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matwith1t · 3 years

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A/N: Back with angst 👊 Fair warning, this fic is pure angst. All of it 🔪 It’s heavily inspired by Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and it’s the fic where I project my fear of staying stagnant in life (oops). I have a somewhat working outline for a part 2, but I’d love to know your thoughts!! Also, this fic has a brief smut scene, so if you’re not 18+ hop on over to my masterlist for something else !

Summary: Your long-term relationship with Mat brought you more happiness than anything else in the world. But one day, something in your gut felt different, an emotion that you couldn’t quite place felt off. And maybe, that feeling was the catalyst for you wanting a change in life.

MASTERLIST | LET’S CHAT 🥂 | Mat Barzal x Reader

Warnings: Anxiety, Smut, Swearing // WC: 11.2K // Angst

The sun felt warm against your face and the grass beneath you tickled your ankles. With the month of May nearing its end, the sweet smell of spring could still be detected in the air during the seasonal transition to summer. From a distance, the soft sounds of children laughing while running through the park tugged your lips upward into a small smile.

A sense of ease flooded your body as you laid directly on the grass with your arms tucked behind your head. The vital force that came with being outside in the springtime energized your body to the point where you felt your body produce more natural endorphins. You treasured the outdoors––it would always remain a sacred place for you––but as you laid upon the grass, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach clawed its way up at a deliberately slow, and unwarranted, pace.

It felt like a secret message your body was trying to communicate with you, but you didn’t have the tools on how to decode it.

The feeling came in and out, like ocean tides, but you did your best to push it aside when the uneasiness surfaced. So far, everything in your life had been smooth sailing––everything had been going according to plan––so you never paid that feeling any attention.

There wasn’t anything in your life that you wanted to change.

With a deep breath, you tried to inhale as much of the fresh spring air as possible.

“Hey, sleepy.”

With one eye squinted open, you brought a hand from behind your head to shield the sun rays from blinding your face. And when your vision adjusted to the sunlight, you saw your boyfriend at an upside down angle. In his arms he held a blanket as he waved down at you. A smile instantly graced your lips as you shut both of your eyes, before opening them slowly.

As Mat shook out the blanket before spreading it out on the grass, you sat up, and stuck your legs straight out, “You’re a bit late.”

Without looking at you, Mat rolled his eyes, “Practice ran late.”

When the blanket was laid out on the grass, Mat sat down and patted the spot next to him. With a smile, you made your way to sit next to him. Your smile widened when you saw he already had an arm raised for you to tuck yourself into his side.

“It was a morning practice,” you looked up at him through your eyelashes, “It’s nearly four in the afternoon.”

With adoration in his eyes shining just as bright as the spring sun, you felt yourself fall more in love with him. His hand dangled over your shoulder as he lazily traced circles on your upper arm, “Tito wanted ice-cream.”

A laugh of amusement, mixed with disbelief, escaped your lips as you placed both hands on his chest to push him away, “You liar.”

With your shove, Mat tightened his arm around your shoulder as the two of you fell backward on the blanket laughing. As you laid on your side, Mat readjusted his arm around you, with your head on his shoulder. His sweatshirt felt soft, and his chest continued to shake with laughter.

“Practice did run late,” Mat reiterated his first point, to which you only hummed in acknowledgement, “And then Tito said he wanted ice-cream, but he wanted to go to this specific shop.” Mat placed a kiss on your temple, “Would’ve told him to go alone if I knew how much time it’d take.”

Again, you hummed, as you rested a hand on his stomach, “Did you at least tell your boyfriend that your girlfriend said hi?”

Mat scoffed at your remark and poked your stomach in retaliation. You laughed at his childish behavior and moved a bit down the blanket so your head now rested just below his heart. He pulled you closer to him, and with your face nuzzled into his sweatshirt, you took a deep breath and savored how much his sweatshirt smelled like home to you.

He smelled almost as good as spring.

The hand that you had on his stomach rose up and down with his even breathing. And as you laid outside on the grass, surrounded by the spring air and the person you loved most in your life, you felt nothing but peace. Comfortable silence wasn’t uncommon in your relationship. While his voice soothed your most anxious thoughts… hearing the birds sing their melodies, listening in on the slight rustle of tree leaves whenever the wind blew, and the sound of steady breathing, paired with Mat’s slightly faster heartbeat, was more calming than anything.

“I can’t wait until that’s us.”

You peered up at Mat to see his vision locked in on something to his right. In order to see what he was referring to, you propped your chin up on his chest. It didn’t take you long to see that something was really a someone. And upon squinting to get a better look, that someone turned out to be a man, woman, and a child.

Your only response to him was a hum as you traced shapes on his stomach, hoping that your touch was strong enough to distract him from the conversation you knew he was about to bring up.

“I love you,” his words were strong, not faltering in the slightest, as he stared down at you with a promising look in his eyes. He picked up your hand––ultimately putting a stop to what you had hoped would distract him from this exact conversation––and pressed a delicate kiss to your knuckles, “So much.”

Mat gently placed your still connected hands on his stomach as you craned your neck up to press a kiss to his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He squeezed your hand twice, a look of amazement in his eyes as he stared up at the sky with a soft smile, “In a few months, It’ll be six years since we’ve been together.”

Your head softly fell back onto his chest as you nodded. Because while you’ll be celebrating six years of officially being in a relationship, the two of you had known each other much longer. He was the annoying kid at the end of the cul-de-sac who chased you around front yards and threatened to give you cooties. And you were the little girl who ran away from him, pretending to be disgusted whenever he got too close, but secretly loved his attention.

And that’s when your crush on him began.

From playing group games with other kids at neighborhood block parties, pairing up to sit next to each other on the bus in elementary school during field trips, to Mat asking you to the winter formal in eighth grade on a dare…Your infatuation towards him only grew.

By the time you were both eighteen, Mat realized his feelings, and asked you out on a date.

Playing games with other kids went to spending one-on-one time with Mat on dates. Sitting next to each other on the school bus as little kids went to Mat picking you up in his car as teenagers. And going to dances together was no longer the end product of a dare.

Even when Mat went to Seattle to play hockey, the two of you still kept the connection while you stayed in Canada. The four years of University were easier; with Mat playing for the New York Islanders, and your top choice for school was in New York City, it didn’t take more than a second thought to accept the offer.

As if Mat had the same memories playing on an endless loop in his head, he let out a relaxed breath, “I can’t wait until we buy a house, tell our kids how we met, and take them to this park.”

The uncomfortable familiar feeling you felt earlier in the afternoon creeped up your stomach, “You really have it all planned out.”

“I have our life,” he squeezed your hand as he made a point to emphasize a shared future between the two of you, “planned out.”

You were positive he could feel your heartbeat increase. And while the pounding of your heart could easily be mistaken for the heightened feelings you felt whenever you were near Mat, you knew something else was causing this distress. There was no one in the world you loved more than Mat. You loved your family because they were family, but you made a conscious decision to love him. And despite some hardships, he chose to love you as well.

But thinking about the future made you squirm.

A future with Mat was all you ever desired. You knew he was the one person in the universe made for you when you were halfway through university. And you were pretty sure Mat knew you were his person by the fourth date.

You still kept some of your notebooks that had doodles in the margin. The psychology notebook from junior year of high school had Mat Barzal, with hearts dotting around his name, in every blank space. And even in university, your senior year thesis notebook had script writing of your name paired with his last name, so you could practice a potential new signature for the future.

Since the seventh grade, this was everything you daydreamed about with Mat; a future together. Happiness always fogged up your mind whenever you thought about a lifetime together with him, you wanted this, but everything felt like it was approaching faster than anticipated. And the undisclosed feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn’t going away no matter how hard you tried to only think about a happy future with Mat.

Wanting to feel anything other than whatever made your stomach churn, you leaned up to press a lingering kiss to Mat’s jaw. Then you pressed another kiss to his neck, and another further down at the base of his throat. With each kiss you pressed to his skin, the feeling subsided more.

When you detached your lips from his skin and sat up, you heard him let out a discontent hum. With his eyes closed, he wasn’t aware of the adoration in your eyes as you looked down at him. You studied everything about his face; the slight pink coloring on his cheeks despite it almost being summertime, the downward curve on the bridge of his nose, and how he somehow still had a slight smile on his face when he wasn’t awake.

A satisfied silent sigh passed through your lips as your index finger trailed across his silver chain. The jewelry felt cold on your fingertips, but with the way Mat still had a hand holding onto yours, your whole body burned like a furnace. Unable to resist the pull you felt toward him any longer, you leaned down and pressed an innocent kiss to his lips. You lifted your head up, pulling your lips away from his, but Mat brought his free hand to gently lay on your cheek as he lifted his head up slightly to bring you back into a kiss.

It was soft, delicate, and reminded you of the first kiss you shared after your second date outside of his car when he dropped you off in front of your house.

With his thumb caressing your cheek, his fingers curled around your neck to bring your lips closer to his. And as you smiled into the kiss, he slowly lifted himself up until he was properly sitting. You pulled away from the kiss again, not wanting to get carried away while in public, but Mat followed your lips and kissed them one last time.

Your hand that was on his shoulder slowly inched toward the back of his neck where you played with the ends of his hair. He leaned his forehead against yours and whispered, “Wanna get pizza?”

You threw your head back in laughter and Mat dropped his head into the crook of your neck, wrapping an arm around your waist for a hug. Leaning into the hug, you continued to thread your fingers through his hair, “Yeah, pizza sounds good.”

“Good,” Mat pressed a featherlight kiss under your jaw as he unwound his arms from around you to stand up. He reached a hand out for you, and with a smile, you placed your hand in his as he pulled you up.

Once on your feet, he tugged on your arm so that you were pressed flat against his chest, caught in another hug. Never one to deny any of his hugs, you wrapped your arms around his waist as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. His arms were strong and his body felt warm. You melted into his touch like you had for the past five––almost six––years.

But then his stomach grumbled, and you leaned away from him with an amused smile on your face, “Pizza?”

Mat smiled back down at you and nodded, “Pizza,” he said matter of factly as he unwrapped his arms from you and began to fold up the blanket.

When he had the blanket draped over his arm, he reached his hand out again for you to take. Happily, you slid your hand into his, as the two of you began to walk through the park to a pizza place down the street.

The pace of your walk was slow. Normally you wouldn’t mind a slow pace, but it was making the unknown and unwelcome feeling creep back up in your stomach. The feeling seeped through every crevice of your body as Mat recounted a story of how he almost got hit in the face with a puck at practice. And the feeling wedged itself deeper and deeper into the middle of your chest until you arrived at the pizza place.

“Your eyes look pretty today,” Mat offhandedly said as the two of you slid into a table after ordering.

You tilted your head, shoulders instantly relaxing at the sound of his voice, as a soft smile slowly made its way onto your face that was brighter than the sun the two of you just sat under.

You propped your elbows up on the table, resting your chin on your hands, as you looked at the love of your life with nothing but fascination, “Your eyes always look pretty.”

Mat reciprocated your beaming smile.

And the unknown feeling vanished.

–––

The spring air dwindled away and the crisp air of autumn slowly began to replace the weather associated with new beginnings. Even though the seasons changed, the heaviness in your chest you felt in May was still present in September. No matter what you did, or who you spent time with, the feeling continued to grow until it latched onto your deepest insecurities. And it wasn’t until you had an honest conversation with your best friend that she told you the feeling was anxiety.

Anxiety.

What did you have to be anxious about? What was so terrible in your life that made you nauseous in the mornings, kept you up until the late hours of the night, and had you constantly bouncing your leg up and down while sitting? Your life had been going exactly according to plan––exactly how you thought you wanted it to go. All you wanted was for it to disappear, but you couldn’t pinpoint what made you anxious. Which made it hard to try and control the feeling.

But there was one thing you did that proved successful in making the anxiety subside.

With your bare chest pressed up against Mat’s, his fingertips slightly digging into the skin of your hips, you rested your head in the crook of his neck as you inhaled a sharp breath. You had just experienced a shuddering orgasm on his lap, but he wasn’t quite finished.

Mat wrapped an arm around your body and flipped you over. You opened your eyes briefly to see him crawling up your body, adjusting himself in this new position. With raised eyebrows, he offered you a soft smile. And after you gave him verbal confirmation you wanted him again, he nudged your legs apart and guided himself in. You hadn’t fully recovered from the previous act of shared intimacy, but that didn’t matter to you.

The only thing that mattered was getting rid of the tortuous feeling that consumed you.

But when your hips met, and you heard Mat inhale a sharp breath, the feeling lessened.

You always looked forward to that––Mat’s breathless smile when your pelvic bones first connected in a deep thrust. There were other things, too. You knew things about Mat that nobody else knew. Like how Mat always crinkled his nose when he first became aroused. How his biceps were especially ticklish if you dragged your fingertips across them. How it drove him crazy when you would wrap your legs around him, hooking him in to pull him closer. Or how Mat would press a lingering kiss to your cheek when he was perilously close to the edge.

And it was that last movement that brought you out of your head––Mat pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek.

With a ragged breath, you trailed a hand up his arm––skipping his biceps––and curled an arm around his neck. Your fingers delicately moved up his neck as you weaved your fingers through his hair, and then slowly let your hand drag to the side of his face; cupping his cheek. And with a series of quick, deep thrusts with Mat on top, was all it took for your walls to clench around him as you lost your breath momentarily.

As you rode out the high of your orgasm, Mat was close behind. With a few more thrusts, you knew he released when his movements slowed down with a few snaps of his hips. After he inhaled a deep breath and released it through his nose, Mat rested his forehead against yours and then opened his eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered unintelligibly while trying to catch his breath.

You rubbed your thumb over his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, nuzzling his head into the palm of your hand, before a shy smile broke through. With a gentle peck to your lips, Mat rolled off you and quickly disposed of the condom before rolling back into bed.

When Mat was back at your side, he propped himself up with his elbow and stared down at you. Shuffling a bit down the pillow, you pulled the sheets up to your neck and peered up at him. With his free hand, he took one of your hands and lazily played with your fingers. He went from slowly moving his fingers between yours, to his fingertips leisurely moving from the bottom of your palm to the tips of your fingers. And when he had done that for a few moments, he started tracing the lines on the inside of your palm.

The only sound in the room was the two of you silently breathing; basking in each other's presence after a few moments of shared intimacy. Even in the silence, all you heard was him whispering I love you on repeat in your mind.

Every time he said those words to you felt like the first time. And even hearing the echo of them from your memory caused a scintillating smile to unashamedly grow on your face. You diverted your gaze from him playing with your hand to look at him.

Mat’s eyes were already focused on you.

His eyes were the first thing you fell in love with. You didn’t know if you fell in love with him when you were twelve years old; when his wide, nervous eyes offered you a stick and asked if you’d to join his team for street hockey. Or when you were nineteen; when his earnest eyes were bloodshot as he confided in you that he was scared of losing the connection of your relationship when he went to Seattle. No matter what emotion he held in his eyes, you always loved them.

And even now, his eyes were soft. His eyes were so full of love, but there was another emotion swimming around in his eyes that you had only seen before he asked you out; longing.

You didn’t know what he was longing for as he stared at you. A creased formed in between his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows together. Removing the arm you had under the pillow, you raised your hand and rubbed the crease until his eyebrows relaxed. He offered you a small smile, but this smile was more one of concern rather than happiness.

Like you did earlier when Mat was on top of you, you trailed your fingers down his cheek until you cupped the side of his face with your palm. Slowly, you caressed his cheek with your thumb.

“Are you alright?” Mat whispered.

It was your turn for your eyebrows to scrunch together and a crease to form between them. And while you momentarily retracted your hand from his face, you snapped out of your shock, and moved your hand up to brush a piece of loose hair out of his face. The piece of hair didn’t stay in its place, so you pushed it back once more, as you tried to distract yourself from the growing feeling of anxiety bubbling up in your stomach.

The piece of hair continued to fall in front of his forehead, so you focused all of your concentration on making sure it stayed away, “Of course I am, why?”

Mat shrugged his shoulders. And he took your hand that pushed his hair back and intertwined your fingers together, “You seem a little…off.”

You snorted, “We just had sex twice,” your facial expression held a serious look, but your tone of voice was teasing, “Are you complaining?”

Mat let out a breathy laugh as he squeezed your hand, “That’s not––That was incredible––Really really good––definitely not complaining,” he smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I feel like I can say I know you better than anyone else, and…I don’t know.” His eyes dropped to your intertwined hands, and he tried his hardest to force a smile before looking back at you, “It feels like something’s been up the past few days.”

Few months, you wanted to correct him.

You shook your head, trying to ease both of your nerves, “I uh––I’m thinking of looking at grad schools?” you let the little white lie easily slip, “But I’m not seriously looking, it was just a thought.”

Mat playfully rolled his eyes, “Knew something was up,” he brought your connected hands up to his lips to press a reassuring kiss to the top of your hand, “If you do seriously consider grad school, you’re probably the most well off person to apply.” At his confidence in you, you tucked your chin into your chest.

“It’s just…” you inhaled a shaky breath, wanting to come clean about your unknowing anxiety, but something held you back, “I don’t know.”

Mat dropped your hand and slowly stroked the side of your face with the back of his hand, “It’s a lot to think about. But there are plenty of great schools in New York,” when his lips turned upward in a smile, you felt your stomach drop, “Whatever you want, we’ll figure it out together.” Mat pressed a kiss to your cheek, “We have all the time in the world.”

His voice, full of optimism, matched the hopefulness behind his eyes, and his smile finally met his eyes. And the longer you stared into his eyes, you saw a glint of something you had never seen before; devotion.

You don’t know when it happened, but you accepted the fact that you would marry Mat––spend the rest of your life with him. There was no lengthy discussion, but there seemed to be mutual acceptance. Mat always spoke so passionately about starting a family with you when he saw a toddler run around the park. And whenever you drove past a house you liked, you always made a passing comment about how nice it would be to raise a family with him.

You wondered when you started to feel so uncomfortable with the feeling of security.

–––

The month of September was slightly better, but not by much. The anxiety was still present and you kept Mat in the dark about everything. But it was difficult to confide in him when you didn’t even know the root of the problem. You couldn’t pinpoint the cause of anxiety, and you thought the feeling would disappear in June.

But it was now October and your anxiety had escalated to suffocation.

Suffocation.

It felt like there was a bag of twenty-pound rocks tied to your ankles and you were drowning. When you didn’t feel like you were drowning, you felt as if someone was smothering you with a pillow. And when you finally felt free from the smothering, it felt as though someone had cut off your air supply. But there was one thing that temporarily relieved the feeling of suffocation.

And it came with an acceptance email from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

When you applied to a handful of universities to continue your education, you thought your anxiety was based around a fear of not excelling to your full potential. So, with that in mind, you took the little white lie you told Mat a few months ago and applied exclusively applied to grad schools only in New York City. But a program at Georgetown caught your eye and it was the only school outside of New York you applied to. You hoped for the best, but deep down you had a gut feeling the prestigious school in D.C. would reject you.

But when you received a fairly large envelope in the post, one that was not the size of a rejection letter, you felt a brief moment of freedom.

It is with great pleasure that we offer you admission…

You had read the opening line of the letter ten times before skimming the rest of the offer letter. The amount of confidence and pride you felt swell up in your chest was short lived. Because your new friend, suffocation, quickly swallowed up those feelings.

You had never considered moving out of New York––never considered moving away from Mat––but here you were, internally debating with yourself on whether you should take this offer seriously.

There was too much going on in your head––too much going on in the city––as you walked down the sidewalk. Every step you took toward your home felt like walking on a tightrope.

You had a university acceptance offer…Step one…The university was nearly 300 miles away from Mat…Step two…You had other university acceptance offers for school’s in New York…Step three…But the anxiety only grew when you received acceptance letters from schools in New York…Step four…And all of the anxiety went away with the D.C. offer…Step five…Does Mat have something to do with your anxiety––

You didn’t let yourself finish the last thought.

Mat was your person. There was not a chance the universe would play such a cruel trick on you. Life wasn’t fair, but life wouldn’t rip you away from Mat.

Right before you entered your apartment building, you dug out your phone and called your best friend. Once she picked up, you begged to spend the night at her place, saying you needed to get out of the city. She agreed, but you heard the curiosity behind her voice.

Knowing that mat would be waiting in your apartment, you hurriedly hung up before entering the elevator. The ride up was daunting, and the lights that blinked whenever you rose to a new floor felt as if they taunted you. They were yellow and bright, something you had not felt in quite some time, but the lights didn’t care as they flashed in your face.

When the doors parted open to your floor, you scurried out and opened the door to your apartment. You breezed right in before you changed your and decided to drive straight to Newark.

As expected, Mat sat slumped against the couch cushions as he pointed the remote at the television. He couldn’t seem to pick a channel that held his interest. When he heard the door open, he turned his head and you offered him a small wave as you set your bag on the floor.

��Good day?”

You shrugged your shoulders and walked over to sit next to Mat on the couch, “Average,” you leaned your head on his shoulder, “How was your day?”

Mat mimicked your shrug, “Just practice. Uneventful.”

You let out a snort, “What thrilling lives we live.”

That earned a loud laugh from Mat, “Exhilarating,” he leaned over and kissed your forehead, “So, for dinner? We have stuff to cook, but there’s this new place a few blocks over I thought we could try––”

Lifting your head up from his shoulder, you moved away from him slightly as you brought your legs up to your chest, quickly cutting him off, “I’m actually––I’m going to Newark tonight.”

A few awkward beats of silence passed before Mat spoke with a cracked voice, “Oh?”

Nodding, you leaned your chin on your knees, “Haven’t seen Melanie in a while,” you mentioned your best friend, “Just need to get out of the city for the night.”

“Everything alright?”

Mat’s voice was laced with hesitance, as if he didn’t know if he wanted an answer to his question.

You gulped and hugged your legs closer to your chest, “Yeah I––It’s a girl’s night. We just need to clear our heads.”

Mat nodded in understanding. He pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and pointer finger, “Clear your head,” he repeated cautiously as if he sensed there was an ulterior motive. He closed his eyes, and after a few more beats of silence, he opened them. And you felt your heartstrings tug in your chest when you saw the amount of yearning behind his stare.

“That’s…” he cleared his throat, and nodded his head slowly, as he looked at the television, “good.”

He didn’t phrase his words as a question, but they weren’t a statement either. It was Mat convincing himself that you leaving the city was fine…That you were fine…That the relationship was fine.

To ease his doubts––because there was nothing in your life that you were more certain of than your love for him––you took his hand, “It’s just for one night.” Your voice didn’t waver, and you spoke with double the confidence, hoping to transfer some of it to the boy who sat across from you.

“No, yeah that’s fine,” Mat bit the inside of his cheek, “Time with your friends is good.”

Mat never verbally recognized the small rift forming between you two, but in this moment, you knew he could feel it more than ever. And when you felt him pull his hand away from yours, you panicked and squeezed his hand twice. It caught his attention, and you smiled at him, “We’ll try out the new place tomorrow night for dinner.”

There was a far off look in his eyes, but he nodded in agreement.

Mat only using the bare minimum to communicate with you drove you up a wall. You didn’t like how he avoided conversation, and you didn’t like the feeling in your stomach that came with it. He’s disappointed in you, a voice in your head spoke up, you’re leaving him alone when you know he doesn’t feel confident about your relationship––

In order to silence the voice in your head, you did the only thing that you knew would keep it quiet.

You leaned forward, gently placing both of your hands on Mat’s cheeks, and kissed him. At first when he didn’t kiss back, you feared that you wouldn’t be lucky this time around to quiet your insecurities. The toxic coping mechanism you fell into every time wasn’t working. Panic rose through your body fast, and just when you were about to give up hope, he kissed you back.

A sigh escaped your lips as Mat pressed a hand firmly to your lower back to pull you closer.

You needed to be closer.

His hands carefully held your waist as your hands traveled from the sides of his face to the nape of his neck.

You needed to feel closer.

He kissed you harder, hands creeping up your shirt as he was always one to crave skin-to-skin contact. You let your hands delicately move down his neck to his shoulders––lifting your touch on his skin to avoid his biceps––and let your hands fall onto his chest.

Closer.

You needed to physically feel as close as possible to Mat; because emotionally, you felt as far away from him as ever.

–––

The forty-five minute drive from Long Island to Newark was filled with songs from the shared Spotify playlist you had with Mat.

He created it when he first went off to play hockey in Seattle claiming it would be a fun way to stay updated with each other's lives. The playlist was full of songs that reminded either of you of each other, upbeat heavy rock songs that Mat listened to before a hockey game, or more mellow songs you heard in a coffee shop while studying.

Since Mat had started the tradition of creating a shared playlist each year, there was a new playlist for almost the entirety of your relationship. And on your lonesome drive to Newark, you pressed play on the playlist from 2015.

You left your apartment after a silent cuddle with Mat that lasted a few hours; legs tangled together, synchronized breathing, and featherlight touches. There was a moment where Mat removed his arms from your waist––he said he was cold––and asked if you had a sweatshirt he could borrow. Reluctantly, you got up and trudged to your room to look for a sweatshirt of his you once stole.

A black sweatshirt caught your eyes and you picked it up. The Seattle Thunderbirds logo printed on the front, you toyed with the hoodie strings, debating on if you wanted to give him his sweatshirt back. It was one of the first ones you sneakily stole from him in the beginning of your relationship. And as much as the sweatshirt was rightfully his, it had made a home in your drawer over the years.

Missing the way his arms felt wrapped around you, you walked back to the couch––Thunderbirds sweatshirt in hand––and offered it up to him. Mat quickly tugged it over his head, ruffling his hand through his already messed-up hair, and then pulled you down to lay next to him.

He left your apartment wearing the sweatshirt.

After replaying the memory of Mat walking out of your place with his sweatshirt, you found yourself at your best friend’s townhouse sooner than expected. She ushered you into her kitchen saying she was almost done boiling the kettle for tea.

The only words exchanged between the two of you so far was a greeting and barely there small talk. She didn’t push you as to why you frantically called her and begged for a night away from New York. But she anticipated that the conversation would come later in the night.

Once the teas were made to both of your likings, Melanie led you upstairs to her rooftop deck. A fond smile crossed your face as flashbacks from all the times the two of you had spent up here. The two of you had met in university, but she was a few years older than you, so she moved out of New York sooner than you.

