His car was in the driveway and his bedroom door was closed, something he always did when he was home and wanted some privacy. I ran straight to his room and threw the door open. His eyes widened as I dove onto the bed and immediately cuddled into his side.

“Is Christian gone already?” he asked.

I popped my head up to look at him in shock. “You knew?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

“I didn’t get the chance! He literally just told me when he walked in like an hour ago. I didn’t think he was leaving so soon.”

I rolled my eyes and kissed his cheek before settling my head into his neck. “So, how long is he gone for?”

“All weekend,” he responded. “Won’t be back till after class on Monday he said, and even then he may be gone for a little bit with Dani.”

“So,” I said, “are we having our first sleepover or not?”

Mark chuckled and kissed my forehead. “I would love for you to stay over. But do you want to go home and get your clothes?”

“Why would I want to do that when I have your clothes here?”

Mark gave me an amused look before rolling us over to get on top of me and begin to tickle me.

The first night I got to spend with Mark was fantastic. We spent so many hours just cuddling and talking, and of course countless hours having sex without worrying about anyone catching us. The first morning together, I woke up to find myself alone in bed, but with the smell of breakfast drifting in from the kitchen.

I got up and pulled on one of Mark’s shirts and ventured out into the kitchen, not worried about anyone catching me for once. Mark was stood next to the stove in just a pair of sweatpants, his back turned to me. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his naked torso.

“Good morning,” I said, kissing his cheek. “What are you making?”

“Just some bacon and eggs,” he responded. “I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“You know I don’t sleep in enough for that to be possible, and I don’t like laying in bed for too long.”

Mark turned his head to meet my lips with his. “How did we end up together? We’re such different people.”

“Opposites attract baby.”

Mark smiled and turned to face me. In one quick motion, he lifted me onto the counter and stood between my legs. I giggled and kissed him deeply, holding his face in my hands as a way to keep him from pulling away.

We were so lost in one another that we didn’t notice the door opening, or the sound of a bag hitting the floor, until the voice that both of us dreaded to hear.

“What the fuck?!”

Mark jumped away from me in time to see Christian charging at him, murder present in his eyes. Mark quickly jumped out of the way and extended an arm to keep Christian at an arm’s length away.

“What the fuck were you doing to my sister?!” Christian snapped.

“Chill dude, we were just kissing!” Mark responded.

“Why was she kissing you?! Why is she here in just one of your shirts?!”

“Calm down, Christian,” I tried, pushing myself off of the counter to cover myself as much as I possibly could. “I stayed over the night.”

“But why?! And why with him?!”

He tried to lunge at Mark again, but this time I took hold of his arm and yanked him back. “Christian, fucking stop!”

“What has he said or done to make you want to kiss him and to stay the night with him?” Christian demanded. “What the fuck has he done to you?”

“Christian, shut the fuck up!” I felt myself shaking in rage and I just wanted to punch my older brother until he was unconscious. I guess we were more similar than I ever cared to admit.

My outburst surprised both my brother and my boyfriend. They both went silent, and for a moment Christian wasn’t even trying to kill Mark anymore.

“You’re so fucking controlling!” I said, airing out all the anger I had built up inside of me for so long. “I get that you want to be dad, I get that you’re trying to be ‘the man’, but holy fuck! I’m a fucking adult! I can date who I want, I can kiss who I want, I can fuck who I want! I don’t need you getting angry and intimidating every guy I date, Christian. I can’t be single forever you know.”

Christian glared at Mark once more before turning to face me. “I know that, (Y/N), but I don’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“Do you know how much more it hurts when guys either ghost me or straight up tell me to my face that they’re too scared of you to date me?” I questioned. “Do you know how many guys told me that I wasn’t worth the hassle you gave them? I was hurt more by your protectiveness than I ever was by any guy.”

I saw a look pass over Christian’s face. I couldn’t tell exactly what it meant, but I knew there was a lot of information running through his head at that moment, a lot of things he had to process.

“And I know you don’t want me dating your best friend,” I continued before he could say anything else. “I know it’s like a violation of friend code or whatever the fuck guys have going on, and it’s weird and awkward. But I really do love Mark, and I know he loves me, too. You know Mark better than any guy I’ve ever tried to date, can you seriously look me in the eyes and tell me he’s not a good fit for me?”

Christian looked over at Mark once more before turning back to me. “He is a fuckface.”

I giggled. “Yeah, I know that. But he’s a good fuckface.”

“One of the better ones,” Christian agreed. “I’m sorry, (Y/N). I just...I thought that’s how I was supposed to act, you know?”

“I know, mom never told you any different. I think she just liked you trying to be the man of the house all the time because it meant she didn’t have to take up any extra responsibilities.”

Christian pulled me into a hug, something I don’t think he had ever done before. It was quite a shock to both me and to Mark.

“You can date whoever you want,” he said. “I promise I won’t kill...well I promise I won’t kill any other guy you may date. I have no promises about Mark.”

“I’ll take that,” I told him. “And I’m sorry you had to find out like...this.”

Christian looked between us, trying not to look at the parts that weren’t clothed I could tell. “Yeah...not the best way, but I’ll bleach my eyes when I get back to Dani’s.”

We all laughed as Christian went to get whatever he had come home for and left again, saying goodbye and apologizing once more before closing the door behind him.

“That went well,” I commented. I looked over to see Mark smiling at me. “What?”

“Did you mean what you said? That you love me?”

I felt my face heat up in embarrassment. In the heat of the moment, I let the big L word slip. Mark and I hadn’t said it to one another yet. We had only started dating mere months ago.

“I think so,” I admitted. “I feel things for you that I’ve never felt for anyone before. I...I think I do love you. Is that...is that weird to say?”

Mark wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Not at all. I think I love you, too.”

I smiled up at him and placed a gentle kiss against his lips.

“Don’t forget breakfast,” I whispered in his ear, nibbling on it gently before pulling away.

It took a moment for the lust to wash away after my small act for Mark to realize that breakfast was still on the pan cooking. I giggled as he quickly went to turn the stove off and check to make sure the food was still edible.

[gretavanbitch]

Tangled up in blue- 3

warnings- light smut, drugs, alcohol. 

The dull light of the afternoon sun reflected off of Josh’s cheekbones as he showed Penny around the venue and the various rooms. He led her around, hand in hand with childlike excitement, explaining every funny thing that happened in every specific spot. 

“Oh and here's where Sam yacked after taking five tequila shots in a row,” he laughed heartily, placing a hand across his chest. Penny shook her head, laughing at the antics concurring within the band. They finished the tour by entering the tour bus for a pre-show drink and warm-up. Sam sat on one of the various tables, criss cross applesauce and void of shoes of course, Jake was sat sideways in a chair strumming his guitar, and Danny was crouched in front of a mirror far too short for him trying to do his hair. Josh sat across from Jake, patting the seat next to him softly. His eyes widened for a moment, as if he had just remembered something vitally important. 

“Mama, what should I wear tonight?” He said in hyper speed, moving his hands in his usual manner, “I have a few options, but I need your fashion expertise.” 

“What are the options?” Penny answered. Josh then climbed haphazardly across the row and opened a small closet by the bunks, pulling out three extravagant outfits. The first was a purple silk or satin jumpsuit, clad in gems and detailing. The second was a sleeveless black jumpsuit covered in gold detailing. The last was a white jumpsuit, similar to the purple one, just softer in look. She scratched her chin thoughtfully, pondering it seriously in her head. 

“You look sexy in purple,” she answered after a few moments of consideration. Jake then snorted, chuckling to himself. 

“Yeah if you consider looking like a magenta hobbit sexy,” he continued. Penny laughed at the other twin's response, looking at Josh’s offended expression. Josh then silently, and dramatically removed the purple jumpsuit from the hanger and moved into the bathroom to change. While Josh was gone, the rest of the group decided to bring out the good stuff. Danny put a large bottle of tequila on the table, causing Sam to make a queasy face. Jake then placed a freshly rolled joint and a few beers down next to it. Penny smiled, feeling relieved that she had a group of friends to do these things with rather than alone with her cat on the couch. She plopped herself down next to Jake, causing her suede jacket to ruffle slightly, she then grabbed the joint and raised her eyebrows at Jake, asking permission to light it. He nodded, handing her his silver zippo in response. She then leaned into the light and inhaled, feeling that familiar burning sensation run through her chest. Josh soon exited the bathroom, of course making a show out of it. He first swung his leg out and then dramatically sung some old show tune, wiggling his eyebrows at her. She laughed and then offered a hit of the joint to him. He responded with an excited “ooh” and took a hit. He looked magnificent, the purple perfectly accented his skin tone, making it gleam in a pearly fashion. His hair was his usual mop, but now it was a tad longer, covering his ears and falling perfectly. He was beautiful, truly. 

“That probably isn’t great for your voice babe,” she thought out loud. Josh raised his eyebrows at her mid-hit. He exhaled then thought for a moment. 

“You are probably right, wise one.” 

After the J was passed around to everybody a few times, pre-show nerves were no longer present, and it was time to get in the real mood. Jake handed everybody a shot glass and poured a generous amount of tequila in each. Sam still looked unhappy about the choice in alcohol, but held the glass in his hand anyways. 

“Cheers,” rang out from the group and heads tilted back, mouths filling with the painful taste of tequila. Penny felt the shot rush straight to her head, the mixture of weed and alcohol making her feel slightly dizzy, but still dazed out.

“Lets rock this shit,” Jake exclaimed loudly, in a british accent for some reason. 

“Oh no, Oliver Reed is back,” Danny sighed, carrying the bottle out as the group exited the bus. Josh and Penny were the last ones to get up, staying together for one last moment of silence before the show began. 

“You look beautiful,” Penny said truthfully, running her hands softly down the fabric. He glanced down at her hands for a moment, then back up into her eyes, running a hand through her hair as he did. 

“You look stunning mama, you always do,” he said, inching closer to her slowly. She smiled softly, pulling the collar of his jumpsuit closer to her. Josh then closed the gap between the pair, connecting their lips. The kiss began softly, feeling out the waters as if they had not swam in them a thousand times before. He tasted like tequila and smoke, but it felt like home. She sighed into the kiss softly, running her hands up and down his chest lovingly. Just as the kiss got more intense and their tongues traced the outlines of the other, Josh pulled away with narrowed eyes. 

“Fuck, I missed you Pen,” he said in a hushed whisper. He then took her hand and guided her towards the green room behind the stage. The few minutes they had together as a group before the show were filled with adrenaline, and more shots. She managed to snap a few photos amidst the chaos. One of Jake and Josh posed in front of a large painting, Josh holding a fire extinguisher for whatever alcohol induced reason, and Jake with his hands clasped in front of his red suit. She also snapped one of Josh, leaning against a box smiling. She made sure to capture the realness of the moment, wanting to remember the beauty of his persona at the show. 

Soon enough, the boys pranced onto the stage and Penny stood against an amp box by the side of the stage watching in awe. It was not her first time seeing the boys perform, but everytime she did, it felt better than the last. The show began with a fan favorite, Heat Above. This was one of Penny’s favorite tracks on the album, remembering back to the sunny mornings when Josh would belt it out in the shower, tinkering with certain parts of it. The song was a work of art, one of their best, and it deserved to be based on how long they waited to release it. The other numbers passed by in a haze, she loved every moment, dancing and singing along wildly by the side of the stage. Every now and then Josh would turn around to her on a particularly lovely line and wink at her. He did this during Highway tune’s “so sweet, so nice, so fine,” and Light my love’s “your mind is stream of colors.” The fact that he looked at her during these specific lyrics made her heart hurt with happiness, knowing that Josh felt the same way about her. 

The band soon exited the stage, sweaty and filled to the brim with post-show adrenaline. Josh immediately ran to her, pulling her hand behind him as he ran to one of the dressing rooms. Penny was slightly confused by his quick exit, but followed him nevertheless, she would follow him anywhere. He shut the door in a hurry and connected their lips harshly. She froze for a second, still wondering where this rush of affection came from, but she soon gave in, melting into his touch. He then pushed her against the door and pushed her jacket off of her shoulders. She sighed, lifting his chin up and meeting his eyes. He looked at her with wide eyes, licking his own lips. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it after a few seconds. But his nexts words caused Penny to have another head rush, but this time it wasn’t due to tequila. 

“I love you,” he said in such a hushed whisper that she could barely hear it over the crowd still relishing in the shows excitement. She blinked, slightly tearily and put her hands on either side of his face. 

“I love you, Joshua.” Josh then kissed her with a fercosity that had never been present between the pair, until now. She whined against him, as his core jutted against her own. His hands were roaming over her body, squeezing her ass over her jeans, and toying with her breasts. They were then interupted harshly with a knock on the door that vibrated into Penny’s back. 

“Guys, I know you haven’t seen each other in a bit, but can you save the fucking for when we have a hotel, we kind of need to change our clothes,” Jake yelled through the door. Penny looked at Josh, meeting his eyes with a surprised expression. They maintained the eye contact for a moment before breaking out in hysterical laughter, clutching their stomachs as Josh opened the door to a very annoyed Jake.

.

Hi babes, I know this chapter is rather short, I just had a really busy day today! next one will be longer (and maybe more smut) :) 

[rjhpandapaws]

sick Connor for the ask prompt? 👀

//oooh? I like this //Android Connor with a Virus

Hank was widely out of his depth. Connor had contracted a virus from one of the computers in evidence in the DPD. It was a failsafe of some kind that the perp had stuck on it in case an android tried to investigate her computer. Hank hated seeing him like this. In the android equivalent of a fevered haze. His soulful brown eyes coming in and out of focus, synthskin flickering on and off. He tried answering Hank the first couple of times he had checked in, but what had come out the first time was a loud blast of static, the second time was a high pitched tone that had sent both Hank and Sumo out of the room for the sake of their hearing. Hank didn’t know what to do. There was Kamski obviously, but the idea of taking Connor back to the Villa left a bad taste in his mouth. He also didn’t want to come to owe the eccentric genius a favor later on. Jericho then? Chloe was there, she knew just about all there was to know about androids, being the first of them. Could he get Connor to the car? Did he really have a choice? He didn’t know what this virus was doing to him, Nines had offered to interface but that was too big of a risk for Hank to be comfortable with. He peeked back into the living room to find Connor without his skin and brown eyes staring at nothing again. He needed to call Josh. He opened his phone and hit the android’s contact, he hoped he wasn’t interrupting anything by calling this early in the day, but this was an emergency and he needed help. Josh answered almost immediately.

“Hank?” Concern laced his voice. Hank couldn’t hear anything in the background so Hank assumed he was in Josh’s head for the time being. He had probably interrupted him at work then, “Is something wrong?” “Its Connor.” He said in a rush, “At worth this morning he interfaced with a computer in the evidence lock up and something is wrong. Its a virus I think.... he’s there sometimes but most if the time his eyes are just hollow. I tried checking in on him but I got static the first time and an electronic screech the second. I don’t know what’s wrong and I can’t move him on my own because I don’t want to do anymore damage. Just, I’m also worried about it getting transferred to one of you but, you guys are the only ones I trust with this.” “We’ll be careful Hank. Don’t worry alright?” Josh’s tone was placating and reassuring, “Markus, Simon, and I are on our way.” Hank breathed a small sigh of relief, he didn’t know how this would go, but he at least knew Connor was in good hands. “Thank you.” Josh hummed in response before he hung up. Hank tried to collect himself and made his way to the living room. Connor’s eyes were still lifeless and his LED was strobing red, yellow would come through in brief flashed but it never stayed. Sumo was sitting in front of the couch with his head resting on Connor’s stomach. The android was laid out on the couch, he had planned to go into stasis and try and fight off whatever this was, but they hadn’t been quick enough and the virus had taken hold. The synthskin was gone on the parts of him Hank could see, and the serial number branded into his cheek glared back at the older detective. It wasn’t as unsettling to see him like this anymore, what was unnerving Hank this time was the circumstances surrounding it. He reached out and squeezed Connor’s stiff hand hoping he could feel it wherever he was within the confines of his mind, “You’re gonna be alright Con.”

The 54 at the end of his serial number was an ugly reminder of the things he had come back from. The stress testing at CyberLife that still had him waking up on red some nights, Daniel and plummeting off that tower, the investigation, Amanda, the revolution, and this hopefully. The things he had been through Hank wouldn’t wish on anyone else, and if he could he would undo it for Connor too. He didn’t deserve that. After the cruelty he had been through he deserved more than this. He was pulled out of his thoughts by the knock at the front door and Sumo’s responding bark. Hank let go of Connor’s hand and answered the door. He was surprised to see Chloe at the door. She smiled kindly at him and he moved out of the way so they could come in. “He’s on the couch. He wanted to try to go into stasis before the worst of it set in.” He said dumbly. He moved through the living room to put Sumo in his bedroom so he wasn’t under foot. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust the androids’ ability to navigate around the massive dog, it was that he didn’t trust how Sumo would reaction under a combination of stress and unfamiliar company reaching for his best friend. “The drive home took too long I think...” He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned and found Simon, “This isn’t your fault Hank. we’ll get him back to Jericho and get this figured out. I promise.” Hank nodded, he knew that, but he still felt responsible. “I know, I just worry. I could have just had tech look at it and he wouldn’t be in this situation.” “Hank, look at me.” Simon’s voice didn’t leave much room for argument so he looked back toward the house keeping android instead of in the living room where Chloe was typing away at a laptop that was hooked up to Connor, “He would have looked at it anyway. This way you were here when something went wrong, because of you he isn’t going through it alone. He has a good friend in you. Remember that.”

Chloe worked on the laptop for about an hour, eventually she shook her head and closed it. That wasn’t a good sign, she stood up and smoothed out her shirt, she still dressed professionally, but tended to avoid dresses and skirts now Hank had noticed. She said something over their link and Markus and Josh moved to pick up Connor’s stiff form. She made her way to Hank and ran one of her hands through her ponytail. She took a moment to mull over her words. “I have good news, I’ve seen this before and I think we can fix it at Jericho.” She looked down, “I can’t say for sure how many of his memories he will get back though, he’s about halfway through a reset.” Hank must have made some kind of face because he took one of his hands in both of hers. “We’ll fix this Hank. Trust me.” Simon squeezed his shoulder, “You three take him, back to Jericho, I’ll stay with Hank for a while. When North gets back fill her in as well please.” Chloe nodded. She squeezed Hank’s hand one last time and then followed Josh and Markus out after she had grabbed her things.

Hank remembered letting Sumo out of the room and into the yard, but the things between that and arriving at Jericho after Simon had gotten a call was a blur. Now he was pacing the waiting room of the android equivalent of a hospital. North was watching him. Every so often she would head back to where they working on Connor, and when she would come back her face would be pinched with worry. Eventually she sighed and stepped into Hank’s path. He stopped and she put her hands on his shoulders. “For fuck’s sake sit down. You’re gonna wear a path into the floor.” She turned him and guided him over to the chairs. “They said it will be about an hour before he’s online again. They’re just making sure the virus is completely gone and didn’t bring anything else back online.” She meant Amanda, he knew that. Connor could undo everything they had fought so hard for if she got a hold of him again. North distracted him by talking about the things Jericho was working on. A lot of it was political, which was a bore to him, but a good distraction from his worry. They were also working on getting android friendly apartment complexes set up and working on getting job fairs set up for both humans and androids alike. He was glad to hear how much progress was being made. It didn’t feel like an hour had passed when Simon came down the hall into the waiting room. “He’ll be waking up soon, if you want to come back.” Simon smiled as Hank stood, “We’re gonna keep him a few days to make sure everything is how it’s supposed to be, and to make sure he rests.”

They followed Simon back. It looked like a hospital room the only difference was the lack of sterile smell. He was still hooked up to a thirium drip and there were machines monitoring his vitals. His synthskin was back and his LED was on a steady cycle of blue, he looked normal, not like he had just come out of android brain surgery. It was jarring, that after all the fear and panic, he was just back to normal. He was relieved to have Connor back. “You’re thinking very loudly Lieutenant.” Connor’s voice pulled him from his thoughts and he found himself smiling when he looked into vibrant brown eyes, “The virus is gone and everything is where its supposed to be Hank.” He followed it up with that stupid wink of his, and Hank knew they were in the clear. Hey stayed for a few hours, until he needed to get back to Sumo.

Over the next few days he received pictures from Connor as well as everyone else. The first couple days were him relaxing, helping Markus paint, helping North with paper work. The rest were from Connor usually featuring him getting in some kind of trouble. Likely for not taking it easy. His favorite though was from Simon, it was of Connor and Chloe singing as Markus played the piano. North was dancing with Josh in the background. It was good to have him back.

@i-am-therefore-i-fight

(Prompt from this list)

[brokenjardaantech]

absorbance of the deep (chapter 2: an actual meeting)

written for a mermay prompts challenge. my prompt is ‘monochromatic.’

previous chapter can be found here. 

also on ao3

---

Despite having run away from Simon in the face of danger, Josh somehow became his friend. It wasn’t that Daniel trusted him - Simon is quite certain that he trusts no one with his twin brother to this day - but given the school’s tendency to separate twins, it was impossible for Daniel to keep an eye on his twin brother who had a tendency to disappear for the whole night and then reappearing at weird places such as the pier behind the lighthouse which couldn’t be accessed without passing through the house itself and therefore should’ve been sighted by their mother, or the park which was located at the other side of the village and was impossible for a child to walk alone to without being spotted by one of the many nosy and concerned residents. That was where Josh came in: someone to look after a child who had less awareness of his surroundings than the chemical soup powered by underwater volcanoes. The ethics of handing a child whose brain wasn’t quite normal to another child instead of having an actual adult to take care of him was debatable, but at that time Simon only cared about two things: being in the ocean and learning about the ocean, and since Josh was a convenient source for the latter both due to his abundance of ocean-related books and the fact that he could explain things Simon hadn’t understand initially until he did, that meant Josh was Simon’s best friend and anyone who dared to question it would be subjected to a light hand smack. ‘Because sometimes people just need a bit of a physical reminder,’ Daniel explained as he taught where Simon should hit. ‘Don’t be afraid to use it. They probably can’t distinguish between the two of us anyway.’

But Simon knew that adults were both smarter and more stupid than they thought and he wasn’t going to test which one applied to the category of ‘distinguishing between the Phillips twins,’ so he never did much apart from the abovementioned light smack: just enough to warn others to stop questioning him and his best friend, and not heavy enough that it would be mistaken as aggression. Besides, he was supposed to be the quiet and docile among his classmates, and small, silent Simon who read as much as Josh the resident genius, slapping people? Impossible.

He couldn’t help but felt that the sea approved of him defending himself and Josh, so that was a bonus. And yes, ever since his offering was accepted and he was swept away by the waves for the first time and visited the cave and had his brains burnt up, there had been a bond between his mind and the very waters that surrounded their village, nurtured generations of villagers, took care of Simon so much better than his parents ever did; by the time he was in secondary school, most of his parents' energy were devoted to making sure that Daniel didn’t get into trouble for Simon’s behalf or pretending that Simon’s differences with normal people didn’t exist, and truth to be told he preferred the solitude it offered over anything else. Him doing his homework sitting on the beach with a thick sketchbook some students from the previous grade left in the classroom bookshelf as his table was a common sight.

It didn’t last long, however, because the arrival of a certain girl with hair matching her fiery personality in their village. 

North came from ‘outside,’ which to Simon’s village could mean anything from the neighbouring town to the other side of the world of all he knew, and he was certain that he would’ve known where she came from if he had paid attention to the gossip, but once more he was too busy letting Josh do his homework and flipping over rocks for that one crab that the ocean told him to find for it and then promptly being distracted by the way the sand collapse under its own weight. He couldn’t resist touching it and it crumbled, and he now felt bad because he buried a crab alive. He turned towards the first person he saw and let out a distressed whimper.

