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weasleylangs · 4 years

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if you don’t know, let me go - f.w

Pairing: Fred x Fem!Slytherin!Reader Summary: It’s always seemed like they’ve been dancing the line between friends and more, so why does he take a different girl to the ball? Warnings: Some swearing, pining that one character is too much of a dummy to see, a bit of angst but it eventually becomes fluff I promise, jealousy but nothing toxic, underage drinking but it’s like one line. Word Count: 5.8k

A/N: This is my first fanfiction in literally forever, so any feedback is always appreciated! Requests are open if you like this and want more! Also this got stupidly long fast, I can barely write book reviews on Goodreads without writing a novel so my bad, I’m sorry if you don’t like long fics. (Also cross-posted on AO3 as the tumblr tags don’t seem to be my friend right now.)

- Also, thank you so much to @lumosandnoxwriting for answering all my questions on how to get back into writing!

Send me an ask or a dm if you would like to be added to a tag list!

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“Do you think he’s going to ask you?”

It’s Wednesday afternoon, late enough for class to be over but too early for dinner and Y/N’s attempt at understanding anything in her potions textbook is broken by Alicia Spinnet talking to her. Despite the fact she hadn’t said a name, Y/N knows immediately who she was talking about and she shrugs in response, closing her book and accepting that studying was not on the table for the rest of the night now the ball has been mentioned.

“Probably not.” She deadpans. Y/N’s been trying not to get her hopes up that Fred would ask her to the Yule Ball since it was announced three days ago. Alicia’s already been asked by George- who immediately did a dramatic reenactment of some muggle proposal he’d seen in a movie as soon as Dumbledore announced it. But Fred had been more reluctant to ask anyone, despite people’s assumption that he could get anyone he pleased. Y/N only hoped this was because he was too shy of taking whatever they were from friends to lovers.

No one really understood how the outspoken and mischievous redhead became friends with the snarky Slytherin girl, but 6 years into their schooling people have stopped questioning it. They had formed an unexplainable bond the second they met on the train to Hogwarts when they were eleven years old that may have included both shouting at blood purists and now it seems to have evolved into something beyond just a friendship.

Lingering stares, soft touches, the fact neither of them had really dated anyone else because they were too caught up with each other. Everyone, including their friends, have all placed bets on how long it’ll take for the two of them to ‘fess up and finally get together.

“What makes you say that?” Alicia asks, genuinely. She’s heard first hand the teasing George and Lee give Fred over his feelings for Y/N in the Gryffindor common room when they think they’re alone so she finds it hard to believe he hasn’t even hinted at them going together yet.

Y/N shrugs. “I just think if he wanted to go with me, he’d ask me by now… Y’know?” Alicia can’t really deny her logic. Fred’s never been the one to shy away from being outspoken about anything really in the whole six years she’s known him, so even she can admit it’s weird that Fred hasn’t asked her.

“Maybe he just assumes you guys are going together?” Alicia starts, and before Y/N can argue back, she holds up a hand, “I’ll ask him after dinner tonight. I can guarantee Lee or George will join in and you’ll have your date by Transfiguration tomorrow!” Y/N shakes her head and laughs, and starts packing her things, mumbling about Alicia is a meddler and that she’ll see her later.

Y/N’s walking to the Great Hall for dinner when it happens. Adrian Pucey, star quidditch chaser for the Slytherin team slinks up next to her and scares her enough to almost drop the books she has clutched in her hands. She’s never had a problem with Adrian- their parents are in similar friendship circles so she sees him at family friend events outside of school, but she’s never considered him a friend either, which is why his approach to her is so odd.

“Sorry about that,” he laughs, shoving his hands in his pockets as Y/N clutches her chest. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she starts, “You’re just very quiet. I’m used to being almost tackled to the ground when I see friends.” She laughs, but she doesn’t miss the awkward tension in the air and she can’t help but assume what’s coming next.

“I just wanted to ask if, uh, if you don’t have a date to the ball… If you’d like to go with me?”

Y/N gulps. She knows she shouldn’t be putting all her eggs in the Fred Weasley marked basket, but she can’t help but remember her conversation with Alicia only an hour ago.

‘You’ll have your date by Transfiguration tomorrow!’

Adrian senses her hesitation and lets out a breath that sounds like he’s almost laughing. “You’re waiting for one of Weasley twins to ask you, aren’t you? Fred, right?” She hates how easily he caught on.

“Adrian, I- Ugh, I’m sorry. But yeah… I am.” She feels her cheeks heat up in embarrassment at someone she’s not even friends with pointing it out. She can’t help but think maybe this is a sign though, that if everyone else is expecting it, why hasn’t he asked her yet?

“No, it’s all good. But the offers on the table if he’s too pussy to ask you out.” He gives a kind smile as he walks off to catch up with Marcus Flint who’s drilling Malfoy about quidditch plays.

She exhales slowly and finally makes it to the Great Hall. She scans the tables looking for her closest friend in Slytherin- Daphne Greengrass and once she finds her, she quickly makes her way over to her. Dinner is relatively uneventful since she’s sitting with her house, and George manages to catch her eye at one point and mouths ‘miss you’ to which she laughs and says she misses him back.

She’s about to get up and leave when the last thing she expects to happen, happens. She hears Ron exclaim loudly that Fred can’t make fun of him for not having a date because he doesn’t have one either. Y/N feels her heart start to race, knowing if anyone’s going to prove a point to Ron, it’ll be Fred Weasley. She doesn’t hear what Fred’s reply is but Harry and Ron both scoff, and one of them says ‘ask a girl out if it’s so easy then.’

Y/N’s about to approach the Gryffindor table when George’s eye catches her, and he shakes his head. Fred has already thrown a scrunched-up piece of paper at Angelina and her heart sinks.

“Angelina! Will you go to the ball with me?”

As Angelina laughs and says yes to Fred, it feels like the whole Great Hall is either watching their altercation or watching Y/N in pity. Her heart now feels like it’s in her throat, and she needs to get out of the room before she cries or yells at Fred. She pivots on her heel and is met face-to-face with Daphne, who nods in silent agreement that they’re going back to their dorm.

Y/N is halfway down the long tables with the door in her sights when she spots Adrian out of the peripheral of her eye. She can tell he’s looking at her in pity and in a weird way, she feels the need to show defiance against Fred Weasley. She needs to show she doesn’t need pity, especially right now, that she can get a date herself. So she stops in front of the Slytherin quidditch team and slightly smirks.

“That offer to the ball still on the table?”

Daphne spends the night taking Y/N’s mind off the Weasley family. They sit in their dorm together, once again trying to study for potions which eventually leads into ball talk yet again. Daphne can tell the idea of going to the ball with anyone who isn't Fred is unnerving for Y/N, but there’s no backing down now.

“That was kind of a badass move, y’know?” She starts, treading lightly as they eventually reach the elephant in the room, ‘Asking Adrian after what happened.”

It doesn’t feel badass to Y/N. She feels like she’s cheating on the redhead that owns her heart, but she knows that’s ridiculous. Fred clearly has no form of feelings for her and she’s decided to get over him.

“It’s nothing…” She starts and she sees Daphne’s eyebrows raise. They’ve been roommates every year since they started school together so they’re both aware this is a big lie. “I didn’t want to go alone. Everyone else had dates already and Adrian’s nice. Plus, he did ask me before…”

Daphne nods, not wanting to press further. “Have you got a dress yet?” It had said on their packing list for the school year to bring a dress or dress robes so everyone’s already well prepared. Y/N nods and walks towards the closet before pulling out a floor-length silver gown with lace detailing. She smiles shyly as Daphne gasps in awe.

“Eat your heart out, Fred Weasley!” For the first time all night, Y/N laughs. She knows she’s going to look stunning in the dress and while she has no ill resentment towards Angelina for agreeing to go with Fred, she can’t help but feel a little bit coy knowing Fred’s going to see her in it.

She’s sitting at her desk in Transfiguration the next day when he finally acknowledges her presence. She’s twiddling her quill in her fingers, dreading the moment the troublemaker waltzes into the class. His usual seat is the one next to her, while George and Lee sit in front of them but she can only hope Alicia takes the hint and sits with her before Fred does.

She doesn’t get her wish. She’s about two seconds away from dozing off when the seat screeches against the hardwood flooring below them and she looks to her left to see Fred smirking.

“Hi love,'' he starts, the nickname not feeling out of ordinary, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.” He says, and it’s true. He hadn’t seen her since class yesterday. He had looked for her before dinner to tell her about the prank he’d pulled on Filch with George while she was studying and he’d barely seen her during dinner.

Her heart starts to speed up at the nickname, and she forces down the bile she feels growing in her throat. “Yeah, I just ate dinner and went to bed yesterday. Been studying for potions. Sixth year is hard.” She’s trying to be short and sweet and maybe a little blunt but Fred doesn’t pick up on it. “Heard you asked Angelina to the ball too.” She’s hoping to whoever’s listening to her prayers that the jealousy isn’t evident in her voice and by the dopey smile that grows on Fred’s face, her prayers were answered.

“Yeah! Ron was being such a prat, telling me I couldn’t make fun of him for…” But she drowns his voice out. It might be a bitch move, but she really doesn’t need to hear the who, where, when and why he asked Angelina out. It’s clear to Y/N that Fred didn’t even notice her existence at dinner and that stings more than she’d like to admit.

She can barely concentrate during class. Fred has never really shown to care about any academic success, so he spends the entire period trying to entertain Y/N and get her to speak to him but she’s being stubborn and Fred can’t help but wonder what he did wrong. He starts to think maybe she’s just had a bad day, but when the bell rings and she storms off without even saying goodbye to him he’s dumbfounded.

“Trouble in paradise, brother?” George teases when he sees the frown adorned on Fred’s face.

“Have I done anything to upset Y/N?” He questions and he sees the way George and Lee both give each other a look. They know something he doesn’t and that leaves a feeling of uneasiness in his chest. Y/N and himself have always been closer than her and George and especially her and Lee. He was there for her when her parents were fighting constantly when she was 11 and when Marcus Flint started bullying her in 3rd year. He was even there when she cried to him last year about the guy she loved and how he was so stupidly blind to her feelings and while she didn’t give a name, Fred was dying to go punch whoever it was for not realising he had his best friend’s heart.

“If you have, it’s not up for us to tell you, mate.” Lee states and he hides behind George when he notices the scowl on Fred’s face. Lee knows better than to get between him and Y/N, but he isn’t wrong.

“Look, Alicia said she was fine when they left the library yesterday evening,” George starts, and he knows he shouldn’t be lying to his brother and best friend, but it’s not a huge lie, and maybe it’ll push his oblivious brother to realise what he did to upset his best friend, “She was at dinner last night when you asked Angie to the ball and then she went to her dorm with Daphne. Heard something about her saying yes to Adrian Pucey asking her to the ball…” While George made extra emphasis on the fact Y/N witnessed Fred asking Angelina to the ball, Fred’s eyes glaze over in rage when George mentions Adrian and he has a feeling his twin has got the wrong idea.

“I bet Adrian did something to her. Fuck him, honestly.” And before George and Lee can stop him, Fred’s stalking out of the classroom with Adrian Pucey in his sights.

Fred doesn’t find Adrian until later that afternoon, standing on the pitch and clad in his quidditch robes, yelling at someone who Fred assumes is Montague. He thinks now is probably a bad time to confront him, but he's blinded by the thought that he’s hurt Y/N.

“Pucey!” He shouts and when Adrian turns around, he chuckles and smirks at Fred. He was expected this later rather than sooner, specifically during dinner, but he guesses now will have to do.

“What?” He asks, but they both know why he’s here and he’s just enjoying riling Fred up.

“What did you do Y/N?” Adrian scoffs at this and shakes his head which confuses Fred. “What did I do to Y/N?” Fred stands his ground, chest puffed up. Adrian might be a fair bit shorter than Fred but Adrian hasn’t got anything to be scared of. Sure he’s seen Fred throw a punch or two and he’s definitely been on the receiving end of a bludger from the Weasley during a game, but he knows he isn’t the one that hurt Y/N here.

“I think you should be asking yourself that, mate. Y/N only agreed to going to the ball with me after you asked Angelina out right in front of her.” This causes Fred to look at Adrian in confusion and Adrian laughs at Fred again. He’s confused, why would asking Angelina out hurt Y/N?

It turns out he said that out loud, because two seconds later Adrian is responding to him, “Because she was expecting you to ask her, Weasley.”

Adrian doesn’t even wait for Fred��s reply before stalking off to the Slytherin change rooms and Fred’s left standing on the pitch, wondering why the ache in his chest is almost debilitating at the thought of hurting Y/N and questioning why he feels the need to throw up knowing she’s happily going with Adrian Pucey.

Fred’s next port of call is finding Y/N. After his talk with Adrian, he needs to find out why she expected him to ask her to the ball. He would’ve happily gone with her, but to Fred, she hadn’t even dropped a single hint at wanting to go with him and when she’s finally located, she’s in the library with Daphne.

“This is my exit cue,” Daphne mutters as she notices the redhead roaming around the library looking for Y/N. She doesn’t even have a moment to question Daphne before the seat in front of her is suddenly occupied by the last person she was hoping to see again.

“Why are you going with Pucey?” Is the first thing that leaves Fred’s mouth, and it wasn’t what Y/N was expecting. She splutters, only for a few seconds, before eventually replying.

“He asked me.”

Fred’s eyebrows furrow, but didn’t Pucey say she wanted to go with him? “A little birdie said you wanted to go with me. So, how come you’re going with him.”

Now Y/N scoffs and Fred can’t help but notice how many people are scoffing at him today just for asking questions and it’s getting annoying. “You didn’t ask me. He did. So, I said yes. Don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.” She’s intentionally being short, hopefully not spilling anything about her feelings for the boy in front of her.

“I didn’t know you wanted to go with me, Y/N. How was I supposed to know?” At this, Y/N goes from feeling hurt to angry and she can’t explain why her hands start to shake.

“How were you supposed to know?” She exclaims loudly which causes her to receive a rather nasty ‘sh’ from Madam Pince and a few O.W.L students surrounding her.

“Have you seen the way we act around each other Fred?” She’s now whisper yelling and the confused look on Fred’s face as she says this just aggravates her further and she’s convinced no one is this daft and he’s pushing her buttons on purpose. “Because everyone thinks we’re fucking dating already, Fred. You have to constantly be touching me, we’re always together, you call me darling and love and you kiss me on the forehead when I fucking bring you sugar quills from Hogsmeade because they’re your favourite and whenever you have spare money you always buy me Honeydukes chocolate because you said you like seeing me blush when you buy me things. You’re telling me now that we’re just friends?”

If the ache in Fred’s chest was almost debilitating on the quidditch pitch earlier, right now it feels like he’s about to go into cardiac arrest. Her cheeks are flushed, her fists are clenched, pieces of her hair are falling out of her bun that’s resting on top of her head and, worst of all, Fred’s noticed the tears of anger and frustration pooling in her eyes.

She sighs before continuing, trying to compose herself so he doesn’t see her crying over him, unaware he’s already noticed the tears threatening to fall. Her voice is sad and broken, and it feels like the ending point for her.

“I was just stupid enough to assume this year was the year we would finally admit we’re more than friends, Freddie. But I guess all this time it’s been one-sided. I hope you have a good time at the ball with Angelina.”

Fred grabs her wrist as she starts to pack up her things and looks at her, scanning her face for any form of emotion. “Let me go, Fred.” She looks at him with pleading eyes and he lets go of the grasp he has on her wrist.

Fred doesn’t try to stop her again as she hastily packs up her things and he sadly watches her leave the library without turning to look at him.

Y/N doesn’t care if it’s considered dramatic, but she lays in bed and cries for the rest of the day. While she hasn’t gone through a literal break-up, it feels like her friendship with Fred is over. At least, she’s decided, it’s over until she gets over her feelings for him.

Daphne tries everything in her power to comfort her. She rubs her back, plays with her hair and even puts on ABBA to try and get Y/N to dance just to cheer her up. Y/N feels horrible she’s basically conned Daphne into babysitting her breakdown but Daphne constantly reassures her it’s okay.

“Do you want me to go beat him up? I might be short and weak and he’s the size of a tree but I could take him.” Y/N sniffles a laugh at this, and smiles. She’s truly grateful for everything Daphne’s been doing for her and she makes a mental note to get her an extra special Christmas present next time she goes to Hogsmeade.

However, it turns out essentially ending the friendship with Fred ends her friendships with most of the Gryffindors. She was expecting this, but when George can’t even meet her eye in class her heart breaks into even smaller pieces. George has always been like a brother to her, someone she could tell anything too without worry of being judged. He was the first person she told when she realised she liked Fred and Y/N was the first person, besides Fred, that George told his feelings for Alicia for.

Y/N feels alone but she’s stubborn so she refuses to show it. She sits with Daphne in every class, essentially kicking poor Cassius Warrington who’s been pining after Daphne for 3 years into a different spot in class and she sometimes even sits with Adrian during lunch. It turns out they have a lot more in common than just the fact they’re in Slytherin and pure-bloods and Y/N’s pain in her chest is slowly but surely disappearing.

While her feelings for Fred still exist, her heart slowly feels like it’s being mended. It’s only when she spots Fred sulking during lunch one day that the ache returns. She was usually the one who he went too when feeling bad- him being too embarrassed to go to George. She hopes he’s okay, but she shakes the idea of approaching him, knowing he’s got Angelina to keep him company. The pang in her chest stays a little bit longer that day.

The Yule Ball arrives quicker than expected and Y/N and Daphne spend all day getting ready with a bunch of other Slytherin students. It’s nice, while they don’t all usually get along, the house loyalty between them is unmistakable.

Most of them are acutely aware of Y/N’s ‘Weasley Situation’ and while some of them give her pity looks, most of the younger girls have expressed their jealousy that she’s going with Adrian. This makes her laugh and shake her head and she often replies that boys aren’t all that and no boy is worth being jealous over. She feels like a wise mother almost, never wanting them to feel the way she’s felt the past few weeks.

Daphne and Y/N arrive at the Great Hall together, giggling about how bad Y/N is at walking in heels and placing bets on how quick they’re going to come off. While Daphne is counting her galleons in her purse to confirm the bet, Y/N catches a glimpse of Fred and Angelina. He looks so handsome, his dress robes a mixture of gold and black and she can’t help but think how well they’d go together. But when she looks at Angelina she feels like she’s going to pass out.

Angelina is stunning, and there’s no doubt about it. She’s in a floor-length dark purple gown that compliments her skin perfectly and Y/N thinks if Fred was going with anyone to the ball, she’s glad it’s Angelina.

Cassius and Adrian soon appear by the girls and take their arms into the Great Hall that’s been transformed to look like a winter wonderland. The roof tonight is bewitched to look like a winter, snowy day and Y/N can’t help but admire it. She’s grown up with magic her entire life, but she can’t help but constantly be amazed.

Adrian pulls a flask out of his dress robes jacket which makes Y/N snort and he smiles happily at her. Of course he snuck Firewhiskey into the Ball. The action reminds her of something Fred would do and she shakes her head, trying to get the boy out of her mind, tonight of all nights.

“You look beautiful tonight, by the way.” Adrian states as he takes a swig of the flask, and she feels her cheeks heat up. She can hear the sincerity in his voice. “You don’t scrub up so badly either, Pucey.”

“A dance, m’lady?” He jokingly bows to Y/N and she smiles while she takes his hand and he leads her to the dance floor. As Adrian twirls Y/N around the dance floor, albeit messily because neither of them paid attention in dance classes held by Snape of all people, she forgets about the redhead who’s stare is burning holes into the back of her head.

“You’re a shit date, y’know.” Angelina laughs and Fred’s broken out of his trance. “Shit, Angie, I’m so sorry.”

Angelina isn’t wrong. She’s a smart girl, and she’s well aware of Fred’s longing stares towards the Slytherin girl. “Did you know? That you wanted to go with her?” Angelina questions, out of sheer curiosity. Even she was shocked when Fred asked her, but she was too dumbfounded when he asked and with everyone watching at dinner, the pressure to say yes was immense but it was not worth all the pain and heartache she’s watched her two friends go through.

“At the time? No, definitely not. She’s…” He trails off as he tries to find the right words, “She’s always been there, y’know? I just assumed she’d be in my life forever and what we had was what we’d always be… It felt normal, like I didn’t feel the way I feel about her with you, or Katie or Alicia but it felt like that’s how you’re meant to feel about your girl best friend?”

He looks over at them again, and the gross feeling of jealousy rises in his throat. “But then she said yes to Pucey, and all I can think about is how no one should be holding her but me and that he'll walk her all the way back to her dorm tonight and probably kiss her and I feel like throwing up, and...” He pauses and looks at Angelina and the pity in her eyes is obvious. “And you don’t think about your best friend like this.”

Angelina watches in pity as Fred clearly drowns his sorrows in pumpkin juice and she drags him onto the dance floor. She’s not letting Fred have a bad night and she refuses to have one as well. Fred is one of her best friends, and even though she might not be the girl he wishes he was here with, she’s determined to cheer him up somehow.

Fred finally starts to have a good time when he spots George slyly leading Alicia out of the Great Hall and he loudly wolf whistles causing a red hue to form on both their cheeks and George to flip Fred the bird as they leave. Angelina spots Y/N grab her purse across the room while Fred’s distracted and she quietly leaves just after George and Alicia.

Alone.

“Y/N just left, Fred. Alone.” Fred’s confused why Angelina is telling him this when he looks over at Daphne and Adrian, who both look at him like ‘Go you fucking idiot’ and before he can even mutter a goodbye to his friends, he’s out the door almost as fast as George was.

He finds Y/N sitting on a bench in the courtyard. She’s looking up at the stars and Fred stars to recall last summer when she visited The Burrow. She spent all night trying to point out constellations to Fred and as he watches her mutter to herself, Fred wonders how he didn’t realise that they were in love this entire time.

He clears his throat, careful not to startle Y/N and when she turns Fred can see the hesitation in her face as she quickly goes to jump up and leave.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have stolen the prime make-out spot of the night.” She awkwardly laughs but then quickly realises Fred is alone. “Nevermind… Where’s Angelina?”

Fred shrugs, and sits down on the bench she was sitting on originally. Y/N stands awkwardly before sitting down next to him. As much as she hates to admit it, she’s missed being close to him. The warmth that radiates off him despite it being the middle of winter causes her to shuffle just that slightly bit closer to him and Fred can’t help but smile.

“You look beautiful tonight. I know Adrian probably told you already, at least I hope he did, but you deserve to know.” Fred could feel himself rambling and he doesn’t miss the blush that rises across Y/N’s neck and cheeks. It’s the exact same blush that appears whenever he buys her chocolates and his heart soars.

“Thanks Freddie,” the nickname feels foreign on her tongue, “you look pretty handsome yourself. I hope Angelina told you.” She retaliates and Fred hates it. He hates the awkwardness between them. He wants nothing more to wrap his arms around her and hold her close but they feel like strangers.

“Thanks,” he laughs and Y/N looks at him confused. “Did you have a good night?”

“Can we not have this awkward small talk? I’m sure Angelina’s waiting for you somewhere.” Fred’s taken aback by her abruptness and stares at her for a few seconds. “What?” She asks when she notices Fred looking at her like she has nine heads.

“Angelina’s not waiting for me. Is Adrian waiting for you?” He asks but he doesn’t want to know the answer. He’s gone through a rollercoaster of emotions these past few weeks and he truly doesn’t want to know if another man is waiting for her to sweep her off her feet and walk back to the Slytherin common room. But when she shakes her head, Fred lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

“I need to apologise.” He blurts out and Fred wants to smack himself in the head. This was not the romantic moment he had envisioned in his head as he followed her outside into the courtyard. “I need to apologise for a lot of things. Mostly, for not realising how ridiculously in love with you I am, and also for not asking you to the ball and for ruining our friend-”

“You didn’t ruin our friendship.” She cuts him off but she doesn’t know what else to say. “You didn’t. I did, if anything.” Fred has to stop himself from starting an argument on who ruined the friendship but he wants to backtrack. Did Y/N just ignore him confessing his love to her?

“Well, I’m still sorry for not realising how ridiculously in love with you I am?” He tries again sheepishly and Y/N gives him a double-take. She heard him the first time but she was convinced it was just her ears playing tricks on her or Fred being a menace. After all, this is Fred Weasley in front of her, he’s always looking for a joke and as she’s about to accuse him of pulling a sick, twisted prank on her, she looks at him properly.

And he’s looking as serious as he did the day he told her he plans to open a joke shop with George after they graduate.

“You’re in love with me?” She asks quietly and her heart is racing again. She thinks back to the day she accidentally confessed to Fred and how she’s spent the last few weeks trying to fall out of love with him just for him to admit he’s fallen in love with her. “Fred, if this is some sick and twisted joke I will never forgive you.”

Fred almost looks hurt at this, that she thinks he’s capable of something that cruel. So instead of speaking, he softly cups her face in both his hands and runs his thumbs across her cheekbones in a loving manner. He looks her directly in the eyes and Y/N doesn’t think she’s breathed in the last 30 seconds.

She’s been craving being this close to Fred for as long as she can remember. Their lingering touches were never this intimate and right now, she feels like she can look into Fred’s eyes and see into his core, his soul. And he can do the same to her.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks softly, and Y/N gasps before nodding, wanting nothing more than to feel his lips against hers.

As he leans in his eyes flutter close, as do her’s. Y/N hasn’t kissed a lot of people in her life, but nothing could ever compare to the way she feels right now. The love and adoration Fred is pouring into this kiss almost brings tears to her eyes and she can only hope he can feel the love and adoration she has for him back.

Their lips move in perfect synchrony, neither of them pushing each other too far, but when Y/N drags her fingers through Fred’s hair and he lets out a groan, she can’t help but pull away and giggle.

“I’ve missed hearing you laugh.” Fred’s arms are now wrapped around her middle and he’s leaning down to press his forehead against hers. Now he has her in his arms, he’s never letting her go.

“I’ve missed having you make me laugh, Freddie.” She says sincerely and it’s Fred’s turn to blush. He knows they need to eventually leave their little bubble of happiness they finally have but he doesn’t want too. But he knows they need to talk about what happened, about them, what they are and Fred so desperately hopes this means Y/N is his.

She senses Fred’s thinking and she looks up at him, doe-eyed and innocent and Fred’s heart melts.

“Stop overthinking.” She mutters, running her hand through his long hair again and Fred almost looks like a cat purring as he feels her fingernails rake across his scalp and he leans into her touch. “Can’t help it. Don’t want to lose you again.”

Her heart pounds, this is all she’s ever wanted to hear and now she wants to hear it every single day. So she tells him exactly that.

“I’m yours, Freddie. As long as you’re mine? If you don’t know what you want it’s okay, I promise we can take it slow-” Fred cuts her off, laughing as he kisses her again and he feels how warm Y/N’s cheeks are, as she blushes over Fred silencing her with a kiss. When he pulls back, her face is flush, her hair is falling out of her bun. It reminds Fred of that day in the library, except this time, the happiness in her face is unmistakably there, and finally he’s the cause of it.

“Of course, I’m yours, darling. I’m never letting you go.”

Late the next morning, when Y/N is trying her best to sneak out of the Gryffindor sixth year boys dormitory with a dark purple hickey adorning her neck, she spots three 4th years whose names she doesn’t even know, giving Ron Weasley five galleons.

Ron sees her, and smirks. “My bet was at the ball. Thanks, Y/N, you and Freddie boy have made me a very rich man.”

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#fred weasley #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley x reader

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secondhand-trash · 4 years

Text

Kinktober 2020 — under the table

A/N: omg it has been half a year since I last wrote any ghost!shinsou this is why I should never do series- but anyways here is out first fic for kinktober, kicking it off with the return of ghost boyfriend!^^

Warning: oral (receiving), fingering

Word count: 2641

What kind of street do ghosts prefer to live on?

Shinsou sat on the kitchen counter crossed leg as you paced around the room, mumbling to yourself as you checked off everything that was laid out.

“Remind me, why are you suddenly in need of learning how to cook again?"

You turned around with a sigh, shoving your hands into the pockets of your apron. (The purple apron with cats printed all over it was Shinsou’s, he had spent hours looking for it when you suddenly came to him saying that you needed to learn how to cook a decent proper meal within a week.)

It all started when you got a message from your mom one Sunday afternoon. You were sitting cross legged on the living room floor, all the old records left in the house by one of its previous owners sprawled out all around you. You had decided that it was not ok to just stack all of them up in the corner and pulled your ghost boyfriend to sort everything out so you could store them properly. He had protested but got shut down when you made the very valid argument that he literally didn’t have anything else better to do, to which he claimed that you were abusing his status as a ghost to get him to provide labour.

You were still trying to explain to him why arranging everything by alphabetical order was a better way of sorting than doing it by genre when your passionate rambling was disrupted by a ping from your phone. Shinsou watched as you picked it up with a smile, then freezing in place when you read the message, and your eyes going from dead to contemplating to panicking in a matter of seconds.

He shifted to sit closer to you when you put your phone onto the ground, your eyes as wide as saucers while staring blankly ahead.

“Is everything ok?” he asked, giving you a light tap on your forearm.

“Toshi,”

“Yes?”

You blinked, before opening your mouth slowly, “Can you teach me how to cook?”

Fast forward a few days ahead and there he was, pondering how long it had been since he last tried to cook anything. Shinsou was not a master chef by all means, but in the short period of time when he was alive and actually needed food to survive, he had trained himself to be somewhat of a decent cook in order to save money from buying takeout. He never really thought much about it but now that he watched you struggle to chop up an onion with oddly placed hands and slicing down cutting only the thinnest slice at a time, he realised that he had never seen you cook something more elaborate than sunny-side up on instant noodles since you moved into the house he haunted.

“You can always order take out and then transfer them onto your own plates or something,” he leaned to the side, his brows locked together at how clumsy you were, “I’m sure your parents won’t notice.”

You turned around with an exasperated sigh and he immediately reached out to warn you from waving the knife around, “Yes but this is the first time they’ll come over and I want to show that I, you know, have my shit together!”

“If you keep swinging that thing around then you won’t even have all five fingers together,” he clicked his tongue, hopping off the kitchen counter when you flashed him a sheepish smile as you slowly put the knife down. He walked over, blinking a few times at the poor onion that looked like it just suffered from a failed beheading. He sighed pitifully, and you happily handed him the blade when he extended his hand to you.

“Here, I’ll show you how it’s done,” his fingers were arched up against the vegetable as he skillfully sliced them up, “did you microwave the potatoes as I told you to?”

“Yeah, I put them in there directly.”

He paused, “Didn’t you put the dices into a metal bowl?”

You tiled your head, not understanding why he would bring that up. “Yeah?”

"...metals will explode in the microwave.”

“Oh fuck-”

You solved the issue of your hopelessness in the kitchen by not going in at all.

Shinsou took up the task of cooking on the night your parents would be visiting after witnessing you almost burning yourself on the stove from boiling water. Humans could be such fragile creatures sometimes, he thought to himself as he picked the pot up from the fire with his bare hands, feeling not even a tickle on his deadly cold skin.

He still thought that you were being way too dramatic with the way you checked the table every time you passed by and adjusting the utensils on top even though the difference would not be noticed by anyone that wasn’t you.

But still, when he saw you getting yourself into near death situations from the smallest of tasks, he decided that if he couldn’t get you to give up your plan of serving up a homemade supper then he would take the matter into his own hands.

Your mortality was far more important over his cynicism and the last thing he wanted was to chain you down in this house with him for a cause as dumb as you accidentally blowing the kitchen up.

“Kitten,” he sighed as he put down the salad bowl in the center of the table, holding onto your fidgeting hands, “you are starting to make me nervous and they can’t even see me.”

You paused, and he felt the dread building up in his chest when he realised that he had said the wrong thing as your eyes widened. “Oh god, what if they can see you too? How should I explain to them that I’m living with someone? I-”

Your rambling was interrupted a ring of the bell that echoed through the house. You sucked in a deep breath, squeezing his hand tight as if you could calm yourself down with the coldness of his skin.

“Should I hide?” he asked when you got to the door.

You ran your hand down your face, your knuckles popping out as you gripped onto the metal doorknob. “They can’t see you, right?”

Shinsou felt a strange stir in his chest when he saw the dramatic change in expression on your face the moment the door was opened. Shivers crept up on him when your parents looked around the house, their gaze going directly past him even though he was standing right next to you. He sighed. He had gotten so used to you that he had instinctively expected to be noticed when most people would not even pick up on his existence at all.

“Who were you talking to just then?”

“What?” you let out a forced chuckle, hoping that the panic that flashed through your eyes would not be recognisable, “No, no one. It’s just me.”

He was left at the side as you showed your guests to the dining room, walking straight past him. He stood there as the familiar feeling of being invisible caught up to him like a wave.

Would you have introduced him to your parents had he been alive?

It wasn’t often that he thought of the possibilities had he stayed alive. In fact, he truly did think he had reached the point where he was content with the situation he was stuck in. There were lonely times, times when he was very much so here but didn’t feel like it as the world past him by, leaving him as nothing but a fragment in the past that was sealed within these walls. But then you showed up, and then suddenly he had company. Someone to hold at night, someone to laugh with, someone who would correct him when he did the wrong steps while clumsily following dance tracks. Everything seemed to be great, even though he still had limits to be bound to.

“This is amazing,” an unexplained irritation welled up in his chest at the surprised gasp of your mother reached his ear. “did you really make this yourself?”

“Of course, I’ve been learning how to cook since I moved out!”

It was always odd to watch a family interact from the point of view of a complete stranger. He could see everything more clearly but also knew nothing about the dynamic or the nuance behind each word. He thought of his own family for the first time in years as he watched you smiled cordially at the table.

He wondered what they would think about you too.

Perhaps he had underestimated how much years of loneliness had affected him, or he just wasn’t keen on being reminded that no matter how real this all was, you two were still very much so on the different side of life and death, and the sudden emptiness was suffocating him.

It was like you had forgotten that he was still there too, and he wasn’t happy about it.

You sat at the table, pushing the food on your plate around as you eyed your parent’s reaction nervously. They seemed to be enjoying it, giving “your cooking" compliment after compliment. You would have to really reward Shinsou for his help later on, you thought to yourself as the knots in your stomach slowly loosened up.

Where was he now? Did he really hide up? You tried to glance around as subtly as you could manage, seeing if you could catch a glimpse of violet hair poking out from the corners.

You dropped your knife when you felt something cold touching your calf.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, everything is fine,” you forced out a smile but inside you were panicking. What the fuck? What was he doing under there?

You nearly couldn’t hold in the gasp you were about to let out when his head slid up from your calf to your knees, pushing them apart. Your hand instinctively gripped onto the edge of the tabletop, not able to move away in fear that your parents who were sitting right opposite to you would pick up on the way your jaw was clenched.

