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watchmegetobsessed · 3 years

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TO LOVE AND BE LOVED - Part Six (Harry Styles)

a/n: LAST PART OMG!! im a little emotional this story has come to its end but it already ended up like twice as long as i planned it to be haha! thank you so much for reading and loving the story, it means so much to me and i loved seeing your reactions as the plot developped! i hope you guys will be happy with the ending our pair got and i can’t wait to read your thoughts about the series as a whole!!

pairing: CEO!Dad!Harry X Reader

warning: mentions of death, cheating and divorce, sexual content

word count: 14.8k

SERIES MASTERPOST masterlist

Waking up next to Harry is probably your most favorite thing in the entire world right now and you’ve been able to experience it every morning since you dropped Izzy off at Anne’s. You’re missing her like crazy and can’t wait to have her back, but part of you is desperate to stretch these days as long as possible, because you’re not sure if Harry will be comfortable with you sleeping in his room once his little one is back under the roof.

It’s always the same, yet you can’t get enough of it. Harry grumbles as he turns the alarm off, snuggles back to you for just a few minutes before he forces himself to take a shower. In the meantime you start breakfast and his coffee waits for him ready by the time he joins you in the kitchen. You eat together, sometimes talking, sometimes just silently enjoying each other’s presence and it’s the perfect way to start your days.

Then Harry is off to work and you go for whatever shooting you had planned for the day. Luckily, you’ve been keeping yourself busy. If your day ended early, you always found something else to do, you picked Trevor up another time and also managed to have lunch with Harry on Thursday which was such a nice change, even if it was just eating takeout in his office because you were in the neighborhood and he had some time to see you.

Now it’s Friday and you’re spending it with some editing and eventually packing, since you’re leaving to the countryside for Sarah and Mitch’s wedding when Harry comes home. You’ve been looking forward to this weekend all week, you had a few phone calls with Sarah and the two of you hit it off quite well, you can’t wait to finally attend the wedding. And also because Harry is coming with you, so it’ll be a kind of weekend getaway even though the two of you have been alone home all week.

Harry runs a little late from work so you leave about an hour later than you planned, but it’s all good, since nothing is planned for the evening, you just wanted to be at the location on time. It’s going to be a small wedding, nothing extra and it’s held in an inn near the beach, the perfect spot in your opinion, especially because even the weather seems to be celebration the occasion and it won’t be raining cats and dogs.

Heather: A double date? I don’t know, who’s the guy?

You’re texting Heather in the car and you finally bring up the possibility of going on a double date with Niall.

Y/N: Photo attachment

Y/N: He is a cool guy, I think you would like him!

Heather: He surely is hot! Alright, we’ll see. Anyway, have fun with your super hot and rich boyfriend this weekend! Tell me all about the wedding next week!

Y/N: Thanks!

Your eyes scan over the word boyfriend. You didn’t want to correct her and tell her that you are not boyfriend and girlfriend, just dating, because you kind of enjoy the thought of being an official item. It’s been just a few weeks since it all started and you know that Harry needs to take things in his own pace, but that doesn’t mean you don’t like to play with the thought.

You’re aching to finally call him your boyfriend or what’s better, hear him call you his girlfriend. The thought of calling this man yours is making you go nuts but you need to be patient with him. He has gone through so much change lately, you can’t let your silliness ruin it for the both of you.

It’s late by the time you arrive to the Inn and you both feel exhausted from the ride so you want nothing else than to get a good night sleep before the wedding tomorrow.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Sarah greets the two of you when you walk into the Inn. She envelopes you in a warm hug before doing the same with Harry. IN the meanwhile, Mitch has also appeared and he greets you with a short hug as well before giving a brotherly hug to Harry. “Had a safe ride?”

“Yeah, everything went fine,” you nod smiling.

“Great. Well, here is your room key, made sure you two are getting one of the larger rooms,” Sara smiles slyly, but you’re taken aback by something else.

“We’re sharing a room?” you ask turning to Harry, who seems nervous about your question, though it wasn’t your intention to make him ashamed in any kind of way.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, Sarah asked me this week which room I want and I told her we would be sharing… Is that okay? We-we could ask for a room for you as well if y—“ “Harry,” you chuckles softly, giving his hand a squeeze. “I would love to share, I just wasn’t expecting you to want to do the same is all,” you tell him and you can see the relief in his eyes instantly.

You talk over a few things with Sarah before taking your stuff up to the room and calling it a night. Harry takes a shower first in the small bathroom that’s joined to your room and in the meantime you hang your dress up so it doesn’t get too wrinkly by the morning. Then you just get all your equipment done, making sure everything is full and loaded for the big day tomorrow. When Harry is done you take your turn and the hot shower feels nice, quite relaxing. Walking out you find Harry lying in bed, typing on his phone, he smiles up at you when you join him in bed.

“My mum sent me this. They went to the park today.” He turns the screen towards you and a photo of Izzy is shown with ice-cream all over her face, grinning happily into the camera.

“She could literally live on ice-cream,” you chuckle, making yourself comfortable under the sheets.

“And gummy bears,” Harry chuckles before locking his phone and putting it to the side table. He is quick to wrap his arms around you, pulling you against his side and you smile as you snuggle to him, enjoying the heat of his body. “Good night, love,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“Good night, H,” you softly reply before letting yourself drift to sleep within seconds.

You already have a lot of experience with weddings and no matter how big or small it is, the day is always a little bit chaotic, everyone is all over the place, there’s no time for just messing around, especially for you.

Following a nice breakfast with Harry on the tiny balcony that’s connected to your room, you are forced to part since Harry is supposed to be with all the other guys, getting ready in the room that’s reserved for Mitch, while you kind of need to be everywhere at the same time, but you obviously spend the most time with Sarah, wanting to capture all her best moments.

Sometime around noon you get about an hour off while everyone else is getting lunch and Harry texts you to join him on the mole down the beach that runs just below the inn. When you arrive he is already sitting on one of the old wood benches with a pizza box on his lap.

“Hey,” you smile softly and leaning down you peck his lips quickly before joining him on the bench.

“The boy ordered pizza and I got one for us too, hope it’s okay.”

“Of course, I didn’t even think about lunch until you texted,” you chuckle as he settles the box between the two of you and you both take a slice.

“So how are the photos coming up so far?”

“Good, I’ll have a ton of editing to do, but I think they will like the outcome.”

“Can I have a sneak peek of them?” he smirks playfully, but you shake your head.

“No, the first ones to see them will be Sarah and Mitch, sorry,” you chuckle as he pouts his lips at you, but goes back to his slice right after.

You both are just enjoying the quiet for a little, having had a busy day so far, exchanging very few words, but it’s still a nice time spent together. It is just the two of you until a guy approaches you on the mole.

“Hey guys! Mitch wondered where you went, H,” he smirks down at Harry before his eyes land on you. He is tall, but not as tall as Harry, rocking a noticeable beard and he is wearing the same outfit as Harry: maroon pants with a crispy white dress shirt. “Oh, you’re the photographer, right?” he smiles at you.

“Yeah, I’m Y/N,” you answer nicely, holding out a hand for him.

“I’m Landon, Mitch’s cousin,” he nods with a charming smile. “Sorry for interrupting your lunch guys. Just wanted to let you know that Mitch wants to do a round of shots when everyone’s back,” he chuckles.

“He is gonna be so hammered,” Harry chuckles shaking his head. “I’ll be back soon, thanks Landon.”

“No worries. I’ll see you around, Y/N,” he smiles at you before turning around and walking back to the inn. You catch Harry’s eyes for a moment and you have a guess what he is thinking about. Landon seemed to like you, with his flirty smiles and friendly introduction, he was surely thinking about shooting his shot, but he might not know that you’re dating Harry.

However he doesn’t say anything, just continues to eat his lunch in silence and quite frankly, you forget about Landon’s existence pretty fast.

After lunch it gets a bit hectic. The ceremony is starting at 3, so you don’t have much time left. You do the first look reveal thing and this time their son, James is included in it, which is honestly such a pure moment and capturing it feels like a privilege.

Soon enough the guests are starting to arrive and you quickly run up to the room to change into your dress. Most of the time you are not required to dress up for the job, but you like to blend into the crowd so you usually choose to wear a nice dress and you’re doing the same this time as well. You’ve brought a pastel yellow satin dress that teases a little cleavage, and you pair it with a cream colored cardigan, creating a simple but still elegant look for the rest of the day. You’re fixing your makeup in a hurry when the door opens and Harry walks in.

He immediately stops in his tracks upon seeing you in front of the mirror, his eyes traveling down the lengths of your body, a stunned expression adorning his handsome features.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were… in here,” he mumbles and you can see the blush forming on his cheeks. “You look… You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you chuckle softly. He takes a few steps closer to you and reaching up he brushes a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers leaving a trail of delicate touch on the side of your face.

Leaning down his lips hover over yours for a moment, as if he was giving you the chance to pull back, but who are you to deny anything from Harry Styles? So when you stay in place, he finally presses his lips to yours in a slow and tender kiss filled with passion. His hands cup your face in his and you bring yours up to wrap around his wrists as you kiss him back, already craving more than just a kiss.

But it feels like you are not the only one growing hungrier with the seconds, one of Harry’s hands wander down to your butt and you feel his palm’s warmth through the thin layer of your dress, though you wish there was nothing between his skin and yours. When he starts kissing down your jawline and neck, pushing you backwards you hate to break the moment, but there’s no time for any funny business. So painfully, but you pull back, already missing his lips on yours.

“I would really love to continue this, but I need to be with Sarah in about three minutes,” you chuckle softly.

“Yeah, I need to get back to Mitch too,” he sighs, pecking the corner of your mouth before his arms fall from around you.

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” you smile up at him, fixing the collar of his shirt.

“Yeah,” he smiles with a boyish smile before you part ways again.

All through the ceremony you are kind of all over the place, trying to get the best shots, you don’t have much time to spare. Sarah’s entrance with her dad and James walking down the aisle is so beautiful and you get some amazing shots of Mitch’s emotions upon seeing his future wife. They tell their vows, touching every guest with their sweet words to each other and then they finally say ‘I do’ and become husband and wife.

You snap a series of photos of that moment as well, but then you allow yourself to peek over at Harry who is already watching you with a soft smile. You can feel yourself blushing, his gaze is warm but also quite intimidating in this sentimental moment.

And then the party finally starts. You try to follow the newly weds around as much as possible, but you also get around the tent, shooting pictures of the guests as well. You only get to have a few moments with Harry, because either you need to rush off or sometimes someone finds him and wants to have a few words. He is quite popular among the guests, but it’s no surprise. You’d want to have the chance to talk to him too if you saw him.

“Have you even had a bite yet?” A male voice calls out for you when you’re trying to sneak from one point to the other. Glancing over your shoulder you see Landon with a drink in his hand.

“I’ll eat later. The dance is about to happen so I need to be ready for that,” you smile at him.

“Mitch told me they found a really good photographer, but he surely forgot to mention how devoted you are. I’m excited to see the photos.”

“Thanks, I’m trying my best,” you chuckle.

“Save me a dance later?”

“Oh, um, sure,” you nod with a nervous chuckle. “But I really gotta go now,” you excuse yourself before he could even get another word out.

As you slalom between the tables you spot Harry sitting at one of them and he is staring at Landon from across the room, a not too friendly look plastered across his face. You wonder if he has seen you talking to him and now he is feeling jealous or if you’re just seeing things. But you don’t have much time to ponder on it, work is calling you.

As the happy couple share their first dance, soon enough more and more guests join them and you’re standing at the side, snapping the cute dance partners slow dancing to the music with Sarah and Mitch in the middle. You’re adjusting the settings on your camera, when a tall figure appears in front of you.

“May I have a dance?” Harry asks, holding out a hand for you like a true gentleman.

“Oh, I should—“

“If you are about to say you should be taking pictures, the bride told me to ask you,” he tells you with a soft chuckle and as your eyes fall on Sarah, she is smiling in your way happily, nodding her approval to get off duty for just a little.

“Then, I would love to,” you smile shyly, taking Harry’s hand as he takes you to the dance floor. Placing his hands to your waist he pulls you close to him while you rest your arms around his neck, swaying to the rhythm very gently.

“I always get a little emotional at weddings,” he confesses with a small smile.

“Yeah? Why?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I just… love seeing people in love. Especially when they are my friends,” he adds chuckling.

“It really is a nice thing.”

Harry pulls you tighter against him, his cheek pressing against the side of your head and you let your eyes fall closed for a few seconds, enjoying this moment with him. He starts to softly him the song and his voice flows through your ears smoothly, you’re in awe how good his voice is. He never told you he is a good singer too above being an amazing producer.

When the song ends some couples stay, but some make their way off the dance floor and you have to get back to your job as well. Leaning back you squeeze Harry’s arm as his hands fall from your frame too.

“Save a slice from the cake for me,” you smile at him and he nods with a smirk.

“I will. I’ll have it ready for you at the table.”

You place a short kiss to his cheek before you disappear from his sight, leaving him alone again.

The night carries on as usual, sometime after dinner your phone dies so you leave it on the charger up in your room before running back down. The party starts to unfold as the time passes, more drinks are being consumed and this is kind of your secret favorite part, because the more people drink, the more they are willing to pose for funny pictures. This is the time that births the best group photos, in your opinion.

Though you are having an amazing time, you can feel yourself growing tired. When it’s finally cake time you take some time off to sit with Harry who saved you a slice, just as you asked him. It’s nice to have a breather, just enjoy the evening with him by your side again.

“Mm, didn’t know you could eat icing without getting it all over my face,” you tease him, referring back to the time you made such a mess out of the kitchen when you tried to make cupcakes for him.

“Very funny,” he narrows his eyes at you, before dipping his finger into the icing and wiping it onto your nose.

“Hey!” you pout at him, cleaning it up, but he just smirks at you playfully before pecking your lips shortly. It’s the first time he is kissing you in with so many people around and it surely makes you giddy, knowing that he is not trying to hide you in any way.

Weddings are a lot of fun, but they always stretch so long. The party can last till the morning sometimes and you can’t just decide to call it a night and stop doing your job, you need to be there until the DJ shuts the music off and all guests disappear. And it seems like this wedding won’t be any shorter either.

It’s already past midnight when you decide to sneak out for a short break. You’ve been on your feet for way too long and you stole some food too. You hesitated if you should sit back to your table, but you felt like you could use some quiet so you left the tent and found a bench nearby.

As you sit and eat the food you snatched from the buffet table, you hope the party won’t last until the Sun comes up. You get so into your own little world that you almost don’t even notice the approaching tall figure.

“Having a break, huh?” Landon calls out as the gravel crunches under his fancy dress shoes.

“Ah, yeah. I needed a few minutes away from the music,” you chuckle softly. Landon stops in front of you and hides his hands in his pockets as he blinks down at you with tired looking eyes. It might be from the long night, but you are guessing the drinks he’s been consuming don’t help his energy either.

“May I say that you look really pretty? I haven’t been to many weddings yet, but the photographers went for the more comfortable look since they are not on the photos, but you chose to glam yourself.”

“Thanks,” you chuckle softly. “I like to blend into the guests.”

“Well, you don’t blend in this way either, because you look prettier than most women in that tent,” he compliments you and you’re starting to feel awkward. It’s not that you don’t like it when someone is talking highly of you, but it’s obvious what Landon wants and you are definitely not on the same page.

“Um, thank you.”

“I’m sorry if I come off too brash or pushy, but I promised myself I would never miss a chance to compliment a pretty woman when I see one.”

“That’s nice, but I’m afraid I’m not the right person to spend your energy on,” you answer with a tight-lipped smile. Landon narrows his eyes at you, but keeps his playful manner.

“So you don’t find me good-looking, is that it?” he teases and you shake your head with a soft chuckle.

“That’s not what I was talking about.”

“Then you like to break hearts, right? You must enjoy making men fall for you,” he carries on with his little joke and just as you’re about to speak up to tell him you are seeing someone, Harry’s familiar deep voice interrupts the conversation.

“There you are, I’ve been calling you.” He is talking to you, but his eyes are clearly glued to the man standing in front of you.

“Oh, my phone is in the room, I had to charge it,” you tell him.

“What are you guys doing out here?” he asks, clearly not liking the situation, you and Landon alone outside with no one else around. Jealousy is dripping from his eyes that appear so much darker now in the dim lighting.

“I’ve been dumped by this amazing woman right here,” Landon sighs dramatically and Harry cocks an eyebrow at him before glancing over at you.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah, she is clearly not interested in me, my charm didn’t work on her,” he laughs lightheartedly.

“I hope it didn’t because she is my girlfriend,” Harry answers simply and your lips part at what he just called you.

Landon stumbles back, his smile quickly vanishes from his face as he stares back at Harry. You feel like you’re watching some kind of documentary movie where male animals are trying to win over the female, only that Landon stands no chance in this situation, but you find it quite funny.

“Man, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—I didn’t know!” he apologizes right away as he realizes why Harry has been kind of spicy around him. Landon then faces you. “Y/N, I didn’t mean to make it awkward and all that, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you smile at him nicely. He mumbles something about checking up on Mitch before walking away, leaving you and Harry alone. He joins you on the bench, staring after Landon for a few moments before turning to face you. A much softer expression is showing on his face this time.

“So, you just called me your girlfriend,” you point out, trying your best to hold your growing smirk back.

“I, uhh—I did, didn’t I?” he chuckles nervously. “I’m sorry, it just slipped out, because I didn’t like how Landon was trying to chat you up all night…”

“So you didn’t…. You didn’t mean it?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows, feeling yourself growing disappointed.

“Well, I… I mean, I didn’t mean to say it like that, without discussing it with you, but… I would love to call you my girlfriend,” he admits shyly and you can’t believe that this nervous man next to you is the same man who owns a record label and manages his million dollars business every day without a problem.

“I like the sound of that,” you smirk, leaning closer to him so your noses are almost touching.

“Yeah?” he smiles, a lot more relieved and playfully than he was a moment ago.

“Mhm,” you nod, biting your lip. You blindly put your plate to the side before cupping his face in both of your hands and pulling him in for a kiss, your first one as boyfriend and girlfriend. Part of you feels silly that it makes you so ecstatic, like you’re a high school girl, but in this moment you couldn’t care less.

What starts as a sweet and innocent kiss quickly turns into something more, something heated. When Harry’s hands find your bare thighs and they slightly slide under your dress you can’t help but yearn for more, pulling him closer as your tongues meet. Your fingers lace through his curls, tugging on them gently and you’re fighting the urge to throw a leg over him and just sit on his lap straddling him. When he starts kissing down your jawline and neck, you have to stop him for the second time today, not that you wanted to do it anytime, but the time and place hasn’t been right.

“We can’t…” you sigh, pulling back even though every fiber in your body is telling you otherwise. Harry lets out a long sigh, nodding his head.

“Yeah, I know.”

“But hopefully, the party will end soon and then we will be all alone in our room,” you smirk at him slyly and it brings back the shine into his eyes.

“I can’t wait,” he mumbles before kissing you one last time.

From that moment, Harry lingers around you at all times for the rest of the night. He is always either right by your side, or within a few feet away from you, keeping an eye on you, but not in an obsessive and intrusive kind of way. His eyes are filled with lust every time you share a look at each other and you can tell he can’t wait for the party to finally be over. Whenever he is next to you, he makes sure to touch you in any kind of way. Placing his palm to the small of your back, your arm or your hips, or when you sit next to each other he rests his hand on your thigh or knee without hesitation. And you are loving all the affection you are being showered with.

By the time the wedding officially ends and you can finally call it a night, you are both touch starved and hungry for each other. Harry pulls you against him on the stairs up to your room, not even giving a damn that you are still out in the public. His mouth attacks you hungrily, kissing you anywhere he can reach as the two of you stumble up your way to the room.

Pushing the door open you basically fall inside, giggling against Harry’s lips as he shuts the door closed and presses you up against it, making you gasp at the action. He is so much more demanding and confident than the last time you shared an intimate moment and though you’re not sure how far he is planning to go, you know you are ready to give him anything he desires.

“As much as I love this dress on you, it needs to go,” he playfully smirks as his hands bunch your dress up on your thigh before grabbing it and pulling it off your body, leaving you only in your underwear so fast.

Your lips find his as your fingers work fast on the buttons of his shirt while you inch further into the room towards the bed. You both kick your shoes off on the way and when you fall to the mattress Harry’s shirt is already gone. He climbs above you as you sink into the way too many pillows and you blindly throw a few off the bed to give you more space. Harry licks into your mouth one last time before he moves down your neck and collarbones, peppering your heated skin with his kisses, his hands already sliding under your back to unclasp your bra. Arching your back you give him space to do the task on hand and a few moments later you are lying under him with your chest completely bare. His name falls from your lips as a whimper when his mouth comes in contact with your left nipple, kissing, licking and sucking on it while his hand kneads your other breast before he switches, giving both sides the same amount of attention. Your fingers lace through his unruly curls as you enjoy his touch that’s burning and soothing at the same time.

When he kisses down your stomach and hips, he hooks his fingers into your lacy underwear, but stop before doing anything, looking up at you for reassurance. You give him the green light by nodding and he carefully pulls the fabric off your body, baring you in front of his eyes completely. His kisses pepper his way up your inner thighs until he finally reaches your dripping wet core.

“Harry!” you moan when his tongue and lips press against your clit, swirling and sucking on it just right, making you shiver under his touch. He curls his arms around your legs, keeping them in place as he keeps working his magic, making you a whimpering mess with each lick.

He does the same thing as last time, teases you with his finger dancing around your entrance until you are basically ready to beg him for more. Then he finally pushes two fingers inside you and starts pumping in a slow pace that drives you nuts, leaving you ache for more of him.

You pull him up before he could get you to the top, because that’s not how you want it now and you need to know if he is ready to take this step with you. He understands what you want from just a look as he hovers above you and you cup his face in your hands tenderly.

“I want it,” he breathes out and you could come just from those three words.

“Are you sure?” you ask, though you just want to jump right at it already. Still, you want to make sure he is completely fine with everything that’s about to happen.

“Yeah. I am,” he nods before leaning down he presses his lips against yours.

Your hands reach down and undo his pants, pushing them down along with his boxers before he does the rest of the job kicking them off. His erection presses up against your thigh as his hips fall down a bit and you moan with just the feeling of him on your skin. Wrapping your hands around his shaft you start pumping him while your kiss never breaks.

“Oh fuck,” he moans in sensation and you grin against his lips, enjoying the thought that you are the one making him feel this good.

“Do you have a condom?” you breathe out.”

“Shit, I don’t…”

“It’s alright, I have one.” You sneak out from under him and rush over to your bag to look for your toiletries, you know you have one somewhere in there. When you finally find the little package you quickly get back to the bed where Harry is now lying on his back. Kneeling next to him you give him a soft, reassuring look.

“Do you want me to…?” you imply, holding up the foil.

“Oh, um, yeah, sure,” he nods and you swear you see him blushing. Ripping the package open you lean closer and roll the condom down his hard length before throwing a leg over his lap and get back to kissing him. You take your time with him, running your hands up and down his toned, inked chest as his palms warm the skin on your waist while your lips move together in sync perfectly. You could tell he needed a moment to get settled and wrap his mind around what’s really about to happen.

“Everything alright?” you ask, a little out of breath as you hold yourself up above him. He nods shortly. “Do you want me on top or you want to switch?”

“C-can you stay on top for now?”

“Yeah,” you smile at him warmly, before capturing his lips in a sweet kiss while your right hand wanders down his body until you reach his hard cock. Harry whimpers against your lips when you wrap your hand around the base, lining him up with yourself.

“Tell me if you want to stop, alright?” you ask him and in any other situation you’d find it a little funny that it’s you asking him that, usually this request comes from the guy, but you just want to make sure he is comfortable with everything that’s happening. Harry nods again and as he gulps hard his Adam’s apple bops up and down. Leaning down you kiss him again as you slowly ease down yourself just enough so that the head of his cock slides inside you. You stop, giving both him and you the chance to get accustomed to the feeling. It’s been quite some time for you as well, and your fingers do not compare to Harry’s size, that’s for sure.

He keeps one hand on your hip while the other reaches up and cups the side of your head, panting against your lips from the feeling of finally being inside you. Once you’ve made sure you both adjusted to the feeling, you allow yourself to sink further down until his whole length disappears inside you. You stay still, shutting your eyes closed as you let your walls stretch around his erection, making that slight pain you feel go away. Adding the length and thickness of his cock to the long drought you’ve had in the field of sex is making it feel like you are having your first time again in a way. It’s not that awkward and definitely not that painful, but still, that’s what it reminds you of.

“Are you good?” he asks, squeezing your hip gently. Your eyes snap open and meet his green ones that are now clouded with a little bit of worry.

“Yeah, it’s just… You’re big, Harry,” you admit with a soft chuckle that brings a cocky grin to his lips as well. “Just give me a moment.”

He just nods again and both his hands start running up and down your sides reassuringly as you take a few seconds to yourself before you start moving your hips. You start off slowly, dragging your movements out, trying to see what feels the best and judging from Harry’s moans and grunts he is enjoying himself no matter what you do. Your hands sprawl out on his chest, fingers digging into his skin as you lean onto him while starting to move up and down his throbbing cock.

“Fuck, you feel so good!” he whimpers, almost as if he was in pain, but you can see the pleasure in his eyes.

Your thighs start to burn, but you keep moving yourself, not wanting to stop, because you’re feeling your orgasm building up inside you. When he starts thrusting up to meet your movements, you moan his name so loudly there’s a chance the people next door heard you, but you couldn’t care about that now.

Harry might have noticed that you’re starting to get tired, so pushing himself up he wraps his arms around you and turns you over until you’re the one lying on the bed and he holds himself up above you on his arms. Your legs circle around his waist as he starts moving in and out of you, the new position making you both moan and gasp at the sensation.

“Harry!” you whine as he keeps hitting that one spot inside you, pushing you closer to the edge dangerously fast.

“Am I making you feel good, baby? You like it?”

“You’re making me feel so good, please don’t stop!” you beg him as he buries his face in your neck, sucking on the soft skin, most definitely leaving a mark on you that you’ll wear proudly tomorrow. You would never want to hide the fact how good Harry fucked you, let the world know that your boyfriend made you feel so amazing!

“Oh my God, I’m getting close. Are you feeling it too? Are you gonna cum for me, baby?” he asks, his lips brushing against your earlobe. Grabbing his face you pull him into a kiss, pushing your tongue into his mouth mercilessly and the grunt he lets out is making your insides tremble. It’s animalistic, so passionate and sexual, you want to hear this every day for the rest of your life.

“I’m close, go a little harder, Harry!” you plead and he does as you asked without hesitation, his hips slamming harder against you, making you gasp for air as your head sinks into the pillow, your back arching in pleasure.

“Cum for me, Y/N. Let it go!”

“Harry!” you whine, as you can feel your orgasm threatening to burst inside you any moment.

“Say my name when you cum, I want to hear who’s making you feel so good, baby!”

Your fingers dig into his hair as you chant his name over and over again with each thrust he makes and then your release finally arrives. You moan and whimper, shaking under his naked, sweaty body, his name falling from your lips as an endless glorification. Your walls clench around his cock and it’s the last straw for him as well, his thrusts become sloppy and uncoordinated as he cries out your name, his hips slamming hard against you while he rides his orgasm out. Reaching down you drag your nails down his back until you reach his perfectly round ass, giving it a cheeky squeeze while he buries his head into the crook of your neck, thrusting into you a few more times before coming to a stop.

Turning your head you kiss his temple, running your hands up and down his back while you both try to catch your breath, coming off your high. Soon Harry pulls out and rolls off of you, his body smashing into the mattress beside you, his face glowing from that post sex euphoria. After a few moments of just panting and blinking into the void you finally feel yourself returning to reality and rolling to your side you cuddle to Harry’s body, his arm instantly coming to circle around you.

“Everything alright?” you softly ask, placing a tender kiss to his chest under one of his swallow tattoos. The last thing you want is to have him freak out now that the deed has been done, but when he gifts you with a tired but genuine smile, your worries vanish into thin air.

“Yeah. I’m all good. More than good,” he chuckles before lifting his head and placing a soft kiss to your forehead. His fingers are dancing up and down your naked back, following the line of your spine and your ribs, his smoothing touch already working as a lullaby on you, but you’re determined to stay awake just a little longer.

“Are you turned on by hearing your own name during sex?” you tease him with a sly smile as you think back to how much he enjoyed you scream his name over and over again.

“I might have a bit of a praise kink,” he admits truthfully with a smirk.

“Mm, interesting.”

“What’s yours?”

“What do you like during sex?”

“You, balls deep inside me,” you bluntly answer, making him laugh at your words. “And I like doggy,” you then add to actually answer his question.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, and maybe some hair pulling. Not in an extreme way, but I like a little.” “Alright, noted,” he hums nodding.

You both clean yourselves up in the bathroom, moving around each other naked without any shame. Harry then puts on a pair of clean boxers and you change into your night clothes, though the moment you make yourself comfortable in Harry’s arms in bed his hand sneaks up your back under the shirt, tugging the material up. You could have just stayed shirtless, but now you’re too tired to even move. His fingers are drawing little patterns over your skin as you listen to his steady breathing before drifting off to sleep.

Sunday feels like a day after a sleepover in high school, when you’re thinking about everything that has happened the day before, and you’re so happy it happened but you’re kind of tired and just want the comfort of your home already.

Sarah and Mitch leave for their honeymoon early in the morning. You say goodbye and Sarah just keeps thanking you for your work even though she hasn’t even seen the picture yet.

“But I’m sure they are amazing! Can’t wait to see them!” she beams at you when you try to tell her to just wait for the actual outcome.

You leave the inn a little before noon heading to Anne’s to pick Izzy up. You have lunch somewhere on the road and then you sing along to the music in the car, enjoying yet another roadtrip together, making the best out of your last minutes alone. You’re happy to see that Harry hasn’t seemed to spiral after what happened last night, he seems delighted and pleased, maybe even excited. Driving down the highway he keeps a hand on your thigh whenever he doesn’t need to use it on the shifting gear and every time he reaches for you, it turns you into a giddy little girl.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Izzy chants upon running into Harry’s arms the moment you park down on Anne’s driveway. Apparently, she’s been sitting by the window for an hour, waiting for her dad to finally arrive.

“Oh, I missed you so much, baby!” Harry cheers, catching the running girl and lifting her up into his arms, hugging her close. It’s such a sweet sight, seeing the two purest people you know be so happy to see each other after a week spent apart.

“I missed you too!” Izzy sighs, wrapping her short arms around Harry’s neck, nuzzling into her daddy’s embrace and your heart is fluttering in your chest for sure.