‘It’ll dig itself out,’ the voice surprised him because it wasn’t Josh’s, and when he looked up, he saw North standing close to him directly on top of another tunnel entrance. His first instinct was, of course, to scream and flail his arms because that seemed to be the only thing he did people understood, but then again it was North. North, who kicked his bully in his balls when they ganged up on him and tried to snatch his newest book away; North, who together with Josh were the only ones patient enough to explain things to him outside school hour; North, who actually listened to Josh when he told her that Simon didn’t like loud sounds and would like her to speak quieter, unlike the others who almost always got louder because apparently Simon losing control and hurting himself was something funny. Sometimes North would drag him out of it and shove him into a locker so that he could cool down, but sometimes, with her blood boiling almost as hot as her hair, she would become one of them except on Simon’s side, grabbing whatever object she could put her hands on and wreaking havoc in her immediate vicinity, and Simon felt lucky that he had Josh to pull him out of those episodes; he probably wouldn’t be alive if his friend hadn’t dragged him away from the fight because his body’s response to danger was to freeze instead of running away like normal people do. He was afraid of North in a way, he thought as he eyed the bar stock poking out from her backpack, but at the same time he knew that Josh’s pacifism and the ‘abandon everything and run’ plan couldn’t save them from every single situation they would encounter, so they had to rely on North as long as she was willing to be on their side as one of the odd ones out.

That was, of course, only applicable to when the entire world seemed to be against them. Those were the moments Simon hated. There were also moments Simon cherished, moments of tranquillity, of acceptance, of just the three of them hanging out like there were no one else in the world apart from themselves and the sea which Simon felt too connected to to exclude from anything.

As the ‘new one,’ North was the one the teachers didn’t know very well and therefore was easily ignored just like Simon whom they had learnt not to force to speak, and if she were to disappear for a day or two every now and then… virtually no one apart from Simon and Josh noticed. The first time she did it they were worried sick and Simon had to throw himself into the sea and let the current carry him to his cave just to catch a few hours of sleep and wake up being carried back to his family’s house’s pier. The two of them were groggy and tired when Daniel dragged him to school, but seeing North in her usual seat was an oddly comforting sight as Josh handed him a new book he borrowed from the library so that he had something to distract himself with during the classes which he had never been interested in anyway, and the day went by the usual blur of loud noises and hiding in corners and Josh being the unofficial teacher’s assistant and North being unusually pleasant and happy. He suggested going to the beach because he needed to unwind and he missed the feeling of sand gliding on his skin so that was where they went, finding their usual spot and doing their usual thing like Josh doing his homework and North copying him and Simon letting the two of them work while he wandered around the empty beach barefooted so that he could sink his toes into the sand and feel the water caress his feet. As the tide breathed, the connection between his mind and… the other side strengthened and weakened, and the familiarity of the tug and pull calmed him down from the chaos of school and one of his best friends disappearing and then reappearing with no notice whatsoever. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that he was standing in the cave the ocean created for him a few years back, that he was in a space where he could be truly safe from the assault of the outside world. 

He missed the deep blue he saw and could only see in the deepest part of the sea. 

‘Simon?’

He lost track of how long he stood in the cool water, but when North’s voice rang out pleasant and without its usual fire in his ear, his toes were already numb from the cold. He opened his eyes and saw that she was standing at the edge of the tide where she wouldn’t get wet, and in her hand was something Simon had never seen before. She beckoned him over by holding it up.

‘I got this for you,’ Simon took it while he was still standing in the water so that he didn’t lose the only link he had with the sea. ‘It’s technically a pair of noise-cancelling headphones but… I don’t think you have a phone, do you?’

He hung the headphones on his arm to free up his hand and retrieve the stack of cards from his pocket. It was Josh’s idea, having a set of notecards with the most common words and phrases with him in case he found himself unable to speak (which was most of his life, if he had to be honest) so that he could communicate with other people, and so far the system worked pretty well because it wasn’t like he talked to a lot of people anyway. [i - don’t], he said. The headphones nearly slid off his arm a few times as he fumbled with the chain of cards. [what - is - it]

‘I know the others like to scream and shout even though you don’t like it, so I thought… if you can’t change them, might as well do something to protect yourself. Try it out. I wanna see if it works.’

He put the cards away and slid the headphones over his ear. Suddenly the ringing in his ear intensified, he couldn’t hear the tide crashing into the beach, there was only himself and nothing else, and he yanked off the headphones faster than he had ever moved before and collapsed on his knees. He couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from the ocean he loved so much. It would be like losing a lung. Or his brain itself.

‘Alright, maybe we shouldn’t have tried it here,’ he heard North loud and clear. ‘We’ll try it at school when it’s really noisy. It’ll work better that way.’

But Simon wasn’t listening anymore. All he could focus on was the weight of the headphones in his hand, the cold seawater soaking his trousers and lapping higher and higher much quicker than it should, and then Josh was saying something, North was shouting, and Simon did not understand; the sea was merely welcoming him into its cold embrace, so why were they terrified of it even though they knew the sea was special to him? Why did they seem to be so against it?

They’ll understand. They have to understand.

It was the same voice again, the voice that spoke to him years ago when he offered the octopus to the ocean as… he didn’t even know. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, one that his young mind came up with after witnessing so many people took from the sea without paying it back, and he had a feeling that he was being rewarded for his loyalty and devotion. He closed his eyes again, letting the headphones slip away from his hands and the waves carry him to his sanctuary, as connected as he could be with the other half of his very being without physically turning into a puddle of water washed away and diluted by a body of water so large and turbulent that he would cease to be himself. 

The thought wasn’t as terrifying as it should be.

He let the soft sand warm him and the sound of running water wash away his insecurities and pain away before opening his eyes to the familiar pattern of his cave. Or their cave, he realised as he turned and saw another boy of his age lying so close to him on his side. Skin the colour of bronze, cheekbone and nose dotted with freckles of a darker shade, eyes the green just like the sea on occasions, dark hair interwoven with blue strands braided close to his scalp on the top of his head while the rest were trimmed into a fade cut, Simon didn’t even need to be in his safe space to realise that he was beautiful. It was supposed to be their first meeting, but when the other boy clasped Simon’s hand in his own, the touch did not feel foreign at all, and he watched as the boy raised his hand (so, so pale and skeletal despite being outdoors whenever he could and eating all the food he was allowed to) to his lips and kissed its back. Warmth blooms within his skin from the contact, and he wasn’t sure if it was because his entire body was heating up from his emotions or something else. Perhaps both.

‘We meet at last,’ the boy that felt like the sea breathed into Simon’s knuckles. ‘My name is Markus. Sorry for the abrupt ride. Our connection was lost for the first time since you gave me that octopus and I… panicked. I apologise. I hope it’s fine.’

Simon wanted to tell his companion - Markus, apparently - that it was more than fine, but with one of his hands captive and the other still unable to move from where it was buried in the sand because it was just so comfortable and he wasn’t ready to leave yet, he couldn’t access his stack of cards, and so he nodded and let the corner of his mouth twitch. Josh said that it was as close to a smile everyone could get out of Simon. Right now he was comfortable, he was in his safe space, and it wasn’t like the sea himself was going to tell him how to smile and emote, right?

‘You are my other half, Simon,’ Markus said, and it didn’t even occur to Simon until much later that he shouldn’t know his name. ‘I just want to make sure that you’re safe.’

Simon nodded again because he understood. The sea never lied to him before.

‘Spend the rest of the day with me? I’ll show you the way back before dinnertime.’

You don’t have to, Simon wanted to say. I would rather be with you, he also wanted to say. Forever.

As if sensing his thoughts, Markus shook his head, getting sand into his braids. ‘Not yet, my polaris,’ it sounded strange coming from the voice of a twelve-year-old - at least approximately - the contrast between his breaking voice jarring with how old he sounded, but somehow it made sense on Markus who, to Simon, was the embodiment of the boundless ocean. His free hand brushed Simon’s neck as he brought Simon’s to his own. ‘Feel this?’ He let go of Simon so that Simon could explore Markus’ neck on his own, and indeed he felt ridges that did not belong to a human’s neck under the pads of his fingers. ‘They’re my gills. I can easily give you your own so that you can come here but… I saw how the others are treating you already, and I didn’t.’

I don’t care, Simon wanted to say, but as the silence between them grew and his head became clearer from being safe and warm, he realised that whatever he was experiencing then wasn’t normal. He couldn’t always rely on North and Josh and Daniel for protection because the past two days were exactly demonstrations of that, that they wouldn’t be at his side forever, that sometimes, even though they meant well, they still didn’t understand him as good as the sea did and could hurt him unintentionally. Having strange scars on his neck would only worsen whatever he was going through.

Okay. I’ll wait for you.

‘I’m sorry, Simon.’

Don’t be.

Markus scooted closer. The sand cooled down to a pleasant temperature. Still holding Simon’s hand, Markus supported himself on his arm and kissed his temple, and a small part of Simon wished that he had kissed him on his lips instead. So Markus did. Just a small one that was no more than a short press of skin, but even as Markus pulled back, he didn’t go far, their foreheads touching as they drifted between the land of the living and slumber as one, their fingers intertwined on soft sand. It was peaceful in a way Simon didn’t think he had been before.

He only let himself feel a slight tinge of disappointment when he woke up on the pier later that day because he knew that the sea would be back for him.

[mrsnazariowrites]

Yes, Sir (NSFW)

Perfect Match

Pairing: Damien x MC

Rating: 18+; Title says it all. If you are reading this, then you acknowledge that you are 18 or older and consenting to read written portrayals of sexual encounters.

A/N: Slightly earlier than Thirsty Thursday, but here it is! I don’t write smut very often and I really feel like I went all out this time! Set in Perfect Match 2 Chapter 10 after Winona Johnson’s Hollywood party. Hope you enjoy ;)

Summary: Maya returns from the hottest party of the year and Damien is waiting for her with an even better one in store.

Choices Fanfic Archive Version (if the read more doesn’t work)

You can find my other stories in my Masterlist. Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in anything!

Maya plopped herself in the living room couch with a sigh, contemplating the eventful day she’d had. The plan of attending Winona’s party turned out to be a success. Initially, she’d thought this was just going to be a slow start; getting Winona to listen to them, then planting the seed of doubt about Eros. Instead, not only had Winona believed them, she’d decided to feature them as guests on her show.

Part of her was excited about it while the other was telling her that this was a colossally bad idea. Sharing her story on live TV would definitely start a controversy that could pretty much go in any direction. Revealing Hayden to the world as a Match was going to hurt Eros’ credibility, but it wouldn’t just end there. At this point, Maya knew Rowan and Cecile too well. They would definitely retaliate with attacks of their own.

Tomorrow, there would be hours of debating on how to go about this. But for now, all Maya cared about was a nice warm bed and a certain P.I, who was no doubt waiting for her tonight.

She looked down to the dress she was wearing – the same, light blue floral maxi that she’d worn to Winona Johnson’s party. The dress had achieved its purpose in impressing all the celebrities. But most importantly, it had impressed Damien.

Maya blushed upon recalling earlier this evening when he’d seen her in it.

She adjusted the strap of her dress, making sure it was in place. Then she heard footsteps behind her. “Just give me a second, Nadia, it won’t kill us to be a few minutes late-” She turned to find Damien standing there, watching her in a stunned silence.

Realizing she’d caught him staring, he quickly cleared his throat. “That’s a good look for you.” He said, his gaze traveling from the crown of her head to her feet. He stepped forward, hesitating for a second before reaching out. His fingers touched the soft fabric of her dress, gingerly trailing along the opening at her thigh. Then Damien pulled his hand back, curling his fingers into his palm. When he looked back up at her, there was a hungry flash in his eyes. “Don’t be gone too long.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Heat stirred within her at the thought and she immediately stood up, telling Hayden a quick good night as he headed to his room. When she got to the room she and Damien were sharing, Maya stood outside the door, listening. There was no sound. He’s probably asleep. She walked as quietly as she could, trying not to wake him. But as soon as she stepped in, Maya took note of the dimmed lights and a lone figure standing near the dresser. “Damien?” she called softly. “Is that you?”

Damien didn’t answer at first. He took a few steps forward until he was sure she could see him completely, Maya’s eyes widened when she took him in – clad in the old police uniform he’d taken with him. “You’ve been gone for a while,” He said huskily. “I’ve been waiting.”

She dropped her purse, rushed forward and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him deeply as his arms encircled her waist. “Mmm,” Maya closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of his lips on hers. “Well I’m here now.” She felt him smile against her as he steered her around the dresser.

“I’m glad.”

Maya felt her back hit the wall and she broke the kiss, looking at him curiously.

“So how was the party?” Damien asked.

“It was awesome. You should’ve seen her home. It was so big and beautiful! She even has her own bowling alley! Not to mention my dress got us into the VIP section.”

“I can see why,” he laughed as he looked her up and down once again, his expression just as hungry as it’d been before. “You look beautiful.”

“Aww you’re so sweet,” she said adoringly. “I wish you could’ve come with me.” Maya splayed her hands on his chest, fingering one of the patches on his uniform, pressing herself closer to him. “But enough of that. How about we skip to the part where you get this dress off of me?”

“Now hold on,” Damien drew back. “You got all dressed up for these famous people, but I only get to see you in it for five minutes?” He shook his head. “That hardly seems fair, Miss Park.” A mischievous smirk spread on his face. “No, you’re gonna wear that dress until I say otherwise.”

Maya raised an eyebrow. So that’s how this is gonna be? Clearly his uniform had a bigger purpose tonight than just looking sexy and she would be lying if she wasn’t all for it.

“Do you understand, Miss Park?”

The firm question brought her out of her thoughts and she straightened, widening her eyes innocently, as if she hadn’t noticed the slight tic in his jaw as she said, “Yes, Sir.”

He nodded, his gaze darkened with desire and he began trailing kisses from her cheek down to her neck. She tilted her head back, allowing him more access. “So . . . VIP access, huh?” He paused, knowing all too well what this was doing to her – him throwing in casual conversation when it was clear what they should be doing right now. “Meet anyone interesting?”

“Yeah . . .” Maya’s knees grew shaky as his once-soft kisses turned firm. She clutched his shoulders, struggling to keep her mind straight. “Lots of celebrities like-” she gasped when he pushed her further against the wall and gently bit her earlobe.

“Like . . .?” his hot breath tickled her skin and she let out a soft moan. Damien made a disapproving noise. “I asked you a question, Miss Park.” He whispered in her ear.

“Like-” Maya cleared her throat, steadying her breathing. She could feel him smirking against her skin and it was delightfully infuriating. This was killing her and he knew it. “Alyssa Griffin, Cassandra Leigh, Ryan Summers, Josh Morello, that new guy hosting AME . . . lots of people.”

“I see.”

Maya reached around blindly, fumbling at the buttons of his uniform. She’d just managed to pop one open when Damien caught her wrists, pinning them to the wall on either side of her head. She opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head, grinning smugly. “I have another question, Miss Park. Did anyone . . . flirt with you?”

Maya regarded him, surprised. “Is that an appropriate question to ask at this time?” She ground her hips against his and he sucked in a breath. “Given the context . . .”

“Curious minds would like to know,” Damien replied, nuzzling her neck tenderly. “You in that dress, Hollywood party, lots of celebrities who’d, no doubt, share my appreciation for your looks.” There was no anger or accusation of any kind in his tone, just a teasing glint in his eyes. “No judgment here, though. Can’t say I blame them.”

Comprehension dawned on her and a playful smile broke out on her face. “Well, it’s not important but . . . Winona’s rival kinda did.”

“Her rival?”

“Some loser in a white shirt. Anyway, he tried to flirt with me and I pretty much shot him down.”

“Really?” He glanced at her, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement. “And what, may I ask, did you do?”

“I may have used a question about Rowan West to imply that he needs matchmaking services. And that I’d be bleaching this encounter from my memory.” Damien’s laugh resonated through her and Maya nearly lost it. “Oh for god’s sake Damien, who cares about that?! I want you, damn it! Just . . . oh . . .” She felt the strap of her dress being pulled down and her breath hitched. Damien leaned in and licked along her bare shoulder, sucking on a sensitive spot and eliciting another moan from her. “Oh Damien . . .”

His hands were now ghosting up and down her sides, then stopped at her chest to fondle her breasts through the fabric of her dress. “Sounds like you’ve had an interesting evening.”

And it’s getting even better.

He began kissing down her chest, pulling at her dress along the way.  He then took her nipple between his teeth and she inhaled sharply, grasping at his shoulders.

“You made me wait for you all night. Can’t be a little patient for me, now?”

“Come onn, that’s not fair . . .”

Although if you ask nicely, I could cut you some slack.”

“Please, Sir,” she whimpered. Maya was no stranger to teasing. She could have patience when it came to that especially if she was the one doing the teasing, except she could only be patient for so long until there was no other thought in her head but the raw desire pooling in her. The desire to have Damien where she wanted him.

“That’s my good girl.” He began to kiss further down her body until he was on his knees before her, making sure he lingered the longest wherever she was still covered by her dress. Just when she was about to let out another frustrated whine, Damien reached the opening of her dress and immediately hoisted her thigh over his shoulder.

She writhed in anticipation as he quickly pulled down her now-dampened panties. “Damn, Maya. You’re so wet.” He buried his face between her legs, perfectly aware that every sound he made, she could feel to her core. “Is that for me?”

“Yes, Sir.” As if in response, Damien slid his tongue between her folds, finding her pearl and lapping at it. Maya threw her head back and moaned loudly, not caring who would hear her. “Ohhh god . . . that feels . . . .”  She braced one of her hands against the wall, while her other dug her fingers into his hair.

Damien trailed his other hand up her leg, found her center and began to massage her gently, his mouth continuing the delicious torture that built up her pleasure more and more with every stroke.

“Mine. Only mine.” He breathed, before plunging two fingers into her.

“Yes, Sir!” She cried. “I’m yours.”

Eventually, the pleasure became too much and her legs began to shake. Maya bucked her hips against his mouth, forcing his tongue and his fingers deeper into her, over and over until she finally came with a soft cry, arching her back.

As she came down from her high, he stood back up, trailing more kisses along the way. When Maya finally opened her eyes, she saw him before her, gazing at her lovingly. Damien surged forward and captured her mouth in a deep kiss, which she happily returned, not caring that she could taste herself in his mouth.

They broke apart, panting, the flutter of desire still there. “Wow,” was all she could say. “That was . . .”

“Speechless?” He laughed softly, pressing their foreheads together. “That’s a first.”

“Shut up,” Maya giggled. “Potentially ruining the moment is my job. And . . .” She moved one of her hands down his chest to cup the visible bulge in his pants, eliciting a groan from Damien, which fueled her arousal once again. “We still need to do something about this.” She pulled him forward by his tie, steering them until she’d backed both of them into the dresser. “Still up for a round two?”

Damien’s lips brushed hers as he whispered. “Oh I never said I was done with you yet.” He fumbled for the zipper of her dress, yanking it down and letting the silky material pool at her feet. He stepped back and took a moment to admire her, his heart pounding wildly as she eyed him hungrily.

“Clothes off. Now.”

He smirked at her, a fire in his eyes, as he stood straighter and began to gradually unbutton his uniform. Once it was open, Damien stalked towards her, slowly pulling it off and revealing his muscled chest and abs. Then he loosened his belt and tossed it aside. “Tell me what you want, Maya.” He commanded.

“Take me. Right here on this dresser.”

He reached behind her and with one sweep of his arm, knocked every single cosmetic off of the dresser. Then he turned her around and bent her over the wooden surface. Maya barely managed to catch herself, gasping when he pressed his body against hers, effectively pinning her there. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her neck, wasting no time to mark her.

“Oh Damien . . . please . . .”

“Can you feel what you’re doing to me?” He murmured, his voice thick with affection.

“Yes,” she moaned softly. From where his hips were slowly grinding against her, she could feel his bulging erection through his pants.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Sir.” Then she bucked her hips against his, eliciting a growl.

He tsked at her. “So desperate already . . . but you’ve been a good girl tonight, so I think you deserve a little reward. What do you say?” There was a proud smirk on his face.

“Yes, Sir! Please, fuck me!”

Damien didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled his pants down and kicked them aside, lined himself up at her entrance, then slammed his length inside of her. Maya cried out and jolted forward to grasp at the dresser. Damien noticed and stopped, waiting as she took a few breaths to steady herself.

He leaned closer to her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You all right, doll? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No, I’m fine.” she whispered. “Keep going. I want it rough tonight.”

He kissed her temple softly. “Anything for you.”

She gripped the edge of the dresser, bracing herself as Damien pounded into her. His fingers weaved into her hair, holding her down. “You like that, Maya? You like it when I fuck you from behind?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Good girl.” From the corner of her eye, she could see his lips quirked into a proud grin.

“Damien . . .” she was panting and moaning shamelessly. “More . . . please!”

His rhythm slowed but then he began thrusting even harder than before, as if his life depended on it. “How’s this?”

“Oh god!” Maya gasped at the intensity, then let out a soft whimper before her breath caught in her throat. She shut her eyes, trying to pick up her rhythm again, and then began pushing her hips back against his, meeting his movements as they came.

Suddenly, his fingers curled into her hair, tugging her head back so it was resting against his shoulder. She felt his hot breath on her ear. “Look at me, Maya,” he commanded. “I want you to watch me take you.”

Maya’s eyes fluttered open and she looked at the mirror, at herself; face flushed, fingers digging into the wooden furniture, her breasts bouncing back and forth, mouth hung open as she cried out every time he claimed her.

“That’s it.” Damien was fixated on their reflection in the mirror, his eyes glazed with passion. “See that?” he whispered, slowing down to savor the moment. “See what I dream about when you’re not around?” He began grinding against that spot that made her forget everything but this moment; his moment with just him and her. “You’re the only one who can get me like this.” His hand moved down to her center, pressing and circling her clit. “And who I love doing this.”

“Ohh!” She could swear she was seeing stars. “Oh, Damien! Yes!”

“Keep watching,” He breathed against her. “And remember that you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” she panted. “Only yours, Sir.”

“That’s my girl.”

Then she felt the unmistakable fluttering in her muscles as her legs began to twitch. Her eyes widened involuntarily as she began to let herself go. “Damien, I’m- I’m gonna-”

Damien tugged at her hair again. “There you go. Come for me, Maya.”

“Damien!” Her breath came out in ragged gasps as she watched herself come undone, small hoarse screams forced out of her as he rode out her orgasm as long as he could, making sure she could relish every bit of pleasure before it was his turn.

“Oh god . . . Maya!” He buried his face in her hair, letting out a strangled cry as he followed her over the edge, giving her everything he had.

Maya slumped against the dresser, closing her eyes as she relished the warm tingling sensations throughout in her body. As Damien came to, he brushed her hair aside and placed gentle, affectionate kisses against her temple before resting his head against her shoulder. Once they’d managed to catch their breath, he supported her as they found their way back to their bed.

Maya smiled contently as she lay her on her back against his chest, lazily pulling the covers over the two of them and they settled in, enjoying the hazy afterglow. She intertwined one of her hands with one of his, leaning into his embrace as his fingers lightly traced the skin along her hip.

After a while, Maya finally found her voice. “So . . . ‘girlfriend’, huh?”

“Hmm?”

“Earlier today when we were at your mom’s place.” She leaned back and tilted her head up to glance at him. “You introduced me as your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” Damien said, his cheeks tinged slightly red. “Is that . . . okay?”

“Of course! I’d kiss you again for that, but I kind of can’t move my legs just yet.” She joked. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

He let out a deep laugh. “Anytime.”

“You haven’t answered my question yet.”

“Oh right.” Damien shrugged. “I mean, we’ve been together for a while now. After everything we’ve been through together, all the serious conversations we’ve had about . . . well, us . . .” he motioned his hand between the two of them. “I guess I sort of assumed it was implied.” His grin was slightly bashful. “Pretty lame, right?”

Maya shook her head. “No, it’s not. I like it! In fact,” she leaned back to flash him a cheeky grin. “Some might even say it’s four years overdue.”

“You’re gonna use that against me every single time, aren’t you?”

“Count on it.”

“You’re a monster.” His snarky jab made her giggle and he pinched her in the side playfully, smirking when she couldn’t keep her laughter at a reasonable volume.

“But you love it.”

Damien leaned in and kissed her forehead, beaming with happiness – more than he’d been in quite a while. “Yeah, I kind of do.”