You had no way of ignoring his touch as he gripped onto your thighs. His ice cold fingers sent shivers down your spine as he danced them across your warm skin, each tap and each stroke of his fingertip along the root of your leg had you sitting straighter and straighter against the back of your chair.

“So, what have you been up to lately?”

“Oh, nothing much-” you coughed when his finger brushed past your clothed slit. You tried to close your legs shut but you were stuck with him being right in between. Your breath hitched when your panties were peeled off, your now bare cunt clenched around nothing reflectively when the layer of fabric was suddenly gone.

You felt terribly vulnerable with your legs being pushed back and for a split second, you were hyper aware of even the tiniest twitch of your muscles. Your parents didn’t seem to notice that you were sitting awfully stiff in your seat, your legs feeling like they were about to cramp up with how hard you were trying to close them up.

“Mm-” you bit down on your lips when he licked a long strip up from the very bottom of your folds all the way up to your hooded clit, his tongue pulling away with a flick against the small bud.

“Did you just say something?”

“Oh no, you must have misheard,” the muscles around your face was twitching as you tried to remain a neutral expression as he continued to alternate between swirling and pressing down on your clit with the tip of his tongue.

Fuck him for knowing your body so well.

Your legs were shaking under the jolts of electricity that shot up from your core all the way up to the back of your neck. He seemed to only get more vigorous with his licks and sucks, lapping up on the wetness that was starting to seep out of you. Your toes curled and uncurled, gripping onto the floor to your desperation as his cold breath fanned across your sopping pussy. Each drag of his tongue had you spasming, the lack of temperature on his lips numbing your senses as he dipped his tongue in with each flick.

“Anybody you are seeing?”

All movements paused. His teeth graced past your clit tentatively, as if questioning what you were gonna do. You gulped, feeling the tip of your ears burned up.

“No-”

You jolted forward when he placed a hard suck on your clit. Your parents eyed you with a confused stare and you gripped onto the glass on the table, bringing it to your trembling lips to take a sip.

He slipped his tongue in, dragging it along your walls at a rough pace. The corner of your lips was twitching, dreading the fact that your parents seemed to take your choked answer as a sign that you were hiding something. You gritted through your teeth, trying hard to not let any of the moans that were threatening to slip out leaked.

You could hear the slurping, like he had done a sloppy job concealing each pop and lap on purpose. It was like the two of you were in your own world, and the other people were intruders sitting there with a veil separating the two of you. He paid close attention to the way you reacted to each touch, the muscle of your legs flexing under his hand as the heaving of your chest got heavier and heavier.

You could almost feel blood on your lips from how hard you were biting down when he slipped his fingers in, matching the rhythm of his tongue with the pumping of his digits. You brought your napkin to your lips, covering your parted mouth.

You nearly screamed into your napkin when he crooked his finger, the prodding of his joints inside of your spongey walls had your muscles clenching down.

His mouth left your folds with a lingered lick before pulling his fingers out with a languish drag, his lips ghosted along your inner thigh until he was gone completely. No more touches on your skin, not even a puff of air anywhere near you. He was just gone, vanished into thin air with nothing but your fluttering folds and the mess between your legs to remind you that he had very much so been kneeling there and making you crumble down just moments earlier.

You gave a slight shake of your head when your parents once again questioned the way your face scrunched up, your hand shaking as you dropped the napkin down onto your lap.

Stupid fucking ghost and their disappearing acts.

“We had been worry about you when you said you want to move out but it seems like you are doing fine, perhaps we really worried too much...”

“I told you so,” you said as you opened the door. Your smile was rigid on your face as you walked your parents to the door, trying very hard to ignore the dullness between your legs, “come back at any time!”

Your smile dropped the moment the door shut in front of your eyes. Turning around on your heels, Shinsou was right there, a lazy smile tugging on his face with no remorse.

He had his arms crossed, leaning all his weight on one leg in a posture that was not fitted for someone who nearly had you moaning out loud in front of your parents.

You grinned, and he felt goosebumps rising on his skin at how innocent and sweet the smile was.

“You’re sleeping in the guest room tonight.”

Back to the masterlist

A dead end

#bnha imagines #bnha imagine #bnha x reader #bnha smut #shinsou x reader #shinsou imagine #shinsou smut #shinsou imagines #kinktober 2020

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woah-were-halfway-there · 4 years

Text

Our Last Summer - B. Boeser

A/N: just a girl who thought she’d try writing for a different player. Shocking, I know. Also this is an OC and I love her, enjoy!

Yes, after the ABBA song. Also shoutout to my least favourite Taurus @brockadoodles for convincing me to follow through with writing and posting this and being an A+ beta reader always.

Word Count: 9.2k

To Brock, summer was the best time of year. As much as he loved hockey season, summer gave him the chance to unwind, relax and spend time with his friends and family. It also allowed him to be at one of his favourite places all the time, the lake.

The lake was a sanctuary of sorts for him, his little piece of paradise. Even before he moved to Vancouver, he spent every summer there, which is why he ended up buying a home on that lake to spend his off-seasons in. It also happened to be where he got to see Lennon—the only place.

Brock and Lennon first met almost ten years ago. Right away, Brock could tell that she wasn't from the area based on her lack of a so-called Minnesotan accent but eventually learned how her family started vacationing on the lake the same year they were both turning fourteen.

Lennon's family has been back every year since. How she and Brock first crossed paths was on the beach one fateful afternoon at the end of June. Brock was standing in line behind her, waiting to buy a bottle of water while she ordered ice cream from the man operating the little stand. Once Lennon was handed her snack, she turned around and went to walk away but didn't realize Brock was standing right there and ended up knocking into him, which resulted in her ice cream spilling down the front of the t-shirt he wore. She quickly grabbed some napkins and tried to clean up the mess she made all over him, but he just laughed it off and told her it was fine.

The two of them parted ways after that, not thinking much of the interaction and didn't cross paths again until the following summer. When they did meet again, it was on that same beach, at the same ice cream stand, but Lennon didn't spill anything that time. Instead, the pair just stared at each other as they were both hit by the most intense wave of deja vu either of them had ever experienced. After that initial shock, they talked and properly introduced themselves because what were the chances they'd run into each other again. After commenting on how he assumed Lennon wasn't from there, Brock learned that she only came to Minnesota in the summertime with her parents and twin brother because her dad was from there and her parents owned a lake house they wanted to retire to one day. It was one of Lennon's favourite places to be and had her looking forward to summer every year because of it.

That summer, Brock and Lennon saw each other on multiple occasions after the run-in on the beach, and a friendship gradually began. That friendship only grew with each summer that passed as Brock's friends became Lennon's friends too after being invited to hang out with them as they went boating, jet skiing, exploring and had bonfires each night. These activities made Lennon's summers even more memorable than before.

However, as they got older, things began to change.

The summer before Lennon turned 19 was the last summer she spent entirely at the lake for a few years. Brock had already turned 19 that February, and Lennon would be doing the same in early November. However, that fall, she began going to university and spent the summers working. Lennon didn't get as much time off but still managed to squeeze in at least two weeks at the lake to spend with her family, friends, and, of course, Brock.

Four years later, once Lennon graduated from her bachelor's program, she returned to the lake for the whole summer. Lennon also mainly spent that summer with Brock as he sat with her for hours while she applied to various jobs in her field and did phone interviews with possible employers. It was odd for him, though, because it wasn't until then, Brock realized how even though he felt like he knew Lennon very well, he hardly knew anything about her life outside of the lake. Sure, he knew that she took English and Literature at university, but he didn't know what school she attended. He also didn't know where her family lived the rest of the year. Brock only knew Lennon and summer.

There was a massive disconnect between the two of them when they weren't in their little summer bubble. Brock and Lennon didn't speak when they weren't at the lake. They had each other's phone numbers, but the thought of using it while he was in Vancouver felt foreign, and although Lennon did cross his mind, he knew the two of them would pick up where they left off like they did every summer once both of them returned to the lake.

That's what happened last summer too. Brock and Lennon were reunited on her first day back and spent almost every day together, seeing as it had been four years since the last full summer she spent in Minnesota. It was a summer to remember for sure. They somehow became even closer, which naturally led to them feeling a sense of dread as the days became shorter and summer gradually came to an end.

But, everything became ruined when Brock and Lennon slept together on her last night at the lake. Then Brock woke up to a cold and empty space next to where he laid in his bed the morning after.

The piece of him that Brock didn't realize Lennon had a hold on broke that morning. She left him feeling hurt and confused. He texted her, but she didn't reply. Then when he took his jet ski out on the water and rode by her family's house, only to see it completely dark and no cars in the driveway, he knew summer was officially over and that he wouldn't hear from her again.

That is why he was looking forward to this summer. There was no guarantee he'd be seeing Lennon. He didn't know what had gone in her life over the past ten months but was sure he'd get filled in on it once he saw her family, but he had this unexplainable feeling that she was going to be there, and that was enough to get him nervous. However, Brock was still excited even with those nerves because his summer just wasn't complete without Lennon in it. Regardless of how the two felt towards each other.

Brock's first day back consisted of getting everything ready, and the house opened up for the season. With his roommates and family's help, the boat was launched into the water and docked, so were the jet skis, and everything just slowly fell into place. The only thing missing was Lennon.

However, he tried not to think of things like that. He was convinced he'd get some closure about what happened between the two of them last summer, but when he casually brought her up in conversation, no one knew if she was back or not. Lennon's family was at the lake, everyone knew that much, but no one had seen her yet, which made Brock feel a little less hopeful.

Once everything at the house was finished getting ready, all of his company stayed for dinner but then headed back to their own homes, his roommates included. They'd be back on the weekend and be staying there for good afterwards, but for the next few days, it would just be Brock and his dogs, which was fine by him.

After everyone left, Brock headed out to the back yard, letting Milo and Coolie run around for a bit before going back inside for the night. The sun was setting, leaving warm pink and orange trails of light chasing after it while slowly disappearing in the distance. A few boats still drove around on the water, finishing up their rounds before it got too dark. Brock could also hear chatter from somewhere nearby where he assumed people were outside having a bonfire or just socializing as they enjoyed what was bound to be a beautiful evening.

Brock then wandered to the edge of his dock and sat down, letting his legs hang off the side then swaying them slightly as he continued taking it all in. Not too long after, Coolie joined him as he took up the spot next to him and rested his head on Brock's lap while looking out at the water as well. Meanwhile, Milo continued wading in the water, ready to attack any fish that dared come near him.

About ten minutes later, after Milo had gone up onto the dock as well, Brock spotted a boat heading towards him. As the boat got closer to shore, he could hear the familiar voice of Wesley Schultz as a song by The Lumineers played and watched as the boat slowed down then took a wide right turn before coming to a stop about 20 feet from the edge of his dock. Confused, Brock looked around for someone else because surely whoever was on the boat wasn't stopping to talk to him. But then he remembered that he was at his own house and that there was no other explanation for what was going on.

"Hey!" A voice greeted over the music, then a man, who Brock assumed was around the same age as him, came into view. He had dark brown hair that wasn't quite as long as Brock's but still long enough to noticeably be pushed back away from his face with a pair of sunglasses and wore only a pair of green swim trunks and an unzipped white sweater. "So you're the person who lives here. I'm Max. My family just bought a house around the bend over there. It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, cool!" Brock responded, a wave of relief washing over him as he realized the guy was just being friendly. "Nice to meet you too. I'm Brock. I live here with a few friends, but it's just me here right now. I'm sure you'll see the others around soon. Have you been to the lake before?"

"No, this is my first summer here," Max explained and smiled. "But, I know someone who's been coming here for a while and told me all about it. I must say, it's living up to its hype."

"Your friend sounds like they know what they're talking about," Brock chuckled, then heard a voice say something from where they must've been sitting out of sight on the boat. But what really surprised him the way Coolie perked up at the voice and caused a low whine to leave his mouth.

"Yeah, I'd say she does," Max replied, then leaned to the side and looked down into the boat's cabin. "She's right here actually, said it was too cold then went inside—Babe, wanna come say hi to my new neighbour? Maybe the two of you know each other."

The thought of how Brock might know the other person on the boat made sense, he knew the area so well and had met lots of people over the years, but that still didn't prepare him for the way he felt once Lennon stepped into view.

"Lemon?"

Brock's nickname for her fell from lips so quickly as he took her in, he didn't even have to think about it. Lennon's deep brown hair was longer than it was the last time Brock had seen her, that much he could tell even in the messy fishtail braid she had it in. Usually, Lennon liked to cut her hair going into the summer because she always complained about how hot it made her feel whenever it was down and not being held back with the hair tie that usually resided on her wrist.

He then took in the rest of her appearance. She wore bright yellow crocs, a pair of white terry cloth shorts and a baggy pullover that had Minnesota written in a large yellow font across it as well. Brock recognized the sweater because it belonged to him until the last night of the previous summer.

It was a simple look, but to Brock, Lennon still seemed stunning in the evening glow surrounding her.

That was when Coolie stood up and barked, snapping Brock out of the trance he'd fallen into upon seeing Lennon again. Coolie recognized her. That much was evident with how he whined and started wagging his tail just at the sight of her, Milo joining in soon after.

"Hi Coolie, hi Milo," Lennon spoke softly and smiled at the two dogs, making Brock feel as if he walked into a brick wall just by hearing her voice again.

"Oh, you two do know each other!" Max exclaimed, snapping Brock back to reality once again.

Then Lennon looked Brock in the eyes for the first time, and her smile fell slightly.

"I guess you could say that," she stated, not breaking eye contact. "Hey, Brock."

"H-hey," was all he could reply with, still recovering from the initial shock of how Lennon, the person he spent the last ten months thinking about, was finally standing in front of him again, but with another guy. "You're back."

"Yeah, I am," she nodded, then looked back at Max. "We should probably get going, though. It's getting dark."

"You're right," Max agreed. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around, Brock. Have a good night."

"Uh, yeah, you too," Brock responded, whispering almost as he observed Max start the boat back up and begin driving off.

He watched the two of them go, refusing to take his eyes off of Lennon, which was how he didn't miss the way she looked back at him too or how she didn't look away until the boat rounded the bend and disappeared out of sight yet again.

~*~

About a week went by before Brock saw Lennon again, and he hated it. He saw her family, who all asked when he'd be stopping by again. But Brock didn't know how to explain that he and Lennon had barely spoken or the reason behind it all. It then got worse when his parents came over that weekend and told him how they ran into her while they were at the store and that she seemed to be doing well.

It sucked for him because all he wanted to do was talk, but he knew Lennon. And he knew that if she wanted to talk, she would. However, it was clear that she didn't, so Brock didn't push her into talking with him regardless of how badly he wanted to.

The thought of just messaging Lennon and asking her to come over crossed his mind many times that week, but he couldn't bring himself to send the text he typed out and would end up deleting it instead. His summer was already off to a very different start than he was hoping for.

One day, while he was out boating with some of his friends, things started to change again.

After being out on the water for most of the day, Brock and his friends all decided to dock the boat at the marina near, of course, the beach that Brock couldn't step foot on without thinking about Lennon. Once he saw that beach, he was reminded of how much time he and Lennon spent there together over the years since first meeting. Brock would've been lying if he said he didn't want to run into her again on that same beach, but he tried not to get his hopes up.

However, to his luck, Lennon was walking along the dock at the marina the same time Brock was hopping off the boat to help tie it up. Brock spotted her first, but she was busy scrolling through her phone, her eyebrows furrowed with an unreadable expression on her face as she did so, and she didn't notice Brock or the others as she continued walking towards them, but then came to an abrupt stop.

Whatever Lennon was looking at on her phone seemed important, and Brock didn't want to interrupt, but then one of his friends, who also knew Lennon, spotted her.

"Lenny!" Sam exclaimed as he brushed past Brock, making Lennon jump, but still, smile once she saw who was approaching her and accepted the hug she was about to be pulled into. "You're back!"

"Lennon's here?" Someone else asked, and soon enough, everyone who Brock was with rushed by him to see their friend.

"Hey, guys!" She greeted happily, a much different mood than how her reunion with Brock was a week prior.

"Are you here all summer?"

"I am," Lennon confirmed, still smiling.

"That's awesome," said Claire, Sam's girlfriend. "We've been waiting to see when you'd get here. We missed you! Is Mick here too?"

"Yeah, he is," Lennon responded, letting the group know that her brother had returned to the lake as well. "He's at the house right now helping my dad get the new barbecue set up. I was sent here to pick up things to get grilled tonight."

She then held up the plastic bag she was carrying for emphasis, earning chuckles from the rest of the group.

"Well, we won't keep you then," stated one of Brock's roommates. "But come over to the house soon, and we'll all hang out."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll see you guys later!"

Everyone said goodbye to Lennon, then continued on their way, but Brock stayed back. She still hadn't noticed him, and he didn't want her to feel cornered by him, especially around their friends, but he needed to talk to her. Just the two of them.

He observed her as she watched their friends walk down the dock, taking in the jean shorts and mint green tank top she wore, then cleared his throat, making Lennon snap her attention in his direction and not missing the way her eyes widened as she did so.

"Hey, Lemon," he greeted her and felt an instant wave of relief wash over him while he saw her expression soften as he said that.

"You're never going to drop that nickname, are you?" She asked while shaking her head and smiling.

Brock pursed his lips and looked away from her as if he was deeply considering her question but couldn't help the small laugh that left his mouth as he did.

"No, I don't think I can."

"Right. Whatever you say, Broccoli."

At that, Brock's grin grew much wider. Hearing Lennon call him the nickname she's always said in response to him calling her, Lemon, hit differently this time because, although he knew things weren't normal between them, it almost seemed like it was. But, it was short-lived because his nagging thoughts about the girl standing in front of him started creeping back, making his smile falter a little bit.

"Brock?" Lennon asked, noticing how he was getting too deep in his thoughts. Something she knew he did often. "You ok?"

"Yeah," he replied and shook his head slightly. "I was just thinking. Um, listen, can we talk? You know, about… everything?"

Lennon let out a sigh, knowing this conversation needed to happen between the two of them, but still not sure if she was ready to have it just yet. "I don't know what to say."

"Me neither, to be honest. But maybe we can start with what happened last summer and how you're seeing someone else now?"

"Brock, me and you aren't in a relationship. You can’t corner me like that. I don't owe you an explanation."

"Lennon, that's not fair and you know that’s not what I’m doing," he stated. "I'm not saying you have to explain yourself. That's your business, whether I like it or not. But, I would like to know where we stand because I have thought about you every day for the past ten months and seeing you on that boat last week sucked. I was caught off guard, but that doesn't matter. I just miss my friend and don't want this summer to be weird because we slept together when clearly it didn't mean anything."

Once Brock finished his spiel, Lennon took a shaky breath then let her gaze fall to the ground, knowing he had a point.

"I'm sorry," she spoke softly. "You're right, it's not fair, and I'm also sorry for just leaving you last year. But Brock, I don't know what to tell you right now because I know it's not going to be what you want to hear."

"The least you could do, as my friend, is tell me why. Why did you leave and act as though nothing happened between us and avoid me completely?"

"I panicked, ok!"

"About what?" Brock questioned, feeling even more lost than before. "Len, what are you talking about?"

“Because Brock, before we slept together, it was just you and the lake,” she explained. “It was easy. It was like we lived separate lives, and that worked until they crossed paths again in the summertime. Maybe having sex messed that up, but I don’t want it to. I want things back to the way they were.”

“Why do we have to live separate lives outside of the lake? You’re one of my best friends. I would love to share all of my life with you. But I feel like I know nothing about you.”

“Why now, though? Why didn’t you want me to be part of your life or know more about mine away from here before last summer?”

“I never said I didn’t!” He stated firmly and stressfully pushed his hand through his hair. “That’s just always been how we worked. How can you expect me to know that was something you wanted when you didn’t express it either, Lennon? But I will say this; I care about you. I have feelings for you, alright? If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you to stay over on that night last summer. That all seems pretty irrelevant now, though.”

"I-," Lennon started but had to stop as a voice cut her off.

"There she is," Max said as he and another guy that Brock didn't recognize approached them. "And Brock! Good to see you again."

"Uh, yeah," Brock replied hesitantly, suddenly not knowing what to say as he watched Max casually walk up and wrap his arm around Lennon's waist. "You too."

"Did we interrupt something?" Max asked while glancing at the other guy he was with, then moved his gaze between Brock and Lennon.

"No," Brock spoke and looked Lennon dead in the eye. "I guess we're done talking. I'll see you guys around."

"Brock, wait," Lennon said and pulled away from Max as Brock walked past them.

"Just like you, I don’t know what else to say, Lennon. Say hi to your family for me."

And with that, Lennon was left watching Brock leave her behind this time.

Later that evening, Brock was at home with his roommates, putting some plates into the dishwasher after they were all finished eating when Milo and Coolie started barking like crazy. He wasn't sure what was going on and looked at the rest of the guys, who all shrugged in response, then went over to the glass sliding door the dogs were standing in front of and saw what had them acting the way they were.

Outside he saw a woman hopping off a jetski, then watched as she pulled it up to the small shore that met his property. Once she was sure the jetski was beached enough and took off her lifejacket, she walked up the slope that led to the rest of the lawn, then walked across the grass onto the dock before sitting down at the edge of it and facing the water like she owned the place. It didn't take long for Brock to realize the girl was Lennon.

He then looked back at his roommates, all of who were watching him intently, almost as if they knew this was coming, but they all quickly looked away and pretended to be busy looking at something else. Brock rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. He didn't want to give them the satisfaction of a response, so instead, he stayed silent and opened the door so he could step outside.

Milo and Coolie continued barking as Brock slipped by them but didn't let them outside with him. He knew that Lennon wouldn't have just shown up unannounced after the talk they had earlier that day unless she really needed to get something off her chest, and Brock wanted to hear what she had to say without any interruption.

Lennon didn't look back as he walked across the grass and onto the dock. It was like she knew he'd join her regardless of how rough things may have seemed between them. And she would've been right for assuming that. As much as Brock wanted to be mad at Lennon, it still seemed like magnets pulled him towards her, and it just wasn't possible for him to fight.

Brock didn't say anything as he sat down next to his friend, just joined her in silence while they both looked out over the water and observed the sun as it began its descent in the late evening sky, but he couldn't keep himself from observing Lennon out of the corner of his eye and taking in how she looked.

Her hair wasn't tied back or anything. It just fell down her back in loose natural waves that shifted ever so slightly whenever there was a breeze. She wore a faded red Beatles pullover, which was somewhat ironic seeing as she was named after one of the band's members, making Brock smile because that was just a very Lennon thing to do. The sweater was paired with some jean shorts and Nike slides, but what caught his attention the most was her eyes. Lennon had light brown eyes that Brock thought were stunning all the time, but when the sun hit them just right, like it did in that moment, they seemed golden almost, and it was so hard to look away. He's always loved her eyes.

However, his moment of observing her in silence was cut short when she let out a sigh and then glanced towards him.

"New York," Lennon stated, earning herself a confused look from Brock.

"New York?" He asked, genuinely unsure of what she was implying. "Lennon-."

"That's where I'm from," she elaborated, then looked from him to the water again. "Upstate New York, to be exact, near the Buffalo area. My birthday is November 2nd. I was actually born in Minneapolis, but my parents moved when me and Mick were about ten months old for work and I hadn’t been back until they bought the lake house. Uh, when my parents found out my mom was pregnant, they thought they were expecting twin boys at first. They wanted to name me John after the Beatles still and then Michael after Mick Jagger, but when I came out a girl, they had to improvise."

Brock was speechless. He was so shocked. Lennon was telling him everything that he's always wondered about her and then some. He was intrigued, and there was no way he would stop her from sharing whatever she wanted to say.

"As you know, I took English and Literature in university," she continued. "I took that program at NYU and have been living in New York City for the past five years because of it. I have a freelancing job, which has been paying the bills. I've also spent the last month and a half applying to various master's programs at different schools, and it's been pretty discouraging if I'm completely honest. Since moving to NYC, I've made many trips to Toronto to visit Mick, seeing as that's where he went to school, but coming back to the lake each summer remains my favourite place to be, and you are a huge part of why Brock."

"Lemon, I didn't know any of this," he replied, shaking his head as he still processed everything she said.

"I know, that's why I'm telling you."

"Wow, I, I don't even know what to say. I've always wondered these things about you, but other than seeing you here; you've always been like a blank slate to me. I've known you for so long now, but I've never known so much about you. I just figured you never really wanted me to be part of your life outside of summer, y'know?"

"Yeah, about that," Lennon started and let out a small laugh. "That is so incorrect. You don't even know."

"What do you mean?" Brock questioned, feeling puzzled by her again.

"My friends in New York are huge into sports," she explained. "I can't even begin to explain how many times I've been dragged to a Yankees or Knicks game, but when it comes to the Rangers, I always look forward to it a bit more. They're not my team, I've got to give props to the Sabres for the hometown representation, and because of Mick, I started not entirely hating the Leafs. What always surprises my friends, though, is how adamant I get about going to the Rangers games whenever Vancouver is in the city. But I haven't told them I have a friend that plays on the team. They just think it's odd that I have a Boeser jersey."

"Woah, wait a minute. You've seen me play hockey?"

"Every time you've been in New York since starting with the Canucks, yeah."

"Lennon, what the hell?" He asked disbelievingly. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

Lennon just shrugged before responding. "Like I said earlier today, Brock, it's always been you and the lake. I thought about messaging you but then figured you might not want me to and chickened myself out, so I never did. I don't know why I didn't just reach out, but now you know. So, please, never assume that I don't think about you when I'm not here. Because I do, all the damn time. And what happened between us last summer did mean something to me. You are way too important for it to not. I could never consider you as just a random hookup, Broccoli."

Brock could feel his heart swell an insane amount as she said that, but before he could say what he really wanted to in response, he needed to know something still.

"What about Max?"

"Max is not my boyfriend," she stated, not missing a beat. "He's one of my best friends from school, yeah, but we are not together. He's from Minneapolis, which was how we actually bonded when we first met after telling him my dad was from this area. And let me tell you, I've told him if I'm still single by 40, we're getting married, but I don't think that'll be happening. He's very happy with his boyfriend, Connor, who was on the dock with us earlier, and I would've happily introduced you to if you hadn't stormed away before I got the chance."

"For fucks sake," Brock said, not being able to stop himself from grinning at how stupidly he overreacted. "I am so bad for jumping to conclusions, aren't I?"

"You always have been."

They laughed together as Lennon nudged him with her shoulder teasingly, then a comfortable silence fell amongst them again. However, it didn't last too long because Lennon was speaking again soon after.

"I really am sorry for just leaving you last summer," she told him softly. "It's just- I knew I was going back to New York, and I figured it'd be easier if we didn't talk about what happened for both of us. I shouldn't have assumed that. It wasn't fair to you. But, I also have spent the last ten months thinking about you constantly. I like you too, Brock, more than I can explain, and I just feel stupidly vulnerable admitting that, but I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't have feelings for you that weren't entirely platonic. I don't expect things between us to be like they were last summer, but I missed you a whole freaking lot this past year and will be glad to have my best friend back."

"I would love nothing more than for that to happen," Brock responded and waited for her to look at him again before continuing. "Maybe we can; I don't know, take things slow? We can see what happens over the summer, what it all leads to and you know, actually talk after. I also want to know as much about you as I can, but only if you'll let me.”

"Please. And yes, I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know. I want to get to know more about you too if that's ok."

"Of course it is, I'd like that," he replied before falling silent again as his gaze dropped to her lips. Brock was overcome with the urge to close the already small space between him and Lennon by kissing her, but he didn't. Although he was pretty sure she wouldn't necessarily be opposed to him doing that, he didn't want to fuck this up by rushing into anything again. She, too, was way more than just a hookup to him and Brock wanted to make sure she knew that. "Will you stay over tonight?"

Lennon's eyes widened in surprise at Brock's question, but she quickly realized he wasn't trying to make a move. He just wanted to spend more time with her, and honestly, she loved the idea of just hanging out with him all night.

"Yes, absolutely," she stated. "I'll also never say no to Milo and Coolie snugs."

"Good, because I'm pretty sure I can still hear Coolie whining over the fact that he can't come out here and see you."

The two of them laughed, then stayed sitting together for a few more moments before Brock eventually stood and helped Lennon up, then made their way back to the house together.

~*~

Although nothing intimate happened that night between Brock and Lennon, aside from some cuddling as they both fell asleep in his bed, it set the pace for the rest of their summer. The two, once again, became inseparable.

The next few weeks went by very quickly, and everything was great. Lennon was over at Brock’s all the time, and he made sure to go over to her family’s house and visit with them lots too. Things were normal again. There was no tension as they hung out with all their friends. Brock even got to know Max a bit better, who, to Brock, ended up being a really cool guy. It was nice for him to hear more stories about Lennon’s life outside of the lake, and Brock loved every minute of it.

However, as good as things were with the two of them while keeping their relationship platonic, there was no denying both Brock and Lennon had intense feelings for each other.

From an outside perspective, it was apparent how much those two cared for each other, and it was often shown in the little things. It was gestures like Brock pulling Lennon onto his lap and wrapping her up in the blanket he had with him while having a bonfire. Or the time Lennon briefly gave Brock his Minnesota sweater back for a few hours while he was over at her house because she wanted it to smell like him again. It was so obvious the two of them had a thing. And yet, nothing more happened between them. They were both afraid that it may get fucked up again, which neither wanted. Especially with how fast summer seemed to pass by.

One Friday afternoon in late July, things hit a rough patch again.

Brock and Lennon were at his place, hanging out on the stairs of the back deck with Milo and Coolie, when Lennon dropped the bomb about having to leave the lake in the upcoming days.

Understandably, Brock was confused. He knew that he’d have to return to Vancouver in a few weeks to get ready for training camp and the upcoming season with the Canucks, but Brock thought he still had a few weeks left with Lennon at least. Brock took the news pretty well, but when he asked her why, feeling like he could after the talk they had on the dock over a month prior, she started shutting him out again.

“I’m moving,” Lennon stated as she shifted away from Brock, not getting up from where she sat between his legs on the step in front of him, but enough to let his arms, which he had wrapped around her shoulders as she leaned back against him, fall to his side again. “I have to go back to New York on Monday and start packing up my apartment. My master’s program isn’t there, and I knew this was coming. I just didn’t think it’d be so soon.”

Brock understood, he really did, but then he got thinking and became confused.

“You never told me you got into your program, Len. That’s great,” he replied and leaned forward so he could look at her better. “Where are you moving to?”

“Oh, um, you know, nowhere spectacular. Just the west coast.”

“Nice, what school? Maybe if it’s near a city with an NHL team, we can meet up when I play there. I’d also love for you to visit me in Vancouver if you’re able to or up for it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she replied, smiling because she really liked that idea, but then it was like a switch went off in her mind, and that expression soon fell as she stood up from the stairs and turned to face him. “You know what, Brock, I have to go. I think my mom needed my help with something.”

That puzzled Brock even more.

“I was at your house with you yesterday when your parents left for Minneapolis,” he reminded her with a small laugh. “They said they were going for the weekend.”

“Oh, right.”

“Yeah. Uh, Is everything alright? You’re acting weird all of a sudden.”

“Everything’s fine,” Lennon lied, which Brock was aware of with the way she started picking at her nails and avoiding making eye contact with him. “I just have a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“Lemon,” he started softly. “You know you can talk to me, right? You don’t have to block me out again.”

Lennon let out a sarcastic chuckle.

“Why does everyone always say that? Lennon quit blocking people out. Lennon, no one will continue breaking down those walls you put up all the time… But, no one gets that it’s just easier for me that way. I feel safer. It’s nothing personal.”

Brock’s expression fell at that a bit. “I get that, I do. Sometimes it is easier that way, but it’s also very lonely. You have people in your life that aren’t going to hurt you the way you think someone could. I want to think I’m one of those people.”

“You are, Broccoli,” she assured. “You always have been. I just, I can’t help but always think of the worst possible situation when going into new things. That’s just how my mind works. And even when it comes to you, when it comes to us and whatever we are, I’m still scared because there are so many unknowns. We don’t know what will happen when I leave for New York again, and I know I should’ve told you sooner, but I didn’t want to dampen the rest of our time here together. This has been the best summer I’ve had in a long time, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“You’re not ruining it,” he explained. “We know we both can’t stay at the lake forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bring what we have here with us when we leave. Lennon, I want you in my life all year round, not just when we’re here. I wish you realized that. And now, once you leave, it’s like I know nothing all over again because you won’t let me in enough to tell me. Which honestly sucks a lot.”

Lennon just looked back at him, not caring that her eyes were on the brink of overflowing with tears as she processed what he said. Brock cared for her. Probably more than any other guy she’s ever felt this intense of feelings for, but she was still absolutely terrified of accepting that for some reason.

“I’m sorry, Brock,” she said, then took a shaky breath as she stepped further away from him and started backing down the stairs. “I- I’m going to go, and please, don’t come after me. I promise I’ll say bye before I leave, but I just need to think.”

She then turned and rushed down the rest of the stairs without looking back. Brock immediately stood up and went to call after her, but Lennon was already rounding the corner that led to the driveway and soon disappeared out of sight. Milo and Coolie were about to go after her, but Brock stopped them as he heard a door close and the sounds of a car pulling out of the driveway. She was already gone again, and there was nothing he could do about it.

That night, Brock went to one of the bars nearby with their group of friends for a karaoke night. Lennon was initially supposed to join him and his roommates to venture over there together, but he knew that would no longer be the case after what happened earlier.

After Lennon left, Brock went back inside the house, and his roommates just knew something went down between them. However, when they asked, Brock didn’t want to talk about it and just kind of went to his room alone until it was time to leave later on.

He thought going out with their friends would make him feel a bit better and at least get his mind off the situation, but Lennon’s absence was way too noticeable for him even to try to enjoy himself. Brock didn’t take part in karaoke. Instead, he sat at one of the tables nursing a seltzer that was room temperature because he just wasn’t in the mood.

After an hour passed and Brock still hadn’t finished the drink or taken much part in the group outing whatsoever, he figured he might as well call it an early night and head home. However, before he could, someone sat down next to him and started talking to him.

“What are you doing over here by yourself?” Asked Michael, Lennon’s twin brother, before he sipped on his beer and gave Brock a judgy look that resembled the same one he’d received from Lennon many times before.

“Hey, Mick,” Brock greeted with a smile. “I’m just not feeling it, I guess. I think I’m going head out soon.”

“Fair enough. It seems like my sister felt the same way. What a no-show.”

Mick scoffed jokingly, then looked around at their friends. Brock let out a small laugh and shrugged in response, but then he figured that maybe he could ask about Lennon seeing as he knew her twin probably knew more than he did.