Most of your deep conversations about Mat took place on this rooftop. From realizing you loved him on this rooftop to coming to terms that there was no one else you’d rather spend the rest of your life with… This rooftop held the realizations of multiple monumental moments of your relationship with Mat.

Next to the sectional couch the two of you sat on, Melanie lifted the lid of the wicker basket and plucked out two blankets. You quickly wrapped the blanket around your shoulders, bracing your body against the frigid air.

As Melanie adjusted the blanket over her shoulders, she spoke up, “Everything alright?”

You took a sip of tea, keeping your vision set straight ahead, “Yeah, I’m alright––it’s just…” you glanced over at her to see she had her eyes raised, silently telling you to rethink your answer, “I don’t know.”

Shoulders slumped over in defeat, you took another sip of tea.

“I think you’re far from fine,” Melanie chuckled, “Got a call from my best friend panicking about how she had to get away,” her voice waned off amusement and turned more serious, “You worried me.”

You nodded in understanding, “Sorry, I didn’t think––Sorry––It’s just everything…” you nervously itched your collarbone and let out a sigh, “Sorry.”

Melanie placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Never apologize for what you’re feeling,” her eyes were soft, and full of concern, as she weakly smiled and headed carefully with her words, “Even if you don’t…know what you’re feeling.”

“I got accepted to Georgetown,” you blurted out as you kept your eyes trained on the ground.

Her eyes widened, and a genuine smile spread across her face, “That’s––Shit, congratulations! That’s so exciting! D.C.…Wow.”

With a slow nod of your head, you took a sip of your tea, “D.C.”

A brief silence in conversation revealed everything Melanie needed to know about why you suddenly had to escape from the city.

“Mat doesn’t know?”

You repeated her question as a statement, “Mat doesn’t know,” breaking eye contact with her again, you swallowed down your insecurities, “While like––I don’t know––That’s not why I’m…upset.” Melanie nodded and waited for you to continue your explanation, “Things have been…off.”

“Off? As in recently?” Melanie questioned as you stayed silent. With a deep sigh, she whispered, “How long have things felt off?”

You gulped, “May.”

Melanie’s eyes widened again, but not in the joyous sense like they had when you told her about your graduate school acceptance. Her eyebrows were raised high and her mouth slightly dropped open, “Shit, Y/N, it’s November.’

Again, you nodded and took another sip of tea, “It is November.”

“You’re going to have to do more talking than repeat the last words of every sentence I say.”

The words weren’t meant to be harsh, but her tone of voice still caused you to flinch. Her sentence was the truth, and you didn’t come here to be coddled. You needed someone to be brutally honest with you to help bring you to a conclusion. And you knew you had to offer up more information, or else your little one-night escape away from the city would be pointless.

“I feel stuck,” you breathed out, the last word barely a whisper, as you felt your throat close up, “I feel stuck and I’ve felt this way since May. I don’t know why I feel like this and I really don’t know what to fucking do, Mel. I––I’m so scared.”

Melanie scooted closer to you, “Stressed about potentially going back to school?”

You shook your head immediately. The thought of going back to school was the only thing keeping you sane at the moment. You couldn’t wait to expand upon another area of study that interested you. And you had been feeling this way long before you entertained the idea of going back to school.

“Everything is going so so well with Mat and…I don’t know…I’m happy with how things are now, but––“

“You’re obviously not happy if you can’t talk to him about this,” Melanie cut you off sharply before she inhaled a deep breath, “Maybe you need some change.”

You quirked an eyebrow up and tilted your head, “Change?”

She nodded and offered you a regretful smile; one that people had tucked away for when they had to break not so pleasant news to people they cared about, “Change from…how your life has been going.”

You continued to blankly stare at her as the dots didn’t connect in your mind. Melanie took your silence as a way to continue on with her explanation.

“Maybe D.C. is a great opportunity to start over.”

Suddenly, the crickets that chirped on her rooftop blared like alarms, the blanket you had on felt itchy, and the bitter autumn air smelt stale.

“Start…Over?” You shook your head no as Melanie nodded her head yes, “I have a life built around Mat and a––I have a future with him––That’s not––I can’t––“

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Melanie,” you pleaded with your best friend as the scratchiness behind your throat became uncomfortable, “I can’t do that to him––“

She held up a hand for you to stop talking, “You’ve been with mat since you were like twenty––“

“Eighteen,” you corrected her.

She shot you a glare and pretended like she wasn’t interrupted, “You were children when your relationship started,” she waved her free hand in the air, “There’s no denying that you’ve had a great relationship with him. The two of you have grown so much together, but sometimes things get stuck in a routine and people need a change.” You felt a lone tear trickle down your cheek, “Maybe you need a change.”

You carefully set your tea down on the glass patio table as all of the negative thoughts and feelings ventured out of their hiding places. One by one, they creeped out of every corner––no crevice too small––of your mind, as your subconscious tortured you with the lethal words they created.

With the heel of your palm, you wiped away more silent tears that couldn’t stop falling from your eyes.

Change was something you didn’t handle well. Change was something you’ve never liked. Your heart was saying that this kind of change––a change from Mat was bad––but your heart was screaming. Your heart was screaming about how exhausted it always felt suffocated. Your heart was telling you that there was another way. That you didn’t have to feel like this all the time––how you shouldn’t feel like this all the time.

You wanted to ignore how your heart felt and listen to your head. You wanted to ignore the heartbreaking gaze Melanie sent your way. And most of all, you wanted to ignore how your best friend had a very valid opinion.

You craved Mat’s presence now more than ever.

–––

November ended painfully slow and December came without a care for your feelings.

In the midst of juggling your job, figuring out technicalities that potentially came with continuing your education down in D.C., and keeping up with Mat’s hockey schedule…You were also trying to stabilize a relationship that you desperately clung on to.

Ever since your roof top conversation with Melanie, you felt the relationship crumbling on your end. And only a couple weeks later, Mat seemed hesitant around you. Every touch he gave you held doubt. Every night you went to bed, he shifted further to the other side. And every I love you was said with caution.

He was there physically, but emotionally, he was pulling away right before your eyes.

You loathed the situation that you had created for yourself and Mat. You absolutely hated how you no longer synced up. You wanted to go back to the way things were before the summer hit. You craved the smell of the spring air that was synonymous to the safety you felt in Mat’s presence.

Although, you don’t know how possible that was now.

Change.

Melanie nonchalantly brought up the topic of change whenever you called or saw her in person. She reassured you that she would support your decision––whenever you came to one––but she still favored the decision of change for you. She had your best interest at heart, and while you appreciated that, your best interest was entangled with Mat.

And you knew that the decision she wanted you to make was not in his best interest.

But there was one day in the past seven months that felt normal.

At work, you were offered a promotion. And that same night, the Islanders had their seventh straight win, with Mat scoring a hat trick. You walked out of your director’s office with a smile on your face, and you snuck down to the lobby to call Mat with the good news. He sounded ecstatic for you over the phone, and he asked if you wanted to go to the game tonight so he could see you right after.

Eagerly, you accepted his offer, and you felt butterflies churn in your stomach as if it was the first time he asked you to attend one of his games.

You rushed to get all of your work done as fast as possible, and a few minutes before the clock struck five, you dashed out of the office and made your way to the arena. The game felt electric, Mat played with a sense of newfound desire, and you were ecstatic for him to be playing so well. And when the game was over, and Mat walked out in his game day suit––jacket folded over his arm and tie loosely done––you barreled into him.

Mat hugged you back just as tight, if not tighter, and his reassuring touch reestablished a sense of purpose in your life.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mat whispered in your ear, congratulating you on your promotion, “I’ll love you forever.”

That day filled you with hope.

That day made you smile wider than you had in the last few months. It was a light finally shining through the dreary storm clouds. And that day helped you gain clarity as to what sort of change you needed in your life.

You decided that change was needed if you wanted to keep sane. And you had come to the compromise that you could have a change and still keep Mat. All you needed was a change of scenery. You didn’t know why you thought you needed an ultimatum between the two, and it eased your troubles a little bit, but not nearly as much as you thought it would.

The day after your promotion and Mat’s hat trick, you woke up with your legs tangled with Mat’s, his arm thrown over your waist, and his face facing yours for the first time in months. It was so domestic, something you took for granted early on in your relationship, but once you had it back in your grasp, you never wanted to let go.

But the moment you woke up, his arm around your waist felt like an anchor aiding in your drowning. While it felt as if you were drowning, you also felt safe in Mat’s arms, as if he lent you a hand for rescue. Mat always made you feel safe.

Unfortunately, that was a week ago. And you hadn’t woken up in his arms since then.

Ironically, even though both of you knew something was wrong, Mat had been spending more time at your apartment than his. But the dynamic between you two had shifted: Mat no longer came up to hug you from behind when you cooked at the stove. You no longer pinched Mat’s hips as he walked past you. And the two of you blushed profusely and looked the other way whenever you saw the other in a towel after a shower.

Things had been off emotionally for quite some time. But now physical aspects of your relationship were changing, and a piece fo your heart broke off every time you noticed it.

You wanted change, but not like this.

You were at the small table in your kitchen, waiting for Mat to come back to you. He mumbled about heading to the gym with Tito when the two of you were sitting next to each other on the couch. He tied his laces up, and it looked like he was about to walk toward the door before he turned back around and stood in front of you.

Like every time you stared up at Mat, you fell in love with him all over again.

He offered you the smallest of smiles before bending down to your height. Carefully, he cupped your face with his hand, and you immediately leaned into his touch. A peaceful sigh escaped your lips and your eyes closed.

What caught you off guard the most was when Mat leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. And just when your eyes opened, he broke away from the kiss. When his eyes finally opened, they were pleading with you. His eyes begged for an answer you could not give him. His eyes urgently wanted for you to tell him what had flipped your entire world upside down.

But his eyes were also full of love and hope; unconditional love for his high school sweetheart and hope that the two of you could make it over this bump.

“I love you,” he whispered just as soft as the first time he said those words to you, “I won’t be long.”

Desperate for more physical contact from him, you weaved your fingers through his brown hair. You knew how much he loved when you massaged his scalp and ran your fingers through his hair. Instantaneously, his eyes closed, and he leaned forward to brush his nose against yours.

You didn’t want him to go to the gym with Tito.

And like the first day you repeated those important three words back to him, your voice was filled with the same enchantment for the man in front of you, “I love you, too.”

With a sigh, Mat opened his eyes. With the way his eyebrows pinched together, you could tell he was intently debating something in his mind. But before you could pry, he seemed to go against his better judgement and pressed another kiss to your lips. While the kiss wasn’t anything special, he lingered longer than his first kiss.

“I’ll be back soon,” he breathed out softly.

He left before you could open your eyes.

Part of you didn’t want to open your eyes because the last thing you saw––that would be ingrained in your brain forever––was the person you appreciated and cared for most in the world, telling you he loved you. There was no better high in the world than that, especially when you had felt deprived from his love for so long.

But that was six hours ago.

You hoped he would only be gone for two or three hours, but your hope dwindled away with every hour that passed.

You were messing around with your laptop when you heard a key in the door handle. And when you heard the creak of your door open, you held your breath. You felt the inside of your stomach fall and the anxiety crawl up.

Once you looked up from your keyboard, you saw Mat already staring at you.

His cheeks were rosy, lips parted ever so slightly as he heavily breathed, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He held the water bottle in his hands as he stared through you. The way he looked at you was unnerving, and you wish you were able to read his mind.

“I love you, Y/N.”

His voice held conviction as he refocused his gaze to look at you instead of through you.

Slowly, you closed your laptop as Mat walked toward you. He placed the water bottle on the table and looked down at your doe eyed, questioning gaze, “I love you, but I need to know what’s wrong.”

“What––“

“I know you feel it too,” the determination and confidence behind his voice fell, “It’s been a few months and I can’t––we can’t––this?” his voice cracked, “We need to figure it out.”

You sniffled and started to nervously pick at a loose piece of skin by your thumb. Your eyes fell to your lap, not wanting to see the utter heartbreak in his eyes, “Let’s––Yeah. Let’s talk, okay.”

Mat crouched down in front of you, and took one of your fidgety hands in his, “Hey,” he used his other hand to tilt your chin up to look at him, “It’s just me…The guy who accidentally shattered your car window junior year when shooting a puck because I wanted to impress you,” he let out a sad chuckle, “Just…Me.”

You sucked in a deep breath, vigorously nodding your head, in hopes to delay your tears, “I know––And I––That’s what makes this so…” You let out a hiccup and squeezed your eyes shut just as hard as Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, “Hard.”

Before a sob wracked through your chest, Mat was fast to stand up and pull you up with him, wrapping his arms around you. You fell into his chest and he held you close, running a soothing hand up and down your spine. He whispered that everything would be alright, but your arms only tightened around his neck as your sobs increased with his careful words.

After a few moments when your cries slowly started to calm down, Mat slightly leaned back, but made sure to keep his arms securely wrapped around you. He lazily traced patterns with his thumb on your lower back, which caused you to look up at him.

With all your heart, you wished you didn’t look into his eyes. Because seeing his red eyes and heart-rending smile caused you more pain than the last seven months.

He brought a hand up to your face, wiping the tears from under your eyes with his thumb, “There’s my pretty girl,” he sniffled and failed at forcing a smile, “So pretty.”

You felt your bottom lip tremble, another wave of fresh tears waiting to be seen. And when Mat loosened his grasp around your waist, you looked up at him in panic. You didn’t want to be separated from him, but he shushed you, and wrapped an arm around your shoulder to keep you close as he guided you over to the couch.

Much like earlier in the day, the two of you sat on the couch together. But instead of laying together on the couch, he sat next to you.

With your thighs touching, Mat grasped your hand in his, “Talk to me,” his grip was so tight, it felt like he was afraid you would slip away right in front of him, “Please.”

You nodded your head again, but no words came out.

How were you supposed to start off this kind of conversation?

Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, and before you began to overthink about the best way to phrase your feelings, you said the first thing that came to mind.

“I feel anxious,” you let out a shaky breath.

Mat slowly nodded, squeezing your hand again as a silent way to encourage you to continue.

And with a deep breath, you shut your eyes tight, “I feel anxious and stuck––Almost like––I feel like I have no control over anything and it––I think––I need, uh, a change.”

Your words strung together in one rushed out sentence. And as your rambling continued on, your words grew softer and softer until your voice barely carried above a whisper. But the last word––change––echoed loudly in the room. The word was deafeningly loud, and Mat didn’t miss a beat.

“Change…”

The one syllable word sounded foreign coming from his lips. He repeated the word for a second time to make sure he heard you right.

Change.

In a sense, change was ever present in your relationship. There was change when you and Mat first grew out of being friends to more…Change when Mat left for Seattle to play hockey…and change again when Mat got drafted by the Islanders.

Change was almost a constant in your relationship; but the change was always prompted from Mat’s end. There had never been any expressed desire for change on your side.

“What do you want a change from?” Mat’s tone was daring, almost as if he wanted you to make his worst nightmare a reality.

“I––There’s this whole––“

“What,” he didn’t mask the viciousness in his voice, “do you want a change from.”

His voice was demanding, and not at all like the sweet sound that comforted you moments ago. You knew him well enough to know he was growing irritated at you, and you knew it would only get worse.

“I got into a masters program––in D.C.,” you rushed out, and in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best response to reassure his insecurities, but you needed to get that information out there, “And it’s––it sounds so great, Mat. Like really great, and––“

He removed his hand from yours in a swift motion, as if he touched fire, “You’re leaving?”

“That’s not–––“

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?” His eyes shined with hurt and disappointment, but most of all, you could hear the distrust behind his voice, “D.C.?”

You sighed, “I never seriously considered it until last month.”

Mat closed his eyes, no doubt in frustration that you didn’t confide your feelings in him earlier, “You’ve been feeling like you need a change for the past month?” Your silence caused him to flare his nostrils, and edged him on to ask another question, “Since when––Why––How long have you felt this way?”

You gulped, averting your eyes to look at his knees, “I don’t want anything between us to change, Mat,” you spoke carefully, “I was thinking––“

“How long?”

“May.”

You screwed your eyes tight to the point where you felt a stunning sensation in your forehead. You couldn’t bring yourself to look in his eyes, that no doubt would be filled to the brim with pain. And you avoided his stare that bored you for as long as you could.

But when you felt the couch cushion next to you feel lighter, you snapped your eyes open and up to look at Mat.

Mat backed away from the couch, and there was nothing you could have done to prepare yourself for the look of betrayal in his eyes, “May?” Gnawing at your bottom lip, you nodded. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in disbelief, “How could you not tell me––Christ, seven months?” Y/N…” his voice cracked as he said your name.

It killed you to see his jaw clenched and eyes rimmed with redness; and seeing his eyes overflow with heartbreak caused you to shoot up from your seat to comfort him. But what killed you even more was how he flinched away from your touch. Nothing in the world could prepare you for that sting.

All you wanted was to comfort him.

“Mat––“

He inhaled a deep breath and sniffled, “Please, don’t…” he brought both hands up to face, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, “You want to leave?”

He couldn’t even look at you.

Unfair to you, his question held two sides. He was asking for clarification about wanting to leave New York, but also asking if you wanted to leave him. To Mat, leaving New York meant leaving him.

Your arms hung limp at your sides, mouth wide open in shock. You understood his confusion about wanting to leave New York because you had never mentioned it before. But your despair quickly turned into irritation as he verbalized his doubt of your love for him.

“You know I’d never leave you,” you said with a deep breath, trying your best to keep your anger at bay.

He ripped his hands away from his face, “Do I?” He sent you a glare that had you stumbling back, “Because we had this whole plan for us. And now you don't want that with me.”

“I still want that with you!” You threw your hands up in the air in exasperation, “Grad school goes faster than undergrad. We’ve done long distance before, and my job said they could transfer me––“

“You already have a job here!” Mat raised his voice, “There are places to go to grad school here! You have a place here! You have friends here––“

You raised your voice over his, “That’s not the point, please just––“

“You have me here!” His voice cracked, “We had a plan––“

“Plans change!”

Mat had his mouth open, ready to shout over you more, but once your ambiguous statement traveled from the confines of your thoughts and slipped out of your lips, he had no response. You could feel the anger radiating off him as the ringing in your ears grew louder…and louder…and louder…

“Plans don’t just change like that,” he venomously spat out. His words hit you like icicles, cold and sharp before his tone momentarily softened, “I had my life built around you…We––I wanted to marry you. Start a family with you.”

He spoke as if all of those desires he had with you were now a far off fantasy.

You pinched the bridge of your nose to stop a new wave of tears from falling. But these tears weren’t of fear for his reaction to your thoughts about change, he made those feelings loud and clear.

These were tears of mourning.

“Mat,” you spoke his name with a strained voice, “Let’s talk about this rationally––“

He ran a hand through his and narrowed his eyes at you, “Don’t…” he raised his forearm to wipe more tears away from his face, “I can’t believe––I really thought we had it all from the beginning. But who would have actually thought two teenagers would make it this far?”

He let out a soft, maniacal chuckle that made you more nauseous than any amount of anxiety.

“We were just children back then,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “What did we know about life.”

His anger morphed into a cynical tone that sent shivers down your spine. It frightened you when he let out that small laugh, one that was usually saved for comical moments between the two of you.

“But here we are now,” he let out another self-deprecating laugh, “Time’s a funny thing…It seemed like nothing back then––It felt as if we had the rest of our lives together.”

As much as you didn’t want to hear Mat break down everything about your relationship, you knew he was spiraling, and you wanted to help him. Because despite what he may think, you still loved him.

Carefully, you tiptoed forward as Mat continued on with his rambling about how idiotic he was as a kid to think that this would last forever. With each step forward, your heart shattered into the tiniest of shards as Mat portrayed your relationship as childish with no chance of reconciliation.

“You just took my love,” his voice decreased in volume and cynicism, and was replaced with a tone that ripped your heart out of your chest. He pointed an accusatory finger at you that made you stop in your tracks, “You took my love––you took it and have no remorse whatsoever––“

You shook your head and picked up the pace of your walking to reach him, “I still love you, Mat. That will never change.”

He stared down at you, and for a moment, you saw the Mat you fell in love with. You saw the bright-eyed eighteen-year-old boy who took his time in teaching you how to shoot a perfect slapshot in his driveway. He looked like he was on the verge of forgiveness, but once you slightly ghosted your fingers against his hand, he snapped out of whatever trance he fell under.

“I don’t know how to love anyone else,” his shoulders slumped forward as he bit his bottom lip.

Without caring that he pulled his hand away from yours seconds ago, you swiftly took his hand in his and gripped it as if you were hanging off a cliff and he was your only lifeline. You didn’t know if it was a moment of bravery, or a moment of desperation. Because there was a nagging thought in the back of your mind that screamed about how this could be the last time you touched him.

“You don’t have to love anyone else,” you pleaded with him, your voice catching in your throat as tears welled up in your eyes, “I don’t want you to love anyone else.”

“Time’s a funny thing,” Mat let out a humorous chuckle, not believing that the two of you found yourself desperately clinging onto the past.

When he finally made eye contact with you, he slightly tilted his head as a single tear rolled down his cheek. Even when he was crying, his dark eyes still captivated you like no one else had. And the longer you stared into his longing eyes, they were filled with one emotion you weren’t familiar with; regret.

“Mat,” you whispered his name cautiously, petrified of what his next move was, “We can work through this…”

He slowly shook his head, causing your heart to plummet, “May…From what I’ve gathered, you hadn’t applied to grad schools then––Didn’t have an excuse for change,” he stalled back more of his tears, “But you wanted a change. You still want that change.”

“I want a change of scenery,” you tried your hardest to make him understand your feelings, “Not a change from you.”

“The only thing back then you could’ve wanted a change from was me,” it was the first time his voice didn’t falter. He was confident in his theory that you didn’t want him anymore.

You squeezed his hand, “Are you even listening to yourself––“

“You’re the love of my life,” his voice was full of pain, and when he softly smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. With one hand still clutching onto yours, he brought his other hand up––a trembling hand––and tucked a piece of stray hair behind your ear, “I just wish I was yours.”

With a shakey inhale, and one last strong sniffle to conceal his sobs, Mat pressed a firm kiss to your forehead. And when released your hand one last time, he escaped out the door.

You had felt many sensations throughout the past seven months: drowning, feeling weighed down, and suffocation. But what you felt right now, the devastation that encased your whole body, was far worse than any of those emotions.

Because now, it felt as if you were falling.

Mat, your only lifeline, let go of your hand.

He knew he held the power to pull you up and save you, but he decided to let you go. When he released your grip, it felt as if he was releasing it finger by finger, desperately wanting to hold onto what you both had; wanting to hold onto the life both of you had created around one another. But in the end, it didn’t survive.

And as he released your hand, you fell.

You fell over the edge, stomach performing backflips as the sensation became worse with each passing second. The sensation of falling was never ending, as if you were falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland; terrified of what waited for you at the bottom.

The December air felt frigid. The December air made one seek comfort in hot chocolate, or another menial item, because winter wasn’t strong enough to provide comfort. The December air felt nothing like the spring air that offered you solace without asking for anything in return.

Oh, how you wished to smell that spring air once more.

#mat barzal #mathew barzal #mat barzal imagine #mathew barzal imagine #mat barzal fic #mat barzal oneshot #mat barzal writing #mathew barzal fic #mathew barzal oneshot #mat barzal angst #mathew barzal writing #mathew barzal angst #nhl imahine #nhl writing #mat barzal new york islanders #mathew barzal new york islanders

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winchesterxxi · 4 years

Text

Two Left Feet (Din Djarin x Reader)

Rating: G ( General Audiences )

Type: Fluff

Summary: “Din wakes up just to find reader and Grogu dancing around and that goes on almost everyday since she joined them and Din seems to get used to it, but after a really hard day, reader suggests dancing with Din for the first time and he's not quite the dancer type.”

Word Count: 1.6k (short but sweet, I promise)

Warnings: Non-canonical music (for the sake of working well with the story); teaching someone with absolutely no rhythm how to dance (all my fellow dancers know the pain, and yes it is a warning)

A/N: For the sake of rhythm and story pretend the songs I’m referring to, in order, are (1) Rasputin by Boney M. (2) Tusk by Fleetwood Mac (3) Club Tropicana by Wham! (4) Moon Song by Phoebe Bridgers

MASTERPOST | REQUEST HERE | KO-FI

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Din was a fan of routine.

He was a man that liked peace and quiet, to lead his life with the schedule that he pleases, not having to attend to anyone else.

But the galaxy just told him no.

At first, his life was disrupted by what was by now his protegée, despite everyone calling him his son, that little green ball, over a decade older than him, Grogu.

Then, you came. It’s not that you disrupted his life per se, on the contrary, you were his salvation when it came to managing between taking care of Grogu and going on dangerous missions or fighting the Empire. But he soon found out that the peace and quiet that he had instilled in his clan of two was not going to be kept long with the clan of three.

You had a thing for the kid, a deep affection, a motherly love, if you will. Taking care of most of the mundane tasks like bathing and feeding him but the little ball really started reaching out for you more than Din because, on the particular case of your little group, it was the mom that meant fun and the dad that meant business.

Grogu loved how you would play music through the ship when Din was away, having little dance parties with him, as he sways between his tiny legs to the beat of the music.

Whenever night time came around or Din was with you, you tended to not want to disturb him as much, so you would just hum along some tunes to entertain the kid. He was particularly fond of this one tune (1) where he could clap along, giggling at the silly dance you would make.

At first, Din was not amused by it. As said before, he was a man that enjoyed peace and quiet but seeing the joy that you brought to the kid, who previously only had a little ball to entertain himself, slowly but surely started to soften his heart over time.

This one morning, stationed in some random planet after a long mission, he slid out of his cot, fully armored headed towards the sound of a rhythmic thump coming from the main deck of the ship.

It wasn’t the first time that he would wake up to the beat of a song and even though he couldn’t bring himself to admit it out loud, he preferred it a thousand times to the sound of the cockpit signals going off.