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

[gvf-imagine]

Part 2

A/N: as always feedback is welcome! I hope you all enjoy it ❣️also if you would like to be added to the tag list just message me

Tag list: @karrotkate @satingrass-maidensfair @justacollegestudentyay @love-philautia @jimmypagesandbrianmayshair

Word count: 3206

———————————————————————

It had been a week since the festival show with Greta Van Fleet, you found yourself listening to their songs on a daily basis and every once in a while you smile absentmindedly as thoughts of them ran through your head. That night with the boys ended with passion and insight. After having that moment with them in that field of lush grass they went back to their bus and you went back to yours feeling like a whole new chapter of your life had begun and you knew for a fact that would not be the last time you'd see them. You truly liked all of them, Josh made you laugh, Danny made you feel safe, Jake made you feel reckless and free, and Sammy brought you a certain aspect of self-involved peace. They all had great qualities about them that made them special to you in the short time that you were with them. They left an impression and you couldn't help but wonder if you'd left one on them.

Unfortunately the alcohol that swirled in your veins caused you to stumble into a sleepy stupor and by the time you woke up , hazzy, with a migraine, your tour bus was already long gone from Los Angeles and headed back home. You cursed yourself for not getting at least one of their numbers before going your separate ways. In the week since, you had been spending your time with yourself mostly. Lounging around your apartment, catching up on sleep and some of your favorite netflix series. Now it was friday morning and you had just woken up, not by choice but rather from the sound of some ungodly loud construction worker who was jack hammering the pavement like it owed him money. The sun was up, the birds were chirping, it was another typical day in your small town. Immediately upon waking your body craved caffeine, you hadn't drank at all last night so the headache slamming in your brain was surely due to the lack of said caffeine in your bloodstream. Nothing a quick cup of coffee couldn’t fix. In your ever flattering attire of jogging pants and a tank top, you moved down the hall to your kitchen, the sun shining through your windows and warming your skin like a gentle hello. 

As the coffee brews you look at your phone, no messages or calls, which is not unusual as you don't have many friends or family still in the area. You open your instagram page with a flick of your thumb and you can't stop the smile that paints its way across your face when you see you had four new followers, Josh , Sam, Jake, and Danny had all found their way to your account, you followed them all back instantly and spent the next half an hour sipping your coffee and going through their photos. Four such gorgeous men literally at your fingertips, you were smiling so much your cheeks began to hurt. When you took a sip of your coffee and were met with a cold liquid you decided that was enough phone time for now, now it was time for a nice hot shower. 

Throughout your shower you absolutely could NOT take your mind off the boys. Josh’s smile filled your mind as water cascaded down your body, relaxing your muscles and awakening your mind. What a beautiful man he is, so gentle and enticing, you licked your lips thinking about him.

The skin on your fingertips began to prune, it was time to get out. You wrapped a warm towel around your body and walked back into your room to get dressed for the day. You settled on a simple outfit, a high waisted jean skirt, with a yellow collared shirt and black knee high stockings. You were doing your makeup when you heard your phone chime in the bathroom, you smack your lips in the mirror, evenly spreading the matte,nude color across your moist lips. You shoot yourself a smile and go to get your phone. 

Josh_gvf: “hey girl, miss me?” 

You laugh , elated that one of them got in contact with you. That must have meant that he was thinking about you, it was good to know you weren't the only one that recognized the connection you felt.

Y: “hey Josh, how'd you know?” You write back perhaps a bit too quickly. You were not ashamed to seem eager, you were eager.

Josh_gvf: “I got a feeling ;) so guess what?” His response comes even quicker than yours. 

Y:”what??” originally you had put three question marks but erased one as it seemed too overzealous. 

Josh_gvf: “were playing in detroit tonight, nothing huge, just a bar show but we'd love it if you would come…..to the show  mean”  You could almost hear his flirtatious tone in your head, he would have shot you a wink as well. God a show sounded wonderful, honestly fuck the show, seeing the boys sounded wonderful. 

Josh_gvf: “of course we would come pick you up, your town is on the way anyways” he sends another message. 

Y: “of course! I’d love to come, what time?” you reply, your heartbeat was quickening in your chest and butterfly wings tickled the sides of your stomach. You were so excited! 

Josh_gvf: “we’ll pick you up around 6 ok? Wear something cute, I need eye candy while im up on stage” more flirtation, god you loved it, you craved it you craved him. His words settled over you, like the warm welcome of an old friend, or that feeling you get when you hear a song you haven't heard in years.

Y: “sounds good and I’ll try my hardest not to disappoint ;)” you write back, you also send him your address. 

Six o’clock was not very far away, only a few hours now. You wondered if you should change your outfit and you decide to find something a bit more tantalizing. 

You dig through your dressers and rummage around in your closet until you've got the perfect outfit put together:  



You looked over yourself in the mirror, happy with your creation, your outfit on, your hair was done and so was your makeup, just a few squirts of perfume and you’d be ready to go.

You were so excited to see them it almost confused you. Why do you like them so much , honestly, you didn’t know them that well even. You couldn’t help it , being around them felt right in every way.

———————————————————

You heard two horn beeps come from outside your apartment. You scramble to the window and see a stretch limo below you, a smiling Danny Wagner hanging out of the sun roof. You practically squeal , grab your phone and run down stairs. When you open the door the boys pile out of the limo to greet you.

“Oh baby” josh winces upon seeing your outfit. His face looked as if though you looked so good it hurt him.

“Enough eye candy?” You question gesturing to yourself.

“You look gorgeous” Sam says grabbing your hand and leading you into a limo.

“Wow you guys get limo rides to your shows? Man My manager just gives me 5 bucks for gas” you joke. Jake laughs loudly as he climbs in the seat next to you.

“It’s good to see you again (y/n)” Jake chimes with a glistening smile, as he rakes his fingers over his head and through his hair. As he moved you caught a whiff of his cologne , it was sweet and very subtle not at all the scent you thought he’d go with.

As the limo begins to move your eyes move to josh who was already looking at you with a hind of mischief on his face. You wondered what he was thinking about.

“You want a drink love?” He asked. Hearing him call you love made your knees weak. His voice was so enticing , like melted chocolate. You wondered if he tasted like melted chocolate too. That satire thought escapes your mind through your mouth as you say “yeah I’d love a drink” you answer, clearing dirty thoughts from your head.

“Southern and seven right?” He asks holding up a bottle of southern comfort.

“Yeah!” You chime , happy he remembered your drink.

“Good because I bought this just for you, girl” josh informs. Your cheeks are blushing and you know it, you can feel the tingling burn on your face.

“Aw you made her blush” Sam comments running his index finger gently down your cheek. Josh looks over to you as he pours your drink. His eyes scan your face , lingering a bit on your lips. He looked at you with hunger as if you were sitting there naked and waiting for his touch. That image sent chills down your spine, he winks at you as he hands you your drink. Suddenly your throat feels dry so you chug the drink with an exasperated sigh when you finish.

“Jesus” Danny says with a chuckle.

“Get her another one” Sam speaks taking your empty glass from you and handing it back to josh. You heard a lighter spark to your right , Jake was lighting a blunt.

Oh that’s why he was being so quiet.

His lips rest around the end and he inhales watching the cherry burn as the smoke slips into his mouth, brushing over her succulent rose lips. He looks at you and smiles as he holds the smoke in then passes you the blunt as he releases.

You take two hits making “O’s” with the smoke as you exhale with a giggle.

“I can do that too” Danny says excitedly, you pass him the blunt and he gives it a try.

“Hmmm no. You can’t” josh states , all of you laugh at Danny’s sad attempt.

“You’ll get it one day” Sam chimes with a smile.

The limo was full of smoke now, you looked around at the boys through the hazy fog. Everyone is quiet now , you sipping your drink and watching the world pass by put the window. The alcohol and the weed were begging to take affect. The alcohol warmed your body while the weed pulled your mind into alleviation... a lusty combination. You were so calm in this moment , you knew this was exactly where you belonged, it just felt right and you hadn’t had the privilege to get that sense of fleeing very many times in your life.

———————————————————

Jakes hand reaches for you, offering his help as you step out of the limo, you accept and thank him. The sun still hung in the sky, blinding the earth unapologetically. The sunshine felt good casted over your skin, with your head still swimming in an elegant haze.

Josh grabs your waist and pulls you closer to him , his hand stays at your hips as you all walk through the door.

“I’m glad you’re hear, love” he coos in your ear before gently kissing your ear lobe. Your knees buckle causing you to wobble slightly, Josh tightens his grip on you and smiles

“Oh she likes it she likes it” he purrs with a wink.

Yeah. you loved it. You wanted more of him, you couldn’t stand the sexual tension anymore, you wanted to feel him and taste him , to know him in that way.

The bar was packed with people , you were sort of surprised. Josh said this wasn’t going to be a big show but it looked pretty big to you, there were people everywhere. Danny hops on the stage and begins tending to his drum set ,making small changes in its position.

“We gotta go on wish us luck” Sam chimes giving you a side hug.

“You don’t need luck Sammy, you guys are the best” you reply before he and Jake join Danny on stage. Josh plays with a piece of your hair , twirling it around his finger looking at you.

“I’m singing for you tonight girly” he whispers , his voice slick with liquor.

His hand trails down your cheek gently as he just looks at you. Seconds later he winks and joins his brothers on stage taking the microphone in his hand. Already the audience was forming and cheering for the boys. You found yourself right in front of the stage, a mass of people on either side of you and the smell of alcohol and smoke hung in the air.

Josh introduced the guys before Jake started to play the opening for ‘when the curtain falls’. A chorus of cheers and motion erupting from the crowd. Josh’s voice was all you could hear, the freeing sound of his bluesy rasp send vibrations through the building. His voice flooded from his mouth and filled the air like bright red fireworks exploding in the sky. He was so talented. The sound of Jakes guitar slices through you like a lightening bolt of sound and energy. Danny’s drums pounded into the crowd, his strong, muscular arms in control of it all. The sound of sam’s bass flooded over you like huge purple waves of calming spirit. He played that bass like it was all he knew how to do, like it was part of him. Song after song the boys held this vitality and vigor and the crowd was eating it up. Josh walked off to the side of the stage for a second before returning with something behind his back. Arms were reaching for him as he walked to the edge of the stage , his eyes meet yours and he brings a rose out from behind him and reaches to hand it to you



You can hear the jealous gasps of girls around you. You smile up at him before he brings the microphone to his lips once more and continues singing. You smell the rose and feel those familiar butterflies in your stomach again. You were in awe, these boys had such raw talent and capability. You know a band is good when they make a bar show feel like a sold out arena. enjoying the music you moved with the crowd , the songs taking control of your body and mind , you forget there’s people around you, you are thrown into a world of your own. You don’t open your eyes again until josh announces that the show was over and offers his thanks and goodbyes to the crowd.

Josh jumps off the stage in immediately walks to you.

“Come here” he utters his hands grab your face before he presses his lips to yours. You are caught off guard but you let him do it, you wanted this just as much as he did. You didn’t know what had gotten into him , perhaps the adrenaline from a wonderful show.

His tongue licks your bottom lip asking for permission before you open your mouth and let his tongue slip in, deepening the kiss and the passion. His hand was now behind your head and wrapped around your waist pulling you further into him. A small moan escapes your lips unintentionally but you couldn’t help it. He balls your hair in his fist as he continues to kiss you.

When he lets you go your face is flushed and his chest is rising and falling with desire. The rest of the night was spent drowning in liquor.

Eventually bar time came around and it was time to get back in the limo. You all stumbled in, you got in first then josh sat on your left and Danny on your right Jake and Sam sat in the seats across from you.

When the limo pulled up to your apartment you sighed sad to leave.

Danny put his arm around you and gave you a hug wishing you a good nights sleep. Sam and Jake did the same , Josh got out and walked to your door to help you out.

He smiles as he walks you to your porch.

“Let me see your phone” he says reaching for it in your pocket. You pull it out and hand it to him happily. He presses a few buttons before handing it back to you.

“There now you have my number “ he says flashing you a smirk.

“Awesome, I’ll text you in a little while to make sure you guys got home ok, give my number to the other guys too ok?” You chime as his hand grabs yours.

“I will” he promises before kissing you on the cheek.

“Thank you for coming tonight” he adds, his voice was softer now.

“Of course it was super fun and you guys did great” you reply. Josh looks back at the limo.

“We should hangout sometime just me and you yeah? We can go to dinner this Saturday if you want, would you like that?” He offers.

“Yeah that sounds great Josh!” You beam. Josh lifts your hand to his lips kissing it gently, looking you in the eye.

“Goodnight (y/n)” he coos

“Goodnight josh” you smile. He winks as he gets back in the limo , you wave until the car is out of sight.

———————————————————

In the week that passed you had gotten in touch with all of the boys , josh did as you asked and gave them all your number, you talked to at least one of them every day.

Tonight was your big date with josh and you were so excited. You found the perfect outfit and couldn’t wait for him to see you in it.

Just then your phone vibrates, you pick it up and look at the message.

Josh: hey girlie , I hate this but I have to cancel our date tonight ... something came up I’m so sorry , I really wanted to see you but I can’t get out of this, I’ll make it up to you though I promise

Your heart sinks as you read the message, you felt upset for josh and hoped everything was ok but at the same time you were really sad that you couldn’t go out with him now.

Y: oh no I hope everything is ok Josh, no worries we will hangout some other time ❣️

You set your phone down and walk to your room to change out of your new outfit. You grab jogging pants and an old ‘quiet riot’ t shirt and head to your living room to spend an uneventful night on the couch.

Hours later you’re scrolling through Instagram. When a post josh is tagged catches your eye. You look at the date and see it was posted one hour ago. It was a picture of him and some girl at a mini golf course. You deflate when you read the caption.

“Fun night with Joshy❣️”

“Something came up huh josh...” you say to yourself with disappointment.

You look at the girls name ‘Andrea hartnet ’.

You flip to your messaging and click on Danny’s name.

Y: hey Danny, does josh know anyone named Andrea?

A few seconds pass before he responded

D: yeah that’s his ex, why?

—————————————————-

To be continued

[puckinganderson]

Finding You - Part Three

Feat. Josh Anderson

Part One // Part Two

Word Count: 4,070

Warnings: alcohol, drugging

A/N: I’m seriously so sorry it took me so long to get this part of the story out!! This isn’t as long as I’d hoped it would be, but I really struggled writing this to bridge a gap in the story. I’m really excited for what I have planned in the next few updates, so it won’t be long again :)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Shit,” you huffed out to no one but yourself. Your legs were aching for relief and every breath burned at this point in your run, but you continued with the punishing pace. You absolutely hated running, like any sane person, yet you needed the time to think desperately.

Ever since your second night with Josh a few weeks ago, you’d started seeing each other regularly. Him being on the road helped give little breaks and you found yourself needing them to get a breath of fresh air. Josh was someone who consumed the entire space around him with his energy.

You found yourself getting lost in him the more time you spent together, and you honestly didn’t like it. It had taken months to feel independent again after your breakup and you didn’t want to risk losing that over sex with someone that it wasn’t realistic to have a relationship with.

And that was fine, really. You didn’t want to force Josh into a corner, because you were enjoying the carefree, unspoken arrangement that you had. It pushed you have fun, while still keeping a balance of normalcy.

You both kept things low-key and casual, texting one another when you were bored or just needed to forget for a little while. It had been working, for now at least. You knew that you were walking a fine line and didn’t want to let yourself become to comfortable with him. Even though you and Josh hadn’t made set boundaries, you rarely stayed the night with him.

Rounding the corner to your street, you sped up knowing the pain in your lungs would be over soon enough. Coming to a stop in front of your house, you bent down to rest your hands on your knees. You sucked in shallow breaths, trying to get oxygen to your brain.

Barely even looking up, you wobbled towards the stairs of your porch. It took a second to realize you weren’t hallucinating Josh leaning against your front door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you groaned out, pissed he was seeing you when you knew that your face was red with sweat dripping down your forehead.

“Oh wow, happy to see you too, Y/N,” he chuckled to himself, taking a moment to look you over.

“Please stop looking at me,” you huffed out, still short of breath from your run.

“Hey, not everyone can be in shape like a professional athlete,” he chuckled out, earning an eye roll from you.

You lightly punched his shoulder, laughing along with him because he kinda had a point. “I’ll have you know that I was running regularly until you started taking up all my free time.”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t realize I was so distracting,” Josh prodded, and you tried to think of something to change the subject so he wouldn’t go there. You were already overwhelmed enough, and the idea of having that conversation with him made you start to panic a little.

“Anyways, why are you here?” you questioned him. Josh had only been to your house to drop you off after spending time together, and you wanted to keep it that way. You wanted to keep a bridge between him and your personal life and having him in your space would be too much. Plus, you were a college student, so his place was much nicer anyways.

“I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see if you had any plans tonight,” he answered, while following you into your house once you unlocked the door. You kicked off your shoes and settled on the ground to stretch out, noticing that Josh was looking around your house.

Kicking your legs out in a V, you leaned forward to stretch your thighs. “Actually, Kate and I are going out tonight.”

You let out a little moan at the feeling of your muscles finally starting to loosen. Josh cleared his throat and shifted from where he was sitting on your couch, giving you a look. “Do you really have to be a tease, Y/N?”

“Get over yourself, my legs will be too sore to go out later if I don’t stretch good,” you told him while rolling your eyes at his comment.

“Well perfect, don’t go out and stay in with me,” Josh said with a boyish smirk, knowing he was pushing you.

“Actually Joshua,” you snipped out, switching positions and leaning backwards, “you’re the one who has been taking up all my time and the reason I’ve been neglecting my best friend.”

It annoyed you to hear his laugh, even though you were responsible for how you chose to spend your time. “Well don’t be mad at me if I say I’m not sorry,” Josh chuckled.

You felt him move behind you and before you had a moment to protest, his hands were rubbing your shoulders gently. A moan erupted from your throat and you couldn’t help but let your head lull backwards. Josh didn’t need to know it, but you were a sucker for a good massage.

“Let me help you stretch,” he whispered in your ear, brushing the hair off of your neck.

“Mmmm,” was all you could get out, the sensations from his strong hands were too much to even process what he was saying.

Josh pulled you down to the ground, so you were laying down completely. Moving around to your legs, he lifted on and pushed it so it was flat against your chest.

“Fuck Josh, that hurts,” you groaned out, the muscles in your legs aching so bad.

“Shhh, the pain will go away in a second and then you’ll thank me.”

Sure enough, he eased up on the pressure and then pushed again, this time the muscles feeling so much more loose. After another minute of working on your right leg, he moved on to the the same thing to your left. Your eyes had been clenched closed because of the pain, so it took you by surprise to see how close Josh was to you when you finally opened them.

You took in a shaky breath and swallowed, trying to avoid eye contact, while he was staring into your eyes intently. He was so close that his intoxicating scent consumed you and sent you into overdrive. It was too much, he was too close, in your head and in your home. Part of you wanted to give in to what he was so willingly offering, but you needed to keep boundaries.

You looked back into his soft eyes, watching you carefully, and cleared your throat. “Uhh, thanks, that actually helped a lot.”

Josh got the hint and sat back onto the heels of his feet, allowing you room to sit up. You weren’t quite sure how to get him out of your space so you had a moment to think.

“So, there’s no chance in me getting to see you tonight?” Josh asked before you had a chance to overthink things anymore.

“How about this?” a smirk came across your face when you thought of an idea to keep things playful. “If you can find me, then you can see me.”

Josh rolled his eyes at the little game you were offering, but didn’t shut the idea down. “Y/N, how the hell am I supposed to find you?”

Taking a step towards him where he sat on the ground still, you reached a hand out to play with his hair. “C’mon Josh, you’re a smart guy,” you looked down at him with a flirty look and bent over to whisper in his ear. “If you want to bad enough, you will.”

Josh let out a small groan at the feeling of your lips dancing on his ear. Knowing you had him in your hands like putty, you dropped your hand and took a step backwards. You walked towards your door and opened it for him, turning around to give him the hint it was time to go. “In the meantime, I’ve got errands to run.”

On a sigh, Josh pushed off the ground and stood to his full height. You weren’t quite sure how his large size surprised you, but you really couldn’t believe just how solid he was. Where your body was soft, with full curves, Josh was all muscle. Rock hard, broad and just, big.

Walking over to the door, Josh leaned onto the door frame and looked at you where you were still holding the door. “Any clues before I go?”

You took a second to mull his question over, not wanting to give away anything that would help him too much. Truthfully, you weren’t sure what yours and Kate’s plans were for the evening, but he didn’t need to know that.

“I’ll be drinking,” answering his question, while giving him something that wouldn’t help his search at all.

Josh processed your answer and started to laugh, but before he had the chance to say anything, you closed the door and locked it.

•••

“Hello, earth to Y/N,” Kate said while waving a hand in your face. You snapped back into reality and realized she had been holding up outfit options. “This black bodysuit, or should I change back into the blouse?”

You took a second to look over her outfit, giving her your full attention and an honest answer after zoning out. “Definitely the bodysuit, it makes you look really hot.”

Kate seemed pleased with your answer, walking over to get her shoes on while you finished up your makeup. The Ohio winter had finally hit and the weather wasn’t ideal for typical outfits to go out in. You had decided on a long-sleeve, wrap top that was red, and paired it with black jeans and booties. The top was low-cut, showing just enough cleavage and making it perfect for going out.

This time, it was you dragging Kate out to the bars. Josh had consumed so much of your time that you knew a girls night was much needed. After Josh stopped by this afternoon, you immediately called Kate to tell her what happened. She made you repeat the whole story a second time and squealed at the end.

Kate, the supportive friend she was, said your game was genius. He’d be too busy finding you to pay attention to any other girls, which really was not what you were going for. You just wanted him off of your back so you could relax and enjoy time with Kate. Instead, the whole night seemed to be focused around him again, which was how your time seemed to be spent since you started to hook up with him regularly.

“Ready?” you asked, walking into the bathroom to see Kate dressed and adding the finishing touches to her makeup. “I’m going to call an Uber.”

“Ok, I just need to grab my purse and I’m good to go.”

Kate and you talked quietly about your plan for the evening on your ride to the bars. She thought it would be a good idea to avoid any of the bars that you’d hung out with Josh at since your first night together. You both decided on a small place you were confident he’d never guess to look at.

As the two of you got settled at the bar with drinks your phone pinged with a text.

Josh: Any more hints you can give me?

You: Now, now. What would be the fun in that?

Josh: C’mon babe, you know you want me to find you.

You could feel Kate’s eyes over your shoulder, so you leaned back to give her full view of your texts from Josh. If there was anyone you trusted for help when it came to guys, it was her.

“Ignore him,” she said simply, taking another sip of her drink. “He’ll find you if he wants to badly enough.”

Letting out a giggle, you locked your phone and set it down on the bar. Waving over the bartender, you ordered another round for the two of you and added on your favorite shot.

You really weren’t sure how much time had passed, or how many drinks the two of you had consumed, but the two of you ended up taking over the dance floor of the low key bar. Of course, it was a Saturday night so it was busier than normal, but you still had much more space than you would at any of the more popular bars in the city.

“Ohh you are the dancing queen, young and sweet,” you screamed at the top of your lungs to Kate.

“Only seventeen, dancing queen,” she belted back with a giggle.

The two of you fell together in a mess of sweaty hair from drinking, singing and dancing for the last few hours. It had been forever since you’d had a night alone to have pure fun like this, and you knew that it was much needed.

“I gotta pee,” you hiccuped to Kate. “Be back soon.”

“Ok, I’m gonna grab more drinks,” she leaned in to kiss your cheek and you stumbled in the direction of the bathroom.

While waiting in the short line, you pulled out your phone that hadn’t been checked since you first got the bar.

Josh: Well you aren’t at any of your normal places.

For some reason you decided to answer his texts, which Kate probably wouldn’t approve of but you did anyways. Giggling to yourself, you typed out a text that seemed hilarious in your drunken state.