Anne invites the two of you inside for a tea, Harry helps Izzy pack all her stuff while she is nonstop blabbering about everything she did with her grandma during the week, and Harry listens to her intently, even though she already shared everything with him on the phone when he called every night.

“How did the wedding go?” Anne asks you cheerfully as you help her in the kitchen.

“Oh, it was amazing! Sarah looked so beautiful and everything went smoothly.”

“That’s great, they are such a cute couple!”

Anne is quick to ask you about photography, how long you’ve been doing it and you even show her a few of your works seeing how enthusiastic she is about the whole thing. You were a little nervous about meeting her, but she is just as sweet and kind as her son, making it so easy to treat her just as a friend, not as the mother of your boyfriend.

Before leaving Izzy insists on showing you all the paintings she made for Anne this week, she has them on the wall in her little home office. While you’re shown around in Izzy’s personal gallery, Harry joins his mother downstairs, finishing up his tea.

“I assume the weekend went well, you two are glowing,” she smiles slyly at him and Harry can’t hide his boyish smile.

“I uhh… I asked her to be my girlfriend,” he admits and Anne gasps happily, thrilled about the news.

“I’m so happy for you, Har. I think she is a really good match for you!” she beams, pulling him into a motherly hug, kissing his cheek as if he was just a little boy, not a grown man.

“Thanks, mum. I’m happy too.” “You deserve it. It’s so good to see you living your life again.” Soon enough, Harry loads the car with Izzy’s stuff and it’s time to say goodbye.

“Bye Anne, it was so nice to see you!” you smile hugging her.

“Come back soon, Darling! Nag this old man to visit me more often!” Anne jokes giving Harry a playful look who leaves her comment unnoticed, giving his mother a tight hug.

“Thank you for everything mum, love you, I’ll call you alright?”

“Drive safe!” she calls after you all as you get into the car and wave her goodbye leaving.

The drive home tired Izzy out, or maybe it’s just the change of settings again. Whatever it is, she can barely stay awake until dinner, so once her tummy is filled Harry decides to put her to sleep early.

Izzy asks Harry to lie in bed with her as he reads her a bedtime story, she is extra clingy now that she is back with her daddy, but Harry is enjoying having his little one back so he doesn’t mind it. Izzy snuggles to his side, playing with the ears of the bunny she chose to sleep with tonight as she listens to his steady, smooth voice talk her to sleep.

“Daddy?” she asks quietly, already half asleep.

“Yes, baby?”

“Are you going to marry Y/N?”

The question catches him off-guard, he was definitely not expecting it especially since Izzy hasn’t even seen the two of you kiss yet.

“Why are you asking?”

“My new friend, Loretta from the park told me that if a boy and a girl live together they are probably in love and want to get married.”

“Loretta seems to know a lot about adult stuff,” Harry chuckles softly. “Well, it doesn’t exactly work like that, Iz. But… would you be happy if I told you Y/N is now my girlfriend?” he asks, feeling a little nervous, as if Izzy’s word on the question could destroy any possible future between the two of you. She stays silent for a few seconds and Harry starts to think she has fallen asleep, but then she finally speaks up again.

“Did you kiss her?” she asks and Harry can’t push down a soft chuckle. Izzy’s idea of relationships probably doesn’t go further than kissing and holding hands so this is how she is trying to put the picture together in her head.

“I did, yes.”

“Oh!” she exclaims. “I like Y/N.”

“Well, I like her too.”

“She can be your girlfriend,” she then replies, giving her blessing. “Are you going to get married?”

“Um, not for a while, no. But… it could happen if things go right,” he chews on his bottom lip, he is definitely not in the phase of thinking about marriage yet, not just because you barely just became an official couple, but that would be a huge step in his way of processing the end of his last one.

“Okay,” Izzy simply nods and that brings the end of the discussion. Harry has been a little nervous to have this talk with Izzy, he was afraid she might get a little confused about the idea of him having a girlfriend and the thought of her mother, but she seemingly didn’t even bring Maggie into her train of thoughts. Luckily.

When Izzy is finally asleep he closes the door and makes his way downstairs where you’re lying on the couch, watching the rerun of the news. You smile up at him upon his arrival and as he joins you on the couch, he is quick to pull you into his arms, making you snuggle into his embrace.

“I just told Izzy that you are my girlfriend,” he confesses and you lift your head up, not even trying to hide your surprised expression.

“Really? And what did she say?”

“Well, she asked if we are getting married,” he tells you chuckling shortly. “I told her that we shouldn’t get that far ahead. But she basically gave her blessing. She said she likes you.”

“Well I was hoping she doesn’t hate my guts after spending almost every day with me,” you chuckle, making him smile too. “But I’m happy she likes the idea of us.”

“Yeah, me too,” Harry nods before pulling you closer for a sweet, innocent kiss.

You finally get around to have that double date with Heather and Niall one month into your relationship. Harry’s weekends have been a little busy these past weeks, he had to go into the office on a few Saturdays, but now he has finally finished a huge project he has been working on so he can actually take some time off.

Ruth comes over to look after Izzy that evening and she keeps looking at you and Harry like a proud grandparent whenever she sees the two of you interact as a couple. Little touches and kisses have been more regular around home ever since Harry told Izzy that you are together. So far, she’s been handling it really well, she doesn’t seem to be confused about you and her mother and it might be because Harry has had a talk with her recently about her mother and where she really is now. His therapist suggested to be open about it with her as early as possible, and though she doesn’t seem to completely understand the idea of life and death just yet, she has definitely started to put the picture together in her head.

You’ve been spending all your nights at Harry’s room, so by now your bedroom is more like an office space for you and a storage for all your stuff, a place where you can be alone whenever you have some editing to do or just simply need some time on your own. Luckily, Harry totally understands the feeling of needing some space, he has his own limits as well and the two of you have been trying your best to coordinate around these lines when it comes to your relationship. After all, it’s been a pretty unusual situation, you were already living together when you became a couple, jumping a few steps in the timeline of a regular relationship.

Just as you were expecting it, Niall and Heather hit it off quite fast upon meeting at the dinner. Niall is in awe of Heather’s confidence and raw sense of humor that matches perfectly with his, while Heather finds him entertaining and somewhat like a challenge, since you honestly told her about Niall’s reputation as a womanizer, but it’s not something that could scare her away.

“He is cute, desperately wants to prove how good he is doing on his own, but I think that’s just a façade,” Heather tells you when you ask her about her date in the restroom. She fixes up her lipstick, staring at herself in the floor to ceiling mirror.

“So you think you want to see him again?”

“I’m not gonna run after him, if he asks for my number I’ll give it to him. But if he doesn’t, I won’t let him see my disappointment.”

“And what if he asks you to go home with him tonight?” you ask, feeling like teenagers gossiping in the girls restroom between classes. Heather smirks at you through the mirror before turning to face you.

“Oh, I’m not going home with him. That would bruise his ego so badly he won’t be able to think about anything else.”

You stare back at her stunned from how big of a genius she is. You would have never schemed like this when it came to men, but yet again, you never really needed to. Before Harry you were busy with Keith and that relationship came so easily to you. There were never really games, it took you about three weeks to get together. But Heather is a player and a very good one, apparently.

“You two look cute, by the way,” she smiles at you quickly washing her hands before the two of you head out, back to the table.

“Thanks,” you blush, eyes finding the guys sitting right where you left them.

After dinner you decide to stay for a few drinks at the bar a corner away and it’s been so long since the last time you were out just having fun, enjoying some time with good friends. If someone told you a few months ago that you’d be sitting here, sipping on a cocktail with Harry who is now your boyfriend, you would have laughed hysterically.

When Harry reaches for you thigh under the table, resting his palm on it, giving it a gentle squeeze just as a sweet gesture, you glance at him and he smiles at you as his eyes meet your gaze. It’s the first time you actually feel like any other couples. Having a nice evening with your friends, touching each other, holding hands, simply living in the moment knowing well that going home he will probably sneak into Izzy’s room, pressing a kiss to her forehead before joining you in bed, falling asleep with his arms curled around your figure.

It’s no surprise when Niall invited Heather over his place for another drink at the end of the night and you can barely hold your smirk back when she refuses and his face completely falls, especially because he was so confident in himself, the evening went well and he was probably sure she would say yes. Instead, she grabs herself a taxi and heads home upon parting ways. Niall is shocked, but he is quick to ask for Heather’s number from you before you say goodbye and you happily give it to him.

On the way home you think about how weird it is that you are still basically working for him. It’s not that you mind being the one who is looking after Izzy, it doesn’t even feel like a job, she has grown so close to you. It’s about getting paid for it when you’re Harry’s girlfriend and even though you know how untraditional everything has been with the two of you, now might be the time to make a change.

Harry checks up on Izzy while you get ready to bed and he joins you under the covers soon. Your thoughts about your possible quitting keep racing in your head and you decide to bring it up, just to see how he sees the situation.

“H?” you softly ask while he is checking a few things on his phone, propped up against the headboard.

“Yeah?” he glances at you, letting you know he is listening.

“Don’t you think it’s weird I’m still working for you?”

He stops and locking his phone he puts it to the nightstand to fully focus on the conversation. He just stares at you for a few seconds before knitting his eyebrows together, that crease between them making an appearance and you fight the urge to smooth it out with your finger.

“You don’t like taking care of her anymore?” Your stomach drops at the way he interpreted your question, because it’s not at all the situation.

“Harry, I love taking care of her!” you smile at him softly and can see the relief in his eyes. “It’s just a little weird that you’re paying me to be with her. I would do it for free,” you explain, hoping he now gets the whole picture.

“Oh!”

“Are you… Are you planning for the long run? With us?”

“Of course,” he nods and now you’re the one relieved at how naturally the answer came to him.

“Then maybe we should look for a solution that doesn’t make me feel like I’m a kept house woman,” you chuckle softly and a small smile tugs on his lips as well.

“What were you thinking about?” Sighing you bite into your bottom lip, not sure what he’ll think about the idea that came to you.

“I’ve been getting a lot of requests for photoshoots. I thought that maybe I could take two more days out of the week to work on them and stay home with Izzy for the rest of them. We could look for a nanny for those days. They wouldn’t have to move in, because I would be home by three probably. I think… I think it could work pretty well.”

Harry takes a few moments to think it through and you know he has to be considerate, the only reason he was so quick to hire you was because Izzy already knew and loved you. Bringing a stranger into the picture is a big change and everyone has to be fine with it to make it work.

“Would that make you happy? Staying home for half of the week with Izzy? I wouldn’t want to ask you to sacrifice your time for her… for us, if it doesn’t benefit you.”

For a few moments you’re just processing his words, but then you finally understand what he meant by that. He is thinking you might take it as if he is using you to take care of his daughter and he doesn’t want you to take responsibility for her if it’s not what you really want. But you see being in Izzy’s life as a privilege, you haven’t truly processed it yourself, but you start to look at her as your own daughter. Having spent the majority of your days with her these past months, it was inevitable to grow so fond of her.

Scooting closer to him you cup his face in your hands as you smile down at him softly, his green irises filled with worry and doubts, probably thinking that he is doing something wrong again, but he is not. He needs to have more trust in himself.

“I would love it, Harry. I love spending time with her and… with you,” you admit and there’s one thing that you’re aching to add.

And I love you.

But you keep that one back, not sure if he is ready to hear it just yet. It’s still so early in your relationship, and it might feel like a bomb if you just dropped it on him. You need to be a little more patient before taking this next step.

Bringing his arms around you he pulls you to his chest, a deep but happy sigh leaving through his nose as he kisses into your hair. Nothing else is said, but no words are needed. It’s been settled that you both are planning for the long run together and you’ll start to alter your life to make it fit into the picture.

You don’t jump into it right away, but a few weeks after the discussion you had about hiring a new nanny, you take the first step. Ruth agrees to cover one day every week, Fridays, so you can have it off for your sessions. Summer brings a lot of events and occasions and your calendar has been getting busier as your circle of customers has been growing lately. Though Ruth is more than happy to spend some more time with Izzy, you all know she won’t be able to do it too long, you need to find someone at last by the end of the summer.

Harry would never admit, but he is very anxious about bringing a new person into Izzy’s life. He is not the toxic kind of parent who wouldn’t let anyone get near his daughter, but he surely is considerate about who he lets to take care of her and it’s understandable.

On an afternoon spent at the park you are chatting with Ava, Yara’s mom when she mentions a nanny agency they’ve tried out before and had a really good experience.

“They hire people with at least three years of experience and many of their nannies have a degree in some kind of field in connection with child care. We had a nice girl from Russia watch after Yara, she is a primary school teacher but she moved here with her boyfriend for a year. She was amazing, really. Yara loved her, Saige and I loved her, it was a good match.”

She gives you a phone number and later that day you look up the agency, presenting the idea to Harry, who seems interested, but a little hesitant.

“We could still have an interview with them, right? Or I would have to just choose someone from the website like from a catalogue?” he voices his concern as the two of you lie in bed with your laptop propped against your thighs.

“I’m sure we can have an interview,” you smile at him.

Harry just nods, ergo he doesn’t reject the idea, but you can tell he has quite a few doubts about it, but there’s not much you can do.

In the course of three weeks you and Harry have five interviews with nannies that the agency sent and at the end of the day, Harry finds something wrong with all of them, even though they are only minor things.

“You rule out people for the tiniest things, Harry,” you sigh after the fifth interview with a kind middle-aged woman, Kaitlyn. “Based on these interviews you wouldn’t have hired me back in the days,” you joke.

“You know it was different with you,” he points it out and you just nod. He has told you so many times how you were just the perfect fit which is very charming, but it doesn’t help the situation on hand right now.

That evening, when you’re lying in bed, reading, while Harry checks up on Izzy one last time, you see that something is on his chest when he walks in and as soon as he is under the covers next to you, but you don’t ask him, instead just wait for him to bring it up himself.

“Y/N, I’m sorry for being such a pain in the ass about the whole nanny thing,” he sighs tiredly. Closing your book you place it on the nightstand before turning to face him fully.

“You’re not a pain in the ass, just very careful and maybe a little picky,” you add with a soft chuckle.

“Do you think I should be the one staying home with her?”

“Most kids spend the majority of their days separated from their parents in daycare, kindergarten or preschool. It’s not a crime that you are not a stay at home dad, not many like to do that or even fit for that role,” you shrug and it’s your genuine opinion. Just because parents don’t devote one hundred percent of their life to their children, it doesn’t make them bad. Parents deserve to be selfish sometimes.

“I just… I can get so into my head about everything I do wrong,” he sighs, closing his eyes and he seem so tired all of a sudden, like he has been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Brushing his hair out of his forehead you kiss him gently before his eyes open again.

“You’re not doing anything wrong, Harry. Believe me, Izzy is having the best childhood she could ever wish for. She is secure, loved and taken care of. Everything is going well.” He doesn’t answer, just nods as his arms wrap around you, pulling you to his chest and you gladly snuggle into his embrace.

That evening it felt like Harry was shifting in the right direction, but you can never know what really goes on in someone’s head and you couldn’t see what was coming.

A few days later another candidate comes for an interview, you, Harry and the young girl called Rachel sit outside at the terrace as Harry goes through the same questions he asked every other applicant while Izzy is playing around the swing set.

Rachel just finished her bachelor’s and is now taking a gap year before moving back to her hometown to work at her father’s law firm. She grew up with three younger sisters and took care of them most of the time to help her parents out who worked a lot. She is nice, very well educated and it’s clear she is great with children. Yet again, when you glance at Harry you don’t see him as satisfied as you are and you already know he is going to find something against her.

“Alright, so what is it this time?” you sigh once Rachel is gone and you can finally talk openly about her.

“She basically doesn’t have any official knowledge about kids, she just grew up with kids, that doesn’t qualify her as a professional.”

“Raising children is the best knowledge you can get, Harry,” you argue, feeling a little impatient this time. Rachel is perfect for the job, but any other applicants would have been fine too. You’re running out of time and Ruth won’t be able to help much longer.

“I would just be a lot more comfortable if it was a professional staying home with my daughter,” he answers, marching into the kitchen and you follow him.

“There were plenty of professionals between the previous ones as well. You are ruling everyone out!”

“I’m not ruling them out, I’m just trying to make the best decision for my child!”

“By being absolutely insatiable?!”

“Why is it so bad that I want the best choice?” he growls throwing his hands into the air.

“It’s not, but the best choice is not always one without any flaws, Harry,” you point it out, hoping he gets what you’re talking about.

“But I want this to be flawless!” he snaps and you can see that he has lost his patience at this point, but so did you. “I’m not settling for less than what I want, Y/N!”

“So then what? You lied when we talked about all of this? Because without a replacement, I can’t start working more!”

“I didn’t fucking lie, I’m just asking for more time!”

“Well it seems like you just want to push me into changing my mind about switching jobs and eventually say that I’m staying home, taking the blame off of you!”

“I’m not pushing you into anything, Y/N. We still have time until the end of summer, I just want to find the perfect person, give me some time!”

“Harry, there won’t be a perfect person!” you raise your voice, done with running the same circles at this point. “Any of the previous applicants would have taken good care of Izzy, why are you ignoring it?!”

“Stop telling me what to do when it comes to Izzy!” he then snaps, his voice beaming through the room, taking you by surprise. But what he says after this is what really hits you hard in the chest. “She is my daughter, not yours!”

Part of you knows he didn’t mean it the way it came out. Like you had absolutely no relations to Izzy, like you weren’t partially raising her way before you got together with Harry. You can see that it just slipped out in the heat of the moment, but your anger is making you selfish and not care about that anymore. His words hurt and you’ve stopped making excuses for him.

“Yeah, you’re right. Why am I still even here?” you calmly ask before simply turning around and heading out.

The calm but warning tone snaps him out and he is quick to realize he has crossed a line. He launches after you and almost catches you in the hallway when Izzy runs inside, calling out for him.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Harry stops and turns around to see if she is alright and it gives you just enough time to escape. You rush out of the house and throw yourself into your car, igniting it and driving away as Harry shows up at the front door, calling after you, but you ignore it, making your way to your mom’s. You need a familiar place to calm yourself down at.

Harry tries to call you several times, and though the first few times it rings out, you send his calls to voicemail almost immediately after a while.

“Damn it,” he growls after another failed attempt to reach you. It’s been almost an hour since you stormed out and he is losing his mind, not knowing where you are, especially after what he said.

He regretted it the moment the words fell from his lips, but he knew it was too late. He let his anger bring the worst out of him and it all crashed down on you when you didn’t deserve any of it. Harry knows you’re right, he’s been trying to find something bad about every applicant because… part of him thinks that he is a bad father for not being the one taking care of Izzy all the time. If it wasn’t enough already, he’s been feeling like a failure for years… ever since he lost his wife because he wasn’t ready to commit more time for his family. He’s been dealing with the thought of being the worst father for so long, sometimes he convinces himself it’s the truth.

If I was ready for another baby, Maggie wouldn’t have had to die. If I put my family first, she would still be alive, he tells himself often when he is feeling the darkness clouding over his mind. Little does he know that it’s all just in his head. It doesn’t make him a bad father that he wanted to wait a little longer before having another baby. He never put his work above his family, he was always there when he was needed and made sure his loved ones are safe and taken care of. Never in his life did he ever put his work before Izzy or Maggie or anyone in his life he cared about.

But sometimes, your mind can play dirty tricks on you. And Harry fell for them.

As time is passing by he is growing more and more anxious when he doesn’t hear from you. No calls, no texts, he has no idea where you went or when you’re coming back. Sitting on the edge of the bed he stares out the window blankly before his eyes wander to the side where you usually sleep and it hits him hard when he realizes how eerily similar the situation is.

Following a fight his lover runs away, doesn’t answer his calls and he can’t get a hold of her. It’s like history is repeating itself all over again and as realization creeps up his spine, his throat tightens and he gasps, tears flooding into his eyes. With shaky hands he grabs his phone and dials Niall’s number, hoping he is not out somewhere at a bar, ignoring his phone.

“What’s up?” he answers the phone delightfully.

“Call Heather now and ask if she knows Y/N’s mom’s address,” he snaps immediately frantically.

“Woah, what happened?”

“Niall! Just do what I asked!” he barks and ends the call, giving his friend the chance to obey. Luckily, Niall feels the seriousness of the situation and does as Harry asked. A few minutes later a text arrives to Harry’s phone with the address.

Putting Izzy into the car he speeds down the streets to Gemma’s house who is shocked to see her brother in this state, but she doesn’t have the chance to ask anything as Harry drops Izzy off and asks her to watch her for the night.

“Okay, yeah, but—“

“Not now, Gemma!” he calls back, already running back to his car, heading to your mother’s house where you sought comfort following the fight.

“Not that I don’t like having you here, but you really should go home and talk it out.” Trevor joins you outside where you’ve been sitting on the steps of the terrace, staring out into the darkening sky. It’s been a few hours since you basically ran away from home and Harry has been blowing your phone up so you put it into airplane mode, sending all his calls to voicemail until you feel like dealing with him.

Trevor sits beside you, his long legs coming up closer to his chest as he sits the same way as you, his arms hug his knees.

“I know, I just… I’m a little tired,” you mumble.

“You don’t have to discuss it, but Harry would want you home for the night, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” you nod breathing out. “Do you think I overreacted?” you ask him, feeling unsure about the way you acted. Was it too much? Did you have the right to do it? You’re not so sure about it anymore.

“Well, he didn’t lie about Izzy not being your daughter,” Trevor huffs. “Though he could have handled the situation better. I get it that he just wants what’s best for her, but you were right too.”

Sitting in silence Trevor doesn’t try to convince you to apologize or keep holding a grudge. He just lets you figure it out all by yourself.

Not long later you go back inside and grabbing your phone from the dining table you decide to turn it back on, missed calls and texts flooding the device, but for your biggest surprise, not just from Harry.

Heather: Niall just called me to get your mom’s address urgently, everything alright?!

“Oh shit,” you gasp, typing a quick reply to assure her that you’re fine and then you open Harry’s text seeing how frantic he grew over time and you realize what it must feel like to him. The situation is way too similar to the way he lost Maggie and though you didn’t mean to hurt him by putting him through it again, it’s already too late.

Just as you are about to call him to let him know you’re fine a car pulls up on the drive way and you know it’s him. You rush out the front door the moment he jumps out of the car, eyes wide, chest heaving as he finally lays his eyes on you.

“Oh my God!” he breaks down in tears as you smash against him, wrapping him in your arms, he does the same, his strong arms circling around your waist tightly as he sobs into your chest painfully.

“I’m fine, everything is alright. I’m fine. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for running away like that,” you mumble, kissing the side of his head, holding him for dear life.

“I was so scared it happened again!” he whimpers, his whole body shaking. You slowly start pulling him until you reach the little front porch where there is a small bench kept next to the front door. You sit and pull him with yourself, he doesn’t even loosens his hold around you, as if you would turn to dust if he lets go of you.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think it through,” you hum, fingers combing through his hair as you try to calm him down. He is still shaking, but his sobs are starting to die down finally, his hands still fisting your shirt at your waist.

“No, I’m sorry for being such a dick. I didn’t mean it. You are doing so much for Izzy and I, I don’t know what I would do without you!” he whimpers and when he finally lifts his head up, your heart breaks at the painful look in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. You were right about everything! Please forgive me!”

“Oh Harry,” you breathe out, the tears already welling in your eyes as you brush his messy curls out of his forehead.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt you, what I said was bullshit! Please forgive me, I can’t… I don’t want to lose you, Y/N,” he stutters with one breath and then he adds: “I love you.”

Your lips part as you stare back at him in total awe at his sudden confession. Though it’s been an emotional ride, you weren’t expecting him to drop this bomb on you. A smile cracks on lips as you cup his face in your hands, feeling a hot tear rolling down your cheek.

“I love you too, Harry,” you answer, both of you letting out a relieved chuckle as he finally presses his lips to yours. His kiss tastes salty from both your tears, it’s needy and a little uncoordinated, but it means the world to you at this moment.

Sitting on the little bench you finally talk everything out once you both calm down enough to speak. Harry admits that he’s been so picky about the nannies because he is still struggling to be the best father he can and is reminded of being alone in this every time he faces a struggle. It constantly reminds him that he is supposed to have his partner with him, solving everything together, but now he is on his own and has to provide the best possible life for Izzy.

“Harry… you’re not alone,” you breathe out, heart aching for the man you love with everything in you. “And I’m not only talking about myself. Your mom, Gemma, Niall, even Saige, Ava and Linda are always happy to help you out with everything. If Maggie was still here, it wouldn’t be just the two of you. Raising a child needs a whole village,” you chuckle softly. “But if you want a partner in it… I’m here. And I really mean it. I see a future with you, I want to be part of your family, of course, only if you let me.” Reaching over your hand finds his on his lap and you squeeze it gently as he looks at you, his expression still a little torn, but it’s not as painful as it was when he arrived.

“I would love to have you be part of my family, Y/N.”

It’s like a rock is lifted off your chest upon hearing his reassuring words. This is all you ever wanted, have a partner in life who is willing to build a future together with you and Harry is offering you just that.

You stay on that old little bench for so long, you don’t even realize how late it has gotten, only when your mom shows up at the door, wearing her nightgown and a fluffy robe.

“Don’t want to bother, but do you want to spend the night? Just asking if I should get you some extra pillows and blankets…”

“Oh! Um, no. We are going home, but thank you mom,” you smile tiredly, noticing it’s nearing midnight now.

Harry stands from next to you and as he steps to your mother you realize they haven’t even met. Harry stands tall in front of your mom, but you notice the nervous flash in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even have the time to introduce myself,” he mumbles with a nervous chuckle. Your mom blushes, most likely finding your boyfriend quite handsome though you already showed pictures of him to her. “I’m Harry,” he says, holding out a hand.

“Oh, no worries! I’m Tina!” she smiles charmingly as they shake hands.

“Nice to meet you, Tina.”

“I know we should have probably had a better introduction, but we’ll come around some other time under better circumstances,” you chuckle softly as you stand up from the bench too.

You say goodbye to Trevor and your mom and finally head home. Harry tries to convince you to ride back in his car, but you don’t want to leave yours here, so you tell him it’s going to be fine. Both of you arrive in one piece and you only realize that Izzy is nowhere to be found when you walk into the house.

“Dropped her off at Gemma’s. I’ll have to explain a lot of things to my sister tomorrow, but it can wait,” he chuckles softly before his hands reach out to you, grabbing your waist gently as he pulls you closer to him. “I’m so sorry for tonight, Y/N.”

“Hey, we agreed that no more apologizing,” you remind him of the deal you made earlier. “It’s all in the past.”

Harry nods, huffing through his nose before leaning down he kisses you softly, as if you were some kind of fragile artwork that needs to be handled with so much care.

“I love you,” he whispers against your lips, his eyes barely open under his thick lashes.

“I love you too,” you smile back, your hands coming to rest at the base of his neck.

“I will never get tired of hearing that,” he chuckles lowly, making you laugh too.

“Good, because I’ll be saying it a lot.”

“Perfect.”

“Stop picking on your lip!” you warn Harry when you catch him fidgeting with his bottom lip. He wouldn’t admit, but he is surely nervous as the two of you are waiting for Izzy to join you downstairs. She just got home from the zoo with Gemma, they had an amazing day together, but it had a purpose. You needed her to be looked after while you went to the doctor. It was your first ultrasound since the time you went to see if you’re really pregnant or the tests just fooled you, but it was one hundred percent legit. You were indeed pregnant.

You and Harry got married a few weeks before Izzy turned six. She was the cutest little flower girl in the small ceremony held at the backyard of your own home. Both of you agreed that you don’t want anything big and flashy, just an intimate little wedding with your close family and friends. It’s been two months of being husband and wife and it’s almost completely sure the little baby growing now in your tummy was conceived on your wedding night…

You’ve been keeping it a secret, wanting to tell Izzy first before sharing the news with your friends and family.

“Do you want to talk first or do I do it?” Harry asks in a whisper, as if Izzy could hear anything from upstairs.

“I have a feeling you wouldn’t be able to get a word out so I’ll take the lead, if you don’t mind,” you chuckle softly and Harry doesn’t argue.

He has been such a nerve wreck thinking about telling Izzy that she is going to be a big sister. These past years she has dealt so well with processing everything about the situation with her mom, you and the idea of her dad having a new wife. You felt like she was a little confused at the beginning, but once you had an actual, mature talk with her, answered all her questions, you could see things shift to place in that cute little head of hers. Now she knows what it means that her mom passed and how you came into the picture. This is why you have no doubt she’ll take the news well, but Harry is still afraid she might flip.

Little feet tap against the floor somewhere upstairs and then Izzy runs down the stairs, joining you at the dining table.

“What’s the surprise?” she asks in excitement. You told her you have a surprise for her when she arrived and now she is pumped for whatever is coming.

“Izzy, you know how Zac has a little brother, right?” you ask, smoothly starting the discussion.

“Yes! His name is Jeremy!”

“Yeah. So Jeremy is a little younger than Zac, they are siblings. Zac’s parents wanted to have more than just one kids and so they decided to have Jeremy.”

“Mrs. Rumbald had him in her belly!” she explains cleverly. The topic of babies has already came up earlier, so now she has an idea of what really happens when a couple decides to have a baby.

“Exactly,” you nod smiling. “You know how your daddy and I are now married, right? We talked about what it meant.” Izzy nods, glancing at her father who is sitting beside you, sweating his balls off even though it’s going smoothly. “Married couples often decide to have babies. This is what your dad and I did too and now there is a baby in my belly too. That means that you’re going to have a little brother or sister soon.”

Izzy blinks a few times, processing your words before her face lights up with excitement as she gasps.

“Can I play with her?” she asks, making you and Harry laugh.

“Might be a boy, baby,” Harry chimes in.

“Okay, then can I play with him or her?” she corrects herself.

“Well, you have to be careful with newborn babies, but I’m sure she or he will love to play with you!”

“What’s it gonna be called?” she asks her next question.

“We don’t know that yet. But you can suggest names if you want to,” Harry offers.

“Can it be Elsa if it’s a girl?” she immediately suggests and you smile at her first thought. Of course she says Elsa, she is going through her mandatory Frozen obsession like every other kid at her age.

“We’ll put it on the list,” you tell her. “Do you want to see a picture of the baby?”

“You can take pictures of the inside of your belly?” she asks with a confused look.

“Well, not with a camera like the ones I use,” you explain as you place the black and white, messy picture of the tiny baby in front of her. She grabs it and starts inspecting it as if it was some kind of puzzle and you can tell she is having a hard time making out where the actual baby is. “That’s right there. It’s still tiny and has to grow a lot,” you tell her, pointing at the right splotch in the picture.

“Can I keep this picture?” she asks smiling up at you sweetly. “I want to put it to my wall!”