“Speaking of your sister, do you know why she didn’t want to come out tonight?”

“I’m surprised you don’t,” Mick deadpanned. “But no, I haven’t been home. I figured she’d be here with you, actually, but I guess you never really know with her. I don’t know how you’re going to put up with living in the same place as her beyond the summer.”

“Same place as her?” Brock asked.

“Yeah, Lennon got accepted to do her master’s at UBC in Van,” Mick replied, then watched as Brock’s eyes widened in shock. “Woah, wait. She didn’t tell you, did she?”

“No, didn’t mention it at all.”

“Fuck, of course not. I honestly wish I could say I was surprised, but then I’d be lying.”

Brock glanced down for a brief moment, still processing what he just told, then shook his head before responding. “Mick, I say this in the nicest way possible, but Lennon gives me fucking whiplash, I swear.”

“Join the club,” Mick laughed. “I’ve been president for almost 24 years now.”

“I just, how could she not tell me?”

At that, Mick’s expression turned a bit more serious than it was before, then he sighed.

“I know it may not seem like it right now, but she really does care about you, Brock. More than she’ll let herself admit. You’re someone that’s important to her and has been for a very long time.”

“I wish she had a better way of showing it. Then I wouldn’t have to doubt so much.”

“I know,” Mick replied. “It’s a lot. But, let me tell you that what Lennon feels for you is very different from what she’s felt for any other guy before. My sister has been in a relationship with a fair share of people. I’m talking frat guys to Wall Street douchebags, she has had a few what could have been serious relationships, but those guys were not it for her. They betrayed her trust, belittled her for getting too in her head at times and then left her in the dust after they broke her. She’s always blamed herself for that and hated that she even bothered putting her heart out there, so it’s something she struggles with. But with you, Brock, she can be herself. I see Lennon at her happiest when we’re here, and it’s because of you. That’s not even something I have to think about because it’s always been that way. You’re her best friend, but what she feels for you is more than that and what it is, is that she’s scared to admit it. She doesn’t want to ruin what the two of you already have or risk getting hurt in doing so.”

Brock didn’t know what to say. He hung on to every single word that Mick said and took a moment for him to wrap his head around it all, but he already knew what to say. He’d known for a while.

“Mick, there is not a single part of me that would ever want to hurt her,” Brock explained. “Lennon is just such an important part of my life, and after what happened last summer, I also didn’t want to fuck up what we have. But, I really want to.”

“I know,” Mick stated. “And I trust you with her, Brock, that’s why I told you all of this. I don’t think you’ll hurt my sister, and she deserves someone like you. Now, I know you probably have more that you want to say on that topic, but why don’t you say it to her. She’s gotta be at home, and I just think the two of you need to not lie about how you feel anymore.”

As Mick said that, Brock couldn’t help but smile, then nod in agreement before standing up and grabbing his keys. “You’re right. I’m going to go talk to her. Thanks, Mick. I’ll see you around.”

“Make good choices!”

It didn’t take long for Brock to drive to Lennon’s house, but everything was dark when he got there. He thought about texting her but decided against it because he knew she wouldn’t answer. So instead, he got out of his car and listened. Sure enough, he could hear City and Colour’s The Girl playing softly from the backyard and knew she was there.

Brock shut the car door, knowing that Lennon would hear it, then walked down the driveway on a mission.

By the time he reached the backyard, Lennon was leaning over the railing, trying to see who it was that just got there, and Brock didn’t miss the way her eyes widened in surprise after realizing it was him.

“Brock?” She asked, then moved over to the top of the stairs as he climbed up them, still not saying anything. “What’re you-.”

Before Lennon could finish asking her question, she was cut off by Brock as he wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her towards him, not stopping until their lips met in a very firm yet delicate kiss. He took her by surprise, but Lennon reacted by closing her eyes and melting into his touch, then wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and kept him close as she deepened the kiss.

After a moment, the two of them broke away slightly, and Brock leaned his head against her’s, smiling like crazy.

“I wish I didn’t wait a month to do that again,” he said, making Lennon laugh.

“I’m not complaining,” she replied. “That’s definitely one way to make an entrance, though. But why do I have a feeling there’s more to why you’re here besides just wanting to kiss me?”

Brock smiled at that because she was right, but before he could respond, he needed to think about what he wanted to say first. As he did that, he noticed that she was wearing the same outfit as she was earlier, right down to the messy bun, but now she wore his Minnesota sweater again, and his smile grew at that. Although the sun had already set, Lennon’s eyes still glowed with how the fairy lights strung around the deck reflected in them and that mixed with the Dallas Green’s voice still singing in the background. It was tough for Brock not to just lean down and kiss her again. But he knew he couldn’t, not right away at least.

“You’re right,” he told her, then let out a breath and smirked as the song changed to She Will Be Loved. “There’s something else I want to talk about, something we haven’t discussed yet.”

“What’s that?”

“Come back to Vancouver with me. After you’re packed up in New York, let’s go to Van together.”

“Wait, you know that’s where I’m moving?” Lennon asked, surprised. “Mick told you, didn’t he? Brock, I didn’t tell you because I thought-.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Brock cut off her ranting and smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I want you there, Lennon. I want to be with you while you’re there, as more than just your friend.”

A surprised gasp left Lennon’s mouth, but she recovered quickly by smiling and pulling him in for another kiss.

“As long as I get to do that all the time, I’m game,” she responded after she broke away from him briefly, then let him close the space between them again.

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

Without even having to voice it, Lennon started leading him back towards the house, hinting at how she wanted him to stay the night, and there was no way Brock was going to say no to that.

~*~

“I had a feeling you’d have a lot of things, but I was not expecting this,” Brock huffed as he peeked out from behind a stack of moving boxes. He and Lennon were standing in the living room of her new Vancouver apartment, getting ready to unpack everything. “This is excessive.”

“Shut up, the place was unfurnished,” she grumbled in response. “What did you expect?”

“I’m just saying, this would’ve been a lot less of a hassle if you had moved in with me.”

Lennon gave her boyfriend an unimpressed look, which he responded to with a wink and a smirk before he walked towards her and pulled her into his embrace.

It was the end of August, and Lennon was finally ready to move into her new place. After she left the lake for New York a month prior, it took her about a week to get everything packed up and organized for the move to British Columbia. Lennon already had a storage locker rented in Vancouver to keep her stuff in until she was able to start moving into her apartment and had plans to go back to the lake until her lease began on the first of September and spend the rest of the summer with Brock. However, when she, Mick and their parents landed at the Vancouver airport, he was already there waiting for them.

He helped them get everything to the storage locker. Then, after Lennon’s family left to go back to the lake, she stayed with Brock at his condo with Milo and Coolie for about three weeks before getting the keys to her place.

“That’s a little forward, don’t you think?” Lennon teased him. “What a strange thing to say to your girlfriend of what, a month?”

“I mean, I’ve also known my girlfriend for almost half my life, so does that month really make a difference?”

“Cheeky,” she responded, then stood on her tiptoes so she could peck his lips before moving away from him and over to where her phone rested on the small breakfast bar. “We can see where we’re at when this lease is up. But for now, I hope you’re ready to listen to the entire Lumineers discography as we start tackling these boxes.”

“Oh, you know it,” he told her as a matter -of- factly. “And let’s not forget about the wine in the fridge.”

“Yes, we can enjoy it once there’s room to sit down somewhere.”

Brock laughed in response and shook his head as Lennon pressed play on her phone and Sleep On The Floor started playing from her Bluetooth speaker.

The two of them then started moving the boxes labelled ‘clothes’ to Lennon’s bedroom and started there. All of the furniture Lennon bought was set up already, so it was just a matter of putting things away and getting them organized. They got right to work, and although Brock was going to leave putting the clothes away to Lennon, so they went where she wanted, he figured he could at least unpack them so that she could just grab the items and go. Lennon grabbed a box and started unpacking it, so Brock did the same but had to pause once he opened the box closest to him and saw what was there.

Laying on top of a pile of sweaters was the Boeser jersey Lennon told him about. Until that moment, Brock completely forgot that she had one, but it sure made him feel good seeing it for himself. A smile tugged at his lips as he lifted it from the box and set it on the bed, then glanced at Lennon to see if she saw his reaction. She was busy getting ready to hang things up in the closet, proving that she hadn’t seen him, which Brock was perfectly content with. He did, however, feel himself getting overly happy at the thought of seeing her wear the jersey that upcoming season and grinned even wider because of it. Brock had a really good feeling about them as a couple and couldn’t wait to see where things went from there.

#brock boeser imagine #brock boeser fanfiction #brock boeser fic #vancouver canucks imagine #brock boeser story #canucks fic #canucks imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fic #hockey fanfiction

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herewegobacktomoon · 4 years

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I can’t keep up

This fanfic was inspired by a prompt left in the comments on , where theey asked me to write about a situation where Maya comes to Grey Sloan to go home together with Carina, but when she enters the office she finds her asleep on her desk after a long shift. I hope you’ll like it. Let me know what you think!

It was 7.30 pm and Maya had just finished her shift: it had been an endless day of work where they had to rescue an entire family whose house caught fire because of a gas leak, but putting it out had been way more difficult than they expected.

She was extremely tired, every part of her body was aching, except for her heart: it was beating fast, almost jumping out of her chest at the thought of finally being able to see Carina. On her way to the door, she tried to call Carina, so that she would have known where to wait her, but she didn't answer. She tried to call her again, two or three times, but there was no sign of Carina. Thinking that her girlfriend had probably got stuck in a long unexpected surgery, by the moment her shift should have been over at 6, she headed to Grey Sloan to see what was happening.

As soon as she stepped into the hospital, she bumped into Amelia Shepherd, who welcomed her all covered up, wearing two masks and a face shield to protect her, but with smiling eyes: “Hey Maya! How is it going? Have you come to rescue your girlfriend?” she said jokingly.

“Well, it's hard but everything's ok, luckily. What about you? Yes, I've come to look for her, she didn't answer my phone calls, so I thought she was in the middle of some kind of last-time surgery or stuff like that..” answered Maya smiling.

“Yes, we're all good, thanks! Ehm..Actually I haven't seen Carina for at least one hour, but she should be in her office. It has been a very tough day, above all for her...Go check on her, as you probably know, she doesn't talk too much about what she goes through...” Maya nodded in approval, now looking a bit concerned, thanking Amelia and heading straight to Carina's office.

As she entered the room, she said softly: “Hi bella, I've missed you. I tried to call you earlier but you didn't answer me. Is everything ok?”. After closing the door, she turned around, in order to be able to see Carina, and she couldn't help but smile. The Italian was all curled up, with her head on her desk, hiding between her arms, still with her scrub on: Maya could tell she had fallen asleep at least an hour ago, as she didn't make a move at the sound of the door closing. She walked towards her, hesitating a little: she stared at her, with eyes full of love, thinking that Carina was the best thing that could have ever happened to her. Then she got closer and when she was right in front of her, she lowered to kiss her head, gently stroking it, but Carina didn't move.

Trying to wake her up without scaring her, Maya crouched, putting her hands on Carina's thighs, caressing them and looking up to her face: “Hey babe, wake up...are you ok?” she whispered. She didn't want to ruin her sleep, but she knew it wasn't good for her to sleep that way and in that office. After a few seconds, Carina slowly turned her head, struggling to open her eyes: as she saw Maya, she tried to put herself together, even though her movements were still a little bit delayed: “Oh my God, I'm sorry Bella, I was checking a patient's report and I must have fallen asleep. I'm sorry, I'm...” Carina anxiously stated, suddenly waken up by an as implacable as unexplained worry.

Maya smiled at her, pressing a soft kiss against her lips: “Don't worry bella, no problem for me. I've really enjoyed watching you while you were asleep. But tell me, how was your day?”

Carina grinned and added: “Well, you should have got me wake up as soon as you arrived! Anyway, I'm glad you're here. Today has been very tough...”

Before asking what happened, Maya focused her attention on her girlfriend's face: her cheeks were red, probably due to the pressure against the arms, but her eyes were red too, as if she had cried before falling asleep. She didn't want to ask too many questions, she would have preferred Carina to tell her about what had been going on, so she simply said: “Why? What happened?”.

Carina got up from her chair, taking Maya by the hand and leading her towards the couch she has in her office, and decided to sit down on it: the blond followed without saying a word. Tilting her head back, against the backrest of the couch, she replied. “I don't know, too many things going on: two surgeries, my brother, the pandemic itself... I can't keep up”.

Maya took her hand back in hers, and brought it to her mouth, in order to place a gentle kiss on it: “Oh babe, I'm sorry. Tell me everything, I'm here for you.”

Carina took a deep breath, then turned her head, looking at Maya, without saying a word. There was something between them which was new and inexplicable to both: their eyes could talk, no matter how many words they were thinking without being able to say them out loud. Their eyes could read them all. Indeed, Maya opened her arms, slowly twisting her body, so that Carina could come and rest against her chest, hidden in the warmth of her girlfriend's comforting hug, an offer she was only waiting for.

Now resting with her back pressing against her girlfriend's chest, she continued: “Today was really hard: as soon as I got here,there was an emergency with a woman in labour who needed to be operated, as her baby had been having trouble breathing and his heart had a very low pulse.<br /> We were able to get him out just in time, saving both the mama and the baby, but there were some complications with the woman so it lasted for about 4 hours.”

Carina sighed as if she could feel all the tension of that moment back in her body again: Maya noticed it, felt her stiffening, and started kissing her neck, then lowering to her shoulder and asked: “Wow, it must have been tough!! But you're an amazing doctor bella, you found the problem in time and this gave you the chance to save them!”. She would have liked to ask her about the second surgery, but she didn't know what had happened, so she didn't know what reactions her words could provoke, she didn't want to upset Carina, so she just waited for her to reply.

“Thank you bella, but I only did my job! Anyway, the second surgery didn't go as well as the first... I mean, both the baby and the mama were ok, actually there were even less complications than the previous surgery, but something dreadful happened. When the woman delivered the baby, by the moment she had been skipping her check-ups for the last 5 months, she didn't know her baby had a heart defect, and when she found it out, she decided to leave the baby at the hospital, she just didn't want that little girl any more...”.

Her voice was broken and she titled her head back, now resting in the space between Maya's neck and shoulder, trying to keep all her tears inside. Without even seeing her eyes, Maya could tell she was about to cry: her breath was heavy and she was slowly sliding down the couch, as if she was trying to hide and disappear. In order to calm her and remind her she was not alone, Maya tightened her grip, took Carina's hands and started stroking them, moving then to her face, where she had arrived just in time to wipe the first tear Carina had shed.

“Oh babe, I'm so sorry you had to go through all this today. Sometimes, people just fear the worse: probably that woman was too afraid to face something like that. But it's not up to you, it's not your fault if she did what she did. You don't have to feel guilty. I know you don't show it too much, but I also know that you're the most sensitive person that exists in this world, even though you try to shut your feelings down, to avoid being disappointed. But this makes me love you even more.” said Maya warmly, delicately kissing her girlfriend's red cheek, in the attempt of making her feel any better.

“I know, it's just that the thought of that little girl, left alone, even though she will probably find a family, really upsets me. I don't even know why...I'm not judging the woman's decision, I perfectly understand the fear, the worry and all, it's just that the idea of her being abandoned just because she isn't perfect makes me both angry and sad...it reminds me of...argh..” said Carina, before starting to cry again.

Maya didn't get what she was talking about, but now it was not that important, she would have figured it out later: she made Carina turn around, now chest to chest, and hugged her without saying anything, every now and then lowering to kiss her girlfriend's head. She had always been that kind of person who trips up on her own words, never knowing what to say, but in that moment, it wouldn't have made any difference: Carina just needed her to be there, to be present, and she was trying her best to show it. Carina didn't move: she hid her head, pressing it on the blonde's chest, similarly to a kid who has just fallen down and got hurt. She just wanted to disappear in the warmth of Maya's body, pushing all her thoughts away.

After some minutes in that position, all curled up, with Maya never loosening her grip and Carina feeling safer and safer between her arms, the latter tried to say something, with her voice still sounding broken: “I'm sorry bella, I don't know what happened to me... it's just that it reminds me of my childhood...”. She then wiped her tears, moving her hair away from her forehead, and placed a kiss on Maya's neck.

Her girlfriend, after pressing a light kiss against her nose, replied: “ You have nothing to apologize for. Hey, remember? I'm here for you, as you're here for me. It was you who taught me to talk about our problems. It's normal, things can get overwhelming for everyone, also for my very special and amazingly hot Italian doctor. What matters the most is that you don't have worries about reaching out for help. I love you Carina, and I want to stand by you, to laugh with you but also to help you when you need me to.”

Carina's heart skipped a beat: she was tired, her eyes teary, her hair a total mess, but her heart felt safe and knowing Maya was there for her made her calm down. “ I love you Maya. I don't know how you do this... you always arrive at the right time, using the right words and you make me feel better. It's incredible.” she said, hinting at a smile.

Maya giggled and raising her eyebrows, quite proudly, answered: “The secret is to never leave. And I'm not going anywhere without you.”

They both laughed at Maya's statement, and then cupped each other's faces: with all the tension created by the eye-contact they were making, they couldn't help but kissing, a long, gentle kiss which warmed them up.

A few minutes later, they were no longer lying, but sitting next to each other on the couch.

At first, Maya hesitated, but then she couldn't stop thinking about a word Carina had mentioned before breaking down, so she asked: “Hey, I was thinking about what you were saying before, and...I don't want to upset you, so if you don't want to talk about it, it's fine by me, but I was wondering...what did you mean when you said that the little girl reminded you of your childhood? Do you know people who have been through stuff like that? Or it's about you?”.

Carina knew that Maya would have asked about it, and probably she had tried to avoid that topic before just to wait that question, so that she had no excuses to keep it to herself. Without even acknowledging it, she started playing with her fingers and her rings, more in an insecure way than a nervous one, and Maya immediately noticed it, taking Carina's hands in hers, keeping on stroking them, gently rubbing her thumbs on them.

Carina looked at her wide blue loving eyes, and finally decided to open up: “When I was a little girl, back in Italy, and my parents divorced, my mum decided to come to the U.S. with Andrea, leaving me there with my dad. I know that she decided to bring him here with her instead of me because he was too little to handle my dad's problem, but I didn't use to see it that way... I've always had that feeling that if I had been a better daughter, with better grades, with some plans in life, she would have probably brought me here too. But I wasn't as perfect as my little brother, and I've always felt as she had left me alone... I know it's stupid, I...”

Before she could finish, Maya immediately interrupted her: “It isn't stupid at all. It's your feelings Carina and they matter. I'm sure your mama didn't mean to leave you, or think of you as her “imperfect daughter”. Probably she made a wrong choice, but that doesn't mean that what you feel is stupid, let alone unimportant.” She then looked at the Italian who was carefully listening to her and added: “Hey come here, I want to show you something...”

Carina was caught by surprise, but she got closer to her, curious to see what she had in mind.

They stood up, Maya still holding Carina's hands: “Close your eyes.” she said, putting one of her girlfriend's hand right on her chest, so that it could feel her heartbeat. Then, she leaned to place on Carina's lips an endless kiss.

After taking a deep breath, recovering from that feeling, she asked: “What did you feel? The first thing that comes to your mind?”

The Italian hadn't got the point yet, but she replied with a smirk: “Well, your heart feels like you've just won your second gold medal, it's beating really fast.”

Maya couldn't help but giggle and said: “Not that you're wrong, but I just proved my point”.

Carina now looked even more confused: “ I don't think I'm following you.”

Maya continued: “We've just kissed, and I could tell it wasn't just me who enjoyed it, but still the first thing you noticed is how I reacted to it, instead of focusing on the emotions it provoked to you. What I am saying is that you care too much about other people, which is not bad at all, but you often forget yourself. You have to learn to listen to your heart first, to your feelings: I know that it was probably screaming my name and you didn't want to give me the satisfaction, but I need you to remember one thing. You are important, you matter, always.”

Carina smirked at such a self-confidence, which she knew was only an attempt from Maya to steal her a smile, but her eyes were now teary again, this time for joy, because Maya's words had truly moved her.

“I don't know what to say, you amazes me every time. I couldn't be any luckier in life. I love you bella, I truly do” the Italian said warmly, pressing her forehead against Maya's.

It was 8.45 pm, they had spent more than one hour talking in that office so they decided it would be better to head home.

After picking up all her stuff, Carina walked towards the door, followed by Maya, who was looking forward to going home. Out of the blue, before stepping outside the office, the Italian turned around towards Maya and said: “Oh, anyway... I forgot to say that you, Captain, would have probably arrived second if our hearts had to compete... the gold medalist is Italian this time!”

Maya smirked, in the softest possible way, kissed her girlfriend and replied: “Well, if so... my honour to lose, then.”

#maya bishop #carina deluca #wlw #wlw fanfic #station19 #marina #danielle savre #stefania spampinato

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tardytothepardy · 3 years

Text

My Review of "A Court of Silver Flames" (because it's too long for Goodreads)

~`,Spoiler-free summary/review idk,`~

In "A Court of Silver Flames", the story centers around two characters that were previously in the "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series, Cassian and Nesta. As far as I can tell, this story takes place about a year after "A Court of Frost and Starlight", where Nesta is in a bad mental state. To cope with the events in "A Court of War and Ruin", she has taken to excessive drinking and sleeping with random people. The members of the Inner Court allowed her to do this for a while, but as the book begins, it is made clear that they won't let her do that anymore. It is decided that she will be taken to the House of Wind, along with Cassian and Azriel, so she can be separated from everything and heal. The reasoning behind putting Nesta in the House of Wind is that the only ways anyone can easily go to or leave the house is by flying or winnowing, neither of which are things she can do. There is a set of 10,000 stairs that she can take, but seeing as they are 10,000 stairs, it's pretty difficult.

Throughout the story, Nesta is forced to come to terms with her difficult memories and her powers, which she has pushed away in an effort to retain as much of her prior humanity as she can. It is soon revealed that her powers are connected to three ancient magical items, collectively called the "Dread Trove", and Nesta is tasked to find as many as she can to keep Briallyn, one of the human queens, who has a similar connection to the items, from obtaining them and wielding powers that could completely destroy the world.

While all of this is going on, it is revealed that Feyre is pregnant. It isn't all happy news, however, because it seems that complications (of the deadly variety) have become known, and no one knows what to do to save her (let alone herself because she's not even aware of it hooray Rice Hand you're doing fabulously).

I think as a whole, one thing that this book struggled with is pacing. For the majority of the book, I didn't feel that the characters were actively trying to stop The Bad Guys, it almost felt that they took action every so often, as if they randomly remembered that these events are happening. Most of the book is focused on the development of the relationship between Cassian and Nesta, and everything else falls around that, which would be fine if the other events were of a smaller scale, like planning a party or something (idk lmao), rather than the fate of literally the <i>entire world</i>, both the Fae and human world. A lot of the things that happened in this book seemed like they were resolved within the last 50 pages of the book, one after another, it just felt odd.

(spoilers for the entire book below the "keep reading"!)

~`,Spoilers from here on out,`~

So like I said in the beginning, it starts with Nesta in her house. It's from Cassian's point of view, so I got to endure two things that really fucking irritated me: first was where she was living. It was a similar line of thought from the "ACOFAS" description, that Velaris doesn't have slums, but if it did have a slum, Nesta would be living in it. But it doesn't have slums, but this place is still icky. Cassian acknowledges that he's stayed in worse, but this place is still icky, yucky, blecky, and gross. Second thing that irritated me was when he first saw her. He describes her as having "long bare legs, an elegant sweep of hips, tapered waist--too damn thin--and full, inviting breasts that were at odds with the new, sharp angles of her body" (10). She was thin, very thin, but not her boobs. Nope, those badonks were still (somehow) plenty large. This might be the fault of me trying to understand Fae bodies by comparing them to human bodies, but I simply do not understand how that is supposed to work. Boobs are made of fats and tissues, if you're losing weight, you're gonna lose boob. Whatever.

Cassian proceeds to take Nesta to one of (apparently 5. Rice Hand and Feyre have five houses, why) Feyre's houses, where it is soon made clear that an intervention is being staged. This has to be one of the worse ones out there, because oh my fucking god everyone is so goddamn hostile towards Nesta. Amren and Nesta were previously friendly, then they had an unresolved (and unexplained) falling out, and now holy shit Amren is constantly baiting Nesta, making snide remarks. Rice Hand seems to be offended by Nesta simply because she doesn't like him or Feyre, like I don't get why he's so aggressive towards her (and that shit continues for the majority of the book it's so annoying), but somehow everyone there is surprised when Nesta is aggressive, that she throws insults, that she's rude.

Anyway, after Nesta is toted to the House, she instantly tries to find a way out, and that's when the 10,000 stairs come in. (Tangent, in the book it says that the stairs are about a foot tall each. 10,000, 1 foot tall stairs. That would mean the House of Wind is at least 10,000ft tall, but seeing as the House has multiple levels, it's even taller than that. This building is so goddamn tall, did Maas even think about that? It's nonsensical! Anyway) She tries to go down them, but she fails miserably. She's underweight, I wouldn't be surprised if she's malnourished, she's in no state to climb down 10,000 stairs.

So that's where the training comes in. Cassian takes her to Windhaven, an Illyrian camp (place thing idk), to train, but she just refuses. After 3 days of her not doing anything, Cassian is ready to throw in the towel (I thought,,, I would think that since he's had to discipline out-of-line soldiers before he'd do better than 3 fucking days but whatever), but then he remembers what she's said about it all three of those times, that she's not gonna do it in front of everyone (because if you didn't remember, the Illyrians are massively sexist and so of course no one has anything better to do than gather round to see some random woman attempt to train but whatever), so he just has her train within the House. One top of the House, it seems. I don't know how big this House is supposed to be, but the roof at least would have to be huge to allow for multiple people to train and work out, spaced out evenly, and not be at risk for falling off. But he has her train there, issue resolved.

What is this training, you may ask? It's just basic stuff, like stretching, balance, strength training, and eventually grappling with so much sexual tension you can barely see your hand in front of your face (it's like a fog as far as I'm concerned), casual stuff.

Along with this training, Nesta is also assigned to work in the library, which is also a sort of refuge or something for a bunch of priestesses who have survived various forms of abuse or assault. It's one big safe space that also has old ass books. Sounds great. She has to work there for six hours, I believe, everyday, along with the training, and at the library she meets someone named Gwyn. Gwyn is a priestess, she's been there for a little while (it doesn't actually say how long, now that I think about it) and fun fact, she's a quarter river nymph. The person she works under is shown using that fact as an insult, but only once, because then Nesta lets her eyes go silver, which freaks them out, and then Gwyn doesn't have to deal with it anymore.

Speaking of silver eyeballs, let's talk about her powers. What are they, how do they work? What are the limits of her powers, etc.? It's not really stated, beyond vague stuff of her powers being derived from something ancient, before the Fae's time, and that she's really powerful. At one point in the book when Rice Hand had to go into her mind (she was having night terrors), he described her powers as "pure death". On one occasion as she was trying to go down the 10,000 steps (which is a recurring thing throughout the whole book), she fell partway down and when she caught herself, she saw that she somehow burned her handprint into the stone. At another point when she's a good way into her training, she's punching something and it is later shown that she again burned through the wood (it was a piece of wood wrapped in cloth which sounds like an absolute delight to punch for a sustained period of time), but somehow the burn mark was cold? Much later in the book she literally un-alives someone, like she didn't kill them, she regressed their age so much that they were un-alive. (She basically hit the "undo" button on their life) Additionally, since her powers that she got from the Cauldron have connected her to the "Dread Trove" items, she is able to find them very easily and use them without issue. With all this information, it's still not clear as to what the limits to her power are. I suppose she is the limitation, because she could choose to use her power to gather the items of the "Dread Trove" and use them to manipulate worlds and time and fucking death itself, but she doesn't. And honestly I'm not sure how I feel about that, I'm kinda iffy on the idea of a character having seemingly unlimited power (especially when they only use it a handful of times, if at all), but I suppose it doesn't really matter because by the end of the story, she gives back most of her power to the Cauldron anyway, so any questions about that are just,,, thrown to the wind.

The characters in this story were a pretty mixed bag. I can say full-heartedly that I did not like Rhysand (there, I said his actual name instead of Rice Hand, Rice Hand is funnier to me). I don't think I've ever particularly liked him, he was too smarmy for my liking, and then when we got a look into his mind courtesy of ACOFAS, all I got out of it was that whatever is going on in his head does not match his outwardly appearance and demeanor whatsoever. (On the outside, he seems like he'd be the one to smirk a lot, probably use lots of sarcasm, on the inside it seems like if someone said "boobs" he'd start laughing uncontrollably. Like, it's weird. Idk what was going on in that book, it was weird.) But in this book, I did not like him, from the beginning. He was so hostile, so aggressive towards Nesta, at any given moment. I don't know if he had any sympathy at all for her situation, because he certainly didn't act like it. At anything Nesta would do, he would push back.

For example, when Gwyn decided to join Nesta in her training, Rice Hand said in her mind to not do anything (in the book, he said, "You are to treat Gwyn with kindness and respect." (pg. 304)), and the whole thing angers me for two reasons, the first being that Nesta's kindness was the reason that Gwyn was there in the first place. Which leads to the second reason, that it seems that Rice Hand is so convinced that Nesta is an unlikable person that she couldn't have possibly made friends (or at least friendly acquaintances) during her time at the House and working in the library.

Following that remark, Nesta noted that it seemed that Rice Hand didn't particularly like the fact that she and Cassian were a thing, which also ticks me off. Am I a huge fan of Cassian and Nesta being together? They're fine, but it's again that idea that she couldn't have possibly warmed up to someone that she has to be around the majority of the time, and maybe someone that doesn't default their mentality of her as "whatever she's doing, it's wrong/bad". To give credit to Cassian, he did figure out that Rice Hand said something to her and chided him for doing so. He actually caught Rice Hand doing it a few more times within the book and got after him about it those times, which is nice.

But that's not the only reason why I specifically did not like Rice Hand in this book. There's another thing he did which I feel is so much worse than what he did or said to Nesta. That thing would be that he kept information about Feyre from Feyre, specifically about her own pregnancy. Now, I said in the beginning that she had a troubled pregnancy. Basically, her baby had wings, but her body wouldn't be able to safely deliver the baby because of those wings. Before you ask "Hey, doesn't Feyre have shape-shifting powers?" or "What about a c-section?", Maas tucked away those easy solutions by saying that Madja, the person overseeing Feyre's pregnancy, told her that shape-shifting might put the baby at risk for more complications, and as far as the c-section thing goes, they just uh, they just haven't seemed to figure out how to do that. These Fae people live for hundreds of years and no one has ever figured out how to properly do a c-section, I guess. Additionally, it seems that Illyrian wings are particularly special, compared to the wings of the other two groups of winged Fae, Seraphim and Peregyrn, because whereas the wings of the Seraphims or Peregryns can move, allowing for an easier birth, apparently (for some fucking reason) Illyrian wings are bony? Like, in utero, they're already bony and difficult to move, which is where all those complications come in.

He told none of this to Feyre. All she knew about her own pregnancy, was that there might be some complications, she didn't know that there was a gigantic mortality rate with pregnancies like this, nothing like that. He purposely kept this information from her, it seems that the whole fucking Inner Court voted on it, or some shit. When Feyre was told of this whole thing from Nesta, Amren said it was to protect Feyre, to keep her from getting stressed or scared, which could worsen things further. But I counter that Amren, with this: How fucking scared do you think Feyre would have been, when she was in labor and everything, and things were rapidly spiraling out of control? She would have been terrified! Don't you think that would've affected something, because I fucking think it would have! Was there ever any intent to tell her about this, or did all of them just decide to never tell her?

The reason why Nesta told Feyre about it was to hurt her, initially, but it was also because she found out that the Inner Court had made a decision about her, personally, because she had accidentally made more "Dread Trove" items by imbuing her power in three swords that she made while at a blacksmith. She found out (via Cassian's absolutely terrible way of bringing up the swords she made) that they were planning to take them away (or something, I don't specifically remember), and that's when she went to Amren's place and demanded more information. When Feyre was brought to intervene, Nesta told Feyre what Cassian had told her (despite the fact that he was totally supposed to keep that a secret but whatever dude). Feyre was shocked, understandably, but she wasn't angry at Nesta for that, and I can't tell you how happy I was about that, I am so happy that Feyre wasn't angry at Nesta for telling her about this. She actually was angry at the other people for deciding to keep this information from her. I just,, I'm really happy that she wasn't angry at Nesta. Everyone else, on the other hand, was fucking pissed at her, including Rice Hand. He was absolutely livid, but the funny thing is, that I don't give a shit, honestly. He should have never kept that a secret in the first place.

I think as a whole, his behavior is explained away because "his mate is pregnant", so I guess he has full clearance to be obnoxious and aggressive and withhold information without the knowledge of all parties involved. What happened to always giving Feyre a choice, Rhysand? What happened to that? Did she only get a choice when you decided to give her one? Because that is certainly what this felt like.

Another thing that Rice Hand did that I would place in between his bullshit against Nesta and his bullshit against Feyre, is another thing that he did to Feyre. So, back in ACOTAR, I believe, when Feyre was still with Tamlin, Tamlin infamously trapped Feyre in a huge magical bubble, where she couldn't leave Tamlin's house. Everyone agreed that that wasn't the best thing for Tamlin to do, and Tamlin's punishment was completely equal to the evils he committed, one-hundred percent. (Not really, now he's stuck in his beast form, roaming the Spring Court in a state of anger and pain. Sympathy for him is quite the commodity in the books.) But what does any of this have to do with Rice Hand? Well, he basically did the same thing to Feyre, except rather than being stuck in a building, the shield is on her, and it's so strong that even her friends can't touch her without being hit by the shield. And when she's asked about it, Feyre just says that Rice Hand learned how to make shields from Helion, the High Lord of the Summer Court, and like,,,, is testing them out on her?? And we're all supposed to think this is fine? The shield is so intense that they can't even smell her (which is a thing, in this series. Fae people can smell other people, they have scents, idk man I'm just going with it), so effectively he's masking her entire existence, and no one has a problem with it. It's weird. It's not as bad as the pregnancy thing, but it's still not great.

I suppose since I'm talking about characters, I should talk about Cassian and Nesta, seeing as they did totally, undeniably become a Thing in this book. Idk how to really go about it, honestly. For the majority of the book, at least one of them was sure that the other didn't like them, or that they weren't deserving to be with the other, so that was fun. I don't particularly remember when, but at some point they both just,,, decided? to have casual sex, that it meant nothing (when it did, in fact, mean something), and it was like,,, a way of distancing themselves from the other. That is particularly the case with Nesta, who felt guilty for constantly pushing Cassian away at basically every turn. Apparently her attention was caught on him from like,,, the first time that she even saw him, way back when she and Elain were still human, in their cottage. She didn't love him or anything, but it was a Notice.