Walking towards the source of the sound (2), as it became more clear, Din leaned against the door frame as soon as he spotted the scene unfolding in front of him: you shaking your hips side to side, slightly bent down so that you could grab Grogu’s little hands, the kid laughing out loud as the two of you moved to the beat.

Noticing Din close to you Grogu coos at him, extending his hand in his direction and making grabby movements.

Looking up, you straighten your bag dancing up to where he was, maintaining your eyes fixed on the T-shaped helmet on the beskar helmet.

“Come on, old man. Join us!” You tug at his arm but he just stands straighter, reaching his full height, arms still crossed across his chest.

“I don’t dance.” his voice rumbles through the modulator. You just continue to sway your hips and move your shoulders next to him trying to at least get a small shuffle in his weight out of him, but he remains undefeated.

Just as you were about to pull him harder in your direction, the lights in the distant cockpit go off and a deafening beeping fills the Razor Crest. Din stomps past you and rushes to the panel.

“Saved by the bell.” you mutter under your breath, before pausing the music and rushing to the seat by his side, getting ready to co-pilot, not before grabbing the kid and buckling him up to your lap.

The perks of being a foundling, you ask?

People feed you, bathe you, carry you on their laps and most importantly, you don’t need to actively engage on any sort of physical activity that might reveal itself to be exhausting, say a bounty hunt.

The kid was insufferable.

It was stark dark outside of the ship and you had already tried to put him down to sleep about three times, but every single time he would just refuse to close his eyes, making sure to display his reservoir of unused energy.

If it’s tired that you need to be, it’s tired that I’m going to make you, You think to yourself.

Settling him down on the ground, your fingers reach for the control panel of the lower deck tapping in a few times before a tune (3) starts fluttering out of the rusty speakers.

The kid’s ears perked up in a flash as he giggled and started shaking to the sound of the music in the middle of the room.

You shake your head down at him, before climbing up the ladder that accessed the top deck, adjacent to the cockpit, dangling your legs from the edge, allowing you to not only keep an eye on Grogu but to also be within Din’s reach, would he need something.

You were floating through hyperspace, only the stars lighting where you sat, Din just a few feet to your right, sitting at the pilot’s chair.

“Are all kids like this?” you ask him breaking the silence, as the music below you sounded quite distant.

He turns his chair to face you, leaning against its back.

“How would I know?” he questions.

“Oh, right. Stupid question.” You laugh and shake your head down, checking on the kid, but Din maintains his eyes trained on you from under the beskar. “Next time you’re the one dancing with him to exhaustion.”

“I piratically have two left feet. That’s not happening.”

“Was that a joke?” You ask mockingly and he chuckles.

It isn’t until you beckon him closer with your finger that he moves, cautiously walking to where you sat, following your gaze and looking down at the kid who had seemingly fallen asleep from exhaustion on the floor, curled up on himself.

You both chuckle at the same time, unconsciously looking at each other only to avert your gazes as soon as your eyes met.

“I-...I’m going to put the kid down.” You avert his gaze as your cheeks were flaring up, quickly descending the ladder and picking the kid up, walking towards his improvised crib.

A few minutes later, you emerged from the bottom deck, sliding the access to the ladder closed, only to be met with Din’s right side facing you, the pilot seat facing the side of the ship. His legs crossed in front of him and his hands tucked underneath him as his arms formed an x against his chest.

This was the typical position which he used to fall asleep on the cockpit but you knew by the way his head was positioned that he wasn’t actually sleeping, but rather looking out at the stars.

Not wanting to disturb the scenery in front of you, you just rest your hip and upper body against the control panel wall, admiring the beskar hunter.

“Penny for your thoughts?” the way his voice resonated through the chamber would’ve scared you a few months ago, but instead you remained unmoved, only a smirk growing on your lips.

“A few actually.” you finger pads skim through the control panel before you smile to yourself and click on one of the tunes (4) you had recently chipped into the ship’s system.

Din’s helmet slowly turns your way, just in time to watch you slowly walk up to him, only the shine of the closest stars illuminating your figure. You looked beautiful, there was no denying that.

When your knees brushed against the side of his chair, you extend your hand down to him, inviting him to join you at a standing level.

Din gently grabs your hand and stands up to his full height, a few inches higher than you, inducing his helmet to face down at your own face.

“I told you, I don’t dance.” his voice is but a whisper, raspy and tired but so full of adoration for you that in no other setting would he let transpire through the modulator.

“You don’t have to.” You right hand trails up his arm until it comes to rest on his shoulder pad as your left fingers intertwine with his, his head shifting to follow both actions, one at a time.

“Just hold me and shift your weight from one foot to the other.” it is your time to utter but a whisper as you bring your braided hands to rest against his chest, followed by one of your temples.

It was quiet between you as you danced, his smile never fading, his fingers momentarily leaving yours only to have both of his arms around your waist, beckoning you closer against his body as you swayed to the slow strums of the music, relishing every second of it.

“Isn’t dancing easier like this?” your barely audible wouldn’t it be for his closeness to you, the sultry sound of it, mixed with the warm feeling of your body pressed against him, had his heart racing.

“I actually wouldn’t mind if every day ended like this?” his answer surprises you, but you try to hide your smile, keeping the side of your head rested against his chest.

“Are you going soft on me, Din Djarin?”

“Not a word to anyone.” You bite your lips containing a chuckle and the man in beskar repeats the action but unknowingly to you, as the beskar helmet concealed it. And you stayed there, in his embrace, and him in yours swaying through the night, every time ignoring the restart of the song, secretly hoping that the other wouldn’t complain.

Secretly hoping you could stay like this forever.

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dancingthesambaa · 3 years

Text

The Smell of Plum Blossom Tea Ch 2

Summary: Just like a butterfly wing, a single act of kindness can change the course of the future, it certainly did for MK as a black-furred monkey put out a hand towards him.

Rating: Teen and up

Chapter 2: What’s in a Name?

It was a week since Macaque had taken MK in and to the child it has been the best week of his life. When he woke up in the mornings he didn’t have to worry about there being no food as he smelt it as soon as he opened his eyes, he could play in the forest with all the monkeys as long as Mac was there and he even had clothes that fit him instead of the same stinky shirt on days end. Everything was just wonderful.

“MK, what should we do about school?”

Or at least it was, but as soon as the monkey demon asked that question, MK's whole body deflated. “Do I have to go to school?”

“Education is important shooting star,” he said as he diced up some plants. “It helps things we don’t know and things we want to know.”

“Okay, but it is really boring, I always lose all my stuff all the time, and the teacher always explains it so weirdly,” the child pouted.

“Everyone has a different method of teaching, so you may have a method of learning as well.”

“Oohh….what does method mean?”

“It’s just another word for way.”

“Oh okay,” MK then tilts his head, “so what are you doing anyways?”

“Well right now I’m cutting up some herbs so I can use to make medicine,” he explained in simple terms as he then picked up the diced up blue plant and placed it into a cauldron and began to stir it.

“I didn’t know you could make your own medicine from home!” He leaped up and tried to poke his head over the counter to watch, “I always thought that you get it at the doctor's office.”

“Well doctors actually get it from a lab where people make the medicine there, this space here is my own lab.” He gestured to the room that was filled with all types of different ingredients all placed in a package inside of one storage cabinet and in another was a cabinet filled with modern lab equipment.

“So you don’t have to be a doctor to make medicine?”

“Well for most yeah, but for me,” he grinned as he picks up MK with one hand and placed him on his hip as he continues to stir with his other “let’s just say that I have been doing this for a little over 500 years, so I have a tad bit more experience and knowledge than regular humans.”

“Can I try?!” He excitedly asked.

“Well I don’t know, sometimes it will be a bit too dangerous for you to even be In here, which by the way, do not enter this lab unless I am here,” he sternly told him.

“Okay, okay got it, but pleaseee.”

“I don’t know, think you can handle it,” he teased.

“I’m a big boy! I can handle anything!”

“Hmmmm,” he pretended to think before conceding, “Alright you persuaded me, so I’ll allow it this once,” he said as he put the spoon down, “so first we make sure we have our safety gear on.”

“Check! Check!” MK adjusted the goggles on his eyes and showed off his long sleeve jacket and gloves.

“Next, what you have to do is go slow and make large circles.”

“Slow and large circles, got it,” he then proceeded to pick up the spoon and do what he said as he stirred.

“Good job kiddo, but how bout we make that circle a little bit bigger,” he gently grabbed MK’s hand and made it a bit wider. Soon enough the medicine's previous light yellow had transformed into a dark green.

“Look, it changed colors!” MK pointed out.

“That’s the beauty of medicine kid,” Mac grinned as he set him down, “now all I have left to do is to let this simmer for a few hours and it will be ready to be bottled up.”

“That’s a lot of medicine, is that all for you?”

The demon shook his head, “no it’s actually for one of my regular clients. His students routinely injure themselves, sometimes in the dumbest of ways, so I usually make batches of this every month.” His ears then slightly twitch as he grinned, “speaking of students, MK come here. I have someone here for you to meet.”

“Who?” He tilted his head as the monkey put a lid on a pot, proceeded to put away both of their safety gear as they left the room.

“Hey old-timer, I know your hearing isn’t that bad!” A voice yelled from down below that MK could barely hear, “come grab me, I’m carrying too much shit to climb up!”

“Someone to help,” was all Macaque said before he leaped out of the open window and less than a few seconds later, returned with a short bluenette woman in his arms. “MK this is Yanyu,” he said. “Yanyu, this is MK.”

“Uhhh, he shuffled his feet awkwardly as he gave a slight wave, “hi.”

“Awww,” she cooed at him, “it’s nice to meet you MK. You're rocking a pretty cool shirt there.” She pointed to his solar system shirt, “it’s really far out man.”

There was a pause as MK stuttered out a thank you and Macaque put his face in his hands.

“That was terrible, I hope you know that,” he groaned.

“That’s what you say, I know my puns are rockin my world,” she smirked at the louder groans.

“Please stop, I beg you.”

“Then beg.”

“Are you human?” MK bluntly asked, which made the two pause.

“Strangely enough that isn’t the first time I was asked that, but yes I am fully human. Though a small percentage of me is most likely full of crazy,” she grinned widely.

“I think you have those backward,” he muttered and didn’t even flinch when she elbowed his stomach. “So your probably wondering why she’s here right?”

“Uhhh yeah,” he nodded.

“Well, I have come to the realization that despite my many years with humans, I have never actually taken care of a human child outside of giving them medication.”

“Which he means that he knows not a single thing about taking care of you tiny ones,” Yanyu butted in as she crossed her arms, “and this is where I come in.”

“Oh well that’s good...I think?” MK didn’t exactly know what she meant, but since they said it’s a good thing, he feels like he doesn’t have any complaints.

“Oh trust me, it will be,” she said as she put down the bag and it was filled with books when she opened it up. “I may be a big sister of five, but even I can admit that I don’t know everything, so I brought some parenting books, nutrition, school, and a lot more.”

He couldn’t help but deflate slightly at the last word, which the bluenette noticed.

“Don’t like school?”

“Not really, it's just that I can’t stay focused sometimes,” he admitted as he lowered his head.

“Hey now,” Mac kneeled and ruffled his head, “you don’t have to feel shame for being distracted sometimes.”

“Hmm, well if you have troubles with traditional school classrooms, then how about you try online schooling?” Yanyu said.

“Online school?” MK tilted his head.

“I didn’t know it was also available for the younger grades, I thought it was only for the college classes like you had,” he admitted as he used his feet to pick up one of the parenting books.

“Nah, it was incorporated for all years a few years back. It certainly helped a lot of students out and one of them being me,” she proudly pointed a finger to herself, “let me tell you, kid, it was the second-best decision to do online school. Made my life so much easier.”

“What was the first?” He curiously asked.

Yanyu walked over to Macaque and patted him on the shoulder, “begging this ol doc here to take me on as a student. It was the cheapest and most informative learning I ever had since high school.”

“Student? You were a teacher!” MK's eyes widened as he looked at the monkey demon.

“Kinda, though I did question my sanity during those times,” he said as he flipped through the pages.

“Oh shut up, if it wasn’t for me you would still know squat about technology.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were still using the Jiaguwen system when I first met you.”

He winced, “okay yeah you got me there.”

“Anywho, it’s gonna be a right pleasure working with you MK,” she held out a fist bump to him, “we’re gonna see a lot of each other.”

MK looked at the outstretched fist and gave a little grin as he fist-bumped her hand.

“Boom,” Yanyu made an exploding sound as she opened her fist when the two parted.

He looked at her strangely.

“Don’t worry Starbright, she’s just weird like that,” Mac patted his head.

“Hey!”

A few months have passed and MK has taken to online schooling like a fish to water. He found it much better to concentrate and while there were still a few issues over understanding the problem itself, he had the help of both Macaque and Yanyu. The last one herself was helping him with his writing.

“The girl is walking to the market by the river to get milk for her mother,” MK repeated to himself as he finished writing.

“Congratulations kid, you have finally graduated from Yoda writing to a regular language,” she gave him a little applause.

“Thank you, thank you you're too kind,” he also jumped out of his seat to give a mock bow.

“But for real kid, you have really approved with your writing,” she gave him a high five, “nice job.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you both,” he scratched the back of his neck.

“I know that you would have been just fine even without our help and I know your dad would agree.”

“Really!” Then MK realized what she said and backtracked as he flailed his arms about, “Wait dad?! I mean dad is kinda a big word and he just adopted me, so he probably doesn’t even see me as a son, more like a responsibility he has to take care-,” he was stopped by a hand gently covering his mouth.

“Whoa there little monkey easy, I can’t keep up that fast,” she lightly teased as she put her hand down, “now you want to tell me what that was all about?”

“Well,” he sat down and kicked his feet, “I-its just-I don’t really-.”

“Take your time,” the bluenette said.

“Well,” he twisted his hands “is it okay if someone-and I don’t mean me just someone I know-don’t call mom and dad, well, mom and dad.”

“Yeah,” she said easily.

“Wait really?” He was a little more than shocked at how easy she said that.

“Really. You, or my bad that person you know, don’t feel comfortable or don’t want to call their parents so that they don’t have to.”

“But they gave birth to me-I mean that person and they raised them, so shouldn’t they have that name?” He tried to insist but was shut down by her shaking her head.

“They don’t keep that name if they harm the child, no parent ever deserves that kind of title if they purposely try to bring harm to their child. It is wrong,” she stated.

“Oh...and what about those that do?” He shyly said, both knowing what he was implying but not saying it out loud.

“Then you say it when your ready,” Yanyu simply said.

“I don’t think it’s that easy?”

“No, but what is?”

MK just shrugged his shoulders.

“Now how about we put away this stuff for ten more minutes before we get into history,” she pushed away from the materials and made sure the laptop was charged up.

“Yes!” He fist-bumped the air as he then spotted the pencil on the ground and tried to pick it up with his feet.

Yanyu had to press her lips together to fight against the bubbling laugh in her throat as she watched MK struggle to pick the pencil with the socks on his feet.

“Oi bastard I need a little help ova here!” A rough voice yelled out as it was followed by a loud bang, which led to the eight year old flailing off his bed.

“How many times have I told you to stop that?” He heard Macaque's familiar voice being annoyed.

“Too many times to count,” another softer voice replied.

“But you think that gunna sticka?” The third voice laughed out loud. “That’s a laugh!”

MK slowly opened his door and crept quietly to the living room as the voices got louder.

“I guess it is too much to ask you to be quiet for once?” The monkey deadpanned.

“Now why would I do that?” The first voice said.

It was at this point that MK managed to poke his head into the living room and saw three different demons, he knows they are demons this time, and his da-Macaque.

There was one whose skin was dark brown, but lighter above the shoulders. The more he looked, the more he could see that they were actually feathers all along the body, and instead of hands, they had clawed bird-like feet and two large black wings protruding from the back.

Another one was softly glowing a light blue hue that matched the pale blue skin as the creature was gently floating just a smidge above the ground. They had almost a mushroom-shaped hat covering their eyes and dozens of dark blue and purple strings attached all around the bottom of the hat as they hung just above the demon feet.

The final one is something that MK could clearly tell what it was as he had seen a bunny before, though this one was way larger than the other bunnies he had ever seen. The demon had pure gray fur and large white fluffy paws, if he wasn’t so nervous right now he would ask to pet them.

“Well I was hoping that you would have kept it down for the kid that is currently living with me right now,” he cracked a smirk at their frozen faces.

“Huh?” They all said in unison.

“Speaking of kids, you can come out MK. Don’t worry bout them too much, they ain’t harmful, just insane.”

At the prompting MK slowly shuffled into the living room and he saw three heads swivel towards him.

“Uhhh hi,” he gave a little wave.

“You have a kid?!?” They all shouted either loudly or softly.

“It’s not that big of a shock,” he grumbled as he walked over to the child and threaded his fingers through his hair. “Sorry, these knuckleheads woke you up.”

“I know I have not been gone that long for you to have a chick without me knowin!” The female bird demon squawked as her feathers puffed up in indignation.

“Nah, adopted him a few months back.”

“And you didn’t tell us?!” The bunny huffed as they thumped his foot in agitation.

“Nope,” he grinned as he watched their growing frustration.

“There are times where you are the best of us and times you are the worst of us, I don’t know which one this falls under,” the mushroom head demon groaned as one of the strings was massaging the top of his head.

“Are they your friends?” MK loudly whispered to the monkey demon.

“I don’t claim these lunatics,” he bluntly said.

“I think you mean to say that we are your amazing, wonderful, fantastic friends that you hold dear,” the bunny demon pointed out as they put an arm around his shoulder.

“I was forced into this,” Macaque said as a wing wrapped around the two of them.

“Ah just admit that you have a soft fuzzy heart for us,” the bird demon grinned.

“Not even when my bones decay away.”

MK just blinked at the unprompted scene as he saw the glowing blue demon approach him.

“Sorry about my companions, they can be a little much sometimes,” he smiled softly to him.

“It’s fine, you're not the only ones who make a loud entrance,” he thought back to the times Yanyu would kick the door open when she walked in.

“I suppose not,” the demon then held out one of his arms to the child, making sure his tentacles were out of the way, “my name is Bohai little one.”

“I’m MK,” he smiled back and shook his hand.

“Oh, we’re doing introductions?! Well, I’m Daiyu chicky,” the female demon grinned or at least that's what he thought she was doing with her scarred beak.

“I’m Minsheng,” the bunny demon twitched their nose and gave a toothy grin, “you're so small that you remind me of my siblings when they were born.”

“How many siblings do you have?” He curiously asked.

“Pfft older or younger? I stopped counting after we reached the 200s,” they laughed.

His eyes widened, “over 200! That’s a lot of brothers and sisters.”

“Well, you know how bunnies are.”

Before MK could question that he felt two furry hands cover his ears.

“How about we don’t talk about that to a kid who has probably never had a crush before,” Macaque hissed to the bunny who had their hands held up.

“He’ll learn eventually.”

“But I would rather have that explained to him by literally anyone but you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyways,” the monkey took his hands off MK’s ears, “what were you screeching about earlier?”

“Oh well I got a bit nicked with some of dem cretins after a territory dispute you know how it is and,” Daiyu turned around and showed her back...which had a few knives sticking out of it. “I got a bit scratched up in the tussle.”

“At least you had the sense not to take it out,” he couldn’t help but sigh. “You at least win?”

“Who do ya think your talkin to?” She proudly puffed up her feathers.

“And people say I have too much pride, you damn vultures take the cake,” Macaque rolled his eyes as the two of them walked towards the infirmary room.

“You say that as if you never met Flicker before,” she chortled.

“Well there’s a stark difference between you two.”

“Wha that?”

“He actually has a brain.”

“Hey!” She attempted to pull his dangling fur, but he ducked away in time.

“Can I stay up a little longer!” The seven year old asked before the door could shut.

“Only for a little bit, but when I get back it’s straight to bed.” He answered back and then the door closed.

“Thank you!” He called out regardless as he fully knew that he could hear him.

“And that’s the whole lot of us kid, we're only half as insane as curly made us out to be '' Minsheng joked.

“Almost all of us,” the jellyfish demon said.

“Who you? Ha! Hate to break it to you, but the last time you lost your patience was when they didn’t make your starfish the way you wanted and you paralyzed the entire cooking staff.”

“You didn’t have to bring that up, but no not me,” he waved one of his tendrils. “I meant Ahmed.”

“I didn’t include him in the first place because that man does not even classify as insane,” he bluntly said. “He has the patience of a monk to deal with our brand of insanity which, in hindsight, is insane itself.”

“Whose Ahmed?” MK asked, “is he another friend of d-Mac?”

The two looked at each other before Baiyu spoke, “yeah, he’s a friend of Macaque.”

“Ouch, that’s a low blow for poor Med,” they grinned then winced as a tendril shocked their arm. “What? You know I’m right.”

“You know as well as I do that he can still hear you.”

“I’ve been craving death anyways,” they then turned back to the kid, “so you want to hear some crazy stories about your old man.”

Needless to say that Mac had tackled the bunny demon to the ground, with two violet glowing escrima sticks in hand, in the middle of their story on how the fierce monkey demon had to dance his way across a road of hot coal as he tried to outrun an angry herd of demon pheasant while wearing a rather beautiful kimono.

Macaque was reading out on the patio when his ears twitched as he heard a soft whimpering coming from MK’s room. He put the book on the table when he walked in and safely crept his way over his room and like many times before MK was crying in his sleep from a nightmare once more.

“It’s okay shooting star,” he gently began to thread his fingers through MK’s hair, “it's just a bad dream. You will be fine.”

At first, it didn't have any effect, but the longer he talked the softer the whimpers began to die down and the kid's eyes softly began to blink open.

“W-what's goin on?” He hoarsely said as he rubbed his eyes as he realized that he wasn’t dreaming anymore.

“You just had a bad dream kid,” he hummed as he continued stroking his hair.

“Oh.”

“Want to talk about it?” He received a firm shake of his head, “that’s okay, do you want to lie back down, sing, water, or want me to give you a little shadow puppet show?”

“Shadow show please,” he muffled out as he gripped tighter onto the blanket.

“One show coming right up,” he used a shadow clone to bring back a lantern as the room began to softly glow. When all was set Macaque began his tale in a low voice, “There once was an old man who lived in a shack.” He used some of his shadows to show a picture of an elderly man and wooden shack, “he was nothing special, did nothing extraordinary, and his life was simply normal. Until one day he happens upon the most peculiar thing.”

He continued to tell the tale of the old man even when he, unknowingly, had wrapped his tail around his child’s hand and MK, who was slowly drifting off into a deep slumber, held a tight grip upon it.

MK was currently sitting on the edge of a large lake as he kicked his feet in the water. He was alone at the moment as the monkey demon was tending to the plants that he needs for various medicines. The lake itself was a beautiful view filled with lily pads, reeds standing tall in the crystal lake, fishes and herons swimming in the water. Though he was trying to guess what that large dark shape was, it was nothing he has ever seen before.

“Hmmm I don’t think it’s a fish...maybe a duck?” He leaned in to get a better look and noticed. “Or maybe a turtle!”

The shape shifted as it appeared to be getting bigger and bigger as MK now noticed that he had never seen a turtle with long arms and claws before. He then saw there was long string hair upon what he thinks is its head until suddenly it disappeared and was replaced with two beady eyes. His heart dropped when the creature opened its mouth to reveal countless rows of sharp, pointed teeth. Then it began to rapidly swim towards him.

MK, frightened, fell on his back as he tried to crawl away, but it failed as the creature burst out of the water and onto the ground merely a foot away from him.

He let out a piercing scream, “DDAAADDDDD!”

At the same time the creature, with his mouth wide, said “hi there human child!”

“What?” He abruptly stopped his screaming right as an ominous force suddenly filled up the area as MK then felt two familiar hands scoop him up and hold him close as the voice spoke almost lowly.

“What happe-oh it’s just you,” Macaque let the pressure go back to normal once he realized that there wasn’t a true threat that was trying to attack his kid.

“Bwahahaha,” the creature let out a bellowing laugh, “sorry sorry. I must have scared your youngin.”

“No!” MK instantly said, but then he wilted and nodded, “just a bit.”

“Sorry about that little child, I just get a bit excited when a new face comes around my lake and all,” the webbed creature gave a toothy grin. “I know I startled the pant off Minzhe when I first met him.”

“Your lake? You live here?” MK, after being let down, carefully tried to examine the waters closer.

“Right on the mark, since being a Shui Gui and all.”

“Shui Gui,” he drawled out as he thought about that familiar name.

“Or Kappa, our damn naming changes so often that at this point I just go with the flow.”

“Oh! I know what a Shui Gui is!” MK brightened as he began to tell what his...mom used to tell him. “Aren’t they vengeful demons that have drowned and are bent on dragging helpless victims underwater, drowning them and finally eating their...flesh to…to...” his face took on a look of horror as he realized what he just blurted out. “I am so sorry!”

Luckily though the two demons chuckled, or at least Macaque did as the Kappa was holding his stomach. Though this did make MK’s face flush in embarrassment, he should be glad that the demon wasn’t angry, but he didn’t find any humor in what he said.

“Well I’ll give you credit,” Kappa said as his laughter died down, “what you said was mostly true, except I’m not a demon, just a ghost.”

“And let’s be clear he hasn't eaten people since two-maybe three millenniums ago,” the monkey demon intruded as he knew what MK was gonna ask next.

“You humans have become much too stringy for my taste,” he joked, but it served the opposite purpose as the small child paled even further.

“And this is why your only friend is an adrenaline junkie who has a taste for his own death,” Mac deadpanned as he soothed MK down.

After his heart stopped thrumming in his ears the human managed to look up at his guardian and his eyes widened as he noticed that Macaque suddenly had three pairs of different colored ears: red, blue, and purple. “When did you get three ears?!”

“You just now noticed?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Did you have them all this time?!?!!”

“Not all the time, but I do when it’s quiet usually.”

“Cooolll!” He attempted to climb the monkey to get a better look, “Is this how you're able to hear things from so far away?”

“Yeah,” he lets him examine his ears as only his eye minuscule twitch when MK accidentally pulls it too hard. “Be careful now, only have three pairs of them you know.”