You: So many hot guys at this bar, maybe I’ll find one of them before you find me ;)

Locking your phone, you used the restroom and then walked back out to find Kate waiting with your next drink. After polishing them off you ended up back on the dance floor to continue making fools of yourselves.

A few songs later, you felt hands on your hips, but knew they didn’t belong to Josh. For as short of a time that you’d known him, you could immediately tell that it wasn’t his hands on your body. You skin heated at his touch, and whoever was trying to dance with you know didn’t get the same reaction for you. Regardless, you didn’t really care when you were so drunk.

You looked over your shoulder and saw a handsome guy with dark features smiling back at with you.

“I’m Jack,” he yelled into your ear. Jack must’ve had a friend, because you turned your eyes back towards Kate and saw her occupied as well.

Not even bothering to introduce yourself or make small talk, you leaned into him and started to dance. This was exactly what you needed. Harmless flirting with a random guy that would go no further, but would also take your mind off of Josh and his mission to find you.

It was some time later when the song changed to something Odesza that Jack told you he was going to get you guys drinks. Him and Kate’s guy headed off into the direction of the bar, when someone bumped into you from behind. You fell forward a little until Kate caught your arm to keep you steady, but your phone fell to the ground.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you groaned out. “Please don’t be broke.”

Bending over, you picked up your phone and wiped off the alcohol that was coating the floor of the dive bar. You hadn’t been this drunk in so long, so it took you a second to process the text message on your phone from Josh. Turning the phone towards Kate, you showed her what he had sent you and watched her eyes go wide.

Josh: HA, funny. See ya soon.

“He’s all talk,” Kate yelled over the music. “There’s no way he’ll find you at this place.”

“Well if he does then Jack better look out,” you giggled, somehow finding it funny even though you knew it was wrong to put a random stranger in the middle of your little game.

The boys came back, this time with drinks and a pair of shots for you and Kate. Knowing this really needed to be your last round, you through back the shot and welcomed the burn sliding down your throat. A new song began playing and Jack took your hand to start dancing again. Somehow you managed to stand upright even though you desperately needed to find a place to sit down. Jack’s hand wrapped around your waist was the only thing keeping you up, and he pulled you flush to the front of his body.

As your eyes lulled closed and you let Jack move you to the beat of the music, you could feel his hot breath creep down your neck. He was getting a little too handsy for your liking, but you really didn’t have the energy to push him off of you. Everything was starting to feel numb in your body and you didn’t feel in control of your body at all.

“Y/N?” you heard Kate call out your name, but her voice sounded like she was talking underwater. “Are you ok?”

“Hmmm?” you mumbled back, barely even able to open your lips.

“What the hell did you do to her?” Kate yelled at Jack, who has started to let go of your body until your legs started to give out. “Get the fuck off of her.”

You felt outside of your body, like you could see what was happening but had no capability to respond. Jack and his friend disappeared when Kate threatened to call the cops, but she was more concerned with making sure you were ok. She slung your arm over her shoulder and pulled you into the bathroom. “Move!” Kate yelled at the girls in line ahead of you, pulling you into a stall that a girl was about to go into.

Kate let you collapse onto the floor, and she wrapped your hair in one hand while using the other to hold your head over the toilet.

“Y/N,” Kate called out, slapping your cheek lightly to get your eyes opened a little. You could make out the shape of her concerned face and wanted to cry knowing you’d caused this, but couldn’t. “I need you to throw up, but I might have to help. Is that ok?”

“Mmmm,” was all you could mumble out, still unable to make out words. Before you knew what was happening, Kate opened your mouth gently and stuck two of her fingers down your throat. You gagged on her fingers and she pulled them out, allowing you to empty the contents of your stomach into the toilet.

Your stomach continued to heave until it hurt and you laid your head on the edge of the toilet bowl. After a few minutes of laying there, you started to heave again and emptied even more. Leaning back against Kate, you finally felt a little more coherent.

“Josh,” you groaned out, unable to add anymore but needing him to comfort you desperately. Kate reached for your phone, unlocking it and finding his contact to call. You couldn’t make out much other than the sound of his voice rising when she told him what happened.

“She’s doing better now. Just get here please, she’s asking for you,” Kate told him what bar you were at and hung up the phone. “Do you think you can walk if I help you up?”

You simply nodded your head, reaching for her hand to help you up. Kate opened the stall, guiding you out of the bathroom and towards the front of the bar. She was looking around to see if Jack and his friend had the nerve to stick around, but all you could do was focus on the front door and pray that Josh showed up soon.

You’d spent the last few weeks shutting him out in every way except for sex, but in this moment there was nothing you craved more than being in his arms. There was never a question of whether or not you’d trusted him, you just did, always feeling so safe when you were with him.

As if hearing your thoughts, Josh walked through the door to the bar looking distraught. His eyes found yours and it looked like a deep breath whooshed out of his lungs in relief.

“Y/N, are you ok?” he rushed over, running his hands through your hair and inspecting you to make sure you were safe.

“Am now,” you said, dropping your head onto his shoulder. “Home.”

Kate handed Josh your things and turned to you. “I’m going to talk to the bartender about finding the guy that did this, ok Y/N? Josh will take you home.”

Nodding your head, Josh wrapped his arms around you and carried you to his car parked on the street near the bar. He buckled you in a and then got into the drivers seat, gripping the steering wheel hard. His jaw was clenched so hard you thought it might break, but you didn’t want to say anything to set him off.

Your eyes drifted closed and you fell asleep, only being woken by the feeling of Josh carrying you inside. Blinking a few times, you noticed he took you to your house rather than his. Josh set you down on the seat of your toilet and turned to grab a wash cloth. Gently, he started to wipe away your makeup that had been streaked by tears when you were throwing up.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner,” Josh sighed, turning to rinse the wash cloth out. “You scared me so bad babe, if Kate hadn’t been there…”

“Please don’t,” you whimpered out, leaning forward to bury your face in his chest. Now you were feeling more alert you started to process just what had happened, and it really scared you. “It’s my fault.”

“What? Y/N, when someone does like this it’s never your fault,” Josh whispered, bending down to press a kiss to the top of your head. “Don’t say that.”

“I was dancing with him before you got there,” you told him honestly, embarrassed that you were being so childish to find another girl. You felt the muscles in Josh’s abdomen tense but he didn’t say anything.

“That doesn’t give him a right to take advantage of you,” he told you, not acknowledging that you had been flirting with another guy. “C’mon, lets get you to bed. You’ll feel so much better in the morning.”

He took your hand and led you up the stairs to your bedroom, closing the door behind the two of you. You instructed Josh where to find your pajamas in the closet and he gave them to you to get dressed. Turning, he started to look around your room while giving you privacy to get dressed.

“I haven’t been in here,” he murmured, taking in a photo board you had on your wall made up of pictures and memories with your family and friends. It kept you grounded and less homesick, being away from your family while you were at college.

Once you were dress you stood to walk up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist and resting your head on his back. It felt good to just feel his warmth and breath him in. Josh always smelled so fresh, like his body wash you’d used while staying over one night, and with a touch of pine. Something you’d only ever associate with him, and it comforted you in this moment.

“You were a cute kid,” he chuckled, skimming his finger over a picture of you playing on a rock that sat in your grandmas lawn.

Suddenly, it felt too good to have him in your room and you really didn’t want to spend the night alone after what had happened. You couldn’t even imagine what state you’d be in if Kate hadn’t been there to take care of you.

“Will you stay the night?” you asked Josh quietly, scared he’d say no for some reason. “And just hold me.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Josh turned to you with a shy smile and leaned down to place a kiss on your forehead.

You settled into your bed and found yourself falling asleep by his side faster than you had in months. It felt good, too good, but you didn’t care in this moment.

[blurry-fics]

Chapter Twelve

Realize That It’s Gone | Series Masterlist

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 1963

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter! :) (picture credit)

The movie on the TV started to roll through the credits, but I was no longer paying attention; I had lost interest halfway through. It seemed my mind would much rather run through all the possibilities of what Y/N and Josh were doing on their date right now.

The sun was quickly getting lower in the sky, painting it all different shades of pink and orange. Y/N would probably be sitting on her deck and watching it right now, if she was even home. Josh had said that he didn’t know how long he was going to be gone when he was leaving and I hadn’t gotten a single text from him since then. That was probably a bad sign.

Well, a bad sign for me.

The credits were already halfway over by the time I finally got out of my own head and decided to attend to the TV. I had put on some bad movie that Josh and I had in our collection in hopes that I would find some humor in the terrible acting - something that usually cheered me up - but that hadn’t been the case today. With a sigh, I grabbed the remote and shut the movie off.

A car honked outside as I got off the couch and shuffled towards the kitchen to grab a drink. My dishes from dinner were still sitting unwashed in the sink, so I decided to clean those up before Josh came home. He was always getting after me about leaving dishes around the apartment. Not to mention that I wasn’t so sure I would be able to stop myself from escalating an argument if he started one.

Keys jingled outside the door just as I grabbed a drink from the fridge. Shortly after, Josh walked inside. He was smiling to himself as he kicked off his shoes and hung up his keys by the door. I stopped my walk back to the living room and instead turned to face him, leaning one hip against the kitchen counter.

“Hey, how are you?” he asked.

“I’m ok. How was your date?”

His smile grew even more, putting that familiar discomfort into the pit of my stomach.

“It was really fun,” he nodded. “Y/N is super cool and that was honestly the best first date I’ve been on in a while.”

Of course it was, it was a date with Y/N.

“What did you guys do?”

“Um, I picked her up, then I took her to that milkshake place that I really like and we spent almost ten minutes debating what kind of milkshake we should get,” Josh laughed. “And then we just walked along the river for a couple hours talking and stuff. I took her home kinda early because I didn’t want to give her parents the wrong impression or anything, you know, since it was a first date.”

“Sounds like you nailed it, dude,” I said, forcing a smile. It wasn’t a lie, Josh had somehow managed to take Y/N on essentially what was her dream first date. It was impressive, considering they hadn’t known each other for very long. “Is there going to be a second date anytime soon?”

“I hope so. Y/N said that she might want to go on another date too, but I’m going to give it a couple days before I go asking her out again. You know, see how much we talk and all that.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

That also gave me time to talk to Y/N and figure out how she was feeling about all of this.

“Yeah. How was everything here?”

“Great. I just had some pizza and watched a movie, nothing too special.”

“Did you write at all?”

I shook my head, “Not tonight.”

“That’s alright.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, I’m exhausted so I’m going to head to bed and watch a movie or something.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

I watched as Josh walked down the hallway and disappeared into his room. My chest felt hollow as I stood in the middle of the kitchen, unable to tear my eyes away from where Josh’s door had just closed. The thought of Y/N and Josh together made my jaw clench. Tears started to form in my eyes as I slammed my drink down on the counter and pushed my palms deep into my eyes.

You lost her, Tyler. You brought this on yourself. You had your chance and you didn’t take it.

“Are you ok, Tyler?” Josh called through his bedroom door. He must have heard the commotion.

“Yeah! Just dropped the remote,” I lied. My voice didn’t sound right

“Ok.”

I swiped my drink from the counter and shuffled towards my room. At least Josh wouldn’t be able to see how much of a mess I was over this whole situation when I was behind a locked door.

Why hadn’t I just told her that I was uncomfortable with them going on a date?

My phone buzzed next to me as I was reaching for my drink. With my free hand, I flipped it over so that I could read the notification. It was a text.

From Y/N.

Confused, I picked my phone up and opened the message, only to realize that she was responding to one I had sent nearly half an hour ago. I didn’t even remember messaging her in the first place.

Y/N: Hey! Sorry, you texted me right as I got home and then a million things came up all at once. I just got into comfy clothes and now I’m finally sitting on the back porch.

I smiled at the thought as I typed out my response.

Tyler: No worries, I didn’t mean to interrupt your date or anything. I just got bored and you were the first person my mind went to

It was partially true.

Y/N: Did you want me to call?

I thought about saying yes, but I knew we would inevitably end up talking about her date and I wasn’t so sure that I would be able to keep my voice steady.

Tyler: Not tonight. I’m in the middle of watching a movie

Y/N: Ok, texting it is then :)

Tyler: How was your date, by the way?

The text was sent before I even gave myself a chance to think about if I wanted to hear the answer or not. Deep down, I knew that I shouldn’t have asked, but curiosity always seemed to get the best of me.

Y/N: It was really good! :)

Tyler: That’s it? Just really good?

Y/N: I thought you would have gotten all the nitty-gritty details from Josh by now

Tyler: He just gave me the basic rundown and went to bed

Y/N: Lame :P but, um, it was really good, yeah! He asked me a lot of questions and I asked him a lot of questions and we just had really nice conversation. I also almost got milkshake all over him at one point… so uh, yeah

Y/N’s message made me chuckle, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of the hollowness that was still residing in my chest.

Tyler: And how did you manage to do that?

She didn’t start typing immediately like she had been, so I set my phone down and walked towards my dresser to grab my laptop and headphones. Maybe another movie would help me, now that my mind wasn’t running wild with all the possibilities of what was happening on their date.

My phone vibrated again as I was scrolling through Netflix, looking for something good to watch.

Y/N: Well, he was doing the cliche movie thing where we drink from straws at the same time and he was so close and his face was just right there and my mind started to wander so I got overwhelmed… but he was still drinking when I pulled away so it got all over his face

A chill ran down my spine. What had she been thinking about?

Tyler: Was everything ok?

Y/N: With the milkshake? Yeah, we just laughed about it :P

Tyler: No, I mean with you

She took a moment to start typing again. I continued to scroll through movies, looking for something that caught my interest.

Y/N: Yeah, it’s just something dumb, I guess. But you know me, letting dumb things have an effect on me, even when I know they’re dumb

I closed my laptop and rolled onto my back, determined to give Y/N my full attention if she needed it. For the time being, all my own worries were forgotten.

Tyler: Do you want to talk about it?

Y/N: It’s ok, I’m texting Carter about it right now

I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that Y/N didn’t want to confide in me. There were very few things that she didn’t tell me - having to admit her feelings for me during truth or dare pretty much threw all other boundaries out the window - meaning that whatever she was worried about was serious.

Tyler: I’ll be here if you change your mind

Y/N: Thanks, Ty :)

Tyler: Of course :)

Y/N: So what did you spend your night doing?

I thought about telling her what my night was like: staring out the window while my mind ran wild with possibilities of what they were doing, the stomachache that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did, and the way that my hands started to shake as I thought of Josh wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her close. My fingers started to fly across the screen, but I ultimately decided it wasn’t worth potentially ruining her night over. Instead, I settled for a simple answer.

Tyler: Watched a movie. Ate pizza. Typical Tuesday night for me.

I set my phone down on my chest and stared up at the ceiling. There was still a bit of sunlight streaming in, casting long shadows. I wondered what the sunset looked like on Y/N’s back porch.

Y/N: Sounds like fun :)

Tyler: Yeah, but it isn’t my preferred way to spend time

I stared at the message for a few seconds before I hit send, knowing exactly where this conversation was going to lead. And if I told her what I really wanted to say… well, that was a dangerous game I was playing.

Y/N: And what is your preferred way to spend time, Ty?

My fingers tapped nervously against the edge of my phone. What did I have to lose?

Tyler: With you :)

I immediately locked my phone and tossed it onto the floor, out of arm’s reach. What did I think I was doing? Y/N had moved on, yet here I was still shamelessly flirting with her the same night that she had been on a date with my best friend. Did I think that was going to somehow win her back?

My phone vibrated on the floor, just barely audible through the headphones I was wearing. My stomach lurched as a variety of potential messages - mostly negative - played out in my mind. Even though I was hesitant to see what she said, reading the actual message was better than endlessly worrying about its contents.

Y/N: Thanks, Ty. I like spending time with you too, you know

My mouth curled up into a smile. Sure, it wasn’t the declaration of love that I had been hoping for, but it was certainly better than her getting angry with me. I reread the message a few times, using it as a reminder that one date with Josh wasn’t enough to erase all the history between us.

Maybe things weren’t over for me, after all.

*     *     *     *     *

Taglist

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[chuffyfan87]

Hiding. Part 38a (NSFW)

Cowritten with @disastrousintention

-x-

Josh stood outside the pub, his hands in his pockets. It had been a while since he and Charlie had gone to the pub. He hadn't really felt in the mood for it and he had a feeling Charlie felt the same way. So it had taken him a little by surprise when Charlie had suggested the idea of a night in the pub.

Charlie knew Josh needed a friend right now, someone he could share his feelings and thoughts to. As his best friend, Charlie had suggested the night in the pub. He met Josh outside. “Alright mate?”

"Yeh, not bad. You?"

“Yeah.” Charlie smiled, “Fancy a pint or several?”

"That's the best idea I've heard all day!"

Not much beyond idle chat was said by either until they were onto their fourth pint of the evening.

"I know what I'm avoiding at the bottom of this glass, what's your excuse?" Josh asked.

“Not much.” Charlie replied.

Josh sighed and finished his pint. "Fancy something a bit stronger?" He asked.

“Sure, why not?”

Josh went to the bar and came back with a tray containing two pints and two double whiskys.

“How long can you keep avoiding talking about it?” Charlie asked.

"Talking about what?" Josh replied.

“You and Collette?”

"What about it? It's over. End of story."

���It’s never that easy, Josh.”

"She slept with someone else. Lied to me that she was carrying my baby. When all the time she knew..."

“I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”

"I thought I had a second chance." Josh sighed. "I give up with women, they're all liars and cheats!" He stated before downing his whisky.

“Not all of them.” Charlie sighed softly.

"Your wife always tell you everything does she?"

“Not always.” Charlie swirled his whiskey around his glass.

"Exactly! She's just like the rest of them."

"Josh!" Charlie gasped. "I was equally responsible for what happened." He pointed out.

"You deserve each other then." Josh replied bitterly.

“Josh!” Charlie sighed.

"So tell me, what makes you want to sleep with a married woman?"

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

"Yes, I want to understand what motivates a bloke to do something like that."

“Thrill of the chase. The danger of getting caught.” Charlie replied.

"Is that why you did it?"

“Partly.” Charlie finished his whiskey.

"What other reasons were there? Didn't you ever feel guilty?"

“I was in love with her.” Charlie paused. “All the time. Even now, after all this time I still feel guilty for breaking Baz apart like I did.”

"I don't think Simon has the capacity to feel guilty or to love someone other than himself." Josh sighed.

“That’s true.” Charlie sighed, “I’m sorry Josh.”

"Why? It's not like you slept with my wife behind my back." Josh shrugged.

Charlie shrugged, a silence descending over them both.

Josh went to refill their glasses and returned to find Charlie staring off into space. "Go on... Out with it!"

“Duffy and I are considering having another baby.” Charlie blurted out.

Josh stared at him wordlessly. He couldn't have heard that right..!

“I’m sorry.” Charlie sighed.

"I give up with you two, you're both clearly mad! What happened to 'never again!'?"

“Duffy’s getting broody and well...”

"Did she refuse to sleep with you til you agreed?" Josh laughed, the alcohol clearly starting to take effect.

Charlie laughed, “No. No issues in that department. I had an unexpected boner on holiday last week, I was mortified.”

Josh laughed. "So you're totally up for it then? Six not enough so you thought you'd add a couple more?"

“I’m scared.” Charlie admitted truthfully.

"Of what? Getting stage fright?"

He rolled his eyes playfully, “No. Of having another baby. What if it changes the dynamics of the family?”

"You mean the barely controlled chaos you two currently call a home life?"

“That’s the one.” Charlie smiled, “I wouldn’t change any of it.”

"So how's adding more chaos gunna change things? Unless there's something else..?"

“Duffy hasn’t had the best health in the last two pregnancies. Nor is there any guarantee that we’ll have baby.” Charlie paused, “Even after the reversal. Our age is another factor.”

"Yeh, don't remind me!" Josh shook away the memories. "What's Duffy's view on those things? Or has she just gone baby gaga and isn't listening to any of it?"

“She’s gone baby gaga. We’ve both agreed to one last roll of the dice. Leave it to fate.”

"And if fate doesn't go the way she wants it to..?"

“We’ve not spoken about that. Not much anyway.”

"Ah."

“I do think we’ll have problems conceiving.” Charlie admitted.

"You two?" Josh couldn't help laughing.

“Josh!” Charlie laughed gently, “OK. You may have a point.”

"Let's do a quick mental tally shall we? First you've got..." Josh broke up laughing again.

“Stop laughing.” Charlie said, in fits of giggles himself

The bell for last orders sounded. "One more for the road?" Josh asked as he stumbled towards the bar.

“Why not?”

About ten minutes later they stumbled out onto the street, the fresh air and alcohol hitting them both hard.

“Bloody jell Josh, I said one drink to the missus. She’ll kill me.” Charlie stumbled and laughed.

"Oh she will and you'll enjoy every minute of it!"

“Probably.” Charlie grinned. “We should do this again, soon.”

"Yes. Before she chains you to that bed and doesn't let you out again!" Josh laughed.

“She likes chaining me to our bed.”

"She does seem like the bossy type!"

“She is.” Charlie laughed, “Really bossy. Especially when she wants something.”

They walked along the street towards Charlie's house, laughing and stumbling along the way. After several minutes they reached Charlie's front garden.

“It was good to see you smile, mate.” He said to Josh before he hugged him and patted his back.

Their voices were clearly louder than they realised because suddenly the hall light came on and the front door opened.

“Oops. I think I’m going to be in trouble.” Charlie laughed.

"You boys have a good evening?" Duffy asked, her eyebrow raised, as she lent against the doorframe in her dressing gown.

“Yes darling.” Charlie turned his attention to Duffy, “Are you wearing anything under that dressing gown?”

"Wouldn't you like to know..." She shifted slightly causing the gown to gape open further.

Charlie bit his lip. “Josh, I’m going to have to go.”

Josh rolled his eyes with a laugh. He looked over at the pair of them, doing his best to focus on Duffy's face rather than anywhere else. Charlie really had landed on his feet with her! "Sure, yeh, I best get home too."

He was a lucky fella indeed! “Let me know when you’re home, safely.”

"Yeh, I'll text you." Josh laughed. "Have a good night!" He called over his shoulder as he walked up the street.

“Oh I think I will.” Charlie stepped towards the house, his hands immediately going inside her dressing gown. “I don’t think Josh knew where to look.”

Duffy wrinkled her nose. "How much have you had?"

“Too much.” He began to kiss her neck as he began to back her into the house.

"Charlie!" She giggled. "You need to go to sleep."

“Do not.” His hands moved towards her breasts, lightly pinching her nipples.

"You are drunk Charlie!"

“And horny.”

"I should make you a coffee."

“As long as I can then do you, over the kitchen table.” He grinned.

"Charlie! Behave!" She giggled as she made her way to the kitchen.

“Its you.” He replied, “You’re absolutely gorgeous.” He followed her.

She flicked on the kettle and slowly turned around, loosening the belt on her dressing gown as she did.

He watched her intensely as she did. She was beautiful!

"I'm glad you had a good evening." She smiled.

“It was a lovely evening. By the looks of things, it’s about to get even better.”

"Is that so?"

“Uh huh.” He stepped towards her and gently removed the dressing gown. “You are incredibly beautiful! So so so sexy.”

"And you're so so so drunk!" She giggled as she wrapped her arm around his neck.

“Josh’s fault.” He joked as he picked her up and sat her on the counter.

"I shall have to tell him off when I next see him then."

“We talked about you.”

"Me? What have I done?" She asked, leaning back to rest her hands on the table.

“We were just discussing that you were the bossy type.” He replied, “Like chaining me to the bed and all that.”

"Charlie! I have to work with Josh!"

“He started it!” He laughed, kissing her neck again.

"I'm not sure I believe you."

“Hmm.” He sucked the sensitive spot on her neck.

"I'm trying to talk to y-mm..!" She moaned.

“What’s that?” He asked, moving his lips to her collarbone.

"Stop distracting mm..!"

He shifted, pressing himself against her thigh.

"You're drunk, we shouldn't." She whispered.

“Shouldn’t what?” He asked.

"Be having sex."

“Why?”

"I'm sober. It's wrong." She sighed. "I want to but... How would you feel if it was me that was drunk?"