Despite that Notice, she still pushed him away, as I said, because she just didn't feel like she was good enough. Over the course of the book, Nesta quickly became ashamed of the life she had been living since being put in the Cauldron, which was all the drinking and sex (and that's it? Like, a lot of people in this book made it out to be this whole thing but I think that's basically all she did. Part of me feels like the main reason the Inner Court was so bothered by it in the first place was that she was billing it to them, who really wouldn't even notice the money spent anyway, given how much money they seem to have but whatever), and this was another thing that caused her to push away. (And then violently yo-yo back it was incredible) She also has been harboring a fuck ton of guilt over her father's death, which I think was something I worried about after reading ACOFAS? Idk, but it wasn't terrible. She acknowledged that she couldn't really do anything, that it was all over before she could move, but the main reason she felt so horrible about it, was because all this time, since her mother's death (and kinda before it?), she had been mean towards her father, constantly snubbing him, acting with disdain, etc., but during the war (in ACOWAR, it's so helpfully acronymed), he came to help with a fleet of ships, and the one he was on, he named after her. It showed that, despite all that she had said and done to him for all these years, he still loved her, and she felt that she didn't deserve that.

She felt guilty about what had happened to Elain, and felt angry that she wasn't able to do more. Her relationship with Elain kinda soured at a point, because it went from Elain being the withdrawn, sallow, underfed and distant one, to her being that, except with Elain, she would just sit in a chair in an empty room and wallow in her own misery, whereas Nesta used other aforementioned ways to try to forget. Throughout a lot of this book, Nesta and Elain are at each other's throats, and they did, apparently, make up, but I don't know when. For how much of the book is spent about them being at odds with each other, there's an odd lack of them actually making up with each other and settling all that. It's weird.

As a whole though, the center of Nesta's issues stem from the fact that she feels helpless. As she put it, all these things happened to her, she didn't do anything about it. She didn't (in most cases, couldn't) do anything to get herself out of those situations. She felt she lacked agency, in essence. I believe that is mostly why she acted the way she did, because then she could control how others felt about her. The other reason why she acted the way she did, is that her mother trained her to do so.

When her family was still rich (and their mother was still alive), Nesta was trained to be absolutely vicious in the ballroom. She knew how to win people over with small gestures or expressions, and how to read people with a glance. She also knew how to dance, ridiculously well it seems. There is a point in the story when, to make sure that Eris, a member of the Autumn Court that they had been using for information, was still friendly with them, she was chosen to dance with him, to make sure that the Night Court was still in his favor. So, she danced with him. By the end of it, Eris apparently wanted to marry her, and you can fucking imagine how pissed Cassian was about that (I do think that at this point in the book, Nesta and Cassian were most assuredly a Thing, whether either of them acknowledged it or not), but the whole point of it was to show that Nesta was really in tune with music, and that she knows exactly how to meddle in the politics to win in her favor.

Her mother raised Elain to be a perfect princess, to be married off to someone with lots of money. Her mother raised Nesta to be powerful (but, from Nesta's own thoughts, she remembers asking her mother if she was going to marry a person the same way Elain was, but her mother didn't respond). As for Feyre, Nesta says that their mother seemed to mostly forget or avoid Feyre, because she wasn't quite right or something. I'm not sure.

There is a little thing where Nesta thinks of herself as a caged beast stuffed in a pretty dress, because she remembers that she's always had to restrain herself to make sure that nothing went wrong. When her mental health declines, it is equated to wolves encroaching her space, snarling her doubts and fears, and how she used to deafen them using people or alcohol. It wasn't ever enough, but it's what she did.

One thing that did help with the wolves was something she learned from Gwyn, called Mind Stilling (cough cough it's just meditation cough wheeze), a practice used by an extinct group of female warriors called Valkyries. (Yup, just like the Old Norse Valkyries.) Throughout this book, Nesta, Gwyn, and another Illyrian woman named Emerie (along with a few others but they basically only are present in theory) all trained with Cassian (and Azriel, he showed up later on, just in case Maas thought you forgot about him) to become the new Valkyries. It turns out that Cassian knew of them, I think most of the Inner Court knew them or at least knew of them (which is what happens when you're over five hundred fucking years old jfc) before they died in battle. There are a couple portions of this book that are mostly just training montages, with added notes of "it would have taken forever to build muscles as a human, but being Fae meant that Nesta could get stronger much faster", just in case you thought that 3 training montages was a lil too fast.

All this training does culminate into something by the end of the book, almost literally. I feel like a lot of this book is just watching Cassian and Nesta bounce off one another (in more ways than one lmao), and then Maas at some point realized, "Oh shit I have to actually make these things mean something!" and so the payoff for all the training, so to speak, and Feyre's pregnancy are both resolved by the end of the book, just barely.

The training thing is resolved by Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta (in that order, it was specified that Nesta took like, three days after Emerie and Gwyn to complete her training because she was so busy probably staring at Cassian and thinking about... stuff. That's basically what both of them were doing for a healthy portion of this 700+ page tome) cutting a white silk ribbon that was tied up to a pole. I guess the idea was that if they are able to cut a piece of ribbon fluttering in the wind, they have mastery over themselves and their weapons. Personally, I get it. Ribbons are evasive as fuck and will gain enough sentience to move away from you just enough so you can't grab them. I know for certain that I would not be able to do this.

Now, I've mentioned Emerie a few times now, who is she? During the three or so days at the Illyrian camp, Nesta comes to know an Illyrian woman named Emerie. She's a shopkeeper in the village, and she likes keeping her store neat. Her family doesn't like that she owns the shop, and wants it to be carried over to one of her relatives. One of the times that Nesta visits her, one of Emerie's cousins is there, spewing stupid nonsense about how she can't run a store on her own. (He ends up dying, in case you were wondering.) She seems like a pretty interesting character, and she and Nesta bond over their shared interests in books, and that they've both been through some shit. In Emerie's case, her wings were clipped, so she can't fly. It is(or was?) a practice that was(is?) pretty common in Illyrian society, because clearly no one wants the wamen flyin around, who else is gonna do the cookin and cleanin and child rearin? Emerie ends up joining Nesta and Gwyn in training, with her main motivation similar to Nesta's: that she never wants to feel or be powerless again.

I've talked about the training a few times now, and I've mentioned how it led to something, without saying what it leads to, so I'll say it here: it leads to the Blood Rite, which is an Illyrian coming-of-age sorta thing, where the participants (typically the male Illyrians, like I said they just can't have the wamen beating them at anything it'd hurt their wittle egos) are put in this forest and they are tasked to scale a mountain (at least one) within a week, and fight off any monsters trying to eat them, or opponents trying to beat them. It's pretty common for people to die in these.

Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie landed themselves in this Blood Rite by being kidnapped, that's apparently how the participants are put in the Rite. There was something unusual about this one, however, in that someone (I think it turned out to be someone under the control of Briallyn) planted weapons all over the forest, which isn't allowed. Something that also isn't allowed in the Rite is magic, so the magic that Nesta has become accustomed to and now has a decent relationship with, is gone. Cool.

In the process of getting up the mountain, Gwyn nearly dies, she got shot in the leg by an arrow, and Emerie nearly drowns in a river. Nesta nearly gets stabbed by Emerie's cousin, the same guy who showed up in her shop that one time, but then he gets killed. Woohoo, violence!

Right as Nesta is fighting with Emerie's cousin, Cassian shows up, which is surprising because he wouldn't normally be able to be there: if outside forces help a participant get through the Blood Rite, it is then considered invalid, and both the participant and the outside person are promptly killed (Woohoo, violence!). Turns out that he's under the control of Briallyn, who shows up as well. She orders Cassian to kill Nesta (because of course), and rather than stab her, he stabs himself. This is when the un-aliving thing happens that I mentioned earlier. Nesta was so caught up in the rage and stress of being in the Rite, then the sheer fury of what was going on, and it was an instance of her mind going, "I will not let this happen to me" and so she slammed the "undo" button on Briallyn's existence. (Woohoo, violence!) All is well though, because apparently Cassian did not, in fact, stab himself.

All is not well though, because as this whole thing ends, Feyre's pregnancy issues begin. I won't go over in detail because I've already talked about it earlier, but basically she went into labor way too early, and things have only gotten worse. She's bleeding out, everyone is certain that she will die. And thanks to the fact that, in ACOWAR, Feyre and Rice Hand made a vow that, if one dies, the other will, there's also the risk that Rice Hand will die, and since the baby is so premature, so will the baby. So there are three lives at risk, and no one knows what the fuck to do about any of it.

Except Nesta. Well, she doesn't really know what to do, but she's trying something. She takes the items of the "Dread Trove" (remember those?) and she uses them to pause time, right before death (kinda like pausing right before your Sim's death to save your game), and pleads with the powers in the objects and within herself, to show her how to save Feyre and the baby, and she will give her powers back to the Cauldron from which she took them. The powers are basically like "k lol", and she saves Feyre and the baby (his name is Nyx, which is just,,, it's so fantasy fiction omfg), and she tells Cassian later that she also altered her fucking body so that it can carry an Illyrian baby. Has she, at literally any point in the series, let alone this book, ever even thought she wanted a child? Nope, but everyone gotta have babies. (I get that people change their minds, and Nesta seems to have a fuck ton of time ahead of her to think about it, but idk it just kinda came up out of nowhere. How about beginning research into situations like that and maybe learn how to safely perform a c-section, in this case, so that future situations don't turn out as they seem to have previously. Nesta fixing her own body won't affect the who-knows-how-many other people who might get into this situation. Then again, it's not on her to solve everyone's problems,,, idk man)

Rrrrighttt at the end of the book, it mentions that Cassian and Nesta are going to have a mating ceremony, which for all intents and purposes, might as well be a wedding they talk about it like a wedding some of the practices and traditions are reminiscent of a wedding, it's a wedding. But for some reason, they don't actually have the ceremony in this book, even though I imagine Maas could've totally done it. What's another few pages in a 700+ page book, right? So I imagine that the ceremony might come up again in the next book, because Something is going to happen then. I have no idea what that Something is going to be, but that's my guess.

I don't think I have many issues with this book in particular, it's more with just the series as a whole. I just have a lot of questions with this series, and I got even more questions from this book. Most of my questions circulate around the powers of the characters within the Inner Court, such as how does literally everyone's powers work?? Throughout this book, it kept referring to Cassian's magic, that he wears a bunch of thingies (they're called Siphons but they'll always be thingies to me) to contain that magic, but it never actually says what his magic is. As far as I can tell, there are like,, idk how to describe it but like kinda threads?? of magic, I guess, that come from his Siphons, but other than that it's just that he,,, punch? He fight good? I really don't know. From what I can gather, his abilities could stem from his life rather than any magic he has. (I think that could actually be more interesting, him not having any magic, and kinda lend another reason as to why so many fucking people in this book shit on him for being the way he is. They all throw "Prince of Bastards" or some similar title at him, as if he's the only bastard to have ever existed in Prythian like, bad guys, please come up with more insults. Call him a shithead or something like be creative I'm really not feeling it)

With Nesta, it also does a poor job of explaining her magic, it's just repeated that it's old, it's ancient, it's from another time, a time before the Fae, a time long forgotten, but like, bro, what is it. I guess I'll never know. Elain's power, which also stems from the Cauldron, is barely mentioned in this book, aside from them saying that it's either gone away, or gone dormant, so she's treated as though she has no powers (that is, whenever she actually shows up in the book. Elain is just,,, rarely in the series. What is she doing at any given time the world may never know).

I don't really think that Maas understands how many stairs 10,000 stairs would be. I don't think she gets how long 500 years would be, and what you would even be doing for the majority of that time. I don't think she has a scale for how much power she has flung at her characters, to the point of it all being nonsensical. Everyone has so much power, we're told that Rice Hand has a ridiculous amount of power, somehow Feyre has double his power, but Amren had even more power, but Nesta has even more power than that and it's just,,, can I please have a frame of reference because I simply do not understand. I don't think she even has much of an explanation for the powers she has given her characters, and two examples I can immediately think of are Mor and Azriel. Mor's powers have simply been stated as "truth", but have we ever seen her use that power? What the fuck does that even mean, does she have a freakin lasso of truth or some shit like I don't understand. Then with Azriel, he got some kind of shadow magic thing going on, but like even within the story, the characters don't seem to understand how it works. Even the people that have known Azriel basically their entire lives (Rice Hand and Cassian) don't understand it. So how the fuck am I suppose to understand?

I'm just going to end it here because jfc this thing is so long, it's 10 pages long in Google Docs, and I heavily doubt anyone is going to read this far. If you have, much thanks! To clarify, I do like the series (to some extent) I just,, I have a lot of questions. So many, I couldn't fit them in here because they didn't really have any answers in the books (any of them, as far as I'm aware). Idk. How do people write conclusions? It's beyond me. Agh, anyway, thanks for reading this.

#i write so much sometimes like where do these words come from #i didn't even know i thought about this series that much #but yeah this thing is wayyyy too long for goodreads but i didn't want it all to go to waste so i'm putting it here #also on goodreads but it's painfully shortened on there #it's tragic #wait lmao how do you tag these books i've never done it before #acotar #a court of silver flames #acosf #feyre archeron #nesta archeron #elain archeron #rhysand #cassian #azriel #gywn berdara #emerie acosf #acosf spoilers #long post

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ihearthorror · 3 years

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My Top 10 Favourite Horror Films of 2020

Every January, most people who review or talk about movies on YouTube tend to piece together a Top 10 list of their favourite movies from the year prior. In order to stand out from the crowd (and also because I was too lazy to do this sooner), I decided to wait until March, by which time most YouTubers aren’t really talking about movies from 2020 anymore.

I know what you’re thinking: sounds kinda stupid – why would anybody care about a Top 10 list of the best movies of 2020…THREE months into the new year!? Well, as you’ve likely heard, 2020 was a year like no other, and as result of the ongoing global pandemic, movie release dates from 2020 were pushed back months, sometimes multiple times. Some films that were supposed to be released last year didn’t arrive until 2021, even though they’re officially considered “2020 films,” according to their profiles on websites like IMBD and Letterboxd.

And so, some of these so-called “2020 films” were not available (at least to me) until only recently, such as Saint Maud or The Dark and the Wicked. I feel like I’ve now had a chance to see almost all of the horror films I’ve wanted to see from last year. In this video, if you care to stick around, I will share with you my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. So, here we go…

#10/ The Dark and the Wicked:

A sister and brother return to the family homestead where their father is slowly dying and their mother is understandably distraught but also disturbed and distant. The siblings soon realize that something evil has invaded their family home as they are terrorized by whatever is slowly killing their father. Directed by the same guy behind 2008’s The Strangers, The Dark and the Wicked is at times bleak and unsettling, and it does a good job at keeping you intrigued in this family’s unnerving conflict. However, it felt a bit rushed and undeveloped at other times, and its ending left me somewhat unsatisfied.

#9/ Relic:

Soon after Kay and her daughter Sam return to their remote family home following the disappearance of the family matriarch, the widowed Edna, they discover that something sinister has taken hold of both Edna and the house itself. Although Relic – which was co-produced by Jake Gyllenhaal and marked the feature directorial debut for Natalie Erika James – isn’t exactly offering up any enticing twists or salacious gore, or even a original concept for that matter, it relies on evoking dread and building tension to compel its audience to stay invested until the bitter end.

#8/ Amulet:

Taking its sweet time to unravel, Amulet is centered around Tomaz, an ex-soldier who is now homeless but is offered a place to stay at a decaying house in London, which is inhabited by a beautiful young woman named Magda and her dying mother. As the story moves along, we see that Tomaz is starting to develop feelings for Magda, who seems a bit…off. His feelings for her don’t wane even after Tomaz discovers that there’s something insidious going on in the attic of the house, where Magda’s mother is seemingly imprisoned. Toss in a suspicious nun and you’ve got yourself a creepy little film that seems to have fallen between the cracks.

#7/ The Beach House:

One might argue that not a lot actually happens in The Beach House and that the payoff isn’t worth the investment, but if you go into this film with an open mind and zero expectations, you should at least be satisfied. Two troubled college students head to a deserted beach getaway to spend some time together, but end up struggling to survive alongside some unexpected guests as a mysterious infection disrupts their holiday. Although it is a slow build up to the film’s climax, it is a tense and intriguing ride along the way, as a series of unsettling events give way to an apocalyptic episode that feels almost like a throwback to the sci-fi films of the 1950s. Making his feature film directorial debut, Jeffrey A. Brown elicits with The Beach House those brooding existential thoughts that lay dormant in the deep boroughs of our minds.

#6/ The Invisible Man:

There’s always an elevated risk when making a modern film based on an old story that has already been told through cinema numerous times before. The last time H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel The Invisible Man had been adapted by Hollywood was in 2000’s Hollow Man, which was panned by critics despite making a sizeable profit. The 2020 adaptation is far superior and is perhaps the best adaptation of Wells’ classic in any medium. Elizabeth Moss gives a stellar performance that draws real emotion, so that we agonize alongside her as she is essentially haunted by a relentless ghost hellbent on controlling every aspect of her life. We live in an era when technology has advanced enough to bring this 124-year-old story to life like never before, while a polished script and an exceptional lead performance gives The Invisible Man a deeper level of emotion and terror.

#5/ Saint Maud:

For most of Saint Maud it is unclear whether certain experiences are actually happening in reality for the main character or if it’s all simply in her head, as some sort of mental breakdown caused by a work-related tragedy. Maud is a young hospice nurse and a newly-converted Roman Catholic who suddenly becomes obsessed with “saving the soul” of the woman she is currently taking care of, Amanda, a hedonistic dancer with a chronic illness. Maud’s behaviour worsens, as does her mental state, as horrific scenes and visions make us question if she’s actually losing her mind or experiencing something beyond this world. Saint Maud is an A24 feature by the way, so that should be enough to know what you’re getting here in terms of quality.

#4/ The Lodge:

Isolation is often embraced as a way to pad a horror film’s fear factor, and it works especially here in The Lodge, as a soon-to-be stepmom becomes stranded at a remote holiday home in the middle of winter with her fiance’s two children. The kids begin to untangle the dark past of their stepmom-to-be and a series of disturbing events transpire as their hope for survival fades. The Lodge is a dreary, atmospheric slow burn that leaves you somewhat unsettled. With its wintry backdrop, stylish sequences, and almost claustrophobic dread, the film doesn’t ever allow its audience to feel at ease for long, insisting that an underlying foreboding remain intact throughout. Although I found the ending somewhat disappointing, I immediately began to concoct a possible prequel that would delve into the backstory of the film’s lead character. One can hope.

#3/ Host:

It’s increasingly difficult to be innovative and original when it comes to horror films these days, especially in the particular genre of so-called “found footage.” Rob Savage’s Host, however, comes off as something different, setting itself apart from most films in this realm in various ways. It centers around six friends who hold a séance via Zoom during a COVID lockdown, guided (at first) by a medium they hired. The séance then takes a dark turn and things soon escalate into madness. Sure, there are elements in Host that are prevalent in numerous horror films, but it uses a modern and topical way to implement them, while also refusing to overstay its welcome by cueing the credits less than an hour in. Overall, this film’s popcorn-and-Saturday-night-movie fun factor is why it ranks so high on this list.

#2/ Possessor:

It’s always a treat to come across an original idea, especially when it’s within the horror realm, and Possessor is certainly unlike anything else I’ve seen in awhile. Andrea Riseborough plays an elite corporate assassin who uses brain-implant technology to take control over other people’s bodies in order to kill high profile targets, though with every mission she gets further and further away from her true self. With her latest possession, she becomes trapped in the mind of a man who threatens to obliterate her for good. It is a provocative vision by director-writer Brandon Cronenberg, who just so happens to be the son of legendary Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, and it serves as a disturbing piece of dystopian fiction that is even more frightening because it isn’t too far beyond belief.

And because everyone else is doing it, here are five honorable mentions that narrowly missed the list:

- The Call

- Color Out of Space

- Don’t Listen

- The Mortuary Collection

- Porno

#1/ His House:

In addition to its emotional storytelling and genuine moments of terror, His House – from first-time director Remi Weekes – sheds a light on the plight of refugees in a way that feels both respectful and empathetic. After a Sudanese couple make a harrowing escape from their war-torn homeland, they are granted asylum in England, where they struggle to adjust and fit in. They are assigned a shabby house on the outskirts of London, where the couple begin to experience terrifying and unexplainable events. His House is built around a fresh concept, two fantastic leads, and some truly haunting imagery, and I wish that more horror directors would put as much effort into quality filmmaking as Weekes did here. If this is his first venture into feature filmmaking, I am excited to see what his future has in store.

There you have it, my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. What did you think and were any of these titles on your own Top 10 list? Please tell me your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below.

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tr4shmouth-tozi3r · 5 years

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‘you have no idea how much I’ve missed you’ - richie tozier x reader

requested: yes and you didn’t say whether you wanted an adult!richie or not so I decided a teen!richie reuniting with reader would be super cute, cause he’s just so adorable as a teen🥺

summary: Ever since that fateful summer that you and your friends had spent fighting a sinister demon disguised as a killer clown, you had always felt super uneasy about your hometown. The more time you could spend outside of that place, the more at peace your mind had become. You started spending every summer after that in California, visiting your grandparents. It helped, but god it devastated Richie to see you leave for 2 and a half long months out of the year. It was 2 and a half months he had to spend without you, missing you, wishing you were still there. He always welcomed you back dramatically, as if he hadn’t seen you in years and you loved how adorable your boyfriend was. You had no idea it was actually hurting him to be away from you. It’s been 3 summers since everything happened so it was your 3rd summer at your grandparents, but this summer when you come home, you realize just how much he really missed you while you were gone.

pairing: richie tozier x reader

warnings: fluff, swearing, a bit of angst I guess.

The excitement coursing through your body was something unexplainable. You dreaded coming back to this place at the end of the summer now, but the people you were anxiously waiting to see made it all worth it. You had made a little family outside of your family and you loved them with all your heart, but after the events that took place in the summer of 89’ it slowly took a toll on you. You were pushing 17 and your depression and anxiety had slowly deepened over the passed few years.

You loved your friends; your little family. You loved your real family, too, but Pennywise left a nasty scar and the trauma never quite cleared up. You had already had some issues with depression around the time that you encountered Pennywise, but after what he put you and your friends through, you had gotten worse. The anxiety came after and the rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Only one person out of everyone was the complete and true source of your happiness. Everyone in your life made you happy, but Richie made you happy and made you forget everything when you were with him. He took you away from your own scary thoughts and soothed you like something you hadn’t felt in years.

He was your nepenthe.

Nepenthe—(noun) An ancient greek word defined as a medicine for sorrow. It is a place, person or thing, which can aid in forgetting your pain and suffering.

He made you forget when you were wrapped up in his arms and he was doing his ridiculously corny British accent, spewing cheesy pick-up lines at you and also muttering some very sexual things in your ear, making you blush every time he did. He loved to tease you and get you bothered. You saw nothing but big, brown orbs magnified by the thick-rimmed spectacles on his face and a shit eating grin sprawled across his features. You felt like the piece of you that you lost was somewhere inside of Richie and whenever you were with him he was filling that empty part of you again. You loved him and he definitely loved you, too.

When you started to need your time away, he had protested profusely, telling you there was a better way to cope and to deal with everything, a way that wouldn’t mean leaving him for two and half months. You loved how much he wanted you to stay, but you knew you needed time away from Derry. He hated that you were right and eventually he gave up and accepted that you needed to do what you felt was best. He tried to support you as much as he could and he’d never admit it, but goddamn did it hurt to let you go for that long. He knew you would always come back, but it didn’t hurt any less. He could barely enjoy his summers anymore without you by his side. Now it was him who felt empty.

You smiled to yourself as the car came to a halt outside of your house. Your friends were all gathered outside on your lawn, holding a sloppily made sign that read ‘Welcome Home, y/n!’. You smiled wider than ever. Being away from the people you loved most for two and a half months did start to get to you. You missed those hot summer days at the quarry listening to the boys bicker about who would jump first while you and Bev laughed at them and their nervousness, pushing them out of the way and interlocking hands as you jumped together. As many times as you’d done it, Richie would always blurt out his usual string of profanities and yap on and on about how there was no way he was letting a couple of badass girls show him up. He always was the third to jump. There was only one summer that all 8 of you had spent together, but you missed it.

With your happy thoughts came the scary and unforgettable thoughts and they always lurked not far behind. You hated that.

“y/n!” Beverly screamed as she engulfed you into a huge hug, twirling around on the sidewalk as you clung to her.

“Bev, I’ve missed you!” She set you down and smiled at you. Your eyes shot up to the rest of your friends who were greeting you eagerly and you noticed Richie sitting up on your porch steps. He stood up as he saw you, a soft and unreadable expression on his face. You let your eyes settle on him as you told your friends you needed a minute to talk to him. They all nodded and let you go.

“Hey, stranger.” You looped your thumbs through the belt loops of your jeans and smiled down at him, but your face fell when he looked up at you, tears welling in his eyes.

“God, I must look like an idiot, fuck..” His hand shot up and underneath his glasses, pressing into the corners of his eyes and trying to let the built up tears pass unnoticed, but you had seen them and he knew. He sniffled and laughed bitter sweetly, “I’m sorry, usually this is how I say goodbye, you know, tears and all that sappy shit. I don’t know what it is,” His eyes danced across your face, “I just.. fuck, I’ve just missed you so much and you’re back and I’m so happy. I’m so happy I’m crying, what in the hell are you doing to me, woman?” He took his glasses off and tucked them over the collar of his shirt. You felt tears sting the corner of your eyes as well and his tears started to fall at the sight of you crying.

“Richie..” You smiled at him, your hand cupping his face and your thumb brushing his tears away, “God you make it so hard to leave and now you make it so hard to stay in a way. Are we gonna cry like this every time I come home? I think my heart might explode from the sweetness if we do.” You giggled and he laughed slightly, trying to stop the tears that were coming, but he couldn’t.

It just felt so unreal to him, every time you left he felt like you were gone for two years, twenty years, an eternity. He felt like he was seeing you for the first time in decades, like you had to travel to him from the other side of the world on foot and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see you again. But he knew he would and he hated how ridiculous he seemed for feeling how he did, but he couldn’t help it. You can never help it when you’re in love.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” He spoke through his tears and he leaned into you, sobbing into your chest and looking up at you to kiss you in a frenzy, his hands running along your arms and your back and down to your waist. You were finally back home and finally back in his arms and holy shit did it feel good. He felt his heart soar as he came undone and savored you even though you’d just come home. It all came and went too fast, lately. Before he knew it, you’d be saying your goodbyes again and he dreaded the thought.

He wished so badly that he could keep you wrapped up in his arms forever and never let you go, but nothing was ever that easy.

You felt yourself melt into his touch and your lips moved against his just as quickly. You never knew Richie’s feelings about your summer trips were this intense. You didn’t realize that maybe you were his peace and when you would leave, he didn’t have that peace for a long two and half months out of the year now.

Your tears and his tears mingled together as your faces touched and slid passed you and his lips and the saltiness hit your tongue and you didn’t care. The kiss was sloppy and needy and he was telling you how much he’d missed you, but with his mouth. You felt like you were flying, like no one else was there but you and Richie. You understood and you didn’t care if he could be overdramatic. You finally understood that what you find in California at your grandparents, Richie finds in you.

“I love you, I missed your lips.” You breathed against his mouth after you both had pulled apart for air.

“I love you more and I missed all of you, sweetcheeks.” He let his lips ghost over yours for a moment before pressing them against yours again, but this time it was slow and loving and he wanted you to feel how much he loved you, “Just wait until tonight when I stay over. We aren’t sleeping.” He let his hot breath hit your cheek as he whispered in your ear and squeezed your hips in each of his hands.

You threw your head back and laughed, feeling the heat rise into your cheeks, “You’re lucky there’s still a few days left of summer, wouldn’t want you sending me back to school exhausted, now would we?” You teased back and he smirked at you.

“God must really exist, because there’s no way in hell you didn’t come straight from the heaven gates, I swear. I prayed for someone like you to come along and fuck, I never thought it would work, but look where we are? I got my angel.” He placed kisses along your jawline as he spoke half-jokingly to you.

“Richie Tozier, you are such a cornball.” You laughed loudly as he swooped you up in his arms and started running down your porch steps.

“Yes, but you love it!” He screamed proudly before he suddenly realized he hadn’t put his glasses back on and he was totally running across your lawn with you thrown over his shoulder and no sight.

You felt your butt hit the ground below you and you looked down to see Richie face first in the dirt and you and you friends all laughed in unison.

“Rich, careful, you’re supposed to throw her onto the bed, not the lawn.” Bev joked and Richie’s face went red. He was definitely embarrassed.

It was in this moment, you realized how much Richie Tozier really missed you for the two and half months you’d been gone again. He wrapped his arm around you as he buried his face into your leg and he stayed there sprawled out on the lawn for a second. And it was in this moment that you realized he didn’t just miss you, he needed you. You were his peace.

I don’t know what this was, I feel like I had a specific destination when I started this earlier but it ended up somewhere else and it was sssSUpERRRR SAPPY AND FLUFFY AND UGHHH

It was also a bit short sorry lol I hope you all enjoyed it(:

#finn wolfhard #richie tozier #finnie #personal requests #requests #character x reader #imagines #it imagine #richie tozier x reader #it chp 1 #it chapter one #it chapter one imagine #fluffy richie is so overwhelming i caNT #richie it #richie #richie x reader

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killherfreakout · 5 years

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tessellate

an Elu AU where Lucas has a crush on his best friend Eliott, and he finds comfort in the stars. [ao3]

CHAPTER ONE: I tripped over the moon about you

a/n: *potential tw: anxiety attack (during oct 10 - dimanche) stay safe!

Lucas loves Eliott. There’s no doubt about that. He loves Eliott because he is a great friend, his best friend even (Yann doesn’t have to know). The two have known each other since they were young teens; they met when Lucas was 13 and Eliott 14. Although their friendship is of only a few years, it feels as if they have spent a lifetime at each other’s side - like they were destined to be close in their past lives and future ones, too.

OCT 1 - VENDREDI 21:33

It’s the second week of autumn and the air feels crisp, almost cold enough to make their breath visible. Lucas and his friends are at a house party like most Friday nights. He is outside on the porch of a classmate’s house leaning against a post supporting the roof above their heads.

“There you are,” says a voice from the tall boy coming through the patio door.

“Here I am,” Lucas replies, corners of his mouth involuntarily turning up in the presence of Eliott. He hands his friend the joint he’s holding after taking a hit himself.

Eliott raises his eyebrows in a thank you gesture, locking eyes with Lucas as he brings the rolled paper to his lips.

Lucas’ knees weaken at the sight, flicking his gaze down to the space between Eliott’s lips. He watches as they close around the joint then part until a cloud obstructs his view.

He takes it back from Eliott, pinching the paper between his thumb and forefinger and repeats the action. He thinks it’s the closest he will ever be to knowing what Eliott’s lips feel like on his. Wait, why would he think about that? He must be more drunk and/or higher than he thought.

“Lucas, you coming?” Yann yells from across the backyard, where his friends seem to have traveled to sometime after Eliott arrived. One could tell him ten years had passed and he’d believe it.

He spots Arthur and Basile setting up a game of beer pong he promised to participate in earlier that night. It breaks him out of his trance and he nods in Yann’s direction, signaling to Eliott he has to go.

Arthur and Basile somehow beat Yann and Lucas in a best-of-three match. The losing team were ordered to bring snacks from the kitchen, so Yann and Lucas made their way inside.

In their journey Lucas gets roped into hanging out with Chloé, the first year he has been kind of seeing the past two weeks. ‘Seeing’ meaning flirting with and kissing for the first time last Friday.

Lucas has always been good with girls, he knows exactly what to do to get their attention and have them wrapped around his finger in no time. But he isn’t a player by any means; he just tends to lose interest and lets them down easy before things get too serious.

Lucas is busy talking up the brunette in the kitchen when he sees Eliott walk in the patio door. He’s laughing at one of his friend’s jokes, taking a swig of his drink and almost spitting out its contents from laughing. Lucas is so focused on the sweet sound of his laughter filling the house and Eliott’s crinkled eyes in the glow of the party lights that he realizes he missed everything Chloé just said. His stomach fills with an uneasy feeling he can’t quite explain and immediately swallows the guilt that follows. Here he was being distracted by his friend and not paying attention to the pretty girl right in front of his face.

This is not the first time Lucas has felt this uneasiness in his stomach regarding Eliott. They have been friends for years and tell each other everything; Lucas feels most comfortable and most like himself when Eliott is around. But those unexplainable moments still occur every once in a while.

The first time he felt like this was when the first and second year classes went on a trip to the coast for a beach clean up project. They were on a charter bus to go back to Paris after a long day of walking the shore under the spring sun. He promised Eliott they would sit next to each other since Yann wanted Lucas to sit by him on the way there. When they got on the bus and walked to their seats toward the back, their hands brushed as Lucas’ arm swung back and Eliott’s swung forward. And then not even ten minutes later, Eliott was asleep on his shoulder for the entire three-hour ride home. The look on Eliott’s face as he woke up to the bus coming to a halt is what made his stomach flip. Lucas laid in bed that night trying to understand why he felt like that, all to no avail.

That moment on the bus flashed back in his mind when he was trying to regain focus on Chloé making advances on him. He shakes the memory out of his mind, blaming it on the alcohol and weed he’s consumed tonight, and uses every fiber of his being to give his full attention to Chloé. He looks at her from over the brim of his cup of cheap beer, her green eyes sparkling under the soft orange light of the kitchen. Lucas leans in closer to hear her better because now people are chanting and shouting at someone doing a kegstand in the living room.

Lucas set his now empty cup on the counter and downs his third shot of the night before coming close to her ear to ask, “Do you want to go somewhere.. not as.. loud?”

The girl’s lips perk up in a blushing smile as she nods. Lucas takes her hand and she follows him down the hallway to one of the empty guest rooms.

Once inside the room, Lucas makes the first move to put his lips on hers. Chloé brings up her hands to clasp them around Lucas’ neck and he proceeds to kiss her deeper. She starts to plant soft kisses on his cheek then his jaw then one on his neck before Lucas pulls away to shrug his hoodie off. This is how it’s supposed to go, right? She continues down his neck as Lucas begins to unbutton the flowery blouse she has on.

He’s on the last button when the door bursts open. It’s another handsy couple wanting to do exactly what he and Chloé are doing; there’s a guy backpedaling into the room with a girl attached to his lips. Chloé comes up for air from Lucas’ neck to see who dares to interrupt them right now.