“Right, sorry.” He apologized as he became gentler with his touches. He couldn’t help but gently drag his fingers through the oddly pointed ears and he smiled, now he understood why some of Mac's clients called him the Six-Eared Macaque. He eventually got down and faced the spirit once more, who was just looking at the two of them with amusement. “I’m real sorry for screaming at you.”

“Water under the bridge young child,” he waved him off, “least you apologize for it. I know that half the ones in these woods won’t even say sorry for ramming into you.”

“There’s more of you?” He tried to look in the lake, but he was once again met with only fish and water.

“Me specifically no, but spirits, demons, and other whatnot. Oh yeah there's hundreds of them dwelling in this here forest.”

“Wowww,” his eyes sparkled, “so does that mean that we are all neighbors.”

It was stunned silence before the Shun Gui began laughing once more as he bends down, “PFFTHAHAHA!”

“Did I say something funny?” MK looked towards Mac who was pinching his nose once more.

“No, he’s just obnoxious, that’s all.”

“You know what I like you kid, yeah we’re all neighbors, man even Ping would get a laugh out of this,” the water spirit said after his laughter died down. “Welcome to the neighborhood MK!”

“Thanks...umm what’s your name again?” He embarrassedly asked as he realized that he never got a name throughout this whole interaction.

“Oh here we go,” Mac sighed as he got comfortable and plucked up a Ravenna grass and began to chew on it. He grimaced as he realized that he had plucked up a weed again.

“Eh, you can call me Kappa if you want, don’t care for the whole naming thing,” he shrugged as he got back in the lake and laid there.

“Why not?” He curiously followed him.

“Why should I?” He shot back with a grin.

“Huh?”

“Why should I care for my name? It’s my name and I can do whatever I want with it, so I just choose not to care.”

“But don’t you like your name,” he was very confused about how this conversation came about.

“Oh I do, but truth be told, most of the time I forget others' names, so one day I just thought ‘you know what, what if I just don't use my name all the time’ and I didn't,” he finger gunned at the blank face child.

“You're kinda weird,” he bluntly told Kappa.

“I’m sorry,” Mac spoke up in disbelief, “You met a trio of lunatic demons that are a hot mess in general, an insane human who likes to add too much ghost jalapeño to her food, one of my clients who have their organs outside of their body and this is where you draw the line of weird?”

“I just wanted to know his name!” He threw his hands up.

“Just whatever is fine,” he laughed.

“Well fine! Your name is Whatever now!” He said in a fit of frustration before he realized what he said, “wait! I didn’t mean-,”

“Pfthahaha!” The spirit once more threw his head back in laughter.

“...what is even happening,” MK deadpanned.

“Welcome to my life Starchild,” Mac said as he ruffled his hair.

“That’s an interesting one, alright Whatever it is then,” he gave him a toothy grin.

“Wha-no please no,” MK almost begged him. “I didn’t-,”

“Nope too late, I won’t respond to anything else but Whatever from you. Hope to see you around short stack, you really know how to bring a laugh to a vengeful spirit face,” he let out a bark of a laugh before diving down deep into the lake.

MK blinked for a few moments before turning to Macaque, “is he really gonna-,”

“Oh yeah he is only gonna respond by that name,” he cut him off, “called him a Kappa once to his face and that slimy frog hasn’t let go since.”

“...I think I want to go back home dad,” said MK as he leaned into his fur. “I think I’m done for the day.”

Macaque’s breath hitched as he then gave him a gentle smile and scooped him up in his arms. “Yeah, I think I am as well.” And with that, the two mentally exhausted people made their way back to their warm home.

MK, who proudly turned nine as of a few months ago, was playing in an arcade as his dad was grocery shopping. He stuck out his tongue as he attempted to repeatedly punch the monster in Monkey Mech, but he keeps getting beaten right before he can land the final punch. He mused up his short ponytail out of frustration that was held by a red ribbon, “Oh man! I swear this guy cheats, alright seventeen times the charm.”

“I thought it was the third time the charm?” He turns around at the voice and sees a pigtail girl around his age looking at him.

“It is, but I lost sixteen other times, so this time I will win,” he confidently said as he put another token in, and just like before he lost. “I almost had it!”

“Move over,” the girl pushed him aside and took over the controls, “let me show you how to really play.”

MK's jaw dropped when the Winner title popped up after she managed to land the final triple axel uppercut to the enemy. “How’d you do that?!”

“Oh just a lot of practice, and searching online, to find the right moves to slain the beast,” she bragged.

He went down on his knees and bowed to her, “oh teach me your ways oh wise one.”

“You may refer to me as Master Mei,” she deepened her voice to sound elderly, “and who shall I call my young student.”

“Call me MK,” he followed along with glee, he hasn’t played with a kid his age in so long.

“Well then let me show you the ways of Monkey Mech,” and with that the two proceeded to play the game, playfully pushing each other as they double battled in a co-op mode. It wasn’t until a few hours had passed, and they had long passed Monkey Mech and went into all the different kinds of games in the arcade when MK noticed the digital clock behind the counter.

“Aww man, it’s getting late,” he pouted as he didn’t want to end, “I have to meet up with dad.”

“Awww,” Mei's shoulder slumped as they walked to the prize area, “that sucks.”

“Yeah,” he slumped his shoulder, as well as the two, looked through the prizes available, which did brighten the mood a bit as Mei left with a strange mutated stuffed dog that had three eyes, a few pieces of candy, and three bouncy balls, while MK was sucking on a swirly lollipop, pieces of chocolate in his pocket, and a sticky hand sling that he is slinging everywhere.

“So you like racing?” MK asked as they left the arcade, besides the Monkey Mech he noticed that Mei tended to go to the racing games more often.

“Yes! One day I will have my own motorcycle and I will be faster than anyone, even the Monkey King!” Mei declared.

“Even the Monkey King? Wow that is fast,” he said in awe, he read the story of the Journey to the West from the library. He was quickly enamored with the story the more he read and he soon began to idolize the great Monkey King. To think that such a being could ever exist in the first place was amazing! He did find it funny that the great Monkey King rival was named Macaque, it was hilarious to think that his dad could ever have powers to fight on equal standing with a god-like immortal. Grumpy? Sure! Easy annoyed? Oh yeah definitely, but scary? Ha! The scariest thing Dad has ever done was glare at his patients when they were being too noisy, but for some reason it always works as they shrink back in fear. He mentioned it to Yanyu and the demon gang one time and well-

“HAHAHAH/PFFTTTTT/SQUAK SQUAWK SQUAAAKK/SHEHEHEH,” Yanyu was rolling all over the floor as Minsheng was banging his feet, Daiyu was slamming the table with her wings, and Bohai was using all his tentacles to wrap himself.

-they burst out laughing when he mentioned this to them. He still hasn’t gotten a full answer for that one, all they told him was to wait.

“I wonder how far that can go?” Mei curiously asked as she watched the green sling attach itself on the top of the door that they were exiting.

“Not far, how high can your bouncy ball bounce?” He asked as he then watched her bounce the ball and saw it soar a bit high above their heads.

“Not that high either...how about we combine them,” she gave a mischievous grin as MK followed suit as he used his sticky sling and attached it to the ball.

“One,” Mei started.

“Two,” MK raised his hand in mid-air.

“Thr-”

“Ready to go kid.”

“AH!” They screamed and watched the sling and ball slip from his hand and instead of bouncing, it was thrown in Mac's face, who easily caught it.

“Not the first time I had something thrown at me,” he didn’t even blink at the outburst, though he did take a second glance at the other child next to his son, “though your new, made a friend Stardust.”

“Her name is Mei!” MK excitedly said though it didn’t look like Mei was paying attention to him at all as her focus was all on Macaque, or more specifically, his head.

“What?” The monkey demon raised an eyebrow.

“You have the longest hair I have ever seen,” her eyes sparkled as she instantly zoomed behind him and started to pull on his fur. “Can I braid it?!”

“It’s actually fur,” he corrected her.

“Can I still put it in a braid?”

“Sure.”

“Then I don’t care!” She happily proclaimed and pointed to one of the benches. “Sit.”

“...” he looked towards his kid who just shrugged his shoulders, “well I guess this is happening,” he sighed as he got a clone to take the rest of their groceries back home.

Needless to say that Mei very much enjoyed putting the demon fur in a messy, but still manageable, braid.

“You know if I had some Morning glories, they would look amazing in your hair,” she mused.

“You know their weeds right?” He pointed out.

“So? They look awesome.”

“You got me there.”

“There!” She proudly finished her creation with her green ribbon tied up at the end, “you have very fluffy hair.”

“Fur,” he once more corrected her.

“Eh fur, hair there the same thing,” she turned back from the monkey and to MK with a nervous smile, “you will definitely come back right? I haven’t finished playing all the arcade games with you.”

MK looks towards his dad with puppy dog eyes and Mei easily follows suit.

“You know those don’t work on me right,” he deadpanned and smirked at their hanging heads, “but yeah, I’ll drop him off from time to time.”

“Yes!” They both jump up in cheer, only for some of their candy to fall out and onto the floor.

“My babies!” MK rushed to pick up his pieces of semi-melted chocolate.

“Noooo!” Mei quickly began to grab as many of her jawbreakers as it rolled away.

Macaque watched them in amusement at their mad scramble to save their sugar fix.

#monkie kid #mk #six eared macaque #macaque #mei #lego monkie kid #PlumTeaAU

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refinedbuffoonery · 3 years

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Looking Through A Window (5)

macriley married undercover au

masterlist.

Admittedly, this is kind of a filler/transition chapter, but I have big plans for this story, and I’m really excited for y’all to read what happens next. Expect an update every weekend this month!

*****

The nightmare sinks its claws deeper as Mac tries to dislodge it. He knows it’s a dream, and Mac tosses and turns as he grapples for control of his mind.

The images in his mind persist. He's back in the Sandbox, but this time Bozer is with him, and Bozer's dying from a bullet wound before Mac can carry him to safety. Mac's had the dream a million times, and it always ends the same way.

I know you won’t let me die, Bozer says. But seconds later, his eyes turn glassy when his soul leaves his body.

Mac’s throat closes, cutting off his oxygen supply, and for a moment he thinks he’s going to follow Bozer into the afterlife.

It’s just a dream. He’s just lucid enough to remind himself of that. Wake up, Mac commands his body. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

The nightmare won’t let him.

Suddenly a different set of claws grip Mac’s shoulders, and the voice ordering him to wake up isn’t his own. He tries to jerk away, but the claws dig in.

Not claws, Mac realizes. Hands. Slender ones, with long fingers. Nails biting into his skin through his worn t-shirt.

He knows those hands.

“Wake up,” Riley hisses, and it’s enough to finally yank Mac from his dream. Mac’s eyes snap open, automatically scanning his surroundings. The bedroom is pitch black, but Mac can just make out Riley kneeling above him, her tired face twisted in concern. Her hands are on Mac’s shoulders, but not pinning him to the bed like he first thought. Her touch is light, and her thumbs make gentle sweeps across his collarbones. Mac’s own hands find Riley’s forearms, but he doesn’t push her away, nor does she lay back down. “You okay?” she asks.

Mac tries to play it off. “Yeah, bad dream. That’s all.” It’s a bit of an exaggeration, considering that he’s drenched in sweat and the final and most disturbing seconds of the dream are lingering longer than the rest. He knows it’s not real, but Mac can’t quite shake the sick feeling.

Riley exhales, and Mac finds himself mirroring her breathing automatically. Sliding a hand down to her wrist, he presses two fingers into her skin, feeling the steady thrum of her pulse. It’s faster than he expects.

Almost as if in explanation, Riley says, “You scared the shit out of the dog, not to mention me.”

Mac winces, feeling guilty. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” Slowly, Riley releases him and lays back down, leaving plenty of space between them. Mac misses her touch the instant she lets go. “Want to talk about it?”

That throat-closing feeling returns as Mac contemplates what to tell her. Part of him wants to share, but a bigger part hesitates when the explanation dies on his tongue. “Not really,” he finally says.

“Okay.” Riley says, pausing. “You’re wide awake right now, aren’t you?”

This, at least, he can admit easily. “Yep.”

There’s another long pause, filled only with the soft sound of their exhales. Just when he’s about to tell Riley to stop worrying about him and go back to sleep, she says, “Come here.”

Mac stills. That weird tension still lingers between him and Riley, causing awkward silences and stilted conversations. So this…this is unexpected.

He shouldn't. He really shouldn't. But, her voice is soft and reassuring, and who is he to turn down a free opportunity to cuddle with the woman he loves? Even if it might be a mistake.

As soon as Mac scoots across the bed, Riley pulls him into her side, guiding his head to rest on her non-injured shoulder. Riley’s side of the bed isn’t nearly as warm as his, but her body is soft and Mac likes how they fit together. Mac can’t help but sigh in contentment as Riley lightly scratches his scalp, and he lets an arm settle over her waist. They’ve fallen asleep together plenty of times over the years, but she’s never held him. Not like this. His heart pounds at the intimacy of it all.

But as Mac slowly starts to relax, the pulse in his ear doesn’t slow like it should. Because it’s not his heartbeat he’s hearing.

It’s hers.

Does that mean…?

“So,” Riley says, breaking the silence. “It’s later.”

The realization feels like a slap to the face. That’s why her heart is beating so fast. Not because of their close proximity, but because it’s later and there’s still that unresolved thing hanging between them. Mac’s fleeting hope that Riley’s racing pulse meant something else is nothing more than a fantasy in his head.

Swallowing his disappointment, Mac starts, “Riley, I really am sorry—” She cuts him off.

“Stop. You don’t need to apologize again. I forgave you the first time.” Her fingers sweep behind his ear, making him shiver slightly. “It’s my turn.” Riley takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for not listening to you. Like, really listening. Your concerns are legit, and I shouldn’t have brushed them aside and followed Matty blindly.”

Oh.

“I hate this situation just as much as you do, and I’m sorry if I made you feel otherwise.” Her voice catches slightly. “Also, I lied to you this morning, in the car. I knew I needed to apologize. I just didn’t know how to say it yet.”

Pointedly ignoring the intimacy of the gesture, Mac brushes his thumb over her ribs in a way he hopes is reassuring. “It’s okay.”

Riley tenses beneath him, and Mac freezes instantly. “It’s not, but thanks for saying that anyway,” she murmurs, relaxing again. Her fingers resume their path through his hair, catching on the occasional tangle.

Mac doesn’t know how to reassure her that it really is okay. So instead he confesses, “Sometimes I hate this job.”

She’s quiet for a few long seconds before responding. “Me too.”

It’s weird voicing it aloud. They’re all painfully aware of the downsides to the job, but rarely does anyone directly mention it. Maybe Riley is on a similar page as him after all.

Mac questions, “Are we doing the right thing? Playing along and letting innocent people get hurt just so we can take down the whole organization at once?” He needs to know her answer…needs confirmation that this whole op isn’t just one massive wrong choice.

“I think the good we do outweighs the bad,” Riley says after a few moments. “At least that’s what I tell myself so I can sleep at night.” She shifts, and for a brief, exhilarating moment, their hips press together before she pushes her knee uncomfortably into his thigh. Mac squirms, trying and failing to find a good position, ultimately taking a chance by slotting his leg between hers. Riley inhales sharply, but she doesn’t push him away. Mac tries not to read into it. Lying like this is intimate and intense and yet so easy. So right.

Mac pushes the heady feeling aside, ignoring the way it crackles in the background, threatening to consume him. They need to have this conversation, without distraction. Even welcome ones.

“Riley, we helped them kill people,” he says, and Riley’s hand stills in his hair.

“We can’t save everyone, Mac."

The thrumming in his body stops so quickly Riley might as well have dumped a bucket of ice water on him.

His heart cracks as she softly repeats, "We just can't." Like maybe she's breaking her own heart too by saying it.

He wants to kiss her chest—to press his lips to her heart in an attempt to soothe the ache there.

Mac understands all too well. It’s not the countless lives they have saved that stick with him, but the few they couldn’t. Zoe, the researcher who drowned in the Arctic to save her students. Jill, who fell victim to one of Murdoc’s murderous games. Charlie, who sacrificed himself so Mac wouldn’t have to choose between saving his friend and saving hundreds of innocent people. Lasky, the nuclear plant engineer who was just doing his job. Mac’s father. His aunt. Jack.

Riley clears her throat. "So, yeah. I think we are doing the right thing. It just sucks.”

Mac agrees, even though he can hardly admit it to himself. But there’s still one thing he doesn’t understand. “I don’t get how Matty seemed so okay with all of this,” he says.

“Come on, Mac. You know Matty hates this just as much as we do. She wouldn’t ask us to play along if she didn’t think it was necessary.” Riley’s fingers resume their steady, sweeping path through his hair, and Mac takes comfort in the gesture.

He sighs. “You sound like Jack.”

“I learned from the best. Don’t tell him I said that,” Riley warns, but Mac can hear the smile in her voice.

He tilts his face toward the ceiling, imagining Jack looking down at them from whatever afterlife he found himself in. “You hear that, old man? She admitted to learning something from you.”

Riley snorts, giving Mac’s hair a sharp tug. “Oh shut up.” She means it to be playful, but it sends a bolt of desire through his body.

It’s too much, with her hand in his hair and their bodies intertwined, and the intimacy may very well burn Mac alive. Every nerve in his body goes on high alert, and his grip on Riley’s rib cage tightens automatically.

“Sleep,” she murmurs, clearly mistaking the tension in his body as coming from somewhere—anywhere—else. Riley is one of the smartest, most perceptive people Mac knows, and yet she has no idea how he feels about her. Maybe that’s a good thing, he reasons. It’s easier that way. Less complicated.

Although full-on front-to-front cuddling isn’t not complicated.

It doesn't take long for the gentle pressure of Riley's fingers to win out, and Mac melts into her touch, letting his body grow heavy. Sleep beckons, and his eyelids flutter shut of their own accord as Riley wraps her free arm around his back, pulling him closer. Again, he thinks she feels like safety.

In his last moments of consciousness, Mac mumbles, “I like this,” before drifting back to sleep.

*****

For the first time, Riley is already out of bed when Mac wakes, and he’s positive it has something to do with the fact that he’s still on her side of the bed.

Cuddling with her was a mistake. Even if it led to the best sleep he’s had in a long time.

Burying his face in Riley’s pillow, Mac takes a deep breath. It smells like her. He hears the front door open and close, and then Riley’s muffled voice fills the apartment. Mac can’t quite pick up what she’s saying, but he thinks she’s on the phone rather than talking to Harley.

Suddenly getting up seems like a daunting task.

Not caring if it makes him a coward, Mac stays in bed, taking the opportunity to study the bedroom decor. This is day nine of the op, and before now Mac never bothered to appreciate the work someone put into setting up the safe house. It’s too modern and minimalist for his taste, but he has to admit it looks nice. The bedroom walls are a soft light gray, with a handful of paintings of different sizes and framed photos of him, Riley, and Harley scattered throughout. More of the photos Bozer took are in the hallway, but Mac’s never given those more than a cursory glance.

Across from the bed sits the single, expensive-looking dresser, with overstuffed drawers that don’t quite shut all the way. One of Riley’s drawers is completely open, and the t-shirt she wore to bed last night hangs haphazardly over the edge.

Mac’s eyes catch on the photo sitting on top of the dresser, beside the plant he keeps forgetting to water. It’s one of the wedding photos, and it’s the only photo Mac has really paid attention to, since he stares at it every day while getting dressed. The photo is of Riley and him slow dancing, and she’s looking at him like he hung the moon. And he’s looking at her the exact same way.

More than anything, Mac wishes it was real.

The bedroom door creaks open, and Mac cranes his neck to see Harley’s fluffy head peek through. She doesn’t enter. Instead, Harley watches him cautiously, almost like she wasn’t expecting him to be awake and is now unsure what to do.

Mac pats the mattress. “It’s okay. Come on.” When she doesn’t move, he adds, “I’m sorry I scared you last night.” His apology must be enough, because Harley jumps on the bed with him. She stands between his outstretched legs as Mac rakes his hands through her fur, scratching her butt the way she likes. “How about I get you a new toy to make up for it?” he asks. Tail wagging, Harley licks his face in approval, and Mac laughs. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Riley raises her voice—she’s complaining about something, although Mac still can’t determine what—and both Mac and Harley turn their attention to the sound.

Harley looks back at him, and Mac starts to think that he wasn’t far off the other day when he noticed Harley playing protector. He smiles softly. “Go check on her.”

Harley jumps off the bed immediately, surprising Mac when she glances back at him on her way out the door.

Still smiling, Mac gets up to start his day.

By the time he emerges from the bedroom, Riley is playing fetch with Harley in the living room while she’s on the phone. Surprised the call has lasted this long, Mac raises his brow, silently asking who she’s talking to, and Riley holds up a finger. One second.

While he’s waiting, Mac wanders into the kitchen in search of breakfast.

Riley’s next throw ricochets off the wall, and the tennis ball hits Mac’s thigh. “What do you mean he’s not in the database?” she shrieks. “Bozer, practically every criminal in the world is in that database.”

Mac freezes midway through unwrapping a muffin.

Riley pinches her nose. “Then run the sketch through the DMV database. The guy who tailed me has to exist somewhere.”

He swallows. “Tailed?”

“Hang on, Boze. Mac just walked in.” Exasperated, Riley moves her phone away from her face. “I took Harley for a walk while you were still asleep, and some guy tailed me. Don’t worry, I lost him long before returning to the apartment.”

Mac bristles. Riley had been in danger, and he was asleep. Why didn’t she tell him where she was going? He tries not to think about all the bad things that could’ve happened. “You think this guy is part of the Patriots?”

Shrugging, Riley says, “That makes the most sense. But it’s hard to know for sure when we don’t have personnel records.”

That’s just one of many problems with this op—no official list of known members of the Patriots. Mac and Riley have no choice but to learn about people the old-fashioned way.

Pinning her phone between her cheek and her shoulder, Riley retrieves the tennis ball from under the couch, her voice muffled as she asks, “Got anything, Boze?” A few seconds later, she groans, but Mac can’t tell whether it’s because of Bozer’s answer or the amount of hair now stuck to the visibly soggy tennis ball in her hands. He makes a mental note to vacuum again. “Thanks for trying,” she says before hanging up.

Treading carefully, Mac asks, “Well?” He doesn’t need to be a genius to know that she’s still rattled, no matter how much she tries to downplay it.

“His name is Peter Morrison, and he has three speeding tickets. That’s it.” Still holding the tennis ball, Riley’s shoulders slump as she sits on the arm of the couch. Confused why she stopped playing, Harley stands between Riley’s legs and whines, nosing Riley’s hand in an attempt to get her to throw the ball again.

When Riley doesn’t oblige her, Mac asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Riley says, but her voice is tight and she bristles when he moves closer. He knows she’s lying—they’ve both been lying a lot recently—but what Mac doesn’t understand is why. He knows why he’s lying, but why does Riley still feel the need to hide how she’s feeling from him?

It’s like the intimacy of last night never happened.

Mac takes the wet, hairy tennis ball from her hands and throws it for Harley. “Do you want a hug or help kicking someone’s ass?” The question earns him a small smile, one that makes Mac’s heart flutter in his chest.

“I was thinking more along the lines of punching someone in the face, but I suppose we can kick them too,” she quips. Mac laughs, and the corners of Riley’s eyes crinkle as her smile widens.

“Sounds like a plan.” Harley brings the ball back and drops it at Mac’s feet. “Last throw,” he tells her, knowing full well it won’t be. Turning his attention back to Riley, he asks, “How’s your shoulder?”

Absent-mindedly, Riley’s fingers trace the outline of a bruise peeking out from beneath her tank top. “It hurts. You grabbed it in your sleep last night, and I almost screamed.”

Mac grimaces. “Sorry.” He wants to ask about last night and make sure they’re okay, but the words refuse to form. “I’m going to call Conrad and make him explain, okay?”

“Okay.” Riley nods. For a second, it seems like she wants to say something more, but she ultimately doesn’t. Honoring her implicit request for space, Mac briefly squeezes her arm as he walks away. The gesture is a promise: I’m here.

*****

“This is unacceptable,” Mac growls at Ethan, later that day. After giving Conrad an earful over the phone, apparently Mac made a big enough fuss to warrant a visit from the leader of the Patriots himself. They meet in public—neutral ground—at a park not unlike the one across the street from Mac and Riley’s apartment. It feels wrong to use the term safe house, since it’s not as safe as they thought.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, James,” Ethan placates. “It’s simply standard business procedure. I’m sure you researched us before formally offering your services.”

Mac barely stops himself from making a face. Oh they researched the Patriots, all right. “Of course we did.” He really should do a better job of holding his snark at bay, but Mac lets it tint his words anyway. “But we didn’t invade individual members’ privacy or threaten anyone’s personal safety.”

“My employee did not and would not have hurt your wife. She was never in danger, I can assure you.”

“And how was she supposed to know that?” He’s borderline yelling, but Mac is too pissed to care. The more Ethan tries to convince him the situation is okay, the more Mac wishes they were closer to the playground so he could strangle Ethan with the chain from the swings. He snarls, “Explain that to me.”

Ethan, it seems, is at a rare loss for words. Mac waits, forcing the other man to fill the silence. “I suppose she wouldn’t have,” Ethan finally admits, although he shows no sign of backing down.

Mac stands. “Don’t let this happen again.” He starts to walk away, content with having the last word, but Mac stops dead in his tracks when Ethan calls after him.

“If you won’t comply with the way we do things, then I guess we’ll just have to find someone else.”

Mac spins on his heel. “That’s bullshit,” he spits. “You need us. You won’t find anyone better, at least not that you can afford, and we both know it. Your organization is small potatoes right now, but with our support, the Patriots could join the big leagues. So it’s up to you to decide whether you’re content with throwing your money at a pipe dream or if you want to actually accomplish something.” Ethan is taller than him, but Mac manages to look down at him anyway—something he learned from Matty. “The choice is yours. Let me know when you’ve made it.”

Without waiting for a response, Mac shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away, praying he didn’t just ruin the whole op.

~ Tag List ~ Want to be added? Send me an ask.