“I’d probably do the same and say it was wrong.” He met her gaze, lifting his head up. “Shall we go to bed gorgeous? I think my boner will still be here by morning.”

"I'm sure it will be." She smiled. She kissed him lightly. "Thank you."

“You don’t need to thank me.” He replied as he picked up her dressing gown off the floor. They went up to bed.

[thestormfall]

Everything about Beat today was a little too much. [TSoS 2019: Hexa-Code Kernel]

----

Characters: Daisukenojo ‘Beat’ Bito &  Neku Sakuraba 

Wordcount:  2,677

Also on Ao3

hohoho I’ve finally written fanfic again. Gotta give some fanfic love to my fave Beat. feel free to read it there and leave a review if you enjoy it haha  

or just here, under the cut.

03/07 10:00AM

- yo, Phones! you free today? lets hang out!

- Sorry, I can't today, I'm kind of busy.

- thats cool

03/09 10:20AM

- man, the weathers sick today! cmon Ill go teach you that move I was talking about

- Can't do today either, Beat. Family stuff.

- No probs man

03/10 09:00AM

- so Doi is doing a special lunch menu today wanna go?

- I've already got lunch plans, sorry

- issokay man

- How about later? We can hang in the park after I'm done with lunch?

- yeah! aight Ill see you later.

xx

Of No Envy

Neku wasn't great at skateboarding but he didn't think that he was terrible. At the very least, after two years of being taught by Beat, he thought he would end up being decent. The unconcealed impish grins of a group of middle-school kids told him otherwise, though. Yeah, yeah laugh it up.

On the other hand, Beat was practising a few tricks that made the kids forget all about him. One of them even clapped. Yeah, Neku wasn't going to manage to do that. He couldn't even remember what it was called.

He resigned to heading towards their resting spot at the top of the skating bowl, leaning against one of the slim trees. Neku wiped the sweat off his neck using his wristband. He always exerted a lot of energy skating with Beat. With him, no matter how idle Neku might have wanted to be, Beat simply dragged him along. Not that he minded, of course.

"Phones, did you see that?" Beat skated up to him, hopping off his board and landing perfectly on the spot next to Neku, catching his board with one hand. For someone so brash, it was almost comical how smooth he was with his skateboard. "Been trying to land that nollie laser for a month!" So that's what it was called. "Gotta see if I can do it again!"

"I'm sure you will."

Beat settled down beside him, crossed leg. "Put 'em here!" He held up a fist, awaiting eagerly.

"Haha, good job." Neku returned the gesture, noting how Beat seemed pretty satisfied with himself today. "So, what? Was that what you wanted to show me all week?"

"Nah, didntcha hear me? That's the first time I've done it." He nudged Neku with his shoulder. "Had a feelin' I wouldn't get it 'till I had you around."

"Oh please, you would have got it eventually. Don't think I know anyone more stubborn than you."

"Thanks, Phones!"

Neku wanted to tell Beat that it wasn't usually meant to be a compliment…but he supposed that in this case, it was. He grabbed his water bottle, poking Beat in the cheek with it. "Want some?"

"Bwaaaah! Phones, that's cold!" Though he said that, Beat took the drink, gulping it down.

"Beat. What's wrong?"

This caused Beat to spit out about half his drink. "Huh? What d'ya mean? There ain't anythin' wrong?"

"Judging how you spit out enough water to keep all the trees in Miyashita Park hydrated, I'd argue otherwise."

His friend opened his mouth, then closed it again. A few times.

"Beat. What's wrong?" He repeated, a bit more sternly this time.

"…Yeah, yeah okay, you've got me." Beat sighed deeply and leaned back against the tree. "How'd you know?"

"You've been bugging me to meet up for the past two weeks," Neku said, drily. "Pretty sure I told you after the last ramen session that I was going to be busy, but there's been a message from you, what…every morning?"

It wasn't just that. Everything about Beat today was a little too much. Yes, Beat was always one to spend the whole day boarding but right now? In the middle of March? Neku had warmed up from the exercise but even after sitting here for a few minutes, the cool spring air was starting to seep into his skin. Beat hated the cold, too. Neku would know, Beat never failed to complain about it.

There was something about the look in his eyes, too. There, even as they were talking. Even as Beat was looking right at him.

"…Is it because Rhyme's leaving?"

Beat stiffened as the words left Neku's mouth.

I knew it.

Neku already knew that Rhyme was leaving, she and Beat had told all of them. She was off to a specialist high school overseas. When Rhyme said that she had a dream to chase, she really meant it. Of course, it would hit Beat hard. They all knew how much she meant to him.

"Hey, I'm going to miss her too, you know," he offered, quietly.

His friend stayed quiet. He lowered his eyes, then looked away.

"That's ain't it, Phones."

"It's…not?"

"Not all of it. It is and it ain't."

Well, that had Neku stumped.

"You're going to have to help me out, here a little Beat. You wanted to tell me what it was, didn't you?"

"…Ya know how you said I was 'buggin' you' for a while?" Beat finally said.

"Beat, you're not actually bothering me," Neku tried to clarify. "It's just a figure of speech –"

"I got that one," Beat interrupted. "At the start, I was jus' wantin' to hang out. I didn't want to ask Rhyme 'cause she's busy with gettin' ready to leave. But you've been busy too. An' Shiki." He paused. "…I even asked Priss." Neku raised an eyebrow, and Beat returned a look that said, 'I know'. "Anyway, everyone was doin' somethin'."

"Beat…"

"So I just kept askin' you. But you've got other friends now, right? You were havin' lunch with them today, right?"

"I guess I do," Neku said. "Beat, yeah sure I was having lunch today with other friends, but it's not like you're any less of a friend to me. Heck, I'm pretty sure you guys were the ones who were telling me to make more friends."

"Yeah, an' you did. I'm not sayin' you shouldn't have. It's a good thing. I know that," Beat said. "I know you worked pretty hard to make friends."

Hearing that made Neku felt slightly embarrassed.

Beat could probably tell. "You did. An' I'm glad you did. I know you didn't wanna have any friends…back when…back when we were in the Game." Beat whispered 'the game', something that they all tended to do. "The point is you changed. An' you kept changin' after the Game. All of you did."

He said the last sentence, with such a bitter sting that Neku was taken aback. "You don't like that we've changed?"

"I don't like that I haven't changed." There was a softer, "not one bit."

Neku hadn't seen Beat like this…not since the Game. It seemed that Beat needed a moment to compose himself.

He wasn't speaking, so all Neku could hear was the sound of those kids skateboarding, laughing with and at each other as they continued showing off tricks to each other. It was jarring, how downcast the atmosphere around Beat was in comparison. It was almost like Beat didn't belong in this picture.

Or maybe it's like that because that's how he feels.

"Rhyme's still chasing her dream," said Beat, speaking suddenly again. "An' she's leavin' because of it. I'm happy for her an' all that but we used to hang out all the time. But she's too busy now, so yeah I thought I'd leave her alone for a bit. But besides you guys, what do I have? Nothin' but this skateboard. The rest of you have tried to change, but I didn't. After the Game, I thought that was enough. Rhyme was back so that was enough. But I'm still a good for nothin' loser who doesn't matter and who has nothin' that matters to me."

Neku wanted to argue because it's not like Beat didn't have other friends. Except thinking back on it, he never mentioned having any. Not having friends was kind of Neku's thing. Perhaps he made such a big deal of it that Beat never wanted to because Neku couldn't recall Beat ever mentioning having other friends either.

Come to think of it…Hadn't Beat always gone a bit quieter whenever Shiki mentioned she was working on a new project? Whenever Neku said Hanekoma was going to help iron out a few things about his new track? Whenever Rhyme went on and on about her new school?

…When had Beat talked about himself?

He knew the answer: not much. Not since the game.

Not until now.

"You're not a loser, Beat."

"I knew you'd say that," was the immediate response. "Doesn't make it true."

He never thought he'd be the one left speechless with Beat. Neku didn't know what to say. He was never good at this. Maybe Shiki or Rhyme could have dealt with this better. Maybe even Josh – no, not Joshua, he would just say something that would make things worse.

Neku hated this, he hated seeing Beat like this.

He just…he just never assumed Beat would be anything but okay. They all had their nightmares about the Game but that was something they shared and talked about. There was nothing to indicate that there were things weren't going well after that.

And he couldn't outright say that Beat had definitely changed because he hadn't. Not in any way that he could tell.

…but so what?

"So what if you haven't changed? So, you haven't made any new friends? Or you don't have a dream? You don't need to have them, it doesn't make us any better than you."

"Phones?"

"Yeah, fine. You're still the same Beat who did everything to save your sister and who wasn't afraid to ask me for help," he continued, words falling out before he could catch them. "You're the same guy back then, who wanted to make friends with me of all people. Then, I'm sorry, but that's perfectly fine with me. Who says you need to change anyway? Screw that. If you want to find a dream or whatever crap, fine. We'll help you, but you don't need to change to do it. Another thing,you don't need a whole bunch of other people as friends because you matter to me."

Beat blinked at Neku.

"…Man, I didn't think you were goin' to get…angry with me."

"I'm not – "

Oh.

Uh, maybe he had been shouting.

Yep, those kids were giving him strange looks.

"The bottom line is," he tried to say with a bit more calm. "You're one of my best friends, and always will be whether you change or not. Or whether you have a dream or not. If you're really having a bad day or something you just need to tell me. And not with just some 'let's hang out' texts that you drop after one reply."

The person Neku was two years ago, before he met his friends, was a thorny person of no envy. Beat, however, had always had a heart of gold. Neku just wished that Beat could see that too.

"…I guess you're right," Beat said, though Neku was unsure if he was entirely convinced. "An' I think maybe I was feelin' a bit left out."

"Yeah…but seriously, if you just want to cry or whatever, I'll drop my plans."

Beat shook his head. "…That would be pretty mean to your other friends."

"I'm serious." Dead serious.

"An' why would I text you, to say 'I'm cryin', that's weird, dude."

"You're crying right now," Neku pointed out.

"Huh."

He guessed Beat, didn't realise, but there were definitely a bunch of tears just rolling down his eyes right now. Beat was always a crier; another thing that Neku was glad didn't change.

At this point, the kids were definitely staring.

"Alright, let's go Beat. The special might not still be on, but I bet you could do with some ramen right now."

Getting up, he gathered his skateboard and helmet, helping Beat to do the same. They got more stares as they left the skate park, but Neku ignored them.

"Phones?"

They only just made it out of the entrance, and Neku turned to see that Beat was wiping his face his hand. "Thanks for that, man."

"Yeah, no worries. Just…just don't keep these kinda things in, okay?" Neku tugged at his hair, a habit that hadn't changed for him after the Game. "I don't know if whatever crap I just said was good advice or not, but that's just what I think. If that's good enough for you, then you know, you can talk to me."

"Okay," he grinned, looking a lot better already, even though his eyes were still puffy. "Yeah, I haven't talked about that before so I guess I needed to let it all out."

Neku nodded. "And I'm here, whenever you need to."

"If you've got anythin' to get off your chest, you can tell me too," Beat declared.

He swung an arm around Neku's shoulder, to which Neku would usually tell him to do a bit less zealously but he would let it slide this time. "Aight, now let's get some of that ramen you were talkin' about."

"Heh, of course."

He was glad that even if Beat wasn't completely better, he had cheered up a little. The idea of ramen probably helped too.

"Thanks again, Neku."

"Anytime."

…Wait, did he just call me –

"Man, I'm starved now, Phones. I'll race ya there!"

Beat took off before Neku could say anything else. He stood there for a bit, wondering if his ears were working right.

"Hey, what're you doin'? This is a race! Pick it up, Phones!"

Shaking his head, he sighed, even as a smile came to his face.

"I'm there!"

A/N: Tadaa! Wow, I haven't posted anything since…June 2017? Not to say I haven't been writing, but most things I posted on Ao3 because the fandoms I wrote for were there…Ew, that makes me feel totally disloyal now. Okay nope, that's it, I'm giving my fics back to ffnet first, always. That said, happy start of TSoS 2019: Hexa-Code Kernel. If you didn't already know, the Twelve Shots of Summer, is exactly that – twelve one-shots all through summer!

And of course, I thought I'd get my gears going into the mood by starting off with one of my still most beloved and favourite things to write about: TWEWY!

I wanted to write something a bit more Beat-centric, though for writing Beat I usually need a bit more of a warm-up before writing in his voice so…this happened. The prompt was 'Open()' and as you probably can tell I used it in an 'opening up' sense. Not to be confused with 'open up your senses' ;D *bdm tsss*

My twewy writing is a bit rusty but I hope I did okay with my fave boy Beat. Always thought that things might not always go well for him, even after the Game so yep. And I would think Neku tried to make some friends from class after the TWEWY game, though of course the Hachiko Gang are still his best friends.

Anyway, I hope this gave you some good twewy feels. Thanks for reading!

- Dina 09/06/2019

[chillihansol]

❅ Christmas with You ☃ *:･ﾟ| J O S H U A

word count: 2,428

» to @seventeensvtseventeen, prachi my babe, i never told you this but i love it every time you call me ‘babe’, because one, it’s very romantic, and two, it’s funny because im older than you HAHA. tbh i feel like you sensed it as well that i was gonna use your ideal christmas day as a scenario. im sorry that i have to lie to you that it was for a project HAHAHA, it was really a surprise so i have to keep it. i hope you forgive me and i promise not to lie again. i wanted to tell you that you are beyond wonderful, and i wanted to inform you that i’d always be right here if you are in need of help and love :’’) i am your unnie anyways so let me take care of you my babe HAHA. im rooting with you all the way, and im sure you’d do well in the future! i love you prachi and merry christmas !

The squeaky sound of the snow beneath your boots, as you and him stepped in rhythm, was pleasantly music to your ears. Even only with your hands inside the pockets of your long black windbreaker, the warmth was enough, because his presence beside you was all you needed in this cold season.

Your heart was growing every step you take, and his heart felt the same too. The absence of the conversation between the two of you isn’t exactly bothering, as long you hear each other’s breaths and footsteps, you’re both satisfied.

Your right hand was suddenly taken away in a swift move, and the warmness of the clothing was immediately replaced by his own body heat.

“This is nice, huh?” He asked, a hint of smile was obvious from his tone.

“Yeah,” You simply replied, interlacing your fingers with him. Your cheek softly bumped on his clothed arm as he pulled you a little closer to him.

The road was empty from people, but filled with snow. The weather was indeed gracious, it wasn’t raining snowflakes. Both of you were strolling on the main road that leads to nowhere, which made you wonder where he would bring you.

“Josh, where exactly we are heading to?” He automatically turned to you as you spoke.

Joshua shrugged, gripping your hands tighter. “I don’t know.” He stiffled a chuckle, the corner of his eyes forming a small wrinkle.

You couldn’t help but look at him in disbelief, playfully hitting his arm. “Do you seriously have no plan?” You gasped.

He looked at you preciously as if you are the most delicate being he had ever laid his eyes on. “I don’t know. Will you still be with me wherever this road lead us to?” His eyes twinkling with hope as he asked.

You yourself witnessed the way his aperture shone, making your heart grow with excitement. “I’d go everywhere as long as you’re beside me.” You replied, giving him a contenting smile.

He was pleased, feeling the butterflies in his stomach go crazy as you beamed. He was speechless, making a nonverbal response and planting his soft yet cold lips on your hair near the temple.

A giggle escaped your lips as you felt him kiss you, looking back down to your synchronized steps. “Where do you think the boys are celebrating right now?” You asked, watching the way your feet bury on the pile of snow.

“Probably went home to their families and just have a chill time with them.” He answered, looking at the view ahead.

It hit you how he was the only one who’s family was miles away. Though you didn’t want to feel bad for him, you still thought how it was such a pity to have him celebrate Christmas with you than with his own family.

It was as if Joshua had read your mind when he warned you, “Don’t say you’re sorry.” You bit your bottom lip, feeling totally guilty. “I’m fine to celebrate Christmas with you. Actually, I am beyond fine. You have no idea how everything is so much better when you’re around.” He smiled brightly.

“Gosh, you’re so cheesy.” You grunted playfully, feeling your cheeks heat up. 

Joshua felt a buzz in his pocket, loosening his grasp from your hand as he fished for his phone. When he had checked the caller id, he gave you a quick glance before excusing himself to answer the call.

From a small distance, Joshua’s faint greeting was all you could hear, the rest of the the conversation was unheard. You stepped back, almost falling backwards as your heel landed on a firm snowball. You gained your balance, looking at Joshua who’s back was rather facing yours. Then a thought came up your mind.

You crouched, grabbing a handful pile of snow, molding it firmly into a ball, before hiding your little weapon behind as Joshua finished his conversation with the unknown caller. You stayed still on your position, while Joshua turned back to you.

“Sorry for that. Seungcheol asked if–”

Joshua’s words were cut off when you subconsciously hurled the snowball on him, hitting him bulls eye on his face. Your laugh rang the road while your boyfriend left standing and speechless from your sudden attack. Before he could say a word, you took the opportunity to grab yourself another handful of snow as he wiped some flakes off his beautiful face.

“Yah, you’re not even intrigued who was–”

You aimed another shot on him, hitting his arm this time as he gained reflexes and immediately blocked his face. “So this is how we’re playing.” He trailed off.

“Oh no,” You muttered under your breath. You attempted to run from his attack, almost tripping, but Joshua caught you with his larger snowball. A shriek let out your mouth as the cold ball hit the side of your neck.

The throwing of snowballs to each other’s faces continued. The two of you created your own catapults of different sizes of snowball, consciously throwing them with cackles and love. Inside your minds, both of you made sure to remember your limitations, and to not hurt each other, but you knew you were damned when you had thrown your own ball and didn’t quickly receive anything from him.

Your laughter died down awkwardly as Joshua became stiff on his position. He hands were near his left eye, touching his lids carefully. When you heard him hiss in pain, you automatically quicken your pace towards him. “Josh? Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? I didn’t mean to–”

In a split second, Joshua tackled you, making you fall beneath the snowfloor and the coldness immediately ran over your body. Joshua, who was on the top of you, was smiling devilishly. You know that look of him, and it was somehow worse than a typical snowball fight with him, because Joshua knew every single weak part of your body, every single ticklish corner. But your eyes widen when Joshua rather leaned down slowly at you. His eyes, filled with excitement, flickered down at your lips before the inches between the two of you continue to slowly decrease, but Joshua stopped from closing the gap when you spoke.

“Josh, it’s raining snow.” You whispered, looking at the side to see the falling snow.

He felt the hotness of your breath because of your too much closeness. Joshua gulped, his eyes closing in frustration. He sighed, while you chuckled softly, running your hand through his hair to remove some leftover snow.

“We should start walking again.” You said, almost whispering. “We don’t have an umbrella with us.”

“Yeah,” Joshua breathed out, standing up. He offered a hand to you like a real gentleman, while you gladly accepted it.

He gently shook off some of the snow from your hair and your back, before smiling down at you. “Let’s go.” He said, holding your hand again.

You two started walking again when a question popped inside your mind. “Who called you again?”

“Coups.” He replied simply before telling you the reason why he called.

A huge grin was evident on Joshua’s lips as you absentmindedly stepped inside a very warm, homey café. There was no customer except for the two of you. Your arrival alarmed the old lady behind the counter, whipping around to see her first customers in Christmas day. A little sparkle of gratitude shone in her eyes as you offered her a warm and welcome smile.

“Oh, what a lovely Christmas. I thought I won’t be having any customer today.“ She softly cooed as you and Joshua slowly approuched the fair lady. “Joshua! Sweetheart, I didn’t notice that you were with this beautiful woman.” She exclaimed to the guy behind you.

You turned to face him and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

He chuckled at your facial expression, pushing your shoulder a little to face the old lady again. “Ada,” He giggled. “Of course, I promised to come back here, right? And I suddenly craved for your chocolate chip cookies.” Joshua replied, placing a hand at the small of your back. “By the way, this is Y/N.” He gestured his other free hand to you. “Y/N, this is Ada. She owns this lovely place.”

“Oh shush, Joshua. You don’t have to be humble.” Ada reached for Joshua, playfully hitting him, before switching her attention to you. “Y/N, what a beautiful name.”

“Please don’t say for a beautiful lady.” You nervously giggled, making her return the action.

“I was just going to say that!” She beamed. “But please believe me, sweetheart. You are indeed pleasant and gorgeous.”

A smile appeared on your lips. “Thank you, Ada.” You replied, bowing a little.

“No problem, dear.” She said sweetly. “Now Joshua, what can I serve for you and your lover?”

“Babe, what do you want?” Joshua asked.

Your breath hitched from Joshua’s sudden endearment. He surely calls you with the same name, but you find it a little embarrassing and surprising to have him call you ‘babe’ in front of his own acquaintance. “Uhm,” Your eyes scanned the board above and found yourself admiring the beautiful hand written menu.

Joshua was eyeing and waiting for you response when he saw the astonishment in your eyes as you mesmerize the old lady’s talent. He thought how beautiful you look from your side profile, and the way you adore and see things with your own eyes. And with all of the bad and good things you possess, he found himself falling in love with you deeper every single day.

“Ada, if you don’t mind me asking, did you personally write that?” You inquired, pointing a finger to her board.

She smiled at you before replying, “I do all the design here. I own and manage this place, Y/N.”

Your mouth opened in shock, looking around the whole café to see how it looks like. Since it’s Christmas season, Ada had few Christmas lights pinned on the ceiling that flows along the walls, some big socks hanging on the corner of the room, and snowflake origamis plastered in line on the edge of the counter. Everything was simple yet shows a homey and Christmasy vibes.

“You’re amazing.” You gasped, looking at her. Joshua smiled to himself as you admired Ada. “And actually, I’d like to have just a simple hot chocolate and your famous chocolate chip cookies Joshua was blabbing about.”

The old lady nodded her head with a bright smile.

“I’d have the same too, Ada.” Joshua spoke from the side.

“I’ll go prepare them for you two. Make yourself comfortable while I do the magic.” She said before turning away to make your orders.

“Let’s seat there.” Joshua had picked the table beside the window. He ushered you to the seat before pulling your chair and settling himself down on his own. “This is where I actually sit when I go here.”

“You actually go here? Today is like the first time you brought me here. I had no idea you visit cafés on your own.”

“I haven’t met you when I first found Ada’s café. Somehow, this place had become my getaway. When we get a little stressed from practices, I go here alone and relax myself.” He explained, watching the snowflakes fall outside.

You yourself too was just listening to his sweet voice as you watch the same view he was looking at. You hummed in response before silence fell between the two of you.

This place might be really special for him, you thought. You wondered how many times he found himself running to this place breaking into tears, how many cups of whatever caffiene he had sipped, how many cookies he had munched, how many times he felt himself alone, lonely, and had no one with him as he faced his struggles and hardships. And with all these realizations, you wished that you had met him earlier so he could have at least someone to face everything with.

It was the second time today, that it seemed like his mind was connected with yours when he spoke. “I have you now though. I seldom ran into here nowadays.”

“Do you just go here alone? Or do you bring someone?” You asked out of curiousity. There was a part of you hoping that he doesn’t go with anyone, as you felt the little jealousy on your throat.

Joshua caught your odd expression, making him laugh. “Why?” He grinned teasingly, reaching for the sleeve of your jacket and started fiddling the material.

“Just.. curious.” You mumbled, looking away.

“To fill in your curiousness and to remove that jealousy of yours, I never brought someone with me.”

You felt the your chained self loosened from his statement. “Why?”

“Because he promised to keep this place for himself until he met the person that will give him the assurance of lifetime happiness.” Ada, who showed up with the tray of our delicacies on her hand, answered for Josh. She carefully placed the ceramic plate and two mugs of hot chocolate on the table. Her warm and surpisingly soft palm was placed on top of yours as she gave you a reassuring smile. Her eyes screaming your name, telling you that you are the person who gave Joshua the assurance. “Enjoy the drink, darling.” She said one last time before leaving your table.

You looked at Joshua who was already smiling at you. “Is it– is it true?” You stuttered still in disbelief from what Ada had revealed.