Lucas clears his throat and wipes the leftover lip gloss off his lips when the couple stops kissing to look at them. The intruding girl blushes and the guy turns around and - oh shit. It’s Eliott, of all people, with his hair even messier than usual (if that is even possible) and his lips bright red and puffy.

Fuck. Not again. A familiar but uncomfortable feeling strikes again - Lucas’ stomach flips for the second or third time that night and he lets out a shaky breath. Eliott turns away from the girl, who he thinks is named Marie, and looks at Lucas’ hoodie on the floor then at Chloé clutching her blouse shut. He smirks at Lucas as if to say, atta boy, Luc. It’s unnerving and Lucas doesn’t like it one bit.

Lucas backs away from Chloé and swallows, everyone standing there looking at each other in an awkward silence. Lucas picks up his hoodie and heads straight out of the house.

The following realization hits him at the same time the crisp autumn air does: he is relieved that his makeout session with Chloé was cut short, and he wishes he was the one attached to Eliott’s lips barging into the supposedly empty room.

OCT 2 - SAMEDI 10:04

Lucas wakes up with a headache the next morning as the events of last night come rushing back. Lip gloss, shots, hoodie, door, and.. Eliott. Eliott’s laugh. Eliott’s lips letting out the smoke. Eliott’s red and puffy lips. Eliott smirking when he sees him with Chloé. Eliott’s lips, again. Fuck.

He turns over in his bed to grab his phone and, as expected, there are a million texts in the gang group chat from last night.

Lucas rolls his eyes and types out a reply that is only half true.

Lucas contemplates the right way to tell them, no because I don’t actually like girls and I might have a crush on my friend who is a guy haha. So he settles on:

OCT 4 - LUNDI 08:20

Lucas is chatting with the guys in the courtyard at school when he sees Eliott for the first time since the guest room incident.

“Salut,” Eliott greets the whole group then turns to Lucas, “why did you leave so suddenly on Friday? That girl seemed kinda pissed that you left,” he laughs humorlessly at the last part.

Yann and Arthur look at Lucas quizzically, wondering the same thing. Lucas has a constant stomach ache, but this time he knows what it is: anxiety and nerves.

“Oh, I uh..” was jealous of the girl you were making out with, “Felt sick and needed some fresh air. Then I just went home,” Lucas answers, internally cursing at himself. The statement was also half true.

“Oh okay,” he pauses, “Marie was glad you left though,” Eliott nudges.

The nudge from Eliott cuts deeper than Lucas expected. The bell rings and everyone goes their separate ways to class.

15:11

Lucas remembers he made plans with Eliott to study for French Lit when he walks out of his last class. He dreads it, both studying and being alone with Eliott.

He walks to the library where he said they would meet and sees Eliott waiting for him at a table reading his notes, his fingers grazing his bottom lip like he always does when he’s focused or nervous. Lucas exhales deeply and pulls out a chair across from him, a bright smile blooms on Eliott’s face as he looks up. Shit. The pit in his stomach stays the entire afternoon he studies with Eliott.

It subsides when Eliott comes back from the restroom and he notices Lucas gave up on actually studying.

“What are you reading?” Eliott asks as he takes the empty seat across from Lucas.

“Oh, um, just early astronomical theories. Like, before gravity was discovered and they still thought the Earth was the center of the solar system. It’s actually really interesting--” Lucas replies with a smile that is almost audible before he stops.

“You know what, nevermind. It’s stupid. Yann and Arthur basically fall asleep whenever I even start to talk about it,” he adds with a sad smile, tucking his head down.

“Hey,” Eliott says firmly, reaching across the table to rest a hand on his. “If you like it, it’s not stupid.”

Lucas looks up to see Eliott’s gaze fixed on Lucas, burning its way through his skin. He’s never had anyone look at him with such intensity and such care. Lucas hardly ever feels like anyone notices or takes any interest in what he cares about or likes. Sure, he has the gang and the girls, but all of their conversations seem to revolve around who is hooking up with who and when the next party is.

But with Eliott he feels like more than a default option, more than second or third best. It’s comforting and fucking terrifying at the same time.

“I guess,” Lucas shrugs, shifting his hand out of Eliott’s grasp to pick up the book laying flat on the table. “Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with my fascination with the universe,” flicking his eyes back at Eliott for a moment.

“Whatever you say,” Eliott indulges him.

The ping that comes from Eliott’s phone pops the bubble they occupy.

“Shit, I totally forgot, Sofiane wanted me to help him with this fundraiser for the youth center. But text me if you want to hang and talk about the universe some more.”

Lucas looks up to Eliott standing with his backpack on one shoulder, which would normally make him feel small, but he doesn’t.

“Okay, I will,” chuckles Lucas before turning back to the book that sparked the conversation.

“See you tomorrow, Luc,” Eliott says over his shoulder as he walks to the bus stop.

“Yeah, bye, Eli..ott,” Lucas says, the last part a little too quiet and a little too late. After the events of Friday night, Lucas feels like he is not allowed to use that nickname, feels like he lost the privilege to say it or something.

OCT 5 - MARDI 14:17

Lucas spots Eliott down the hall talking to one of his teachers and Eliott smiles at him. Lucas is looking right at him but doesn’t do anything to respond and looks away. He looks back at Eliott to see him looking at the floor, a little upset. Shit. Why didn’t he just smile back? He’s still his best friend, why is he acting so weird? Lucas kicks himself and that stomach ache is back.

OCT 7 - JEUDI 11:46

Lucas manages to get through the past two days without seeing Eliott at school and, to be honest, he is a bit relieved. He knows that he will just act weird whenever he’s around Eliott again so he’s glad he didn’t have to make it weirder between them.

He couldn’t avoid Chloé though. The universe couldn’t afford him such a luxury; not like they ever do. Chloé taps Lucas’ shoulder, forcing him to turn around and look at her, the sparkle in her eyes missing.

“Hey, Lucas, it’s been a while..” Chloé starts, trying to give him a chance to explain himself for leaving her on Friday, blouse open and all.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I felt sick that night and I’ve been super busy with the bac and stuff,” he explains, and it works, seeing as her face brightened up. He knew the bac thing would work, Chloé is in the year below and has that to look forward to next year.

“Oh, that’s okay.. So, do you want to see a movie this weekend or something? There’s this film festival they hold every October on Saturday and I hear it’s really cool,” Chloé suggests excitedly.

The words come out of his mouth before he can think, “Sure, sounds great.”

“Awesome! I’ll see you then,” Chloé adds, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before leaving him in the hallway.

OCT 8 - VENDREDI 14:42

Lucas makes his way over to the bus stop and can’t wait to just chill at the coloc after the week he’s had. So much has happened and so much has changed in the last seven days. From constant nauseousness, a new girlfriend, and, oh yeah, having feelings for a guy, who happens to be his best friend. On top of that, Lucas hasn’t even hung out with the gang since last Friday and a few days at lunch.

His stomach starts to grumble because he skipped lunch to help Daphné and the girls with the foyer. On his way to the bus stop, Lucas decides to get a snack from the vending machine outside.

He thought he could skate by without another uncomfortable situation, but the universe had other plans. Eliott is standing in front of the vending machine, putting coins in and pushing buttons to get his snack. Eliott turns around to sit on the bench near the curb when he bumps into Lucas.

“Sorry,” Eliott exclaims before realizing who he has collided with. A small smile graced his lips.

It’s like he read Lucas’ mind, Eliott sits and hands him one of the chocolate bars he just purchased, almost as a peace offering - for the collision and for the unspoken weirdness between them lately.

Lucas accepts the chocolate and joins him on the bench. They tear open their bars and start to chew them in silence until Eliott asks what he’s been wanting to for a week now.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been distant and quiet lately.”

Lucas can feel Eliott’s worried and kind eyes on him, waiting for an answer. He makes up another excuse for his behavior, which seems to be second nature these days.

“Yeah I’ve been busy with studying for the bac while trying to find a part time job to pick up the rent that my dad isn’t paying. And I haven’t visited my mom in a while...”

Everything Lucas is saying is true, but it’s not the explanation Eliott is looking for nor the one that actually answers his question.

Eliott finishes the chocolate bar and turns to face Lucas. He gives him a half smile, his eyes warm and understanding. It makes Lucas feel at ease for the first time in a week, like he finally has his friend back.

“If you ever need help with anything you know you can just ask, Luc. That’s what friends are for,” Eliott offers along with an elbow to Lucas’ side, his eyes bright now but still just as warm.

Luc. How can one syllable make his stomach turn? The guilt from before comes rushing back, undeserving of such a nickname.

If the universe got one thing right, it’s putting Eliott into his life. He has been nothing but sweet and kind, a constant support system in his life when his mother and father couldn’t be. It boggles his mind how lucky he is to have a friend like Eliott but how unlucky he is to have fallen for him. Lucas feels so much gratitude for Eliott’s friendship and support but can’t help feeling guilty for not taking him up on it. What is he supposed to do, ask Eliott for advice on how to go about coming to terms with having a crush on him?

The bus pulls up to the curb and Lucas is so lost in thought that Eliott has to grab his arm to get him to hop on the bus.

OCT 9 - SAMEDI 15:49

Chloé is wearing a pink dress and the same lip gloss from the party last week. Lucas kisses her quickly and takes her hand as they walk into the huge theatre. Chloé takes a program with the list of films and cast and crew in it, then points to one of the names and decides that is the movie they should see. They sit in the plush red chairs and the lights go down as they settle into their seats, Chloé’s hand still in his.

They are halfway through the movie when Lucas gets up to go to the bathroom. He just can’t keep up the cute romantic act that Chloé wants from him anymore and needs to get out of that packed theatre. Lucas goes to the restroom and feels better instantly, it’s quiet and the air is cooler there. He washes his hands and uses the paper towel to get the sticky lip gloss off of his mouth and cheek where Chloé kissed him randomly during the opening credits.

So much for giving her another shot. Lucas really thought that he could go out with Chloé again and see how cute and beautiful and kind she is, to have those romantic and sexual feelings he knows he should have for her. Lucas looks at himself in the mirror, pressing his lips together in a flat line. He doesn’t know who he is, how to act, or what to do anymore. What happened to the guy that was confident and smooth, what happened to the guy his friends would look to for girl advice, what happened to the Luc who was always Eli’s best friend? Not this again. But this time there’s no stomach ache, no butterflies, nothing. He just feels empty. Like there’s just nothing left of him.

Finally, after what seems to be the longest hour of his life, the lights come up and the credits roll as Chloé turns to him to talk about the ending. Lucas wasn’t paying that much attention to the plot so he doesn’t know what to say, but luckily she’s doing most of the talking anyway. A couple are coming up the aisle to exit the theatre and his heart drops. It’s Eliott, holding hands with another guy.

What is he doing here? Oh, duh, he’s into film and art and it actually makes sense that Eliott would be here. But what is he doing here, with that guy? Who is this guy? And why is he holding hands with Eliott?

Lucas knows full well that Eliott is pansexual and fully supports him. He’s knows Eliott has been with guys before, but he’s never been in a committed relationship with a guy.

And what happened to Marie? If he’s not with Marie anymore, then does that mean the guest room incident was for nothing? Eliott barging in with Marie, that is. Or, maybe, the whole Lucas realizing he has a crush on him thing.

Seeing Eliott holding hands with a guy makes it even worse. A surge of envy courses through his body and he doesn’t know how to handle it.

Lucas doesn’t think, just leans forward to capture Chloé’s lips with his and doesn’t let them go. He opens his eyes after a few seconds to see Eliott look his way, then shuts them again, in a far too passionate kiss for being in public, to avoid seeing Eliott’s reaction.

Chloé is dumbfounded, but pleasantly surprised and blushing hard when Lucas pulls away. He takes her hand and they walk out of the theatre, feeling so shitty for what he just did. Why did he do that? To prove something to Eliott? To Chloé? To himself?

Of course, the universe is up to their usual scheme; Eliott and his date are chatting in the lobby with one of the program directors in front of a booth for a film school. Lucas can’t help but smile slightly at the fact that Eliott looks so happy to be talking about film school and wishes he could share this moment with him. It has always been one of Eliott’s dreams to make a film.

Chloé says something but Lucas doesn’t hear. Eliott looks around the room and locks eyes with Lucas again, the latter averting his gaze after a minute. The stomach ache is back with a vengeance.

“How about some gelato? I saw a place on my way over here,” Chloé suggests, and kisses Lucas as they exit the festival.

OCT 10 - DIMANCHE 17:23

It’s a lazy Sunday at the coloc, Manon and Lisa are watching TV on the couch and Mika is laying on the floor on his phone. Lucas gets up from the chair in the living room to get a glass of water when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Shit. The last time Lucas studied for French was almost a week ago, with Eliott. Eliott. He feels guilty for shutting him out this past week, especially after the bus stop the other day.

Before Lucas could reply, another text pops up and it looks like the universe is packing another punch on this fine Sunday afternoon. He walks into his room before opening it.

Next time. If Lucas has to go on another date with Chloé he will actually explode. What excuse could he come up with now? He used to be so good at finessing himself out of too many dates to make sure it doesn’t become anything more than a casual fling. But this isn’t a fling anymore, it’s completely fake, a cover up. He’s using Chloé, and for what? Lucas is not personally getting anything out of it, other than a lot of guilt and anger. And protecting his reputation. Fuck his reputation, he can’t handle this anymore. But how the fuck is he supposed to go about doing this? Tell her that he doesn’t like her, or any girl for that matter? Tell the guys that all of his moves to win over girls were an act? Tell Eliott how he feels?

He can’t. It’s all too overwhelming, too scary, too risky. What if Chloé doesn’t take it well? What if his friends don’t want to be around him anymore? What if Eliott doesn’t? What if Eliott hates him? He can’t lose Eliott as a friend. He can’t lose Eliott.

The thought of it forces a full-on anxiety attack. Lucas doesn’t register the fact that he’s crying until a tear falls onto his phone screen with the message from Chloé still open. He tosses his phone aside and climbs into bed and just lets it all out.

Lucas hears commotion in the living room, reminding him of the presence of his roommates, and makes half a mind to silent his sobs only to realize that he physically can’t. So he keeps crying and hopes that his roommates leave him alone, he’s just too embarrassed and too afraid to explain why he’s reduced to tears.

The universe spares him that, at least. It would just be brutal if they didn’t.

OCT 13 - MERCREDI 13:55

The gang decides to go to the library after school to cram for the French Literature test they have in two days, and Lucas needs all the help he can get. Imane and Emma join them later, and Lucas gets some tutoring out of Imane. She’s awfully nice to him today and he’s a little suspicious about it. Turns out Manon did hear him sobbing last night and it’s also written all over his face, exhausted and lifeless.

The library seems to be the place to be today. Chloé walks by the boys’ table and Lucas hears her friends whisper and giggle, pushing her towards Lucas. Chloé blushes and stands over Lucas still sitting at the table.

“Hi babe,” she greets him and lowers herself to accept a kiss she expects from Lucas. He indulges her, an awkward second later. She tries to brush off the fact that Lucas didn’t reply to her text and that he didn’t seem all that happy kiss her.

“So, I was thinking.. our next date should be like a romantic walk in the park, or something like that, you know, to talk and spend more time together.”

“Yeah, okay,” Lucas responds unenthusiastically. At this point, he has absolutely no interest in keeping this going any longer. He thinks it will just be easier for her to break things off instead of him.

“How about Friday night?”

“Sure.”

Chloé walks away with her posse, quietly cheering for her. Lucas feels exhausted just thinking about that date. Maybe she won’t be so quick to break things off.

OCT 15 - VENDREDI 11:41

Lucas’ biology class just got out and he stops at his locker for one last look at his French notes before going in for the exam. He tries to read as much as he can in the four minutes he has before one of the biggest exams of the year when he gets a text. He wouldn’t have opened it if not for the screen being right next to his notes and noticing who the message is from.

Lucas smiles like an idiot looking at his phone and laughs at the stupid and charming hedgehog meme. Then warmth spreads in his chest at the message that follows.

The usual is code for joints and beers at Eliott’s, and it’s amazing how he can anticipate exactly what Lucas wants and needs without fail.

The bell is about to ring, so Lucas ditches his phone in his locker and heads to the exam. Turns out the messages from Eliott helped more than a few minutes of cramming ever could.

14:55

Lucas sees his best friend sitting at the bus stop and waits a moment before joining him. He takes a second to take in the way Eliott’s ears are pinkish-reddish from sitting out in the cold, the way his brows are slightly furrowed as he focuses on reading something on his phone, the small black ink stain on the denim covering his right knee, his exposed ankles.

His heart flutters and feels blood rushing to his cheeks. But he’ll blame it on the same weather that colored the ears under Eliott’s perfectly messy hair.

Lucas takes a deep breath and slumps down on the cold bench next to the other boy.

“So? Did you ace it?” Eliott asks eagerly, turning to hand him the chocolate bar he was promised.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I aced it, but I think I did okay,” Lucas gives him an open-mouthed smile. “Because I had the hedgehog cheering me on.”

Eliott lets out a laugh, bright and loud, bigger than the one at the house party a few weeks ago. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and Lucas can’t believe that he’s the one who brought it out. Lucas laughs with him and swears his heart grows two sizes larger.

19:38

The feeling stays with him all night at Eliott’s. The two boys shared a joint and a few beers each before Eliott wants to take Lucas somewhere. They end up walking down a couple blocks to a secluded area with a park behind a locked gate. It’s dark and cold, but Lucas doesn’t care. Okay, maybe he’s a little scared, and maybe that’s why he stays close to Eliott’s side as they go deeper into the woods.

Eliott leads him down a path to a tunnel under a bridge. They lay down on the hard earth and look up at the night sky. It’s the first time in a long time that Lucas feels completely at ease - no stomach ache, no intrusive thoughts clouding his mind, just at ease.

“This is my place. It’s the best place to look at the stars in all of Paris, the city lights and pollution don’t interfere as much here,” Eliott says, soft and warm, the opposite of the ground they’re laying on.

Eliott reaches into his jacket pocket and fishes out his phone with headphones attached. Lucas watches his face illuminated by his phone’s light and takes the right earbud Eliott offers him. They listen to a song in comfortable silence until something comes to Lucas’ mind.

“You know, when you look at the stars, you’re actually looking into the past,” Lucas blurts out. “The stars are so far away that the light we see is from, like, a million light years ago. And we’ll never know whether the star has died and become a supernova or if its light is just beginning to reach us.”

He’s quiet for a while, until he continues: “It’s crazy, right? And almost a bit sad, I think.” A pause. “I mean, it’s like an author or artist whose works aren’t appreciated until after they’re dead.”

Eliott opens his mouth to respond, but doesn’t.

Lucas only realizes after how somber his words were, and how he had ruined such a perfect atmosphere with Eliott. His heart sinks and wishes he never said anything.

But, like clockwork, Eliott saves the day.

He shrugs and counters with, “I don’t know... But that’s one way of looking at it.”

Lucas turns his head to face Eliott now, but the latter doesn’t remove his gaze from the maybe-dead stars shining above them. He is stunned by the ease that his friend has coming up with the perfect words to resolve any misstep caused by Lucas. He can almost see the cogs turning in Eliott’s head as he strings those perfect words together, a skill he wishes he could possess.

“Well, the way I figure it, it’s comforting. I mean, with the millions of light years between us and the stars.. Even if we can’t see them, you know they’re still out there,” Eliott adds softly, like it’s a secret you have to be in on to hear.

Lucas subconsciously notes the change between the use of we and you in Eliott’s words and takes in the way his eyes are sparkling from the stars they speak of.

“And yeah, you don’t know when the light is coming, but you know that it will come eventually.”

These words linger in the safe bubble they share before Eliott says firmly, “It always does.”

#i have been working on this for so long!!!#please enjoy and tell me what u think 💞#tessellate fic #elu fic #elu au #my writing #skam france #skamfr #elu #lucas x eliott #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury #skam fr fic #fic

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cheddar-the-dog · 5 years

Text

tell me again (about how it hurts)

read on ao3

it’s Rosa’s first thanksgiving after coming out to her parents - it’s very angst loaded and centers mostly on Rosa’s journey of it all. written for the fall fic exchange on tumblr for @exploding-snapple: I chose the prompt “Rosa's first Thanksgiving with her family (including her two sisters and their kids) since coming out“ and combined it with Rosa’s and Amy’s friendship because they’re the sleuth sisters!Thank you to @b99fandomevents for organizing the Fall Fic Exchange! You’re doing great! And thank you to @meepmorpperaltiago @enigmatic-b1tch @b99peraltiago and @darkrosemind for being so patient with me and my insecurities.

Now that we have that out of the way:

I really hope you enjoy it!

“Coming out feels like you have no space to rest but everything around you is a bed. It is to watch your loved ones mistake the flowers on your tongue for high-power blades. And nothing you say will make the cuts heal faster but saying nothing, saying nothing will mean the cut stays a cut. Bloodstains the shape of mouths that will spell acceptance only as long as it is another’s daughter. My coming out was an apology repeating itself endlessly until it found out there was no forgiveness.” - Swastika Jajoo

When you got the text from your sister, asking if you’re going to be coming home this weekend for Thanksgiving you froze. For a second there, you stopped breathing and tried to push down the anxiety that rose at the thought of having to go back home. It made you sick but so did it from the first year you moved out. (Ever since you can remember really.)

[[MORE]]

Returning home for Thanksgiving always goes something along the lines of: all your family there and everyone is asking you if you found a good guy yet. Seeing your sisters happily married with their husbands and all their children prancing about. Viewing the whole house as their playground, running around without a sorrow on their mind. Without care or concern for the world around them. And then there’s always been you: alone, different, isolated, alien. Always feeling out of place in the house, in a world, that once had been your playground.

You shuddered at the thought of returning home after what had happened only a few months prior: the restaurant and the shouting, family game night, more shouting (and shouting and shouting and shouting), your father coming to your work to apologize, your mother--

And once upon-a-time-family-game-nights.

And god, the tears. Tears over tears over tears. Your mother’s words burning hot like acid on your skin. A constant reminder that maybe you truly are unloved. That maybe you don’t deserve the love of your family after all.

You always dreaded any family gathering for that matter. The thought of having to hide who you are in front of the people that were supposed to know you since the beginning of time was just-- your family never talked much about anything anyway but this, this always felt different. In an unexplainable gut wrenching way. It makes you sick to your stomach.

And in that moment you just wanted to throw your phone against the wall, scream and hide and cry (no, you don’t cry) and get drunk on tequila by yourself, then get on your motorbike and drive until there’s nowhere to go anymore. Maybe, you thought, you’d discover the end of the world. Maybe you’d just find happiness. Maybe you’d finally find peace. (Maybe you’d cry silent tears when no one else would be around for miles and miles. And maybe your tears wouldn’t be as silent as you made it out in your head. Maybe you’d scream all the pain away.)

You came out to your sisters just after you did to your parents. Since you got out of prison, after being wrongly convicted, it was your thing to meet at least once a month at your older sister’s home to catch up. Your sisters’ thing anyway. They started doing it years and years back.

You remember how anxious you were to introduce them to Alicia, still not ready to do it on your own. To sit across your family and let them in on your deepest, darkest secret. You relive how the anxiety rose at the thought of telling them: “I’m bi and this my girlfriend” and when you did just that you instantly felt like running and running and hiding and cutting off contact with everyone and vanishing from the face of the earth. You recall Alicia’s soft fingertips on the back of your hand, softly caressing it in circular motions. Remember the warm embrace of your older sister, how you were pulled close by her and how the pad of a thumb softly wiped a tear away from your cheek. How you were embraced by the familiar smell of being safe.

Sometimes you still regret being such a closed off person but it had always been easier this way.

“There’s no need to cry, Rosalita”, she’d said “it’s okay. It’s all okay”, followed by the confession that their mother already called to tell them and that they got into a fight over it because it was not their mother’s place to go around and tell everyone about your life.

Followed by another hug.

Followed by the admission that you had already come out to her when you were sixteen and had to be picked up from a house party for the first time. You had been drunk and crying all the way home and when you were asked why there were tears streaming down your face all you could say and repeat was “I’m bi and I know it’s wrong but I don’t know how to stop it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” before throwing up on your front lawn and then passing out as soon as you got into your bed.

Your face had gone red instantly because you remembered that night vividly: sneaking off and getting drunk out of your mind because you realized you fell for your best friend. Hard. Her luscious blonde hair and red lips. Her smile. The way she carried herself. You later on found out that she was falling for you as well. But then you graduated and moved to different parts of the country and calling daily became calling once a week became texting became silence. And you remember waking up in your own bed. And then there was the fact that your sister had known for twenty years. And yet never told anyone.

At least you had them on your side.

Your other sister had just been sitting there, observing the scene that was unfolding in front of her. She, too, smiled but she, too, wasn’t as good as dealing with emotions as your older sister.

But them not hating you was enough for you.

You got pulled out of your thoughts by a second text, subsequently realizing that you still hadn’t answered the first one yet.

Por supuesto, tu pareja también está invitada. Además, mamá y papá vienen. Espero que sepas que está bien si aún no estás listo para verla. Sé que ha sido difícil para los dos. Solo sé que ella te quiere mucho. Y yo también. Estoy aquí por ti, hermana. Siempre. (Of course your significant other is invited as well. Also, Mom and Dad are coming. I hope that you know that it’s okay if you're not ready to see her yet. I know it’s been hard for the both of you. Just know that she loves you very much. And so do I. I'm here for you, sister. Forever.)

This time, you answered.

I’ll be there.

And then there was the fact that Amy invited herself to join.

(It definitely didn’t happen like this:

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“I’m-- Okay im going to be honest. If you say something I am going to kill you. I have at least three different weapons on me right now. Not counting the work-issued gun. Understood?”

Amy just nodded, smiling.

“I’m going to my parents’ house. And everyone’s going to be there and it’s my first year since coming out and - I can’t believe I’m going to say this - do you want to come? I know that you’re not going home this year. Or to Jake’s. Of course you don’t have to if-“

“No! Of course I’m gonna come. It’ll be great. I can finally learn about high school you Diaz. Maybe I’ll finally find out about the pink hair situa-“

“Okay no. I changed my mind. You can’t come.”

Amy just shrugged, grinning. “Too late. I’m coming and there’s nothing you can do about it.”)

(Secretly, you are more than thankful for Amy tagging along. It seems dumb to you but you still aren’t ready to face your family alone. And now you have all your sisters on your side.)

That’s how you find yourself in the position you are in right now: sitting in the passenger seat of Amy’s car, riddled with anxiety, seemingly not able to muster up the courage to open the car door. Because once that door is open there’s no going back. If you are looking at all of this realistically you know that your family knows you’re here. They must have spotted you by now.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on your hand and when you look up you’re met with Amy’s brown eyes and an encouraging smile. “Do you want to leave? We can leave right now if you want to”, she asks, her voice laced with sincerity and concern.

You contemplate it for a second but then shake your head. “Just-- one more minute.”

Thankfully, Amy doesn’t question you and you resume staring at the door handle in silence. Then, you hear the drivers’ door open, feel the weight of the car shift and hear the drivers’ door close again. And then your side opens and Amy is holding out her hand to you. “Come on. You-- we can do this. I’m right by your side and we can leave at any second, no follow up questions.”

Inhaling deeply, you take your friend’s hand and get pulled out of the vehicle. Instantly, all you want is to return back into the safety of the car. And while one door closes behind you, the front door of your childhood home opens up.

You hear the old wooden door creak open and you hope it’s your mother waiting to greet you like she did every day after school. When the smell of freshly cooked food would greet you from all the way down the street and nothing had been broken (yet). When everything seemed to be more alright. When there were secrets standing in between you. When you thought of your mother’s love as something unconditional, unbreakable but deep down knew that this was just part of your imagination because otherwise you would’ve told her.

You gulp at the realization.

Instead of your mother a boy of maybe thirteen years of age comes barreling towards you.

“Tía Rosa!”, he shouts excitedly before almost crashing into you. You let go of Amy’s hand just in time to catch the boy. “I thought you wouldn’t come. I’ve been waiting all day for you!”

And for the first time since you woke up that day, you smile. “Alex! I’m here now aren’t I?”

“I have so much to tell you-“, he starts rambling while pulling you inside the house, Amy follows closely behind.

Once inside, you are immediately embraced by your father’s strong arms. “I missed you, mija”, he admits and then turns to Amy: “Good to see you again, Amy”, before briefly hugging her as well, directing the next sentences to both of you: “You don’t have to help in the kitchen, come and sit with us in the living room”, while already walking into the general direction of it.

That makes you stop dead in your tracks. “I always help in the kitchen. Why am I not supposed to now?” you observe Oscar freezing in his spot but he doesn’t give you an answer.

And you know it’s because it’s your mother doesn’t want to see you. And the feeling if ‘I shouldn’t have come’ creeps up your throat. You want to scream at him and at her but instead you calmly ask: “Is it because Mamí is in there and she doesn’t want me to help?”

You still don’t get an answer.

“It is, isn’t it?”

Oscar slowly turns around, face in agony. He runs his right hand through his hair. “Listen mija, she still-- hasn’t figured it out. And it’s not that she doesn’t want you in there it’s just--“

“- that she doesn’t want me there. Or here, I suppose. Great. I understand”, you complete his sentence after a few seconds of silence. You turn to Amy. “This was a bad idea. We should go.” You then proceed to walk back to the front door, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay. You’re not going to cry here. In front of your father. In front of everybody.

In that moment the kitchen door opens and your older sister steps out. Her head is still turned to the kitchen as she finishes the conversation. “- I know! I’ll be right back!” And when she turns, her eyes are met with yours.

“Ro-Ro!”, she exclaims smiling and it sets something off in you and you feel the tears starting to stream down your face. Your older sister hurries to you to embrace you and you hide your face in her sweater.. “No need to cry”, she jokes and then leans in and whispers “you wanna go outside?”

You nod, face still buried in your sister’s neck.

She then turns to Amy, smiling. “You must be Amy. Would you mind helping in the kitchen?”

You can’t help but chuckle through the tears and imagine that Amy blushes furiously. “I’m really bad in the kitchen so it would be a really bad idea. Everything I touch turns into something inedible. I might accidentally burn the house down in the process”, she explains whole your sister leads you out the door.

“You could still join us in the living room”, Oscar suggests is what you hear before the door closes behind you.

You settle down on the steps of the front porch, neither of you talking. You rest your head on your sister’s shoulder and she lightly tangles her fingers in your curls.

“I’m really glad you came”, your sister admits quietly, breaking the comfortable silence. “It’s all going to be alright someday.”

You chuckle bitterly. “Everyone seems to say that. But it really doesn’t look like it. And I’m really scared it never will be again.” Your voice breaks at the last few words. There’s tears streaming down your face again.

After about ten more minutes of silence, your sister gets up from the steps again. “I have to get back to helping. You know how Mamí is. She’ll-- She’ll come around eventually, Ro. Just give her some more time, okay?”

You nod.

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say when you know the things you are promised might just be someone saying something in the spur of the moment. And doesn’t mean it. So you don’t say anything. “Do you want me to bring Amy?”, your sister asks instead. You shake your head.

“I’ll be right in.”

As soon as the front door closes again, you are hit by another wave of sadness and tears. Before all of this happened you never knew you could cry this much in one day. You just want to be alone in your apartment and get drunk and hide under your covers in the dark and reread the text exchange between Alicia and yourself.

Alicia.

You hadn’t thought about your ex-girlfriend in days.

You miss Alicia. Miss the warmth she provided and the arms holding you tight at night when the nightmares of prison were haunting you again. Miss her smooth skin and soft melodic voice. Miss her every time you lay in the bed that now feels too big for one single person. Miss her laugh and waking up next to her. Miss how you could be your true, vulnerable self around her. Miss her

You miss Alicia and your mother. Your mother that’s no ten meters away from you but doesn’t want to see you.

And it hurts.

“Why are crying?”, Alex’s voice suddenly asks. “You’re too badass to cry.” He frowns as if he only realized in that second that he can’t quite put his finger on what exactly was wrong. You wipe the tears off your face in a hurry before being handed a tissue by your nephew.

“Well, everything feels different now,'' you admit without thinking and sigh. “Mamí isn’t talking to me and it’s weird, y’know? I’m not allowed in the kitchen and just being here feels wrong.” There’s a short period of silence, Alex waiting for you to finish. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“You should have because I wanted to see you. I missed you. We all did. Is it because of the fight you had with Grandma?”

You wonder how he knows about this and how he’s so compassionate for his thirteen years of age. How considerate he is. Your sister did a great job raising him, you think. You contemplate if telling him would be the right thing to do but the words tumble out of your mouth before you can come to a decision. “Yeah. Because I told her I am bisexual. Do you know what that means?”

To your surprise, Alex nods in understanding. “Of course I do. Mom explained it all to me when I was like nine”, he tells you as if you should have been aware of him knowing. As if he was stating the obvious. Of course he knows. His mom talked to him about it. You’re both quiet for a moment until Alex adds: “I think I am, too, actually. Bisexual, I mean.”

’Okay, cool cool cool cool cool’, you think. “When did you realize?” You hate being asked this question but it’s the only thing coming to you right now.

“Easy. I was watching Cloak & Dagger and I thought Dagger: hot. Cloak: also hot.”

You have to laugh. “Have you ever seen Saved By The Bell?”, Alex shakes his head. “We definitely have to watch it! You’ll love it.” You didn’t realize how close he’d been all of a sudden until he hugs you tightly.

“You’re the coolest, Rosa. And I’m glad you came even though Grandma isn’t talking to you. I like hanging out with you, you’re like my hero. I mean Mom knows about me maybe being bi but it’s cool to have you to talk to about it. It was cool hanging out with you before already but now it’s even cooler.”

You don’t know what to say so you pull him closer.

Hero. It leaves a bitter aftertaste of responsibility in your mouth. But it's one you’re ready to take on.

It’s quiet between you until Alex mumbles ”I don’t want Grandma to hate me, too.” And you’re pretty sure you weren’t supposed to hear this but you did.

“She doesn’t hate you”, you want to say. “She doesn’t really hate either of us. It’s just hard on her. I get that. It’s always different when it’s your own family.” But you know it’s just a lot of empty words strung together so instead you pull him even closer and say “Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. You’ll always have your mother and me though.”

He nods solemnly before asking her “Do you have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?”, and you sigh.

“I had. But we broke up last week because she got offered a place to study in London. She left yesterday morning.”

Alex just nods.

You feel the wind touch your skin harshly and you realize that neither of you wears a jacket. After observing the goosebumps for a second you suggest to head inside in a desperate attempt to change the subject. “I’m freezing!”, you add for good measure.

Alex jumps to his feet and follows you inside and you’re immediately embraced by the warmth of the house.