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@erika-amber

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@whatsabex

#beth writes #looking through a window au #macriley #macgyver #macgyver fanfiction #angus macgyver #riley davis

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avengerscompound · 4 years

Text

Until the End of the World - 13

Until the End of the World: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count: 2085

Rating: E

Warnings: pregnancy

Synopsis: Four years after Steve and Bucky got to the bottom of the HYDRA conspiracy that had led to you and your son being hunted for the first three years of his life, you, Bucky, and Steve have carved out a nice life together. Things are calm and you feel like a family unit. When Geo starts calling Bucky and Steve ‘dad’, a decision is made to try and add to your family.

Things aren’t as calm as they seem. When your pregnancy hits the papers, HYDRA rears its head once again, and Steve and Bucky need to track you down to protect the family they had created.

Chapter 13

The paperwork was all put in to adopt Geo. Steve had put his lawyers on it, petitioning to allow both he and Bucky to go onto the birth certificate as adoptive parents, while you also kept your legal rights as a parent too. The lawyers had said for everyone not to get their hopes too high, it was hard to be the precedent, but they were on it. Bucky hoped it worked. He read that in Canada there had been not only a lesbian couple that had been allowed to have both mothers and the donor father listed on the birth certificate of a child, but also a polyamorous family with two fathers and a mother all listed as parents on their child’s birth certificate too.

Bucky hoped that maybe if both he and Steve could adopt Geo, it would lead to both being listed on their little girl’s birth certificate too. He hadn’t brought up his idea to go to Canada to have the baby yet. It might be a little much to convince Steve to have a Canadian baby considering who he was. But he might if it meant they could both be listed as her parents.

For now, Bucky would keep his fingers crossed and hope that the world might just surprise him and accept him and his family for what they were, even if maybe that was more than he’d earned yet. There were other things to worry about.

The apartment was finally finished and you, Steve, Bucky, and Geo were moving your things back in. It wasn’t a huge job, as almost everyone’s belongings had stayed in the apartment and just been covered in drop sheets while the work was done. But still, there were clothes and Geo’s toys and random miscellaneous items that had drifted to the guest apartment they’d been using while construction had been underway. Not to mention, even though all their things were there, the new rooms were empty and things needed to be reorganized to fit the space.

Bucky and Steve were in charge of moving the larger things, while you and Geo did smaller runs back and forth with clothes and toys and went about putting up pictures in new places and spreading out nicknacks.

“The baby doesn’t have a bed yet,” Geo said as nosed around the rooms, trying to get a feel for the new space.

The nursery had been done. It was painted a light purple and Steve had been spending some of his free time painting a forest mural on one wall, but aside from the furniture they’d had built-in, like the wardrobe and sets of drawers, the room was still completely empty.

“We wanted to wait until the place was ready before we bought any,” Steve answered, ruffling Geo’s hair as he passed him in the hall, one large bag hefted over his shoulder. “Did you want to go out and help us pick when we do that?”

Geo shrugged. “I don’t mind. I wanna buy her some toys.”

“We can do that,” Steve agreed.

You came out of the bedroom and dragged the drop sheet off one of the couches, before flopping down on it.

“You okay, babe?” Bucky asked, stopping near you with his arms full of clothes.

“Yeah. Just my back is aching and the baby is kicking me so much,” you complained.

“Let me just put this down and I’ll come and rub your back,” Bucky said, carrying the things into the bedroom and dumping them on the bed. He came back out and removed the drop sheets from all the furniture and took a seat beside you. “Can you get in a comfortable position?”

You got on your knees and leaned over the arm of the couch, resting your head on your arms. Bucky began to gently work out the tension in your lower back. Steve came back through the room followed by Geo as Bucky began to feel your muscles relaxing.

“Maybe it’s a good time for a break anyway,” Steve said. “Do you want a drink?”

“Lemonade, please,” you half-moaned.

Geo sat down on the recliner and popped it out. He was still quite small and in the large chair, he looked tiny. His legs barely went over the side even when it wasn’t in the recline position. He grabbed his tablet and immediately began playing a game with FRIDAY. His eyes flickered as he communicated with her using his technopathic abilities.

Steve bought over a tray with a jug of lemonade and five glasses. “Do we want to order lunch in?”

“Yes, please,” you moaned.

“Maybe you should rest and Bucky and I will finish unpacking,” Steve suggested.

“Gee, thanks for volunteering me, pal,” Bucky teased, earning a soft laugh from Steve.

Steve grabbed his phone and started to flick through it. “What are we feeling? Subs? Something from a deli? Something a little more hearty?”

“I’m feeling sandwich and soup, and a pickle on the side,” you said.

“I’m fine with that,” Bucky said, his hands sliding up your back a little while he massaged you.

“Geo?” Steve said. “You want soup and a sandwich?”

“Mac and cheese, please,” he answered without looking up.

Steve chuckled. “Always have to make things difficult. I’ll see what I can find.”

He tapped around on his phone for a little while before he found somewhere and then handed his phone to you. You added some things to the cart, while Bucky massaged you. “What are you feeling, Bucky?” You asked, holding the phone for him to see.

“The Italian and-” his eyes flicked over everything as you scrolled down. “-the loaded baked potato.”

You added them and sent the order in. Bucky kept massaging you back and for a while that the only sounds in the room were the hum of the aircon, the tap of Geo’s fingers on the screen of his tablet, and the groans you would make when Bucky hit a particularly sensitive spot.

Eventually, you seemed to tire of the position you were in and you sat back, and put your feet in Bucky’s lap. He immediately began to rub your feet.

“The good news is, we’re nearly done with the big things,” Steve said. “We still have to spread out into the extra space, but there’s no rush to do that.”

“That’s good. Your daughter is kicking the hell out of me,” you said.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Steve said. “And she’s a little super soldier.”

“Yeah, be careful she doesn’t break one of your ribs,” Bucky said and ran his hands up your leg and pressed it against your stomach.

“How am I supposed to be careful?” You snarked, moving his hand so it was in a better position. No one else had been able to feel the kicks yet but this was a normal routine for the family. You’d tell them you could feel the baby. Steve or Bucky would put their hand on your stomach. You’d move it to the spot you could feel them, and then nothing would happen. Bucky lived in hope though. It had to happen sooner or later. “She’s inside me. What can I do to stop her?”

Bucky chuckled and leaned over and kissed your forehead. “Nothing with that attitude.”

He sat back and pressed his metal hand down against the baby bump where you held it.

He wasn’t particularly fond of his metal arm. Sure there was this objective part of him that appreciated the technology. It was very advanced, even for today’s standards for prosthetics, and he had always been a big fan of technology. He appreciated that it allowed him to function easily. He could get by without it and had done for a while and despite the fact, his hair would get caught in it from time to time, it did make it easier to do things like washing his hair and fastening the buttons on his clothes.

However, there were a lot of issues too. It was heavy for one. He had to lean to the right to compensate, which made his back ache on the best of days and meant his gate was a little off, and if he had to do a lot of walking or running, his hips would be screaming at him by the end of the day. The new one was lighter but it still wasn’t as light as his flesh and blood arm. The way it connected to his body caused problems too. He wasn’t exactly sure they were all physical problems, or just in his head, but the way the skin rubbed against metal was irritating, and he knew, at least originally, HYDRA hadn’t cared about him, just the arm, so the connections weren’t the best, and they hurt all the time, sometimes sending painful spikes right to his head. He used to scratch at it a lot like he was trying to dig the metal out of his flesh. The problem was, all that should have been fixed with the new one, but he still felt it from time-to-time and he’d still find himself stretching at it.

It was how it made him feel about himself that was the worst. Even though this was a new arm, it served as a constant reminder of what had happened to him. It was an ever serving trigger to his past torture and enslavement. It meant that he was never going to be a person first. It was always the weapon, and then the person. If he ever got too comfortable in his place at home with you and Steve he just had to look at his arm and remember, he wasn’t a boyfriend and a father. He was a weapon who was lucky enough to have something to come home to.

It was advanced though. He could hold it against your stomach and feel the texture of the fabric of your clothes and the slight movement of your body shifting under him. He didn’t exactly know how they’d made it so he had such fine control and was able to perceive touch with it, but it worked. Not as well as his real hand, but enough that he would use either when testing fruit for ripeness, or the temperature of water. He’d never really appreciated that before. But when he felt that press from inside you as the baby kicked, he had never appreciated that prosthetic arm more.

“Was that her?” He asked, sitting up quickly. “I didn’t just glitch did I?”

Steve moved so fast that one second he was over on the recliner and the next he was on his knees beside you. “You felt her?”

“She did kick there, so … yes?” You answered.

Bucky switched hands, pressing down on your stomach. It was like the baby pushed back against him, trying to repel the thing intruding on her limited space. “I felt her. It’s soft, but I can feel her.”

Steve pushed Bucky’s hand out of the way and pressed his hand where Bucky’s had just been. It took a moment but Bucky saw exactly when their daughter kicked because Steve’s face lit up from within. So much happiness and love and excitement were written on his features. He leaned down and pressed his forehead on your stomach. “Hey in there,” he whispered. “Are you giving your mommy trouble?”

Bucky looked over at Geo. “G, you want to feel the baby kicking?”

Geo looked up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, bud,” you said, waving him over. “Come feel your sister.”

He slid off the recliner and came over, Steve made room for him and guided the little boy’s hand to the stop on your stomach where the baby was kicking. He looked down furrowing his brow. “Does it feel like a little bump?” Geo asked.

“Yeah, like a twitch. She’s still very very small,” you explained.

“I feel it,” he said grinning. “That’s my sister?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” you said.

“You think she’s giving you a high five, bud?” Bucky asked.

Geo giggled and nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

Bucky chuckled and rubbed Geo’s arm. It was strange, he hated his metal arm, and yet, it was what drew Geo’s attention that day he met you, and now it was the one that felt the baby kick first. It was a sign of so many things that were taking from him, and now it was bringing him new, amazing things. Maybe he could start seeing it for the positives too.

// NEXT

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #stucky #steve rogers x bucky barnes #stucky x reader #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #captain america fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #pregnancy #until the end of the world

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artificialqueens · 3 years

Text

I Know the Sound (Of Your Heart) (Rosnali) - Athena2

Denali works the overnight shift at a diner, and has a crush on the woman who hosts the radio show she listens to every night.

A/N: I've been busy with school and work lately, but I finally finished this and wanted to share it! Please leave feedback if you'd like, I really do love reading your comments. Thank you to Writ for beta-ing!

Title from the Sound by the 1975.

Denali doesn’t hate the night shift at the diner.

It has its slow times and busy times, especially on the weekends. It has its regular customers—the group of college kids that comes every Monday for all-you-can-eat-pancakes, the woman from the local paper who comes in a few nights a week and gets a to-go box of pastries for her coworkers on deadline. It has its good points, like her coworkers and the free slices of cakes and pies the owner lets them take, and its bad points, like the rude customers and weekend rushes.

It’s pretty much a typical nine-to-five--just nine at night until five in the morning.

The night shift isn’t ideal, but it’s easier with her schedule. She gets home a little after five in the morning, collapses into bed, and sleeps until ten or eleven. Then she heads to the ice rink and trains for hours before teaching a few afternoon lessons and going back to the diner. She’s tired, of course, so often it’s just her default state at this point. But the full-time coach at the rink is planning to leave soon, meaning she can pick up his hours and classes, and then she can quit the diner and practice more and get a reasonable amount of sleep. She just needs to tough it out another month or two, and she can do that. She’s been toughing it out on the ice for months, pushing past her bleary eyes and weary limbs to keep her place on the competition team.

She’s in the kitchen tonight, dropping baskets of fries into oil and making grilled cheese for the occasional customer, business mostly a crawl after eleven. But it’s quiet, and she gets to turn the owner’s ancient radio to her favorite station.

“--if you’re just joining us, welcome to the Pink Hour! Not sure why they call it that, because I’m here all night, but whatever, I just work here. I’m Rosé, I hope all you gorgeous listeners out there are having a lovely night.”

Denali leans against the grill and sighs. She found the show months ago, flipping through local radio stations on a drive home after forgetting her AUX cord. The host’s voice had pulled her in, and Denali stayed in the car for five minutes after reaching her apartment’s parking lot just so she could hear the rest of the story Rosé was telling. Within days, that station turned on the second her car roared to life, and she didn’t even bother with the AUX cord if she was driving at night. Not when she could listen to Rosé.

Her voice does something to Denali, makes her calm and happy all at once. It helps that Rosé tells hilarious stories about gigs she’s played and takes callers in between her song picks, playing their suggestions or giving them a listening ear or sharing some advice if they want it. It brings some excitement to an otherwise boring shift, gives Denali something to look forward to. The show runs from nine at night to five in the morning, and Denali likes that they have that in common, that they’re out there doing the same shift, with Rosé’s voice and perfect song selections keeping her company.

“I’m in a dancing mood tonight,” Rosé continues through the speakers. “I’d dance myself, but I’m too damn tired--hopefully they don’t bleep that out--so I’ll let ABBA take over. My parents played them all the time when I was a kid, and this one is my favorite.”

The unmistakable first notes of ‘Dancing Queen’ pour from the speakers, and Denali grins through her exhaustion, letting Rosé get her through the night.

---

“--So I’m standing there on stage, singing and minding my own business, and then a rat, a fu--a freaking rat runs in the bar. I ran for my life and tripped on the amp plug, and that, my lovely little listeners, is how I sprained my ankle last year. I just wish the story was more glamorous.”

Denali’s so lost in the story she accidentally tips an extra chicken tender in the fryer. Whatever, a little midnight snack won’t hurt. She brings the order out to one of two occupied tables, then devours her prize the second she’s out of sight. The radio is playing a Fleetwood Mac song, and Denali sighs as Brooke, the only other person working with her, pops in. They usually work the night shift together because Brooke spends her days training with some ballet company, and though they’re not super close, that combination of exhaustion and dedication has created an understanding between them, and one of them will often pick up the slack when the other is too tired to even stand.

“Contraband?” Brooke asks, nodding to Denali’s chicken-tender-stuffed cheeks. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Denali finishes chewing and nods. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Still listening to that radio show? Why not just listen to a murder podcast like the rest of us?”

“Some of us aren’t obsessed with true crime, Hytes.” Denali rolls her eyes. “And why would I want to hear about people getting murdered on the way to their cars? I drive a car.”

Brooke snorts. “Fair.”

“I could probably kick their ass, though,” Denali says.

“You could,” Brooke agrees, then sighs. “I better get back out there. Enjoy the radio show.”

“Thanks.”

Denali turns it up a little after Brooke leaves, just in time to catch Rosé’s story about the song. Denali stands still as Rosé explains how she won her middle school talent show singing that song when she was just in sixth grade, how it made her want to sing all the time.

Denali can’t help but imagine Rosé singing, even if she doesn’t actually know what Rosé looks like. It would be easy to find her if she wanted to—the show has an Instagram page, and she would undoubtedly find Rosé there—but Denali likes the mystery of it. Likes keeping Rosé in her mind and behind her radio speakers. It’s ridiculous, probably, how much Denali likes hearing Rosé talk, but every word is so expressive, so passionate, and Denali feels like she’s gotten to know part of Rosé just through her stories, like how she got a guitar for her tenth birthday, or that she likes trying different fancy drinks when she goes to coffee shops, or that she had her first kiss in her car, hiding behind the high school gym--though that story makes Denali oddly jealous. It’s comforting, somehow, to know Rosé is out there, that she and Denali are occupying the same space and time, even if they’ve never met.

As long as Denali can hear her voice, things feel okay.

---

The nights continue, bleeding into days on the ice where the cold doesn’t even wake Denali up anymore because she’s so used to it. She’s tired, so tired she almost falls asleep in someone’s pile of leftover mashed potatoes, but she’s so close. The head coach is leaving in two weeks, and the rink’s manager already said the job is hers. Two more weeks and then she can sleep at night and be a normal level of tired like everyone else.

The song on the radio transitions into the crackling static of a caller connecting. Denali’s thought of calling in to request a song a few times, thinking that it would be like officially talking to Rosé--albeit over the phone--but she always chickens out before she can even type the first number. This is the most ridiculous crush Denali’s ever had, and she definitely has to call it a crush now, given all her fantasies of busting down the radio station’s door to ask Rosé out. She sighs and listens as the caller speaks. It’s a teenage boy, one trying and failing to sound older, telling Rosé about how he came out to his friends today, how they were so happy for him and want to throw a party this weekend. He had been nervous all week, the boy explains, and found Rosé’s show when he was up at night and used it to stay calm.

“Thank you,” Rosé says, and Denali can tell from how her voice is a little thick that she’s really touched. It’s not the first time she’s gotten calls like this, either. “I’m so happy things worked out for you. My friends and family were really supportive when I came out too, and I’m glad you’ll have that support. Be proud and be you, okay?” Rosé clears her throat. “Now, I hate to be that cheesy person--oh, who am I kidding, I love to be that person--but here’s a special song just for you.”

Denali laughs out loud as Diana Ross starts singing about coming out. This whole night, and how kind and genuine and sweet Rosé was, have only made Denali’s crush deepen. Maybe she should find Rosé, message her on Instagram. Denali can’t imagine seeing her in person, hearing that voice and that laugh so close. Finding out all the things about Rosé that she can’t get over the radio.

Maybe one day.

---

Denali’s almost home when she realizes she was so busy thinking about Rosé that she forgot her phone at the diner, and, tired as she is, she’d rather just go get it now than later. She trudges back in the place to hear a laugh--a laugh she knows for some reason, even if it doesn’t belong to any of her coworkers. And then she hears the voice, one excitedly reading out the pecan pancakes on the menu, and follows it to a booth in the corner. It’s coming from a woman with soft pink hair and a huge smile. She’s gorgeous, but it’s the voice that stops Denali in her tracks. Because she absolutely, unmistakably knows that voice. She listens to it every night, its smooth sound and cackling laughs flowing through the scuffed speakers of the radio.

The woman is Rosé.

It simply has to be. Even if Denali’s never seen her, she knows it has to be her. Who else could have that exact voice? Denali’s about to march over to the table when she slams into something, and looks up to see Brooke clutching her order pad in a death grip.

“What are you still doing here?” Denali asks.

“I was on my way out when that table”--Brooke nods to the corner--”came in. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a ridiculously beautiful woman at that table, and I’m gonna wait on her.”

Denali yanks the order pad out of her hand. “I’m waiting on her. Rosé is at that table!”

Brooke stares at her. “No, I think her name is Vanessa.”

Now Denali stares. What if she’s wrong and it’s not Rosé? She risks another glance at the booth and suddenly realizes there are two women there, and her eyes narrow. “Who are you talking about?” she asks Brooke suspiciously.

“The tiny one, with the brown hair.” Brooke crosses her arms. “Who are you talking about?”

“The one with the pink hair and the most amazing smile ever! She hosts that radio show I listen to every night!”

“Oh. Oh,” Brooke repeats, realization dawning on her. “Well, maybe we can both wait--“

“Excuse me,” a rough voice says, and Denali knows from Brooke’s deer-in-headlights-look that it’s the brunette. “Can someone show me where the bathroom is?”

“Brooke can,” Denali says, giving the blonde a gentle push, watching her trail with Vanessa out of sight and almost sprinting to the booth Rosé is now at by herself. She’s even prettier up close, with kind eyes and a perfect smile. Denali can do this. Except now that she’s here, she has no idea what she’s doing. Should she tell Rosé that she knows her? How creepy is it to admit that she recognized her voice?

“Can I help you?” Rosé asks, and hearing her voice close like this makes Denali surer than ever that it’s her. It sounds a little different in person, but it’s definitely her. It snaps her out of her thoughts, and she realizes she’s standing in front of the table in a waitress uniform with her mouth wide open.

“I should be asking you that,” Denali stammers, trying to recover. “Can I get you coffee or anything?”

“Can I get the caramel latte?”

“Of course.”

“My friend wanted coffee too, but I don’t think she’ll need it, considering how long she’s been in that bathroom with your friend.” She flashes a smirk, and Denali’s knees wobble.

“I don’t think she will either.” Denali snorts, but a rush of determination hits her. Things worked out for Brooke, so why can’t they work out for her too? And Rosé coming in here this morning—the morning Denali happens to forget her phone—feels like fate, like someone wanted them to meet. Screw it, Denali thinks. “Hey, uh, you have a show on the radio, right? Please don’t think I’m a creep, it’s just—I listen to it every night when I’m at work.”

“Always nice to meet a fan,” Rosé says. The smirk is still there, but it fades into a real smile. “But yes, I do have a show. I’m glad you like it.”

“I love you,” Denali blurts. “I--I love the show, I mean,” she says, her face on fire. “It’s kept me company at work. You’re really fun to listen to.”

“Thanks.” Denali might be imagining it, but there’s a hint of a blush in Rosé’s cheeks. “You probably know my name, but I’m Rosé.”

“I’m Denali.”

Rosé smiles again. “Denali, I think you’re pretty fun to listen to too. Would you want to go on a date sometime? Then we can listen to each other all night. I gotta warn you, though, I love to talk.”

“I’d love to. I can handle talking, believe me. Actually, you know what--” Denali slides into the other side of the booth, grinning at the excited look on Rosé’s face--”I’m off the clock. What do you say we have a date right now?” By the time she hits the ice she’ll be cursing herself for not sleeping, but she wants to talk to Rosé so bad, wants to spend this morning with her.

Rosé grins. “Absolutely. Do you think someone could get me that latte though?” she asks sheepishly. “I’m so tired.”

“Make that two.” Denali laughs and then flags down one of her coworkers, not wanting to miss a single second.

#rpdr fanfiction #denali foxx #rosé #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #rosnali #background branjie #lesbian au #fluff #athena2 #concrit welcome

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escxpedes · 4 years

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loopholes (fin.)

Remember when I said I’d post this like two days after the last part? No? Me neither... Sorry about the delay, I’ve had a severe lack of motivation. (It’s mental illness innit.) I feel like every part of this story gets longer and longer, and makes even less sense. If you haven’t read the other two parts, I recommend you do so. These technically can be read standalone, but I think it’s cuter when you read them knowing the context. Even though, again, they seem to make less sense the more I write. Lots of new information came about season 5, and it’s both nerve-racking and exciting at the same time! Three cheers for anxiety, amiright? Hope you all are doing well, I’m excited to hear the feedback on the last part of this series. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to write, I’m a sucker for prompts! x

part one | part two

loop·hole

noun | A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system.

hands that wrap around my wrists, (and arms that feel like home.)

Shutting down the monitors she was using, Riley tries not to think about how her sleep deprivation affects her body. It’s one thing to work as a distraction, but the drag in her pace tells her this coping method is wearing her down.

How is she supposed to save innocent lives when she’s so exhausted.

And she is, exhausted, that is. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Every part of her is weightless, suspended in air, and it feels like she can’t do a single thing about it.

An irritating helplessness encompasses her, tightening its grasp on her sanity.

She wants to cry out, throw something, cause a scene. Instead, she buries her feelings deep in her subconscious and tries not to focus on how tight her chest is.

It’s an occupational hazard, she tells herself. It’s nothing she can’t handle, she repeats daily. It’s almost a mantra by now, echoing inside her head and ramping up what seems to be an infinite supply of determination.

It’s the only way.

Mac waits for her outside, leaning against the building while she locks up. Her vision is still kind of fuzzy due to lack of energy, and her body doesn’t seem to be completely awake yet. She can physically feel Mac’s concerned gaze burning a hole in her cranium as if staring hard enough will give him access to all recesses of her mind.

“Ready?”

She nods, feigning a smile, and bumping his shoulder with her own, “You never mentioned why you stopped by so late.”

Ignorance is bliss, right?

“I left my phone in the labs.” She can hear the exasperation in his voice; concern rushes forward and sends a pang through her heart.

Suddenly, she’s irritated too, not with Mac, but for Mac. He does the right thing for humanity despite all that humanity has done to him. She can’t imagine how frustrated he must be with the entire situation, once again putting the world before himself.

He’s had so little time to process everything.

She knows he could use a break but also knows that he won’t admit he needs one.

For how smart he is, he can be really stupid sometimes.

When she turns her head to look at him, she can tell she’s lost him to his own thoughts. His eyebrows are furrowed, his usually clear eyes unfocused, and his mouth is set in a grim line.

If she listens closely, she can almost hear the gears turning, working out possible solutions, and thinking through every outcome.

It’s not an uncommon expression.

She stops abruptly, “Hey.”

This seems to shake him from his trance, his eyes meeting hers in a questioning manner.

“You are doing the best you can under the circumstances, but pushing yourself too hard won’t solve anything,” Her hand finds its way to his arm and squeezes reassuringly, “You can take care of the planet, but make sure to take care of yourself, too.”

The look he gives her is so full of gratitude and affection that nearly every emotion that Riley’s fought to contain bursts through its confinement and surges through her body.

“Thank you.”

Her breath catches in her throat, making it hard to breathe.

“What for?”

She really hopes the shaky breath that follows goes unnoticed.

“For always believing in me, no matter what.” His gaze is piercing, robbing the ability to form words from her throat.

She rakes her mind for something, anything, to say that will stop her from doing something she would totally, one hundred percent regret.

“It’s what Jack would do.”

It takes everything in her to break eye contact and shrug nonchalantly. Humor laces her tone, despite the sincerity of her statement. It is something Jack would do, something he taught her to believe in. Not necessarily in Mac, but what her gut is telling her.

It seems that in any given situation, before or after Jack’s departure, Mac’s intuition has always mirrored her own. Since the second he broke her out of prison, they always had the same values. Just like Jack, she learned how to read and understand Mac.

She knows how to interpret his rambling. She knows that no matter the situation, he’ll always put everyone else first. She knows that whatever crazy plan he’s come up with, it’s constructed with the best intentions.

She knows that no matter where he goes, and no matter what he does, her instinct is to trust him.

So she does.

With every ounce of her being.

She desperately wants to share this with him, especially if it would probably make him feel better. However, she knows the second she starts talking, she won’t be able to stop. Mac’s got a way of doing that, translating her thoughts into words that tumble out of her before she can control what they might mean.

The grin Mac throws her, which conveys understanding and amusement, allows the tension between them to dissipate.

“Speaking of Jack, he would absolutely kill me if I let you drive home in your state.”

Before she can get a word in edgewise, he’s already opening the passenger side door of his truck. The tone in his voice leaves little room for debate, as if he’s ready to refute whatever argument she can muster up, so Riley doesn’t argue.