“Yeah,” He replied, blowing off the steam from his face. “Babe,” He called right after he had sipped.

“Hm?” You raised your eyebrows.

“I can’t tell you how much you meant to me. But I guess you can tell it now by the way I brought the only special person for me to a very special place.” He said, rubbing his thumb on your hand. “I love you, Y/N.”

Your eyes blinked weakly from his statement, making you soft and loved. “Merry Christmas, Joshua. I love you too, and I always will.” You smiled your heart out, before grabbing yourself your own cup of hot chocolate.

© to the owner of the photos. I do not own any of the photos used.

[bonkaisecretsanta]

Happy holidays @shayspencer from @fuckitimfangirling​!

Summary: They're doomed, probably. He still wants that heartbreak anyway. Warnings: Role reversal of sorts; pre-show/S1/S2 AU; alternative Salvatore backstory to fit the story and bc some things in canon did NOT fit Civil War era customs; bg DE; KC and SK if you squint; dark themes; abuse; bullying; murder; violence; underage not-quite-smut; dead and dying characters; angsty bullfuckery; mentions of suicide; anachronistic storytelling 💔🔫 = past, 💀🔫 = present (s1/2 AU stuff); de-aged Kai (b. 1991)

Grams makes her put on her nice dress, the one reserved for special occasions at church. It's pretty, yellow and red, and super fluttery - it makes Bonnie feel like a princess - but it's also too layered and itchy for the muggy weather. The AC in the old courthouse is down, and the windows are open while electric fans whir. The relief is transient when the rotating air cools her form. Bonnie, in all her seven year old discomfort, feels oppressed. Wearing so many layers of cotton and gauze in such heat is probably against the law. She'll ask Judge Kincannon.

But Grams had been stern and left no room for argument when she woke Bonnie early to braid her hair and get her dressed, so Bonnie suffers in silence. The older Bennett woman seems anxious, looking at her watch repeatedly as they wait for someone to arrive.

Truthfully, Bonnie is confused. They arrived nearly an hour ago and after speaking briefly with Old Sheriff Wilson and Mrs. Forbes, who quickly disappeared, Grams told her she would make a new friend soon. It was exciting news. But it's been an hour and she's bored.

Her legs kick the air in patterns. Left, right, left, right. The swinging makes them feel heavy and cold, like metal. Bonnie is made of steel, like Superman. She bet she could be a hero like him too, save lots of people and everyone would love her like they love him.

“Bonnie! Bonnie!” the crowd cheers in her mind. Her imagination is distracting, to the point she misses when Grams stands up. She doesn't miss the sharp swat on her shoulder or the side-eye from her Grams as she hops to attention. Bonnie smoothes her dress out and clasps her hands behind her back like they teach in school, and smiles pretty. Her knew friend must be coming!

Mrs. Forbes is back, this time without Old Sheriff Wilson. Bonnie can't really see him at first, because he's half hidden behind Mrs. Forbes’ legs, but then the police officer comes to a stop and Bonnie can see the little bruised hand gripping at her belt loop.

“Come on, honey,” Mrs. Forbes coaxes. It's the same voice she uses at sleepovers, when it's time Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena to settle down into bed. Blue-grey eyes peek out out from behind her, small face as bruised as the knuckles. The other little person is a boy, smaller than even her. Bonnie thinks he must run around a lot, if he has so many scrapes. Grams is always yelling at her not to run for fear of getting hurt.

The boy glances between her and Grams then retreats back behind Mrs. Forbes.

“No, no, Malachai,” the blonde officer states. “This is Miss Sheila Bennett, your foster mother. You'll be staying with her now.”

She moves herself so that she's standing behind the boy, her hands on his shoulders and patting soothingly. Bonnie can see the sling that holds his left arm and the patch of gauze taped to his head. His hair is buzzed short, to the point where she can see a scar zigzagging across the top of his head. It takes her by surprise and she can't stop the tumble of words from leaving her mouth.

“What happened to you?” the question sounds almost accusatory, even to her own ears and she flinches at herself even before Grams swats her again. The boy grimaces as well, looking down as Grams tells her to apologize. He swallowing hard and he looks like he's biting back tears. Bonnie is instantly apologetic.

She steps forward and tries to take his good hand, but he pulls it away from her. Bonnie doesn't pursue it.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean it. I'm Bonnie. Want to be my friend?” This time she holds out her hand, leaving the choice up to him. The boy stares at it and takes a breath and reaches out and Bonnie feels hope flutter. And die, when he pushes her hand down gently and walks past her to her Grams.

“May we go now, please ma'am?” He says politely. Grams looks between her and the boy - Malachai Mrs. Forbes had called him - and nods.

“C’mon Bon,” in her Grams’ voice, she can hear the implied try again later and so she follows dutifully behind, anticipating an awkward drive home. Bonnie's hand burns where Malachai touched her.

💔🔫

The drive is awkward and so is dinner. Kai (he asked to be called this instead of Malachai) is her age, but where he is polite and obedient towards her Grams, he all but ignores Bonnie when he can. When he must interact with her, his responses are short and he avoids her space like she's diseased. It's infuriating. He acts like she isn't there and it makes Bonnie’s temper flare. She wants to shake him and scream at him until he looks at her, says or does something. It's the most destructive feeling she's ever felt and it overwhelms her.

By the time her dad arrives to take her home, Bonnie’s fists ache from being clenched. She doesn't know why she’s so angry. He wasn't even mean - Tyler Lockwood had dumped a bottle of glue on her head once, the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to her, and they were friends. She shouldn't be so put out by Kai’s non-reactions.

But the anger is still there when she gets ready for bed, when her dad tucks her in, when she goes to sleep. It seeps into her bone marrow, takes over the fresh blood cells that enter her body. It remains when she wakes up the next day.

If Kai doesn't want to be her friend, fine. Bonnie will hate him like no one else has before.

💔🔫

Maybe he should've tried harder to be her friend. From Miss Sheila’s sighs and and heavy looks, Kai knows that she at least thinks he should have. But her perfect little granddaughter looked so pristine in her dress, like some sort of rose, green eyes pricking him like bramble. It was uncomfortable at best. Then she looked at him with something like disgust twisting her pretty face as she asked what happened to him, the likes of which she couldn't possibly fathom...Kai hated her in that moment. He'd never felt so low for what his dad did, never fell victim to self-blame, never thought he could have done anything to prevent it until that question.

What happened to you?

And shit (and he knows better than to use that word around Miss Sheila, he can tell how strict she is) maybe it was. Maybe if he wasn't what he was, maybe if he'd still been of any use to the coven.

What happened to you?

Joshua Parker did. It's not his fault. His dad was crazy.

Kai insists on doing the dishes, but Miss Sheila only allows him to clear the table because of his arm. He wants to help and his arm is healing nicely - it's his head that's killing him - but she hears none of it. When he finishes, the older witch shows him where he'll be sleeping and he gets ready for bed without prompt or protest. He doesn't want to cause any trouble. But sleep tugs heavy at him and his bad arm is starting to ache real bad along with his headache and he just wants to take his medicine and go to sleep. The faster he finishes his self-designated chores, the sooner he can do that.

When his head hits the pillow he decides he'll try once more with Bonnie. He'll apologize for his behavior and they'll be friends and when he starts up at school with her, she'll introduce him to her other friends and he can be himself without any worries about covens or merges or restoring family honor. It will be a fresh start, a new life better than the last. An adventure. Kai likes adventures.

His will start in the morning.

💔🔫

Joshua’s house is a gory mess when Jason finishes his walk through. He's back where he started, the spot where he found his brother attempting to beat his own son to death.

The Supreme feels sick, staring down at the small puddle of his nephew's half-coagulated blood.

He'd felt Melissa go first, then Josette quickly after. It was sudden and felt so violent that Jason doubled over from nausea and pain as he felt his coven members leave him. He'd summoned his Enforcers and the Board of Regents immediately then ported to his brother's house the second he was able. He'd been too late to save Joey and he'd barely been able to save Kai. Kai, his favorite of his nieces and nephews, whose tiny body felt so light when Jason had scooped him up. If it hadn't been for the boy’s shallow breaths and their faint connection, he might have thought his nephew dead like the rest. He can still hear his older brother's mindless, angry rants.

It should have been me, he had screamed. If you weren't an abomination, you could have made it right, he'd yelled at Kai.

Jason scowls at the memory. Josh hadn't ever deserved Kai. Any of his kids, really. His crazy older brother had been right in some respects. Coven leader was his potential birthright, but his own twin had died in a freak accident. Jason and Isla had been the spares.

But Kai was not an abomination and Jason would fight tooth and fucking nail to prove it to anyone who said otherwise.

He peels his eyes away from the browning puddle. Kai is safe now and the Gemini Supreme intends to keep it that way. Joshua is in coven holdings, preparing to be dealt with. Jason hopes he goes crazy trapped alone in the prison world he has ready for him.

For now though, there's an injured little boy that needs him.

💔🔫

He’s not able to talk to Bonnie the next day. She has school and he has a doctor’s appointment and a meeting with his uncle’s lawyer at the police station. The other man is a Gemini witch that Kai vaguely recognizes. He talks to him like he’s very slow and Kai doesn’t know how to tell him he has a prodigious IQ, that his dad’s break down didn’t erase it.

Although maybe his head injury did.

The police set up a camera and Kai answers all the questions as best as he can. Getting his head cracked open with bat didn’t make him dumber (luckily), but it made that night fuzzy. He can barely remember anything, just the fear and the stink of Joey’s pee. Even that memory makes him sad. He misses his brother.

“And where was your mother when you and Joey were hiding in the wardrobe?”

“She was with my dad in the room, trying to get him out. She was asking him to stop. She kept saying ‘calm down, Josh,’” Kai answers mechanically. He feels distant. Like he’s watching TV, but the TV is his body. His own hands don’t look real. The doctor used fancy words for it at the hospital. Trauma dissociation. Kai is dissociating because he suffered trauma.

He answers the rest of the questions like a robot, pretending he’s the Terminator. He wants to go home, back to Portland, before May ninth, before his dad hated him.

When it’s over, the lawyer thanks him and tells him he’s a strong boy. That he should focus on living a good life and that he’ll never have to worry his father hurting him again. Kai doesn’t want to know. Ever. The camera is off, so the lawyer blesses him and the familiar heat of friendly magic feeds Kai. The feeling wears off soon, but it’s enough to remind him of home.

By the time he gets back to Miss Sheila’s, it’s late and he’s started shaking. Kai falls in the older witch’s arms like the little boy he is and cries himself to sleep. He never gets to speak with Bonnie.

💔🔫

Kai doesn’t get to apologize the next day either. His head hurts and he’s sick from the magic being worked on him at a distance. Sheila explains that his coven leader is severing Kai’s connection from the Gemini Coven so that Joshua can’t track him that way. It’s for his safety, she assures. Kai still feels abandoned.

The boy cries himself to sleep. He never gets to speak with Bonnie.

💔🔫

When the connection breaks, it wakes Kai up. It’s very weird, like something he’s suddenly been dropped into ice water when he’s always been warm. He doesn’t like it. His back itches, feels colder than the rest of him, and it tastes like magic, so Kai gets up and goes to the restroom.

He has to take his sling off to remove his shirt and he jostles the cast slightly. He hisses quietly, rubbing at it until the sting fades, then he turns and twists so he can see his back.

There’s an intricate scar on his upper back. It looks like someone branded his skin with clock cogs, but when he runs his fingers over it, the skin is smooth and cool and sensitive to the touch. Kai shivers, retracting his good hand. The design looks very familiar, like something he might have read before. Kai racks his brain, but he’s tired and can’t think of it. It’s magic related, so maybe he can ask Miss Sheila later.

Curiosity satisfied, Kai puts his shirt in the bathroom hamper and goes back to bed. He feels better now, still a little sad, but he thinks tomorrow, he’ll finally be able to set things right with Bonnie.

💀🔫

Things never really get right between Kai and Bonnie. For that interim between when they first met to when they'd been able to spend more time with each other, the combination of Sheila’s initial focus on him and Kai’s dismissive attitude had poisoned Bonnie to the idea of building anything fruitful between them. Sheila’s refusal to divulge anything magic-related to Bonnie was another point of contention between all three of them. Kai disagreed with Sheila, but kept the secret, and Bonnie, nobody's fool, could tell they were keeping something from her, which led to her jealousy and resentment.

By the time Damon Salvatore swaggers into town with his bourbon and black leather and blacker moods, the animosity between Bonnie and Kai is a well-fed beast. Kai had resigned himself to merely keeping it contained between the two of them.

💀🔫

Bonnie didn't have a lot a people she cared about. She could count them literally on one hand: Elena, Caroline, her dad, Grams, and in some weird way, stupid Kai Parker. To some extent, she cared for Elena and Caroline’s families, but only in that they belonged to her best friends and were a part of them. Her relationship with every single one of her people was complicated.

Elena and Bonnie were closer to each other than Caroline, but they didn't always like each other either. Caroline was too insecure and competitive towards Elena and too dismissive of Bonnie. Sometimes, she preferred other cheerbots to them. Elena wasn’t coddling enough for Caroline’s ego and too often took Bonnie for granted. Bonnie wasn’t trusting enough towards either of them sometimes, because Elena was too selfish and Caroline was too controlling. Blonde and brunette both agreed Bonnie could be too ruthless or too passive with no in-between. They were best friend from childhood though, with a deep platonic love, and any of the girls would kill for the other two. It was a weird tumultuous relationship between the trio. Sometimes they were more enemies than friends.

Rudy cared, but he was a textbook workaholic. If Bonnie kept herself out of trouble and Grams didn't report any misgivings, Rudy Hopkins was content to give his daughter all the freedom and funding in the world. Grams was something weird. She was Bonnie's favorite person in the world, no doubt, but she was always lying to Bonnie about something big - something Kai knew about - and it angered Bonnie. At first, she figured it had something to do with Kai because whatever happened to him had been so bad that the records were sealed and the newspaper clippings had limited information regarding the events. Regardless, Bonnie had some resentment towards both parental figures.

Her dynamic with Kai was the most convoluted. They were arch-nemeses, their antagonism comparable to what Elena had with Jeremy, but worse. Bonnie used to do everything she could to get him kicked out, before she learned the timid truth. Over the years, they’ve had friendly moments, because he was Grams’ foster son and Bonnie was often at her Grams’ home when her dad wasn’t around. They’ve seen each other at their worst, in states no one else ever got to witness, not Elena or Caroline, or whoever Kai’s Elena-or-Caroline was.

But they were never friends. Bonnie can’t be friends with Kai, and he can’t be friends with her, and neither one can pinpoint exactly when the opportunity passed. No matter what weaknesses she sees and let’s him see, it was only ever between them. Bonnie had her friends and suitors who never stuck around. Kai had his little flings. None of their people were able to get in deep with them the way they got in with each other. So much of Kai occupied Bonnie, because so much of who she was hinged on negating him. It was the same for him, she could tell. There was no room between them for anyone else.

Bonnie cares deeply for very few people and she's not incredibly receptive to strangers. They tended to fuck things up.

💀🔫

Which is why, that Wednesday night when that bourbon-drinking, wearing-leather-in-the-summer freak shows up on Grams’ porch, she hates him immediately. Her mood is already at an all time low. Her Prius is getting a tune-up and because Grams’ works an hour outside of Mystic Falls, Kai is the one taking her home from Elena’s parents’ funeral.

Caroline had offered, but the blonde’s own absentee parent had showed up and Bonnie encouraged her to spend time with him. Between Bonnie’s AWOL mom and Elena’s orphan status, both girls wanted Caroline to soak up her parents’ presences.

Kai drives them from the funeral, says nothing to her and expects nothing from her. The air in the old Toyota is somber and Bonnie doesn't even look up from her phone until she hears him mutter “who the hell is that?”

He's squinting up at the porch, where a dark-haired man is sitting on the porch swing, elbows braced on his knees. Even in the dusky twilight air, his blue eyes are bright and piercing and focused on them. It unnerves her.

“Friend of yours?” Kai inquires. Bonnie wants to snap at him, but his tone is neutral and the question makes sense. She shakes her head in a negative.

“Let's go somewhere else,” she tells him. It's unlike her and Kai eyes her and turns off the car. She scowls.

Of all the times for him to be contradictory, it's when a potential murderer is gawking at them from her grandmother's porch. Typical.

She follows him out, sticking close. Bonnie hates Kai on a good day, but he's familiar to her. She trusts him to antagonize her, to annoy her, and hurt her feelings. She also trusts him to keep her safe. This guy? She doesn't trust him at all. He watches them watch him.

“Someone die?” he greets. Bonnie's opinion of him plummets more. Kai just hits him with the quirked brow. The Gilberts were a pretty beloved family - their funeral procession had been huge.

“Yeaaaah,” Kai stretches the word out. “Did you know the Gilberts?”

The guy's face does something weird. He appears mildly amused. “I knew some Gilberts, yes.”

His expression becomes serious and he stands. “Does Sheila Bennett still live here? I need to ask her something.”

Bonnie peeks from where she's been using Kai as a human shield and glares at the guy.

“What do you want with Grams?”

The guy assesses her, tilting his head and letting his eyes wander up and down her form. It’s predatory and makes Bonnie feel like meat before Kai rearranges himself between them. He's thumbing at his rings like he tends to do when he's agitated. The guy in leather smirks and answers her as though Kai wasn't there.

“Well, little bird, I'm in need of a Bennett witch.”

Bonnie almost laughs, but the way Kai's body stiffens in front of her chases off her amusement. She can see his default devious expression shift into something dark and angry. It sends Bonnie's belly to the floor.

With a grunt, the man follows Bonnie's stomach, crashing to his knees and clutching his head. Kai ushers Bonnie into the house, quickly following her.

“You need to leave,” Kai snaps at the stranger. “Your kind isn't welcome in this town, let alone at this residence. If you come back, I'll report you to the Council.”

With that he slams the door shut, leaving Bonnie with dozens of questions on her tongue.

💔🔫

About a week after Kai's banishment, his coven leader shows up on Miss Sheila's stoop. She lets him in with a smile, then leaves him and Kai alone with a pitcher of lavender lemonade and a round, blue tin of old lady cookies.

Kai picks at a thread hanging from his shorts. His uncle, feeling just as awkward, chugs two glasses of lemonade then plays with the cup. Man and boy peek at each other and are surprised to catch eyes. Jason makes a funny face and Kai chuckles. The tension eases.

“Kai,” the Supreme starts. “You know it's not your fault right? None of this,” he waves his hand around, indicates the general this. “Is your fault. Josh was sick and he heard something he didn't like and he snapped.”

Kai pulls at thread. “Dad said I was an abomination. He said if I'd been worth anything, the Regents would have let you name me and Jo as your heirs.”

Uncle Jason’s face gets dark. “That’s not really your fault Kai, no matter what anyone says.”

“If I was a normal witch and not a siphon, they would have said yes and dad wouldn't have done what he did.”

Uncle Jason grimaces. “Fuck Josh,” he growls lowly and runs his hand over his face. He looks so much like Kai’s dad (Like Jo and Joey. Like Kai.), it physically hurts Kai to look at him, some odd mixture of fear and longing hitting the child.

“Kai, I want you to listen to me carefully,” the Supreme reaches out and clutches his nephew's shoulders. The hold is firm and gentle and Kai basks in his uncle’s warmth.

“The Regents gave a conditional no. They wanted you to go through some intense training before naming you a prospective heir. Your dad was for it, but I vetoed the option.”

At Kai’s dismayed look, Jason wiggled his fingers under the boy's chin and smiles when Kai squirms.

“The training is very dangerous and an extremely outdated and prejudiced practice. The point is to overload a siphon with so much magic they absorb it permanently. It doesn't work. Most siphons die, slowly and painfully, because the spell leaves them open to all kinds of magical backlash, the constant influx of which causes deformities and madness. Do you understand? You would have been tortured to death by your own family.

“Trust me Kai, none of this is on you. Josh was sick. He was willing to let you go through torture and very likely die just for the prospect of being named heir.”

Jason ruffles Kai's dark hair. “You think I would’ve let that happen to my favorite nephew?”

Kai shakes his head. He feels happy and sad and angry and warm. He used to always wish to himself that Jason had been his dad. The thought used to fill him with guilt, but now Kai utters it without any thought.

Jason looks sad. “Me too,” he mutters. “But only if I just got you. No merge to lose you to.”

Kai feels...a lot. He launches himself at his uncle, who grunts, but hugs the kid. He pretends not to notice Kai’s sobs.

Jason strokes his back and stands, walking around and letting Kai cling to him. It's embarrassing. Kai’s eight, a smart and mature third-grader, not a baby. But he feels safe for the first time in months, so Kai lets the embarrassment go.

“No matter what, Kai, you've got me okay?” the Supreme rubs his back, where the intricate pattern adorns Kai’s skin. “This means you're safe. From the coven, the Regents, your dad. But you have me, whenever you need me, okay? Not just as your Supreme, but as your family. I love you, kid.”

Kai holds onto those last four words like a lifeline.

💀🔫

Bonnie screeches like a damn banshee when she's angry and Kai's tight-lipped disposition has her incensed. His ears are fucking ringing like bells by the time Sheila slips through the front door and takes control of the situation.

“Sit your behind down,” she calls after Kai when he tries to slip away.

Kai makes a face while his back is to her, careful not to let her see it. Sheila is a good mother, for all intents and purposes, but she's quick with discipline if she senses disrespect. It's mild to what Kai’s dealt with before, but she ran a tight ship that he’s careful not to rock.

“Now what happened?” she questions and holds up her hand for silence. when Bonnie starts up again about strange men, witches, and Kai being a freak.

“Speak up,” the Bennett matriarch commands him. Kai feels a headache coming on. He tells her everything about the visiting vampire anyway.

Bonnie’s obviously in a state of disbelief listening to him, except she had witnessed Kai drop the vampire with a thought. The mundane denial she'd been raised in wars against her nature and witch’s intuition. The inner conflict makes her waspish and snarky, to the point even Sheila loses her temper.

The fireplace blazes to life and the dining set levitates.

Bennett fire, Kai thinks watching Sheila watch Bonnie. Both generations of women are tense.

Instead of addressing her grandmother, Bonnie turns her attention to Kai. He's not even surprised. It's easier for her to spit vitriol at him than her beloved grandmother.

“Is this what you've been lying to me about all these years?”

There's a challenge in her eyes and a plea in her voice. Kai can't tell what she wants from him, but he gives her what he can. He ignores Sheila’s warning glare and tells Bonnie the truth.

💀🔫

Sentimentality and a sense of masochism made Damon stop at the bridge in the sleepy Virginian town again.

Mystic Falls was still a hole-in-the-wall, barely a blip on anyone's map. The grand return of The Comet was around the bend, bringing with it a slew of hatred and bitterness Damon had housed for the better half of a century. His grudge against Katherine Pierce had become a lifelong companion, his food, his bedmate, his liquor. Take away everything from Damon and he'd still have his hate.

His mood is dense. It settles on him like the fog he conjures and he thinks maybe killing someone would ease the hurt. It used to help. He'd find a pretty brunette and pretend she was Katherine and torture her to death. Soon enough the practice lost its appeal, but the indulgence of bloodlust was cathartic. Klaus had always encouraged it.

He sips bourbon a silver flask said Original has gifted him. Damon had been loyal to him for decades now - since the first Great War. World War. Whatever. It had been nice to meet another vampire on the front lines, to tell his story without any edits or omissions. To miss Stefan and have someone understand that depth of grief, how it had consumed him for centuries, how of course he could never forgive the conniving devil woman that led both brothers to their respective ends.

Imagine his surprise to learn that Klaus had also had it out for Miss Pierce. Petrova. Bitch wonder. Whatever.

So Damon agreed to work for him in pursuit of Katherine. The doppelganger had been his white whale, and he'd waited patiently for the advent of a new Petrova doppelganger. Imagine this surprise when that line guided him back to his hometown.

He almost didn't come. But he's already established that he's a sentimental masochist. Damon downs the last of his bourbon, stares out at the yellow DO NOT CROSS tape and orange roadblocks that wall off the broken bridge.