By now you made peace with the idea of having to spend the remainder of the evening with your dad and Amy and your sisters’ husbands and kids in the living room.

What you dont expect when you turn the corner though, is to encounter your mother in the living room, animatedly chatting away with Amy, who is surrounded by the younger children.

It’s the first time you’ve seen her since the futile game of Pictionary, where you had to explain to your parents that being bisexual is a thing because you are it. And then telling you that it’s a phase and you’ll marry a man and have grandchildren with him.

When you dare to step into the living room, everything suddenly quiets down and the tension in the room is palpable. You feel like choking the second you make eye contact with your mother and you’re aware of your heart starting to race and your palms getting sweaty.

And you can’t breathe anymore.

“Mamí”, you force out, your voice laced with pain. “Lo siento. Te extraño. Por favor perdoname.” (Mom, I’m sorry. I miss you. Please forgive me.) You don’t know what she should forgive you for because it should be the other way around, her seeking your forgiveness but all you want is to hear her speak and take you into her arms.

And make peace.

Your mother looks at you and you can clearly see the tears in her eyes. The struggle within herself is visible even across the room.

It looks like she’s trying to go over to you, struggling with herself. Then, without a word, she turns away and disappears back into the kitchen.

You still stand there, petrified in place for what feels like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds. You feel your nephew hugging you tight, feel his pain translate into your body. The ringing in your ears gets louder and you are starting to feel dizzy. And then Amy is grabbing your hand. Your father is trying to apologize to you but you can’t hear him because there’s a ringing in your ears. You can just barely make him out through the blurriness of your view.

Amy leads you to her car and you get in, woodenly, staring ahead into emptiness. You feel Amy reaching over your body to buckle you in and then she’s driving.

And then she’s not.

And then you cry.

You cry and cry and cry while your friend holds your hand and you sit in silence until you’re all cried out. She drives you home and you get drunk on various kinds of liquor together. When Amy reaches her Six-Drink-Potential you tell her about Alicia and how you miss your mother and she tells you about her struggles while you and her fiancé were in prison.

You fall asleep on the living room floor where Jake finds you the next day.

(It takes you almost six months, a particularly gory case that entails the mother of the victim which reminded you so much of the relationship you had to have with your mother and the tenacity of both your best friend and your current girlfriend respectively until you muster up the courage to call your mother and ask her to meet you at the precinct after work.

She agrees.)

#b99fandomevents #b99 2019 fall fic exchange #b99 fall fic exchange #exploding-snapple #b99 fic #rosa diaz #shit ell writes

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gazingupatthemoon · 5 years

Text

Roses Are Red, I Am Not Sharing This Bed (1/1)

Found here at ff.net or A03

Summary: There are only two things Rey likes about Valentine's Day: chocolate and her annual Valentine's Breakfast with her friends. And the only thing that going to threaten that this year is Ben Solo and his stupid desire to be the most boring person alive. Well, not if Rey has anything to say about it. (or, Ben makes Rey stay late at work and one thing leads to another and they get locked in together. Uh oh)

Rating: M

__________________________________________________________________

Rey has a love hate relationship with Valentine’s Day.

For one, she hates it because, the obvious, a day dedicated to love? Come on now. Maybe it’s because she never had anyone to share with it. Maybe. But she can’t help but feel like she’d still hate it. Hearts, and cupids, and everything drenched in red? Nonsense.

But then, there is the two aspects she can’t help but love about it. One, the chocolate. So. Much. Chocolate. It’s like Halloween all over again. She could drown in chocolate and go with a smile on her face. Two, annual Valentine’s Day Breakfast. Sure, she goes out to eat with Finn, Poe, and Rose practically every week, but this one is special. It started out with just her and Finn, years ago, when they had been two single, financially struggling youths who needed a roommate to afford the cost of living in the city. They had gotten drunk the night before the big day, lamenting on not being in relationships and also how much their jobs sucked (jobs, by the way, they still had to go to the next day). Hungover and slightly less miserable the next morning, they desperately needed greasy food in their stomachs in order to go on with the rest of the day. Maz’s Diner has never been more of a godsend.

And so it went on from there.

Finn and Rey just kept doing it, finding the tradition endearing, funny, and, most importantly, an excuse to actually do something on Valentine’s Day. But then Poe got involved. Rey loves Poe, don’t get her wrong. He and Finn had bumped into each other (quite literally) jogging in the park one day. (FYI, Finn’s jogging history lasted approximately a week before he threw in the white flag. Poe is still going strong). The rest is history. Love at first sight and all that.

So Finn actually found someone else to celebrate Valentine’s Day with. Rey had been bitter for a number of reasons (she still is sometimes when she seems them together and so in love) but she’s happy for her friend, really. But she figured annual breakfast was off the table. Finn, bless his soul, balked at the idea. “We’ll just bring Poe with us!” He had decided without any room for argument.

And then came Rose. After putting up with Plutt’s shit and barely livable salary for what seemed like an eternity, Rey quit his auto shop. Poe promptly swooped into the scene, thrusting a number into her hand for another shop across town that was apparently looking for a new hire.

“Family friends!” He winked with that charming smile of his. “Mention my name and you’re good.”

Poe usually thought too well of himself for Rey to believe getting a new job would be that easy, but she was desperate. She could afford to be unemployed maybe one whole month before things would start getting dire. Finn still lived with her but he was at Poe’s more often than not, and Rey was dreading the day he’d finally up and leave for good.

So she called, and was greeted by the voice of a chipper young woman. “Solo Mechanics! Rose here! How can I help you?”

Suffice to say, she got the job.

Han Solo was a bit old and grumpy, and seemed like he had no desire to hire anyone during her interview. But Rose berated every gruff comment that passed his lips, and pointed out everything wrong going on in the shop every time he insisted that everything was fine. Rey liked her immediately. Honestly, she liked Solo too. His demeanor seemed more a front to her than anything, and besides, she responded much better to sarcastic people in her life. Just easier conversation.

Rose and her became quick friends. Rose did a lot of the paperwork and phones for the shop, but she also worked on some projects herself. She was bright, quick with her hands, and had a profound knowledge of the more technological side of cars and machinery. So when Rose had sighed and sadly complained of being alone on Valentine’s Day, Rey didn’t think twice of inviting her to breakfast.

So yea, annual Valentine’s Day breakfast maybe one of her most favorite holiday traditions.

And no one can ruin it except, quite possibly, Ben Solo.

Rey glares pointedly down at her grease soaked hands instead of the offending man in question as he all but shouts his head off at his father.

“You’re spending too much. You’re always spending too much!”

Ben is a sight to see on a normal day. It’s quite another story when he is angry. His massive form quivers with barely restrained rage, his already dark eyes turn near black, and he emits this air of tension that a person can actually choke on. The moment he had stomped his way into the shop this morning, Rey knew it wasn’t going to be good.

Han, for his part, didn’t look too intimated. He actually rolled his eyes at his son’s tantrum. “Ben, you’re overreacting.”

"Have you seen the numbers?"

"The numbers are fine."

"Fine is not good. Fine is fine. We need to be good. Or dare I even hope to say great!"

Rey finally glanced up, if only to send Rose a meaningful look. The other girl has put a hand to her mouth to suppress a laugh in return.

This happens at least once a month.

Though Rose is aware of financial state of the shop, it's not technically her job. It's Ben's. Apparently, it had been an attempt for more father-son bonding, or something like that. Leia never really painted the whole picture to Rey, just sparse details. Ben, who was shit at mechanics (Han's words), had a history in the financial sector so it seemed like the best thing for him to do. But really, it just seems more like an excuse for them to fight than bond.

Han waved a hand in the air. "I've been living off fine my whole life."

"Yea, don't think I'm not aware how well that's been working out for the family."

Rey even flinched at Ben's callous comment. Just another story she is not intimately aware of; the Solo family dynamics. They're not perfect, but who really was? At least Rey also thought of that excuse when Ben made his not so subtle comments. Family was family. It was more than she had ever had. But there is definitely some unspoken and unexplained unrest between them all, Ben being at the center of it all. Rose had even told her once Ben had dropped out of the picture for five years before showing up again. Something about some nasty fall out and a job offer half way across the country.

So yes, Ben Solo was definitely an enigma to Rey.

A real shitty enigma highlighting as the world's biggest ass.

Who, Rey is about to find out, is going to ruin her annual Valentine's Day plans.

Ben seemed to calm down, somewhat, after his blunt comment. He breathed nosily out his nose, and got his trembling down to a simple quiver. "Look," He began through clenched teeth. "It's not just that. There are receipts missing. We have expenses that have no paperwork to back them up."

Han, for his part, seemed to deflate a little as well. "You know I've never been good with that stuff."

Ben rolled his eyes. "Dad. You can't just spend things and not document it. This is a business, albeit a shitty one."

"Watch it," Han gruffed. "Look, I'm sure they're around. We can look-"

"You're leaving in an hour for your trip," Ben reminded him, none too gently. "And Mom will leave you for the fifth time if you're late or make her miss the flight."

A Valentine's Day gift from Han to Leia, a trip to some sunny beach in Florida. Rey had helped him book it herself.

Han scratched at his head. "Shit, forgot about that. Well, when I get back-"

"I need it this week," Ben interrupted again. "Today, actually. The appointment with the tax guy is tomorrow."

"Well can't you reschedule it?"

"It's the only slot our free times coincided."

Rey was now the one to roll her eyes. Of course, Ben Solo would only be free for the foreseeable future on Valentine's Day to do taxes. The comment didn't surprise her at all.

"Well then what do you want me to, Ben?" Han snapped.

"Act like an adult for once in your life-"

"Listen, I'm your father-"

"I could count on one hand how many times you've actually acted like it-"

This was going nowhere good. Rey had seen enough of their blowups to know this. Even Rose was cringing in her seat. Han and Ben could get vicious with each other within seconds, and the collateral damage was always the worst.

"I'll do it!" Rey shouted before another vicious word is said. "I'll help look for the paperwork!"

Han's face immediately broke out in a smile, his relief palpable, but Ben's is a whole other story. Surprise, at first, but it quickly contorts into obvious annoyance. Too bad such a handsome looking face can be scrunched up so grossly.

(Not handsome Rey. Get it together)

Though Rey tries her best to avoid Ben since her time working here, it's surprisingly hard to do so. He keeps his trips to the shop minimum, and yet even then they always wind up bumping into each other. There was the time Rey got grease on his pristine white button down. When Ben had bumped his foot into her tool kit, sending everything scattering onto the floor. Rey not giving in receipts on projects she worked on in the time span Ben deems acceptable. Ben "accidentally" deleting Rey's info on the company website he maintains with Rose.

What makes it worse, though, is when they interact outside the shop.

Despite Han's initial reluctance towards Rey, he warmed up rather quickly. Which meant being invited to the house, meeting Leia, spending hours of time together outside work. It's a sense of family Rey hadn't felt since making her small one with Finn. This family, unfortunately, includes Ben Solo. Who isn't there for all the weekly dinners, but the time he is acts unbearable towards Rey.

There was the accidental dropping of a moat of gravy on Ben's lap. The ongoing saga of who sits on the loveseat (since they will not, by any means, sit next to each other or squeeze between Han or Leia on the couch). Ben conveniently not hearing Rey knock on the door or ring the bell whenever the others are outside and he's in the house. The never-ending war for Chewie's love (yea, Ben has history with the oversized dog, but Rey is definitely much sweeter on him).

Comments on her being a dirty mechanic.

Comments on him being a stuck up white collared jerk.

You get the picture.

So, Rey understands the horrid look Ben is sending her way. It's usually the way he looks at her. But for once, he could possibly be a little more appreciative. It's not like she had to volunteer her time to help fix whatever mistake Han created. She could have easily let the two kill each and walked out the door once the clock hit 5 o'clock.

A look of indifference would even be acceptable.

She doesn't feel even a smidgen of bad when she openly glared back.

Han ignored their heated starring contest. "Thanks, kid. That'd really help."

"Does she even know anything about paperwork?" Ben scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. His very large chest, Rey has noticed more than once. She wished he'd stop wearing such tight shirts. Who the hell did he think he was?

"She," Rey seethed. "Has the ability to read, thank you very much."

Ben smirked nastily. "Well, I had actually been wondering about that, but that wasn't what I had been implying. Do you know where the old man keeps them? Deciphering his nonsensical lingo? How to cross reference them with the main account-" "If you do it, it can't be that hard." God, did he think she was an idiot? Fixing cars doesn't mean you failed out of high school.

Ben doesn't fall for her easy bait. "Rose would be better."

The dismissal and rejection, in one fell swoop, has red beating beneath Rey's cheeks. She wanted to scream at Ben Solo. Hit him over the head. Watch his obnoxiously large body collapse onto the ground.

Rose scurried quickly onto the scene at the mention of her name. "I can't!" She exclaimed, not before sending an apologetic look Rey's way. "My sister Paige is visiting tonight, I have to pick her up from the airport."

Rey had forgotten the other Tico sister was coming to town. Rose had just asked last week if it was okay if she could come to their Valentine's Day breakfast.

Rey hadn't really considered Rose when she had (stupidly) volunteered her help, but something in the back of her mind had hoped the other woman wouldn't let her suffer Ben Solo's company alone.

Now she was truly screwed.

"Looks like you're stuck with Rey," Han grinned, not really sounding sorry at all. "Though I'm sure she's going to regret it more than you. Rose, mind driving an old man home so he doesn't miss his flight and get thrown out by his wife?"

"Sure! But didn't you drive today-"

"I did, but I'll leave the Falcon for you, Rey. Who knows how long you'll be here tonight."

Rey didn't own a car, but did quite well with buses and trains. But Han was always trying to wheedle free rides her way, to which Rey was grateful but didn't need the pity offers. Even if it was the Falcon, the vintage car Rey immediately fell in love with on sight.

"Han, you don't have to-"

"Kid, it's yours. Not like I need it where I'm going. Leia has us getting some damn rental. Keep it till I get back."

It's possibly the most generous offer he's ever forced on her, and Rey's throat wells with unexplainable gratitude.

"Besides," he murmured closer towards her, "See it as a thank you for dealing with my son."

The way Ben's shoulders tense makes it obvious he heard his father's words. Rey convinced herself that she doesn't feel bad. She absolutely doesn't.

Rose and Han leave with a couple more goodbyes then it's just Rey and Ben.

Alone.

"Well, might as well get this over with," Rey announced when Ben didn't make another move.

He's doing his usual brooding, looking all ominous and agitated, and starring anywhere but at her. Her words barely even seem to have an effect, for he just keeps on standing there.

Rey is about to ask if he's having a stroke when Ben sprang to life and dashed off towards Rose's desk. "Ill check here." He threw over his shoulder.

Rey rolls her eyes at his hulkish back. He wanted to keep to opposite sides of the room? Fine by her. _________________________________________________________________

Almost two hours later, Rey has nothing to prove for her hard work save three crumpled up receipts, two unfinished(?) itemized lists, and an aging piece of paper that she cannot make heads or tails of save the dollar amount of $350.00 scrawled on the bottom.

Han's handwriting truly does need its own decoding system.

It doesn't seem like Ben has done much better. Anything they find they put on Rose's desk, so Rey can't help but notice he was adding barely as much as she was.

"This is ridiculous," Ben scoffed at the second hour mark. He's using his long arms to swipe under a cabinet, but is only succeeding at collecting dust balls.

Rey could have gotten a good laugh at how grimy his nice shirt was getting, but Ben, unfortunately, had the foresight to roll up his sleeves.

(Stupid good looking body)

"How does this place even function? We haven't found half of the paperwork we need."

Rey blew out a sigh and collapsed onto a chair. "Beats me. But we've searched this place from top to bottom."

"We obviously have to look harder-"

"It's almost 7 o'clock!"

"You're the one who volunteered to stay! Now you're backing out?"

"I didn't think we'd be here till midnight!"

Ben rose up from his squatted position on the floor and fixed her with a look. "First off, sweetheart, midnight is hours away-"

Sweetheart.

Rey has heard Han say it to Leia millions of times, so the first time it had past Ben's lip aimed at her, Rey had been thrown for a loop. She remembered the red on Ben's face, because it must have equally matched her own. She had accidentally used oregano instead of basil in some sauce Leia was cooking for dinner (which, really, was not even the worst mistake that could have happened) when Ben pointed out the misstep with the offending "Sweetheart" glued to the end. They starred at each other painfully after the utterance, until Ben hastily, and nastily, made some crack about her lack of cooking AND reading skills.

So, unlike his parents, Ben did definitely not mean sweetheart in endearing way when he said it to Rey.

Rey nearly snarled. "I know how to tell the time you jackass!"

"You can read and tell time, I'm learning so much about you today," Ben drawled. "Secondly, if we don't finish this tonight, then we're back here tomorrow morning, early."

That made Rey lose her anger fueled momentum. Tomorrow morning was breakfast. Her annual Valentine's Day breakfast. She was not, repeat, not going to give that up to be trapped here again with Ben Solo.

"Absolutely not!" She protested, hopping up from her seat. "I have plans."

Ben eyes drop down to the floor. "Of course, you do," He murmured so quietly, Rey wondered if he meant for her to hear him at all.

But Rey can't worry about whatever is going on Ben Solo's head. Breakfast was at stake here. The thought made her frantic. She began to dash around the shop, pushing things to the side and squinting into dark crevices. "Fine, let's stay late. Look harder, whatever it takes-"

But Ben wasn't moving. Now he looked at tired as she felt mere moments ago. "No, maybe you're right. It's getting late."

"What? No, you never admit I'm right. C'mon, Han must have stuck them somewhere!"

"Rey, there's a very good chance the old man tossed them and they're rotting in some dump right now. Actually, I'd bet money that's just what happened. Tomorrow morning we can do a final sweep, just in case, but-"

"No!" Rey's voice exploded. It echoed loudly in the shop, a tooth grinding sound that even made Rey cringe.

Ben's mouth closed slowly, whatever other excuse he was going to say dying within, and instead he just simply stared at her. Not glared. Or grimaced. Or even pinned with cold indifference. A simple, curious stare.

It made Rey squirm.

"Is your date that important tomorrow morning?" He asked softly after another agonizing moment.

"I…" Rey steels herself for how ridiculous things is going to sound. And maybe it is stupid. How could she explain it? A dumb get together with her friends on a holiday she has no right to celebrate to begin with? Ben Solo wouldn't get it. How could he? He grew up with family, and traditions, and never having to second guess if tomorrow was the day he'd end up alone again. Sure, she's not celebrating Valentine's Day in the traditional sense with no relationship to speak of, but it's a cherished date of how she and Finn grew close, then Poe, and then Rose.

It's a yearly reminder that she not alone, that she has people who love her.

And Ben Solo would not just understand.

Tears, foolish, foolish tears, burned behind Rey's eyes. She turned quickly away from Ben, giving him nothing but the sight of her back. "Yes," She grit out. "It is."

It's silent again, and Rey can't bear to turn around and see if Ben is looking at her in that open way again. Because then she'd really break. Then she'd really have to face how childishly-desperately-she is holding onto this small thing.

"Fine," Ben said, again so softly. "Let's keep looking." _________________________________________________________________

It's 9 o'clock pm by now.

And really, there's nothing to show for it.

Rey found one more wrinkled paper, but for whatever charges Han had written down, it totaled to a meager 20 dollars.

Ben had come up with nothing else.

Somehow, the whole sticking to separate sides of the room thing ended, for Rey and Ben now sit a few feet away from each other, both on the concrete floor and shifting through shoe boxes Han had stored away in his office.

"He's a slob," Ben growled, picking out a dirty burger wrapper and starring at it as if it was diseased.

"Makes you wonder who raised you, huh?" Rey snarked, throwing a loose penny into the pile of other misplaced change.

Here's hoping she could scurry away with that later.

Ben scoffed. "No one, that's who."

Rey looked at him pointedly. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Say those things? Do you know how much it hurts them?"

Ben frowned down at his shoebox. "Why bother explaining myself to you? You've already decided how you feel about me."

"Because how you act!" Rey argued. How on Earth was he trying to make her feel guilty about this? He was an ass, therefore, she treated him as one. Was that not simple enough? "How you treat everyone around you, especially me!"

"How I treat-come on, Rey. Your mind was made up about me before we even met."

"What are you even talking about?"

_________________________________________________________________

"Ben Solo?" Rey echoed. She gently squeezed the mug of tea more tightly in her hands, enjoying the warmth seeping through her skin.

Heat has been a bitch at the apartment and the Solo's house is nice and warm.

"Leia and Han's son," Poe whispered. He shot a quick look out the window, confirming the couple in question are still outside collecting food from their garage refrigerator. "Kind of the black sheep of the family."

"Why?" Rey asked, her voice dropping as well. She's seen pictures of the so-called son, but has yet to meet the man in person. Apparently, he is coming over today and Rey is more than a bit curious.

She's only a human. She's noticed the young Solo is good looking.

"Up and left to work for some asshole out in California who was running for office. And by asshole I mean like corrupt-movie-villain asshole. Ben and his parents never got along, he was the troubled kid, you know? I was probably the closest thing to a friend he had and there were some days I couldn't stand him. So, him leaving just was the final nail in the coffin."

"Really?" Rey couldn't imagine anyone running away from their family. She'd kill for one, for Christ's sake.

"Yea. After making Han and Leia miserable for who knows how long he came back. The ass he worked for got caught for some shady shit by the feds. But even when he's back he's still a prick to them. I've seen Leia crying more than once over him."

Making Leia cry? Seriously? She was the sweetest, if not formidable, woman Rey has ever met. "Sounds like a monster."

_________________________________________________________________

Guilt licked up Rey's spine as Ben quietly retold the story.

"You…heard that?"

She racked her mind for any hint that Ben had been anywhere in the vicinity when she and Poe had that conversation. But she specifically remembered seeing him appear in the backyard, glumly greeting his parents as they made their way back from the garage.

"I came through the front door," He shrugged. His eyes were fixed on some yarn he had discovered, his large fingers absently running through the knots that had formed. "Heard you and then…just, didn't want to deal with Dameron's bullshit. So, I went back the way I came and came through the back."

Rey must look like a gaping fish. She doesn't know what to say. Sorry? A part of her feels like she owes him one, but a larger, more stubborn part denies the urge. She feels the heat under her cheeks, even an uncomfortable warmth at the back of her neck, and Rey hates that Ben Solo has done this to her. Because he's an asshole. He's always been an asshole. Maybe she slipped up, a little, but didn't he eventually prove her right about the person he is?

"Ben-" Rey finally managed to strangle out.

"Don't," He snapped. His eyes rise from the yarn to level her with a glare. "Whatever it is you're about to say, just don't."

Rey hadn't the slightest idea what she was going to say but his refusal to hear it-whatever the hell it would have been-has her angry. "What the hell is your problem?"

"I told you-"

"I never met you," She interrupted before he could go any further. "And okay, I took a friend's story at face value, because Poe is my friend, and I made a judgment. Shitty on me, I get it. But it's not like you proved him wrong!"

"I don't need to prove anything to anyone." Ben growled.

"Then why bother!" Rey exclaimed. She should shut up. End this stupid conversation and stupid quest for long gone receipts. Leave the shop, go to bed, and go to Valentine's Day breakfast. Forget Ben Solo and the way he looks when talks about his family, the way he sounds, the pain and anger, and why Rey just doesn't understand but some ridiculous lunatic part of her does and she can't just-

"You come to dinners! The shop! You work here, for Christ's sake. You continuously put yourself in the vicinity of people you supposedly hate and I just don't get-"

"Why would you?" Ben cried. He jumped up from the floor and Rey hastily followed him, intimated enough by his height when they're standing that she doesn't need to gawk up at him while sitting. "You never bothered-"

"You never gave me a chance-"

"You never gave me a chance, Rey. Monster, remember?"

"Ben, I said it was shitty of me. But it could have been overlooked or forgiven or forgotten or-"

"People my whole life expected things of me." Ben seethed but anger no longer laced tightly around his words. Now, she could see the vulnerability of his eyes, the quiver of his lip, and the pure desperation that plunged his voice into a deep tone she'd never heard pass his lips. "The son of a politician and retired solider. Uncle in the White House. I was supposed to be someone. To do great things. It was always too much to bear. It was like the only time anyone paid attention to me was when they were checking in on my grades or future aspirations. Never there for just me, though. Just Ben. So I needed to get away. Needed to be my own person. And I…I…"

Rey knows this part of the story. California. The corrupt Snoke. Whatever wonderful life Ben had imagined being destroyed within five years and sending him back home.

But Ben had stopped talking now.

"Why come back then?" Rey asked softly. Because they had gotten this far, why stop.

"Because I…Christ I…" Ben swallowed thickly. "I needed my family."

Rey's heart broke at his words. For the first time in her life, she felt the urge to hug Ben Solo. To let him nuzzle into her embrace, let the tears stuck in his eyes streak down, and whisper words of encouragement, kindness…love.

But it didn't seem like Ben wanted that. For he didn't move closer to her and Rey, too afraid herself, wouldn't risk a step either.

"You can't change the past," Ben began again, taking in a shallow breath. His hands clench at his sides, restless for something out of reach. "I know I did things wrong, but so did they. And…and it's a lost to be forgiven just like that. But they're….I'm…" He swallowed again. "Trying" He finished.

A simply word meant for all involved.

Trying.

Rey wondered if she should begin to do so to.

"Let's go," Rey sighed, tired all over again. She needed it. Ben needed it. Enough was said tonight that they'd didn't need to suffer in each other's company anymore. At least, that's what Rey figured. "This is…we're not getting anywhere."

Ben quietly nodded his head and moved past her. He retrieved his things from Rose's office and Rey did the same from her own employee locker.

They both met awkwardly at the back door.

"I'm sorry," Rey blurted out before she could think better of it. But for what, she's not sure. The failed attempt to get the receipts? Making him confess so many personnel things? Being, as usual, a thorn in his side?

Ben, as well, seemed to be as unsure to what forgiveness she was seeking. But he doesn't question her. Thankfully (or unfortunately?) he didn't. He just nodded and placed his hand on the doorknob.

Funny thing is, it doesn't turn.

_________________________________________________________________

"Rose, what the hell?"

"Oh my God, Rey, I am so, so, so, sorry!"

Ben had his arms across his chest, starring at Rey with a hint of annoyance.

Rey, on the other hand, is openly fuming. She might crush her cellphone in her fist right then and there.

"Rose, this can't-no, just no, this can't be happening. There's no way I-we-are locked in here all night and that-"

"Rey, it's a new system!"

This does, unfortunately, register in Rey's mind. They had gotten a new security set up last week when Han swore they were missing some parts. Rose was given the task, and that was really the last Rey heard of it.

"I'm always the last one at the shop!" Rose continued desperately to explain. "And typing in a code wasn't working, for some unknown reason. The stupid thing wouldn't save it! I'd always have to put a new one in! And I've been on the phone with the company ten times, I swear, and they said they were going to send someone down but they're booked the next few weeks-"

"Rose-"

"Using facial recognition just made sense-at the time. And-and I forgot today that you'd stay late-but Rey! The whole thing locks down at 8 pm. What are you still doing there?"

Rey wanted to groan aloud. So she did.

Ben raised one his eyebrows at her.

"We couldn't find what Ben wanted," Rey explained. "We didn't know this place was a ticking time bomb ready to trap us."

"I know, I'm sorry! I should have warned you regardless. Christ, I feel like crap."

"Rose, can't you just-" But Rey knew the answer before she could even finish.

There isn't any airport in their town. The closest one was a three hour drive. It's why Han and Rose needed to leave so quickly today. Rose had specifically gotten a hotel room for the night knowing once she picked up Paige it would be too late to drive back.

They were stuck.

"Rey, I'm sorry. We're leaving bright and early tomorrow-"

"I know, I know."

It was a small consolation, knowing at least she wouldn't miss breakfast. Rose had said she was heading straight there once she and her sister made it back in town.

"Rey-"

"Rose, it's…fine. We'll just make do."

Make do.

All night.

In a locked auto shop alone with Ben Solo.

Fantastic.

_________________________________________________________________

"What are you doing?"

Rey had made camp on the shop's ancient couch, something apparently older than Han itself. But it was soft, if not a bit smelly, and its patches made it all the more endearing to Rey. Worn and loved, as all things should be.

And she was definitely claiming it before Ben's monstrous form could.

There was the paper-thin mattress with lumps the size of rocks in the back Han usually slept on when Leia kicked him out (which, fingers crossed, hadn't happened for a good year).

But instead, he had disappeared into Han's office while Rey got comfortable, only to come back with a large bottle of brown liquid.

"Whiskey," he simply said.

Rey scrunched her nose. "You're going to drink?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Because-" Well, she supposed there wasn't really a good reason not to. It would certainly make the time go faster and sleep come quicker. Make this whole nightmare just come to a much-needed end.

During her silence, Ben had the audacity to plop down beside her on the couch. The furniture groaned a bit and Rey squawked in indignation.

"I am not sitting on the floor," He proclaimed and opened up the bottle.

"You are so-"

"Be nice or I won't share."

Well, he had her there.

_________________________________________________________________

Ben hadn't bothered with glasses, so the two are taking turns swigging down the whiskey.

Rey coughed each time.

Ben barely hides a smirk each time she does.

"What's California like?" She asked after another embarrassing sputter.

Ben tensed beside her.

"I mean," Rey's tongue felt immediately thick. "I wasn't asking to be rude. I-uh, I'm just curious. I've never been. It's looks…" Beautiful, she had wanted to say. But her tongue felt too twisted to get it out. She took another swig before handing the bottle over.

Ben relaxed, somewhat, but still eyed her a bit warily. "It's overrated."

"Really?" It seemed like a ridiculous notion. "But the beaches-"

"If you hadn't noticed by the color of my skin, I'm not much one for sun."

"But…all that blue!" Rey continued to argue. "It must be something!" Endless seas, bright skies, the smell of fresh air, and vibrant colors that seem too good to truly exist. How could anyone ever deny such an image?

Ben wiped at his mouth after a long sip. "It's something all right. It was a place to escape, not some pipe dream I had since childhood. I would have run to Alaska had it been an option. Hell, even out of the country but I had sat on my ass getting a passport."

A sour Ben Solo dressed in all black on a beach in California had Rey shaking and coughing up loud, broken laughs. "Only you would willingly run away to somewhere that would make you miserable."

Earlier, that might have caused another fight between them. But now, even Ben couldn't hold back a soft smile.

"I liked my apartment." He added shyly, catching a noiseless moment between two of her googling noises. "It was quiet. And mine. The first thing I really got for myself."

Rey calmed herself down to regard him and the soft, genuine admission. Eventually, she found herself retuning his smile. "That seems nice. That's going to be me soon."

Ben looked at her questioningly.

"Well, he hasn't out right said it, but Finn will be moving out soon. He and Poe have been together, for like, ever and he can't want to be strapped with me for much longer."

"You don't sound too happy."

"I am!" Rey argued but she knew how she sounded. Weak. Fake. Barely holding it together. The alcohol was stripping away her attuned ability to hide behind a mask. "I mean, I am-I'm happy Finn and Poe have each other. I don't wish that away."

"But?"

"But…" Rey sighed, her head falling back onto the muddy couch. When the dark colors of the ceiling began to swirl, she closed her eyes. "I'll be alone, again. I guess I should be used to it."

Ben was silent beside her.

"I-I just thought. I don't know, it was stupid whatever I thought. That Finn was going to stay with me forever? That's ridiculous. I know that. I do. But now-now that it's actually here…and happening and I-I…"

Her throat dried and shrank, and Rey could barely continue to speak let alone breath.

"He's moving out of your apartment, not your life." Ben whispered close to her ear. "It's going to be okay, Rey."

"I know, I swear-"

"Do you? It's okay to break down. To let it all out. A lesson I wished I learned a little earlier."

"Ben," Rey laughed and turned to face him. Oh, was he close. He must have shifted during her little tantrum, his leg now brushing her own and his breath blowing softly onto her cheeks. The shop's aging lamps cast their faces in a dark glow, an eerie yellow with just a tinge of green, but Rey could see just see how deeply brown his eyes were now. How they seemed to smolder as they stared down at her. Too burn.

She stared, suddenly forgetting whatever it is she was going to say. "I…" Her tongue darted out, sliding against her dry bottom lip.

Ben's eyes dropped down to it, following the motion slowly.

"I'll be fine," She finally whispered out. Her voice felt as dry as the rest of her. "I will."

His eyes slowly crawled back up her face, reuniting with her gaze. "You have more than Finn, you know."

Rey should have looked away or put some distance between them. They were drinking, and alone, and this was bound to end up nowhere good. But those eyes. She couldn't look away from them. And the way he was speaking to her, so hushed, so intensely.

Ben took her silence as reluctance.

"You're not alone." He repeated again, louder and firmer.

The small increase of volume had her straightening up, ever so slightly. If anything, the movement only made her slide closer to Ben. Their shoulders pressed against each other now.

Rey whispered back, "Neither are you."

And this was it. The moment they would kiss. She'd seen the movies. Read the books. Hell, she had her own fair share of in real life moments. Stories being shared. Voices hushed. Faces angled. Liquid bravery coursed through their veins and all Ben needed to do was lean his head down just a bit closer.

But it's not what happened.

An indecipherable look crossed Ben's features and before Rey could even process what it was, he was pulling away. The couch groaned, seemingly just as pissed as Rey, as he rose up, all but running away from her and towards the back of the shop.

"I need to use the bathroom," He called over his shoulder.

The door slammed shut behind him.

"What the fuck?" Rey hissed into empty room.

Because what the fuck?

It's her own fault, she supposed.

What was she thinking, Ben Solo wanted to kiss?

Sure, they had climbed over some walls tonight. Bared some parts of their souls and connected in a way they never really had the chance too since meeting each other.

But that didn't erase the past. Hadn't that been what Ben said? Maybe they could forge some kind of friendship after tonight, but it wasn't like a shared bottle of whiskey and some whispered confessions was going to speed them past go and straight to kissing.

It was only four-five-six(?) hours ago they hated each other.

Rey rationalized all of this as she sat alone on the couch. The now very, very empty couch without a certain man's hulking presence. But that didn't stop her from continuing to chug down the bottle. Or quell down any of her anger. Or have the sting of rejection lessen.

Because now it was near midnight-or one? Rey couldn't read the clock right. But whatever, it was Valentine's Day. Great. She had gotten rejected on Valentine's Day. One of the exact things she specifically tried to avoid during this damned holiday.

And rejected by Ben Solo no less.

Her knuckles were white, twisted around the neck of the bottle when Ben reappears.

He's shuffling on his feet, and his hair looked like he ran his fingers through it about fifty times. He's looks wrecked, to put it bluntly, and Rey wonders what hell trouble he could have gotten into in a bathroom the size of a shoebox.

His eyes breezed past her to land on the bottle. "You're still…drinking?"