She wants to, but just the idea of operating a car sounds exhausting.

Besides, she’s missed this. She’s missed Mac, not just as someone she’s possibly in love with, but as her best friend. With everything going on, she’s hardly been able to see him.

The absence of him in her life hurts just as much as having him in it.

She literally can’t win.

The silence that follows is comfortable, the rumbling engine serving as white noise to Riley as she dozes off against the window.

She tries to, anyway. Driving with Mac is always an adventure, which is useful when trying to avoid being killed by a terrorist organization. Maneuvering Los Angeles traffic? Way, way less so.

“Maybe driving myself home wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.” She mumbles, fighting the urge to grab the handle above the door.

“Hey! I always get us home in one piece.”

“Physically maybe,” an amused smile finds its way to Riley’s face, “But mentally? I should sue you for psychological trauma.”

The look of disbelief that follows is enough to get her through several lifetimes, or it could be the smile he struggles to hide under his offended facade.

“Ouch,” Mac puts his left hand over his heart, “That hurts right here, Riles.”

The nickname throws her off, causing her stomach to flip. It’s just a silly name, it shouldn’t affect her like this, but her heart still clenches uncomfortably.

She attempts to brush it off, trying for a humoring grin that feels more like a grimace.

Though the comfortable atmosphere doesn’t change, the playful energy is replaced by more silence. As buildings pass outside, all Riley can think about is how much she hates silence. Man, what she would do just to get rid of it for a little bit. It’s constant these days, and it always finds her no matter where she goes.

Her fingers tug at her bottom lip, a nervous habit she’s recently adopted, as she tries to think through possible solutions to the predicament she’s found herself in.

She must be pretty engrossed because it takes her a minute to realize Mac’s spoken again.

“What?” Her brain slows down enough to pick out his words, something about how much sleep she’s gotten recently, “Oh, I don’t know.”

She tries not to notice how concerned he looks when he asks, “You don’t know?”

Not really

Logically, she knows that she sleeps almost every night. How long? It’s hard to tell sometimes. If she’s lucky, she can get a couple hours in before her brain goes into hyperdrive. Other times, she’d rather be doing something productive on her rig instead of staring at her ceiling fan.

She props her elbow against the window and rests her head in her hand, “I guess it hasn’t been a priority.”

From the corner of her eye, she can see him open his mouth and close it abruptly, trying to find the right words to comfort or soothe her.

As always, Mac is trying to rectify the situation.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

She doesn’t miss the parallel and throws him the same reclusive look he had given her on multiple occasions.

“That’s my line.”

There’s an irritating tension that fills the space, like the feeling you get when you can’t get past a certain level on a video game. It’s a little stifling, urging Riley to do whatever it takes to make it disappear.

“C’mon Riley, you’ve been off ever since, you know, the whole codex situation. At first, I thought, well, it was kind of traumatizing for everyone involved, but then you moved out and,” He trails off, and she can physically see him putting all the working components together, “Is it the apartment?”

God, she wished it was just the apartment. Sure, it plays a part in all her problems right now, but she knows that it’s more of what the empty apartment represents than the apartment itself.

Still, she’s glad he came to that conclusion. It’s easier to lie to him when it doesn’t pertain to the actual issue at hand.

“The apartment’s fine,” she says after a moment of hesitation.

“It’s the AC unit, isn’t it?” His lips compress shortly before he shakes his head, “I knew I should have looked at it.”

As he starts ranting about the condenser coils in her air conditioner and how easy it is for them to get dirty, Riley can’t help but let a soft laugh fall from her lips.

“Mac, it’s not my air conditioning.”

When he opens his mouth to respond, she holds her hand up to stop him. “It’s not my heater either, or my ceiling fan, or anything that might require your unique expertise.”

“But it has something to do with the apartment.”

The statement is blanketed in excitement as if he knows he’s getting closer to uncovering the truth. He’s always been so obsessed with knowledge and learning, never quite capable of letting things go and living in ignorance.

His eyes light up with child-like curiosity; it’s highly annoying and endearing at the same time.

She feels her self control loosening.

With Mac, she feels secure, like maybe she can put herself back together again. She could confess to a crime, and he wouldn’t look at her any differently.

That helplessness kicks back in, tearing her apart from the inside.

When he slows to a stop in front of her complex, she hasn’t answered him yet.

In the back of her mind, she’s a little proud of herself for only joking about his driving once in the ten minutes it took to get there.

She stares at the lobby entrance and can feel the soft flannel of his shirt, giving him a hug before she exits his truck. She can hear the sleepiness in her voice as she leans against the door and tells him goodnight. She can see herself walk through the double doors and not turning around.

She can see it so clearly, but she remains planted in the passenger seat.

Fear tangles itself in her shoulders, in her stomach, in her heart.

Not just because she dreads the idea of spending another night counting the minutes before her alarm goes off, but because she doesn’t want to leave with their friendship in this state.

She just wants everything to go back to normal, to get back some semblance of their old friendship before she knew how she felt.

Mac waits beside her, a patient and comforting presence.

“It’s just so quiet. Up there, it’s just me and my thoughts. They never cease or quiet down; it’s a constant loop. I try listening to music or watching TV, but I can never focus on any of it. Then, I start panicking because I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. There’s no comfort, no stability. I’m just… alone.”

With every word, a little of the weight falls from her shoulders.

It almost feels like she can breathe again.

“The only time I don’t feel like that is when I’m working,” she clenches her hands in her lap, “At Phoenix, I can get to any room in the dark with my eyes closed, and I’m constantly surrounded by people I’ve known for years. It feels… safe.”

Mac’s silent, reaching over to grasp one of her hands.

“You don’t feel safe here?” He encloses her left hand between his own and squeezes, the pressure and warmth spreading through her body like wildfire.

She meets his eyes, “Not in the way that matters.”

He turns the truck off, hopping out before Riley can say anything else. He walks around the hood of the car and pulls the passenger door open, “Come on.”

“What are you doing?”

He helped her out of the truck, “You trust me, right?”

More than he’ll ever know.

“You know I do.” She eyed him suspiciously as he opened one of the complex’s doors for her, following as she entered.

“From what I can recall, Bozer got you a Nintendo Switch for your birthday earlier this year. It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of destroying you in Super Smash Bros.”

His voice was quiet, trying not to disturb the people trying to sleep.

“First of all, you’ve never destroyed me in Super Smash Bros, and you never will if you keep playing with Luigi,” She grinned, watching as he shook his head in disagreement, “And second of all, it’s two in the morning.”

He shrugged, “That’s never stopped us before.”

He wasn’t wrong, but things were different now.

Riley tried not to think about Desi, wrapped up in Mac’s bed, peacefully sleeping and blissfully unaware of this entire exchange.

Not that she had anything to worry about.

It didn’t matter anyway because clearly, Riley had issues with saying “no” to Angus Macgyver.

“Fine, but prepare to get your ass beaten.”

He grinned triumphantly, “That sounds like a challenge.”

She unlocked her apartment door, stepping into the dark and quiet entryway. She faltered a little bit, her heartbeat quickening with newfound anxiety.

As always, the apartment radiated energy that always put Riley out of place.

Mac closed the door behind him, helping himself to any food he could find in her fridge. There was an intimacy to it, a closeness that made the apartment much more bearable. Her shoulders dropped a little, the anxiety easing a little as she took a deep breath.

She busied herself in the living room, connecting the switch to her TV and grabbing a variety of different pillows and blankets.

It was, after all, a tradition for these types of events.

Mac joined her after a couple of minutes with two beers, “Your fridge is worse than mine.”

“Will you get it started,” Riley ignore his comment, handing him one of the controllers, “ I’m going to change.”

When she returned in a comfy ensemble of leggings and a sweatshirt, Mac was scrolling through the character list. She hopped the back of the couch to sit next to him, watching as he hovered over Luigi for what feels like an eternity.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Mac’s determined expression didn’t falter, “You’re just jealous of my skills.”

Those skills proved to be no match for Riley’s, though, after she managed to beat him in the first game. It became much more entertaining when she did it again in the second. She tried not to laugh, but it became nearly impossible with his onslaught of complaints.

“You’re such a cheater, you can’t do that!” He pressed down hard on the keys as if smashing them harder will make Luigi speed up.

Jokes on him, Luigi was the slowest character in the game.

Very slowly, her exhaustion began to creep up on her. She knew she was done for when Mac actually managed to beat her. He seemed just as surprised as she was, but he suggested switching to a movie anyway.

They ended up choosing a documentary, something that Mac had been interested in watching recently. Riley didn’t care what they watched, as long as she got to lay down.

Mac placed a pillow in his lap and tapped it gently.

“So, was this your plan,” She comfortably adjusted her body, so her neck wasn’t in an awkward position propped up on the pillow.

In front of them, a monotone voice explained the phenomena surrounding the universe.

“Homo Sapiens are social creatures; we need people to survive,” Riley could feel Mac’s fingers coursing through her waves, creating a soothing pattern that calmed any remaining tension in her body.

“You feel comfortable at Phoenix, sitting around the fire pit at my house, or spending time with the team at the arcade because we’re there. It’s okay to need us, Riles, because trust me, we need you, too.”

Mac’s words barely resonate with her, and she hummed noncommittally in response.

His fingers gently combed through the tangles at the nape of her neck, “I don’t think we build homes in material things like houses or apartments, but rather, in the people we surround ourselves with.”

Laying there, with her head on his lap and his fingers in her hair, Riley could only think one thing:

He couldn’t be more right.

#macriley #macgyver #Angus MacGyver #riley davis #just cute things #hope you enjoy!!

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dindjarindiaries · 4 years

Text

Thunder - Chapter 1: Warm Front

gif via @hvitserkk

summary: Frankie and Luciana escape a party for some much-needed peace and quiet spent with each other, and unspoken feelings start to stir.

warnings: mentions of death, alcohol abuse, drunkenness, partying

rating: R

word count: 3.816k

masterlist

chapter 1: warm front

“I fuckin’ hate parties.”

Frankie sips his beer to hide his smile as Luciana laughs alongside him. “Yet, you’re always at them,” Luciana reminds him, sipping whatever concoction’s in her red Solo cup as she gives his bottle a flick. “And why don’t you ever use a cup? Are you ‘too cool’ for that?”

“Shut up,” Frankie mutters, biting back a smile as he nudges her shoulder. “I just prefer it ‘authentic.’” Luciana laughs as she lets out a sigh, leaning back against the corner of the wall.

Luciana’s not wrong. Even though Frankie hates parties with every fiber of his being, he’s almost always here at Benny’s frat house, finding himself unable to reject the time spent with his best friends. Over the past few years of college, Frankie’s found a friend group that’s become more like a family, unstable at times but also reliable. Tom, Will, and Benny are all people he met within his first week at school—but Santiago and Luciana have been close to his side ever since high school. Him and his four brothers have already planned to move into their next phase of life together serving their country.

Really, Frankie just wants to fly.

He always has. Ever since he was a kid, Frankie’s dreamed of being able to touch the sky. His gaze drifted upwards no matter what time of the day it was, admiring either the clouds or the stars above. His mother used to tell him he could catch a star if he got up high enough, and it would fit right in his pocket. His father used to say he could paint with the clouds, using the edge of a wing as a brush. Frankie would tell them that he’d paint his dad a portrait of their old family dog, and he’d get two stars—one for his mom and one for himself.

That was until his mother finally gave way to her condition, and his father wasted himself away with Jack and Jim Beam not too long after.

But now, Frankie’s got a new family who cares just as much about his dreams of flying. Being the “dad” friend already promised him a spot as their calm and collected pilot, anyway. Santiago always told him that he was the person who steered the group in the right direction—so it made sense that he’d do the same in the air someday. Luciana agreed with those claims. Even though she’s not going to follow the same path as the rest of them, she’s always said that Frankie needs to be in the air. He’s the only one she’d trust, she often tells them all.

So, it’s no surprise that Frankie’s once again found himself on the fringes of another one of Benny’s wild frat parties, keeping a watchful eye over his four brothers as Luciana keeps him company at his side. She’s not big into parties, either—just one of their many similarities. It’s what’s made Frankie draw so close to her, especially over the past few years at college. They understand each other like no one else does. Her and Santiago have been there for Frankie ever since his father started fading, and they practically adopted him into their family. But Frankie would never use the label “sister” on her. He doesn’t know why he can’t do it.

He thinks he might be starting to get an idea as to why, now.

Frankie looks over to see Luciana bobbing her head to the hip-hop tunes that blare out of Benny’s speakers—a firm rule for his parties: current hits only. Her brown eyes are sparkling as she watches the crowd of drunken college kids dancing in front of them, and Frankie likens the appearance of them to that of fresh honey dripping into a warm mug of tea. She has her dark hair tied back in a loose bun behind her head, and a few pieces fall around her face as her free hand tucks them away absentmindedly. Freckles adorn her nose and cheeks, and Frankie has to try to suppress the warmth in his chest when he thinks about how fitting they are for her.

Luciana soon catches Frankie’s eye, and she raises an eyebrow at him curiously. “What?” she asks, observing his close stare. She covers her mouth with her hand self-consciously. “Is there something in my teeth?”

“No! No,” Frankie assures her, chuckling a bit as he takes a hold of her wrist and brings her hand back down. “I just—” Frankie pauses, trying to think of a way to cover his ass, “—I was making sure you’re still awake.”

Luciana furrows her brow as she laughs at him. “I’m not sure how anyone could fall asleep easily here, Frankie,” she remarks, taking another sip of her drink.

Frankie tries to laugh it off, tipping the brim of his hat on his head before taking a swig from his bottle. “If I wasn’t standing, I probably could.”

“I know,” Luciana agrees, nudging his shoulder playfully. “You’re an old man stuck inside a college kid’s body, Francisco.”

Frankie wrinkles his nose at the sound of his full name. “What did you call me, Luciana?”

Luciana gasps lightly and narrows her eyes at Frankie. “Are you trying to full-name me back?”

“And what if I am?”

Luciana doesn’t get a chance to answer before Benny suddenly stumbles over to them, throwing his arms around their shoulders. Frankie and Luciana both fall back a bit at the sudden taking of his weight. Some of the drink in his cup sloshes on Frankie’s shoulder, and he holds back a heavy sigh as the reeking scent of vodka hits his nostrils. “Franksters! Luci-Goosey!” Benny greets them, his voice slurred. “What are y’all doing in the corner?”

“Minding our own business,” Frankie answers simply, earning a snort from Luciana.

“Oh, c’mon,” Benny scoffs. “You’re always avoidin’ the fun! You should go dance!”

“I’d rather watch people make asses of themselves,” Luciana asserts, gesturing to the main part of the house where some hotshot’s just tried to do a backflip—and ended up kicking one of their buddies in the face while also landing straight on their back.

“Fuck, y’all are boring as hell,” Benny whines, taking his own weight again as he lifts his arms from Frankie’s and Luciana’s shoulders. “But thanks for comin’!”

“We always do,” Frankie reminds him, slapping his shoulder in a friendly manner before he stumbles somewhere else.

Frankie and Luciana share a glance, barely able to contain their laughter as they shake their heads. That was the typical Benny interaction they’ve been waiting for, always being urged to do something other than sit in the corner where they’re more comfortable. Frankie wouldn’t change a thing about it.

“Luce, where’s your brother?” Frankie suddenly questions, looking over at Luciana with a raised brow. He’s lost track of his Santiago, Will, and Tom, and he wonders if they’ve gone somewhere else in the house.

Luciana shrugs. “Probably fucking up a nice game of pong,” she confesses honestly, causing Frankie to chuckle to himself.

It’s true—the minute Santiago gets more than a few drinks in him, he’s an absolute shitshow. Any drinking game he touches turns to chaos. Santiago already has a high energy about him, and so it gets intensified when the alcohol starts pumping through his veins. Frankie doesn’t know how he does it, and sometimes he wonders what it’s like to be the life of a party. It’s a role he knows he’ll never fill.

“Hey,” Luciana’s voice suddenly draws Frankie out from his thoughts. He looks back over to see her looking up at him with a sparkle in her eyes, one that makes Frankie want to smile instinctively. “Are you ready to get out of here? I would kill for some pizza right now.”

Frankie laughs, nodding as he finishes off his bottle. It was his only drink over the course of the hour they’d lasted at the party, and so he doesn’t have to deny her request to go for a drive as they head out to his truck. It’s a rusty red color, worn from its years of use but still going as strong as ever. The guys and Luciana have often told him that it’s a perfect reflection of himself—but Frankie doesn’t try to think about it too hard. Going in deep isn’t something he’s mastered yet.

They get into the truck, and as soon as Frankie starts it up, the classic rock station starts to play. It’s his favorite—his parents loved to blast it when he was growing up. He has to suppress the smile that grows when he sees Luciana’s eyes light up out of the corner of his eye. “Ugh, Frankie, you have the best fuckin’ taste in music,” she tells him, closing her eyes as “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac flows out from the speakers. “I swear to God. Sing it, Stevie girl.”

Frankie chuckles, taking off for the local pizza place as Luciana hums along to the tune. He looks over every once in a while to see her gazing out of the open window, as if she’s lost in her own little world. Frankie’s always admired the way she does that so easily. Luciana often escapes into the worlds of her creation, but she somehow also stays grounded to her reality. She’s always been the person that’s able to get Frankie to escape his reality if even for a little bit—and that’s just one of the many reasons why he’s so drawn to her. It’s reaching a dangerous level, and he knows it.

It’s not a conversation he’s had with Santiago yet, but he knows exactly what would result from it. Santiago and Luciana are practically attached at the hip. They’re the kind of twins that truly share everything with each other—and should his sister’s heart be placed into Frankie’s hands, he knows Santiago would be on his case all the time. To make shit easier, Frankie knows Santiago wouldn’t let that happen in the first place. Luciana is off limits in any sense other than friendship, so Frankie doesn’t even let himself get there mentally. For now.

“Thunder only happens when it’s rainin’,” Luciana joins in with Stevie’s voice, and Frankie bites back a smile upon hearing it. “Players only love you when they’re playin’.” Luciana releases a light sigh, finally looking back over at Frankie as he navigates the dark roads. “I wish it was raining right now.”

“Yeah?” Frankie remarks, raising an eyebrow. “Why? Are you a pluviophile, now?”

Luciana giggles softly. “I always have been, Frankie. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

Frankie shrugs, turning into the parking lot of the pizza place. “When have we ever talked about rain?”

“Fair point. I guess we have to do it more often.”

Frankie nods, putting the car in park and flashing her a quick smile. “I guess so.” He starts to get out of the car—leaving it running so that Luciana can stay inside with the tunes playing—but pauses as he holds up a finger and narrows his eyes in concentration. “A pepperoni eight-cut with the Italian parmesan crust?”

“You know me so well, Morales.” She offers a bright smile, one that involuntarily makes Frankie’s chest warm up as he completely gets out of the truck and heads inside. He places their order and waits for it, trying not to drown in his thoughts as he pictures himself flying high above them. He even tries his hand at daydreaming, attempting to envision himself painting his way through the clouds. He can see the world so small beneath him, putting himself in a place where he doesn’t have to think about everything he’s left there. All that would matter is keeping his eyes on the horizon and steering ahead—and maybe even capturing a star when the sun sets.

His daydream’s soon interrupted by the finishing of his order, and he takes the box with a low thank-you before heading back inside the truck. Frankie sets it on the backseat, chuckling when Luciana dramatically inhales the scent of the freshly baked pizza.

“God damn, do they make some heavenly shit here,” Luciana comments, causing Frankie to laugh harder as he starts to head back to the house. “I can’t wait to devour that.”

“That makes two of us,” Frankie agrees, glancing over at Luciana quickly as he drives on.

“Four slices for each of us,” Luciana reminds him. “It’s perfect.”

“Four?” Frankie scoffs playfully. “Last time, you could only handle three.”

“Oh, fuck off, Flyboy,” Luciana retorts. “Last time we also got garlic knots. I can only hold so much at once.”

“Sure, Luce. Sure.” Frankie laughs as Luciana swats at his shoulder, and he sees her shaking her head with a hidden smile as she crosses her arms.

They spend the rest of the drive listening to the tunes of the radio, sitting in an otherwise peaceful silence. It’s not too long until Frankie’s pulling into the long driveway of the house. It’s a respectively large space, split between the boys and Luciana. Everyone’s able to have their own rooms—save for Will and Benny, but Benny usually splits his time up between staying there and staying at the frat house—and they never let it get too crazy. Parties are always held at Benny’s frat house, which helps to keep their own home in shape. If it’s just the six of them, they’ll keep the party to themselves, but otherwise their home is like a sacred space just for their little family. Frankie wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just as Frankie’s about to turn the engine off, Luciana stops him, keeping his hand from touching the keys as she shakes her head. “Let’s eat in here,” she suggests, already starting to reach back for the pizza. “I’m really feeling these songs right now.”

“I can turn the radio on in the house,” Frankie reminds her, gesturing with his thumb to the house behind him.

“Yeah, but there’s something about it coming through the truck speakers.” Luciana sets the pizza box down onto the center console, opening it and taking a slice for herself. “It just really hits deep.”

Frankie snorts, also taking a slice and folding it in half. “Alright, but if you get grease stains on my seats, I’ll have no choice but to fucking kill you.”

“You got it, ‘dad,’” Luciana jokes, and Frankie shakes his head as she lets out a laugh. They continue to eat and bop along to the songs that play, mostly accompanied by Luciana’s random commentary on the selections. “Have you ever thought about how fuckin’ creepy this song is?” she reflects when The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” starts playing. “Like, it’s a love song, but he’s basically like ‘I’m always watching you.’ That shit is terrifying.”

“What, you wouldn’t find it romantic if someone was watching you all the time?” Frankie teases her while he moves onto his third piece of pizza, pleased to find that he still hasn’t gotten a grease stain on his jeans yet.

“Hell no!” Luciana lets out a cut laugh, shaking her head as she also goes for her third slice.

“Okay, fair.” Frankie pauses to bite off a piece and chew it up, contemplating his next few words as he does so. “Then, what would you consider romantic?”

“Jesus, there’s like… so many things.” Luciana’s gaze drifts to the roof of the car as she thinks, chewing on her food as she does so. Frankie waits curiously for her response, continuing to eat as he watches her think. “I mean, for starters, you can never go wrong with pulling the gentleman card. You know, like opening doors and pulling out chairs.”

“That’s not cheesy?”

“No! If anything, the fact that it’s going out of style is so depressing to me.” Luciana clicks her tongue and shakes her head, and Frankie can tell by the way she’s narrowed her eyes that she’s thinking again. “Honestly, the most important thing is just knowing what she likes. You gotta make sure you’re playing her favorite songs and bringing her to her favorite places—without her having to tell you ahead of time. Picking up on those hints along the way is so important.”

“Noted.” Frankie finishes off his third piece after he speaks, watching as Luciana raises an eyebrow at him.

“Plan on being romantic anytime soon, Morales?”

Frankie scoffs, shaking his head as he reaches for his last slice. “No, not likely. But it’s good to know.” He shovels a bite into his mouth, hoping it’ll keep him from having to speak again. Frankie soon realizes he’s unsuccessful, as Luciana’s head has now tilted in a curious manner at him. He releases a sigh, waiting until he finishes chewing to go on. “Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to take someone up to the sky with me. Show them the clouds. Catch a star for them.” Frankie shrugs. “Just—y’know—that’s probably not something I’ll have soon.”

Luciana smiles a bit, but Frankie easily sees a hint of darkness in her gaze. “That’s sweet, Frankie. But why don’t you think you can have it soon?”

Frankie’s breath catches in his throat. Why does he think he can’t have it soon? Because he’s not ready to let his heart be taken? Because he’s so guarded that only five other people know his true heart, but still don’t even know all of it? Because he’s denying himself a painful truth? Frankie doesn’t have a fucking clue. But Luciana’s still waiting for an answer, her dark gaze glittering as she waits to take her last slice into her mouth. “Not enough time, I guess. And how can I show someone the sky when I don’t even have my piloting license yet?”

“Fair point,” Luciana agrees, finally digging into her pizza. Frankie holds back a sigh of relief, continuing with his slice as well. They finish off their servings in comfortable silence, letting the sounds of classic rock lull them into a rhythmic state of conscious slumber. Frankie’s thoughts solely drift to the words of the singers, and he pictures himself hearing the songs play as he returns home from piloting school—his mother singing along with them as he shows her his license. She would smile at him in that endearing way she always used to and playfully ask if they can play Journey on their way up when she finally gets to fly with him. I want some Journey on our first journey!, she always used to joke with Frankie. Now, he just tries not to listen to Journey at all.

His trance is broken when Luciana suddenly lets out a gasp, and Frankie feels alert for a moment until he realizes that a new song’s come on the radio. He tunes his ears in and hears the beginning instrumental of Foreigner’s “Waiting For a Girl Like You”—a guilty pleasure song of his that he’s not willing to reveal to anyone else. But it must be Luciana’s, too, because she’s looking at Frankie with excitement in her dark gaze. “This… this is my fuckin’ song,” Luciana tells him, clearing her throat as the lyrics soon come in.

“Of all songs, you chose one of classic rock’s cheesiest?” Frankie jokes.

Luciana places a hand on her chest, pretending to be hurt. “It’s not cheesy. It’s romantic. And it’s an absolute classic.”

Frankie raises his hands in fake surrender. “Alright, Luce, you got me there. Go ahead, freak out.”

Luciana narrows her eyes at him, laughing it off as she starts to let herself jam along. “Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m comin’ on too strong?”

“This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure…” Frankie murmurs the words under his breath, hoping Luciana won’t hear it over her own singing. He would never hear the end of it.

“I’ve been waiting!... for a girl like you, to come into my life.” Luciana sings the words unashamedly, closing her eyes as she spreads her arms wide. Frankie chuckles lightly—more in admiration of her free spirit than in amusement. Luciana finishes the chorus and shakes her head, looking at Frankie with a raised brow. “I’m telling you. A fuckin’ classic.”