A while ago Harry has gotten her a huge frame right above her bed that has wires running across it with tiny clips attached. You’ve gifted her her favorite polaroids from your stack you’ve collected through the years, most of them featuring the three of you. It’s touching to know that she wants her little sibling there already.

“Of course!” you breathe out, touched by the idea.

You follow her up into her room and while she stands on the bed, you put the sonogram next to a photo that was taken of her and Harry on her sixth birthday.

“Can I tell my friends at school that I’m going to have a brother or sister?” she asks, still standing on the bed so now she is almost as tall as you are.

“Um…” glancing over at the door your eyes meet Harry’s who just shrugs, letting you know it’s up to you. “I guess you can, yes.”

“Thank you!” she beams, throwing her little arms around your neck as she hugs you tight and you return it gladly. “Can I watch some TV, please?” she asks with an angelic look she knows you can never resist.

“Yeah, but only for an hour,” you tell her as she jumps in victory before climbing off the bed. Running to the door she gives Harry a hug before disappearing down the hallway. Harry walks in, a proud and soft smile tugging on his lips as he steps to you, his hands finding your waist. He pulls you against his hard chest, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead.

“This went well, right?” he asks.

“Yeah, you were such a big help, sitting there in silence,” you chuckle teasing him.

“But you handled it so good, baby. I didn’t want to interrupt,” he smirks and you just roll your eyes at him before circling your arms around his neck.

“Uh-huh, sure,” you smirk. “So… are you ready to be a daddy again?” you ask him with a shy smile.

“Technically, I never stopped being a daddy,” he points out. “The real question is, are you ready to become a mommy?” he asks turning it back to you.

“I’m… a little nervous, but very excited. I think I’m ready,” you nod smiling.

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be alright,” he hums, kissing into your hair.

“Wow, when did you become the emotional support in this relationship?” you tease him and he just rolls his eyes.

“Learned from the best,” he nudges his nose against yours before kissing you softly. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” you smile against his lips, thinking about how long the two of you have become since you first met and you are happy you got to be the person who taught Harry how to love and be loved again.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

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imagine-a-life-like-this · 3 years

Text

I Was A Bet, You Were A Distraction (K.SJ/M.YG)

Warnings : swearing, drinking, betting on feelings

Word Count : 4941

Synopsis : a relationship started on a bet, a classic trope, but with a twist.

I knew the rumours that circulated about me. I knew what everyone thought of me, but it never bothered me. Being an ice queen and keeping everyone at an arms length keeps my heart safe. Guys still tried to break me, wanting to be known as the person who broke the ice queen, but I’ve never cracked.

“Another rejection?” My best friend, Park Jimin, pouted as he sat across from me. “You really should give someone a chance. You’re obviously not going to make a move on library guy.”

“His name is Min Yoongi.” I cut him off, a playful smile on my face as he rolled his eyes. “Besides, that guy was gross. He literally told me he could show me a fun time if I just showed him a pretty smile.”

“Okay, gross.” Jimin chuckled. “But please, if a non-gross guy asks you out, just give it a shot. They could surprise you.” I rolled my eyes, reluctantly agreeing to the only guy I’ve ever had a soft spot for.

“Hey, Y/N.” Someone said as Jimin and I were getting ready to leave the café and grab dinner. When I turned around, I met the eyes of the infamous Kim Seokjin, standing there with a nervous smile on his face. “I was wondering if you wanted to get dinner with me sometime?” His eyes looked hopeful, but it didn’t phase me. I heard the rumours; heard the stories of the many girls he’s been with. I refused to be another notch in his belt. But before I could reject him, Jimin jumped in.

“She’d love to!” Seokjin looked over to my best friend who had thrown his arm across my shoulders, and then looked at me for confirmation.

“Sure, Kim Seokjin.” I didn’t bother faking a smile. I’m sure he’d heard the rumours about me. I’m sure he just wants to be the one to crack me. He’s always enjoyed a challenge.

“Great! Uh, here’s my number. Text me.” He handed me a piece of paper ripped from a notebook with his number scrawled on it. I took it from him, telling him I’d text him later, and walked away as fast as I could.

“I thought you said non-gross guy, Jimin!” I hit him lightly as we walked away from the café. “Kim Seokjin is one of the grossest!”

“Yes, but he’s got money, babe. I did you a favour.” He lightly shoved me with his shoulder, and I couldn’t help but laugh and roll my eyes. I suppose one date couldn’t hurt. I’ll get some good food out of it at the very least.

“Here, drink some water.” Yoongi looked up at me from his textbooks with wide eyes. He quietly thanked me as I took my usual seat across from him. I took quick glances up at him every once in a while as I studied, thinking about the first day I took the seat across from him.

I used to study at the café as I waited for Jimin to get out of dance. But random guys would always interrupt me, and I found myself barely getting any studying done. So I decided to study at the library for a couple hours before heading to the café to meet Jimin per our tradition.

Min Yoongi, known as the ice king, would always sit alone. Sitting with him was my best bet in getting any work done, knowing he wouldn’t bother me. He seemed annoyed when I first sat down, but when he saw it was me, didn’t say a word. No one dared bothered us when we were together.

It didn’t take a genius to see how handsome Min Yoongi was. I always found myself sneaking glances at him while we studied, unable to keep my eyes off of him. We spoke a few words to each other over these last few months, and that was enough for me to give into my growing crush.

“Hey, Y/N?” He softly asked as I began packing up. I seized my movements, looking up at the gorgeous man I can’t stop thinking about. “I heard you were the best at this, would you mind tutoring me sometime? I’ve been having a hard time grasping it.” He pointed to a homework booklet he was given that was still completely blank save for his name in the top right corner.

“I got to go meet up with a friend, but,” I ripped a corner off from one of my notebooks and quickly scrawled my number on it, sliding it across from him. “Text me and we can figure something out.” He looked up at me with a small smile on his face, and I could swear time stopped. I quickly shook myself out of the trance his smile put me in and packed up the rest of my books before walking to the café, a lovesick smile on my face.

I was dressed in my best dress, my hair and makeup done to the best of my abilities, and I couldn’t help but smile at myself in the mirror. “Who knew my best friend was so hot.” Jimin joked over Facetime, a playful smile on his face.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to actually go on a date with Kim Seokjin.” I grumbled, collapsing on my couch as I waited for him.

“It didn’t take much convincing. I know apart of you is excited to live the rich life for one night.” I giggled, but we both knew he was right. When the doorbell rang, I said my goodbyes to Jimin and went to answer it, surprised to see Seokjin standing there in a tailored suit holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Wow, you look, wow.” I chuckled, taking the flowers he was holding out for me. Quickly, I filled a vase with water and placed them inside before sliding on a pair of heels and grabbing my purse.

“You know you could have just texted that you were here.” I pointed out as he opened the car door for me.

“How am I supposed to sweep you off your feet if I do that?” He smiled before closing the door and rushing to his side.

As much as I hate to admit it, I actually enjoyed the time I spent with Jin. He was a complete gentleman right up to the end. And there wasn’t any awkward silence; conversation seemed to flow easily. I found myself laughing at his jokes and his stories. Time just seemed to fly by while I was with him as he wasn’t dropping me off until after midnight. “You certainly surprised me tonight, Kim Seokjin.” I smiled.

“Does that mean you’ll go on a second date with me?” I found myself agreeing before I could stop myself. Maybe this is exactly what I needed to get over my one-sided crush on Min Yoongi. He’d be a good distraction.

“I hear our resident Ice Queen got a boyfriend.” Yoongi teased as I sat across from him. Ever since our first date, Jin and I have been spending more time together. I still keep up my regular schedule of studying with Yoongi until I have to leave to meet up with Jimin, but Jin and his friends have decided to join us. It’s been 2 months since my first date with Jin, and 1 month since we’ve made it official.

“Now it’s time for our resident Ice King to get a girlfriend.” I teased back, taking a sip of the coffee Yoongi bought me. He’s made it a daily thing, buying my favourite coffee before I come, and I bring us water since we’re usually here for a couple hours together.

“Unlikely.” He chuckled. My heart started to pound as I looked up at his smiling face. “The girl I like doesn’t like me back.” He added before taking a sip of his own coffee.

“Oh my god! The Min Yoongi has a crush!” I quietly exclaimed, a wide smile on my face as I wrapped a hand around his wrist, begging him to tell me about the girl he likes.

“She’s beautiful.” He says, blush rising to his cheeks. “But I can tell she doesn’t believe she is. And she’s so smart, so kind. There really isn’t a better girl.” I thought dating Jin would help my one-sided crush on Yoongi, but as I sit across from him as he tells me about this girl he likes, I can feel my heart breaking, knowing it’ll never be me.

I stood in the kitchen while the party raged on around me. Since dating Jin, Jimin and I have been invited to a lot more parties, parties I keep getting dragged to. I watched as Jimin drank and made new friends, enjoying himself, and I couldn’t be happier for him. I watched as Jin and his friends played some games, laughing and drinking the night away. They’ve always been the life of the party, and though I don’t like parties, I wasn’t going to stop my boyfriend from enjoying himself. So I stood in the kitchen, watching as everyone enjoys themselves, silently wishing I took Yoongi up on his offer to see a movie tonight.

“Now don’t tell me this beautiful girl is here alone.” I looked up and met a stranger’s eyes as he smirked at me. “All alone, standing in my kitchen, must be fate.” He continued, draping an arm across my shoulders.

“Actually I’m here with my boyfriend.” I smiled, turning towards where Jin last was, and seeing that him and his friends disappeared. My heart dropped to my stomach when I couldn’t see them anywhere.

“No need to lie to me.” He teased, removing his arm from my shoulders, and instead wrapping it around my waist, pulling me closer to him as I tried to move away from him. “I’m sure I can show the Ice Queen a good time.”

“What are you doing, Minho?” The familiar voice eases my nerves but seems to do the opposite to Minho. His arm immediately drops from my waist as his eyes widen, meeting Yoongi’s eyes filled with anger. If I didn’t know Yoongi the way I do, I’d be terrified. When Yoongi raised his brow, Minho left the kitchen without another word. “Sorry about him. I’m still training him.” He chuckled. “Where’s Jin?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked around for my boyfriend.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, ignoring his question. “I didn’t know Mr. Min Yoongi partied.” I teased, a smile making its way to my lips.

“I’m actually, unfortunately, apart of this frat. My dad actually started this frat with his friends, so I had no choice.” He explained, chuckling at my shocked face. “I really do apologize for Minho. I hope he didn’t make you too uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay, Yoongs. Thank you for saving me though. I don’t know where any of the guys went.” I took a quick look around, trying to see if I could any of the 6 guys I came with. “If you see any of them, can you let them know I went home? Parties really aren’t my thing.” I chuckled.

“I’ll take you home.” He said, setting the cup he was holding down on the counter. “Just text one of them to let them know you’re safe.” I nodded, closely following Yoongi as the two of us made our way through the dense crowd of people and out the front door. As we walked, I sent a quick text to both Jimin and Jin, letting them know Yoongi was walking me home.

“You know, you didn’t have to walk me home.” I spoke up after some silence. “It is technically your party; shouldn’t you be there?”

“Honestly, I try not to be home when there’s a party. It’s why I asked you to a movie tonight. Well that, and I like spending time with you.” My heart fluttered at his words. My head began spinning with theories as to what he meant. Would I be reading too far into it by thinking he has feelings for me too?

Monday afternoon, Yoongi was sitting at our regular table in the library, two coffees in front of him as per usual. “How’d your test go?” I asked, placing a bottle of water in front of him before taking my seat. He looked up at me as I sat down, a smile on his face when he met my eyes. So different than how things used to be.

“I won’t get the results until the end of the week, but I think I aced it!” He exclaimed. I remember the days we would study silently across from each other, not knowing anything about each other besides the rumours that circulated.

“Of course! You have the best tutor.” I joked, a wide smile on my face as he just smiled back at me, chuckling slightly, and shaking his head. I used to know absolutely nothing about him, besides the small things I heard from others, and the things I picked up on while silently crushing on him.

Now I know his smile. I know it so well I could probably draw it from memory. I know that his older brother would always cook for him. I know he’s not as close to his family as he wished he was. I know he struggles in his classes. I know he prefers iced coffee over hot coffee, and that he always forgets to drink water. He hates parties and spends most weekends at a diner, studying and trying to keep his grades up. I know he’s so far from being an Ice King. He’s so caring, so kind. And I know that I’m falling in love with him.

“I think it’s time we call it.” I overheard as I walked into the café I meet Jimin at everyday. I looked over to the tables Jin and his friends push together so the 7 of us can sit together, and saw the 5 of them sitting together, serious looks on all their faces.

“I love hanging out with her and Jimin.” Taehyung spoke, and I quickly sat at a nearby table, wanting to hear what they have to say. “You need to tell her about the bet.”

“A bet?! Seriously Jackson?” He stumbled over his words, trying to come up with a good excuse, but there wasn’t one. “Glad I could help you win. Don’t contact me again.” I pushed passed him as he called after me, but there wasn’t anything else that needed to be said. 2 years. I wasted 2 years of my life thinking we were in love, but it was all a bet. It was never love.

Jimin sat in front of me, snapping me out of my memories. He opened his mouth to say something, but I shushed him and pointed over to the guys.

“She’s so awesome. I feel so bad.” Jungkook added to the conversation. “She doesn’t deserve to have her feelings played with like this.”

“We can tell her everything and apologize. Hopefully, she’ll forgive us.” Jimin looked at me with confusion on his eyes as I struggled to breathe. It’s like high school all over again. When Jackson came into my life, stole my heart, and then destroyed me. Telling me he loved me, and planning our future, all the while laughing with his friends about how gullible I was. Jimin was the one to pull me out of my slump, but I put my walls up and I promised myself I’d never let them crumble. I’d never be so naïve again.

“I doubt she’d even care.” Jin scoffed. “She’s the Ice Queen for a reason.” Yet here I was, repeating it all over again.

“Just because she’s an Ice Queen doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings, hyung.” Hoseok spoke up, shaking his head. I’ll admit that the reason I started dating Jin wasn’t the best, but I found myself enjoying his company. Everything felt real, like he really cared about me. My feelings for Yoongi have always been stronger, but sometimes I felt myself falling for Jin’s charms. He’s not the school playboy for nothing. He really knows how to make a girl feel special. He knows how to knock down any wall someone has put up to protect themselves.

“Whatever. You guys can tell her about the bet then. While you’re at it, you can tell her we’re over. I have things to do.” He stood up from the table, and that’s when they all noticed Jimin and I sitting at a nearby table. Jin’s eyes widened when he saw us.

“You guys are all fucking disgusting.” Jimin exclaimed, standing up from the table. “You’re damn right she doesn’t deserve this. No one does! Y/N, let’s go.” His voice softened when he looked over at me, tears welling up in my eyes as I looked up at the man who bet on my heart. “They don’t deserve your tears, angel.” He whispered, wiping away my tears before grabbing my hand and dragging me out of the café.

“Talk about déjà vu.” I chuckled as we walked towards my apartment.

“Guys are the worst.” Jimin mumbled, shaking his head as the two of us walked hand in hand. I laced our fingers and walked closer beside him, swinging our arms causing him to chuckle at me.

“You’ve always been the exception to that statement, Min.” I smiled up at my best friend. I wasn’t in love with Jin the way I was with Jackson, but it doesn’t hurt any less. The crush that was forming on the handsome man quickly faded as the reality set in. Once again I was a bet. And I just wished people would stop making bets on my feelings.

“Don’t you usually leave by now?” Yoongi asked as the two of us studied together the next day. “The boyfriend is probably waiting for you.” He chuckled.

“We actually broke up.” His smile quickly fell as he spit out an apology. “It’s fine. The relationship was all a bet anyway.” I shrugged, trying my best not to let my feelings show. Trying to seem as unbothered as possible. “People love trying to break the Ice Queen.” Little do they know, the reason for my smiles wasn’t Kim Seokjin, but Min Yoongi, the Ice King himself.

“That’s so fucked. Guys are the worst.” He scoffed causing me to chuckle.

“That’s exactly what Jimin said.” I smiled.

“Talking about me?” Jimin joked, taking a seat beside me. “I hope you don’t mind if I intrude from now on.” The statement was directed towards Yoongi who shook his head. “Good, because if I see any of those guys, I will be throwing hands.”

“Please, Jungkook could beat you with just his pinky.” I teased, shoving him lightly. Yoongi was watching us with a fondness in his eyes I haven’t seen before. And I couldn’t stop the pounding of my heart, no matter how hard I tried.

Jimin continued meeting Yoongi and I at the library everyday after getting out of dance. At first I thought Yoongi would hate it as Jimin isn’t known for quietly studying like Yoongi and I are. But he quickly warmed up to my best friend, and 3 of us spent weekends going to movies and to the diner Yoongi loves to much. We avoided all the parties we were once invited to, and the café we were regulars at for so long, hoping never to cross paths with the guys we once considered friends.

My feelings for Yoongi only continued to grow as spent nearly everyday together. Days quickly turned into weeks, and before I knew it, it had been a month since Jin and I broke up. With Jimin and Yoongi with me everyday, I barely had time to feel the hurt I felt when it happened with Jackson. “Y/N.” 1 month since I found out about the bet. 1 month since I’ve seen any of the guys. 1 month and now Jin is standing in front of me. I moved to push passed him and get to the library, but he wrapped his hand around my arm, effectively stopping me. “It’s been a month; can I please just say something?”

“What more is there to say? I was a bet, and honestly speaking Kim Seokjin, you were a distraction.” His hand fell from my arm, dropping back to his side. “It was fun, though. But that doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t hurt. And you didn’t seem to give a fuck. Telling your boys to tell me and break up with me for you. So why now? Don’t tell me some cliché shit that you realized you had feelings for me and that you miss me, because we both know that’s bullshit.” He stayed silent. “Good talk, Kim Seokjin.” I pushed open the doors to the library and made my way to my regular table, Yoongi already there, two coffees in front of him. “I feel like getting drunk.” I said, plopping in my regular seat.

“Rough day?” Yoongi chuckled, sliding my coffee across the table towards me.

“Let’s just say Seokjin wanted to talk.” Yoongi closed his text book and smiled up at me.

“Soju and ice cream?” He asked as he quickly packed up.

“I’ll text Jimin to meet us at my apartment. Let’s get drunk!” I exclaimed, grabbing my coffee, and leaving the library with Yoongi by my side. We were both chuckling as he opened the door, allowing me to walk out first. I wasn’t paying attention as I walked out the door, turning my head to look at Yoongi, and bumped into someone. “Sorry … Namjoon?” He smiled down at me as I quickly took a step back. Yoongi looked up at him before wrapping an arm around me, pulling me closer to him.

“You didn’t let Jin talk, so I figured I’d try.” He smiled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Yoongi spoke up. “You guys got caught; deal with the consequences of your actions.” The two of us tried to walk passed him, but unlike Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon was persistent.

“You act like you don’t make mistakes.” He called after us, stopping us in our tracks. “Jin told me you said he was just a distraction.” I turned to face Namjoon causing Yoongi’s arm to fall back to his side.

“When I agreed to the first date, I agreed hoping for a distraction from my one-sided crush. But when I agreed to the second date, it was because I liked his company. When I said yes to being his girlfriend, it was because I had real feelings for him. And that’s the difference between me and him, Kim Namjoon. Everything on my end was 100% real, where as on his end it was all fake. He pretended to have feelings for me.” Namjoon stared at me, obviously not expecting my blow up. “What else needs to be said, Namjoon?” I asked, my voice cracking. Yoongi slid his hand into mine, lacing our fingers together and giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

“We’re sorry. We never got to apologize, and we want to.” I shook my head.

“I don’t want your apology. You don’t deserve my forgiveness.” He didn’t stop us as we walked away this time. “I really need a drink.” I whispered causing Yoongi to chuckle.

“Consider it done, princess.”

Jimin was angrily pacing around my living room after Yoongi and I told him what happened. “Hoseok approached me today, too. They waited an entire month to try to apologize. What a joke.” He took a swig of his drink. “I can’t believe they did exactly what Jackson and his friends did in high school! Like, we’re in fucking college now.”

“Wait, this happened to you before?” Yoongi jumped in as Jimin continued to mumble to himself between taking swigs of his drink.

“It’s not a big deal.” I shrugged, really not wanting to explain what happened in high school. But Jimin had other plans.

“No big deal?! You switched schools! Wouldn’t eat unless I forced you to! Jackson is the whole reason you’re known as the Ice Queen in the first place.” Yoongi looked between the two of us. “You spent 2 years believing he was the great love of your life, just to find out it was all a bet and he never loved you. That’s a big deal!”

“2 years?” Yoongi asked and all I could do was nod. “God, guys fucking suck.” He exclaimed, leaning back on the couch as he took another sip of his drink.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Jimin added, plopping himself down on a chair.

“You two are the only guys I need.” I smiled, cuddling up to Yoongi, who happily wrapped his arms around me and placed a kiss on top of my head.

“I never should have told you to go on that date.” Jimin mumbled as he watched Yoongi and I.

“You didn’t know it would end up like this.” I told him; my words muffled by Yoongi’s shirt as my head rested on his chest. The three of us continued to drink, trying to forget all the angst of the day and have a good night.

“Hey! Now that Suck-Jin is gone, you can make your move!” Jimin exclaimed some hours later, all of us considerably more drunk than we expected to be.

“Oh yeah! You were saying you had a crush on someone!” Yoongi jumped in, poking my arm with a teasing smile on his face. “You’re beautiful! You should just go for it.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Come on, Y/N!” Yoongi whined. “I want to see you happy.”

“Yeah, Y/N! What was his name again?” I couldn’t help but laugh at how Jimin hasn’t changed. He still forgets everything when he’s drunk. “Yoongi!” He yelled, causing Yoongi to look over at him.

“You don’t have to yell, I’m right here!” Yoongi yelled back. Jimin’s eyes widened.

“Y/N! Now’s your chance! He’s right there.” He loudly whispered, cupping his hands around his mouth as if that would stop Yoongi from hearing him.

“Shut up, Jimin!” I said as I threw a pillow towards him, missing by a lot due to the alcohol in my system. “He has a crush on some girl!” I exclaimed with a pout on my face.

“Dammit Yoongi!” Jimin exclaimed. “How can you not like Y/N?!” He leaned forward in his chair, causing him to fall to the ground. I burst out laughing, completely forgetting the conversation that was happening seconds previous.

“Idiot! You’re always falling off chairs.” I laughed, but Yoongi was silent, seeming to have quickly sobered up. “Yah!” I slapped Yoongi’s arm. “What’s with that face?” I pouted.

“You like me?” My eyes widened as my jaw dropped.

“Who told you?” I whispered. “You weren’t supposed to know!” Yoongi chuckled, shaking his head at me.

“I think it’s bed time for you.” He stood up, holding a hand out for me to take so he could help me up. “Jimin,” he turned to saying something, but Jimin was passed out on the floor. “Okay then.” He chuckled before helping me to my room.

“Stay.” I pouted as I patted the empty space beside me. He shook his head as he tucked me in and turned to leave. “Yoongs!” I whined. “I want cuddles.” He chuckled, standing in my doorway contemplating whether he should stay or leave. “Please.”

“Always my weakness.” He mumbled to himself before crawling into bed with me and pulling me into his arms. I fell asleep quickly while listening to his heartbeat.

I woke up still wrapped in Yoongi’s arms, and the events of the previous night hit me like a truck. “Fuck.” I whispered to myself, trying to wriggle out of his arms without waking him up.

“You wanted cuddles; you live with the consequences.” He mumbled; his eyes still closed.

“Yah, if you’re awake, let me go.” I whined, trying to pull his arms off of me, but his grip only tightened. “What are you doing?” I asked, eventually giving up on getting out of his arms. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand before pressing a soft kiss to the top of my head. “Wow, who would have known the Ice King was actually the biggest softie.” I joked.

“Says miss Ice Queen pouting until I cuddled her.” I let out a small giggle, the memory coming back to me slowly. “You and Jimin are really funny when you’re drunk.” Before I could ask, he continued. “You accidentally confessed to me last night.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but I heard him loud and clear. “Before you panic,” He was moving so he could look at me, but his arms were still around me. “I like you too.” I couldn’t help the smile the overtook my face when he said that. “So if we can shake the third wheel, I’d like to take you out today.” I giggled, but promised I’d find a way for it to be just us. “Okay, then I’m going to go home and get ready. I’ll see you in a couple hours.” He pressed a soft kiss to my temple before getting out of my bed and leaving.

My two previous relationships may have failed miserably, but I know things are different this time. Third times a charm, as they say.

#bts imagine #bts au #min yoongi imagine #min yoongi au #min yoongi x reader #kim seokjin imagine #kim seokjin au #kim seokjin x reader #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook

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handsomelyhiddleston · 3 years

Text

The Cabin - Tom Hiddleston x Curvy Reader (Part 1/3)

“What’s got you so distracted?” Evans asked Tom.

“Sorry, I just…I had planned on visiting my family again during break, but most of them will be on a cruise for a family friend’s wedding. I know I saw them less than two months ago for Christmas, but I don’t get to see them often anymore.”

“Oh, damn!” Chris replied.

“I know, I’m considering whether or not it’s even worth it to deal with two incredibly long flights going to and from London if I’m not even going to get to see my family.” He said, opening the make-up trailer door for him and Chris.

“Where else were you thinking about spending break?” he asked, plopping down in the make-up chair to start having all of the Captain America washed off for the next two weeks.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I may just take a trip to somewhere much closer by myself.” Tom answered, running his fingers through his hair when his wig was removed.

“If that’s what you WANT to do, cool, but you should just come with me to the cabin.” Chris suggested.

“The cabin?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, my friend Y/N owns a huge cabin and I drag my family up there every few years.” He explained.

“Thank you for the invite, but I couldn’t intrude on your family’s time with you.” Tom politely answered.

“Come on. First, you know my mother loves you. Second, you aren’t intruding on anything.” Chris tried convincing him.

“I really don’t want to be a bother.” Tom felt guilty, knowing how much of a family person Chris was.

“That’s it.” Chris dramatically pulled his cellphone out. “Siri, call Ma!”

“You wouldn’t.” Tom said, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Calling ‘Ma’” Siri’s voice replied. The make-up artists were trying hard to keep their laughs to themselves at this point.

After a few rings, Chris’ mother answered the phone. “Hey sweetie.”

“Hey Ma, I’m here with Hiddleston and I need you to settle an argument.” Chris shot Tom a snarky ‘watch this’ look.

“Tom! How are you, sweetheart?” Chris’ mom Lisa asked.

“I’m doing well, thank you. How have you been?” Tom replied with a grin on his face.

“I’m good, I’m good. Now what are you two arguing about?” She asked.

“Well, Tom isn’t going to get to see his family over filming break.” Chris started to explain.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Lisa interrupted. “You should just drive up to Y/n’s with Chris! There’s plenty of room and you know I always make too much food anyhow.”

Chris gave Tom a cocky grin. “That’s exactly what I was telling him, Ma!”

“You’re too kind.” Tom laughed. “I suppose you’ve made an offer I can’t refuse.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re always welcome with us.” Lisa reiterated. “We’re getting ready for bed since our flight is so damn early in the morning, so I’ll see you two tomorrow!”

“Thanks, Ma! Be safe!” Chris answered, hanging up the phone.

“Thank you.” Tom said, getting up from his make-up chair.

“I told you, it’s no biggie. We’re gonna have a blast.” Evans answered.

“When are we leaving?” Tom asked.

“Well, we’ve got a few options.” Chris answered as the two of them left the make-up trailer.

“Go on.”

“They aren’t expecting us there until tomorrow, but if we leave in the next few hours, we’ll actually beat them there.” Chris explained.

“I mean, I’m nowhere near tired.” Tom said, letting Chris know he was down for the drive.

“Same. I’ve been so excited for this trip, I feel wired.” He replied “Wanna pack and meet me at mine?”

“Absolutely.” Tom answered. “Anything specific I should pack?” He called loudly as the two had walked a distance apart.

“Dress comfy!” Chris yelled back. “And bring a jacket! It’s snowing!”

Tom waved and made his way to his trailer.

It was about an 8 or 9 hour drive up to the cabin, so the guys rolled up at about 3 in the morning.

“Is anybody else here?” Tom asked, as Chris navigated his truck up the snowy drive.

“Y/n’s here. She spends about half her time up here.” Chris answered, parking the truck and shooting you a text.

“Where does she spend the rest of her time?” Tom asked.

“Everywhere, really. She’s a writer. She’s even come and crashed with me while I was filming.” Chris answered, hopping out of the truck when he got your text reply.

“Books? Scripts?” Tom asked, curious what you wrote.

“Books, mostly. She’s got a few popular series, but she also has a few pen names that she refuses to tell me so I’ve always assumed she like consults or edits or something.” Chris answered.

“How mysterious.” Tom chucked, grabbing his bag and following Chris up to the house.

“Y/n!” Chris yelled into the cabin, leading Tom into the large home.

“Did you really work all day and then drive 8 hours?” you laughed, walking down the stairs.

“I just couldn’t wait to see that beautiful face.” Chris dropped his bag and pulled you into a bear hug.

“Sure. This definitely has nothing to do with you beating Scott to one of the big bedrooms.” You laughed, wrapping your arms around him.

“That’s just a perk.” He teased, introducing you to Tom. “I’m sure you know who this is. Y/n, Tom. Tom, Y/n.”

“Nice to meet you.” You replied, pulling Tom into a hug.

“It’s very nice to meet you too.” Tom said, happy to see that you seemed just as chill and down to earth as the rest of Chris’ friends and family.

“He had to bail on his plans to fly home for the break, so I convinced him to join our two weeks of amazing chaos and shenanigans.” Chris laughed.

“Amazing is right, bucko. I just got two hot tubs installed” you shared.

“Yes!” Chris half yelled.

“Also, mi casa es su casa, Tom. Make yourself at home.” You told him.

“Gracias.” Tom replied in Spanish.

“Any chance you two want to take a dip tonight before the rest of the pack arrives?” Chris asked, looking between you and Tom.

“Absolutely” you answered, walking towards the kitchen. “You both okay with Beer? I’ve got other options.”

“Beer for me.” Chris answered.

“Actually, a beer sounds rather refreshing at the moment.” Tom answered.

“I’ll grab the beer and you two can pick your rooms” you called from the kitchen.

“You down for the hot tub?” Chris asked Tom.

“I am, but I didn’t pack any swim shorts.” He answered.

“No worries, Y/n has a whole closet full of random stuff. Follow me.” Chris led Tom up the stairs. “Y/n’s room is at the very top, but there’s two rooms just below that. We can take those two. Let those with kiddos stay closest to the bottom floor.”

“Sounds good to me” Tom replied, dropping his bag on the bed before following Chris to your closet of misfit swim clothes, jackets, sleepwear, blankets, and other miscellaneous stuff.