He sounds so very confused that Rey bristled, misinterpreting his tone for judgment. "Is there a problem?"

"Ah, no-that's…do what you want." He finished lamely. His eyes are now everywhere but her. "I guess I'll head to bed now."

"So early?" Rey snipped. "What a lightweight." She's being mean, and it would probably be best for both of them if he did just go to bed. Certainly for Rey who just wants blood at the current moment and will probably regret this come morning.

Ben frowned down at his feet. "It's late."

"If you think after tonight I'm coming in to work tomorrow-"

"Well, I have a meeting tomorrow."

"A tax meeting on Valentine's Day, how romantic."

Oh, that got him to finally look at her. Glare, more like it. "As if it's any of your business what I do or don't on Valentine's Day."

"I could care less!" Rey agreed with a shout. The liquid in the bottle sloshed along with her. "But I'm here tonight because of you and your stupid receipts!"

"You volunteered-"

"I was doing it for Han-"

"Well God bless you and your love for Han-"

"Christ!" Rey snapped and hopped to her feet. Bottle still clutched firmly in hand, mind you. "Here we friggin go again. You and your God damn comments!"

Ben ran a hand through his hair. Tugged it so painfully, actually, there was no way some of those luscious black strands were not getting pulled out. "What the hell do you want from me, Rey?"

"Man up and drink with me!"

Oh yea, because that was the right thing to say at a time like this.

_________________________________________________________________

"This is fucking ridiculous."

The volume of Ben's voice implied he wanted to have kept the comment to himself, but he and Rey were sitting way too close for her not to hear.

For the sake of her sanity, and for this stupid game she had started, Rey chose to ignore it. "Pick a damn card."

"This is meant to be played as a group, Rey."

"We can play Kings however we want to play Kings."

"Rey…"

"Drink," She commanded, pushing the bottle towards him.

Ben looked at her incredulously. "I didn't even pick a card!"

"You're complaining. New rule, you complain, you drink. So drink."

His lips (plush, damn lips) thinned into a line. But he took a swig without another word, slamming the bottle a little loudly back onto the ground.

"Good, now pick a card please."

Ben sighed and flipped the one nearest to him. "Five"

"Guys!" Rey chirped.

"Me? Again?"

Rey motioned toward the bottle.

"Looks like you're just trying to get me drunk."

"Yes, thank God, now you get it."

Ben shook his head and tipped his head back.

Rey definitely did not watch the way his neck bobbed as the liquid slid down.

"Your turn."

Silently, Rey flipped a card and immediately smiled. "Well you just got lucky, Solo. You just got a date."

"Rey, that means we're going to be drinking every single turn."

"And the problem is?"

Ben rolled his eyes.

"Come on! You just scored yourself a date on Valentine's Day! Much more exciting than your stupid tax date."

A lovely red colored Ben's cheeks. "It's not a date. And maybe you should slow down for your date tomorrow."

"Oh yea, because me being hungover will put a big stop to those plans. Now your turn, let's go!"

Ben's brow furrowed, and Rey could clearly see a question forming behind those expressive eyes. But whatever it was, he thought better and stopped himself. Still blushing, though, which was interesting. It was hardly anything but a fun tease she had delivered him, why was he being effected so? Rey almost asked that question herself when Ben turned up a new card. "Jack"

Rey grinned. "Never have I ever."

"Of all the childish games-"

"Three fingers up, let's go! I'll go first. Never have I ever, been out of the state."

Ben's eyes narrowed. "Cheap shot. Alright, never have I ever, had a date on Valentine's Day."

"How dare you. We are currently-"

"Not dates, not because of this stupid game. You know what I mean."

Rey huffed and, even though she didn't need to yet, grabbed the bottle of whiskey. It was getting much, much lighter. Not a good sign for this night. Especially with this next awfully embarrassing admission, "Well, jokes on you, we're both losers." Worse, her own situation was keeping her from mercilessly teasing Ben for never having a date.

Ben's mouth slid open, then closed, and that innocently, stupid, confused look graced his features once more. "But you said you had a date."

"Well yea but not a date-date."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It's not…" Rey huffed. "Every year me and Finn go out to breakfast for Valentine's Day. We were poor and single and hungover and it was fun so we just kept doing it. So now Poe and Rose come too, and it's kind of a tradition, and I really didn't want to miss it before when you threatened to let this stupidity spill into tomorrow morning."

The dull tick-tock of the clock, hung crookedly over Rose's office door, followed her slurred explanation. A tick-tock that thumped too loudly in her head, possibly even her heart, but why? She didn't say anything important. Not really. And yet it sounded like she did. Ben was looking at her like she did. Like her rushed and drunken explanation of a silly breakfast was actually admitting to…to…

To what?

To-

"Oh." Ben said simply. Just that. Oh.

God, she must be more drunk than she realized. Making up looks Ben was shooting her. Making up that there was something between them. That she said something that actually meant something deeper. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He had rejected her once, did he need to do it again?

"What a self-sabotaging move, Solo," It was a hasty and obvious attempt to redirect the convo. Pathetic, too, in Rey's own opinion. "Trying to take me down while admitting you've never had a date. Not exactly suave."

"My turn," Ben said instead. "Never have I ever-"

"Wait, it's not your turn-"

"Not had a crush on one of my coworkers."

"A double negative? Seriously Ben? That's so stup-" Oh. Oh wait.

What had he just said?

Coworkers. He didn't have a crush on one of his coworkers. No- wait, right, double negative. So, Ben did have a crush on a coworker. Which were-who were-ah, "Rose?" Rey blurted out, confused and more intoxicated by the second.

"What? No, God Rey, not Rose."

"Well not Rose, then-" Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Her. It was her. She was the only other option. The only other coworker.

Ben Solo had a crush on her.

Rey starred dumbly at his ridiculously handsome face. Which yea, she was going to admit to that now. Because he just said he had a crush on her. And if he could admit that, then she could admit how hot-God damn hot-she found Ben Solo.

And she was starring way too long at this point.

"Rey?" Ben asked.

"I'm processing."

"Oh. Um, is that…good?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know, I'm processing!"

"Look, if it's easier-just forget it. I'm drunk. I'm sorr-"

Rey's hand shot up, covering his stupid (no, perfect, she was calling it perfect now) mouth. "Don't you dare apologize. Explain first."

From beneath her palm, Ben mumbled, "Explain?"

A tingling wave of pleasure swept up Rey's arm and down her spine, the feel of Ben's lips moving against her skin too good to believe. She wanted the sensation elsewhere. Everywhere. On her lips, her neck, her-

Rey gasped. Out. Loud.

The image of Ben's head buried in her chest, between her breasts. Her hands in his hair, grabbing those black locks herself, feeling how soft they were. Finding out why he liked to run his fingers through them himself so friggin much.

"Rey?"

She swallowed thickly and pulled her hand back like Ben was an oven and she was a foolish child who didn't know any better. "I…" The images wouldn't stop. Ben mumbling against her skin, deep, husky words in between sloppy kisses. Shit, her nipples were hardening underneath her shirt. Which was nothing but a dumpy white tee, dirty from a day's work and sweat covering a bra that desperately needed to be replaced and held absolutely no cushioning. So if Ben was to look, oh yea, he would see the effect he was unintentionally having on her.

"Are you okay?" Ben asked, completely oblivious to her struggle. He even leant forward, reached toward her with a hesitant hand-

With a squeak, Rey slipped backwards with an embarrassing plop right down on her rump. "Fine! I'm fine!"

Ben frowned but withdrew his hand. "Okay. I just-look, forget it, like I said."

"No!" Rey cried. Because that was absolutely the last thing she wanted to do, even if she was acting like a confused mess right now. "I don't want to-look, just…I thought you hated me? Don't you hate me? The way you act…"

"It's not as if you treat me any better."

Rey crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not the one who just admitted to having a crush."

"Fine. Just fine, you got me there. I," Ben breathed loudly through his nose. "Look, what we talked about before. The conversation I overheard between you and Poe? Shockingly, it sent me on edge. And, shocking yet again, I lashed out. Then it was like I couldn't stop. Because of course you gave as good as you got, why wouldn't you the way I was acting? I even admired you then when you were biting my head off. And I-shit, I'm really pouring out my heart here, Rey. We got so far down that road it was like I couldn't turn around even though I wanted to."

The picture was so clear. Rey didn't understand why she hadn't pieced it together herself before Ben's confession. Because why wouldn't the hurt boy turned still healing man trust anyone new in his life? Especially some stranger, who had never even met him, and had called him a monster? Why would he be kind? Or trusting?

It wasn't so simple. Obviously. He wasn't blameless either nor was she completely guilty.

And apparently the ball was in her court of where this night was going to head.

"It's my turn," Rey said finally, holding up her two fingers.

Ben's lips curved downward. His whole demeanor seemed to sag.

"Ben," Rey prompted, nodding toward his hand. "Please."

Weakly, he raised his two fingers.

"Never have I ever kissed a Solo."

His eyes snapped up towards her.

She was too shy to do anything but grin in return.

Silence ensued for a moment, and it had Rey ridiculously thinking that maybe she had got something wrong. But then, "Is that a statement, or a challenge, sweetheart?"

Funny, that was the first time he ever used that nickname in a non-mocking way.

Rey wondered if he had always wanted to say it to her like this. She didn't have to time to ask, or even ponder, because she leant forward without another word and Ben happily met her half way.

It was tentative, at first.

Both were still a bit unsure, and perhaps a bit too drunk. Ben was gently moving against her lips, navigating their shape before settling on her bottom one and sucking softly. Rey gasped when she felt the tug of his teeth, and it was all he needed to slip his tongue inside.

Hands were suddenly at her hips, dragging her across the concrete floor and making a mess of their forgotten King's game. Rey moaned when Ben lifted her onto his lap and right against the seam of his pants.

Her hips rolled without a conscious thought, and now Ben was the one groaning.

"Rey," He whispered, pulling back to look at her. "You don't know how long I-"

"Me too," She gasped, arching against him. Ben was now meeting her movement with thrusts of his own, as well as she could manage on the hard floor. "God Ben, me too."

His hands gripped her waist, directing her to go harder, faster against him. "Fuck," He hissed, looking down to watch them move against each other. "Sometimes I didn't even need to come here, I just wanted to see you."

She closed her eyes and leant her head back, surrendering to the sensations ravaging her body. Ben immediately took it as invitation to suck happily down her neck, his tongue lavishing her skin as he gave quick nips here and there.

"You were infuriating," Rey breathed when he latched down a particular spot that had here seeing stars. "Fuck, you're still so fucking infuriating."

Ben let go and gripped the back of her neck, pulling the hair back there to angle her lips toward his. "You fucking love it." He growled before catching her in a brutal kiss.

Their movements were getting too sloppy, too fast. Rey was helpless to do anything but chase the pressure that was nearing its edge. She let out a whimper when her legs began to tremble and Ben gripped her ass with kneading hands.

"Cum for me," He ordered, again sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, "Fucking cum for me right now."

Yes, it was right there. His hands. His voice. The feel of his cock, covered by his pants, but large and thick enough to create delicious pressure against the seam of her own jeans. She drew down just a little harder, felt his lips bite her neck again in what must be leaving a mark-

"Ben!" She cried and it all exploded.

"Fuck Rey," He groaned, bucking up harder. She was nothing but air now, weightless and buzzed, but felt him use her body for his own release. "So perfect, so good. Fuck, fuck-"

A brutal groan escaped him with one more thrust, and then they were both still and panting.

Sweat dripped down between her breasts (which shit, he hadn't even got to explore) and Rey could feel her hair, loose and knotty, beginning to stick against her neck. Her knees were also starting to hurt, and she couldn't imagine the effect the floor was having on Ben. But he seemed content to just hold her tightly against him, his face buried in her neck while he took in deep breaths.

"Ben," Rey whispered, taking the still moment to card her fingers through his hair. And oh yes, it was everything she'd ever dreamt about. She was definitely never going to stop doing this whenever she could. "I must be hurting you."

"Worth it." He mumbled, still not moving. But his thumbs began to stroke circles on the skin peeking out between her shirt and pants.

She giggled, the sound soft and sweet and so very, very welcome. Ben's lips even curved into a smile at the sound of it. "We could do this somewhere more comfortable."

"If you're suggesting that piece of rock in the back-"

"The couch, tighter fit but more comfortable."

He finally pulled back to look at her, his face so calm and care free it must have been the first-time Rey had ever saw him like this. "I don't mind the fit."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course, you don't."

As they both got up and settled down onto the couch, Rey more or less having to drape herself over Ben (though no one was complaining), one more question occurred to Rey before sleep finally took over.

"Ben?"

"Hm?"

"Never have I ever brought a date to my Valentine's Day breakfast."

His hand stroked up her back, resting in her hair to gently massage at her scalp. She practically purred like a cat, nuzzling her face into his chest.

"Well, let's see what we can do to change that."

_________________________________________________________________

"So you found them sleeping? Together?" Finn hissed, leaning towards Rose.

The girl nodded her head esthetically, stealing a glance over at the couple in question. "I thought I was dreaming. Or maybe one of them was dead. Or like, it got so cold they needed body heat or something. I had to get Paige out of the car to make sure I wasn't hallucinating."

Maz was currently giving them, well, more Ben, a harsh talking to about visiting her more often. Rey was gazing adoringly at Ben, who was standing like a chastised child, as Maz rambled on. And they were holding hands.

Like, seriously, holding hands.

Poe took a sip of his mimosa. "Never thought I'd see the day Ben Solo got a girlfriend."

"Never thought I see the day Rey got a boyfriend!" Finn countered.

Paige smirked. "Seems like they're a match made in heaven then."

"More like hell." Poe mumbled, earning him a biscuit at the head from Finn.

"Well," Rose picked up her menu, beginning to absently flip through it. "Maybe this means less blow ups at shop. I could do with a more stress free working environment. And Han and Leia are absolutely going to freak."

Poe took on a devilish grin. "You're going to eat those words, Tico. There's certainly going to be more of something at the shop. A different kind of yelling, if you get my drift."

Finn slapped his boyfriend on the shoulder. "You're disgusting."

"Love you too. Happy Valentine's Day!"

#reylo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #reylo ff #roses are red I am not sharing this bed

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years

Text

Chapter 2: Past, Present and Future

Summary: This chapter is possibly the longest and most challenging to write in the Millennium series (I hope), because there are not one but THREE different time travelers each on their own merry way, one of them being a god. I tried my best to organize all the stuff from the past, present and future (no pun intended) for this to be easy to read. Hint hint, the main focus is still on Miles, main events are in the same universe on the same timeline, and the main points in time are one cool summer day (Miles’s past), then the day before Orientation Day (present), and a cold winter night (further in the past). Let’s see how the present shapes the past, which shapes the future thereafter (ties to Chapter 0’s cancerous plane of existence).

This is the last part of the 9th personal assignment, after more than a month’s hard work, Miles is more than ready for this stage.

Doing a last check then taking off when instructed with his small self-built aircraft, Miles relaxes a bit and smoothly makes the journey to the finish line—a small nearby airport. His class tutor is already waiting for him there. “I knew you would excel on this assignment,” the tutor says, “your results and feedback will be in on the 2nd day of next week. Good luck with your midterms!” “Thank you for the extra day of good weather conditions Ms. Sonmi, thank you so much for your help and understanding.” Miles goes to the tutor after parking his aircraft. “Of course, you were on sick leave Miles,” she says, “everyone has one of those days.” “Yep, one of those days...” to battle a parasite fungus that could kill you. Miles can’t help but think to himself as he replies.

It is around 18 in the VR simulation when Miles finished but in fact 22:26 in real life (he had also spent lots of time with his team to complete their group assignment). Miles goes to the toilet to freshen up and prepare to take the shuttle home.

“Heyyy...” Jason Finn Lee was looking into the mirror above the sinks when Miles enters the toilet, he quickly turns to greet him (but things get awkward fast because this guy can’t remember Miles’s name to save his life). “Hey Jason,” Miles breaks the awkward silence, walking to a sink to wash his hands. “There’s my favorite redhead! How was you day?” Jason inquires. Miles answers while washing his hands, “Well, I’ve finally got everything done. It was fun flying an aircraft for my PA (personal assignment), over some fields, and some red maple trees...” “You’re so organized man, my assignments are a mess, and I’m so stressed over midterms!” Jason just starts rambling on.

Miles’s mind wonders off. He thinks of the red maple trees around his parents’ house—well, it’s just his dad’s house now; Miles has a tent he would bring out to the maple trees every now and then, he remembers he used to carry this tent out there everyday when he was about 4 or 5, and hang out there for hours. Miles again recalls that one day, that day he had the strange encounters when he was 5.

That summer day started as normal, little Miles finished doodling some cartoony multicolored trains in his tent, he was walking up to the front door of the house to bring in his drawings when he just had this feeling he had to see something. He looked, only to see someone almost identical to his 5-year-old self, a little Miles #2 but with torn up cloth, leaves in his messy hair and an unexplained look of sudden realization in his eyes; he looked on as little Miles #2 ran to hide in the tent, pulling the zipper shut. He was about to go to the tent to confront this strange kid...

Right now, Miles’s recollection is semi-interrupted with utter silence and a feeling of dread his 5-year-old self had experienced at that very moment back then on that fateful day. “Jason?” Noticing that Jason has abruptly stopped making a sound, Miles looks over to him, only to see an apparition grabbing onto the nose and mouth of his struggling schoolmate.

“... The ghost!” Miles stammers, “not again!” Distorted frozen face, hateful eyes, it is the same apparition little Miles’d seen moments after seeing little Miles #2 that day! “You! I know what it means to see your doppelgänger!” What they said as they charged his younger self echos through his mind, “you are going to die!”

Miles is in shock. This apparition is very dangerous! Jason cannot breathe, he tries to fight back, but the apparition isn’t effected at all. Seeing the apparition hurting his schoolmate, Miles immediately snaps out of it and throws the apparition off of Jason then keeps them at bay, and as soon as Jason caught his breath, Miles pushes him out of the room, taking his memory of the attack and planting a sense that he’s done his bathroom trip on autopilot. “Ah, you’re stronger than I thought,” the apparition speaks. “I’m taking you off this plane of existence!” Miles says as he restrains them.

On that cool summer day, after little Miles was jumped by the apparition blocking his way home, he gave up on confronting little Miles #2, dropped his drawings and darted off running away from them. “Why would it turn out like this?! Everything is horrible!” The apparition screeched and chased after him with a machete, “why must I suffer? Why must we part? The love towards her was so much yet you’d never get to spend a life with her! Never even said ‘I love you’ before leaving!!” “Leave me alone!” Little Miles was very scared, he went off the neighborhood roads and ran into the red maple woods—bumping into low branches and tearing his clothes—straight to a cliff. “Stop this futile attempt to get away child, die for me!” Waving the machete, the apparition taunted him, slowly passing through the trees, “you are horrible, let me end this.” Running a little ahead of the apparition, little Miles’s legs were giving out, at that moment he wished so much that all this wasn’t happening and he was back at the front door, going back into the safety of his home—

—Suddenly, there he was, out of the woods, but at this strange train station, not at home. Parked at the platform he stood on was one of the cartoony trains he doodled whilst imagining it making a stop in the yard of his home some day. With no idea where else to go and this train being the relatively more comprehensible option, little Miles boarded it to test his luck. And before he knew it, he was there in the yard of his home again, and he saw “little Miles #2” going to the front door with some drawings, except he didn’t have torn cloth and... little Miles suddenly realized there was no doppelgänger little Miles #2 at all, it was just himself all along—somehow he time travelled through that strange train station! Remembering this was when the apparition would charge his past self, little Miles ducked into the tent and shut himself in, hugging his legs to wait it all out.

Right now, Miles is once more traveling with a train through the Junction—his strange train station—to the past. The apparition gave up on fighting him (they decided they are powerful enough and didn’t need to hunt to gain more power at that moment), escaped his grip and went on a volatile plane to crawl their way back in time to quote on quote “end their suffering from its beginning” (despite Miles telling them this is not how time travel works after he realized the apparition didn’t recognize him at the moment), so Miles now needs to track them down and make sure they don’t cause a ruckus for nothing.

Boom, the train shakes as it enters a field of light, Miles stops by to see what that was about.

This is a freezing snowy winter night. Miles meets a gang of robed sorcerers maintaining an intricate puzzle box of their design—a cluster of volatile planes of existence piled at one spot, like an invisible labyrinth, imprisoning a sacrificial lamb, a girl, pleading for her release. The sorcerers are repeatedly chanting something in Latin, something along the lines of “take this innocent sacrifice and bring forth the apocalypse”, classic stuff. Miles enters the puzzle box attempting to free the girl, it is clear this puzzle is not just a day’s work: Each plane there is built by the ghost who haunts it, judging from their robes they are from the same society of sorcerers, Miles has to fight constantly to survive their attacks. Miles plans to pull the girl out of the puzzle box before she is sacrificed, but after going through some layers of this puzzle, he realized this whole thing has to be torn down in order to free her—she would somehow always be on a different plane than Miles, and Miles’s magic is limited by the structure of this puzzle box therefore cannot reach through to her. Time is running out, her organs are bleeding, Miles blows the puzzle box apart, weakening the sorcerers around it tremendously; he heals the girl, she runs off screaming as soon as her feet touches the ground, scared out of her mind.

“You fool! You thought we didn’t know there would be time traveling fools like you who’d try to stop us?” Says the one who seems to be the head sorcerer with a weak but stern voice, “the apocalypse will be upon us regardless of you efforts. My daughter’s innocent soul is just one of many sources of the energy we’d use to grow our cancerous dimension, the energy you supplied to our labyrinth before destroying it was needless to say far more than what a few souls can provide, the cancer will now root on our universe and thanks to your little retaliation you kickstarted this process! You have achieved nothing! Oh well, another pawn of the Court will cease to exist in our hands!!” Miles has to think about this, meanwhile he’s just looking at the sorcerer. “Be surprise you idiot!” The sorcerer gets angry at Miles’s lack of proper reaction. Miles carefully words his sentence, “I can tell you first hand that your efforts here are not in vain.” “Hah,” the sorcerer lays his head down, “people will thank us for doing this.”

Just what kind of maniac would sacrificing his own daughter? Walking in the winter snow, Miles thinks to himself after he’s a distance away from the scene, “at least I saved the daughter and she’d be alright, that wasn’t all for nothing... wait, that reminds me—the thing, the real idiot I’m here to watch!”

A gust of summer wind blows through the air. Making sure the apparition wasn’t in sight anymore, little Miles ran through the front door, slamming it behind him. “Miles? Is that you?” It was his mom coming to the door. Little Miles panicked, he wrecked his clothes and he was a mess, mom would be so mad! That was when everything stopped, leaving little Miles puzzled. “This is quite an unconventional first meeting.” a voice came from the living room, “Don’t be alarmed Miles,” the words brought a sense of calmness, little Miles walked into the living room to see a man looking out of the floor to ceiling windows, “I’m Atlas, some guy who carries the cosmos. Good job throwing that thing off your trail.” Everything around them was frozen in time, little Miles saw his mom on the stairs, about to turn the corner to the living room. “Atlas? A titan?” Little Miles asked. “Yes, that’s me,” Atlas turned to face him, “furthermore, the information about me you downloaded into your head is quite correct—I must admit that’s a pretty handy way to acquire knowledge.” “But what about that angry man who chased me?” Little Miles wanted to know more, “he is strange.” “The apparition you encountered breached the veil which separates your plane of existence and another volatile one, and I’m here to capture them.” Atlas gave him an answer, “however, that’s not the purpose of our meeting. Miles Millward, you have a unique talent with magic. A long journey of self discovery and learning lies ahead of you, this journey wouldn’t be easy. I cannot tell you you’ll have no worries or fears in the future, but I will be there for you when and only when you need my help. You know where to find me, in here.” He gestured to his head. The next thing little Miles knew was that everything was back to normal, his mom greeted him with a raised eyebrow and a “what were you up to?” regarding his clothes and hair, Atlas was nowhere to be seen.

The snow is falling. “This is my chance,” the apparition bursts through the redwood gates of a mansion. “Stop it right there!” Miles yells. “There you are child, having fun lost in your thoughts?” The apparition takes notice of him. “For the last time, you can’t change what you wanted to change no matter what you do here! Think about it!” Miles tries to reason with them. “I’m not listening!” The apparition taunts him. “What in the world?” A maid has rushed to the broken down gates. Miles quickly shrouds himself and the apparition from her sight, not wanting to scare her. “I don’t know why, but you think of me again and again,” the apparition roars to Miles, “the more you think, the more you wonder about me you’d feed my power! I just never thought we’ll be here this soon. Now I’ll finally get what I want no matter what!”

“Eric?” A voice from the landing facing the gate, “Eric where have you been?! You can’t keep chasing after some ‘supernatural’ nonsense and running off disappearing like that, I worry!” That’s when Miles noticed a lady rushing down to a figure that appeared at the gate during this mayhem. “Yes, there she is,” the apparition cheers. Miles looks at the figure at the gate then at the apparition, then it hits him. That figure is actually the ghost of this Eric guy, while the apparition he’s been dealing with isn’t any ghost as he initially believed, but a mindless manifestation of a burning desire, they certainly have very little reason in them. “Don’t do that ever again!” She is crying with joy. “Come to us and be united!” The manifestation demands. Apparently this powerful manifestation worked a deal with Eric in Miles’s absence. Eric is lured back from the dead and made visible to the living, probably on the promise he could join his love forever, this manifestation possibly planned on binding this lady Melanie and Eric for eternity which will certainly fail at some point and further harm all that are involved! It is clear the apparition sees joining them together as their purpose and not completing this job as their torment.

“This is sick!” Miles is really close to just annihilating that manifestation at this point, but he was stopped. “Calm down Miles,” it’s Atlas, putting a hand on his shoulder. “They’re... Melanie and Eric are in a very bad situation!” Miles is confused. “You have a drive to help and save people, this is good, but you have to keep this in mind,” Atlas explains, “we learnt that history runs on cause and effect, the cause and effect that we’re not always a part of. This couple don’t really need any help you know?” “Huh?” Miles questions his mentor. Atlas points to Eric and Melanie to tell him to watch on. “I’m leaving you Melanie,” Eric says unexpectedly. “What?” Melanie’s jaw drops, “but after all that we’ve been through?” “We’ll never see each other again,” Eric keeps the now agitated apparition away from Melanie with all his might, “this is for the best! You shouldn’t have had faith in me!” “What are you doing?” The apparition is ready to pounce on everyone here, “we end this now!” Eric notices and runs out through the gates, leaving Melanie behind, now crying with heartbreak and anger. “What ever did I see in him?” Melanie shakes her head. The apparition of course chases him outside. “You know you love her! You wanted to say you love her, you wanted to be with her!” The apparition screams, “you wanted this so much you created me!! And I’ll never let you off with that! Even in death, I’ll make sure you never rest until you man up and fulfill your desires!”

Through the snow, Miles and Atlas chase after them. “The manifestation is distorting even more,” Miles refers to the apparition who’s growing increasingly grotesque, “the more this guy suppresses his feelings the more this manifestation has a reason to grow...” “Although it doesn’t look like it but Eric will prevail,” Atlas isn’t very worried, “marriage at this day and age is hardly about love, it is a union of two families. He’s done the right thing letting her go, all he has to do now is accept his sacrifice.” “Then I’ll tell him that!” Miles teleports in front of Eric, stopping him in his track. “Miles! He has to do this by himself!” Atlas informs Miles.

“This is all my fault...” Eric sighs, “you know, in fact I couldn’t give her the life she deserves in the first place, I’m just a nobody with no status. She is to be wedded to the Brickdales tomorrow, and that’s probably for the best.” “We’re not done, you are coming with me,” the apparition catches up with Eric. “I feel the most difficult thing isn’t the goodbye to my love, but to let go of the fact that we will part forever.” Eric continues. “But you don’t have to, it was a mistake, we’ll go back and fix...” the apparition is then cut off by Eric. “I know Melanie,” Eric stands against them, “she will moved on, and William loves her no less than I do, I would only have one last gift to her now that I’m dead. If this fiend is truly just my longing for Melanie, then I set it free.” “Well this is a load of crap,” although much weaker since Eric punched them by letting it go, the apparition isn’t finished, “but I’m not giving up on the reason I exist! I still suffer! I’ll just have to regain my strength and try again!”

The apparition disappears onto a volatile plane. “Unnatural! The manifestation survived being cut off, and now they’re traveling through time again!?” Miles jumps. “This is indeed unnatural. I’ll handle this Miles,” Atlas goes after the apparition. “Ahh, I’ve never been so at peace,” Eric finally relaxes.

Miles follows his mentor, “Atlas, I can help!” Hearing that, Atlas turns around to him, “Settle down Miles, you’ve had quite a long day, I came to your aid earlier because I sensed you’re already exhausted. I’ve got this. Here, you’ll be at home right on time if you exit the plane now.” “You’re right, my mind’s getting jumpy,” Miles agrees, “and it’s in my favor to take a break before midterms.” Atlas sees Miles off then continues after the apparition.

Arriving at the cool summer day, Atlas comforts little Miles who’s just been jumped at the front door of his home, and thereafter goes on to capture the apparition his after.

“So, Atlas, you’ve got another one.” Atropos greets Atlas, her eyes focused on her freshly completed tapestry, “know that the Court will be happy to take over this matter.”

@cadewrites

#original #original story #original character #fantasy #mystery #magic #scifi #scififantasy #fiction #time travel #thejiaqiverse

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bangtaninink · 6 years

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i’m too lit to dim down a notch IV

Summary: Jeongguk is the new kid in town. Kind of. He’s looking for an Authentic College Experience™, and you have no problem helping him out with achieving that (fratboy!AU)

Part: 1 | 2 | 3

A rhythmic knock at his door makes Jeongguk flinch and nearly drop his shirt.

“Um, come in?”

He’s just about to wonder why the fuck someone’s bothered to knock because no one in the frat house ever bothers to knock, but all questions die on the tip of his tongue when he sees you walk in, dressed in a Doosan Bears jersey, black jeans, and white sneakers, holding a navy blue cap between your teeth as you pull your hair up into a ponytail.

“Mornin’,” you greet, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

Jeongguk fumbles, drops his shirt and scrambles to pick it up, tripping over a pile of dirty clothes that are in dire need of washing before he gets himself composed.

“Hi. Hey. Hi,” he stammers, so desperate to get his shirt on he almost runs into a wall. “G-good morning.”

“Sorry I’m a bit early, but I got out of the house as quick as I could because there’s a party happening at our house tomorrow night and the others are in some mad rush to get everything planned out. Some of the more senior sisters get a bit anal about making sure shit’s organised and I don’t like to be around them when that’s happening.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t mind me, okay? We’ve got heaps of time. Just pretend like I’m not here.”

Easier said than done, Jeongguk thinks, but he holds his tongue and tries to continue getting dressed, even when he sees you flop down to lie on his bed, cap resting on your knee as you hold your phone above your head. It’s ridiculous, the way your presence has all of a sudden got him question every little thing about today -- should he really wear this shirt today? This cap? Don’t even get him started on his hair!

Jeongguk freezes when the sound of your humming cuts through the quiet, resisting the urge to turn and look over his shoulder and watch your humming transition into quiet singing. Admittedly, you’re not that good. He doesn’t have particularly high standards (he leaves that to Yoongi), but he’s pretty sure even you wouldn’t call yourself the next IU. Still, just the fact that you’re here, in his room, singing-but-not-really-singing Two Melodies without another care in the world is enough to make Jeongguk’s cheeks warm with an unexplainable fondness for you.

He tugs his shirt on quickly, crosses the room to open up the door to his wardrobe to check himself in the mirror, all the while avoiding looking at you. Jeongguk tries not to wince at how unkempt his hair looks, and does his best to comb his fingers through it as casual and nonchalant as he can look trying to flatten out a cowlick or two. The cap, he thinks, is definitely gonna be needed today.

“Hey, Jeongguk?”

Jeongguk turns so quickly he hits his knee on the edge of his wardrobe’s door.

“Uh, yeah?” he replies.

“Can I ask you something?”

Dread washes over Jeongguk, and irrationally, he thinks, here it is. She knows what I did last night. Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. Bye, world! It was nice while it laste--

“Two things actually,” you continue. “How’d you get into Beta Tau so quickly, and if you’re a sophomore, why are we in the same anatomy class?”

Jeongguk nearly cries with relief.

“Oh, um. Well, my dad’s alumni,” he answers, giving up on his hair and slapping his cap on, kicking his wardrobe shut with the heel of his boot and moving to sit beside you, a complete bundle of nerves but, hopefully, looking calm. “He studied in Seoul and made it into Beta Tau Sigma when he was a student here. The frat has that rule about automatically letting family relations in or whatever. I forget the proper wording.”

“Oh, I know that rule,” you say, tucking your phone back into the pocket of your jeans. “That’s how Tae and Jin oppa got into Beta Tau as well.”

“Oh. Wait, wait. Seokjin hyung’s your brother too?”

“Nah, he’s my cousin. Might as well be my brother though. What about anatomy class?”

“W-well,” Jeongguk starts, trying to not jerk at the way you nudge the side of his thigh with your knee. “Uh, I did a lot of extra classes back in Busan last summer. Kinda built up enough credit that I might be able to graduate a year early. Or at least a semester.”

Strategically, he leaves out the part about having so few friends back in hometown that he had way too much time to himself in July that he’d resorted to just... studying.

“So... you’re like a super nerd then,” you laugh, teasing. “I like that. It’s a nice change from the other Busan boy.”

“Who, Jimin hyung?”

“Yeah. He wouldn’t have made it to senior year if it weren’t for me and Hoseok oppa. He spends way too much time doing everything else but studying, even now. I mean, I’m not really one to talk, I guess.” You sit up, resting your arm on Jeongguk’s shoulder, missing the way he tenses briefly. “But then again, I can find time to fuck and get fucked on the regular while getting straight As, so he really has no excuse.”

Jeongguk chokes on his own spit.

“Um, wow,” is all he has to say. You laugh quietly.

“Oh, I have another question for you. The other day, when I first met you? What’d you mean when you said you wanted to be a physiotherapist for athletes because you probably “won’t get to be one”?” you say, fingers curling in imaginary quote marks. “Who says you won’t get to be one?”

“Uh, no one, but... it seems a bit unrealisitic for me to aim to be on Yoo Heekwan’s level. Or Park Taehwan. Like, they’re gods, and I’m, like, a pleb.”

“You play baseball, Guk?”

“Yeah. And swim. Mostly swim. Well, no. Well, I dunno yet. Tryouts for the baseball are on Wednesday. And the swim team tryouts are on Tuesday. It’ll be a fucking miracle if I make it into either one, honestly.”