“Hey, I believe you,” Frankie retorts, chuckling as he releases a sigh. He looks around, seeing the dark street around them. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome in this truck. She’s gonna be begging for mercy if we don’t go inside soon.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” Luciana confesses, reaching for the empty pizza box. “I’m sorry, Frankie.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Frankie assures her. “It was worth it.��

Luciana simply smiles in response, setting Frankie’s chest ablaze yet again as they walk inside the house together. They remain silent as they settle in, soon heading upstairs to their respective bedrooms. Before they part, Luciana stops Frankie for a moment, her hand reaching for his arm. Frankie faces her with his brow raised. “Thank you, Frankie,” she says softly, her dark gaze looking straight into his. “For always being there for me—and getting some damn good pizza with some hella’ good tunes.”

Frankie chuckles softly, shaking his head at her. “You don’t have to thank me, Luci. I enjoy it just as much.”

Luciana widens her smile, bidding Frankie goodnight before she disappears into her room. Frankie bites back his own, entering his room and preparing for bed. He flops down onto it with a sigh, hating the way his mind feels cloudier than usual. He’s being swept by a feeling he’s had before—but it’s starting to almost overpower him now. Frankie’s afraid he won’t be able to ignore it anymore.

The lyrics to the song are stuck in his head. It’s a torturous reminder of himself and his own heart—and that’s why he’s annoyed when the lyrics run through his mind. It feels so right, so warm and true, the words taunt him. I need to know if you feel it too. Does he, though? Because Frankie’s pretty damn certain he’s content with ignoring every feeling he has. He’s been doing it ever since his mother passed—and he’s pretty sure he can keep doing it.

But then he thinks on that chorus: I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life. And Frankie can’t help wondering if that’s exactly what’s happening. As he hides himself underneath his covers to sleep, he hears distant thunder rumble outside, and he smiles for the fact Luciana will get her pluviophile moment—even if she’s asleep.

next part: chapter 2: cold front

thunder tag list: @youhavereachedtheendofpie @charmantbarnes @theindiealto @fangirl-and-stuff @phoenixhalliwell @maybege @amarvelousmandalorian @seawhisperer @mrsparknuts @saltywintersoldat @softpedropascal @i-hide-inside-my-head @sunshinepascal

permanent tag list: @mikahid @theforceofdarkandlight @stilllivindue2spite @givemethatgold @xbrujita @mandalorianspace @blushingwueen @sevvysaurus @myakai13 @thisis-theway @beskars @rachelloveseveryone @theindiealto @hiscyarika @burningsoulbloodyheart @wickedfrsgrl @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @bookwafflefangirl @charliepeaceout @lavenderl3mons

#i know it's like 2 am so y'all won't be around for a while #i'm waiting for the mando doc lol #also i love frankie please #my BABY #i'm making up his canon #we'll go with it #frankie morales #francisco morales #catfish morales #frankie morales fic #catfish morales fic #triple frontier #triple frontier fic #thunder fic #dindjarindiaries

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anythingandeverything1d · 4 years

Text

Moving On

Cheating Cheated

Tom smiled kissing you softly one more time before turning around to leave. He nodded his head to Harry as he walked past and waved from the car as he drove away. You took a deep breath, standing in the cold air. Harry stood a few feet away from you fuming. His eyes were glaring into yours and he looked almost as if his body was shaking. You waited for him to say something but he simply turned around, and walked back towards the sidewalk. You were suddenly terrified. Terrified that Harry was going to leave and never come back. That this was going to be the end of everything between the two of you. It was as if everything you loved was walking away in that exact moment and that made you feel like dying. You felt the energy drain from your body and you felt the anxiety replacing it. Your heart rate dropped and then rapidly sped up. “Harry” you reached out, grabbing the sleeve of his hoody. He looked at you, tears in his eyes and shook his head.

“Just stop.” He shook free of your grip and walked forward another step.

“Harry don't go please.” you cried reaching out again. Your face was now soaked with tears, snot dripping down your nose, and you were struggling to breathe normally. “Don't leave please.”

Harry looked at you with a pained expression. “Why wouldn't I leave...clearly youve moved on.”

“No-Harry its not- its not what it looks like.”

“You kissed him.”

“He kissed me. And that was our first date, it doesn't even count.” You needed him to stop and understand. You needed him to understand that you needed him.

“First date? So you are trying to move on though.”

“No, yes...Your sister set me up with him okay? She said a distraction would be good. I-I thought that I needed to move on to heal from everything with you.” You sat down on the step and buried your face in your hands, your body shaking from the sobs.

Harry sighed giving in and sitting next to you. You shivered while trying to control yourself, the air was cold and your cheeks felt like they were freezing thanks to all the tears. Harry took off his jacket and handed it to you. You shook your head but he insisted so you pulled it on over your head, breathing in his warm sweet smell. It took you back to one of your favorite memories with Harry early on in your relationship.

*You were digging through Harry’s drawers trying to find something to wear. You had spilled food down the front of your shirt, leaving it stained and very wet. Harry had said to go up and pick whatever, and that was a big decision. You looked at almost every shirt he owned, along with jackets and hoodies. He had so many good options to choose from. You had decided on his baggy grey sweatshirt that said damn. You took off your shirt and bra, tossing them into the laundry and pulled the hoody on over you. It was far too big to fit you, it went almost to your knees but it was comfy, warm, and smelled just like him. You had wandered down the stairs and Harry’s eyes had been glued to you. “Damn.” you smiled and spun in a circle. He stood up twirling you again before pulling you into his arms.

“How do I look?” you asked posing in the hoodie.

“You look like you pull it off far more than I ever could.”

“Thats not true babe. You definitely wear it better.”

He bit his lip and shook his head, causing you to smile and blush. “(y/n) Im not going to lie, theres just something about this that turns me on..” He kissed your lips, biting your bottom lip and tugging. You moaned into the kiss and Harry’s hands wandered under the hoodie to wear your chest was. He trailed his fingers across your boobs with a smile. “Fuck baby..if I would've known how hot you were in my clothes, I would've given them to you so much much sooner.” He lifted you off the ground and carried you into bed, his lips not leaving yours, and the hoodie not leaving your body. Harry laid you down, tearing his shirt off and throwing it to the floor. His pants went next before tugging your shorts down you legs. You pulled him back to you, your lips brushing against his, his hands exploring under the hoodie. He had whispered “I love you” against the kiss, before*

“(y/n)..” Harry pulled you from your thoughts. You hugged yourself crying again and Harry opened his arms. You climbed into them, hugging him tight while you tried to calm yourself down. He buried his chin into your shoulder as you sat on his lap, tears still falling down your cheeks. He rubbed your back in small circles and eventually you were able to breathe again. You didn't dare move though, the fear of him leaving again was too much to handle. Unfortunately he moved, pushing you off his lap and to your feet before while standing up as well. You started crying again and he hugged you. “Shh its okay. I just thought we should probably move inside before you sick from the cold air..”

“You're not leaving?” you wiped your nose with his sleeve.

“Not unless you want me too.”

You were crying harder, “Don't go, please Harry don't leave.” He shook his head assuring you he wasn't leaving before grabbing your hand and pulling you inside. Once inside he made you both cups of hot chocolate, wrapped you in a blanket and sat you on the couch. You quietly sipped the hot coco, staring at the floor motionless. Harry had sat next to you then moved away before awkwardly moving back to his original seat. You leaned back against him, tucking your face into the side of his arm. He moved, placing his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into a sideways hug. You were finally breathing normal again and looked up at him. He was watching you carefully and quietly, not sure what to do or say either. You didn’t want anything to ruin the moment, and more importantly you didn't want him to leave.

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, “uh..” Harry was stumbling with what to say, he ended up not saying anything and just shaking his head slightly while looking around. “Didn't someone clean the apartment earlier?” He looked at the pile of clothes, the food left in the kitchen, your things just scattered everywhere. You nodded your head and look at you confused. “Is this how they cleaned it?”

“No it was clean, I guess the day just got away from me and I didn't have time to reclean it...” Harry was shocked. You were not a messy person, like ever. You always kept things pristine and neatly organized. It drove Harry crazy while being endearing at the same time. Harry decided to drop that subject and with a loud sigh he pushed you slightly away so that he was turned facing you. You bit your lip unsure of what to say or do in response.

“(y/n) what is this? What are we doing?”

“I don't know...”

“If you really want to move on with- with Tom..”

“You know Tom?”

“Well he's Tom Holland, and you know I love superhero movies. He's Spiderman, kind of plays a big role in the Marvel world..I don't personally know him though.” You nodded, of course he would know who he was, most people probably would. “But that's besides the point. If you think moving on with someone else is what you need-”

The fear of losing Harry ate away at your stomach. “I can't lose you Harry.”

Harry sighed and grabbed your hand, placing a gentle kiss on your wrist. “Baby you'll never lose me, ever. If you want me around I’ll be here but-”

“But?”

“But I think maybe we should just be friends?”

“Friends? You want to be just friends?”

“Well no, but look..(y/n) you need time to fully forgive me. Clearly if youre going out on dates a part of you still doesn't want to be with me. I want all of you, and I want all of you to want to be with me..”

You didn't say anything, you were trying to imagine what being just friends with Harry looked like. You were never just friends, friends with benefits yes, but not just friends. You bit down on your lip again, shaking your head. “I don't know Harry..”

“Baby we can make being friends work okay? I need you in my life just as much as you want me in yours. But I- I want you to be ready to fully forgive me. Are you ready to do that now?”

You shook your head. You knew as much as you wanted Harry, you didn't want him. You knew that you wanted to forgive him but also weren't ready and you knew that there was no way you could give Harry everything he wanted right now from a relationship. You sighed and looked down, tears in your eyes. You didnt like the decision but you knew it was right. You let Harry pull you onto his lap and you let yourself sit there for a few minutes snuggling before getting up awkwardly. “I think-I think I need to go to bed..”

Harry stood up sadly and looked at the floor nodding. “I should probably be going home too..” You nodded and he walked over pulling you into a tight hug. You clung to him for life, breathing slowly and holding back tears. “Uh friends do hug right?” he stepped back a little.

“Yeah, friends hug...” he smiled and hugged you again, placing a warm kiss on the top of your head, just the way you liked.

“Well...friend....I’ll uh, I’ll talk to you later?” he said it like a question and you smiled.

“Yeah, we’ll talk later.” He smiled back walking to the door. “Harry wait!” you nearly shouted at him. “Your hoodie..” You were still in his hoodie, and were kind of reluctantly wanting to take it off.

“Keep it, looks better on you anyways.” He grinned before walking out and closing the door behind him. You gripped the sleeves of the hoodie and smiled. Maybe this whole thing would work after all.

A few weeks had gone by since you and Harry had the “friends only” talk. You had continued to go out with Tom, while attempting to be Harry’s friend. You thought it was getting easier....but then your mind flashed back to the other night when Harry had come over for dinner. The two of you had decided to make Mac and cheese, but not boxed Mac and cheese, homemade Mac and cheese. Somehow, in the process of talking about adding cheeses to the pot, you had ended up locked in an embrace, your butt on the counter, hands in his hair, his hands on your waist, your foreheads leaning against each others ....you shook your head. No, being friends with Harry was definitely working. “Knock knock.” Harry’s voice called into the room.

“Who's there?” you immediately responded without looking up at him. You were already accustomed to his terrible knock knock jokes and weren't surprise he was starting the conversation off with one.

“Me, silly.” Harry said with a smile.

“Oh.” you said a little confused.

“I mean I can go if youre not happy I’m here...”

“No, that's not what I meant. I just thought you were telling a joke not announcing your presence.” Harry laughed and you smiled, looking up at him.

“I can tell you a joke if you want-”

“No, that's okay really.” you laughed. You stood up and hugged him tightly, his arms wrapping around your body. “Whatcha up to?”

“Nothing, I was hoping we could hang out again?” You bit your lip and looked down. Harry reading the situation also added, “I mean if you have plans..”

“I mean...Tom was going to come over and hang out, but you two could hang out together....” you suggested. Harry looked upset and torn.

“Uh, I think I’ll pass...I’ll just go to Gemma’s and see what's she's up to instead.” Harry hugged you one more time before walking out the door and you sat down on the couch slightly disappointed he was leaving. Part of you wanted to cancel on Tom but you knew that the day wouldn't be as fun if Harry was thinking of what you would have been doing had he come. Every time you and Harry had hung out, you felt yourself falling more and more. It was getting to the point where you stayed up all night just texting him and laughing at jokes he told. You also felt a little piece of you leave every time he walked out the door. You weren't really sure if that's how friendships were supposed to feel with guys you had once dated..

“Hey love.” Tom smiled while walking into the room. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” you said your face burning red and you getting up to hug him. Hugging Tom was different as well. He was much smaller than Harry, both physically and height wise. He also smelled different. Harry smelled like a masculine vanilla, Tom smelled like fruit.

“Well, I brought some movies to watch today if you wanted?” “Yeah, that's great. What movies?”

“Well I figured its finally time for you to watch SpiderMan.” You laughed and shook your head. Is it now? He nodded, settling on the couch and patting the seat beside him. You sat next to him as he set up the movie. You couldn't help compare the two situations. Cuddling with Harry was the warmest thing ever. The way he held onto you, played with your hair or fingers, the way his chest moved when he laughed, the dimples when he looked at you at a cute part, how he hummed to the music in the movie, how he knocked your feet off the table just so you would have to lay them on top of his, everything just seemed to fit perfectly together. With Tom, it was an awkward kind of cuddle. He didn't know where to put his hands, how to hold you properly, and he was a little bony so it wasn't the most comfortable thing to lay against him.

Throughout the movie, Tom would tell stories about filming that scene and all the craziness that went into it. It was nice, it just wasnt helping you watch the movie for what it was. About halfway through there was a knock at your door, you stood up in the middle of Toms story about hanging upside while being tied to a crane. You opened the door and there stood Harry, a nervous smile on his face. “Uh mind if I join?” he asked shifting his feet around on the floor. You smiled and jumped onto him with a hug. He seemed a little surprised but hugged you tightly nonetheless. You led him into the living room with a smile.

“Look who decided to join movie night.”

“Ah Harry, good to see you mate. Hope you like SpiderMan.” Tom stood up shaking his hand.

“I love it.” Harry answered, settling onto the other end of the couch. Tom also sat down back in his seat, and you awkwardly sat in the middle. Your couch wasnt small but it definitely felt small sitting in the middle of Harry and Tom. You knew you needed to pick a side to lean. Your body wanted to lean towards Harry, but your mind said to lean towards Tom. You settled with neither. You crossed your arms across your chest, leaned back with your feet on the table in front of you, very aware of the gestures each guy was making towards you. Tom had his hand awkwardly up next to yours. Harry’s feet kept edging towards yours and he had a smart ass grin on his face. You kept your eyes on the tv the rest of the movie. When it finished, Tom’s phone rang and he quickly excused himself from the room to answer it. Harry took that as his opportunity. He knocked your feet to floor with an unapologetic smile. “Oh sorry, were your feet comfortable there?”

You shook your head with a smile, knocking his feet off to the side. He took that as an invitation to continue his games. He knocked your feet over, scooting closer to your body. You knocked his feet off again in response. Harry’s next move surprised you. Instead of knocking your feet off, he pushed you gently over on the couch with a “what are you going to do about it look”. You laughed and grabbed him, pulling him with you as the two of you tumbled off the couch and onto the floor. Harry laughed hard, his body now laying over yours, your back on the floor and his arms at the sides of your head keeping him up so he didn't squish you with his weight. You laughed in response and then froze. He was staring at you, you were staring at his lips. He leaned in a little more, and you continued staring. He moved down a little more and you couldn't hold it back anymore. You put your lips to his, connecting with him like a magnet. He pressed harder into you, laying down a little more, deepening the kiss. He nibbled at your bottom lip and you opened your mouth, allowing his tongue to swirl around yours. After a minute you were both out of breath and confused. Harry rolled off you and onto his back. You were both breathing hard, not looking at each other. Harry’s hand grabbed your fingers and you gripped his hand. After another minute you sat up very confused and guilty. Tom came back in and announced he had to run to an emergency meeting. He pressed a kiss to your cheek before running out the door with a goodbye. Harry sat up and looked at you, you boldly returned the gaze. “Uh” you started but he shook his head.

“I should get going..”

“Yeah maybe that's, maybe that's a good decision..” He nodded standing up, reaching his hands down and pulling you to his feet next to him. You walked him to the door, and he stood there not opening it. He was staring at your lips again. You looked up catching his eyes and he went for it. He grabbed your hand and pulled you into him. He lifted you up, your legs wrapping around his waist. His lips were locked on yours, your head was spinning yet you felt it was clearer than it had been in weeks. He turned and pressed your back into the front door. Your fingers were tangled in his hair when you took it a step farther. You gently bit down on his lip, pulling back and looking at him. He groaned and carried you into the bedroom, dropping you gently onto the edge of the bed. Harry kicked off his shoes, he went for the pants as well, but you pulled him to you, his body between your legs his lips on yours. He pulled the t-shirt over you head and kissed down your neck while unclipping your bra and tossing it to the floor. You sucked in a breath as his tongue played around the tender skin of your chest. You leaned into him, pulling his shirt over his head. His fingers trailed their way down your stomach to your hips, he tugged at the sweatpants waist band and slipped his hands underneath them. Your head fell into his, his lips playing games with yours. His fingers tugged at the lace on your panties, your breath catching. You bit down on his already swollen lip and he groaned falling into you and pushing your back onto the bed. “Harry..” you groaned trying to catch your breath. You could feel the bulge in his pants pressing into you and you gripped the bare skin on his back, your nails falling down his back.

“(y/n)” Harry breathed down your neck as you pulled his lips to yours. “If you want me to stop-”

“Dont stop” you mumbled kissing him again. You weren't thinking straight, you weren't really thinking at all. All you knew is that you wanted Harry. He dropped his pants and climbed into the bed with you, tugging your pants and panties off. He gripped your hands in his, his lips against yours. Harry moved closer to you, you could feel his length press against your body and your breath stopped. “Harry” you whined as he teased you, kissing his way down your body, your back arching the lower he got. “Stop teasing.”

He breathily laughed, returning his lips to yours and pressing his length into you. Harry rocked his hips against yours, you groaning and holding onto him tightly. Harry moved faster and groaned dropping his head to your chest. “Im close, Im going to need to pull-”

“Just do it-” you breathed trying to rub your hips against his. Harry pushed deeper in and froze, letting go. He breathed heavily against your lips and you kissed them slowly. Harry slowly pulled out, collapsing onto his back. He reached his arm out and pulled you against his chest. You were both catching your breath when youre phone rang. Gemmas name flashed across the screen and you jumped up, throwing a shirt off your floor on and answering. “Hey Gem.”

“Why are you out of breath?” she asked laughing.

“Uh just ran up the stairs..” you lied looking at Harry who raised an eyebrow in your direction.

“Well okay. Is Harry still over there by chance? I want him to meet Mical while he's here but he's not answering his phone and I know he went over to hang out with you and Tom..”

“Yeah, yeah Harry’s here. Here you can talk to him.” you handed him the phone and breathed out. Looking around for your pants.

“What?” Harry asked still catching his breath.

“Are you out of breath too?” Gemma asked confused. “Wait- are there even stairs to run up-”

“Gemma what do you want.” Harry asked and you gave him a warning look.

“I want you to come meet Mical.”

“I don't want to.”

“Harry.”

“Gemma.”

“I want you to meet Mical and I want you to meet him today.”

“But-”

“No buts theres no excuse.”

“Ugh.”

“Great. I’ll see you soon. I love you!” She said before hanging up. Harry tossed you his phone and you laughed. “Shut up.”

“Hes a nice guy Harry.”

“Yeah I’m sure.” You rolled your eyes and tossed him his shirt.

“I think you’ll like him.”

“Youre coming with me.”

“What? No-”

“Oh yeah. You’ve already met him and Im going to need my gi- my friend to help me stay calm because I know I’m not going to like him. So get dressed because you can't wear my clothes to her house.” He smirked and added, “even though you definitely pull off the look.” You rolled your eyes and groaned knowing very well you needed to go and help him through. He laughed knowing he won. “I kind of like the friend card.”

---

So I have one more part planned for this series! I hope you are all enjoying it! What do you think is going to happen?

xoxo

#one direction #directioners #one direction imagines #one direction fanfiction #Harry Styles #harrystyles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #tom holland #tom holland imagine

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deckyshep · 3 years

Text

Unholiest - Chapter One

Original story by R.D. Shepard. Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Supernatural, Romance Content Warnings: HIV/AIDS diagnosis, homophobia, homophobic/transphobic slur usage, missing person Author’s Notes: Thanks for reading! This is chapter one of the Unholiest novel I’ve been working on for about a year now. It’s still in progress, but I’m excited to be able to share this first chapter with y’all. This novel was heavily inspired by a TTRPG series that I’ve been a huge fan of for a long time; with the uploading of each chapter, it’ll likely become apparent which TTRPG series it is, haha. Enjoy! Summary: Mac Whelan and Drew Kelly are a young, openly gay couple in the early 1980s, living in NYC and struggling to make ends meet. It’s hard enough being out of the closet in the midst of the AIDS crisis—but when Mac suddenly goes missing, Drew struggles with the grief of losing the first man he ever loved while also dealing with the existential dread of his own mortality. When he discovers what happened to his fiancé, though... heads will roll.

It had been almost an hour, and the doctor hadn’t even walked in yet. Mac Whelan and his fiancé, Drew Kelly, sat impatiently in the office. Drew’s hand was holding Mac’s leg down, as he had a tendency to bounce his leg when he was nervous. They’d ran out of conversation to distract each other with, so they simply leaned against one another, keeping their eyes on the door.

“You know it’ll be fine, right?” Mac whispered, turning his head to kiss just below Drew’s ear, and Drew sighed.

“Please don’t make me have this conversation again.” Drew rubbed Mac’s knee gently. “We don’t know that, and you’re not making me feel better by heightening my expectations.”

Mac grinned a little. “No, I know. I just wanna rub it in your face when the tests come back negative and it turns out I was just dehydrated.” Drew scoffed, rolling his eyes with a smile. “You know I’m gonna be right. I drank so many Sex on the Beaches that night, and exactly one bottle of water. I’ll admit, that was my fault, but that’s all that—”

They both sat upright when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Drew quickly said, and the doctor walked in. He was a bald-headed man with thick-rimmed glasses and a long white doctor’s coat that covered a crisp, plaid button-down.

“Mr. Whelan,” the doctor greeted Mac, shaking his hand before sitting down at the desk. “And… Drew, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Drew answered a little too quickly. “Dr. Stannard, did you… get anything back?”

Dr. Stannard nodded. “If you remember correctly, Mac, we tested you for HIV.”

Drew’s hand was tightly held in his fiancé’s as Mac’s leg bounced nervously in his seat. “Right.”

“Which stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus.” The doctor set down a clipboard, removing a couple of papers from the board and looking them over. “It’s a virus that, depending on the patient, can remain dormant for many years, or start attacking the immune system right away. You were at risk due to your relationship with another man, and after your last spill, we’re all very glad you came in to get tested—”

“Can you just cut to the chase?” Drew interrupted.

Mac squeezed his hand, chastising him with a look. “Baby, he’s trying to make sure we know the facts. Even though I don’t have HIV, it’s important that we stay safe. Right, Stannard?” The doctor opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a soft sigh. Mac felt his mouth go dry. “Doc?”

“Mr. Whelan, I’m sorry. Your tests came back positive.”

Drew’s grip on his hand grew painfully tight, and Mac blinked. “Excuse me?”

The doctor furrowed his brow, obviously never enjoying this part of the job. “You tested positive for HIV, Mac. Moreso, we’re afraid the virus is working faster than we’d expected. Mr. Kelly, if you have been his only sexual partner, you’re going to need to get tested as well so we can make a care plan for both of you.”

Mac heard Drew start to cry, but he couldn’t really feel anything. Not the pain from Drew squeezing his hand, not the tears soaking into his shirt sleeve, not the coldness of the room. “I… No, there’s gotta be a mistake.”

“These tests are ninety-nine percent accurate, Mr. Whelan.” The doctor sighed, setting his hands flat against the desk. “I know this is difficult to hear. And I’m genuinely sorry for having to be the person to bring you this news. I will answer whatever questions you have for me.”

“Is…” Mac shook his head. “Is there a treatment right now? Like—there has to be something, right? We can do something about this?”

The doctor looked solemn as he spoke. “We have some experimental trials going on right now, but as of right now, we don’t have anything to actively fight the virus yet.”

“This is bullshit.” Mac said it quietly at first, like he was still comprehending it, but then he stood up suddenly, letting go of his fiancé and beginning to shout. “This is bullshit! You don’t have anything? Are you fucking kidding me?” Drew tried to take his hand to calm him down, but he pushed it away. His face was beet red. “Half the gays in Manhattan have HIV and no one’s doing anything about it! This is fucking bullshit!”

Dr. Stannard shook his head, genuinely looking remorseful. “Mr. Whelan, I’m sorry. We’re doing what we can. Finding funding for HIV research has been… difficult.”

“I don’t—” Mac grabbed at his own hair, as though to keep himself from doing anything he’d regret. “You don’t… you don’t have anything?” His voice grew quieter, and he sat down in the chair, staring at his lap in defeat. Drew wrapped an arm around his shoulders, trying to suppress his own tears. “How long do we have?”

“It’s hard to say, Mac.” Dr. Stannard clasped his hands together, sighing. “It might be a couple of years. It could be a few months.”

“Months,” Mac repeated hollowly, reaching up to hold Drew’s hand. “Fuck.”

Love of my life,

It’s worse than they thought. I might not live to see next year. I needed to tell you, but I didn’t know if I had the strength to tell you face-to-face. You have to get tested, baby. Get some treatment before it gets worse. And before you start blaming yourself, I don’t blame you in the slightest. This HIV shit is a silent killer. The doc said people can go years without knowing it’s in their bodies. There’s no way you could’ve known you had it. Make sure you check up on Willie, let him know he might have it, too.

I found someone who’ll take care of it for me. It’s not a cure, but it’ll keep me from dying painfully.

Please don’t look for me. You have to live the rest of your life happily without me. I know you can do it. Find another man who’ll make you feel like the queen you are, baby. You deserve so much better than to watch me die. You have to live.