When you made your way upstairs, you saw that the guys had picked the two rooms closest to yours. You weren’t surprised. They were the two biggest after yours and Chris never got to pick one of them because he was always the last to show up for his family get togethers.

“When you two get changed, head up to mine. The second hot tub is on my balcony.” You took the three unopened beers and went up the last set of stairs to get changed in your room. Your suit was a black balconette bikini top and a pair of black high waisted bikini bottoms. The top and bottom had a few strappy bits that accentuated your curves.

“Well hello there, sexy lady.” You heard Chris and his unending charm behind you as you were finishing getting your top all sorted.

“You guys get settled in?” you asked, nodding towards the beers.

Chris opened one and handed it to you. “We did.” As he opened another for himself and sat on your bed, he shared a bit about Tom. “I’m happy he tagged along. I don’t know what he’s got going on in his personal life because he doesn’t share a lot, but he needs a break like this.”

“Well, if I had to take a guess...” you took a swig of your beer. “You two get along great which makes me think he’s a down to earth, genuine person.”

“I agree” Chris replied.

“If you’ve seen any of the tabloids lately, they aren’t very friendly to the exes of the women he’s most recently dated. I’m going to assume he’s a bit overwhelmed and a bit worn out. It’s hard to stay genuine and down to earth when the media is writing about you as if you’re a scheming fuckboy.”

Chris took a swig of his beer. “I think you might be right. God, beauty and brains? Why won’t you marry me?” he teased.

“Like you could handle me” you teased right back.

“I’m going to go get more beer so we don’t have to leave the hot tub.” Chris stood and smacked your ass on the way out.

“How did I know you were going to do that?” you laughed.

Chris was laughing as he passed Tom. “I’ll meet you two up there.”

When Tom walked in, you opened the last of the three beers and handed it to him. “Pink suits you.” You noticed he was wearing the bright pink swim shorts from the closet.

Tom blushed and laughed as he took a sip of his beer. “It was this or ones with bananas all over them. I thought I’d make a bold choice.”

“Choice well made” you replied, opening the double doors to your balcony. “It’s going to be a short chilly journey to the hot tub, but heaven once you get in.”

When you went to walk up the steps on the side of the hot tub to get in, Tom extended his arm so you could grab his hand. “Be careful.”

“Thank you.” You couldn’t help but smile.

“God, I leave for two minutes and you two are already holding hands.” Chris snarked as he joined the two of you on the balcony. You and Tom both laughed as you walked down into the hot tub and let go of his hand. “What’s he got that I don’t got?” Chris was fake sniffling as he climbed into the hot tub after Tom.

“Oh, sweetie. I don’t think you want to know the answer to that question.” You answered, finishing the beer in your hand.

“Now I really want to know” Chris replied, opening and handing you a second beer.

“Are you two always like this?” Tom laughed.

You and Chris looked at each other and answered “yeah” at the same time.

After the three of you had spent about a half hour in the hot tub just talking and laughing, Tom cleared his throat. “Thank you for this.”

“For what?” you asked. He was sat between you and Chris, the three of you looking out at the beautiful snowy mountain view.

“Chris, for inviting me. You, for having me. Both of you for forcing me to get out of my own head.” Tom answered.

“You don’t need to thank us.” Chris replied, slapping Tom on the shoulder.

“He’s right, you know.” You smiled, looping your arm through his and leaning your head on his shoulder, looking back out at the view. “You’re pretty great company if I do say so myself.”

“Well, if I can’t thank you, at least let me share my appreciation of you both.” Tom replied, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head.

“Just wait until the whole pack shows up” Chris laughed. “It’s calm now, but you’re going to have plenty of distractions once the shenanigans start.”

“Remember, my room is the safe zone” you laughed. “No kids, it’s off-limits during games, and it’s the only access to this balcony.”

“I’ll keep that in mind” Tom chuckled.

Chris looked over and saw you cuddled into Tom’s side. “Why do I get the feeling you’re ‘appreciating’ Y/n over there a lot more than you are me” he teased.

You laughed and Tom looked over at Chris. “If you wanted a snuggle, that’s all you had to say.”

The three of you were all laughing, the lateness of the night sinking in. “If I snuggle anyone I’m going to fall asleep, and I have a feeling that’s not the best idea in a hot tub.” He stood up and hopped over the side, almost slipping on the icy balcony floor.

“What time is everyone arriving tomorrow?” you asked, not moving from your spot at Tom’s side.

“Well, they always grab breakfast down at that old little diner after they land, so maybe 11?” Chris answered, wrapping himself in a towel.

“You mean we actually get to sleep in?” you said with a bit of exaggerated shock.

“I don’t think it counts as sleeping in if you don’t go to bed until after the sun starts peaking over the mountains.” Tom teased you.

Chris laughed. “Hey, we’ll take it. Sleep is going to be a rare commodity around here for at least a few days.” He left the balcony and went back inside to warm up.

“I can’t wait.” Tom said.

“Me either. I love when they come up here. Always makes this place feel more like home.” You shared, moving to get out of the hot tub.

“I think the chaos is something I miss when I don’t get to spend time with my family.” Tom replied, once again grabbing your hand and making sure you made it safely out of the hot tub and onto the balcony. “I think having all of my nieces and nephews running around and the fact that there is always something cooking or baking…It’s hard to feel alone.”

You handed Tom a large towel and wrapped another one around yourself. “Well, if that’s your idea of a great time, you’re going to love your time with Chris’ family. They’re love and chaos and great food with a dash of an extreme love of competition.”

Tom followed you back into the house. “Well, again. I appreciate that I’m able to experience it.”

“Me too” you said, drying your hair a bit with your towel. “It sounds like you needed a bit of an escape.”

“That’s one way to put it” Tom said, drying off.

“Well, if you need anything just come find me, okay?” You could hear Chris coming back up the stairs to your room.

“Thank you, I will.” Tom replied, seeming to hesitate for a second. “I’ve enjoyed spending time with you tonight. Or this morning, rather.” He laughed.

You couldn’t help but smile as you threw your towel into the clothes hamper. You were a very confident person. You were proud of who you were, and you loved your curvy body, but all of a sudden you felt very naked standing there in your bikini. Tom’s genuine compliment and the way he confidently looked you up and down left you with goosebumps. “The feeling is definitely mutual.”

“Let me know if I can help with anything. Preparations and such.” Tom mentioned as Chris walked in.

“Don’t worry about that, Ma usually takes over when she gets here.” Chris laughed.

You shrugged. “True” you added, both grateful for and irritated by the interruption.

“Y/n, I checked that all of the doors were locked. Our trucks are both locked too. I’m gonna pass out and shower when I wake up.” Chris let you know.

“Thanks” you replied. “I’ll probably hop in the shower before I go to bed so that I can help your mom sort meals and such out when she gets here.”

“Sweet. I’m going to bed.” Chris interrupted himself with a yawn. “I will see both of you in a few hours”

As Chris headed back down a floor to his room, Tom cleared his throat. “I really don’t mind helping.”

“You’ll eventually get roped into doing something, I promise.” You laughed.

Tom nodded and smiled. “Well then, I’m going to go shower and sleep. I’ll see you in a bit.”

As Tom turned to walk down the stairs, you spoke. “Try to relax.” When he turned to look at you, you continued. “You have nothing to worry about for two whole weeks. No schedule, no paparazzi, no expectations…just, let yourself enjoy it, okay?”

Tom smiled and nodded his head. He replied “I think I will” before continuing down the stairs.

Instead of your alarm, you were woken up by Chris crawling into your bed. “Y/n.” He was trying to wake you up gently. “Y/n!”

“Did my alarm not go off?” you asked, rolling over and snuggling into Chris.

He chuckled, wrapping his arms around you. “I underestimated my mother’s planning. Turns out they got to the diner at 8 this morning and they’re currently unloading the cabs downstairs.”

“What time is it?” you asked.

“9:30” Chris replied, the two of you hearing someone coming up the stairs.

“I’m going to need coffee” you mumbled.

Tom made it to the top of the stairs and saw you and Chris together in your bed. He tucked the thought away, making note to ask Chris about the two of you later. “Not a morning person?” he asked, laughing at your messy bed head and request for caffeine.

“I can be when I need to be, but we were awake and drinking on my balcony like four hours ago” you replied.

“Can I make you some coffee?” Tom offered.

You rolled over and sat up sorting out your messy hair. “I can make it. I just need to get dressed.”

Chris rolled out of your bed, going to your closet. “Bra, leggings, sweater, fuzzy socks.” Chris tossed your clothes onto your bed.

“You know me so well.” You laughed, gathering your clothes and getting out of bed. “I’ll be down in a few.”

“I think they’re finished unloading, but I’ll go see if there’s anything else they need help with.” Tom replied, heading downstairs.

“I’m offended that you two look like you’ve just had 12 hours of beauty sleep.” You teased Chris, pulling your leggings on.

“I think you’re underestimating yourself” Chris said, turning to leave. “You’ve definitely caught someone’s attention.” Chris had noticed the way Tom looked at the two of you cuddled up in your bed and planned on asking him about it later.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you sleepily asked, but Chris was already gone.

You finished getting dressed in your long, oversized sweater and fuzzy socks and walked downstairs to greet Chris’ family.

“Y/n!” Chris’ sisters greeted, pulling you each into a hug, the three of you quickly catching up.

Then came Scott, who practically tackled you. “Bitch, it has been too long.”

“Agreed.” You replied, the two of you making plans to go get stuff for drinks tonight.

You’d said a few hellos and given a few hugs to various other friends and family and eventually you made your way to the kitchen with Tom and Lisa, Chris’ mom.

“Oh, my dear, it’s so good to see you.” Lisa pulled you into a tight hug, kissing both of your cheeks. “I can’t believe the boys showed up at three this morning!”

You laughed. “It’s good to see you too. And Chris warned me a few days ago that he would probably drive up after he finished filming.”

Looking over you saw Tom holding a mug of coffee out towards you. “For me?” You reached out and took the mug from him.

“It’s the least I could do. Lisa told me how you take your coffee.” He answered, nodding towards Chris’ mom.

You took a sip, humming to yourself. “Thank you, this is perfect.” You pressed a quick kiss to Tom’s cheek before hearing Chris’ niece call for you.

“In the kitchen, sweetie” you called back out, walking towards where you heard her call from.

As the adults started getting settled into their rooms, the kids were all starting to crash from the hectic morning they’d had.

“Let’s watch a movie in the den, guys.” You suggested, grabbing blankets and pillows and throwing them on the couches and floor so that the kids would spread out and nap.

“What are we gonna watch?” one of his nephews asked.

“Well, we’ve got Goosebumps, we’ve got School of Rock, and we’ve got Bedtime Stories.” You read the movies aloud, with the kids all picking Goosebumps. About 15 minutes in, all of you were asleep in various places in the room.

Scott, Chris, and Tom were bundled up in their jackets talking on the back porch as Chris set up your grill and got it ready to use.

“So how long have you guys known Y/n?” Tom asked.

“Oh, god. It’s been…I don’t even know. It’s been years.” Chris thought about how long you guys had been friends.

“Chris met Y/n one day in New York. She was there for a book project or something and Chris had ducked inside her apartment building to get away from paparazzi.” Scott laughed, remembering Chris tell him the story.

Chris let out a big laugh. “She was getting ready to walk out and I practically ran into her. When she realized why I so rudely shoved my way into the building, she asked me ‘Do you want to do something very immature but totally worth it?’ I had to, right?”

Scott continued the story. “She led him up to her apartment and ran inside. Chris just waited at the door wondering what he’d gotten himself into when she popped back out, holding a box of water balloons.”

Tom laughed. “Oh, please tell me you threw them at the paparazzi.”

“They did. They filled a bin full of them and went to the roof.” Scott replied.

“I have never made a friend so quickly in my life” Chris said. “We got through about half of the bin before they left. Even better, they never got a picture of me throwing the balloons. The tabloids alluded to the fact that it was me, but we never officially got caught.”

“I don’t know if she adopted us or if we adopted her, but she’s been family ever since.” Scott added.

“Either way, she’s the best kind of people.” Chris said, closing the lid on the grill.

“I can see that.” Tom replied. After a short pause, he continued. “Have you two ever…dated?”

Chris grinned, remembering how Tom had looked at the two of you cuddled up in your bed. “Nah, she’s one of my best friends. Possibly my actual best friend.” he answered, sitting down next to the other two guys.

“Even though I’m sure ma would love it if you two got together.” Scott laughed.

“I think ma just wants both of us to settle down and have kids like the girls did.” Chris replied. “She treats Y/n like a daughter.”

Scott looked back at Tom. “Why the interest in Y/n’s dating life, huh?” he teased him.

“Just curious” Tom answered with straightest face he could manage.

“I don’t know” Chris continued, continuing to tease Tom. “You two looked awfully cozy last night.”

Tom’s cheeks blushed a bit before he could answer. “If a beautiful woman laid her head on your shoulder, what would you have done?”

“Fair point.” Chris laughed. “She’s single, you know” he added.

“She is” Scott echoed, smirking. “And I have a date to go shopping with her if you want me to see if she’s interested.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves” Tom replied, failing miserably at hiding his grin.

“No rush” Scott answered, putting his hands up. “I’m just saying…”

“Give him a break” Chris interrupted. “He’s got two weeks to see where things go.”

“True” Scott replied.

Part 2

#Tom Hiddleston #Tom Hiddleston x reader #Tom Hiddleston imagine #Tom Hiddleston x curvy reader #Loki

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ratofthemedievalsewers · 3 years

Text

Heart of Steel - Part I

DBH Connor x Male Reader

Word Count: 2.5K+

Content warning: Minor injury detail, PTSD, language

Original game dialogue I got from this video:

https://youtu.be/32Np9LKI1Vg

We were attacked in the night.

After returning from a mission back to an outpost several miles from the red zone, we removed our gear save for a few pouches on our belts we could bother with later. Our team leader set up a fire while the SQ800s, CyberLife commissioned combat androids, began loading up the trucks with extra artillery and resources. A job that could have waited until morning, but Alpha always gave the androids something to do. He said that they creeped him out when they would just stand there in a dormant state, waiting for their next mission to be given to them.

"You know what I'm going to do when I get home?"

"Here we go again."

"I'm going to get me a WR400," Foxtrot; not everyone's favourite but he certainly kept us entertained when there was nothing to do.

"Uh-huh and with what money are you going to be using to pay for this WR400? A military salary definitely ain't gonna cut it." Echo always called out Foxtrot's bullshit, he was the only one that had the patience to deal with him.

"Fine, my birthday is comin' up, if you put towards two-thirds of what it costs we can share. How does that sound?"

"I am not sharing anything with you, I don't know what diseases you carry." Their constant back forth sent chuckles through the group.

"Alright, that's enough you two. It's getting late and past everyone's bedtime, I want you all awake by O-five-hundred at the latest," Alpha would often stop them before Foxtrot would take it too far, but he could never hide the twitching smile on his face.

"Yes sir," Foxtrot mock saluted as he stood from his seat around the campfire. "Hey Echo, that offer is still-"

One moment Foxtrot had a wide grin on his face, the next there was a hole in his head between his eyes, the sound of gunshot ringing in everyone's ears.

"SHOTS FIRED! GET TO COVER NOW!"

"FOXTROT IS DOWN! I REPEAT, FOXTROT IS DOWN!"

It was dark, we couldn't see where they were firing from. The android was the only one still standing, firing off in random directions as they were gunned down. The next was Delta, shot in the left shoulder, then the throat. My gun was back in my tent and there was no chance of me getting it. Stupid.

"MEDIC! GET TO DELTA! NOW!"

"GRENADE!"

I heard the thump by my feet before I saw it. You would think it would be terrifying, to know you're staring death in the face, but for a second it was peaceful. My body was cold and I already felt like a corpse, the Rigour Mortis freezing me in place, just softly gazing at what would kill me.

Something grabbed me before the grenade exploded, saving my life but destroying the android.

The bedsheets were crumpled and soaked in sweat again when my eyes shot open. It was hard to breathe, the panic was still running through me and closing up my throat at the memory.

In; one, two, three, four. Hold; one, two, three, four. Out; one, two, three, four. Hold; one, two, three, four.

It took a few minutes for me to remember where I was. That I was home and that I was safe. Out of nervous habit, I gripped my dog tags, they were wet from the sweat that had soaked through my shirt in the night.

"Shit." It was four in the morning, there was no chance of getting any more sleep and the station wouldn't be open for another two more hours at the least. Saying that; Fowler wanted to speak to me first thing, which never meant anything good for anyone.

It was aching again at the joint. The biomechanical component always felt itchy where it joined at the elbow. Anytime I would have that dream I would scratch at it in my sleep, it was like my subconscious knew it didn't belong. It knew my rotting left arm was still in the desert somewhere being picked apart by vultures.

It's almost ironic; to be saved by an android and then to have part of one attached to me. I hated it.

*****

"Morning Cyborg, you look like shit." Gavin was forever pleasant to talk to.

"Fuck off, Reed." He constantly hovered around the coffee machine, hogging it like it was his newborn baby. "Is Fowler in yet?"

"Not yet, you in trouble?" He took his time making his coffee, exceeding in being the department's resident asshat. "Did he catch you looking at porn on your work terminal again?"

"I'm pretty sure that's only ever happened to you." Not wanting to be reminded of his previous escapades I got no response. Gavin let out a small huff before moving to the side with his fresh cup of coffee, freeing up the machine.

"Officer (L/N)." Oh for fuck's sake.

"Sir?" Captain Fowler stood outside his office, his coat half soaked from the rain.

"My office, I need to speak to you." He didn't give a second glance to me before turning and letting the glass door shut behind him.

"Ha, good luck cyborg." Shooting Gavin the middle finger, I followed Captian Fowler into his office.

"What was it you wished to talk about, sir?" Feet shoulder-width apart, back straight and hands behind my back; habits from the army were destined to die hard. Often I would find myself moving my hand up to salute before leaving the presence of a superior, something else for Gavin to make fun of.

"You're aware of the deviant cases I've assigned to Lieutenant Anderson, correct?" Fowler sat at his desk, wet coat now hung on its rack, but there was slight dampness to his suit blazer where his coat had been left open.

"Yes sir. I believe he's being accompanied by a prototype RK800 from Cyberlife."

"That's correct. I'm sure you're aware that these deviancy cases are on the more..."

"Dangerous?"

"...Unpredictable side. Now, I can't exactly issue a gun to a prototype android if it's going to be in the field and, while I value Hank as a police officer, his record is on the rougher side."

"Captain Fowler, with all due respect, I don't believe-"

"Office (L/N), with all due respect, you don't have an opinion in this matter. I want you to accompany Lieutenant Anderson in these assignments just in case a deviant becomes too much for him or this android to handle. You've certainly got the skillset for it and you're not unfamiliar with working alongside androids, unlike quite a few officers in this department."

"I understand that, but-"

"Whatever you're gonna say I don't want to hear it." Captain Fowler didn't give me a chance to argue as he stood and walked to his office door, the annoyed look on his face worsening. "Hank, in my office!"

I let out a sigh before Captain Fowler turned back to his desk. Through the office wall made of glass Hank reluctantly made his way towards us grumbling something under his breath at the request, the RK800 model obediently following behind him like a little, lost puppy. Hank sat in the chair opposite Fowler while the android stood next to me, giving a small smile as a greeting.

Captain Fowler was the first to talk, "I've got ten new cases involving androids on my desk every day. We've always had isolated incidents, old ladies losing their android maids and that kind of crap... But now, we're getting reports of assaults and even homicides, like that guy last night. This isn't just cyberlife's problem anymore, it's now a criminal investigation and we've gotta deal with it before the shit hits the fan. I want you to investigate these cases, alongside officer (L/N) and see if there's any link."

"Why me? And why do I need a god damned partner? A stupid android is already too much. Why do I gotta be the one to deal with this shit?" Props to Hank for trying, but arguing with Fowler was like talking to a brick wall. "I am the least qualified cop in the country to handle this case! I know jack shit about androids, Jeffery. I can barely change the settings on my own phone."

"Everybody's overloaded. I think you're perfectly qualified for this type of investigation," They were already starting to blow up at each other.

"Bullshit! The truth is nobody wants to investigate these fuckin' androids and you left me holdin' the bag!"

"CyberLife sent over this android to help with this investigation and I've given you (L/N) as well. You've got a state of the art prototype and a leading police officer to act as your partners."

"No fuckin' way! I don't need partners, and certainly not this plastic prick and some action hero fucker."

"Nice working with you too, Lieutenant Anderson," I said under my breath, not intending for the others to hear. Connor turned his head slightly in my direction, I could see his LED blink yellow for a moment before going back to its bright blue.

"Hank, you are seriously starting to piss me off! You are a police lieutenant, you are supposed to do what I say and shut your goddamn mouth!"

"You know what my goddamn mouth has to say to you, huh?"

"I'll pretend like I didn't hear that, so I don't have to add any more pages to your disciplinary folder 'cause it already looks like a fuckin' novel! This conversation is over."

"Jeffrey, Jesus Christ! Why are you doin' this to me? You know how much I hate these fuckin' things. Why are you doin' this to me?" Most of the department knew why he had such a distaste towards androids, no one could necessarily blame him. Ever since losing his son Hank had become completely different as both a person and an officer. Admittedly, Fowler was harsh on him, but if he wasn't then Hank would drift.

"I've had just enough of your bitching. Either you do your job or you hand in your badge. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do." Hank left in a strop, letting out his frustration on Fowler's office door.

"Well then..." Connor was quick to break the tense silence. His voice caught me off guard, it was smoother, more human than any android's I had heard before. The SQ800's voices had always been more robotic than other models so it had been a shock when the androids back home had sounded so normal, it felt like that all over again. It was jarring. "I won't keep you any longer. Have a nice day captain."

Connor left and I followed behind, giving a small nod of dismissal to Fowler despite him still looking at his terminal screen.

The android went straight to Hank either oblivious or ignoring the lieutenant's current bad mood, granted there was never a time the bastard was in a good mood. Heaven itself could rain down on Detroit and he'd huff at it like a hair in his food.

"I got the impression my presence causes you some inconvenience, Lieutenant. I'd like you to know I'm very sorry about that. In any case, I'd like you to know I'm very to be working with you." Ever the enthusiast.

"I'd give in now. You're talking to a toddler in a fifty-year old's body and the toddler is having a hissy fit." I half sat and half leant against Hank's desk, using my arms to support my weight.

"Apologies, I don't believe I've introduced myself. My name is Connor, I am the android sent by CyberLife." He turned to me, a gentle and manufactured smile on his face. "It's a pleasure to be working with you too, officer (L/N). I'm sure we'll make a great team."

"Er... (Y/N) is just fine."

"Is there a desk anywhere I could use?"

"No one's using that one." Hank points to the desk opposite him, while still sulking like a child.

"Gasp, it speaks," I said in a sarcastic tone while turning to Hank.

"Fuck off. I've already got an android on my ass, I don't need you on it too."

I grabbed a terminal pad before perching myself back at the edge of Hank's desk while Connor got comfortable at the empty one. The light at the side of his head flashing yellow for a moment like he was hesitant to speak."You have a dog, right?"

"How do you know that?"

"The dog hairs on your chair. I like dogs. What's your dog's name?"

"What's it to you?" Hank shifted in his seat, "...Sumo... I call him Sumo."

"Under all those shitty shirts and questionable stains there's a warm, beating heart," I say more to myself than the other two, skimming over the recent case files sent in by Fowler.

"Officer (L/N)... (Y/N), knowing that we'd be working together I read your academy and field records. You have quite an interesting background."

"Oh yeah, then you understand that I may be a little driven to get these cases over with. I can't say I'm a fan of you terminators."

"I understand you have a... warped view of androids due to what you've experienced, but I hope you understand that I am your partner and not your enemy."

"Connor, you're not my partner, you're cyberlife's latest gizmo for us kick around." I sigh, turning to sit at my desk adjacent to hanks, taking the terminal pad with me. "Just look through the deviant case files. Terminals on your desk, knock yourself out."

They're nothing but machines. They are not your friends.

"Two-hundred and forty-three files, the first date back nine months. It all started in Detroit... And quickly spread across the country." Connor had only connected the terminal moments before.

"Don't work your CPU too hard," I mutter under my breath, catching a quick huff of amusement from Hank.

"An AX400 is reported to have murdered a man last night. That could be a good starting point for our investigation." Hank was doing his best to pretend Connor didn't exist, but the android was persistent. Connor stood from his chair and made his way into Hank's personal space.

"Uh, Jesus..." Hank turned his chair away.

"I understand you're facing personal issues, Lieutenant, but you need to move past them and-" For an android, Connor has some balls on him.

"Hey! Don't talk to me like you know me. I'm not your friend and I don't need your advice, okay?" Hank's mood had soured like milk, it wouldn't be long until Fowler was adding another page to Hank's disciplinary folder.

"I've been assigned this mission Lieutenant, I didn't come here to wait until you feel like working."

"Connor, you're just gonna-" I had wasted my breath, Hank had already stood and was grabbing onto Connor by the collar of his Cyberlife jacket and slamming against the screen next to his desk. "Hank!"

"Listen asshole. If it were up to me, I'd rather throw the lot of you in a dumpster and set a match to it. So, stop pissing me off... or things are gonna get nasty."

"Hank," I placed a hand on his shoulder to try and lightly pull him away from Connor but only earned a nasty side-eye. "Leave off him, you don't get paid enough to replace him."

"Lieutenant... Officer (L/N), uh... sorry to disturb you," Looks like the tin can was saved before Hank could knock the light out of him, "I have some information on the AX400 that killed that guy last night. It's been sighted in the Ravendale district."

"I'm on it." Hank didn't glance back when he dropped Connor's collar. The puppy dog look on his face almost made me feel bad for him... almost.

"Come on, WALL-E. Don't want to keep the old man waiting."

#detroit become human #dbh #dbh connor #dbh rk800 #dbh fanfic #dbh x reader #dbh x male reader #connor x male reader #connor rk800 #male reader #m! reader #connor x m!reader

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svchengss · 3 years

Text

two halves | l.mh

PAIRING. mark lee x reader

GENRE. fluff, heavy angst

WARNINGS. major character death, grief

WORD COUNT. 2.4k

SUMMARY. right after his death, mark watches how you cope with the loss

A/N. i saw this one tiktok and it kinda inspired me to write this

// just to let you guys know, reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated !! thank you for reading :D

white walls, white room.

mark scrunched his face, his eyelashes slowly fluttering open, the dark brown iris adjusting the size of the pupils due to the brightness of the walls reflected upon it. a soft groan vibrating from his throat, he assessed his surroundings where nobody or nothing else is present. he looked down to inspect his clothing, hoping that it would give him any clue of this room or space he’s in - an all white outfit. this scene looks exactly like the one in the movies where the characters realize they are dead. except this time, he really is.

THE REALIZATION.

the muffled sounds of cries and sobs rang through his eardrums, triggering a reflex to wake up from the state that he thought was a slumber. he is lying on the hospital bed with the light blue clothing piece, faint light illuminating the space where people are huddled up around him. he waved his right hand in the air to let them - who he later remembered as his family members and friends, know that his eyes are already open. nobody moved even the slightest, the atmosphere being very much dead, scent of medicine intoxicating his mind.

then he saw someone who he holds very dear to his heart - you, enter the hospital room, dropping onto her knees as soon as she saw his state of condition. in an instant, he shot up from his lying position and ran over towards the crying you, shoulders shaking and all. bringing his hands to hold you in his embrace, not even a glance spared by you brought a hundred and one questions to him. why didn’t anybody acknowledge him when he woke up? why can’t you feel his touch?

“mark lee. time of death, 10:23 pm,” the tall doctor with glasses rested on the bridge of his nose announced before leaving the room, holding the clipboard close to his chest. mark gauged the monitor screen next to the bed, the line indicating his heartbeat is no longer showing spikes going up and down - instead becoming a flat line, deafening beep present with it. then he sees himself still laying on the white sheets, eyes still closed and no signs of breathing evident. a surge of panic rushed through his veins.

this can’t be real.

mark rushed into the bathroom, a surprised gasp leaving his lips. his body is semi-transparent, the shape of the toilet bowl can be seen through his left shoulder. his body shakes with terror, slapping himself in the cheeks multiple times just to make sure that this whole fiasco is just a nightmare.

oh my god. no, this is real.

mark stood in the back of the crowd, witnessing the funeral of someone and that someone being him. of course, he’s never expected to get the sight of his own service. his mother is standing beside you, her hands rubbing circles onto your back in an attempt to calm your mourning state. you’re still looking ever so pretty, a black chiffon dress on your body with white pearl necklace on your collarbones and your wavy black hair hanging down your shoulders. not that anybody else would notice, it’s someone’s death after all.

“stay strong, y/n. he will always be in our hearts,” the same rhythm of sentence in tones full of pity being directed towards you. mark’s sister enveloped you into a warm hug despite the chilly atmosphere, whispering comforting words into your ears before getting into the family’s car. you’re not going back home, not yet when you still feel reluctant to let him go.

“why did you leave me?” the only coherent words from your hoarse voice can be heard. mark, who is crouching next to you, is holding his tears back. instead, he sends a sorrowful smile - not that you can see him anyway. is there any way to let you know of his presence?

“goodbye, love. i’ll see you tomorrow. i promise,” you dusted the back of your dress from any dirt or debris, leaving a rose on his tombstone. the thing is, he doesn’t want to part from you. and that’s why his figure is seated beside you in the cab. he grazed his thumb on your knuckles, making you feel tingles rushing through. you pushed the slight thought away, you must be tired to be feeling things.

you slowly opened the door to your apartment, you and mark’s to be exact. the whole house is making those memories make their presence in the back of your head again. the kitchen where you two baked cookies for christmas last year. the bedroom where you snuggled upon his chest, not wanting to start your day just yet. the piano where he sang those cheesy songs for you. the living room where you slow danced at 3 in the morning. his favourite mug resting on the countertop, probably will not be used again. this whole situation is too overwhelming for you. you feel weak.

with each day passing by, you didn’t even miss one without a visit to his resting lot. you would tell him stories of how your day went or something that you read which would made him ponder. the words carved on it are already etched onto your brain.

mark lee. a son, a brother and a loving partner.

the clock hanging on the grey wall has it’s arms stretched out to display the time - two in the morning. you can’t sleep just yet, not having any for the past few days even. dark circles are appearing around your eyes, not yet recovered from the puffiness from all the crying. mark’s heart aches everytime he takes upon your state. he feels very guilty, not that death was his choice after all. it’s simply fate, a cycle of life, a destiny that every single creature on this planet will end up with.

you’ve taken the whole month off work, still feeling ever so helpless. in fact, you can’t even remember the last time you’ve stepped out of the apartment, the night before his passing perhaps? you’ve completely shut yourself out from any interactions - deactivating your social media, not accepting any calls. you just need time to heal.

as if you’re being controlled by some type of mastermind, you shoot up on the balls of your feet, pulling away from the couch. those images of you slow dancing with mark, hands in each other’s holds, your chin rested in the crook of his neck and being ever so engrossed in love are coming back more often now. you trudged to the vinyls arranged neatly on the shelf, picking one before placing it on the turntable - frank sinatra, one of his all time favourites.

holding your hands up at about his usual height, you start twirling around. you can almost see the outline of his smile, his features right in front of you. except, he is. he’s been observing your moves the whole night. mirroring your current position, as if you can really see him, it’s a miracle for him. overjoyed actually, he doesn’t realize the salty tears streaming down his cheekbones and so are yours.