The night he ripped the human doppelganger out of the car...it had been his bad. He'd wanted to see her, wanted to frighten the family, have bit of a laugh before compelling them to forget the encounter. Instead he'd frightened them right off the bridge and into the water below.

Honest to god, he almost just walked off. He'd sped to the edge and spent almost two minutes just staring at them, wondering if anyone would come by and save them. When it became clear no one was around, he had dived in to save the girl.

Klaus would probably kill him if he found out Damon was the reason he had to wait another five hundred years to break his curse.

He pulled her out of the wreckage and breathed life back into the girl. Wet eyelashes fluttered and he compelled her to find help, that an animal ran out on the bridge and her dad instinctively tried to go around, driving off the bridge. He told her to stay safe because he was coming back for her.

And now he's stuck here, waiting for Katherine to show up like a mouse to a mousetrap. Waiting to give Klaus the green light to snatch her ugly heart out of her chest and for both men to get their revenge. Waiting until the Bennett witch (witches?) can be persuaded to lift Klaus’ curse. It's been so long and having the end in sight is a welcome thing. Soon it will be over and he can rest.

Damon is so tired after all.

💀🔫

He arrives after the kids leave for school. Sheila is tired and not in the mood for company, so she putters around inside before she finally decides to meet him. The vampire Kai described the night before is waiting on her porch swing when she steps out and Sheila pauses in her motions, facing him. He tips an imaginary hat to her.

“Morning ma'am,” he greets. “I'm Damon.”

The old antebellum accent he speaks with sounds completely natural on him, as at odds as it is to his appearance. Sheila studies him, her brow wrinkling in thought.

“You look like that Salvatore boy that runs the boarding house.”

He chuckles, seemingly surprised.

“Zach?” he questions, accent gone. “He's my great grandson.”

Sheila takes a seat in the rocking chair adjacent to him and indicates that he should continue. Damon licks his lips.

“You're not afraid of the big, bad bloodsucker?” he questions. His tone is something odd. Amused and apathetic. Bored and tempestuous. Even when he'd been hamming up the accent, he'd been both too distant and too emotional about it.

“I heard you were looking for me. Seems unlikely you'd attack if you need a Bennett witch to do your bidding.”

The vampire smirks, stretching his arms out along the back of the of the swing. His leather jacket sits in his lap, black like the rest of his attire. Boot-clad feet push the swing as he tips his head back, eyes closed. The gloom in his aura matches his look. Mighty handsome as he is, those angelic looks hid a soul blackened by the worst of human emotions.

“In 1864, I was doing quite well for myself. I'd done all a good first-born southern boy was supposed to do at the time. Married well, had a boy I adored, partnered with my father in the family business, funded and fought in war I didn't believe in, and came home due to injury,” here he pats his shoulder sardonically.

“The ideal Virginia gentleman, even though I hated myself for it. I never wanted to do or be any of that, but I loved my little brother more than life itself. I had few freedoms so Stefan could have them all. That's what older brothers are supposed to do, you understand.

“1864 was also a year when Mystic Falls was infested with vampires. It was quite unbeknownst to us Council members, but one of your mighty ancestors Emily had teamed up with a vamp named Katherine for one thing or another -”

“Safe harbor,” Sheila interrupts. “Suspicions about Emily being a witch were high, I'm sure you're aware. Especially after she turned down Jonathan Gilbert’s...employment offers. Katherine was to make sure Emily and her children made it safely to the Gemini coven in Oregon. She got the children there, by the way.”

The vampire stares at her and nods slowly.

“Noted. Anyway, Emily had made these nifty daylight rings for Katherine and her friends,” he waves his own through the air. “So they went undetected by the Council for a while. My own father housed Katherine as a refugee displaced by the war. It was during that time, she got her hooks in Stefan. When the Council discovered her true identity, she was captured with the other vampires with the intent of burning them all alive.

“Stefan attempted to rescue her. I attempted to stop him. But he was my brother and he fancied himself in love, and he pleaded with me to let them go. Said she was his heart…,” the vampire trails off, lost in thought. “I let them go, but my father was nearby and witnessed the whole thing. He shot us both to death rather than risk the family name being tarnished. Katherine ran off, saved her own skin - and your ancestors’ as well, I reckon - and I watched my brother die reaching out for a woman who didn't look back once as she left him there to die.”

Sheila is quiet. She can sense the anger brewing under his skin, but had Katherine not left the brothers, she and hers might not be here. She understands his pain, but it is what it is.

“Imagine my surprise,” Damon continues. “When I wake up in transition. Emily was there and explained that Katherine had been sneaking me her blood and compelling me to forget. I was to be a surprise for Stefan. Or leverage, depending on your perspective. To convince him to transition for her. She'd wanted him to choose to be like her, so he didn't have any vampire blood in his system when he died. But in doing that, she took my choice away. She left Emily behind to die as well - or whatever they had worked out - and your ancestor offered me a monster’s ring and told me what remaining options I had.”

“Why did you choose to be a vampire?” Sheila inquires, curious. “You seem to not be your kind’s biggest fan.”

Damon shrugs. “It is what it is,” he unknowingly echoes her sentiments. “I'd already lost everything - my father had spread word Stefan and I died trying to stop Katherine’s escape, so I couldn't go home. But I could have revenge.“

The silence that follows is heavy. Sheila absorbs his.story, filling in the gaps of his story with what she'd read in Emily’s grimoire. No matter how she turned it, Katherine’s role in moving Doris, Eileen, and Charles to Oregon had been fairly minimal. Emily had had back-up plans, which she wrote like Katherine had been aware of, so Sheila finds herself having a hard time condemning the man.

“And you need me for this revenge?”

Damon smiled coldly. “Why yes ma'am, I do,” he replies. The accent is back.

💀🔫

Bonnie ignoring him isn't anything new. Neither is her bullying him or encouraging her friends to bully him.

He doesn't know what he expected. This weird combination of making him miserable and pretending he doesn't exist wasn't it though. After he drops her off for summer cheer practice, she finally deigns to look up from furiously messaging on her phone to let him know Caroline would take her to pick up her car.

When she gets out, she greets Tyler who looks after her like a hungry puppy before turning a hard gaze on Kai.

Shit.

Kai tries to pull out but another car is blocking him. He's trapped. His car door is slammed open and he's yanked outside. No magic on mundanes, he tells himself right before throwing a punch at whoever had him gripped.

It's like six on one, but he refuses to be the only one leaving with bruises, so he doesn't bother holding back his temper. Kai is six feet, one-ninety pounds but the football players are all his size or bigger, so the fight back is difficult. He makes sure to nail Lockwood in the fucking face though. Jerk.

Tanner’s whistle blows and the players dissipate, leaving behind Kai and the asshole history coach. The two men eye each other before Tanner speaks.

“We have a wrestling team, you should consider trying out.”

Kai frowns at him. He can't tell if that was sarcasm or a legitimate pitch, but he doesn't care. He gets in his car and drives off, angry and biting it back.

Leave it to Bonnie to punish him for telling the truth. Nevermind his good intentions.

💔🔫

The next time he finally sees Bonnie, it's his first day at school. She's a grade below him, but she's one of the town’s three sweethearts, so everyone in nearby grades sat as close to her table as possible.

“Hi Bonnie,” he greets when he's able to push to the front. A blonde-haired boy eyes him suspiciously, but Kai ignores him. Bonnie, in turn, ignores Kai.

“I wanted to say sorry for the last time we saw each other. I was really rude to you and it doesn't matter what else happened, I shouldn't have been so mean to you,” Kai apologizes. Bonnie doesn't look away from her chattering friends. Kai's temper rises.

“Bonnie, listen to me!” he snaps, grabbing her wrist. Temper flaring, he forgets himself. He forgets that for all Bonnie's magic is latent, it’s still there, just beneath her skin, in her blood and part of her very soul. He forgets he's a soul eater. In his anger, Kai unintentionally siphons her.

Bonnie yowls, yanking her arm away, but Kai had thrown her away at the very first taste of Bennett magic on his skin. She looks at him with betrayal, clutching her arm to her chest. Everyone is staring at them in shock.

“I-I'm sorry. I didn't - I didn't mean to, Bonnie, I'm -,” Kai stammers. Bonnie interrupts.

“Go away! I hate you, just leave me alone! You freak!” At her outburst, the chatter picks up.

“Yeah, go away, freak.”

“Did you see what he did to Bonnie? What a jerk.”

“A monster.”

Someone grabs his lunch tray and dumps the contents on him. Someone else shoves Kai off the lunch bench.

“Go away.”

“We don't want you to sit here.”

“Disappear, freak.”

Food and wrappers are tossed at Kai, and he stumbles away, out of the cafeteria. Two lunch aids, talking to each other, stop him when they see him trying to leave. Kai says he slipped and dropped his lunch tray, and that he was going to the restroom to clean up. They let him pass.

Kai spends the rest of the lunch period quietly crying in the big stall.

💀🔫

She said no. Of course, she did, Damon had expected no less. Regardless, the comet is weeks away and Damon is on a mission. If Sheila won't do it, maybe her pretty little granddaughter might find incentive. He doesn't particularly care if Sheila gets the Council sniffing after his tail. He just needs the girls, the wolf boy, and Katherine, then finally, finally he can rest.

Through his ravens, Damon watches the Bennett girl and her blonde friend through cheer practice. The doppelganger isn't with them, probably still grief-stricken. They leave for the town garage and the blonde drops the little bird off. They make plans to meet at the Mystic Grill and when the blonde girl is sitting alone in her booth, Damon slides in opposite her.

“Mind if I sit here?” he croons, meeting her gaze. He watches as a familiar carnal hunger fills her face and her pupils dilate. Hook, line, and sinker.

It pays to be patient.

💀🔫

School starts. Kai is a senior, so his last science course is one of three electives and he chooses astronomy over psychology and forensic science. Kai’s had his fill of both over the years. Of course though, Bonnie is fast-tracked and an honors student. They're in the same class and Mrs. Galloway partners them for the course.

Kai’s still bruised up from two weeks ago, an ugly yellow settling under the bags if his eyes. Whatever. Prickwood’s nose is still splinted.

They get their syllabi and look over it as Mrs. Galloway explains the year long partner project. They're supposed to track the progression of a constellation over the course of the school year and make a presentation at the end of the year of what they tracked. And of course, because it's Mrs. Galloway’s class, she wants three written reports for the project, the first being a five-to-seven page partnered paper on their constellation’s history and the last two being individual reflective papers on the project that they'll turn in with their final presentation.

Kai sighs internally and considers dropping the class along with the other chattering seniors. He doesn't really want to do so much work in his last year, let alone have to partner with Bonnie. But Mrs. Galloway comes by with a cup of constellation names and a warm smile, and dammit she was Kai’s favorite science teacher. Physics with her had been bitchin’. Bonnie draws out their constellation and Mrs. Galloway writes down what they got.

Of course. They get Gemini.

💔🔫

A pretty little blonde thing opens the door when Klaus knocks. A frown mars her face.

“Who are you?” she questions, almost rudely. Niklaus is charmed.

Damon appears behind her, pulling a thin, black v-neck sweater over his damp hair. At least he seemed to be ditching his infernal jackets, Klaus muses as the younger vampire grips the girl's chin and makes her face him.

“Caroline, this is my friend, Klaus. Klaus, this is our host, Caroline. She was just about to invite you in,” he compels her.

“Please come in, Klaus,” Caroline says in that dreamy way compelled humans speak. Stepping inside, Klaus smiles at her and presses a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Please call me Nik,” he insists and gets taken in by her immediate flush. She'd be so lovely to paint. Damon rolls his eyes.

“The Bennett Matron said no, but she has a granddaughter on the cusp of an Awakening and a ward who also appears to be a witch. If she won't do it, I'm sure they can be persuaded,” Damon informs him, crossing his arms and leaning back against a wall. His eyes dart at Caroline, indicating to Klaus what he means by “persuaded”.

Klaus nods, then turns to Caroline, compelling her to forget anything she might hear them say and not to mention them to anyone at all. He tells her to occupy herself and she leaves them be.

Damon is staring at him.

“What?” Klaus asks.

“She'll probably die,” Damon states bluntly. “It's very likely I'll kill her at the end of all this.”

Klaus scowls at his friend. “I was just being friendly, since you seem to be your usual charming self.”

Damon shrugs. “She's a dead girl walking - what's the point in being pleasant? It's not like she'll remember.”

The Original is over the discussion and waves a hand, telling Damon to move on. The antebellum vampire reports everything, from his findings, to his confirmations, to his tentative plans, which they work through together. Klaus’ phone beeps and he answers without looking. Very few people have his number.

It's Elijah, informing him that Katherine has made contact about a Petrova doppelganger. The excitement in Damon’s face is immeasurable. Klaus soon ends the call and looks over his old friend and follower. He clasps his shoulder.

“Lay low and wait for my signal. Don't give away your presence,” he hands a stone beaded bracelet to Damon, who slips it in without question. “Let the witches think you left and wait for my signals. Soon, your hunt will be over.”

Damon nods, striking blue eyes practically glowing. He closes them off and sighs. “Just a few more weeks,” he mutters. “And it will all be over.”

Klaus heart breaks a little for Damon. But Damon Salvatore the man died over a century ago. In his place is little more than a vengeance seeking wraith. Death would better when it all ends.

💀🔫

It must be a year of bad luck, Bonnie muses. Maybe the town's chakras are misaligned. Maybe she should ask Grams and Kai, if they decide her worthy of any honesty.

She sighs, comforting Matt. She knows she's being harsh, but things are just so fucked up lately and she doesn't understand how two - maybe three, if her father knows - of the people she cared about more than anything else could lie to her face like that for so long. Maybe Kai, but it was unlike him. He preferred to hurt her with the truth than with lies. And he wasn't the type to use lies to protect anyone. He didn't care.

So that left her grandmother.

Bonnie almost wishes she didn't know shit. Ever since the night she learned about vampires, and witches, and werewolves (oh my!), shit in Mystic Falls had gotten so odd over the last few weeks and it seemed to center around her. First, Elena's parents. Then Tyler ends up hitting and killing a drunk and high Vicki Donovan when she wandered out of nowhere to end up in front of his speeding car. Matt is having a hard time looking at his best friend whom he both blames and doesn't blame for his sister’s death. Tyler's made himself scarce, wrestling with his grief and guilt in his own way.

On top of that Caroline has been acting weirder than usual, like all of this bad shit is just a pesky manicure that needs to be fixed and not, like, actual life and death.

And now, sitting in the police station holding a sobbing Matt, she overhears Sheriff Forbes talking to a distraught Jenna Sommers.

Elena’s been missing for 24 hours. No trace of her anywhere. Her phone, her car, and her keys left behind. Kidnapping is suspected.

Bonnie wants to rage. Apparently she has all this power, but she's never felt so helpless. Her people are falling apart and missing and lying to her and all she wants is to find a familiar place to feel safe. She thinks about calling Grams. Instead, she calls Kai.

💀🔫

Nervously, Katherine twists the napkin in her hand until it shreds. Her water, which she ordered for show, sweats for her in anticipation. She really can't stand Klaus. Waiting to bargain her freedom from him in a small booth isn't at all on her list of things she likes to do. But a small public diner is better than being alone with him.

A man slides into the booth seat opposite her.

“About time,” she mutters, looking up. Klaus smiles.

“I would apologize for keeping a lady waiting, but alas,” he indicates her. Katherine smiles tightly.

“Ha. Ha. I take it you found my information sufficient, then?”

“Indeed,” Klaus nods. “My people have apprehended the girl. Consider your debt to me paid.”

Debt, Katherine mentally scoffs. Choosing to live over letting herself be sacrificed for some stupid curse she had nothing to do with had put her in the Original’s debt. Only a Mikaelson.

“So if I leave, you won't pursue me? No revenge chase, no take backs, nothing? Our business is done?” the vampire doppelganger checks.

“Like I said, Miss Pierce - your score with me is settled.” His eyes flick over her shoulder. “With me, that is.”

A cool body flops down next to her. Katherine has time to take in black hair and clothes, pale skin, and flashing blue eyes before a butter knife is rammed through her wrist and into the table below. She cries out loudly, but no one turns.

A trap. Fuck, she should've known better.

“Hey, Kat,” Damon drawls. “Long time no see.” He slams her head into the table several times and the last thing Katherine sees before her world goes black is cold blue eyes shifting to a warm hazel. She almost calls his name, but then she remembers.

Stefan’s dead.

💔🔫

Bonnie can't stand her grandmother's foster son. Grams had gone out of her way to give Kai a nice birthday - taking them both to the amusement park in Whitmore, buying him a delicious mint chocolate chip ice cream cake - Kai's favorite, and gifting him with a plane ticket to Portland to visit family members who should've been taking care of him instead of Grams.

But he was ungrateful, and Bonnie can't stand him. He was turning unlucky thirteen, finally taller than her and about as sullen as can be.

His birthday is mid-April and it's warm as hell. Bonnie is sweltering in the eat, so she swallows down as much of the creamy Baskin Robbins cake as she can. Kai only picks at his. They're waiting for Kai’s case worker, and Bonnie has a mouthful ready to report about her “uncle's” living conditions. He's been extra snappish lately, escalating their usual bickering to all out brawls. He bruised her ribs, but she sprained his wrist - the same one he wore a cast on when he arrived almost five years ago. She'll lie through her teeth if it meant him finally being out of her life.

Kai's case worker finally arrives and she joins the for ice cream cake and pleasantries. She even brought a gift for Kai, a small collection of graphic novels that he must have told her he liked to read. Bonnie is itching for their interview. Anything, anything, if it meant he'll be gone and taking this uncomfortable feeling he elicits in her chest with him.

Her plan fails. His case worker is looking at her pityingly by the time Bonnie finishes her rant.

“Honey,” the case worker says softly. “He can't go home to Portland. His family want him as far away from his father as possible and the one they trust with him is your grandmother. He’s not going anywhere.”

Bonnie snaps. “But I hate him! He's weird and quiet and mean, and he creeps me out! Why can't one of his family members move here? Why does he have to take mine?”

The case worker softens. “Bonnie,” she soothes. “He's not taking away from your family, he's adding to it. Give him a chance, I'm sure you'll find that you enjoy his company more than you despise it.”

The Bennett girl is stubborn. She may have no choice but to accept Kai in her life, but she refuses to enjoy his presence. The next day she looks up abusive fathers in Portland in 1999. She finds a short newsclip about a man named Joshua Parker who killed his wife and two of his three children. None of the children's names are released so as not to reveal the survivor's identity, who was first in protective services, than the foster care system. The child's records were sealed.

Bonnie eases up on Kai. He's still a freak, but at least she has a better grasp on why. She'll let him stay. It's not like she has to like it.

💀🔫

Kai had picked her up from the station, drove Matt home, held her through her break down, then guided her to his room at Grams’ place. The older Bennett woman is out with the search party. The Sheriff had issued a curfew for everyone 17 and under to be home by 7 p.m., so Bonnie's sitting in Kai's room so that neither teen is alone.

He turns on his TV, leaves it on Chopped Jr, then goes downstairs to make dinner. Bonnie's hands shake. She feels cold, even bundled up in her warm PJ's under Kai's down comforter.

His room is cozy and masculine, shades of navy and light blues and soft greys and creams everywhere. Framed comic posters are lined up sharply on one wall, between two neat but overfilled bookshelves. His bed is in the corner opposite his nerd wall and his desk, the second largest furnishing in the room, is by the bed’s headboard, lined under his window. There's a clean desktop computer and game system set-up on it. The TV is on the dresser between his closet door and the entrance, which are both on the wall facing across the windowed wall. There's textured fabric everywhere, down comforters, knit pillows, microplush throws, a rough carpet rug on the wood flooring - it makes the room cozy.  She's never really been in here before. It was an unspoken rule between them that bedrooms were off limits. His room is kind of like a nautical watercolor, themed and clean. Bonnie smiles to herself as she realizes just how domestic Kai is.

Think of the devil - her foster uncle opens the door. He has two bowls of mac’n’cheese casserole and he hands her one before sitting at the desk and wolfing his own down. He says nothing, watching the TV as though having a red-eyed Bonnie Bennett in his room were a regular occurrence and not weird at all. Bonnie picks at her bowl - it's good, Kai's a pretty decent chef - before she sets it on the desk next to him.

Her adoptive uncle looks at her from his periphery. It's a creepy little habit he's adopted, watching her while pretending he's not watching her while she pretends to not notice. Bonnie's done with pretending.

“Kai-,” she starts.

“Not hungry?”  he interrupts. “I'll go wrap it for you.”

Bonnie purses her lips, but remains silent when he grabs their bowls and disappears again. She can hear downstairs, but then it's quiet. She lowers the volume on the TV and waits. Almost three minutes pass. Nothing from downstairs. Bonnie glowers.

Did he leave?

She gets up and throws open the door only to find Kai leaning against the frame. She starts, clutching her chest. Watches him peer up through his lashes at her.

Something in her belly flutters and her pulse speeds. Kai's hot. Distantly, she was always aware of this, but it's disconcerting to push away her feelings towards him - the vast majority of them negative - to acknowledge odd truths like that.

“You leaving?” he asks her. His voice is soft in the hush surrounding them. Bonnie shakes her head.

“I thought you left. I was going to look for you,” she answers just as quietly. Kai smiles sardonically. Holds up his clocked wrist.

“It's eight-thirty,” he replies. Right, she thinks. The curfew. Kai straightens up and walks into the room. Too close to her personal space and she steps back at an angle. He follows. Bonnie stops when her knees brush the bed. Kai stops when his chest brushes hers. He reaches out and Bonnie closes her eyes.

“I'll scream,” she whispers. Kai’s hands cup her face. They're warm and large and a port in the recent crazy. She's fes safe, with Kai of all people.

“As loud as you can,” he agrees. His thumbs rub at her erratic pulse. Bonnie's breaths come in ragged and a heavy, loud in the air.

“I'll hurt you,” she mutters, finally looking at him. His eyes are dark and focused. Whatever he sees on her face must encourage him because he brings them closer. His lips brush hers, teasing when he whispers back.

“I'll like it.”

💔🔫

Jason had buried his sister-in-law, his niece, and one nephew two days after he sent the other nephew to Virginia for safety. Kai's visiting for his thirteenth birthday and the Supreme had wanted to see the coven members he failed before picking up the one he won't from the airport.

Three pristine headstones look up at him, the two smaller ones with dates that break his heart. 1993-1999. 1991-1999.

Joey hadn't even made it to six yet, dying a few months short of that birthday. Josette barely made it to eight. And the boy who shared her birthday? Jason can only hope he has many birthdays to come.

Sheila's calls had alarmed him. Kai was acting up, skipping therapy, flushing his meds, contemplating suicide. He was fighting and being bullied, one of the perpetrators being Sheila's granddaughter no less, although Kai never ratted her out. Sheila intervened when she could, forced them to spend time together, but fixing that relationship was between the kids.

Kai had a particular fascination with death and death mythology lately. It might have been a phase of it might be serious suicidal ideation. Either way, Jason and Sheila split the cost of a roundtrip ticket for Kai, so that the Supreme could spend time with his favorite nephew.

Jason picks Kai up and they go shopping first, because none of the clothes Kai has really suits his personality. Then they hit up Voodoo Doughnut and a Trail Blazers game and Jason relaxes when he feels the gloom and doom in Kai’s aura lift.

“What about girls?” he asks when Kai finishes telling him about what he likes about Mystic Falls. His nephew’s face falls.

“Or boys!” Jason rushes to assure him. He didn't think Kai was gay, but it's better not to assume anything. “Or whomever you like! I don't care! I mean, I care, but you know in support, not because I think anything's wrong with you or-,” he's rambling, but it's okay. Kai's having an uproarious laugh at his expense.

“I like a girl,” Kai says, still chuckling. His face falls. “She doesn't like me though. Pretty sure she hates me, actually.”

Jason looks over Kai, feels out his aura. It clicks.

“Oh damn, kiddo,” he says. Kai grimaces. “Is that why you never try to get Bonnie in trouble?”