I know this isn’t easy. I know it’s so fucking hard, and horrible, and painful. I didn’t want to leave. But I’ve weighed the options, and letting you watch me die is the worst thing I could do. You’re the most wonderful man in the world, baby. You’re so perfectly imperfect to me. I’d kill anyone in the world just to be with you one last time.

Feel your feelings. I know you’ll be depressed, pissed, begging for one last chance. You feel those feelings as deeply as you can. But you have to move on from them so you can feel happy again with someone who’ll treat you better than I did.

If you have to, forget me. If it makes it easier to move on, pretend like I never existed. But know that I love you like the sky loves its stars, framing them like the beauties they are. I love you like the tides love the moon, moving every night at her command. I love you like a prospector loved gold, traveling thousands of miles just to get a glimpse of the stuff.

And most importantly, I love you more. I will never forget you, Drew.

Lover-boy

“Drew Carey, I know you’re in there. Come here and open this damn door before I bust it down.”

Drew Kelly sat on the kitchen floor, hugging his knees to his chest. He wore nothing but a pair of red boxer briefs and that white, red-trimmed shirt Mac had gotten at his first concert, the one that was big enough to be baggy on Drew. His red hair, normally pulled back tightly into a bun, was hanging down messily in his eyes. The record player sat on the kitchen counter just above him – it was playing Love of my Life by Queen, one of Mac’s favorite singles.

He couldn’t hear himself crying anymore, couldn’t feel the tears burning his red cheeks. It took a couple of times for him to hear Deloreah’s voice through the front door, and even then, he didn’t think he had the strength to get up. But once Deloreah made that threat, he sighed, wiping his eyes and stumbling up to his feet.

Deloreah’s face quickly changed from stern to pitying as soon as Drew opened the door – he wouldn’t even look up at her. “Oh, baby.” She immediately stepped inside, wrapping her arms around the redhead and embracing him snugly. “Thank you for openin’ the door, baby. Let’s go sit down, sweet boy – you look like you’re about to pass out.” She closed the door and locked it before leading him to the beat-up, hideous red couch in his living room. Drew collapsed in his seat, and Deloreah kissed the top of his head, walking over to the kitchen to turn the record player off. “You ain’t eaten nothing today, I can tell.”

“Not hungry,” Drew mumbled, bringing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face down between them.

Deloreah sighed, putting her hand on her hip as she turned to look at him. “You gotta get somethin’ in your stomach, Drew. You’re gonna start gettin’ sick.” Drew didn’t respond, merely started sniffling. Her face fell, and she came back over to him, sitting next to him and beginning to rub his back soothingly. “I know, baby. I know it hurts. Nothin’ hurts more than losin’ the love of your life.” She took a deep breath, glancing around the filthy apartment. “But... it’s been three months. You haven’t even gone to the doctor yet. I don’t want you starvin’ to death.”

Drew began to cry quietly, keeping his head between his knees. “What’s the fucking point?” he whispered. “I love him more than I love breathing, and he’s just... gone. He’s just fucking gone.”

“He wouldn’t want you slowly killin’ yourself,” Deloreah started.

But Drew suddenly looked up at her, harshly wiping the tears drenching his face. “I didn’t want him to leave, but here we are!” He was beginning to ramble angrily – not at Deloreah, but at himself. “Nobody gets what they want! I met the love of my life at the wrong time, and now I’m gonna--” Drew’s face suddenly fell, and he let out a soft, trembling gasp, more tears streaming down his cheeks. “Fuck. I’m gonna die alone. I killed the love of my life. I gave him AIDS, and now I’m paying for it,” he sobbed, grabbing tightly onto his hair. “I was a slut! I was a fucking whore before I met him, and I thought everything was just gonna be okay, like a goddamn moron!”

“Shut your damn mouth for two seconds,” Deloreah said sternly, raising her voice just a bit. Drew clenched his eyes shut, pressing his face between his knees again. “You are not a moron,” Deloreah murmured, rubbing his back affectionately again. “And you weren’t no slut, either. You were living your life, sweet pea, and things got complicated too quickly. This doesn’t have nothin’ to do with you or anything you’ve done.”

Drew cried quietly, hugging his knees tightly. Deloreah sighed, scooting closer and pulling him into her side to hold him tightly. “It’s just bad luck, baby. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with you. Just bad luck.”

#rdshepardwriting #aids crisis #hiv/aids #fiction #supernatural genre #romance #original writing #unholiest novel #unholiest chap 1 #gay fiction #gay romance #lgbtq fiction #queer fiction

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kckv · 3 years

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The Braavosi smiled

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amandagaelic · 4 years

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Fanfic Tag (bc, Sunday)

I was tagged by @waitingforthestarstofall and @disappearinginq who are two of my favorite enablers over here. And according to at least one of them, there are no rules in this game, which means my replying many moons later is all good (right?).

Questions:

Ao3 Name: gaelicspirit (same on FF.net)

Fandoms: Supernatural, The Young Riders, White Collar, Hawaii Five-0, Sons of Anarchy (all only on FF.net), The Musketeers, Daredevil, Teen Wolf, Timeless, MacGyver, Magnum, P.I. (on both Ao3 and FF.net)

Number of fics: 75 (+ 1 WIP)

1. Fic you spent the most time on: From Yesterday

2. Fic you spent the least time on: Raincheck

3. Longest Fic: From Yesterday (286,050 words)

4. Shortest Fic: Sacrifice (2,315 words)

5. Most hits: Devil to Pay (on Ao3...no clue on FF.net)

6. Most kudos: Devil’s Own (huh, I’ve never compared these stats before...maybe I should write more Daredevil)

7. Most comment threads: Devil’s Own (on Ao3), Ramble On (on FF.net)

8. Fave Fic you wrote: This is a toughie. I love them all when I’m writing them...I think maybe it’s a 3-way tie between War Scars, From Yesterday, and Conairt. The first two were as AU as I generally get (I’ve a tendency to be a bit canon-bound) and that was fun to explore possibilities with those characters, and the 3rd was basically the story I wanted to read but couldn’t find anywhere...so I wrote it myself.

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: Hmmm. I don’t know that I’d actually rewrite any of them. They exist in my mind the moment they’re being created and then once out there in the world for all to see, that’s who they are, scars and all. I have occasionally thought about expanding on my White Collar story, Fortunate Son to explore what happened next. Though, now that the show has ended, it would be 100% AU. I guess anything I would really want to take further would be a new story in and of itself, so it wouldn’t really count as “expanding” on it.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

I started another MacGyver fic last weekend called “Hello to the Night.” I’m about 25K-ish words into it and still playing it out. It’s a bit of pandemic therapy for me, to be honest. It’s really hard to get out of my own head these days, it seems. Premise: Set around S4 episodes 9 and 10. Turns out emotional trauma + concussions + experimental drugs don’t mix quite as easily as one might think. Mac’s dark side does more than toss him a creepy grin from the other side of a window when getting “lost in his head” is taken up a notch.

Excerpt:

Another streak of light cut like a white-hot tracer bullet across the darkest part of the sky.

“You out here making wishes on shooting stars?” Bozer asked, tapping the back of his fingers into the palm of his opposite hand.

It caught his attention then that Mac was clad only in a T-shirt and shorts; it almost looked like they were the clothes he’d gone to sleep in, not grabbed for a planned midnight run.

“These aren’t stars,” Mac corrected him, his voice sounding strangely detached from the moment. “That light is caused by dust and rock falling through the atmosphere and burning up—happens when the Earth passes through a trail of debris left by a comet as it orbits the Sun.”

Bozer felt his mouth tug up in a reflexive grin. “Is that right?”

“My dad gave me my first telescope when I was eight,” Mac continued in the same, oddly modulated tone, as if he were speaking in a dream. “Showed me how to find the constellations, track comets. I took it apart one day and he wouldn’t help me put it back together again. Said I obviously needed to know how it worked, so I should figure it out.”

Bozer remembered that telescope. He remembered James MacGyver’s stern face as Mac worked to rebuild it from the collection of parts scattered around them in piles organized by size and use. He remembered fearing that face.

“I did, too. Figure it out.”

“Yeah, I know, man,” Bozer smiled, watching Mac watch the starts. He frowned a little when he saw a hard shiver chase its way through Mac’s slim frame, though the blond man didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s like they were mine, y’know?”

Bozer’s frown deepened. “What—”

“And for a little bit there, it felt like he gave them to me,” Mac continued as though Bozer hadn’t spoken. “Like the whole universe was mine because he let me see it. But…,” Mac shook his head, his eyes distant as they tracked down from the sky and skimmed the horizon in front of them. “Then he took them away. He took them with him when he left. And I can’t figure out how to get them back. I keep trying, but…they’re just…,” he looked back up at the night sky, “they’re so far away.”

Bozer reached out and rested his fingertips on Mac’s bare arm, flinching back a little when he felt how chilled his friend’s skin was. He couldn’t see it before, but with that touch he realized Mac was shivering consistently now.

“Hey, Mac, you okay, man?”

Mac blinked, looking down at Bozer’s fingers on his arm, then frowned. He glanced around him slowly, tracking over to his left until their eyes met.

“Bozer?”

“Yeah?”

“What…what are you doing here?”

Bozer blinked, his eyebrows climbing his forehead. He tightened his grip on Mac, wrapping his fingers around his friend’s forearm until he felt the other man’s shivers through the bones of his hand.

“I was looking for you,” Bozer said truthfully, trying to keep the worry from his voice as he watched Mac look around him, over his shoulder to where the Griffith’s domed building loomed in the shadows, then back across the dark horizon to the lights of Los Angeles. “You decide to go for a midnight run or something?”

Mac swallowed hard, reaching up with a trembling hand to rub at his forehead. Bozer recalled his tired voice claiming his headache had a headache earlier that day—no, last night—in the lab. He dropped his hand and looked around again and Bozer realized what he was seeing was a growing awareness and recognition—and it frightened him.

“What the hell are we doing out here?” Mac asked, his voice sounding thin, baffled.

“Mac,” Bozer gripped his arm tighter. “I found you out here.”

Mac looked at him, blue eyes cloudy with confusion. “What?”

“I found you, man.”

Mac darted his tongue out, wetting dry lips, his shivering increasing until Bozer saw his teeth start to chatter.

“I don’t…I don’t remember…,” he shook his head. “I don’t remember leaving the house.”

Bozer folded his lower lip against his teeth, biting it to keep whatever noise that wanted to escape a prisoner. “Well, how ‘bout we head back there now?”

Mac nodded shakily and moved to slide off the fence. Bozer saw in a split second the ground was too far below him for Mac to land safely. He thrust out his arm and braced his friend, swinging his leg back over the fence to the paved walkway and pulling Mac backwards with him. Mac scrambled to find his footing, standing on trembling legs as he gripped Bozer’s shoulders.

“Holy shit,” Mac took a stuttering breath as if he’d forgotten that was what his lungs were supposed to do, straightening slowly. “How the hell did I…?”

Bozer shook his head. “How about we don’t worry about that right now, huh?”

Mac nodded, his eyes still on the drop-off on the other side of the fence.

“C’mon, man,” Bozer turned Mac toward the parking lot, keeping one hand on his friend’s arm, the other on his lower back. “It’s late and I’m cold.” He wasn’t, but it was always easier to get Mac to act if he was doing so on behalf of someone else.

“Yeah,” Mac nodded. “Yeah, sure, of course. Boze, I’m—”

“Don’t,” Bozer pushed him gently forward. “Don’t worry about it, man. Yesterday was weird for everybody.”

“Yesterday?” Mac asked, the word tripping out on a faltering breath as his shivers increased.

Bozer pressed his fingertips harder into Mac’s lower back, feeling the corded muscles there tighten against the pressure. “Yeah, y’know…crazy DARPA drug, Tesla weapon….”

“That was yesterday?” Mac asked, blinking owlishly at him.

“Time flies when you’re trippin’, man.”

Mac didn’t reply and didn’t resist as Bozer continued to guide him toward the parking lot. He stumbled over his own feet—any coltish grace that once guided him having vacated in the wake of whatever this was. Bozer steadied him, noting that while Mac didn’t quite lean into him, he needed the support.

“Easy, man,” Bozer wrapped an arm around Mac’s slim waist, pulling him flush against his side. “You’re moving like me after a night of whiskey.”

“That…doesn’t sound good,” Mac returned in the same spacey, confused tone. “You make some pretty bad choices ‘cause of whiskey.”

As they reached the car, Bozer shifted his hip to keep Mac propped up, pulling the passenger door open and maneuvering his friend into the seat.

“Yeah, well,” he reached across Mac’s shivering form to fasten his seat belt, “in whiskey’s defense, I’ve also made some pretty questionable choices completely sober.”

Mac huffed a semi-amused chuckle, his head dropping back against the seat. Bozer jogged around the back of the car to climb behind the wheel.

“Let’s crank that heat up, how ‘bout—” Bozer stopped as he glanced over and saw Mac had quite literally passed out, head tilted against the window.

His hands lay lax in his lap, fingers curled toward his palms, the left one twitching in what looked like an attempt to reach out, but not quite getting there.

“Jesus, Mac,” Bozer breathed, turning up the heat anyway as his friend shivered even in his sleep. He shrugged out of his hoodie, draping it over Mac’s bare arms and t-shirt covered torso.

Tagging: Okay, if you’ve already been tagged--or literally have no interest in this--feel free to ignore. This is a bit of a free-for-all here. @thethistlegirl @impossiblepluto @flowing-river24 @panchostokes @nativestarwrites @beamirang @21forestglades @blazeofobscurity @angus-mac-intosh @purplecolouredglasses @writtenbyblair @dashboardonfire @bands-space-and-monsters-oh-my @macgyverfever @thekristen999

#fanfic #fanfic tag #macgyver #wip excerpt #writing #multiple fandoms #favorite stories #supernatural #sons of anarchy #h50 #the musketeers #magnum pi #timeless #daredevil #white collar #doing this instead of something else #not exactly hiding #but still kind of hiding

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bloodfromthethorn · 3 years

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Flatline

Sometimes, a good day can just turn on a dime. No one can predict if a bright sunny morning might end up being the day you're forced to watch your best friend die.

Part nine of the July of Whump 2021 prompt challenge.

Also on AO3.

The bullet comes out of nowhere. That might be the worst part about it, honestly. No matter how aware Jack is of his surroundings, no matter how much he tries to keep Mac out of danger, what could he possibly do to prevent a sniper camped on a rooftop half a mile away from taking a potshot at his partner when they’re just casually walking into work on an average Tuesday morning? Bright California sunshine above them, laughing without a care in the world, minds focused on nothing but the list of tasks they had to do that day. For all his training and preparation and drive, Jack never stood a chance against something he couldn’t see coming.

It’s so unexpected that it takes Jack a solid few seconds to catch up to what’s actually going on: first, Mac, a few steps ahead of him, jolts oddly to the side with a staggering half step; then, a second later, the sharp boom-crack of a rifle rolls over them and Jack instinctively ducks his head, the experience of two decades’ worth of dodging gunfire kicking him hard in the ass; third, Mac tries to do the same thing, lurching forwards slightly towards the cover of the building they are oh-so-close to, but stops short, curling into himself in a way Jack has seen once before and never, ever wanted to repeat. He knows even before Mac turns what he’ll see: a dark swell of red, low on his partner’s chest.

The whole thing can take no more than a second or two, but it feels like it lasts a lifetime. Then there’s a crackle along Jack’s skin and the passage of time reasserts itself with a snap and he’s throwing himself forwards to tackle Mac into the shadow of the Phoenix’s entrance just as another distant shot sounds off and a chunk of masonry explodes right beside Jack’s head. His partner grunts at the impact, but either lets Jack move him or simply doesn’t have the strength to fight him because he doesn’t put up the slightest resistance as he’s knocked to the floor.

As soon as Jack’s certain he and Mac are both out of sight of the shooter, he fixes every ounce of his attention on the red stain rapidly spreading across Mac’s shirt.

“Jah-” he rasped, breaking off in a pained cough that seems to shake him to his very bones. His skin is already ashen pale and it wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“Don’t try to speak kiddo,” he snaps back, yanking his shirt over his head to press it harshly against the wound. “Just breathe through it, okay? Keep breathing.”

He knows that he doesn’t have long. Mac’s limbs have already turned leaden and unresponsive, and while the bullet looks like it was too low to catch his heart, there’s plenty of other vital organs to worry about. After all these years, he really could lose Mac in minutes. He can’t let that happen.

There are voices shouting inside, some enterprising secretary on the front desk apparently catching on to the battlefield unfurling outside her door and summoning help. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, Jack puts the security of the Phoenix Foundation right to the back of his mind and ignores it completely; all he cares about in that moment is getting Mac inside and down the stairs to the trained medical staff who are Mac’s only hope. Nothing else matters until the wavering heartbeat pattering against his palm is steady again.

With that goal in mind, he abandons his vain attempts at stemming the bleeding in favour of threading his arms under Mac’s shoulders and knees and hoisting him up. It’s an awkward carry, with Mac both too long and too heavy for Jack to comfortably handle like this, especially when he’s utterly limp – and definitely not a dead weight – but Jack’s never cared about that less. He could pull every single muscle in his body and it wouldn’t even register over the screaming fear of watching his partner’s eyes roll back in his bloodless face.

“Don’t you dare die on me Mac,” he threatens harshly, and dashes inside.

There was a team waiting to receive him when he burst through the doors of the med bay, no doubt thanks to the secretary he’d yelled at as he’d passed by. Once he had any brainpower to spare beyond worrying about Mac, he’d make a mental note to find out her name and thank her.

“Put him down on here,” one of the nurses called, gesturing to the gurney they’d wheeled out. “How long has he been unconscious?”

“About four minutes,” he answered, breathless and terrified. “He was awake after he was hit – he knew who I was.”

As soon as Mac was lying flat, the medical personnel swarmed around him, pushing Jack firmly around so that he was standing beside his feet. Everyone who worked at the Phoenix had some awareness of Mac and Jack’s ironclad partnership, and that went double for the medical staff; they’d learned long ago not to bother trying to separate them when one of them was injured. It was far easier and painless if they just moved them aside to get the room they needed and then just left them to it.

“BP dropping,” one of the nurses announced sharply, a stethoscope pressed to the inside of Mac’s elbow.

A doctor tore open Mac’s ruined shirt to examine the wound, while another nurse used the opportunity to affix a series of sensors across Mac’s chest. The machine they were attached to immediately started wailing.

“Irregular heartbeat,” the nurse said. “Dropping quickly.”

“GSW to the chest,” the doctor examining the wound said. “No exit wound. I think- Shit. It’s a sucking wound.”

Jack might spend a lot of his life playing the fool, but the truth was that he was much smarter than most people gave him credit for. After so many years in the military, he’d had more than enough run-ins with medics and he’d made sure to do his research when he realised Mac had a penchant for sprinting towards danger. He knew exactly how bad that announcement was.

“Okay,” said the female doctor beside Mac’s head, calm in the face of such dire news. “We need to get him into surgery, right now.”

The gurney immediately starting moving down the hallway, Jack trailing along desperately in its wake.

“We’ll need to start with a transfusion. Blood type?”

“AB negative,” Jack answered.

“Jason, get a pint prepped. Sarah, I need a line in his arm. Run it open wide, we’re going to need to get a lot of fluids into him as quickly as we can. Who’s my anaesthesiologist?”

Whatever the answer to that question was, it was completely lost in the sudden screech of alarm from the heart monitor. The nurse in charge of it snapped to attention. “Code blue! Flatline!”

The bottom of Jack’s stomach dropped away.

The lead doctor barked out a name and one of the nurses right beside Jack immediately hopped up on the gurney, flailing for a split second as he juggled his limbs so he wasn’t standing on Mac before settling in to hover of him. Arranging his hands on Mac’s chest without aggravating the wound didn’t look comfortable, but he started compressions without pause.

Jack felt his steps faltering as he watched the nurse throwing his weight down onto Mac’s sternum, one of the other staff pressing a blue Ambu bag over his face to breathe for him. Breathing for him because he couldn’t – because Mac’s heart had-

-because-

-because Mac was-

-dead.

Mac was dead.

He was flatlining because his heart had stopped in his chest and the only thing keeping him on this side of the board was a medical team doing absolutely everything they could to preserve him. After all these years, after swearing to lay his life on the line to protect him, after a decade of you go kaboom, I go kaboom and now Jack was racing down a corridor with a fist-sized stone sitting heavy in his throat because there was no way this could be real. This wasn't right - it wasn't supposed to go down like this. Not ever. There was no conceivable world in which Jack was standing there completely unharmed while Mac was lying there motionless, entirely devoid of life. He refused.

Through it all the team hadn’t flinched and even now they were fighting to the last. Jack had to do the same.

Just as the doors to the theatre suite – the doors Jack knew he wasn’t allowed to cross no matter how much he might want to – appeared at the end of the corridor, the heart monitor suddenly let out another mighty beeping sound.

“I’ve got V-fib,” the nurse holding it said, relief evident in her voice. “Prep for defibrillation.”

“Ready!”

The nurse performing compressions backed off suddenly, sitting back uncomfortably on his heels as he hovered. “Clear!”

There was a sharp clicking sound, and Mac’s whole body twitched just as the gurney was whisked through the doors and out of sight. Jack skidded to a halt, his heart in his throat and his face wet with tears he hadn’t even realised he’d been crying. There was nothing he wanted more than to follow, to stand beside his brother in his hour of need as he had always promised to do, but he knew that busting into the operating theatre was not an option. Jack had to trust that the doctors knew what they were doing – trust them with Mac’s life. He’d never been very good at that.

But there was nothing for it. Jack had failed his most basic commandment: keep the kid safe. Now, all he could do was hope that the medics were better at their jobs than he had been at his. It was the only possible outcome. Because the alternative was-

-the alternative was that he really had just watched Mac die. And that- That was something he could not countenance.

Exhausted, drained, and covered in his brother’s blood, Jack stood there in the hallway and wept.

By the time Mac was out of surgery, Riley, Bozer, and Matty had all arrived to join in Jack’s vigil. Riley had done what she could to try to comfort him, to bring him back to himself, but in the end it had taken Bozer’s look of horror for Jack to excuse himself and take a lightning-fast shower in the gym. He was absolutely loath to leave the med bay while Mac’s status was still so uncertain, but he wasn’t about to force Boze to spend the next few hours staring at his best friend’s blood.

And, he had to admit, he did feel ever so slightly better when he wasn’t leaving red fingerprints wherever he went.

The four of them collectively leapt to their feet when Mac’s doctor appeared in the waiting room doorway. Jack dimly recognised her as the woman who had been in charge of the trauma response team he’d met earlier.

“Agent MacGyver is stable,” she announced, then paused to let the room breathe a sigh of heart-rending relief. “The wound was severe and he lost a lot of blood, but we’ve been able to repair the damage to his thoracic cavity and we’re hopeful his lung will make a full recovery within the next few months. The blood loss has put him at risk of shock, but we’re monitoring the situation and so far he’s not showing any of the expected signs. All in all, he has been extremely lucky.”

Jack wanted to point out that being lucky would have involved not getting shot in the first place, but he was waylaid from saying so by Riley flinging herself into his arms and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. He gripped her back just as tightly.

“He’s going to be okay,” Riley was whispering, more to reassure herself than anything. Tears welling in his eyes again, Jack could relate.

“Can- Can we see him?”

The doctor’s smile was indulgent. “Normally, I would say no. He’s still under sedation and he needs his rest, but I’m given to understand that if I try to enforce that rule you’ll break it anyway. So, I’m going to say yes, you can see him, on the condition that you don’t disturb him. Agreed?”

“I’ll keep them in line,” Matty put in firmly, shooting the three of them a widely-cast look that said they’d suffer the consequences if they did anything they shouldn’t.

All Jack wanted was to see Mac. Nothing else mattered beyond that. When the doctor nodded and stepped out the door, he was already half a pace behind her.

Despite the nature of the work they did, the Phoenix’s medical bay wasn’t actually that extensive. Most serious medical emergencies were dealt with by whatever hospital or clinic happened to be local; Phoenix medical was instead typically primed for day-to-day check-ups and monitoring of long-term recoveries, the type of thing that agents would actually be in LA to worry about. There was a handful of biomedical labs used for research, but mostly the trauma centre confined itself to a single corner of the building.

Nonetheless, the walk to Mac’s room felt like it took an age. At some point, the other three appeared to silently agree they should hang back and give Jack a minute alone, which he was both crippling grateful for and terrified of, but anything else he was feeling fled the second he stepped into his partner’s room and saw him for the first time.

His immediate reaction was that Mac looked a hell of a lot better than he had the last time Jack had laid eyes on him, but then, he had been literally dead. It would have been hard for the bar to be any lower. A more keen observation took in the spiderweb of machines and IV lines crisscrossing Mac’s torso, the oxygen mask perched on his face, and the unnatural pallor to his skin that spoke of too much blood loss. Still, he was breathing and his heart monitor was beeping peacefully and that-

Jack drew in a shaky breath. It was a lot to take in. Just this morning they’d been making their way into the office and Mac had been telling him about the reaction he was planning on setting up later that day – something about investigating whether he could use a new polymer blend to increase the stab resistance of their Kevlar vests – and now, here he was. He was alive and breathing, but with a new hole punched through his chest because someone out there had decided Jack’s wrath was an insufficient deterrent for hurting his kid. It was a mistake that Jack would be all too happy to correct.

But not quite yet. All of that could come later – right now, all he wanted to do was stay with his partner and remind himself that he was still breathing and Jack’s failure had not cost him everything. With that in mind, he slipped his hand into Mac’s limp one, sat himself in the chair pulled up beside the bed, and settled in for the long haul.

“I know you can’t hear me just yet slick, but when you wake up, you and I are gonna have a long talk about all of this. You can’t keep doing this to me man. My heart can’t take it.” He reached out his free hand and smoothed back the hair that had flopped into Mac’s eyes, taking the opportunity to feel for a temperature and finding only cool skin.

“Don’t you worry about that right now though. You just get some rest. We’ll all be right here when you wake up.”

#MacGyver #angus macgyver #jack dalton #fanfiction #my fanfic #fanfic #whump of july 2021

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