“thank you for coming, dear. it’s a pleasure seeing you in what, weeks?” a laugh escaped the woman’s lips. you reciprocated her hug before stepping into the living room. it’s been a long time since you’ve been here, was it in january? mrs. lee had invited you over for a simple dinner, checking up on how you’ve been. you can see that the family is still struggling over his passing, the way his sister’s eyes are not twinkling as usual makes it hard to cover up the lie.

“you see, this was on his high school graduation day. he was very happy that day, doing all sorts of dances and stuff. finally escaping from hell as he said,” she giggled. she’s been displaying all sorts of memoirs to you, photo albums and photographs scattered on the wooden floor. to be honest, you’ve never seen these before. all smiles mark lee, easy to notice among the crowd. not that he’s changed, he’s still that boy now. mark just sat on the couch - his favourite spot, observing the throwback session going on. if he’s still here, his sister for sure is going to tease the hell out of him.

“he told us so much about you, you know? as if everything reminds him of you, that boy is lovestruck. really,” that sudden confession made your tongue dry, unable to find a perfect response. you were really that special to him.

“drive safe honey, you can come over whenever you want. you know you’re always welcome here, right?” mrs. lee handed you the small box filled with some things you’re going to keep. she kissed both of your cheeks, mr. lee standing behind her giving you a small wave. a small smile crept up onto your face before igniting the engine, turning your wheels out of the housing area.

the netflix show is playing on the television, the faint voices of the characters playing in the background. you’re sitting on the floor, flipping through the photo journal you two decorated throughout your one year of relationship. you can see his little scribbles and doodles, often a little dinosaur symbolising your always grumpy personality.

in one photo, a golden birthday hat is nicely placed on your head with him kissing your right cheek. you remember clearly, a surprise party for you last year. in the following ones, they are mostly candid shots - you blowing out the candles while he looks at you full of love, him eating a portion of your dish while you pout your lips. you would say it was the night of your life, spending it with the guy who stole your heart.

the next page of the journal is a shot of mark taking a photo of you in the park. you suppose it was taken by donghyuck? that one picture of you was stuck as his lock screen wallpaper for a while, you remembered getting so embarrassed over it. mark would give you the same excuse every time you questioned him about it, implying that the sight of you would light up his whole day. cheesy really, but that was what remained as memories of the past, tied neatly in your heart.

the rain trickling against your window eventually made you doze off to wonderland, creating the perfect chance for mark to browse through the journal in your hands. carefully lifting it from yours so that you won’t be stirred from your sleep, he settled down in the space beside your sleeping figure. slowly turning the pages, he smiled fondly at each photo holding a thousand moments that can’t be recreated ever again. some of them would make him giggle. he kneeled down slightly to place a soft kiss on your forehead, making you squirm a little due to the faint touch.

“give him a chance. i’m not saying that you should forget mark but it’s been months, you should live up a little,” yerim’s voice sounding concerned from the other end of the line. perhaps she’s right but you just need more time. but how much longer? you’re afraid you yourself have no specific answer for that enquiry.

you’ve been feeling better by now, welcoming people back into your life and carrying out the same daily routine of yours. going to work, buying groceries, going to the drive-thru and whatnot. of course, the void is still obvious - coming back home to an empty atmosphere instead of him waiting for you on the couch, sometimes dozing off, no more weekend cafe runs. but at least you’re trying your best. you bid your goodbyes before tapping the red button, ending the call. plopping the device onto the mattress, you stared at the white ceiling, deep in your own thoughts.

you should give him a chance. live up a little.

yes, you should.

getting hold of the phone and immediately opening the messages app, you searched for jungwoo’s number. he’s been trying to take you out for dinner for a while now. you still remember his exact words, whenever you’re ready he’s always there, waiting for you. you’re not really sure about that particular question but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, right?

typing in the words ‘okay, sure’ is already a pressure for you but you still proceeded to press the send button. glancing at the clock showing the time, the notification ping redirected your focus onto the screen.

jungwoo: cool, is tomorrow night okay with you? i’ll drive, of course :)

tomorrow night. okay, tomorrow night.

an elegant red gown is wrapping your curves perfectly, a thin necklace with the seashell charm around your neck while your lips is decorated with the dark red tone, highlighting your poise appearance. hearing the doorbell ring, you tidied up the dresser as your eyes landed onto the picture frame holding a photo of you and mark. a sad feeling crept into your heart but you pushed it away, opening the door to reveal jungwoo in a black and white tuxedo.

you would say that the dinner went well, none of his questions or chatters crossing any borderline. he’s just so polite, even you are amused. feeling comfortable with his presence, the small gap in between is eventually closing down since you’ve learned so much about each other during the other few dates. one night completely changed it for you, him offering you a dance at some event he’s bringing you with.

you observed that his moves are slightly similar to mark’s - not completely of course, mark’s is very unique and very…mark-ish. for the first time ever in the recent turn of events, you flashed a genuine smile. one that is not just for show, one that only comes out when you’re truly elated, one that you only manage to give to certain. mark just observed the scene from a distance, admiring how you’ve managed to find the spark of happiness you once lost.

alas, mark saw his other half become full again with another, her eyes twinkling with the same joy but this time, it’s not him in the reflection.

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cazimagines · 3 years

Text

Every day, it feels like I've lost them again

Synopsis: Sam shouts at Zemo for the things he has done. Though Zemo doesn’t show it the words hurt him deeply. Later on the reader finds Zemo and talks to him about his past.

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Bit of angst, Sad Zemo, mentions to his family’s death and his attempted suicide

Author note: I had plans for another Zemo one shot but then I watched a sad Zemo edit which made me cry and here we are

Cross posted on my Ao3 account under the same name

MASTER LIST

The streets seemed silent as you sadly walked home. The only sound was your footsteps dragging along the floor. The silence between all of you was piercing. Today had been an enormous failure, and you all were feeling it weighing down on you. Pushing down your hopes for things to improve. Zemo had somehow found out where the flag smashers would be, from a trusted source, he said, so you all went charging off to talk to them. It was a trap. Zemo didn’t know it was a trap either, though Sam still believed otherwise. You all had barely got out of there safely. It had been close, too close for your liking.

“There’s always tomorrow,” Zemo says, hating the stone cold silence coming from everyone.

“But there’s not,” Sam spits back angrily, “That was the one proper chance we could've had to talk to Kali, and we failed”

“You shouldn’t be so pessimistic,” Zemo argues back, rolling his eyes.

“Pessimistic. Are you for serious, pessimistic,” Sam says shaking his head at Zemo, “You hear this guy I’m the pessimistic one”

“Leave it Sam” Bucky mutters trying to push him along, but Sam refuses.

Sam steps towards Zemo, standing just a few centimeters away from his face, his eyes glaring daggers at him. Zemo stops walking, clenching his jaw and tilting his head to stare back at Sam, not breaking eye contact.

Both you and Bucky glance at each other, not really sure if you should stop this or let it happen.

“You could have led us to our deaths today, Zemo, which I am sure was your intention. You make it clear that you wouldn’t hesitate to see any of us off to our funerals. All because you got butt hurt about the avengers preventing Ultron from destroying the earth at the cost of your country.”

The breath leaves your mouth as the words slip out of Sam’s mouth. Your lips, slightly ajar, turn to look at Sam. He’s breathing heavily, glaring at Zemo. Zemo’s lips curled down into an angry frown and his eyebrows furrowed. You could see his fists curl up, something Bucky must have noticed as well, and he put a hand on Sam’s shoulder to pull him away from Zemo.

“Sam this isn’t the time”

Sam finally gives in and pulls back, but Zemo steps forward, grabbing onto his jacket. Bucky reaches for his gun, but Zemo waves his hand at him, motioning him not to.

“You don’t know the first thing about me, Sam.” is all he says, letting go of Sam’s jacket roughly and storming off.

It would be hours later till you saw him again. During that time your mind was often thinking back to Zemo. When you really thought about it, you realised you knew nothing about him. Heck, until recently you didn’t know he was a Baron. All you had been told was that he was a Sokovian who wanted to split the avengers up because of what they did to his country. Being a Baron, you supposed that made it more personal for him. Still, it felt like something was missing. Something didn’t add up.

You laid in one of the many guest rooms tossing and turning while all these thoughts flooded your mind. Eventually you gave up on the idea of ever getting sleep tonight and got up. If you weren’t sleeping, you might as well get some midnight snacks. Heading into the main room, you notice the door leading to the back was open, letting a chilly breeze float in.

Heading over to check it out, your eyes lie upon Zemo sitting on top of a fallen over tree trunk in the back patio, looking up at the night sky. His coat was wrapped around him to keep him warm, and his face was expressionless as he looked up to the night sky that was scattered with the stars. He hadn’t noticed you staring at him, his mind was far from where his body was.

After a few moments of just staring at him, you broke the silence, “Zemo?”

His head instantly snapped to you, surprised to have been caught unaware.

“Oh, hello y/n, can’t sleep?”

You shake your head, taking his question as an invitation to go over and sit next to him, “No, to many thoughts in my mind to go to sleep”

“Ah, a common problem for an insomniac”

“I assume you have similar reasons, since you are out hear”

He looks away from you, smiling weakly at the floor, “Yes something like that, sleep comes rarely to me”

Your eyes flutter down to the ground, not really sure what to say, “I’m sorry to hear that” you whisper

You both sit there in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t an awkward silence like what you were used to. No. It was a comfortable silence. You were both thankful just to have someone beside you at that moment. You shudder slightly as the wind picks up, making the hairs on your arm stand up. Zemo notices and slowly shrugs off his coat, placing it around you. You smile politely up at him in thanks.

“May I ask what your thoughts were?” Zemo asks gently, glancing back over to you

“You probably think it was about our failure, right?” you say and Zemo nods his head slightly

“They weren’t, actually. I didn’t suspect us to accomplish anything. It seemed to good to be true. No, I was thinking about what happened after. Between you and Sam”

Zemo’s face instantly shifted, his mouth pulling into a frown and his eyebrows furrowing, “Ah” is all he says

“What Sam said was way out of line. I can’t understand the pain you must feel about losing Sokovia”

Zemo hums to let you know he heard but doesn’t say anymore, his gaze just returns to the sky.

You didn’t want to push him too far. Over this time you had gotten to know him and almost considered him a friend, but you couldn’t help but be curious. You wanted to know more about him.

“But there’s more isn’t there. Something we don’t know,” you say gently

You can see him swallow and his fingers dig into his palms as he tenses at your question.

After a moment he finally responds, “Yes, you’re right. I... I had a family who died that day. My father, wife and child. I told them to go out of the city to the countryside. That was where my father lived, you see. I had to stay behind as I was a part of this Sokovian kill squad. Even as royalty, I still had duties. I had faith in the avengers. They would sort everything out. But they didn’t. When the battle was one they just returned home, leaving us with the hard task of finding all the dead. I assumed my family would be safe, yet it took me two days after to find their bodies.”

Your body gets overwhelmed with coldness as you hear his story. The memories of the battle flooded your mind and you could feel a bitterness creep into your mouth. You could have stayed behind to help. Why didn’t you? Your eyes water slightly as you sympathise with him and feel the guilt lie on your soul.

“Oh god Zemo, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked,” you are quick to respond

“No...it’s okay. If I didn’t want to tell you, I wouldn’t have said anything”

You look up to the night sky and reflect over his words. All the pain that Zemo must feel, holding onto, and you did not know. None of you did. You were sure if Sam knew he wouldn’t have said the things he did. You knew what Zemo did was wrong, but damn you couldn’t help but empathise with him.

“If you want…” you start, hoping what you were choosing to ask wouldn’t be going too far, “would you like to tell me about them?”

Zemo finally looks away from the sky, his eyes looking to the ground. He swallows again, slightly sniffing before speaking.

“My Son, Carl, he was four when he... when he died. He always did this cute thing where if he didn’t like the food on his plate he would pretend he was gifting the food to you to show his love for you”

You chuckle slightly thinking about it, “That does sounds cute”

“He was the most precious thing in existence. He always wanted a sibling like his friends had. He loved the idea of being an older brother. Every morning when the mail arrived, he asked if he had a brother or sister delivered to him. Me and my wife… we were planning on having more kids. We knew he would've made the best big brother. We hoped for a girl, you know, to even things out”

“What was she like?”

“She was so beautiful. Like the goddess Venus. Many men tried to win her affection, but she settled for me. I had never felt like a luckier man. She was so kind, so generous, so loving. My perfect angel”

The tears that had been threatening to fall from Zemo’s eyes broke the dam and fell down his cheeks.

“If I could, I would give up everything I have, everything I own just to hold them in my arms again”

A sob breaks out of him and he holds his hand up to his mouth as his eyes crinkle up as more tears fall. He tries to wipe them away, but he can’t stop crying. You put your arm around him and pull him into a hug which he gladly accepts. He wraps his arms around you and buries his head into your shoulder as he sobs.

“I miss them so much”

You say nothing, just rub your hand on his back reassuringly. He takes a few minutes before he speaks again.

“I tried to end my life after I completed my revenge. So I didn’t have to live another day without them. But I failed. I spent the next seven years without them. And everyday it feels like I’ve lost them again,”

“What do you plan to do… after we have finished here?”

You can feel Zemo’s body tenses in your arms as you ask that question, “I think you know, y/n”

You pull back from him to look into his blood-shot eyes. “Zemo, I know this is so very hard for you, but please don’t. I know with your wit and cunning you can think of a way to escape all of this safely. I will not pretend to know your wife, but if she is anything like what you have told me about, I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to either. She would want you to find some happiness in life,”

Zemo finally moves away from you, standing up off the tree log and taking one last look at the sky before then looking back at you. He’d stopped crying by now but the tear stained cheek and dark under eyes were evidence of what had just occurred. The side of his lip tried to twitch up into a slight smile but it faltered,

“Thank you, y/n”

Taglist: @multiyfandomgirl40 @ineffablebean @freyjasamael @avgravy @jayxkelsi @huntheimpossible @checkurwindow @there-goes-thefighter @bunniwritesx @montypythonsholysnail @yallgotkik

#zemo #baron zemo #zemo x y/n #zemo x reader #tfatws #sam wilson #marvel #daniel brühl #mcu #zemo x you #i love zemo #helmut zemo #sugar daddy zemo #yes this is about zemo

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babytaes · 3 years

Text

steal a kiss

summary: what is it like to be a staff member under Pledis, well y/n knows well, the in’s and out of living as a stylist for Seventeen.

pairing: mingyu x female reader

genre: light smut (like its barely there), fluff

warnings: thigh-riding.......umm

a/n: I wanted to give a short one-shot to my carats and any other peeps out there in appreciation of reaching 300 followers. Thank you to everyone who has followed me on this writing adventure; I truly appreciate it and hope you will stick with me to the end. Enjoy and always much love from babytaes! :)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Being a member of the team seventeen staff has its privileges, which come in handy on a regular basis. Breakfast, lunches, and dinners are all provided for free. All provided on the company card.

Days where you had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to prepare clothing for the boys, yeah it was a delight.

Despite the fact that every job has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, you were fortunate enough to get hired by S.Coups (Pledis) Entertainment.

You had your share of late nights and early mornings, but the final result of each member always made you proud of the work you and your coworkers put in.

Today was a photo shoot day, which happened to fall during promotion season, which was already stressful enough. You were thrilled to celebrate Jihoon's success when he released another banger.

You picked up some drinks on your way to work for the members who were first in line for their individual shot. Seungkwan, Mingyu, Jeonghan, and Jihoon were on the agenda.

Despite the fact that it was supposed to be an early-bird day, you arrived early, ready to take on the world.

“Hey Y/N, early morning isn’t it.” As she walked past you, she waved and embraced you in a hug.

“It is, and I'm starting to believe they purposefully put us on these shifts. It's always photo sessions for us,” you said as you strolled over to the clothing rack, your eyes glittering at the several items of clothing.

“For real, it's fine once it gets rolling, but we still need a break.”

“Break what is that foreign word?” you ask as you turn around.

“You're a mess; hurry up and start organizing so we can look like we're doing our job.”

You grinned as you shook your head and turned around. Jihyo was a member of the staff who you met when you first started working for Pledis.

It's a long story, but you were friends with a few members during their debut and essentially grew up with them, so when you went to work for them, you took her under your wing. She’s basically your apprentice.

Anyway, back to Pledis and your great life. The joys of being overworked.

---

As time passed, more individuals and crew began to arrive at the location, prepping for the shot. You had a few more minutes before things started, so you walked to the back to find something to eat.

Courtesy of the company’s card . ;)

As you moved back to the snack table, you heard voices and looked up from your phone to see the infamous boys walking in. When you see him, you instantly smile and slowly come to a halt, allowing them to pass.

As they hurried quickly inside the dressing room, the boys said their flurry of hellos to you. One stood there for a long time, looking around before slipping his arm around your waist.

“Good morning, love,” I wasn't expecting to meet you this early in the morning, but I'm glad I arrived first.” As he lingered above your lips, teasing you, his face drew in closer to yours.

As you carefully peel him off of you, your cheeks begin to burn up.

“There’s people around gyu”

“That didn’t stop me”

“In all seriousness, I'm glad to see you,” you said with a chuckle. These schedules are becoming increasingly hectic, and I hardly have time to see you.”

Mingyu took another look around before he went down to peck your lips, astonished and taken aback, you giggled as you walked away.

“Let’s get to work young man”

“Yes, ma'am,” He walked away toward the shoot, raising a salute and sharply shaking his head.

Only Jihoon and Seungkwan were clothed in their first outfit when you entered the dressing room.

“Are my eyes failing me or do I see Jeonghan not dressed?” you exclaim at the astonished males in front of you, furrowing your brows.

He looked up from his phone, leaped to his feet, and dashed over to the racks, grabbed his name badge while apologizing.

You didn't have any kind of motherly power over them, no way. However, if any of them were to be late for any reason, you wouldn't mind giving them a gentle push to get them going.

Hehe.

You pushed Mingyu to his sector and instructed him to be ready in ten minutes, “apparently the first unit is Jihoon and Seungkwan.”

They all shook their heads when they realized what you were saying. Taking one last look at him you sighed and returned to the garment rack, where you gathered extra outfits for them.

It didn’t take long for the boys to be done with their photo shoot, they did have great genes which impacted the photo shoot time.

You and your team do a fantastic job styling them, if I do say so myself. Now came the worst part: packing everything back into suitcases and bags and returning them to their original locations.

As you prepare the van, you speak incoherently as you place all of the respected garments and accessories in their proper spots.

You waved farewell the first time as they drove away. Being that type of person you wanted to be sure everything was in order, so you went back in and did a quick check.

Mr. Kim, the troublesome one, greeted you as you made your way to the dressing room. You cough as you stand outside the door frame, arms folded.

“Ahh- what the hell.” He looked around and became instantly calm.

“Now, why are you still dressed like that?” As he carefully made his approach to you, he kissed your arms as you said, "I already packed away the stuff."

“You worry too much love.” He kisses your desired lips as he draws you closer to him, silencing your cries. As you moan into him, you melt under his touch.

“Gyu... mmmh, we have to go,” As he moves you closer to the couch, Mingyu's gaze remains fixed on you.

You give into his lustful need with another sigh, despite the fact that you were thinking the same thing.

“Y/N? He retorted

“Yes Mingyu?”

As he pressed kisses on your neck, he drew you down onto his lap. Moving to the side, you gave him more access while you moaned under his touch.

“I love you,” he says with a smile as you travel slowly across his thigh, a performance you never got tired of. As you shuddered, he observed you throwing your head back.

He whispers, "Such a good girl y/n," and caresses your jawline with butterfly kisses. "Are you near, baby?" he inquires, his gaze fixed on yours.

As you pick up the speed, the friction on his thigh becomes more intense. As your breath returns to normal, you slump forward on his chest.

“See, that wasn't so bad,” he says as you leap up from his thigh and hit his chest.

“Babeeee, these are not your clothes. As you cross your arms, he begins to giggle, “Now I have to dry clean them.”

“Let’s go, I still have a lot of work to do.”

As you walk out the door, he takes your hand in his and entwines it with kisses.

“You still love me,” he says, shoving his nose in your face as you enter one of the staff cars. As you locked the door behind him, you could almost hear him pouting.

“Mmmh, you're being mean.” You grinned as you rolled your eyes at him and said to the driver, "Let's go."

“I could never be mean to you gyu, buttt we did get a stain on your pants which will be a hell of a pain to get off.” He draws you closer to him, laughing, and lets you rest your head on his shoulder as he kisses you.

“Hey, you got it; the amount of stains we both accumulated on clothes is overwhelming, but you've done it before, so you can do it again.”

“You should be cleaning it with the amount of cum you spill,” you say.

“I mean, I did suggest cleaning it up, but you didn't want that.”

“I'm not going to clean it with my tongue, and you do realize these pants aren't yours.”

You and him squabble all the way back to the corporate building, which is the beauty of being a stylist. Even though it was all in good fun, you missed this. The random conversations you and him would have.

It filled your heart with excitement, but it was cut short when you thanked the driver and exited the vehicle.

“You sure you can’t stay with me?” As he gazed at you, his eyes became sorrowful. You kissed his lips as you shouted out to the driver, falling in love with this enormous puppy once more.

“Get him home safely Mr. Lee” he turned around and shook his head at you.

“Bye, love; I'll see you after work.” As he spoke in your ear, he took your hand and pulled you in for a kiss.

“Let’s continue what we started.” Before closing the door, he winked at you.

As I previously stated, being on the seventeen staff has its advantages, and this was one of them.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

➳ Navigate to the Maze

#seventeen #svt #seventeen mingyu #seventeen kim mingyu #kim mingyu #mingyu #seventeen smut #seventeen suggestive #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen x female reader #seventeen writers #seventeen reactions #seventeen masterlist #much love from babytaes

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thebookreader12345 · 3 years

Text

Shouting Match

Pairing: Sean Roman x Halstead! reader

Summary: Y/N and Sean were in what seemed like the perfect relationship, but when a close friend gets hurt, the two realize there were many faults between them and an argument ensues

Requested: Yes, by anonymous

Warnings: slight swearing, mentions of alcohol and gunshot wounds

Word Count: 1,777 Words

"Jay, for the last time, I'm not gonna break up with Sean just because you don't like him," I tell my older brother.

"Why not, Y/N? I'd say that's a pretty good reason," Jay retorted as he followed me out to my car.

We had just spent the past 2 hours hanging out at Molly's so that we could catch up because it had been a while since we'd spent time together. But of course, as soon as the topic of relationships came up, a debate started that I had not wanted to get into.

"Look, Jay. I get that he's got beef with Intelligence, and they're practically your second family, but Sean's a really great guy. And once you get over whatever the hell has you fixated on him being an asshole, you'll see that. Now, I've got an early shift at Med tomorrow, and if I'm late, Will is gonna have my head. I'll talk to you tomorrow," I say before climbing into my car.

The ride to the apartment was pretty short, 5 minutes tops, and I was just happy to be home. I climbed out of my car and entered the complex, taking the stairs to get to the second floor of the building. From there, it was only a matter of seconds before I got to my door and unlocked it.

"Hey," Sean greeted from the couch as I came through the door. It wasn't weird for Sean to be in my apartment when I got home. Occasionally he'd come over so we could spend a bit of time together before our next shifts.

"Hey," I return and set my things down before joining him on the couch. I took a seat on his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck, placing a much needed kiss on his lips.

"How was work?" Sean asked and encircled my waist with his arms.

"You know, giving meds, checking in on patients, the usual," I reply, describing the everyday routine of my job as an ED Nurse at Chicago Med. "And then I got to spend some time with Jay at Molly's. It's always nice hanging out with him since I don't see him as often as Will. But what about you? How was patrol?"

"Fine. The only thing that happened was an attempted robbery, and we caught the guy," Sean responded. "Speaking of work, my partner's taking a day off tomorrow, so I'm gonna be partnered with Kim for the day."

I had no problem with Kim. Quite the opposite, actually. She was my best friend. However, she was also Sean's ex, so sometimes it made things weird between us. She assured me when Sean and I started dating that she was okay with it, and I believed that, but whenever the three of us were together, there was a bit of awkwardness in the room. We always got past it though, and Sean and Kim continued to be friends.

"All right. Keep each other safe, please," I plead and peck his lips before climbing off of his lap. "I've got an early shift tomorrow, so I'm gonna head to bed."

"Goodnight," Sean called after me. I ditched the clothes I was wearing, throwing them in the hamper with one toss. After I put on some pajamas, I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. Minutes later, I was fast asleep.

............................................

"Y/N, that's your second cup of coffee this morning," Maggie pointed out as she joined me at the nurses' station.

"Yeah. And...?" I trailed off, not seeing the problem.

"Late night?" Maggie questioned.

I shook my head. "No, actually. I made Jay promise not to keep me at Molly's past 10, and he stayed true to that. Today I'm just enjoying my caffeine." Just then, Maggie's pager beeped, and when she glanced down at it, she frowned.

"Incoming! Choi, you're up!" Maggie yelled into the ED. Ethan was the doctor I worked with the most, and I had no problem with it. We had grown to be close friends, and we worked quite well together. So, whenever it was his turn to accept an incoming trauma, I always followed to help him out. I thought today would be the same, but that all changed when the gurney was wheeled through the ambulance bay doors.

"Kim Burgess, late 20s, gunshot wound to the neck. Weak pulse. We intubated in the field," Courtney, the paramedic, informed us. My whole world seemed to stop as I watched my best friend get wheeled past me. And seeing her unconscious made things 100% worse.

"Y/N, you coming?" Ethan quizzed as he led the gurney into the nearest trauma room.

"I uh... Mags, c-can you...?" I stammer out, not even needing to finish my sentence for Maggie to understand what I was asking.

"I've got this," Maggie assured me and followed Ethan into the trauma room. Seconds after Kim was wheeled in, Sean entered the ED, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on me.

"Y/N!" Sean shouted and joined me by the nurses' station. "How's Kim doing?"

"I don't know," I confess and glance towards the trauma room she was situated in. "I make it a rule to not work on anyone I'm close with. What the hell happened? You guys were just supposed to be on a routine patrol."

"Intelligence called us up," Sean answered. "We were working a drug case and we ended up having to chase the guy down an alleyway."

"That's not what I'm talking about. You promised you'd keep Kim safe. You promised, Sean. So where were you when she was being shot at?" I implore harshly.

"I was taking cover like I was supposed to! We didn't have an eye so I ducked down behind a dumpster. What, you think this was my fault?" Sean asked.

"You're her partner, Sean. It's your job to protect her. Yet here she is with a bullet buried in her neck," I return.

"You're acting like I told her to make a move," Sean countered. "She put her own life in danger. I had nothing to do with that."

I scoffed. "You had everything to do with it."

"I don't think we should be having this argument here," Sean whispered.

"Well I think we should," I retort.

"Y/N," Sean started.

"Don't 'Y/N' me," I seethe. By now, the whole ED was staring at us, but I didn't care right now. "My best friend is dying because of you!"

"If it was me in there instead of Kim, would you be yelling at her?" Sean posed. "Cause I think you'd be trying to reassure her that none of it was her fault. So, what? Kim takes priority over me, your boyfriend?"

"At the moment, yeah," I reply and cross my arms over my chest.

"Just at the moment? I think she always has," Sean accused. "And if that doesn't speak to how our relationship is, then I don't know what does."

"What are you trying to say?" I ask.

"I'm not trying to say anything. I'm telling you that I'm through with this. I'm through with you," Sean emphasized. "We're done." As Sean stalked off back towards the lobby, everything he said really hit me.

We were done.

"Y/N? You okay?" Adam questioned once he noticed that I had practically froze in the middle of the ED.

"Excuse me," I murmur and push past him politely. My body was begging me for some fresh air to help calm myself down, so I made my way out of the ED, but that involved going through the lobby where Sean and the rest of the 21st district was waiting. I hoped that I wouldn't catch anyone's attention, but I should've known better.

"Y/N," Jay said and stood up when he saw me. However, instead of stopping to talk to him, I made a beeline straight for the exit. The automatic doors opened when I stepped near them, allowing a nice breeze to hit my face. My feet carried me to the front of the hospital where I took a seat against the side of the building and placed my head in my hands. That's when the tears began to flow, but I didn't stop them. Minutes later, I was joined by Jay, who took a seat next to me. For a few seconds, we sat in silence, but then Jay spoke up. "Natalie told me what happened."

"I don't want to talk about it," I mutter without removing my head from my arms.

"Well, as family, we're required to," Jay declared. "I told you Roman was an ass."

I laughed softly and picked my head up, resting it against the wall behind me. "I now see why you thought that. So everyone in the ED heard?"

Jay nodded. "Yeah. But don't worry. I'm sure they're all thinking the same thing as I am. Want me to have a talk with Roman?"

I shook my head. "No, but thank you for offering. I uh, I need to get back inside. We're low on nurses today. I'll talk to you later, Jay."

Jay's POV

A few hours later, Kim was awake and doing well, and I was just glad that she would be making a full recovery. As Adam and I were exiting her room, we just so happened to bump into Sean Roman, the girl who just, not even hours prior, broke my little sister's heart.

"Hey, guys," Sean greeted. "Is she awake?""

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Are you for real?"

Sean frowned. "What?"

"You broke up with my sister, that's what. Get the hell out of here!" I demand.

"But-"

Adam cut Sean off. "Kim doesn't want to talk to you. Not after what happened between you and Y/N. And I'd advise you follow Jay's orders."

Sean hesitated, but sighed. "Fine." He then walked off, leaving Adam and I standing alone in front of Kim's hospital room.

"All right man, I'm gonna head out. I promised Y/N that Will and I would come over after her shift, which is ending in like 20 minutes, so I've gotta pick up some pizza and beers."

"Okay. I'm gonna stay and keep Kim company. Have a good night," Adam spoke.