“Can I come?”

Eyebrows raised so high they almost disappear into his cap, Jeongguk looks at you with unabashed shock.

“To... to the tryouts?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Um... why?” It’s your turn to raise your eyebrows, and he stumbles over his words trying to recover. “No, I mean! N-not that I don’t want you there! Or... w-well, I dunno. Do I want you there? I-it’s a free country. I guess you could technically go whether or not I say y-yeah, but...” He trails off when you start to laugh.

“You’re cute, Guk. But I’d like to come and watch if that’s okay with you, because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a fucking lunatic for baseball -- or just sports in general -- and, also, I wanna be there to tell you ‘I told you so’ when they ask you to join the team right then and there. Plus, swimmers are hot.”

Jeongguk blinks, dumbfounded and trying to listen to what you’re saying, instead of staring down at your lips while you speak like he wants to.

“But... you haven’t even seen me play or swim,” he replies.

“With a body like this, Jeon Jeongguk, I’m sure you play and swim great,” you laugh, lightly smacking his chest.

(He hardly feels a thing.)

“Um. Uh. Okay. Y-yeah. If you want to, noona. Wait. C-can I call you that?”

“You can call me anything you want, babe,” you say, chuckling as you stand, fingers wrapping around Jeongguk’s wrist to pull him up onto his feet. “C’mon. Let’s go see some epic shit.”

“Holy shit. That was amazing!” Jeongguk cries out, skipping backwards to remain facing you as you both leave the stadium, the afternoon sun warm on your heads.

“God, how does he make it look so fucking effortless?” you add, jogging after him. “I need me a man like Yoo Heekwan.”

“Yeah. I’m not even gay, but amen to that, noona. A-fucking-men.”

Laughing, you quickly grab Jeongguk’s wrist, pulling him away from the path of an incoming cyclist as he draws nearer to a pedestrian crossing. The adrenaline is still well and truly pumping through your veins and his, and another win for the Doosan Bears means neither of you will be calming down anytime soon.

“Hey, Guk. You hungry?” you ask. “Let’s get some food.”

“I’m down for that. Where do you wanna go?”

“Let’s get some burgers, babe.”

“I like burgers!”

Shaking your head, you laugh, not letting go of his arm as you lead him down the road to the nearest burger joint, a usual stop of yours after a game. It’ll be a welcome change today, for someone to actually eat with you and talk about what’d just happen, instead of the normal ‘do you even know how many calories are in a regular cheeseburger?’ lecture and constant eye-rolling at you waxing poetic about athletic form and pitching speeds.

(”Jesus. Okay, Bora. Just calm down and let me finish this in peace. I’ll get you your fucking salad in a sec.”)

In the middle of his monologue on a spectacular catch by Min Byunghun, Jeongguk reaches forward to pull the door open, letting you step inside first, not even breaking sentence or losing his train of thought once. You almost trip over your foot walking in, so not used to the chivalry, even if the both of you are just entering a fucking Burger King. Unphased and oblivious to your surprise, Jeongguk keeps talking right up until the both of you have made it to the counter to order.

“Hi. Can I please have a Grilled BBQ set with cheese, and a side of onion rings?” he orders, already reaching into the back of his jeans to pull out his wallet. “What’re you gonna have, noona?”

“Jeongguk, you’re not gonna pay for me.”

“Hmm?” Jeongguk turns to look at you, first with a look of confusion, then with a smile. “What’re you talking about? Of course I’m gonna pay. You bought my ticket to the game, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but I asked you to come out today. Put your wallet away.”

“Noona, it’s just Burger King,” he says, laughing. “No offense.”

“Hey, dude. None taken,” the cashier says, waving a dismissive hand. “Think I care about this place that much?”

“See? This guy knows what I mean. Order whatever you want, noona. I’ve got this.”

Door opening and meal paying? This is too good to be true, you think.

“Fine. If you insist,” you say.

“Yup.”

“I’ll have a Supreme Cheese set, no pickles, and some extra cheese fries.”

“Too easy,” the cashier replies, punching in the orders, hand outstretched as Jeongguk surrenders his card unprompted.

“You can go find a table, noona. I’ll bring the food over when it’s done,” Jeongguk says, taking his card back.

You choose a table close to the back wall, still within view of the front counter. Cradling your chin in your hand, you look at Jeongguk’s back as he waits, fingers tapping against the counter top while he looks down at his phone, too busy wondering how the hell this kid can be such a... gentleman in this day and age? No one treats you like this, not even the rest of the guys in Beta Tau Sigma, so you can’t help but be taken aback by all of this. Does he not know who you a--?

It suddenly dawns on you that Jeongguk is new to Seoul, to the college you and the rest of the guys attend, and he has absolutely no idea what kind of reputation you’ve built for yourself over the years.

There’s this brief twinge of regret and paranoia that passes over you when you realise what could happen if anyone who knew you were to see Jeongguk with you, wondering what could happen if they were to start talking. What would they say about you? What would they say about Jeongguk? How shitty would you seem if you were to ruin all chances of him enjoying his college life in peace?

Before you even have a chance to work yourself up, however, Jeongguk appears in front of you, setting down the tray as he chews on a mouthful of fries.

“This is my kind of fine dining,” he says, swallowing before letting out a soft chuckle.

“Ooh, yeah,” you reply, reaching for your cheese fries. “This easily beats every five-star restaurant I’ve ever been to for sure.”

“You’ve been to a five-star restaurant, noona?” Jeongguk asks, handing you your burger.

“Probably twice? Yeah. Once for my dad’s birthday. We went to this really fancy place in Gangnam. Second time was for Christmas after my dad married Tae’s mom.”

“So that’s how you and Taehyung hyung are related. Kinda.” You hum around your burger in agreement. “Is Seokjin hyung your cousin cousin, or your... step cousin? Is that a thing?”

“Step cousin, yeah,” you say, chuckling. “If that is a thing. He’s Taehyung’s blood-related cousin, so I guess we’re just cousins by, like, association? This is confusing. I dunno.”

“Nah, I get it.”

“Like I said though, he might as well just be another brother. He nags like one. Or, like, an extra parent.”

“I can relate to that,” Jeongguk says, nodding slowly with a mouthful of his burger stuffed in his cheeks. “He’s, like... the mom of the frat. It was kinda weird, but... it’s good. We can’t all be a bunch of hooligans in that house, y’know?”

“Yeah. I’m sure without Jin oppa’s motherly ways and Yoongi oppa’s anal-ness, that house would’ve burned down years ago.”

“Yup.”

“You said your dad was alum though, right?” you ask, dipping fries into the melted cheese at the bottom of the paper basket.

“Yeah, he was. He seemed pretty happy at least one of his sons went to his alma mater. Even if I’ve only got about two years to go.”

“Oh? You have siblings?”

“Just an older brother. He decided to study in the States for his undergrad, and ended up staying there for his masters. Seoul’s been a big enough culture shock for me as it is. I dunno how he’s managed to survive in Chicago for longer than a semester. But then again, we’re, like, polar opposites, so I guess if anyone was gonna be able to live in America on their own, it was gonna be him.”

“Do you miss him?”

Jeongguk smiles, a little sadly you notice, picking at an onion ring, saying, “yeah. Heaps. He’s always been the one who kinda keeps me sane, even back in Busan.” You don’t say anything, just watch as Jeongguk seems to reminisce quietly to himself while you eat. “Like, it’s not as if I’m not on bad terms with my parents or anything. I love them. I miss them heaps too. But it’s like... my brother was -- is -- the one I can talk to about anything, because he kinda understands what I’m going though whenever something doesn’t make sense.”

“Must be good,” you chuckle, wiping your fingers on a napkin. “Having someone you can talk to about everything, I mean.”

“You don’t have any siblings, noona? I mean, like, blood-related. Not including Taehyung hyung and Seokjin hyung.”

“Nah, I’m an only child in that sense,” you reply, picking at the set cheese on the wax paper. “My mom left before she had anymore kids with dad.”

“Oh.” Jeongguk puts his drink down back onto the table slowly. “Your mom... left.”

“Yeah. I don’t really care about it though. She left when I was pretty young. To be honest, I don’t really remember much about her.” You shrug, ignoring the weird weight in your chest. “Taehyung’s mom is really nice though. It’s probably still pretty weird. She pretty much got a daughter overnight after marrying dad, but she’s been really good at treating me like I’ve been there the whole time, like I’m not just some kid that appeared out of nowhere. I can see why Tae turned out the way he did.”

Jeongguk seems a little hesitant about saying anything, so he doesn’t, and just continues to sip at his drink quietly, burger and onion rings demolished.

“That was probably the deepest conversation to have happened at a Burger King. Fuck,” you mutter.

You barely have time to flinch away before Jeongguk is spitting out his drink, tiny droplets of projectile soda hitting you in the face and chest.

“Oh fuck, noona, I’m sorry!” he says, coughing as he beats his fist against his chest. He’s going to apologise more, he swears, as soon as he can breathe properly, but when he looks up, wiping away tears from the corners of his eyes because choking hurts, he’s shocked, but, admittedly, a little relieved, to find you’re clutching your stomach as you too struggle to breathe, laughing hard.

“Jeongguk, you dick,” you say, breathless as you dab at the corners of your eyes, careful not to smudge your makeup.

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk says, but he’s laughing, and silently marvelling at the way the drops of cola that landed on your cheeks now look like small freckles. “But you can’t just say something like that, noona!”

“God,” you groan, but there’s no malice in your voice as you carefully wipe your face and proceed to throw the scrunched up napkin at his chest, watching it bounce off him and land onto the table. “You’re the worst.”

“You’re the worst. You just ruined a nice moment,” Jeongguk counters.

“I love fine dining.”

“Noona!”

“Jeongguk, you didn’t have to walk me home. What the hell?”

“But noona,” Jeongguk says, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. “Look how dark it is. How could you walk alone in this?”

“God. You are really something,” you say, shaking your head with a barely concealed smile.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry ‘bout it.” It’s warm out tonight, the air just borderline humid, a small teaser of what might be a very hot summer, and you’re starting to feel a little uncomfortable wearing so much. “Anyways. How’re you finding Seoul so far?”

“It’s alright. Not really what I expected if I’m honest,” Jeongguk replies, shrugging a little.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” you ask, chuckling.

“Uh... both?” He chuckles with you. “Nah, it’s good, mostly. There’s just a lot more people here. Not that Busan is the smallest city in the country or anything, but, y’know...” He shrugs again.

“Yeah, it gets a bit crazy up here, huh? It’s hard to get bored in Seoul though, I think. But I bet being so close to the sea is amazing.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty great. My grandparents live pretty close to Haeundae so we’re usually there during the summer. This... it’ll be the first summer not by the beach for me, actually.”

You notice Jeongguk’s step slow just a little, and you barely catch the little shift in his expression as he no doubt is hit with a wave of homesickness.

“Jimin always goes back to Busan for a couple weeks in the summer,” you offer. “You could always go with him, if you don’t mind him talking your head off the entire train ride back. I swear to God, he never shuts up.”

“Jimin hyung does talk a lot I’ve noticed. So does Taehyung hyung,” Jeongguk says, the corners of his lips twitching with a smile. “I can hear them talking about aliens at, like, two in the morning. They’d make great swimmers with their lung capacity.”

“Tae doesn’t exercise. And Jimin only ever dances. Good luck getting them anywhere near a pool, Guk.”

“I could throw them in.”

“If you do, I better be there to record the whole thing. I wanna be internet famous.” Jeongguk breaks out into a wide grin. “What time are your tryouts, by the way?”

“Um.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his phone as the both of you come to a stop at the lights. “Swim tryouts are at four, baseball’s at four-thirty,” he reads off.

“Tuesday and Wednesday, right?”

“You’re really coming, noona?”

“You don’t want me to?”

“No, I... I do. Really.”

“I could be your lucky charm, Jeongguk. You might set a new school record. Or hit a home run. Or both.”

“I doubt it,” Jeongguk says, chuckling, stepping forward as the pedestrian light turns green.

“You never know,” you say, singing your words as you jog ahead of him.

#jungkook #jeon jeongguk #bts #bangtan #bts scenarios #fratboy!au

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uriurijihoonie · 6 years

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🌈 rainbow + lee chan (soulmate!au, highschool!au)

A/N: This final fic concludes my word prompts list!! Thank you very much to those who requested and appreciated my writings!! word count: 2,770

As much as you want for fate and the universe to let everything fall into their hands, you were running out of patience anymore-- or maybe your yearning has increased the more the people, even your friends around you, started meeting their soulmate.

You were tired of living a dull, boring, black and white life-- literally and figuratively. Your surroundings were black and white, devoid of any color, at least in your eyes. You didn’t know what your uniform color is, the curtains on your bedroom, that one fancy looking house you always pass down the street, and even the flower garden your friends gush over at your school.

While you can only stare at your friends appreciating their surroundings, you don’t fancy looking at everything around you-- it makes you feel sick, your hopelessness increasing each and every time you witness your friends seeing color for the first time upon meeting and touching their other halves.

Even if your heart’s lightly covered with bitterness, hopelessness and deep longing, you can’t help but daydream of a fairytale, movie-like meeting with your soulmate.

The first time you witnessed something that magical was when you were with your friend. It was the first day of your senior year in high school. Your friend, being a responsible club president, was giving out flyers and brochures for the set of students piling in. As a ‘good’ friend, like she labeled you, you’re just propped up on a nearby bench, snacks in hand as you watch her give out flyers. There were a lot of students that sometimes, you lose sight of your friend.

Since it was a crowded place, your friend was bumping continuously with other students. With constant collisions between bodies, your friend collided with a rather strong figure, making her completely lose balance. And while you saw how your friend and the other student crashed with your flyers spilling everywhere, you almost rushed to her side yet your friend found herself staring in awe as the guy in front of him dressed your blue and maroon uniform, which your friend just saw, her surroundings started bursting into full color.

It’s a story worth telling to your kids and grandkids someday. And also, no matter how much you deny in yourself, you knew how it made you feel a sad kind of envy and jealousy. You wanted that kind of moment—not necessarily in an embarrassing situation or anything unique of some sort; you just wanted a normal day to be something worth remembering forever.

“Y/N? Earth to Y/N, please!” You were cut out of your reverie and you saw your friend with a questioning look on her face, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just thinking.” You shook your head, clearing your thoughts away, “You done picking?”

Her face lit up, and she stood straight as she flaunted her chosen gown to you by turning around, “What do you think? Does emerald green suit me?”

Something ticked off inside you upon the mention of a color you obviously don’t know, “If you mean that certain shade of gray suits you, then it’s good.” You sighed, hiding your irritation.

You heard your friend gasp as if she said something she didn’t mean to, “Oh dear, I’m sorry, Y/N,” she took your hand in hers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you or what, I’m just excited about prom and—“

“It’s okay, F/N,” you managed to plaster a convincing, fake smile on your face, “It’s not your fault. I’m also sorry I’m a bit cranky today. But honestly, even though I can’t see colors, I’m sure you look beautiful in any color.” This time, you sincerely smiled at her, an assuring smile.

“Thanks, Y/N,” she smiled back, and then remembered something. “But why aren’t you picking any gowns? Prom’s less than three weeks away, you know?”

You smiled sadly, “I’m not going. It’s not like I’ll do anything important right there,” I can’t even appreciate the event with seeing black and white all the time, you added in your thoughts.

“That’s nonsense, Y/N! Come on!” She pulled you up to stand and walked towards the various display of gowns, ranging to different shades of whites, grays and blacks in your eyes.

“F/N, I don’t want to,” you tried stopping her from browsing different racks.

“Well, I want to. And who knows? Maybe your soulmate will be there! It’s not impossible!” A flicker of hope lit up inside you at the thought, yet immediately died down as you sighed.

“Don’t give me false hopes, F/N. It’s our Senior Year and I think I met all of the students in our year and made eye contacts with them but there’s no flicker of colors,” you looked away, heart feeling heavy. “It’s hopeless, F/N.”

You’re ready to receive another earful of speech from your friend whenever your hopelessness shows up, yet it was peculiar that she didn’t utter any word and you looked at he, just in time as she pulled a dark black (in your eyes, it was dark black), off-shoulder gown and held it in front of you.

“Y/N! This will look absolutely perfect on you!” She squealed in delight as if she finished a masterpiece, “Go on, and try it!” She nudged you to the dressing rooms, and as you were about to protest, she gently smiled at you.

“It doesn’t hurt to try, Y/N. I know how close you are to being hopeless and giving up on finding your soulmate, but that’s how life works. I know it hurts, and the dread you feel that the people around you found their other halves already, but please, let’s go to the prom. I promise I won’t leave you, and I’ll make sure you’re going to have fun.” Your friend coaxed; a frown on her face.

You sighed. It’s true how you’re really starting to lose hope but then again, life isn’t a race, and in the first place, you trusted fate and universe to take the matter in their hands, and eventually, in the right time, you’ll see that flicker of what they call a rainbow in your life, lasting for a long time.

So you grabbed your friend’s chosen gown for you and went to change.

“Hyung, stop! You’re ruining it more!”

“I can’t believe our youngest is on his Senior Year already!”

“Ah! Hyung! Stop messing my hair!”

Chan couldn’t help but grumble as he tried to fix back his hairstyle which was messed up his Soonyoung-hyung, which only grinned at him and smoothed his suit.

“You’re quite cranky tonight, what’s up?” Unexplainably, Chan’s cheeks flushed pink, and as he turned away, it was noticed by Soonyoung, who can now see colors upon meeting his soulmate a few months ago. “Are you blushing?”

“No, hyung! I—I’m just nervous. What Jun-hyung said… what if my soulmate really was on my school after all?” His thoughts flashed back to a strange event that happened to him years ago.

Chan was a junior back then. It was any normal day; he was at the cafeteria with his friends. He was plainly looking around his black and white surroundings, until his eyes landed on you, a certain girl whose face holds nonchalance as you eat with your friends.

And something flickers in Chan’s eyes.

Different rainbow streaks start appearing as he continued looking at you. You didn’t notice him looking at you, yet Chan was left in awe, his heart thumping as different shades of colors he couldn’t name started appearing.

He was pulled out of the moment when one of his friends blocked his sight, and the color streaks disappeared. Chan tried looking for you, but until his senior year, he didn’t get to see you anymore.

“Loosen up, Chan. Don’t worry,” Soonyoung patted his shoulder, “You’re going to find her soon enough.”

“I hope so, hyung.” Chan smiled lightly and fixed his tie. He wasn’t one to fuss about soulmates and as if in a rush to find his, yet upon experiencing that strange event, Chan is now eager to find you.

The program proper was finally done and you couldn’t help but get excited as party music blasted through the hall’s large speakers, flickering lights filled the hall. Although your sight is in gray and white, the party vibe and your friend’s promise to not leave your side made everything bearable and less dreadful for you.

You danced the night away, happy that even just for tonight, the heaviness in your heart was lightened a bit. Thinking of the positive sides your greyscale sight gives you, such as the “blinding neon lights” one of your friends dubbed to, you weren’t blinded by the lights.

Just as you took off your heels, one of the DJs in-charge changed the music into a slow, love song as a final chance for the students to dance with their crushes or soulmates, making your mood shift 180 degrees, and the heaviness in your heart returned.

You stood still, watching some couples take the floor, and your black and white sight didn’t help at all. You feel sick, dreadful, your hope upon finding your fated half slowly fading.

Until you turned your head to your right, your eyes caught the gaze of someone who’s looking at you intently. Yet, not only did the guy’s gaze made your heart thump louder. It’s the streaks of color slowly painting your surroundings, and how you actually knew that his eyes were brown, you didn’t know why. Yet you knew, it was him, your soulmate.

The color streaks suddenly vanished when your sight were blocked by a couple, you returning to the greyscale world.

“No, no, I can’t lose him,” you mumbled, panic and fear clouded your eyes as you searched for him, seeking through the crowd of couples dancing.

“Come on, Y/N, relax and look for him,” you bite your quivering lip while talking to yourself, tears pooling on your eyes as you felt panic and fear surge with the thought of losing him.

Chan, on the other hand, was also looking for you. “Damn it,” he cursed at himself, sweat starting to form on his forehead, “I can’t lose her again.” Brushing his hair with his hands, he kept looking for those warm, honey-colored eyes.

You scooped your gown with your hands, glad that you decided to take off your heels so you ran, your head whipping around the hall. You didn’t care if some tears managed to escape and ruin your makeup, not when your hope and desperation were on the roof, trying to look for him.

“Dang it, where are you?” You cried in frustration, stopping for a while to take deep breaths. You cannot cry, you’ll lose sight of him even more.

Once more, you ran across the huge hall. Chan did, too. And it seems like fate was playing with you on how you ran past across each other, your eyes seeming not to meet once again.

The song was coming to a close, and so did your hopes of seeing him again. Your breathing uneven, feet already throbbing due to running in circles and the cold temperature of the floor, you slowly halt to a stop.

The hopelessness in you started to surface, you dropped your gown along with your hands falling limply on your side, tears far from stopping, and your schoolmates dancing the night away didn’t help at all, you felt sick and dizzy, you just wanted to crawl to the comforts of your bed.

“Damn you, universe,” you mumbled, slowly making your way outside the venue, not minding how you bump into someone’s shoulders or collide with their bodies; you just wanted to rest.

And then, suddenly, someone smashes into you from the side.

Your eyes widened, feeling your balance losing as you flail your arms. Whoever crashed into you is also falling. Closing your eyes, you prepared for a rather hard fall, until you felt a gentle hand snaked around the small of your back, preventing you from the fall.

Upon processing that someone had caught you, you opened your eyes.

And it was the most beautiful and charming pair of brown-colored eyes you don’t mind getting lost into everytime.

His skin is the palest shade that you can clearly see how his cheeks were flushed pink, his dark brown eyes looking at you intently the same way he did earlier, and his slicked back hair making him a dashing prince in your eyes.

“You’re… You’re really beautiful up close,” he mumbled, and hearing his statement made your ears go red, thinking whether you should respond or not. Then, suddenly, he snaps out into his intent gaze at you, and guided you to properly stand. Your gazes suddenly met, and with the lingering embarrassment, you looked down, taking in the beautiful, dark color of your gown, which, coincidentally, compliments the long sleeves and tie of your soulmate.

“Uhm… uhh…” you looked up at him, looking sheepishly as his hand was scratching the back of his neck. You chuckled, seeing how cute he was.

“W-What?” He blinked at you, his cheeks flushing even more. Did I say “cute” out loud?

“Uh, kind of, yeah. You actually said it out loud,” he pointed out, now your turn to be embarrassed. He just chuckled, “Well, I think you’re adorable, too.”

You both flush at his statement. Chan cleared his throat afterwards, “My name’s uh, Lee Chan, from class 4-3, by the way.”

He extended out his hand, and you shyly took it. Warmth immediately spread inside of you, your heart feeling alight more than ever, “I’m Y/N, class 4-7. Maybe that’s why we haven’t crossed paths much.”

“I see. Your room’s located on the other building, right?”

“Yeah,” silenced enveloped the two of you, and you both noticed how your hands were still holding each other’s, yet no one seemed to want to pull away. You were both captured into your own bubble, sharing timid, shy smiles as pink flushes decorated your faces.

The slow music from the hall managed to peer inside your bubble, and Chan, gaining enough confidence as he looked at you, his precious soulmate, guided your hands on his shoulders, his hands finding your waist.

“Is this okay with you?” Chan carefully asked, not wanting you to be uncomfortable, and it warmed your heart on how gentle and careful Chan is towards you, that you instantly felt safe in his arms.

You nod your head. Letting Chan guide you, you had your first dance in your whole lifetime, and sharing the moment with your soulmate makes it all worthwhile.

“Wait,” he looked down, and peeking underneath your gown was your bare feet. You gasped, chuckling as you try to hide your feet, “Why aren’t you wearing your shoes?”

“I took it off earlier for convenience. The heels are killing me,” you laughed, still swaying gently. Then, unexpectedly, Chan crouched down, your eyebrows furrowing on what he was doing, until you saw he took off his own shoes, “Chan! What are you doing?”

“The floor’s cold, you know. Can you give me your foot?” He looked up at you, gentleness and care evident in his eyes. Your tears well up in your eyes, you didn’t expect someone as caring and thoughtful like Chan to be your soulmate.

You just pulled him up to stand, surprising him in the process as you gently wrapped your arms on his neck, your bodies close to each other. You can feel Chan hesitating to wrap his arms on you, and you guided his to wrap around yours.

You started to sob, all the longing and pain washed away your hesitations, and Chan could feel you crying as your shoulders shake; his hands immediately rubbed your back, “Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

“I’m just happy,” you mumbled close to his ear, relaxing in his arms, in his warmth.

You thought back to all the days you were feeling sick, the days of despair, and how it was all now worth it. With Chan right there standing next to you, you have nothing to fear of anymore.

Long gone your hopelessness and fear of not meeting your soulmate, long gone your greyscale world, having been living the dull, lifeless world, seeing black and white wherever you go. Becase now, Chan is already there with you, who brought color into your life, like a rainbow that shone brightly above the dark gray clouds, after a lonely, heavy downpour.

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ladylynse · 7 years

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"What do you mean you won't allow a witch to be an astronaut? I've worked my life for this-- you can't take that away from me!" Harry Potter Universe meets a stubborn muggle-born?

Here you go, Anon! I hope you enjoy it. It’s post-series but pre-Cursed Child if we’re taking that as canon and features Hermione as the only canon character.

Dreams: [FF | AO3]Somehow, Hermione found herself dealing with a stubborn muggle-born who had been told that an astronaut is not exactly an ideal wizarding profession.

“What do you mean you won’t allow a witch to be anastronaut?” The shout echoed down the corridor of the Ministry, cutting throughthe babble of conversation beyond her office door and swish of papers flyingoverhead. “I’ve worked all my life for this! You can’t take that away from me!”

Hermione looked up from her desk just in time to see herdoor fly open. Papers blew out of their neat stacks and danced to the floor asher colleague Quentin Templeton burst in. He slammed the door behind him andshot her a pleading look. “Help me.”

“I’d be more inclined to do that if you didn’t break down mydoor,” Hermione said reproachfully. “I’ve only been in this office two days;I’d hate to have to go back to my cubicle already.”

“You don’t understand. She’s not listening to reason. Thereare laws! We have them to protectourselves! But she doesn’t understand that!”

Hermione opened her mouth to ask exactly from whom Quentinthought he was hiding when her door flew off its hinges. Quentin yelped, divingto the side and just barely avoiding being clipped; Hermione had to throw up ashield, which in turn destroyed her beloved door and the last vestiges of herfiling system as the remaining papers scattered everywhere.

“You,” the girl barked, looking at Hermione, “you’reimportant, right? You have some pull here? Can you tell this…this…pureblood that being an astronaut is aprestigious profession and there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t pursue my dream?”

Hermione sighed.

With a few flicks of her wand, she cleared the debris fromthe two chairs in front of her desk. “Please, have a seat, Ms.—?”

“Maureen Davidson,” the girl spat. She cast a glare atQuentin before flouncing down into her seat; he didn’t move from the cornerbeyond climbing to his feet. “I have been preparing for this for years. I did distance education and homeschool curriculums on top of mystudies at Hogwarts so I didn’t fall behind in the muggle system. I’ve attendedsummer school and conferences and space camps and am learning Russian. I got mypilot’s license when I turned seventeen last month. I’ve applied and beenaccepted to several universities, but that bloke—” she pointed at Quentinwithout even looking at him “—tells me I can’t go. Tell him he’s wrong.”

“Ms. Davidson—”

“He says I need totake a job in the wizarding world, that I have to be a contributing member ofsociety. Well, why can’t I do that by becoming an astronaut? I know thecompetition is stiff, but I’m top of my class in everything, and he has no right to tell me this isn’t feasible. Ihave my entire career path planned out. I’ll be fluent in Russian in five toseven years, in a PhD program for chemistry— That’s potions to you,” she sneered, looking back at Quentin, “and well onmy way to logging over a thousand hours of flight time. But now I can’t do thatbecause an astronaut isn’t a properwizarding profession?”

Hermione steepled her fingers. She had a feeling Ms.Davidson had been experiencing the dreaded department shuffle, given that hercase only had a passing connection to the Department of Magical LawEnforcement. “Quentin, do you mind leaving us for a moment?”

Quentin mumbled something affirmative and fled. A quick reparo and aguamenti later, and Hermione had filled a previously-shatteredwater glass and offered it to Maureen. The girl looked defiant, so Hermioneadded, “I thought you might be thirsty after all that.”

“Thanks,” Maureen mumbled as she took the glass. She lookedslightly less disgruntled after swallowing a few mouthfuls.

Hermione took the opportunity to lean back in her chair.“Ms. Davidson, I believe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I haven’t evenintroduced myself.” And chances were very good that Maureen hadn’t seen hername on the door before blowing it off its hinges. “I’m Hermione Granger.Please excuse my colleague; as you rightly deduced, he is a pureblood and assuch is still woefully lacking in knowledge about the muggle world that isbeyond the scope of everyday function.”

Maureen blinked. “You’re—?”She grabbed for the water and drained it. “Okay. So. You’re a muggle-born, too.Which means you really do understand. Is there really a law that says we have to choose a wizarding professionjust because we have magic?”

“It’s strongly encouraged,” Hermione allowed, “but nothing’swritten down, not even in the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy.Witches and wizards tend to enjoy a longer life span than muggles, but newblood and the new ideas that come with it is strongly encouraged in theworkforce. It’s exceedingly rare for someone with magic to struggle to findemployment. As a society, we are still quite small, even worldwide. That is whyit is preferable for anyone of magic to seek employment within the wizardingworld.”

Maureen crossed her arms. “The wizarding world likes toignore the technological advances muggles have made. Technology and magic may notmix well, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, do they? I mean, when Isaid I dreamed of seeing Earth from space, your friend looked at me like I hada death wish. They do know muggles landed on the moon nearly fifty years ago,right?”

Hermione rather suspected most didn’t, so she smiled insteadof answering. “What you need to understand, Maureen—may I call you Maureen?—isthat most of these laws, explicit and implicit, have been designed to protectus.” Maureen kept saying them insteadof us, and Hermione needed to changethat if she hoped to resolve this; if Maureen refused to acknowledge that shewas just as much a part of the wizarding world as she was the muggle one, thenHermione was fighting a losing battle. “It’s not simply a matter of protectingus from persecution anymore; there is also an element of sustaining oursociety. It is imperative that our youth bring forward a fresh outlook on theway we do things; too often, we find ourselves abiding by precedents setcenturies ago. Even in the wizarding world, which has evolved much more slowlythan the muggle one, change is vital. Without it, our society will stagnate.Now, if every muggle-born or half-blood decided to pursue a career in themuggle world, what do you expect would happen to the wizarding one?”

Maureen narrowed her eyes. “I know what you’re getting at.You’re trying to get me to say that without people like me, the wizarding wouldnever change. That it would flounder and die, trying to keep alive traditionsthat are not only no longer relevant but also don’t even hold meaning anymore,because that’s all the purebloods know.” A heavy generalization, but she wasgetting the point. “But that’s irrelevant. All my friends, regardless of theirblood status, are happy to enter wizarding society. It’ll live on just finewithout me. But I’ve wanted to be an astronaut for as long as I can remember,and there’s no equivalent to that in the wizarding world.”

“That’s true,” agreed Hermione. “There is no equivalent ofastronaut in our world. I’m sure your Head of House informed you of that.”

“My Head of House didn’t know what I was talking about,”complained Maureen before Hermione could continue, “and suggested I take it upwith the Ministry. Which is why I’m here. Again.Because I’ve had to come before, and it’s never accomplished anything.” Maureenadopted a high, simpering voice and mocked, “Oh, this isn’t my department. I’msure they can help you down on the second floor. Why don’t you try there, dear?No? Well, why not the fourth floor? Oh, I’m sorry, miss, but you should be onthe second floor. You tried that? I’m sure there’s just a misunderstanding. Whydon’t you go back and I’ll write a memo to the appropriate people?”

“What you need,” said Hermione, “is to find the appropriatebalance in order to get the best of both worlds.”

Maureen raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“From what you’ve said about your schooling, you’ve alreadyshown great discipline and expertise when it comes to juggling our two verydifferent worlds. I would propose that you keep doing that rather than choosingto abandon the wizarding world in favour of the muggle one.”

Maureen snorted. “Sure. That would be great. Exceptapparently that’s impossible. Is now your cue to say that I need to be thechange I want to see in the world?”

“Something like that.” Hermione’s smile returned. “Have youconsidered work in Muggle Relations?”

“Muggle Relations?” Maureen repeated. “Like, for the Muggle LiaisonOffice? Don’t they just modify the memories of muggles who see things theyshouldn’t? Stuff like that?”

“There’s more to it, though I will admit memory modificationis a common task for those in the field. No, I was thinking you’d be bettersuited to a long term undercover assignment.”

Maureen stared at her. “A what?”

“An undercover operative,” repeated Hermione. “Sometimesdeployed in pairs, granted, or even larger groups, but solo missions are thenorm. It’s usually a position held by squibs knowledgeable of the muggle worldor by muggle-borns such as yourself. The idea is to gauge muggle society, tosee how they react to the unexplained events of our world to which they areexposed and to be among the first responders on the scene to do damage controlwhen there’s a breach of security or an attack. Essentially, you’ll be doing alot of work to ensure that all those bedtime stories of witches and wizardsstay just that, for the most part.” Hermione grimaced. “I hate to admit this,but it is safer if muggles as a whole are skeptical of magic. At the veryleast, we can’t risk the level of destruction that would result if warringsides started employing magic. The threat of nuclear war is real enough withoutadding in the possibility of magical genocide.”

“Okay,” Maureen said slowly, “but what exactly does thishave to do with me being an astronaut?”

“As long as you write consistent reports, I see no reasonwhy you could not position yourself in the UK Space Agency and apply to goout-of-country when the time comes.” Hermione folded her hands. “I’m sureMuggle Relations would be delighted to have an enterprising young witch such asyourself in their employ. Now, I’m sure you don’t want to hear this again, butif you go up to Level 3, they could give you some more information so that youcan properly consider the position before deciding if you would like to applyfor it.”

Maureen grinned. “Thank you. It is so relieving to finally get an answer. I can totally see where yourreputation comes from.” She sprang to her feet, turned to go, hesitated, andturned back. “Um…can I do anything about your door?”

Hermione laughed and waved her off. “Leave that to me. Youdeserve to keep working on turning your dreams into reality. Good luck. If youkeep this up, I’m sure you’ll be sailing amongst the stars someday.”

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#hp #harry potter #hermione granger #hp fanfiction #fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #hp snippet #snippets #requests #I was relying on the internet for the astronaut info #so that might not be entirely accurate #Anonymous

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