Kai frowns. “No, it's because I'm not a snitch.”

Jason stares. Kai shrugs. “At least when she hates me, I'm on her mind. And she's weirdly possessive about me. It's better than her not caring.”

That….that is fucked up. Love isn't supposed to be like that, let alone someone's first love. Jason says as much. Kai shrugs again.

“I have her,” he says. “It's better than being Tyler Lockwood, who does everything she says in hopes she'll finally do something about his boner only to be disappointed every time she doesn't even notice. I'm in her and she hates it, but I'm there. It's better than every other guy who likes her, but doesn't even ping on her radar. At least she sees me and thinks about me.”

Kai shoves another doughnut in his mouth and Jason sighs, letting the subject drop. It'll either change for the better or get worse until it dies. He just hopes it doesn't leave either child too scarred.

💀🔫

Bonnie's mouth is painful on his and their embrace goes from warm to hot, and she's wet under him, then wet surrounding him. He has to slow down, first for safety (That safe driving slogan, “better safe than sorry” plays in his head when he slides a condom on.), then for consideration, because he hadn't realized popular, beautiful Bonnie Bennett had made it to her junior year of high school without letting anyone have her like this. She clings to him and his kisses soften from bruising to comforting when her tears come. He’s not small, and he never wished he was, but maybe she wouldn't be in so much pain if he had been. He rubs her back and holds her and when she wraps her legs around his waist and encourages him, he feels like he's finally come home.

It's good. Not great, but Kai's nervous and Bonnie's never done it before. He makes sure she cums. Touches her and licks her until she screams, just like she told him she would. Just like he encouraged her to. When they finish, he discards the bloodied condom and offers to run her bath. She shakes her head and holds him instead. Kai traces shapes on her back and closes his eyes.

“What's going to happen?” she says into the dark.

“We'll be safe,” he replies. She shifts, sitting up. Naked flesh moves on naked flesh and Kai's cock stirs awake again.

“How do you know?” Her green eyes glow in the dark like a cat's and he strokes down her dark curls. The sight of her like this makes him ache. Kai’s hated and loved Bonnie in equal measure for most of his life. He has no idea if this is her using him for comfort or her finally giving in to their weird chemistry now that she fears she might lose the people she loves.

He almost doesn't want to know. He certainly doesn't want to think about it.

So he tells her about his coven in Portland instead.

💀🔫

When Elena comes to, she has no idea where she is or how she got there. The house is unfamiliar, but nicely furnished and clean, if not obviously abandoned. Her head throbs and she assumes that's the reason for absent memories. Slowly, the brunette sits up and looks around. She tells herself to stay calm even as horror stories about human sex trafficking and slave trades come to mind. Checking her limbs and body over, Elena is surprised to learn that she's relatively uninjured and unchained.

Another girl with dark hair is slumped over in the corner. She’s looks like a similar height and build to Elena, reinforcing the girl's thoughts of human trafficking. Even her hair shade is very close Elena's own chestnut locks, the only difference being that the girl’s is curly. Unlike Elena, she is chained up. Maybe she fought. If Elena can help her get out of her chains, maybe they can work together to get free.

Looking around, Elena quietly makes her way across the room to the other girl. She's a few feet away when a voice rings out.

“Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

Elena starts, whirling around. A tall, dark-haired man with piercing blue eyes is sitting on a chair Elena is one hundred and ten percent sure was empty, just seconds ago. He looks comfortable like, he's been there for a while.

He cocks a brow at her. “She bites,” he informs her nodding at the form behind her.

“Fuck you, Damon,” a woman's voice replies behind Elena.

It sends a shiver through her body. It's eerily similar to her own and Elena recalls the obvious similarities she noted earlier. She whirls around and is nearly floored.

The woman behind her...looks exactly like her. Doe-eyes meet doe-eyes, one set surprised and the other mocking. It's like looking at a mirror. Or an identical twin. Except Elena didn't have a twin.

The woman mirrors Elena’s dumbstruck face. “Oh, poor girl. Not only are you not as pretty as me, you're dumb and mute too.”

Elena shakes her head and steps back, looking between the two dark-haired strangers.

“What the hell is going on?” she demands. The face-stealer grimaces.

“Not so loud,” she rebukes. “And you're a human sacrifice. Welcome to the not so glamorous life of a Petrova doppelganger. My advice is to go vampire and not look back.”

“Because that worked out so well for you, right, Kitty Kat?” At he man speaks up and stands. He moves to where Elena is and grips her elbow. She tries to pull away, but he seems unmoved, merely tightening his grip and staring at her unnervingly. His grip becomes blistering painful and Elena cries out, falling to her knees as she tries to get away. She hears the chains rattle behind her.

“She's not me, asshole. I'm right here. If you want your revenge so bad, meet your maker like a man and stop picking on little girls.”

Damon lets Elena go, turning his icy gaze to her... doppelganger?

“Hush, Kitty Kat. No need to act like a jealous old crone,” he sneers. Katherine smirks.

“No need to act like a jilted lover. So what Stefan chose me over you? Your brother was a man grown, not your child or your wife. You already had one of each, but apparently they didn't occupy you like they should've.”

Damon's face grows hard, dark veins filtering onto his face. The chains rattle again as Kat stands.

“You should act like your doppelganger, Katherine, and keep your mouth shut.” He smiles and it's not friendly. “You'll both be dead soon anyway.”

With that, there's a rush of air, and he's gone. The doppelgangers stare at each other. Katherine tugs at the chains but they merely creak in protest. Steam rises from where they press her skin and the woman hisses.

“I don't suppose you can grab me stiff drink, can you?” she asks Elena. Elena just stares and with a shrug, looks for a kitchen.

💀🔫

“Oh my god, I'm a South Park Canadian,” Bonnie says, pulling her sweatshirt back on.

“What?” Kai questions, amused. Bonnie shrugs.

“I'm an uncle fucker,” Bonnie smirks at him. Kai lets out a shocked chuckle.

“What?! I'm not your uncle,” he laughs. He's beautiful, but she is stupidly, stupidly disgusted with herself. Why, she's not sure yet. She strokes his hair and kisses his cheek.

“I don't know...my grandmother adopted you. For all intents and purposes, you're my mom’s white little brother.”

Kai laughs again, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her between his legs where he's sitting on the edge of his bed. He smiles up at her.

“I'm fostered, not adopted,” he corrects. “Therefore, not your white uncle or anything. No incest here, Bonster.”

She starts at the nickname. He used to call her that when he would catch her crying over her dad choosing to work on holidays than spend time with her. He rarely calls her that, and it's always said in soft tones of comfort, never used in moments when she's dead certain he probably wants to kill her.

“Well damn,” she teases. “There goes that forbidden factor.” Kai laughs again, then pulls her back on the bed, spinning so that he's on top of her. His hands nestle beneath her shirt, playing with her belly button.

He kisses up the column of her neck. “Still very forbidden, lover.” He nibbled at her ear. “Sheila would probably kill me for defiling you.”

Bonnie snorts, but it's like Kai's words were a summoning. The front door slams open and Grams is shouting her name. Both Bonnie's and Kai's eyes widen comically and Kai practically launches himself into his desk chair and grapples for the remote to turn the TV on. They both hear Grams start up the stairs and Bonnie wraps herself up in one of Kai’s many blankets and pretends to be immersed in Tony Stark’s misadventures.

Kai's door bangs open and both teens sit up with a jump, not even faking their startle. Sheila’s hands go to her hips.

“You two deaf?” she demands. “And since when are you hanging out in each other's rooms? With the door closed?”

Kai stares at her, convincingly innocent. If Bonnie didn't know better, she'd believe his next words. “We're just watching a movie. Waiting to hear news.”

Sheila snorts. “Mhmmm. And I'm Barbra Streisand. Both of you get your tails downstairs. There's much to discuss.”

Grams turns sharply down the hall and Bonnie and Kai glance at each other before following.

In the kitchen, Grams is heating herself up some of Kai's casserole. Her back is tense and Bonnie can see the weariness that lines her body. A bad feeling settles in the girl's bowels.

“Grams?” She ventures. “What's going on?”

Sheila sighs and turns around. “You eat already?” she asks them. Kai nods and Bonnie shrugs, and Grams nods like this was about what she expected.

“Sit down,” she commands. When they're seated, she crosses her arm and states matter-of-factly. “We've found that along with Elena, Tyler Lockwood and Caroline Forbes are also missing. Since all of the appear to be friends, at first it's suspected they've run away together. But there was blood found in Tyler's house that matched his DNA, indicating a struggle. Caroline went missing on her way home from the mall in Talon Falls. Her car was found in the parking lot.”

She keeps talking, but her voice is drowned out by a loud ringing in her ears. Her breaths come in gasps. Her friends are missing. Her friends are missing. Her friends are missing. The room is too light, then too dark and Bonnie feels clammy and cold. She grips the table in front of her. A sharp slap to her face snaps her out of it.

Bonnie rubs her cheek as Grams lowers her hand.

“You okay, sugar pie? I wasn't trying to alarm you but I needed you to know the truth. Have you noticed anything strange going on lately?” Grams asks her.

Bonnie shakes her head. “No,” she states, her voice cracking. Her face crumples into tears.

This is too much. First, the uncovering of the supernatural, now her friends dying or disappearing left and right. She's never felt so powerless. The afterglow from her time with Kai fades. The self-disgust from earlier settles. She was letting Kai fuck her while her friends were going missing. How could she be so selfish like that, seeking out happiness from a guy she didn't even know how she felt about when her friends’ futures became uncertain? Her distress overwhelms her and she feels hot, like fire was boiling in her veins.

Strong arms wrap around her. “You need to calm down, Bonnie,” Kai's voice rumbles by her ear. “It's not your fault, okay? I understand, but you need to calm down before you burn the house down.”

His words don't make sense, but when Bonnie looks up with teary eyes, she sees her grandmother frantically waving her arms over flames that keep popping up.

“Hold it together, Bonnie!” she calls out.

Kai grabs her face and soothes down her hair. “I'm going to have to siphon you if you don't calm down, Bonster. Deep breaths okay? Don't let your emotions overwhelm you.”

Listening to his words, Bonnie let's herself be calmed. The flames die down. The young witch looks around the charred kitchen.

“I did that?” she whispers. Kai smiles softly and nods.

“Happy Awakening, Bonnie. Let's figure out how to save your friends.”

💀🔫

Greta arranges the casting circle in the field and spells the occupants asleep. Damon dumps Katherine - the vampire, the Lockwood boy - the werewolf, and Elena - the doppelganger in the cages where Greta indicates they should go.

“Bennett blood needs to be spilled from the eastern end, where the comet will enter the Gemini constellation,” she informs Damon. When he looks at her blankly, she sighs and a flaming ‘X’ chars the ground several feet from them.

“Over there,” she tells him. Damon grins and salutes, then takes a moment to look around. The three main ingredients for the “sun and moon curse”, all trussed up and ready to die. How beautiful.

He can hear Caroline crying as Klaus gently guides her back to the field. Damon frowns at that. It's weird, Klaus’s sudden fixation with baby Barbie, but to each his own. Damon doesn't know and doesn't want to know what the hell is up with that.

Movement catches his eye and Damon turns to look. The human doppelganger is stirring. She's been eerily calm about this whole ordeal, taking to the supernatural like a duck to water. It’s nothing at all like Katherine, reminding Damon of his brother's calm disposition and his widowed wife's faithful practicality. Her dark eyes meet his light ones. Warm earth to winter sky.

They study each other in silence, before she breaks it.

“Do you think this will make you happy?” Elena inquires. Damon shrugs.

“It doesn't have to. It just has to be over. I get revenge on Katherine by handing her over to die in away she never wanted to. Klaus gets to break his curse. Klaus compels me to forget and I get to rest.”

“To die.”

“Indeed,” Damon shrugs. “I wanted revenge and now it's here. What more after that? I never wanted to be a vampire.”

Elena’s somber face twists him with guilt and he glares at her.

“Maybe you should learn to live again,” she said. “Save yourself like you saved me that night on Wickery Bridge.”

Damon huffs a laugh. “You know I caused that accident, right? I didn't save you out of guilt or some hero complex. I did it because letting you die then would be an inconvenience.”

Elena's conviction seems to falter, but then Damon watches her literally arm herself with determination.

“You're not a bad person,” she insists. “And you can't convince me otherwise. I know what it looks like when grief kills who you are inside. To feel like the walking dead.”

Damon turns his back to her and closes his, but he's a vampire. He has super hearing.

“And I know that grief can be overcome. Maybe not now or tomorrow, but someday, you'll feel alive again and you can only do that if you keep trying.”

Damon opens his eyes. “What do you know?” he jeers lightly. “You're dying young.”

💀🔫

Shortly after her meltdown, Bonnie's phone rings and she hears Caroline's desperate voice pleading in her ear.

“Don't come Bonnie okay, they have Tyler and Elena and they want you to do something weird, please Bonnie don't come, they're gonna kill us, just call my mom.”

The phone gets taken away but she hears Caroline scream something about the woods and Bonnie writes that down for Grams to see. Kai grabs her hand when another voice, make and British, fills her ear.

“Nonsense, love. Caroline will live so long as you're willing to play your part, miss Bennett. All you need to do is prick your finger and recite some Latin. Very easy.”

“Who is this?” Bonnie asks. “You don't sound like that other guy.”

The man chuckles. “My apologies, darling. My name is Niklaus Mikaelson. That other guy was my associate Damon. He can be a little hard to like, I will admit. But he was only acting on my behalf. I need a Bennett witch for a favor, and I promise you handsome compensation.”

“Like my friends back home safe?”

“As many as possible, darling,” he replies. “But none at all if you or grandmother refuse compliance.”

Kai gets up and grabs his phone. He's texting someone furiously, listening as closely as he can to their conversation. He nods at Bonnie, backed by her Grams’ nod. Bonnie takes a breath.

“Okay,” she tells him. “I'll be there. You're in the woods?”

Klaus hums his agreement. “In a lovely little meadow near the falls. I'm sure you're aware.”

At Bonnie's quiet “yeah” he continues. “And I'm sure there's no need to tell you what will happen to any interlopers you bring along.”

He ends the call and Bonnie looks between the more experienced witches in her family.

“Who’s Niklaus Mikaelson?” she asks them.

Grams is eyeing the liquor cabinet. “Bad news,” she replies. “A very old vampire, one of the first.”

“An Original,” Kai said. He sounds excited. “I texted my uncle and asked him what an Original would need a doppelganger and a Bennett witch. He wants to break the hybrid curse!”

Both women look at him, unable to comprehend his excitement, or in Bonnie's case, what the hell he was even talking about. He smiles.

“It's enough for a powerful coven to run intervention. Like say, the Gemini Coven.”

“Let my coven stop the beasts. We're going to save your friends.”

💀🔫

The Original looks up when the Bennett girl and her grandmother step into the clearing. Damon comes to stand beside him and looks over the women.

“No Prince Charming tonight?” he presses.

“Your friend said no interlopers,” the younger one speaks up, glaring at Damon. He glares back.

“And you didn't even consider being non-compliant? Not to save your best friends?” The raven-haired vampire demands. This time the older Bennett woman smiles.

“Have you considered that we don't need them?”

Damon’s hackles, which had been raised all night, appear to settle.

“Touché,” he concedes and steps back.

Niklaus smirks at the exchange, amused. He nods to the Bennett witches.

“Ladies,” he greets. “This way if you will.”

Bonnie glares at him, but follows to where he leads them. It is Sheila who takes the spellbook from him, reading over the incantation. She looks at him sharply.

“You do know what you're asking, don't you?” she queries.

“Of course,” Klaus replies. “And I understand the risk you're undertaking. I promise to reward you well.”

Sheila scoffs, shaking her head but she turns to Bonnie and guides her through the beginnings of the incantation. Klaus watches them, puzzled, but goes to take his place where Damon is holding the human doppelganger.

“This is too easy,” Damon voices his thoughts. Klaus nods, agreeing. But magic is heavy in the air and it's affecting him like it should, do he decides to accept this lucky streak for the time being.

“We will watch,” he tells Damon. “And should they betray us, we will extract the price in their blood.”

Damon nods, still appearing tense and Elena stares after him pleadingly as he passes her along to Klaus.

“Please, don't do this,” she pleads, but Damon is stone tonight. His attention is focused on the older doppelganger.

He's barely focused on the younger one when he replies, “I have to.”

Klaus grins down reassuringly to Elena. “It's just a little bite, Elena. You’ll barely feel it.”

The magic is rough inside his body. The Bennett's reach the first crescendo and there's a cry from where Damon rips out Katherine’s heart. There had been a brief exchange between them, but Klaus was too preoccupied to take notice of the context.

The next crescendo comes and Greta raises her knife to sacrifice the world not. As it descends, Klaus's eyes close and he leans forward fangs extended for the last influx of magic. He can feel the chains on his inner beast being shredded and the world narrows to Elena's neck and the magic filtering his blood. The final crescendo hits and he bites into the doppelganger, who tries to flinch away.

But his body is breaking apart and coming back together all at once, so he doesn't notice Damon’s warning cry. Not until an ash-covered dagger is jammed in his back. Damon is rushing towards him, but as Klaus falls, he sees the other vampire fall to his knees, a magic whip putting bloody stripes down his back.

Klaus looks up to see Caroline, eyes teary as she grips Elena and pulls her away from him. Clutching her bloody neck, the brunette stumbles after her tall friend to the edge of the clearing. The desiccation takes hold and the last thing Klaus sees is a coven of witches apparating into the clear, glowing green Gemini mark overtaking the clearing.

No Prince Charming tonight? Damon had asked.

Therein lies their answer.

💔🔫

Joshua stares up at his little brother’s projection, the little crown stealer. The Supreme fiddles with his belt then sighs, stepping back to reveal the Ascendant. Hate surges through Joshua Parker

“This is Kai’s,” Jason informs him. “I modified the spell. Your little abomination will hold your life in his hands. This Ascendent will tie you to him, and when he chooses, your life will be sacrificed to fulfill whatever function he sees fit and not one moment sooner. This is your punishment.”

Jason’s projection begins to fade.

“Blessed be, big brother.”

💀🔫

Two weeks later:

Elena watches the weird new dynamic between Bonnie and Kai, before the witch (and that's weird as well, to think of her best friend in those terms) breaks away from his embrace to come sit with them. Caroline is still withdrawn. Her memories from her own kidnapping had returned slowly over the past two weeks. At first Damon had merely used her as a means of food and shelter, virtually ignoring her until he needed a human touch. With Klaus, her treatment had been upgraded, but it meant posing for hours on end for paintings. In their private moments, Caroline had said she can't really explain why the interactions with the Original left her so shaken, only that his attention both frightened and aroused her.

Oddly enough, both Elena and Bonnie could relate.

That night, Kai had murdered the witch working for Klaus and sacrificed his father to protect the Bennett's from the blowback of the spell. Elena didn't exactly understand it all, but she knows it meant a lot to Bonnie. Some tide had shifted between Elena's friend and her grandmother’s ward.

They have lunch. Elena's neck is still healing, but it no longer hurts to swallow or talk, which means she's ready for that spicy avocado ranch chicken wrap from the Grill. Which she's having now, because oh god, yeah. Caroline picks at her food, but she eats more than she has been. She's taking the supernatural reveal hardest, wanting nothing more than to go back to her normal life. But she can't forget and it's left her shaken to know how easily creatures that go bump in the night were willing and able to throw away her life.

She ends up leaving first, being picked up by her mom. Bonnie follows soon after, some kind of magical training she and Kai have to do now that Bonnie's magic is awakened. Elena waves after them, intending to enjoy a second wrap without judgement. It arrives quickly and as Elena takes the first huge bite she looks up to see blue eyes watching her with mild disgust.

She has to laugh at his expression.

“You came,” she greets. Damon nods, sitting opposite her.

“I did,” he said. “You don't think your little friends might see this as a betrayal? I'm pretty sure Blondie would be willing stab me like she did my oldest friend.”

Elena smiles. “Of course she would. You made her feel unsafe.”

Damon leans forward, bracing his cheek on his hand. He's almost devastatingly handsome.

“I'm not sorry,” he declares. Challenges. Elena meets it.

“Neither are we.” She takes a bite of her wrap. “How's living treating you?”

It doesn't sound right through her mouthful of chicken, but Damon seems to understand, making another face at her manners. He huffs and rolls his eyes.

“You shouldn't have interfered,” he chides. “You should have let the witches kill me.”

“What kind of punishment is that?” Elena teases. “Death isn't redeeming. You can't make things right with anyone from the grave.” She takes another bite. Damon watches her.

“I spent a century waiting to kill a woman who looked just like you,” he informs her. “When she died, she thanked me for giving back her heart right before I ripped it out of her chest.”

Elena stares at him and swallows her food. A lump stays in her throat. “Are you going to kill me too?”

He smiles. “Now, now. What kind of punishment is that?” He leans back.

“I think I'll stick around. Hang out with x-greats-grandson Zach. Uncle Zach?” he muses. “He looks older than me: I was only 25 when I turned. Uncle Zach.”

Elena smiles. “Well in that case: Welcome to Mystic Falls, Mr. Salvatore.” She holds out her hand. “I'm Elena.”

“Damon,” he replies after a brief hesitation, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

They share a smile. Neither really notices when he doesn't let her hand go.

💀🔫

Kai wakes with start when someone small and cold slips into his bed. He grumbles, but shifts so that Bonnie can make herself comfortable.

“Shut up, freak,” she mumbles and pulls his arm around her. Kai presses a kiss to her head. She's quiet, stilling long enough for Kai to start to drift off.

“Do you regret it?” she asks. Kai grunts, not opening his eyes.

“Killing your dad? Killing that witch?”

Kai shakes his head, burying his nose in her hair.

“Them or you, Bonnie. I pick you any day.”

“Even though I was awful to you for so long? Even though you hated me?”

Kai sighs. “I never really hated you. Hush before Sheila pops in to yell at us.”

She back-elbows him gently. “I mean it.”

“Me too,” he grunts. “It doesn't matter, Bonnie. I'd still pick you, any day. Over anyone. Even Grams. Even my uncle.”

Bonnie's quiet. “Why?” she chokes. He pulls her closer.

“You know why.”

With a sigh, she settles to sleep. “I never really hated you either,” she whispers. Kai hums, relaxing.

After a moment Bonnie sits up straight, wide-eyed and distraught.

“Oh shit,” she wheezes, scrambling out if the bed. Kai sits up slowly, somewhat cranky now.

“What now?” he croaks. Bonnie glares at him, then snaps:

“Our first constellation report is due in astronomy tomorrow!”

💀🔫

A/N for shayspencer: Hello shayspencer! I'm donutworry (fuckitimfangirling on Tumblr), your Secret Santa. Feel free to call me Allie. I hope you enjoyed your fic, it was pretty fun to write. It was a little tough to write, bc I think I tackled each of your topics at least once in other works and I didn't want to produce anything too repetitive. I'm also sorry for any typos, this is unbeta’ed and was written during bouts of free time - I work in healthcare and holiday season is the busiest. When I wrote it, I kind of focused on how Bonnie was the one to pursue the bad blood between them and Kai being the one to always offer the olive branch, even if it was after he hit back. I know the high school AU aspect was pretty loose, but I wanted to focus more on how their lives are supposed to revolve around school and how the supernatural disrupted that. Hopefully, I managed to do so.  Hopefully, the Delena was enjoyable. I did my very best, even though I'm neutral towards most non-Bonnie TVD ships. I know KC and SK where probs not what you wanted, but I think it's important to show how push-pull ships like this don't always work out. I did get pretty into Steferine because of you though, lol. It seemed you would be okay with darker stuff, so I went pretty emo because I wanted to bring you the feels. Did it work? If my sadism here wasn't enough, I've got two other WIPs inspired by your prompts to bring the pain. 😝 Happy holidays, enjoy any breaks you might have and any holiday pay you might make! Happy BK Secret Santa! I'll post this on FFN, Tumblr, and AO3 in 2018 after you've had a chance to enjoy for yourself.