"Yeah man. You too," I return. And with that, I left the hospital to go spend some much needed quality time with my sister. Y/N would probably be hurting for a few days, but Will and I agreed that we'd be there for her every step of the way because that's what big brothers were for.

______________________________

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ragingbookdragon · 3 years

Text

You Light The Spark In My Bonfire Heart

Kyle Rayner x Batbro One-Shot

Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: I HAVEN'T HAD ANY WIFI ALL DAY BUT NOW I DO AND this is my new obsession and pair and you can tear it from my cold dead hands. Enjoy! -Thorne

**********************************************************************

Kyle had an easy morning routine: get up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, workout, shower, drink protein shake, and draw. It was simple and effective, and helped him maintain a sense of normalcy that he didn’t always have when he was up in space. He typically started out with sketching small things, mostly faces and limbs from memory, the occasional suit redesign, then he’d get into the bigger works, drawing comic panels and the commissions he had. And while Kyle loved to be up in space, to be a Green Lantern, drawing felt like coming home to him, like it was the natural state. That being said, he didn’t love being interrupted when he was in the middle of something important—it was bad for the groove.

***

As the second round of knocking sounded on his door, Kyle grunted and stood from his desk, padding through the hallway to his front door; he flicked the lock and pulled open the door, surprise etching across his face when he saw the eldest Wayne leaning against the door frame—rather cockily, Kyle added, because the soldier’s arm was propped on the frame, the other stuck in the side-pocket of his dark tactical bomber jacket.

“Good morning, Kyle,” he greeted with a smirk. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

The Lantern blinked, shaking his head. “Uh, no, you’re not, (Y/N).” he looked at him. “What are you doing here?”

(Y/N) shrugged. “Had some business to take care of for my dad, and since I was in the area, I figured I’d drop by and see if you wanted to get some lunch with me.”

Kyle took a moment to lean out the doorway slightly, looking down the stretched hallway. “How’d you know where I live?”

“Please, a magician never reveals his secrets,” he deflected coolly, gazing at Kyle. “What do you say? Wanna get some lunch? I know a really good sports bar that serves great food.”

He looked back at (Y/N) and smiled. “Yeah. Let me go get dressed.”

The soldier merely winked in return and with fumbling hands, Kyle managed to shut the door before his cheeks burst into flames, hurrying back to his bedroom to pull together an outfit that would impress the man.

***

Kyle almost dropped to his knees when he saw the car parked outside his apartment building, and (Y/N) knew it too, because he chirped, “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”

He nodded dumbly. “Is this a McLaren 720S?”

“Mhm.” He opened the doors and slid into the driver’s seat, looking through the passenger door. “Coming?”

“Am I ever,” Kyle breathed, climbing into the seat, immediately running his hands along the dashboard and seat. “I’m in love.”

“Wait till you hear her purr,” (Y/N) said, closing the doors, and pushing the ignition. The sports car roared to life and he grinned at the way Kyle’s face melted. “Yeah, she’s a beauty.” He put the car in drive and looked through the side mirror, then pulled out onto the street.

“Is this one of your dad’s cars?”

“Nah, I bought this for myself a couple months ago.” He pulled the sunglasses from his t-shirt and put them on. “This and an Audi TT.”

Kyle huffed a laugh. “Jesus, you billionaires live it up, don’t you?”

(Y/N) smiled. “Hey, I live life in the fast lane. Might as well drive in it too.” He pushed a button on the touch screen and music filtered through the speakers, and Kyle’s face pinched in confusion. “What?”

“This isn’t—James Blunt isn’t the music I figured you’d play.”

“What’d you think I’d be listening too? Rock?” he chuckled, turning the volume down a bit. “Don’t get me wrong, I listen to all kinds of rock music, but I figured you’d want something easy rather than head-bang your brains out rock.” (Y/N) stopped at a red light and glanced over. “You can look through the artists on my phone if you want.”

Kyle shook his head, relaxing into the seat as the melody flowed through him. “No, I like this artist.” The soldier merely smiled in return, pressing the gas pedal again, and Kyle suddenly remembered something. “Speaking of artist, I saw the canvas in your bedroom the other day. Do you draw?”

(Y/N) hummed. “Not like you. It’s more of a pastime than a lifestyle.”

“You’re good at it. You’re painting your family in their suits. Details and designs included.” The artist regarded him with impression. “That takes skill.”

“I’d like to think I just have a steady hand and a lot of patience for stressful tasks.” (Y/N) turned the wheel, coming up behind a line of cars. “It’s an easy way for me to relax and mentally run through past events.”

“Like what?” Kyle questioned curiously.

(Y/N)’s eyes narrowed, but not in a loathing way, more of a thoughtful one. “Missions, conversations, things I could’ve done differently, things I will do differently.” He shrugged again. “Painting for me is just a time when I think about everything and nothing.”

“Well, you’re great at it, (Y/N).”

He snorted. “It’s just a bunch of paintings of my family and friends and military shit.”

Kyle blinked and leaned over. “Wait, is that painting in the den—”

“The one of the F-18 Super Hornet?”

“Yeah. You painted that?”

(Y/N) nodded. “Yep. I got Hal Jordan to take me up in one a few years ago and decided to commemorate the trip.”

“Wow,” the Lantern breathed. “I stared at that canvas for at least an hour the first time I saw it. I was just so blown away by how amazing it was.” He chuckled and shook his head. “And to find out, you drew it and not some world-famous painter.”

“Hey, I could be world famous if I wanted.” (Y/N) shot back, turning onto a less busy backstreet. “I just choose to retain my talents for family and friends.”

“Because of your job?”

“That too.” He agreed. “My squad and I take careful precautions to avoid our faces being seen during any missions for the safety of our families.” His face turned as solemn as his voice. “We do what we do to make the world safer. To keep our families and friends safe. It’s imperative that we’re not seen.”

Kyle cocked a brow. “But you’re Bruce Wayne’s son?”

“I am,” he nodded. “But I’m not as…out as the rest of my siblings. You’d be able to recognize them from press photos, but me not so much.” (Y/N) pulled into a parking spot outside the bar. “People only recognize me when they see the name on the credit cards. And I prefer to keep it that way.” A goofy smile crossed his lips. “The high life isn’t for me.”

“Says the man that drives a 710 horsepower sports car.” Kyle shot back with a grin of his own and (Y/N) stuck his tongue out as he turned the car off and opened the doors.

“Okay, I’m not actively in the high life but that doesn’t mean I don’t like luxury.” He closed the car doors and opened the front door to the bar for Kyle. “After you.”

“Thank you.” He replied, and walked inside, only stopping to turn and ask, “Do you want to sit at the bar or a table?”

(Y/N) tipped his head to the side. “I’m down with both, but I like the bar more.”

“Bar it is,” Kyle said and slid into one of the chairs, (Y/N) the other, and an older man wandered over.

“Well, I’ll be damned, is that (Y/N) Wayne I see?”

He turned, expression morphing into joy as he reached out and shook the older man’s hand. “Jack, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you son. How’ve you been?”

“Ah, you know me, sir. Nothin’ changing but the weather.”

Jack snorted. “And the desert where you dig sand outta your ass.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “Damn straight.” He looked at Kyle. “Kyle, I’d like you to meet Jack Dagher. He’s an old CO of mine.”

Kyle shook the man’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“It’s all mine,” Jack replied. “It’s been a while since (Y/N) brought anybody here.”

At that, Kyle turned to the soldier who was busy looking anywhere but his face. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah. Sonovabitch doesn’t bring his dates here unless he really likes ‘em.”

(Y/N) coughed, glaring at the man. “Alright, we get it. Aren’t you supposed to be taking orders?”

Jack gave him a smug look in return. “What can I get you boys to drink?”

“I’ll take a beer,” Kyle said, and Jack rolled his eyes.

“No shit, kid. What kind?”

(Y/N) snickered as Kyle flushed. “Uh, a Heineken.”

Jack sighed. “And he had such potential. (Y/N)?”

“Gimme a strawberry daiquiri then water after.”

“Still ordering fruity drinks, huh?”

“Hey, they get you drunk faster than horse piss does, you old fart.” He shot back and the old man chuckled.

“Touché.” He slapped the bar. “I’ll bring those to you with an order of chili fries.”

“Thanks Jack,” (Y/N) smiled, watching the man walk off before turning to Kyle who was watching one of the baseball games. “You like sports?”

He tipped his head side to side. “I don’t not like them. I was never a sporty kid in school, but I like watching them.” He looked at the solider. “What were you like in school? Jock or prep?”

“Probably a bit of both,” he answered. “I played sports and had the highest grades.” Shrugging, he added, “And being a Wayne boosted me into the top tier of schools, so, there’s that. To be honest, I think all of us Wayne kids were and are a mixture of every stereotypical category.”

“I can see that,” Kyle laughed. “Especially with Jason and Dick.”

“Shit, I was talking about Timmy.” (Y/N) said. “That kid’s a grade A nerd.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

The two of them laughed and a woman placed their drinks in front of them, both giving their thanks as they took sips.

“Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?”

“My muscles are one hundred percent real. Especially my abs. Which you’re allowed to feel on in envy if you want.”

Kyle snorted into his beer, wiping his mouth. “No!” a few more chuckles passed his lips as he wiped the bar. “Are you…you know…?”

“A Leo?” (Y/N) offered with a smile, but his eyes told Kyle he knew exactly what the Lantern was asking, and he said, “I like the liquor, but I don’t care what label it has on it.”

The other man smiled. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“But if you want the technical term, I am pansexual.” He regarded Kyle a moment. “You?”

“Bisexual.”

His lips pulled in an impressed fashion. “Pretty fly for a bi guy.”

Kyle gaped at him for a moment, then shoved (Y/N) in the side as he buried his face in his arms and laughed. “You’re so stupid.”

“Ah thank you,” he grinned. “I get it from my old man.”

“You,” he cut himself off with a cackle. “do not get that from him.”

“Look, you know the big man in the suit. You don’t know the complete goober we live with,” (Y/N) chuckled, smiling at the waitress who placed menus in front of them; he picked his up and flipped through it.

“What do you recommend?”

“Hmm…anything with bacon on it.” He showed the menu. “If you like salads, get the steak and blue cheese one, it’s fantastic. Or if you’re more into tacos, they’ve got these awesome shrimp carnitas with chili peppers.”

Kyle’s brows furrowed as he looked the menu over. “What are you gonna get?”

“My usual. Tomahawk steak with garlic butter and mashed potatoes.” (Y/N) groaned and rested his head back. “I haven’t had a good steak in months, and I can just taste it already.”

“So, you’re a meat and potatoes kind of man?”

He grinned, keeping his eyes closed. “Unlike the cup noodle and Hawaiian roll man beside me.”

“Ouch. Hit me where it hurts.”

“C’mon Kyle, hit me with your best shot.”

“Better watch it, (Y/N),” he grinned. “You might be the next notch in my pencil case.”

“You’re such a nerd.”

***

“Holy crap,” Kyle breathed, hands resting lightly on his stomach. “I’m stuffed.”

(Y/N) moaned. “Stick a fork in me. I’m done.”

“Done?” their waitress laughed. “You haven’t even finished your desserts yet!”

“Oh God, don’t make me,” the Lantern whined. “I’ll explode.” He looked over. “(Y/N), take one for the team.”

“Pass,” he replied. “I think I’ve gained ten pounds just looking at the rest of the cheesecake.”

The woman laughed. “I’ll wrap the leftovers for you boys.” She wandered off, leaving them alone, and a blaring ringtone filled the space between.

(Y/N) jumped a little, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind if I get this really quick?”

Kyle shook his head. “Go ahead.”

He slid his thumb along the bottom and rested the phone on the bar. “This is Wayne.”

Captain! Finally. I’ve been texting you all afternoon.

“I know,” he snorted. “I’ve been ignoring it.”

Yeah well, the longer you ignore me the slower it takes for the radar dish to get replaced.

“What are you talking about?” (Y/N) asked. “I thought you’d procured one.”

I did. Then the buyer told me I wasn’t registered for official military hardware.

He frowned. “That’s odd. You did contact Thomas, right?”

Yeah. Beady eyed looking motherfucker who serves on the George Washington, right?

“That’s him.” (Y/N) hummed. “Tell you what, I’ll call him later this evening and get it all sorted out, yeah?”

Sounds good. Hey, did you take that guy out yet? Your little brother won’t stop texting me about some twinkie you’re into.”

(Y/N) froze as he felt Kyle’s eyes drilling into the side of his head and he stuttered, “Uh, Nadeen, now’s not the best time.”

What do you mean best—oh…ohhhhhh. I, uh, I gotta go, Captain.

“Yep. Bye.” He locked the phone and shoved it back into his pocket, refusing to meet Kyle’s eyes. “So…you catch the baseball game?”

“Which one of your brother’s thinks I’m a twink?” Kyle asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s Jason, isn’t it?” he grunted in his throat, deadpanning, “I can’t believe my best friend thinks I’m a twink.”

“It’s Dick, actually.” (Y/N) grinned, turning to face him and he reached over, pinching Kyle’s cheek. “It’s just ‘cause you’re so cute and perky.”

The Lantern merely glared at him, griping, “I’m not as strong as you, put I can punch pretty hard.”

“Ooo, those are fighting words,” he shot back with a smirk, letting Kyle go. “Careful, I’m ticklish.”

“I feel like I’m talking to Hal.”

(Y/N) whined, all but collapsing onto Kyle who started snickering. “I’ve just been murdered.” He buried his face in Kyle’s shoulder. “Can’t believe I was just compared to Highball. The world must be coming to an end.”

“Oh, come on, you big baby. You’re not dying.”

“I am!” he turned his head, gazing at Kyle. “You’ll have to carry me to safety.”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry you.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“I did not say that.”

“You did, but in more words.”

“Alright, now I’m talking to Guy.”

“THAT’S SO MUCH WORSE!”

***

He leaned against the door frame as Kyle unlocked his front door and pushed it open, turning to look at him. “I had a lot of fun today, (Y/N).” he murmured. “Thanks.”

Winking, he replied, “I’m glad you did. I’d like to do it again soon if you want.”

Kyle nodded. “I’d like that.”

They stared at each other for a few moments and (Y/N) smiled, patting the door frame. “Well, I’d better be heading out. Have to get home in time for dinner.” He paused, giving the man a warm look. “Thanks for having lunch with me, Kyle.”

He’d not gotten two feet from the door when Kyle’s hand wrapped around his wrist. “Wait.” He turned and the Lantern leaned forward, pressing his lips to (Y/N)’s cheek. “Be careful on your way back.”

“I will,” he murmured, watching Kyle wave and disappear into his apartment, the door shutting behind him.

185 notes · View notes

mrsavery · 4 years

Photo

OUR MIRACLE

Massimo Torricelli x Reader

Warnings: None

Summary: You give Massimo the most precious Christmas gift that he always has wished but never got.

Word count: 1808

It had been exactly five years since your first Christmas together. Five years filled with love and happiness. The Christmas lights were dancing on the Christmas three, and soft music was playing in the background, as you walked through the empty house with a gift in your hands. It was for Massimo who, at this moment, was away for business but should be home in a few hours.

As you sat is down under the three and looked around the room, you could not stop smiling, knowing that one day things were going to change. You left the room and went to the kitchen, humming ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ under your nose. Since your husband was gone, the house felt empty and foreign, and you were counting hours until his return. The clock on the wall showed that it was only four in the evening, meaning that Massimo would not be home for another three to four hours.

You knew all about his lifestyle, about his work and family. It scared you at first, because you were afraid of his life not yours, knowing that every day could be his last. Never ever in the five years of being together you had been in danger, had been kidnapped or touched by others. Massimo had been doing everything to keep you safe, and he is keeping his promise.

You walked back to the living room and sat on the couch with a cacao mug in your hands. You will wait for your husband here and, while waiting, read a book that you have not been able to finish in a long time. It is a novel that Massimo gave you on your twenty-fifth birthday a few months ago. Your husband knows how much you love reading, and because of that most of his present are books.

One hour passes, then the other and soon you have finished reading the book. You put it in the bookshelf and return to your place on the couch. When ‘Last Christmas’ starts playing in the background, you close your eyes and let your mind take you back to your first Christmas together.

Massimo’s warm hands wrapped themselves around your waist, as he sat behind you on the floor. He put his head on your shoulder and inhaled your scent, like he always did. It helped him to calm down.

“Is everything alright?” You asked him.

“Si.” Massimo replied and afterwards kissed your cheek. “How was your day, farfalla?”

“I talked to my brother a few minutes ago.” You said and looked at the fireplace in front of you. The fire was dancing, and you felt Massimo shifter against you. “He said that my parents still cannot forgive me for leaving.”

Seven months ago, you left home, ran away from your arranged marriage and things that you knew. You were born and raised in a small town in west England where everyone knew everyone. There were two farms in your town, where most of the people worked. One was owned by your father, and the other was owned by the Carter family. They wanted to unite both farms, and the only way how to do it was by marriage. As the Carter family only had a son your age, and you were the first-born daughter in your family, you both were supposed to marry. Jonathan Carter was beautiful, but you did not like him.

You tried everything to get break the arrangement, even gave your place to your sister who wanted to marry Jonathan, but it did not give any results. Jonathan only wanted to marry you, claiming that you were the most beautiful girl in the town. Your brother, seeing tears in your eyes two days before the wedding, helped you to leave. You flew all the way down to Italy and started a new life there.

You missed your family very much, but the life was better for you here. If you tried to return… You did not know how it would end and did not want to find out. You had a new life here, a man who loved you and who took care of you. Massimo was giving you the world, but the pain in your heart did not leave easily.

You felt Massimo’s thumbs on your cheeks wiping away the tears that had fallen. “Everything is going to be alright.” You whispered and turned around to face your boyfriend. You got into his lap, wrapped your hands around his neck and kissed his lips softly. You looked into his dark eyes and whispered words that both never have told loud. “I love you.”

Massimo just smiled and kissed you back, this time with more passio. “I love you too, farfalla.”

You opened your eyes when your phone made a quiet sound. You took it in your hands and smiled because it was a message from your brother. He had sent a family picture of him, his wife, and their three years old daughter. You decided to call him in return, and your brother answered almost immediately.

“Hi, Merry Christmas!” You said with a smile.

“Merry Christmas to you too! Did you see the picture?” He asked. You could hear your niece’s laughter in the background.

“Yes, you all look amazing, when Massimo comes, I will show him it too.”

“Where is he?”

“Some unexpected things came up, and he was forced to go to the work. He should be back soon.” Your brother thought that Massimo owned a company and was CEO there. It was a partly true, since he owns a few companies around the world, but he mostly uses it as a cover, because truly he is a Don to the biggest mafia in Europe, but your brother did not need to know that.

“I will hope that Massimo comes home fast. I do not want you to spend the Christmas alone.” He said, and you heard pain in his voice. You have not seen him since your wedding that was four years ago, and both of you wanted to spent time together with your families, but never really had a chance.

“I will not.” You said and put a hand on your stomach. “Alice is growing up fast.”

“Yes, she is. It is like only yesterday she was born… I have been thinking about you and Massimo. You both are happy, but a little child would make things even better. You are already twenty-five, and he is, let me count… thirty-five.”

“We will think about it.”

“I have to go, [Y/N]. Mother is calling. Talk to you soon, alright? And give Massimo my greetings.” You were not able to reply, because your brother ended the call. You as well put your phone away and smiled when you looked outside the window and saw your husband’s car approaching. Massimo was finally home!

You stood up and made sure that room looks perfect, before walking to the front door. Before you could open them, Massimo beat you to it and smiled seeing you. “Hi, farfalla.”

“Hi, Massimo.” You let him take of his jacked and shoes before you ran into his embrace and kissed him with force. You had missed your husband all day, and you could not wait for him to open his present, because it was a tradition for you and Massimo to open presents on Christmas Eve instead of the next morning. “How did the meeting go?”

“I would have been happier to stay home with my wife instead of listening to them.” You chuckled at his answer.

“Nobody is perfect.”

“Only you.” Massimo said kissing your bare neck. “Can we skip presents and go up?’

You turned around and put hands on his chest. He was much taller than you, but the height difference had never been an issue for you. “After you open your present.”

He groaned. “Why does my present is so important? In my opinion, sex with my wife is more important than presents, because you are the biggest present that I have got.”

“Because after you open it, we will be able to go and celebrate.”

Massimo raised his eyebrow to you. “A celebration?”

You nodded and got out of his embrace. You walked to the tree and got out a little blue box that you had placed there earlier. “This is for you.” You said giving it to your husband. You sat down next to him on the sofa, as he slowly opened the present. Massimo undid the white bow tie, then unwrapped the blue wrapping paper, never leaving your eyes.

You smiled at Massimo when he opened the small carbon box in his hands and froze. He took out the white stick that was showing two pink lines and then looked at you. Massimo was too shocked to talk, and his tears were evidence of that.

It was a miracle that you were pregnant. Ten years ago, when Massimo was shot and his father was killed, he got the news that changed his life. He had survived an attempted murder but lost his chance to become a father. The chances of him becoming father were almost non-existent. Over the years he had reconciled that he will not have children, and once Massimo told you that you were free to leave him because of that.

You stayed, knowing that without him, you were nothing. Massimo came into your life as a savior, to save you from the darkness, but in the end, you saved him too. Doctors had said that chances were very low, even with artificial insemination, but you both managed to beat it all and become pregnant without trying.

When you saw these pink lines appear in the morning, you could not stop crying. It was a real miracle that you will always be thankful for. You and Massimo had talked about adoption, but it always ended with a fight and a make-up sex later. As much as you were ready to be a parent, you were not sure that you would be able to love a baby that was not genetically yours. There would always be fear that his or her real parents would show up and take him or her away from you. It would break you, so you both decided that it was not an option.

Massimo took his eyes off the pregnancy test and looked into your eyes that were full of tears too. “I’m pregnant, Massimo. We are going to have a baby!” It took him about three seconds to throw the stick on the glass coffee table and take you in his arms. You were wrapped in his large embrace and your husband’s wet cheek was pressed against yours.

“We are going to have a baby.” He whispered and put one of his hands on your flat belly. “A baby.”

You put your hand over his large one and said. “Our baby.”

farfalla- butterfly

#365 days #365 dni #massimo torricelli #michele morrone #massimo torricelli x reader #365 days imagine #365 days fanfiction #365 days fic

1K notes · View notes

watevermelon · 4 years

Text

Quiet Sort of Love | Sakusa Kiyoomi x Reader

✧ Summary: Manager to the Fukurōdani volleyball club, there was no doubt that Itachiyama’s Sakusa Kiyoomi was a strong ace. He brought your team to their knees on multiple occasions, but what you were not expecting was getting to know the nationally acclaimed spiker beyond just the titles and labels.

✧ Warnings: Implicating language and slight spoilers toward the end (you will be warned beforehand :))

✧ Notes: Buckle up boys cause this is a LONG one LMAO -> lots of fluff, angst, slight BokuAka, character development, mutual pining at one point, and just me being sentimental over one of my favorite teams -> #SummerWrites for these! I tended to write fluffier stories

✧ Masterlist

If someone asked you for the full story, there was no way you could explain it. One moment, you were in junior high, relatively enjoying your time on the track team. The next, you were attending Fukurōdani Academy without a clue to which club you wanted to commit to.

While you could have rejoined the track team, you were not especially good at sprints and had only done so for your friends at the time. Now, there was a much more daunting pressure about what you were going to be committing your time to. Akaashi has suggested you take-up the open managerial role for the volleyball club, since you were unsure you wanted to truly dedicate yourself to any sport. And, somehow within a couple days of that conversation, with the eccentric introductions of second-years Yukie and Kaori, the current managers, you were attending their volleyball practice on a trial session.

Fast-forward a few weeks and it was already the best decision you had made in your first-year of being a Fukurōdani Academy student.

They were dedicated to their sport, their passion easily radiating off of them and to onlookers watching a simple set. It was what entranced you to begin with - their strong zeal that easily drew others into their bubble. Yes, you were a powerhouse school with a long history of being winners. But it was the people that encompassed the team that drew it closer to your heart.

From the confident yet silly second-year Bokuto, to the mother hen Akaashi, you made fast friends with the team and the other managers.

There were times that you had to remind yourself that Bokuto, the same Vice Captain and nationally rising spiker to gain acclaim, was the same Bokuto who had accidentally locked himself out of his dorm room only to find his lanyard in his back pocket.

And, while reminding yourself of Bokuto, you remembered the text you received from the team group-chat early that morning. You had gone home for the weekend to pick-up some stuff from your family home, the place of residence sitting outside Shibuya and a good thirty-minutes by train away from the inner city.

But, it was a short-lived trip since the next morning you had to return back to the dorms for a practice match set with your school’s supposed long-term rivals: Itachiyama. GC: Hoot Hoot ⊹⋛⋋(◐⊝◑)⋌⋚⊹

6:15 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) oh no

6:15 Kaori _へ__(‾◡◝ )> (L/N)-chan pls tell me your awake

6:15 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) (F/N)-chan you are our only hope

6:20 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) @Y/N !!!!

6:23 mother-hen^2 (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) I’m awake!!

6:23 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) Please tell me you can pick-up some Dorayaki on your way to the school

6:23 mother-hen^2 (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) ah yes, the patented bokuto revival snacc?

6:24 haaaruki ! thnk u mom

6:24 mother-hen^2 (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) >.>

6:24 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) Thank you, (L/N)-san. 💓

And true to your word, or text rather, you stopped for the snack on your way back to the school. However, with the surprisingly crowded trains on this unfortunate weekend, you were near sprinting down the street once you got some open space. You wanted to still be on time, reasoning regardless, and with the pace of the crowd you were going to be way later than you expected. You rushed between trains, hopping onto the right transfer and letting your foot tap away in impatience as the train pushed onward.

Nearing the school, you were in a dead-sprint toward the entrance and only inwardly sighed at seeing the large school bus, from what you assumed was the rival school, covering the main gateway. You approached from the back of the bus, students filing out from the opposite end of where you were running. You did not want to glance down at your watch, afraid of the time you would see, and instead tried to inwardly navigate a way inside and around your obstacles.

Athletic bags and groups of the students littered the area as they unloaded, forcing you to jump over their stuff if you did not want to break your speed. You were so dead-set in your sprint, you failed to notice the number of eyes on the bus following you in your run.

Just as you turned around the pillar, your speed and momentum came to a stop as you crashed into an unsuspecting student. His hands were in his pockets, a mask covering most of his face, but even you saw the surprised look as his hands shot out to steady the both of you.

Immediately, the dark-haired athlete was chastising you, “Watch where you are going.” The young man immediately pushed you off of him, not in an unkindly way but moreso he wanted his safe distance instantly.

You bowed and muttered out an, “I’m sorry!”

The glare of annoyance was obvious, but it only dropped down when he turned to look at his upturned palms, no longer hidden in his pockets but instead being stared at in a mortified way.

I mean, it’s not like you were dirty? You complained inwardly at his expression, but sucked it up anyway. You were the one who crashed into him and owed the apology anyway and so you could do your duty and then bid the supposed germaphobe goodbye.

Team Mom instincts already kicking in, you reached into your side-bag and took out a small pack of wet-wipes. You opened the container, and not one to incense him further, held it out for him to grab himself.

“An extension of my apology.” You stated at seeing his apprehension, before he took two and wiped his hands clean of your grime.

It was hard to fight down the inward grimace at seeing this utter stranger be so offended at having even touched and breathed the same air as you.

“Komori, nice to meet you.” Another student came up to the two of you, having emerged from the pack of Itachiyama students. “Sorry for my friend here.”

“It was my mistake.” You stated.

“No worries. Nice to meet you, you on the track team?”

You shook your head before glancing down at your watch, losing more precious minutes that you could not afford to waste on a conversation like this. “Sorry, I’m running late. See you around!”

Bidding farewell to the group, who you were sure to see in just a few minutes, you bounded through the school and toward the back gymnasium. The net was already set-up, Akaashi standing toward the center as he warmed-up the spikers, matching up with their heights before the other team made their appearance.

You waved at him as you entered, holding up a bag containing half a dozen of Bokuto’s snacks, before placing it in the careful hands of Kaori. Akaashi thanked you genuinely, only to be surprised when you handed him an iced-latte in a cold glass from the store as well. He smiled, before putting it in the cooler for his undoubted headache later. Yukie looked at you with a curious smile, to which you threw two capri-suns at her - the drink secretly one of her favorites.

They thanked you before rushing back to positions and responsibilities, either continuing to warm-up or simply prep the gym for the other’s arrival. You did as you were told, then lined up to attention when the doors opened to greet your rival school.

While it was only a practice match, the team had already filled you in on the reason behind the unending tension between the two schools. Bokuto spun a tale of wild rivalry spanning generations while Akaashi stated plainly that they had not yet won against Itachiyama in recent years.

Seeing the germaphobe from earlier in the line-up, you stood quiet while the volleyball members silently introduced themselves. Your third-year captain, in his ever so passive-aggressive ire, tightly gripped the hand of the other Itachiyama captain. You fought the urge to roll your eyes and instead let your vision scan the line-up.

The tension was only more palpable during the game. Fukurōdani had practice matches before, but none so eerily… quiet.

Yes, there was intra-team communication and words of encouragement between teammates… but nothing else.

During the practice match with Shinzen, your third-year teammates acted like old friends with some of those students. They even offered some pointers regarding serves between the two schools. And that school was categorized as a rival to your own as well. Shinzen was in the Fukurōdani group after all - they were your close rivals if anything.

But it seemed that the rivalry between Itachiyama and Fukurōdani ran even deeper than that.

Bokuto’s excitement, while usually cute and endearing, definitely contributed to the current atmosphere as well. Bokuto was naturally loud and with every point he scored, there was a chorus right after from yours truly. But, without an audience to drown out his cheers and the Fukurōdani third-years looking seriously quiet, the tiny Bokuto celebration grated on the nerves of the other team.

You watched the young man from earlier, mask gone from his face now and instead replaced with his own brand of quiet determination, as he ran up and smoothly spiked the ball. The action seemed so natural, it was only when the resounding slap signified again how loud and powerful he truly was, the ball smashing into the ground and landing somewhere behind the upper-risers.

That was incredible strength, you thought inwardly, feeling a similar awe you felt the first time you saw the true power behind Bokuto’s spike.

The awed expression on your face quickly squashed down to grimace, remembering this was the guy you had awkwardly crashed into earlier.

“What’s with that face?” Yukie asked, spying you from the corner of her eye. She stood parallel to you, both of you manning the standing scoreboard. Kaori was sitting with the coach, pen in hand as she took notes on the game.

You put back on your neutral visage as you flipped the score number, “That guy who just spiked, he was the one that I bumped into on the way here.”

“Sakusa-san?”

“Yeah...” You affirmed, trying to subtly point in his direction with your gaze alone.

She looked at you with an amused expression, patting you on the back in pity.

Fukurōdani lost the practice match.

And while a part of you was inwardly hissing, there was no doubt that both schools gave their all and the better ended up on top. The third-years commended the team, they were still in the process of finding their rhythm. After all, the points were not that far apart to being with. Having lost 2:1, you noted that the points were relatively close in all three sets.

Bokuto’s displeasure was obvious, complaining loudly that he should have worked on his jump-serve more, but still shaking everyone’s hands at the call of the game.

With both teams working to clean the gymnasium, you walked over to the net to help loosen it and fold the poles. Some of the team members of either side were lightly mingling, commending each other on certain skills while introducing themselves.

You spotted Sakusa in the corner, having helped put away the mats already and retreating to the spot furthest from the crowd. Fighting the urge to bemusedly chuckle at the action, your attention snapped to Komori approaching you, a water-bottle in hand.

“From your running earlier - thought you were a member of the track team.”

You smiled in a friendly manner, “Nope, just a manager of the volleyball club.”

He shot a smile back, “I see. I missed your name earlier...?”

Sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck, embarrassed over forgetting your introduction to your senior, “(L/N) (F/N), nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you, too!” He repeated back your words before adding, “How cute.”

You angled your head in question, surprised at his boldness and flabbergasted from replying.

He continued, “So, are you -”

“Yes, this is all good and well.” An arm swung across your shoulders as the owner cut him off, “But we better help our team out.”

Yukie shot a wink over her shoulder, whisking you to the other end of the room as someone else took over helping breakdown the net. You shot her a curious look, before your attention was grabbed back to the corner Sakusa was inhabiting.

It seemed Bokuto had found him, issuing a direct challenge to the other wing-spiker for their next match. Seeing your teammate, boisterous and loud, next to the quiet and narrow-eyed Sakusa was such a direct contrast; you had to remind yourself that they played the same role on their teams.

Bokuto grumbled the rest of the night, which only continued into the weekdays at school. You formed a study group for a particularly painful math class. And currently, said group had some vbc members crowded around a round table in the library. Most occupants preferred to spill the tea - Yukie and Konoha always had something regarding their second-year class.

Which ironically left the younger two to herd the group. You tended to go with the flow. Which left Akaashi, the ever so smarty-pants honors student, to often lead the charge. (He also grumbled that you teased him about this fact, but you were also in the same honors classes yourself.)

You got in five pages worth of outlining before the conversation shifted. Focus on the class was easily torn as Haruki brought out a monthly volleyball magazine.

“Check it out, an entire profile on Sakusa Kiyoomi.” The libero stated, opening up the magazine as Konoha leaned over to look.

“Wow, lots of eyes are already on him.” Kaori stated.

“Anyone who saw him play during junior high would know he’s one to watch during Interhigh.” Haruki voiced.

“Well, I’m in the top four.” Bokuto muttered, arms crossed as he read along the magazine.

Akaashi sighed, putting down his pencil as his curiosity grabbed his attention, eyes straying to the article as well. Besides, Sakusa was a first-year just like the two of you, if he was this much of a threat it would be good to soak up any useful information on him

“The photograph looks a little far, don’t you think?” Yukie said with an unsure smile, pointing to the stiff Sakusa standing at least ten feet away from the photographer. “They couldn’t have zoomed in at all?”

“Maybe this is zoomed?” Konoha asked with a brow raised.

You took a look and fought the urge to grimace aloud, you could barely tell it was him either. The action shot on one page was good, but for their interview photo he was covered completely with a mask and hat, just his eyes visible and still relatively far away from the photographer.

“Well, I don’t expect anything less from a germaphobe like him.” You commented, before turning back to your notebook.

You saw multiple occupants’ expressions reel back in surprise before curiously looking toward you.

Kaori voiced their curiosity with a raised brow, “And how do you know that?”

“I - I bumped into him before the game!” You cursed your weak resolve, hands coming up in defense.

“WHA?!” Bokuto asked, making you realize you only told Yukie about the prior encounter. The librarian shushed your group with a disapproving stare, before walking away. “You knew his weakness this whole time?”

Konoha laughed, “What are you going to do with that information? Sneeze on him during the next match?”

You shot eye contact with Yukie, the brunette simply shooting you teasing smirk as she leaned back in her chair. She was your older-senpai, but damn was the eccentric manager so ruthlessly teasing! Her love of food was the only clear read you could get off of her. Otherwise, it seemed like Yukie just loved to sow mischief.

“Wait. Weren’t you talking to their libero after the game? Was it Komori?” Haruki recalled, asking more out of curiosity then of seriousness.

“Um. Yes, well he introduced himself after I almost knocked over Sakusa-san.” You explained, nearly sweating buckets at some of the second-years’ gazes.

“Wait, knocked him over?” Konoha asked, glancing back down at his textbook to place a pen in it, then close it entirely.

“Well, I was running and didn’t see him when I turned the corner!” You continued to explain.

“Sure, sure.” Yukie waved off, sitting up and then sipping from her water bottle.

“I was rushing to bring the snacks - come on guys, you know this!” You defended, a sheepish smile on your face now as the other occupants varied from teasing to surprised.

“(L/N)-san, didn’t the teacher ask us to get something for her?” Akaashi cut in, already in the process of putting some of his study materials away.

You breathed a silent sigh in relief, agreeing and mimicking his actions as you readied to leave the sudden hot library. Yukie’s teasing was enough, but once Konoha and the rest started rolling it was all over from there.

“Yes, let’s get going.” You accepted immediately as you organized your school things, “See you all after class.”

Somehow, Akaashi was already up from the table and waiting for you at the door. You followed behind him quickly, going in the direction of your next class. Entering it, there were a few lingering students - some on their phone, others listening to music - but otherwise the two of you were alone.

You felt a small vibration from the pocket of your skirt, checking the messages from the infamous instigators of your group.

GC: Hoot Hoot ⊹⋛⋋(◐⊝◑)��⋚⊹

12:15 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) Nice receive, Akaashi

12:15 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

12:15 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ cmon ahkaaashi; don’t you want to spend time with me? :C

12:15 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) Enjoy your alone time ;)

12:15 haaaruki ! yah “studying” ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Akaashi had a dead-panned expression back on his face, undoubtedly reading the same messages you had just skimmed through. The young man was so smart and quiet, and yet so silently sassy, you really cherished having him as your friend. Akaashi was the mother-hen of the group, undoubtedly, but you wondered how blessed your team was so to have such a patient and thoughtful setter in your ranks.

The two of you relished the silence of the room, sitting next to each other for this class, and resuming the earlier studying that you were interrupted from before.

Life after this moved very quickly - thoughts of Itachiyama and the target named Sakusa was pushed in the back of your mind. Suddenly, your powerhouse of a volleyball club was having non-stop practice matches with others within the Fukurōdani Academy Group. Shinzen, known for their style of combination attacks, and Ubugawa, known for their serves, were two schools in Tokyo you often saw.

But, with them, came the introduction of Nekoma High School.

You almost felt bad for Akaashi after the first training camp with all three schools. Yes, you were familiar and friendly with the other schools, but with the introduction of middle-blocker Kuroo Tetsuro and his friend Kenma, it brought all sorts of adventures for your little group. He was certainly a sly cat, wielding the art of provocation like it was his second-skin. Fukurōdani had many practice matches with Nekoma throughout the spring semester, it was almost mentally jarring how quickly the Interhigh prelims crawled up on you.

Being friends with the other schools made the preliminary matches all the more intense - near screaming in support from the stands. You were friends with people in these other schools - managers whom you shared watermelon with in the scorching sun; and, forgetting volleyball, just teenagers whom you had seen at high school house parties throughout the semester - it was entirely personal during the prelims.

And while your school fell second to Itachiyama - you were excited to see your first ever nationals tournament.

To keep the teams organized in one spot, you were all staying in a swanky hotel not far from the sports center. It seemed to be a popular spot for other teams, since you had spotted familiar red and black athletic gear in the lobby when you entered. Nekoma was standing to the side by the chairs, Itachiyama littering the opposite area of the lobby.

Bokuto immediately bounded over to Kuroo and Kenma, Akaashi following behind begrudgingly, citing he did not want the spiker to wander off and get lost. Your eyes followed them, waving a hand at the Nekoma duo as you mentally weighed joining their conversation. Scanning the rest of the room, your eyes landed on Sakusa in the nearby corner with Komori hovering nearby.

Just as you made eye-contact with the libero, he waved you over with a friendly smile.

“Hey - good to see you, (L/N)-san.” Komori greeted, you waved back and made the small walk over.

“Hey to you too.” You replied, looking at both boys.

“Hi, (L/N)-san.” Sakusa stated back, as curt as ever. He was leaned against the wall, hands hidden in his pockets again. His eyes skipped over you quickly before looking away and scanning the room - you fought the urge to inwardly laugh at how easy he was to read at the moment.

For someone so collected and intimidating on the court, there was something so amusing at seeing him so on edge at the moment.

You were about to say something when someone called your name from behind. Waving a quick goodbye, you skipped back over to your team, seeing it was Akaashi who was herding you back to the group.

It was only when you got in the elevator that you realized something - Sakusa remembered your last name.

Biting your lip in confusion, you thought to the last time you talked to either boy. You only gave your name to Komori during that first initial practice match - maybe Sakusa overhead and just had a good memory? Whatever the case may be, it was not the time to be looking into things. You shook your head, focusing on the present as you turned back to whatever Bokuto was talking about.

The coaches gave you time to organize yourselves before warming up in the nearby gym. With three managers for your team, it was agreed beforehand that you would fight on equal ground for the beds. Whoever won would get the bed to themselves while the other two would share. And yesterday, Kaori claimed herself the victor and you were sharing with Yukie.

Plopping your stuff down, you all got down to business as you organized the room quickly, heading out for auxiliary practice, and then herding the group at dinner.

After dinner, you were still bursting with energy. Excitement, anticipation - all of that was coursing through your veins for the events tomorrow. It seemed that the other managers were facing something similar, since neither had taken a bath yet and gotten ready for bed. Instead, Yukie was still in her outdoor clothes while Kaori was on her phone, scrolling through her social media feed.

Yukie turned to you with a mischievous smile, her brown eyes reflecting nothing but trouble when she finally asked, “So, seen any cute boys yet?”

You sputtered at the randomness of the question, “What?”

Kaori laughed, but then admitted. “Well, we are in the area with some of the best volleyball players in high school. Can’t deny some of them are handsome.”

You could not help the giggle in response, as Yukie added. “Hmm, you right. Some of them are looking so gooood.”

“Oh my god.” There were no words you had prepared for this moment.

Yukie looked at you before incling her head, “Come on, even Bokuto is looking mighty fine when he’s in the zone.”

“I -- “ You stuttered, was she looking for a response?

“Don’t you think Bokuto has such a fine ass?” Yukie asked, “Like damn boy you looking thicc!”

Uhhhhh.

“Lay off.” Kaori came to your defense, or so you thought. “She’s more into the Akaashi-type, right?”

“Strong, but silent?” Yukie asked, “Quiet, but could easily snap your neck with his thighs?”

You blanched at the idea of your reserved friend doing any of the sort.

“No way! He’s just a friend.” You countered immediately.

“Hmmm, sure.” Yukie responded, “When Kuroo shuts his mouth, it makes me want to put it somewhere else.”

“Bruh.” You voiced as you laughed, slapping your reddening cheeks.

Was this something they usually talked about during nationals? The conversation seemed so natural to the both of them - neither blushing or phased at talking about the other attractive men within your prefecture. Just thinking about any of them in a romantic light had you blushing, how on earth could they talk about this so naturally?

“True, but have you seen Sakusa?” Kaori countered, the conversation carrying on.

“Sakusa would be hotter if he allowed anyone within ten feet of him.” Yukie waved off before turning to you with a wink. “Well, I saw you talking to him today.”

You thought back to the interaction with a grimace, “More like a hello before he shut-down the conversation.”

“Think he’s cute?” Kaori asked, this time.

You thought back to him during the practice match, strong and confident when on the court and mask hidden away. But then again, you thought back to all your actual interactions, and grimaced.

You answered candidly, “I mean, I’m not blind. He’s attractive, but I barely know him.”

Yukie giggled, “I’m not saying you have to marry him!”

Kaori giggled and you felt your cheeks flame-up. You felt your embarrassment creep up your throat and blurted out, “Okay, he’s hella attractive and when he spikes it sets me on fire! Like ok - can he smack my ass like a drum??”

Yukie slapped you on the shoulder in jest as Kaori’s laughter got louder. Yukie replied, “Damn girl - I didn’t know you were into that sort of stuff.”

You were redder than Nekoma’s colors at this point, embarrassment at an all time high at having admitted something that even you were not aware of. Kaori and Yukie were so easy to talk to, so funny to be around, they really took away your one brain-cell sometimes.

“But I totally agree - when he snaps his wrist against the ball… well.” She ended the sentence with raised brows, both of you catching onto her mischievous face.

Kaori giggled and you could not help but laugh aloud at this point - you loved the other managers so much, they made wild conversations like this so easy.

You started braiding your hair, conversation shifting to the boys in class at Fukurōdani. And while you admitted it was rather small-minded of you to say, you honestly could not remember a lot of the other student body outside of the volleyball club. You spent almost every free minute of your time on the club - many of the faces outside your class blurring to the side as your priorities lay elsewhere.

Just as you finished your hair, a small sound broke out in the room, Yukie picking up her phone as it vibrated against the bed. The brunette took one look at the caller ID, got up and winked at the two of you, before leaving the hotel room entirely. You turned to Kaori with a curious look, who simply shrugged and said it was probably some cute boy she was talking to.

You accepted it casually, before getting up yourself and putting on your outdoor shoes. You still had all this pent-up, enthused energy - maybe a run would do you good to calm your mind. Voicing this to the other manager, she agreed before laying back down on her bed.

The lobby areas were still littered with other volleyball club members in their casual clothes, some from other schools and some from your own. Some of the third-years were mingling, undoubtedly high-energy for this being one of the last few tournaments they would be participating in.

Putting headphones in, you started your run toward areas you personally knew and were relatively populated at this time of night. Certain areas of Tokyo were always bustling, and so you stuck to roads nearby the main one. Your mind, which was reeling only a few minutes before, was surprising blank during your run. Your focus was on the path ahead of you and the music surrounding you - it felt that simple somehow.

No team entered tournaments to lose - that was obvious. Everyone on this level of the competition had a hug leg over the average team - geniuses, prodigies, top spikers in the entire nation - they were all gathering here for the next few days.

Your team were the protagonists of the world - that was what you repeated in your head like a mantra for the past few days.

Fukurōdani were going to do more than just compete in nationals - they were going to win, you were confident.

“Pour all your soul into each ball.” You repeated, remembering the official banner for your powerhouse of a school.

The confidence in your team was overflowing, any lingering nerves flowing away as you continued on your focused run. And so when a crack of thunder was louder than your music - you reeled back in surprise and turned your attention upward at the sky.

Groaning, you ran over to the side of a building to huddle under a pagoda awning, other people doing the same as you and crowding the area. The weather quickly upturned from a calm night to a sudden downpour. There was nothing about rain in the forecast and this afternoon the sky was a pretty blue - had you just not noticed before?

Cursing your lack of foresight, you took out your headphones and stored them in the fanny pack across your chest. Recognizing the shops around this area, you were only ten minutes from the hotel by run. But, dodging the rain and ducking under pagoda’s would probably make it about a half hour. You considered briefly waiting out the rain, but also did not want to get stuck out late in the case that it did not let-up soon.

Already decided, you were planning out your trek back to the hotel when you scanned everyone else around you. Turning to the other people taking refuge, you could not help the surprise on your face at seeming a familiar person huddled all the way in the back corner.

Sakusa, in all his might, was emanating serious waves of discomfort only a few feet away from you.

What were the odds of this happening? Was this some sort of karmic energy from the universe, due to the conversation you had earlier?

You walked over the spiker, waving a hello and receiving a nod in greeting.

“Looks like we had the same idea, Sakusa-san.” You started, receiving nothing from the conversation but a blank stare.

Boy was he hard to talk to.

Not to be deterred, you continued. “I know the area pretty well. Feel free to come with me, so you’re not waiting out the rain too late?”

Sakusa nodded again silently, and when you turned your head in confusion on instinct, he voiced himself this time. “Thanks.”

You felt a smile crawl up your face as you turned, dodging between some of the street shops’ canopies and awnings in your quick pace. He followed you closely, not wanting to get any of the accursed rain on his bodice, you guessed. Still, it was hard to keep track of someone right behind you.

This situation was altogether so strange - who would have thought that this would be the way you would be ending your day??

Not used to the silence - after all, your usual company was always bouncing with energy - you joked as you turned to him, “I guess this is where I should insert some proclamation of rivalry here?”

The only thing that signified he heard you was by the quirk of a smirk at the corner of his lip - was that amusement?? you wondered.

Stopping at the corner of the street, you had to run the crosswalk and make your way to the cafe’s awning across the way. You voiced this as you both waited for the stoplight to switch over.

“Are you nervous for tomorrow?” You questioned, filling in the dead air.

“No.”

“Ah, what was I thinking - a nationally ranked spiker like you…” You drew out sheepishly.

“No, as in my team does not play until the day after.” Sakusa explained, making you groan. You forgot - Itachiyama was seeded after all.

“Oh, my bad.” You stated, losing all your earlier confidence to try to speak to him.

Whatever expression was on your face must have made him feel bad, you assumed, since Sakusa turned to you and continued. “But I am looking forward to fighting Wakatoshi-kun.”

The inward book in your mind flipped open, recognizing the name and attempting to find the correct team it was associated with. “Ah, that nationally ranked spiker from Shiratorizawa Academy.”

“Yes, he is… a good benchmark to play against.” Sakusa explained, making you nod in agreement. “But our priority will be watching Fukurōdani’s match tomorrow morning.”

“Oh?”

“You took a set from us during the Representative Playoffs. We won’t let it happen again.”

You smiled at his words - just Itachiyama and Sakusa himself as a whole felt like a goal. The team was the only one ranked above yours in the prefecture. It was your goal to beat his team and him especially. Maybe it was the fact that Bokuto and him were competing on ranking that made it that much more intimate, but it was easy to look at Sakusa as a target more than just who he was: a human.

And so hearing his small admission that Fukurōdani was a strong rival, after dominating your school for so long, you could not help but smile at his candor.

“We’re there to win nationals.”

He raised a brow at your words, and while you wondered if you had overstepped your boundaries for a second, a smirk grew on Sakusa's face as he simply responded. “Ah.”

You watched the countdown timer to the other side of the street, signifying it was soon time for the both of you to break out in a spring to the other side. Both of you readied yourselves just as a car squealed past the corner, trying to beat the clock and make it before it turned red.

It all happened so quickly, eyes darting around the area to see if there was anything you could duck behind. Chairs and tables, the usually bustling Tokyo was already wrapped up in plastic and stowed away. There was no getting away from the large splash of water on the both of you - drenching you and Sakusa instantly.

The groan from the spiker was loud above the city bustle, and if not for your mutual distress, it would have made you laugh in amusement. Sakusa was inspecting his clothes, obvious disdain and surprise on his visage. Figuring it was whatever at this point, you grabbed his upturned palm and led him to a cafe area nearby. It was closed at this point, but there was a wide awning area that would be empty by now.

You led him to one of the empty garden chairs and sat him down, uncaring if he was annoyed at you pushing him around. It was your team mom instincts kicking in at this point.

Reaching into your fanny pack, you took out some of the emergency wipes and offered the pack to him. He took it readily, taking out a few and going at his hands immediately. With your on-hand handkerchief, you patted him down at the shoulders, not noticing how close the two of you were at this point.

Sakusa said nothing to your actions, not even when you moved from his shoulders to the exposed skin of his neck, wiping off the dirty street water. The initial mother adrenaline was quickly wearing off as you stood over him, surprised that he was letting you do this after all. The rosy tinge on your cheeks was growing with every second of that lingering thought.

“Nervous?” Sakusa called you out, making you stiffen up your posture. Thankfully, he did not push the subject and instead said, “I don’t understand you. Your team hates me. Shouldn’t you just be letting me get sick?

“I wouldn’t do that, especially not even to you.” You waved off the thought, smiling as you did so. “We’re going to beat you with our own skill.”

He looked up at you from his spot, initially saying nothing to your words as you moved to take out another wet-wipe from the pack. Sakusa stopped your action, putting a hand over yours and starting, “You should be using some for yourself.”

You lightly pushed it aside, not unkindly. “It’s fine; I don’t care much. Besides, this matters more to you.”

He said nothing, letting go of your wrist, but not moving away out of your range. You took that as Sakusa’s silent acceptance, moving the wipe back to his neck area and even patting him down on the cheek. His eyes never left yours, making you wonder what could possibly be going on in that head of his.

The moment was so strangely intimate, you were silently proud of your usually easy-to-tease demeanor staying calm. Once you were done, you debated taking the seat next to him when he finally looked away. Taking a look at the world around you, the sudden downpour had actually let-up to a slight drizzle.

You voiced your observation, recommending that you make your way back to the hotel before it possibly got worse. He nodded silently in agreement, breaking out into a light sprint toward your destination side-by-side.

By the time you arrived it was already late night, most of the lobby thankfully empty. You were not sure what you would say if Bokuto saw you walk in with his rival completely drenched. The squelch of your sneakers was obvious against the granite floor, making you wince at how others probably saw the two of you right now.

Sakusa bid you farewell with a small word and wave, heading toward an elevator at the other end of the hall. You did the same, before feeling the niggling feeling that someone had their eyes on you. Heading to the elevators, you turned to your peripheral and saw Yukie, sitting at one of the lobby tables with some random guy across from her.

Her face was alight with obvious mischief, her smirk alone was enough sign that she was going to be questioning you about this situation immediately. You winced at her expression, turning toward the elevator doors and waiting for the ding! to signify you were free from her eyes.

A thorough bath later, you were surprised the next day to see that Yukie had not questioned you at all. Instead, all energy was focused on nationals and the upcoming teams you were going to have to play against.

Fukurōdani Academy was a powerhouse in itself and hearing the loud cheers surrounding your side of the court was enough to lift the entire team's spirits. Your audience section was fit to the nine’s - including a marching band, a specific fan cheering area, and even cheerleaders. The team played through their games proudly, passion radiating from the team as you made it to the quarter-final on the third day.

You never got to play Itachiyama.

The third-years were retiring.

The silence on the bus was mentally jarring - no one expected your nationals journey to end this soon. Even Yukie, who was always quick on her feet when it came to comforting the other members, was eerily silent the way back to the hotel.

The only person who was still remarkably confident, was signified by the strong words Bokuto uttered when they first left the court.

“Nothing here was a mistake.” Bokuto started, mind in his thoughts as his back faced the team. You were in the middle of handing a spare hand-towel toward Haruki when you turned to the ace. “Your tosses were incredible under the pressure.”

The entirety of the team turned to the usual mood maker, one who was so easily swayed on the court over simple things, now voicing his introspective words.

Bokuto turned to the rest of you, “We will come back here next year and carve the rest of the way.”

Akaashi nodded from beside you, other second-years agreeing with their newly determined ace. The third-year captain, now sporting an anguished smile, walked over to Bokuto to place a hand on his shoulder. The other older members followed suit, proud of their young owl growing up right before their eyes.

After the game, you split up at the hotel to return to your rooms and shower. Getting ready for the night ahead of you, the third-years stated that they were going to take the team out for dinner after the strong season.

Yukie hopped in the shower first as Kaori and you packed up some of your room. The team was still going to stay at the hotel until the end of the tournament, but your long notebooks and team journals were of no use now. Combination attacks and details on the third-years were now a thing of the past.

You had to fight the sob in your throat when you closed the folder on your captain one last time.

The silent hotel room, which was filled with giggles and teasing only hours before, was palpable against you and Kaori’s attempts to stay calm. She was affected moreso than you, having spent the last two years with the current team.

You were so occupied in your thoughts, you almost missed the silent vibration in your pocket, a notification dinging from your social media platform on Instabook.

Hey. Are you back in the hotel?

What was Sakusa doing, messaging you now of all times?

Waving the thought away, you typed: Yeah. What’s up?

I have something for you - where are you?

The tendril of suspicion shot through you, but Sakusa was definitely not the type to kick you while you were down. You messaged him back your room details, earning back a simple ok omw and nothing else to signify just why he was coming here.

Yukie was still in the shower when you stepped out. Sakusa really was before you, in all his silent glory. Sporting his usual face mask, he took something out of his pocket and thrust it toward you.

“It’s only fair, (L/N)-san.” Sakusa stated, a familiar pack of wet-wipes in his hand outstretched toward you.

You felt your smile grow, your earlier saddened disposition breaking at the strange sight. “That’s really not necessary.”

“Just take it.” Sakusa said as he grabbed your sleeve and placed it in your empty hand.

“Well, okay.” You said with a slight chuckle in your voice.

“I meant to give it to you at the complex, but..”

“Yeah.” You finished for him, the conversation coming to a silence. “Thank you, Sakusa-san.”

He looked at you with an unwavering gaze, “Sakusa is just fine.”

“Then just (L/N) is fine too.” You added, finally feeling that you were coming to terms to some sort of odd friendship with the spiker. Holding up your phone, you motioned to it without voicing your question. “So we don’t have to rely on random appearances?”

“Ah.” He agreed, taking out his phone as you exchanged chat-ID’s.

That was the end of the conversation, him waving goodbye once it was over and walking down the hall to the stairwell. A part of you watched him go, almost smiling when you realized that of course the athlete would opt for the stairs when you were on the tenth floor.

You tried to silently enter back into the room, Kaori in the shower this time as Yukie was packing up her things. Leaning your back against the door, you tried to placate your undoubtedly rosy blush - you did not need a mirror to know that you were adorned with one now.

“Look at you - you think you’re slick?” The smirk on her face was enough warning that you were in danger, “I saw you two from the peephole.”

“He was just dropping off a gift.” You state, as if that would sate her curiosity at all. Instead, she stood up at attention.

She had one eye narrowed at you, “Right, of course. What else was I thinking - other than the totally normal gift-giving for two platonic members of rival volleyball teams.”

“Yup.” You nodded with a reserved smile, before making your way further into the room.

Yukie pushed the conversation as she got on the bed, “Are you secretly dating Sakusa?”

You flushed immediately, “It’s not like that!”

“And what is it like?”

“We’re just… friends?” You bit out, the lack of confidence even obvious to your own ears. Was that a question or a statement?

The relationship you had with the young man was strange. Were you friends? It was more like mutual acquaintances who happened to have a totally-but-also-not intimate moment. You could never really tell what he was thinking - being of very few words.

“And suddenly you’ve convinced me.” Yukie teased, before going silent as Kaori entered the room. You took this as your escape, readying your stuff quickly and entering the shower area before she could continue.

Thankfully, Yukie dropped the subject while you were around others. Your previous, almost giddy expression, came back to a silently gloomy one as you went for your last dinner with the Fukurōdani third-years.

Any previously unshed tears slammed to the forefront when seated around your peers. Even while sad and crying, your team was loud and scorching down food in the small ramen bar. The third-years thanked you all for your efforts, for the growth you had since the start of the school year, and sent you off for the new year.

April swung around quicker than you would like. You were a newly minted second-year, priorities quickly changing almost as quickly. The questions from guidance counselors and coaches were unending: asking you about your future, what you wanted to do, what electives classes were you going to take. It was all preparation before your final year - it was almost mentally jarring against the happy and almost innocent vibe from your initial year of a high school.

Sakusa’s phone number untouched since the day outside your hotel room.

Bokuto rising to the role of captain in his third-year was no question. But seeing Akaashi, now a second-year Vice-captain, it set all your “uwu’s on fire,” as Yukie dubbed it. He earned the role, without a doubt, but seeing the two together was so strangely heart-warming.

Bokuto and Akaashi were a strange pair, but they got along together so well, it was hard to imagine anyone else on your team with these roles. Akaashi mother hen’ed you all, but there were times that it seemed the young setter could almost read Bokuto’s mind.

They were a perfect match, you often teased.

Akaashi would often stare at you blankly when you reiterated this, but Bokuto would only fuel the fire. The duo were almost always in immediate distance to one another, oftentimes your captain would swing his arm across Akaashi’s shoulders or just initiate some time of close distance. After all, they were roommates now in the dorms, that was not just because they were captain and vice, you had a feeling.

It made you wonder what else was there beyond the surface.

But, you still had your own job to do as manager. By the end of the year, Fukurōdani would be losing two of its precious managers. And so, here you were, on the hunt for a first-year to take on the role and get used to the responsibilities of being manager to a powerhouse school.

Your team was focused on finding their rhythm, endless individual practices to get the first-years up to speed with the Fukurōdani standard. The regular line-up was still mostly comprised of third and second years, but first-year Wataru Onaga showed lots of promise. Standing at 191 centimetres, he earned his way to starting middle blocker on the team.

On occasion, you would be found in the library with other members of the volleyball team, studying for classes and researching upcoming teams in the preliminary matches.

You noticed how Sakusa earned himself a formal ranking among the top three aces of the country - Itachiyama now a heavy favorite to win in nationals. He was growing in regard very quickly, attention on him was a far cry from the initial rumors surrounding his first-year. Now he was on the cover of Volleyball monthly, pages dedicated to an expose of his career.

Would he even remember you?

Thoughts of the spiker were pushed away again with the onslaught of practice matches with other schools within the Fukurōdani Academy Group. Captain Kuroo was no better than regular Kuroo when it came to being the instigator. If anything, it seemed like the cat hung around your group of friends even more now.

He was often seen at group hangouts, whether just going to the mall or the local arcade. It was interesting, to say the least, the combination of your loud owl and the conniving cat, their two silent wards in tow.

You had a practice match with Itachiyama around the corner. And while you told yourself that you were not disappointed in your waning friendship(?) with Sakusa, you could not help the lightened feeling in your heart when he took the time to greet you before the match. Komori waved at you as well, before stretching and getting ready.

You watched the sets with careful eyes, Yukie taking notes alongside you. Almost everything was documented - how many times Bokuto was blocked, how many successful jump serves, service aces - and this was for both sides of the court. You could not help the way your eyes were drawn to Sakusa, his flexible wrist combined with his power making a combination the bane of your middle blockers.

Yukie caught you a few times, saying nothing but wagging her eyebrows at you in a wavy motion.

Losing three to two sets, you sighed and moved to help clean-up the gymnasium. Wheeling the scoreboard to the storage room with Yukie, all volleyball members were moving about the gym to make sure it was properly organized. You stepped out to check the hammock cart holding the volleyballs, counting them to ensure that none of them belonged to the rival school.

Should you say something more to Sakusa?

You paused, looking up from the volleyballs and frowning at yourself.

Wait… Why did it even matter? Why did you even want to talk to him? Yes, you were on friendly terms with the ace. But why did you seek him out so much? You were friends with Kuroo, so did not feel the same draw to the middle blocker as you did now?

Why was your mind so intent on just something with the ace?

Mind reeling with these questions, it was to your surprise when he approached you.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” You replied in a much smaller voice, attempting to put a smile back on your face, as if you needed to hide your earlier train of thought.

“Are you available this weekend?”

“Uh, wait what?” You could not help the incredulous words coming out of your mouth.

Seriously what??? How do you go from weeks of not talking to this??

Yukie was a few paces away from you, opting to walk away from your conversation to give some privacy, after all the two of you were standing in a gymnasium filled with two bustling volleyball teams. But she undoubtedly heard that last question since her head whipped around back in your direction.

Seeing that Sakusa was actually waiting for a response, you thought back to your plans with Bokuto, Akaashi, and Kenma group to play the usual Mario Kart at the latter’s house.

“No, I’m free.” You responded.

Yukie laughed, before walking away entirely, as to not give away her eavesdropping.

“Ok. I’ll text you the details for this weekend.”

Not able to hide your surprise, you let out a sound of uncertainty as you raised your palms. “Wait, for what?”

“Hang-out.” Sakusa stated, as if it was such a natural event. “Komori suggested inviting you so I did.”

You dropped your hands, letting them fall to the sides and letting out a small, “Huh.”

He waved you off, saying he was going to text you the details tomorrow, before joining back with his team. Yukie’s face was indescribable and Haruki sported a similar expression only a few paces away.

Their questioning gazes were only pocketed for later, passed the time the coaches had given pointers and tips to members of the team. Eventually, when the other school had all packed up and left, the third-years were quick to bombard you with questions.

“HAAAA! (L/N), how could you hide this from us?!”

“You two have been close, this whole time?”

“Not dating, my ass.” Yukie teased as she crossed her arms.

Akaashi placed a hand on your shoulder, his calm voice cutting above the rest. “What was that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” You answered candidly.

Bokuto and Haruki turned their heads in confusion while Yukie looked at you with a face asking you, really?

“Yeah, we haven’t actually spoken to each other since nationals.”

“Wait, really? That long ago?” Yukie asked this time, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah. That invite really feels… out of nowhere.” You explained, your own confusion evident on your visage and reflecting back on the other volleyball team members.

“Eh, it’s probably nothing.” Bokuto shrugged as he walked away, “We hangout with other schools all the time.”

Yukie held a flat-expression toward the ace’s retreating back, Haruki following behind him with a shrugging expression. Akaashi and the brunette manager turned back to you, the female grabbing your hand as she did.

“Okay, really?”

Akaashi sighed, grabbing your attention. “Text me if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Wow, look at you Mr. Chivalrous.” Yukie commented, making Akaashi roll his eyes before turning to you seriously. You nodded in affirmation, to which he accepted and walked away.

You waved goodbye to the other members as they closed up the gymnasium, walking with the other managers back to the female dorms.

Yukie was not letting it go at all, repeating her question from earlier. “Okay, really?”

You smiled this time, voice mocking as you responded. “Yeah, really.”

“What happened?” Kaori asked.

“Sakusa-san asked her out on a date.” Yukie spun the tale.

“It’s not a date.” You cut in.

“Oh yeah, then why are you smiling so giddy?” Yukie asked with wide, accusatory eyes.

“Because it’s… Shut up.” You stated between nervous laughter, “He asked me to hangout with a group - it includes their libero Komori-san.”

“Maybe he likes you.” Kaori commented, to which Yukie agreed vigorously.

“Do not put these assumptions in my head.” You stated with a loud sigh, head angled toward the sky at their words.

Yukie sighed back, “Don’t deny the possibility.”

You shrugged it off, knowing that there was no ending to their teasing at this point. You repeated the truth in your head like a mantra: he was nothing more than a friend. It was not worth looking into every single interaction you had with the young man - after all, he was rather strange when it came to social interactions to begin with.

Ironically, you had to think that the others did not know him like you did. He was straight-up with his words, not fully understanding the meaning of it or how it affected others. If Sakusa wanted to do something or felt something, he would lay it out straight - that’s just the type of person he was.

And you would not be looking into the words between the lines.

But it was increasingly hard to do this when both Yukie and Kaori invaded your room Saturday morning, stating that your usual plain clothes would just not do for a day like this. Two hours later, your hair was in beachy waves and your planned “plain” outfit was replaced with a casual, knee-length springy dress over a white shirt.

What if this really was nothing but a casual encounter for him? Would your outfit be more forward then you intended?

Any of your self-conscious questions were too late, since before you knew it you were already on a train to the destination by Kichijoji. You had a few more stops to your destination, the packed train-car as busy as ever. Distracting yourself from those previous thoughts, you whipped out your phone to check the messages that had been pouring in since early morning.

GC: Hoot Hoot ⊹⋛⋋(◐⊝◑)⋌⋚⊹

11:11 Kaori _へ__(‾◡◝ )> Look at how cute (F/N)-chan looks Attached: cutie.jpg

11:11 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) She should dress like this every day!! (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

11:11 haaaruki ! WOAH :O 11:11 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ Hey hey hey

11:11 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ look at you ;)

11:12 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) That would seem difficult considering (F/N)-san’s sleep schedule and the amount of time it takes for her to get ready. 11:13 Konoha(gakure) (•́ᴗ•́๑) damn girl u look so pretty!!

11:13 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ I still can’t believe she abandoned us for saks >:(

11:13 Kaori _へ__(‾◡◝ )> you can’t stop her from dating dad

11:13 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) well you know what they say bro’s before hoes

11:13 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ eye-

11:13 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) But otherwise, (F/N) looks beautiful today.

11:13 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ >>:C

You skipped to the end, scrolling through at least a few dozen more messages that ranged the topic from the picture of you getting ready to the supposed Mario Kart tournament that you were now missing out on. Typing in your response:

12:35 mother-hen^2 (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) Sorry boys, had to look cute for today only ;)

12:35 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) IT’S A DATE!!! I KNEW IT!

12:35 Konoha(gakure) (•́ᴗ•́๑) BO YOU OWE US YAKISOBA BREAD

12:35 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ ITS A DATE??

12:35 haaaruki !! be safe mom!!

12:36 mother-hen^2 (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) it’s NOT a date (・-・)

12:36 BROkuto ᕙ( * •̀ ᗜ •́ * )ᕗ HA

12:36 Konoha(gakure) (•́ᴗ•́๑) bruh

12:36 yukie-yukie (｡♥‿♥｡) JUST YOU WAIT

12:36 ahKASHi (๑ᵕ⌓ᵕ̤) Text me the moment you need an out.

You rolled your eyes as you pocketed your phone into your side-bag, leaning into the halting train as it crawled to a stop on the Keiou Inokashira Line. Walking out and looking for any telltale signs of your friend, you scanned the train station with wandering eyes as you walked out.

But, it was not necessary, since Komori’s light brown hair was an easy pick in the crowd. However, next to him was a volleyball player that you could easily pick from the bustling station. While Japanese men were generally around 170 centimetres, seeing Sakusa’s curly mop of hair high above the crowd was enough for you to follow.

It seemed they saw you immediately as well, Komori waving at you to come over while Sakusa merely kept his eyes trained on you. With them were a handful of other members of the Itachiyama volleyball club, from the players to their female manager, you recognized them from practice matches.

They invited you into the group of teenagers quickly, as if nothing was strange at all, waving at you with smiles before shooting looks at both Komori and Sakusa.

What the hell was happening?

You had a feeling in the back of your mind that something was happening around you, that they all knew something that you did not know.

You walked along with the group into the popular neighborhood of Kichijoji - the group traveling from food stand to souvenir stand. Their female manager was so friendly, unlike how seriously quiet she was when visiting. She even asked to touch your hair at one point, saying it looked so bouncy and pretty today.

“The tracksuits don’t do any of us justice.” She complained, “But you look so nice today, (L/N)-san!”

You smiled at her words, “Thanks. We had an off-day today too. So I figured why not.”

“Well, it looks great. Don’t you think so too, Kiyoomi?”

The sudden question had you reeling back in surprise, turning to the black-haired teen. Why was he suddenly being brought into this? What were they trying to do?

But the thousands of questions in your brain came to a halt when Sakusa turned to you and simply said. “You look nice.”

“Thanks.” You replied, more out of reflex than truly getting his words. So in your head, you failed to notice the teasing smile she shot her ace, before turning away back to the rest of the group.

They gathered around the menu of a popular crepe stand, you left standing there in surprise as the group continued on without you. Sakusa stayed beside you, before taking a step and inclined his head toward the rest.

Shaking your head away from the niggling feeling in the back of your mind, you lightly jogged to catch up with the rest, finding a pace between Sakusa and Komori.

The brunette turned to during your walk, “You’re probably really surprised to be here.”

“Yeah…”

Komori chuckled, a hand on his neck as he lightly muttered beneath his breath. “Honestly, I’m surprised he did it.”

“Did what?” You asked with a raised brow.

“Nothing important.” He waved off, “I’m just glad you were able to join our group today.”

Deciding not to push it, you instead said. “Well, thanks for the invite.”

The group’s conversation ranged from the food stalls, to your long awaited destination at the billiards club. The building had, true to its name, billiards tables and other vintage arcade machines.

You were unsure where to place yourself within this group, obvious inside jokes that you would not understand between some of the other members. Thankfully, Komori and their female manager were very quick to try to get you to weigh in on the conversation.

“Well, I think Shrek is funnier in Japanese.” She stated it clear as day, as if a fact. You had to stop yourself from chuckling, one hand on the pool cue since it was your turn to go.

“But it’s not funnier than Cars.” Another countered.

“Have you heard Mater in the original movie?” You replied after hitting the ball, watching it not follow the path you had intended to hit it in at all. “That’s the one English dub I’ll accept.”

She smiled before arguing, “As if a cowboy accent is funnier than Shrek with a Jojo’s voice?”

You attempted to dead-pan your face, Sakusa stepping up to the billiards table after you. “We’re Japanese. We all have Jojo’s voice.”

“Alright Pikachu, calm down.”

You held a mock-offended hand to your chest, not able to hide the laughter at her jest. Despite being a beginner at billiards, and getting absolutely wrecked by everyone else playing, you were having fun with the random group.

This was not just the Itachiyama volleyball club - a fan favorite to win nationals.

These were high school teenagers, enjoying their free day off.

It was like a wide-awakening of your perspective. After all, you went to a powerhouse school yourself. When people saw Bokuto, saw Fukurōdani as a whole - how many times were people intimidated at Prelims just because of your team’s reputation? Taking Itachiyama off its pedestal was the same and it was hard to remind yourself of this fact.

But finally putting names to faces, personalities to people, you let it sink in that they were not that unlike you and your team.

After billiards, you continued with the group to a hot-pot restaurant a few blocks away. Komori hung especially around you, you noted inwardly. Was it to keep you from feeling left out of the group? But why were you even with this group to begin with?

Wait.

Didn’t Komori call you cute during your first encounter?

You felt something inside you inwardly swell and then sag. Were you here because Komori wanted you to be here? Even though your direct invitation came from Sakusa, the ace reasoned that it was at Komori’s suggestion. Were you invited here to get closer to the libero?

Despite being surrounded by the loud vbc members, their eagerness to eat bustling in both action and conversation, you felt yourself sag at the realization.

They were trying to get you closer to Komori?

You inwardly slapped yourself on the head for being so closed-minded. Not that he was a bad guy - he was the best libero in the entire country after all. Volleyball skills aside, Komori was trying his best to make you comfortable in the group. He was naturally outgoing, friendly, and had been the reason behind your invite in the first place.

But another part of your mind, the part that you had been trying to close off for so long, could not help but glance over to Sakusa and hoped that he had been the reason.

The silent ace caught your gaze, making you turn away immediately and flush at being caught.

It was… disappointing.

But you failed to notice how Sakusa kept his gaze on you, the female manager watching this interaction entirely with amused eyes.

You were still trapped in your thoughts. You had gotten your hopes up after all, despite saying to all the other members that it truly was not that way between the two of you.

And now it was fully true.

Entering the restaurant, the female manager, having the foresight to call ahead to reserve for your large group, you deliberated where you wanted to sit at the table. You went to take a seat next to the manager, to which she motioned to Komori in a none-too-subtle way, to instead take the seat before you could finish your question.

That left a single seat left on this side - the corner one that was only next to Komori.

Of course they were trying to set you up with him, why else did you think otherwise?? You almost slapped yourself on the head for how tunnel-minded you were before this.

You took the seat, shooting a smile toward Komori that did not quite reach your eyes. But, to your surprise, the brunette muttered a small excuse of having to go to the bathroom or something, you could not catch it exactly since it was so quick. And instead, the ace that had been plaguing your thoughts for the last few minutes, had plopped down into the spot.

You snapped your head forward, grabbing at the menu and stating that it all looked good. The female manager smiled at you, more like smirked, before joining in the conversation of what she wanted to order.

As per your team mom instinct™, you took out your hand sanitizer and offered it to the other table members.

“Thank you, (L/N)-chan!” She replied, taking the small container and using some. You offered it to the rest and let it pass around. “You even beat Sakusa offering it to us.”

Komori took the seat across from you when he returned, adding to the conversation quickly. “That’s (L/N)-chan’s?”

“Yeah. Otherwise, it would’ve been paired with a lecture from our dear ace here.” The female added. “It’s almost like you complete each other.”

Wait, what?

You smiled awkwardly, eyes landing on the silent Sakusa who had yet to say anything.

“Ah. I have the same brand.” He said when the bottle made its way back.

Okay, not what you were expecting at all. You took it from his hands, a small grin still on your face, using it before storing it away.

A few minutes in and it was clear that members of the table were breaking out into their smaller conversations. To your left was a wall and so that left the silent Sakusa or Komori across from you, who was trying hard to converse with only the person next to him.

“I saw the article about you in volleyball monthly.” You started. “Congrats on officially being one of the top spikers in the country.”

Sakusa turned to you when you first spoke, replying. “Thanks, but it’s brought a lot of annoying attention.”

He was actually talking to you? Stop. He’s human too.

“I could imagine - scouts, fangirls - it’s never ending.” You responded. “A lot of girls like to hang around and watch practice matches for Bokuto, I’d assume it’s the same.”

“It’s annoying.” He stated curtly, “They’re dirtying up the gym with their outdoor shoes every time.”

Of all things… you thought inwardly with an amused grin.

“Being so popular now, there’s probably tons of people who approach you based solely on reputation. I hope you don’t think that of me.” You stated.

“I don’t.” He said back just as quickly.

You smiled, before continuing the conversation. “Even if their energy is misplaced, I can’t help but agree that you’ve accumulated a lot of earned attention.”

“Oh?”

“Well, yeah.” Your smile widened unconsciously, “I mean, you’re more than just the title. You were a good spiker before any labels told anyone that.”

Sakusa looked at you, in what looked like a flat expression.

What you did not know was how thoroughly he was scanning your face, just to gauge how genuine your words were. You went to rival schools? Other schools in the prefecture were so quick to antagonize him and his team. After all, Bokuto made his feelings obvious during the last practice match. And yet you were willing to just hangout, of all things, with people you hardly knew? So willing to compliment the ace with the largest target on his back??

Your actions confused a realist like him.

Why even bother to be nice to him way back then? Why try to keep in touch? Why be here today?

And even more so, why did he want to know the answer to these questions so badly?

“(L/N)-chan, what would you usually be doing on your off days?” The manager broke you out of your thoughts.

“Well, today was supposed to be a Mario Kart tournament with some of the Nekoma kids.” You thought back to your earlier plans. “As crazy as it is, we tend to just lounge around and play video games with Kuroo and Kenma.”

“Ah, that’s right. Nekoma is in the Fukurōdani Academy Group as well.” She stated, her voice lowering toward the end.

“Yeah, but we’re pretty close to Kuroo and rest beyond volleyball. I don’t know how, but our captains all get along like frat bro’s.” You reminisced to the last interaction, “But at least with all the managers together, we have five mother hen’s, six including Akaashi, to guide the group.”

She laughed, before biting her lip.

You noticed the action and questioned, “Something wrong?”

“No.” She tried to wave off, “Well. I don’t know. I’m kind of jealous.”

You let out an incredulous snort before leaning forward. “Why?”

“You get along really well with the other schools in the prefecture. Enough so that I see you guys,” she motioned to you in a circular motion, you took this to signify the Fukurōdani team as a whole, “Like everywhere on social media.”

“Oh?”

“Parties, weekends, you name it. Even Masaki-san, who is infamous for being so angry looking, posted you and the rest out swimming last summer break.” You thought back to the event, the name of the now captain of the Ubugawa High volleyball team jumping out at you.

House parties… Wasn’t that a regular high school thing to do? And while you were all responsible teenagers with a lot to lose, the team did indulge in various friendly gatherings that did include teens across multiple schools in the prefecture.

You hadn’t said anything yet, so she continued. “Meanwhile, our coach has us play against college teams since he insists it’s better practice. We don’t really play with anyone else in the prefecture other than you guys - and you hate us.”

“That’s not true.” You cut in immediately, to which she raised a brow. “Believe me. The only outspoken one would be Bokuto and none of that is beyond surface level - he’s a really nice guy and would never actually hate anyone.”

You continued, “It may just seem that way since we’re immediate rivals. But I honestly had no idea that it made you guys feel so isolated.”

“Yeah…” She admitted, her voice trailing off at the end.

“It doesn't have to stay this way. After all, you were nice enough to invite me out now.” You replied, a bright smile back on your face. “Why don’t we exchange numbers?”

She radiated a smile reflecting your own, taking out her phone and quickly inputting your digits in. “Wow, you’re so friendly.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You replied.

She held her smile for a few more seconds, before her eyes slid over to the silent ace between you two.

“I’m so glad Sakusa wanted to invite you with us today.”

You looked toward him as well, Sakusa meeting your eyes before turning away. “Uh, I was glad I was able to join.”

“Yeah, well. It’s no wonder he…”

Her voice came to a halt when the ace looked straight at her, the waves of warning enough for even you to feel, without having to see his expression.

Sakusa wanted you to be here?

“He…?” You questioned, to which she smiled and shrugged, not completing her previous thought.

The rest of the dinner went without any special events - even holding light conversation with Itachiyama’s ace next to you. Conversation with Sakusa was curt, but he meant no harm. If you had to describe it, he was dense in the way of conversation, similar to Bokuto and yet for the opposite reasons.

Bokuto was so extroverted that he got along with people so easily. But, it often led to him mistakenly leading on girls for how friendly he was. Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, introverted Sakusa kept to himself because that was where he was comfortable, not because he thought others beneath him.

You felt your heart swell at having learned a little bit more about the ace.

After dinner, the nightsky reflected back at you as you went to part ways with the group. Dorms in opposite directions, you were surprised when Sakusa offered to walk with you to the train station.

And while your heart swelled at the implications, Sakusa reasoned it was only fair since he was the one that invited you out. Now that it was late, it may not be safe for you to be out late and it would be on his head if something happened.

His manager laughed, while Komori just sighed, muttering that he was hopeless.

She bid you farewell with a tight hug, saying you should text her when you get home. The rest waved at you amicably before walking off in the opposite direction.

Whatever the reasoning may be, there was no logical reason as to why a germaphobe like him would sit directly next to you on the train back home. Your shoulders were even touching, but neither of you voiced this fact.

“Today was actually really fun.” You started, turning to him on your right. There were only a few other people taking this line and they were mostly crowded around the opposite end of your train-car. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“You don’t have to say thanks so many times.”

“Did I?” You asked with a sheepish smile, “I honestly didn’t notice, but I do mean it.”

“Good.” His eyes bore into your own so seriously, “Because I’m glad you did.”

Unsure what to even say, you just kept on smiling. “Thank-

“What did I say?” Despite his normally cold visage, the tilt in his voice was enough to signify to you that he was teasing you.

You inclined your head toward him, “Fine. I’m… really happy, that we’re friends.”

He looked at you fully, not saying anything and making you question if you overstepped, before Sakusa stated, “Kiyoomi.”

“What?”

“Call me Kiyoomi.”

“Oh.” You smiled, “(F/N) is fine too.”

The rest of the train ride had such a lighthearted atmosphere. The only other person you could sit in comfortable silence with was Akaashi, but even then he was so silently sassy that it was nothing like Sakusa’s energy. And yet, at that moment, you felt so comfortable in his presence.

Sakusa did as he said he would, walking you all the way to the school-gates before finally bidding you farewell.

“See you around, (F/N).”

You reiterated it back to him, only walking off when he disappeared from sight. The smile on your face stayed etched there all the way back to your dorm room - where Yukie and Kaori were eagerly waiting on your lower bunk-bed, your roommate nowhere to be seen.

“Details, (F/N)-chan!” Yukie yelled out immediately, an enthused Kaori not too far behind her.

And you did just so for the entirety of the hangout - from the billiards club, the manager’s desire to be closer to other teams, to your conversation with Sakusa on the train. They nodded along as you explained, having brought snacks with them as well, it was clear they were waiting for a while. How they got in your dorm room - that was a question for another time.

They chuckled at you for thinking Komori was the reason and nodded in understanding about the female manager. It was only at the end when they really questioned you and Sakusa.

“So… not dating, huh?” Yukie asked with a raised brow.

“Not yet.” Kaori answered.

“Damn, that means I owe Bokuto Yakisoba bread.”

You chuckled at the girls’ words, but felt that you could no longer honestly deny their teasing. The two of you were nothing more than friends, but there was no denying that you wouldn’t mind the possibility of being more than that…

Fuck it, you liked him.

No longer doing mental somersaults in your brain, it was surprisingly easy to accept the fact that you had a crush on the Itachiyama ace.

And your relationship only seemed to grow as the school year went on. During the next practice match, you formally introduced Yukie and Kaori to the other manager. The four of you were quick buds and she was invited to your dorm room on occasion. Other members of the team greeted you warmly, Sakusa even calling you by your first name, confirming that your last conversation was not just a fever dream you had one day.

Your heart only squeezed in on itself more when you felt your lingering looks become mutual. Sakusa had always garnered your attention during practice matches. But between plays and matches, you would just be looking at him when suddenly, he would be looking at you too.

No matter how many times it happened, Yukie always made sure to tease you when she caught you.

You would text him memes and would receive a dry lol in return. There were times that he would spin the conversation and ask if you had eaten yet.

Was he really trying to mother hen the Fukurōdani manager? You thought with a smile.

Your small texts and conversations were tantamount to much more when it came to Sakusa. His actions meant much more than it did to the average person. He did not waste movements, nor did he waste his own time. These were more than just dry texts - Sakusa could easily not reply at all.

You learned that he disliked oranges due to its messiness. He actually liked the colors of his school tracksuit, even though they were bright against the soft hues of the Tokyo landscape. He was not a fan of the interviews, but knew it was a small sacrifice if he wanted to go pro. He loved his team and wanted to go far with them.

These little details made you like him even more - there was so much more to him than just volleyball.

When you finally voiced your feelings to Yukie, she gave you a soft smile and a pat on the shoulder. “I have eyes, you know. We all do, actually. But I’m glad you finally caught up.”

You laughed at her words then - maybe you really were a late bloomer when it came to your feelings?

Your frequent texts became frequent calls. Those became frequent late night video chat’s and soon enough, even your coach was teasing you over your close relationship.

“The next practice match with your boyfriend’s team is scheduled for next Friday.” They stated with a straight face to the entire volleyball team, making the third-years chuckle and Bokuto even nudge you with his elbow.

“Not saying you’re just friends anymore?” Yukie asked with a smirk one time.

You shrugged, to which Akaashi sighed before ruffling your hair.

And so, when the managers were hanging out in their hotel room at the next Interhigh National Tournament in the fall, neither Yukie nor Kaori nor the Itachiyama manager, who was chilling with you guys, batted an eyelash when Sakusa texted you to hang-out that night.

You texted back, trying to convey a teasing tone over the words. “Wouldn’t it be weird if I was having dinner with the rival team of mine at Nationals?”

His response was immediate:

Not team; just me.

You blush only increased and Yukie teased you further, “Woah, what could he possibly be sending you for you to get that red?”

“I’m willing to bet Yakisoba bread that they’ll be official before the next nationals.” The other manager stated, outstretching a hand toward Kaori and Yukie.

“Whaaaat?” The former drew out, “I’m thinking by tonight.”

“Shut up.” You stated as you blushed, putting on your outdoor shoes and a jacket.

Going down to the lobby, you scanned the room to see Akaashi and Bokuto at one of the tables. The two had such a… trusting relationship, you learned. Yes, Akaashi played the suffering card almost every day. But the setter loved to watch Bokuto play so passionately, you could see it in his eyes every time they were on the court.

Whatever was going on there, you supported it.

Turning away, you made your way over to the door where Sakusa was waiting. He looked so out of place, as per usual, hands in pockets and looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but there.

As you approached, Sakusa nodded to you in greeting and - to your eternal surprise - took your hand in his own before guiding you out the door. He had on winter gloves, so none of your germs would be touching his skin, but the action itself was so surprising. Yes, you talked and smiled and pined after him - but premarital holding hands?? Were you both ready for this??

He led the way over to a small cafe, walking in mutual silence and only releasing your hand when the host seated you across from each other. You eagerly soaked up the menu, eyes scanning the sweets while he deliberated over something.

Sakusa had yet to say anything to you, not grabbing at the menu either, which worried you in a way. What was it that was on his mind?

“Something wrong, Yoomi?” The nickname slipped off the tongue easily, having used it in your last night talks on the phone with one another.

“I want you to know my intentions in our relationship.”

You swallowed at his words, sure that he heard your nervous tick as well.

“I want to get to know you.”

The teasing smile was quick on your face, “Me too. I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing all along?”

“No.” He cut in instantly, tugging the face mask he had on down and off. “As in get to know you with the intention of being more than friends.”

“Oh?”

“You confuse me endlessly.” He admitted, “Your initial kindness made no logical sense - why extend it to your rival that you barely know? Why humanize me, get to know my team after all this time?”

“Because I wanted to be kind, even way back then.” You thought aloud your reasoning.

“I know you now. And what I see… That’s what I like about you.”

“Wait. You like me?”

Your humility was cute and such a rare trait in your shared interest; the small question made Sakusa smile inwardly.

“Yes. And you like me too.” He responded with a smirk, to which you could not even deny.

“Well, yeah!” You laughed as you affirmed his statement.

He tilted his head at your outburst - god help him you were so cute. His smirk morphed into one of an endearing expression, before he took a breath and calmed himself.

“I do have to be honest with you.” He started, “I want to get closer to you, more than before. But my priorities right now are volleyball.”

Your bright smile fell to a neutral grin, not really from his words, since you truly did understand his situation. He was in his third-year, college scouts and grades were on the line at every turn for him. Even tomorrow, at the Fall National tournament, his performance could very well carve out the future he was working so hard for this whole time.

Your silence must have been a telling sign for Sakusa, since he started to pour out questions in a way that usually occurred when he fixated on something.

“Stop, you don’t need to explain it to me. I understand fully. There’s too much on the line right now to get distracted.” Your smile was back on your face as you reached over to grab at his hand this time, “But I want to get to know you too.”

“Good.”

The hand under your’s squeezed back lightly, before upturning the positions so yours rested in his larger one. It was a silent moment, sharing eye contact that felt so intimate, and yet similar to the one you shared at the last tournament. His smile, rarer than the times Bokuto fell silent, was small and for you alone at this moment.

What he was asking for was not an outright relationship - nothing about this was normal, but you wouldn’t have preferred it to be.

--------

(continue; BUT SPOILER WARNING TO CHAPTER 392!! :O)

You sat in the stands on the Black Jackals side, cheering on the team of your boyfriend of three years. Adorned on your shoulders was Sakusa’s sports jacket, his last name shown proudly on your back. Next to you, Akaashi and Yukie were loudly cheering for the team’s victory.

Seeing both Bokuto and Sakusa on the same team was no longer a strange sight. And, instead, always elicited a pang of pride surging through you every time you watched their games.

The two of you never confirmed your relationship throughout the rest of high school. And while this made many of your then teammates groan at your ambiguous relationship, especially since many kept betting Yakisoba bread to no avail, you would not have it any other way.

After a few months from your conversation in the cafe, Sakusa would kiss your cheek in goodbye, no matter who was around you. When walking around Shibuya, with either yours or his or even with Nekoma’s team around, he would hover shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

And when Itachiyama, the favored team to win Nationals as a whole, lost to Inubushi East High - you held him in your embrace the entire night in the comfort of his hotel room. He did not cry then, but his disposition was enough for you to know that he was not okay.

And when Fukurōdani made it all the way to the finals of the National Spring Interhigh, only to get eliminated, Sakusa held you close despite your loud crying the next day.

You knew how much Sakusa cherished you, that was all that mattered. And so when he kissed you for the first time, even without a label to your relationship, none of that mattered. Your feelings to each other only grew with time and what happened in the private recess of your relationship was for you two alone.

Watching the pro team win the game 3:2, with your boyfriend getting the first service ace of the game, you almost cried in joy at how far he progressed in achieving his dream. This was a far cry from his first pro-game, but seeing him on the court, surrounded by your Fukurōdani friends, brought so much nostalgic feelings to your heart.

Even as the rest of the audience cleared the stadium, you and the two others lingered. Bokuto made sure to wave at Akaashi, his significant other since the day you lost at the Spring Nationals.

You waited together until you received a text from Sakusa, then headed down toward the entrance of the changing rooms as a group. Some of the members of the Black Jackals were already waiting for you three by the time you made it through the crowd and down.

Hinata greeted you excitedly while Bokuto ran, with not a hint of hesitation, toward Akaashi. Lifting the previous setter off the ground, he placed a light butterfly kiss on his nose, careful not to hit his glasses.

“Kōtarō, please.” Akaashi attempted to chastise the volleyball player for ignoring the rest of the group and stop him from getting any deeper in his public display of affection, but the smile on his face took off the weight of his words.

“I love you.” Bokuto said, forehead to forehead with your close friend to this day, before receiving the words in kind from the previous setter.

You smiled warmly at the two - to think that they were dancing around their feelings also in high school. Having teased them a lot before, it only warmed your heart to know that they found their eternal happiness in each other.

Yukie was also smiling behind you, before Bokuto took the both of you in his arms for a long awaited hug. Your high school best-friend offered him a Yakisoba bread after, it was not a silent tradition after all the lost bets she participated in. Bokuto took it with a smile, putting the bread in his pack before encasing Akaashi’s hand in his own.

Atsumu was next to leave the changing room, shamelessly flirting with both you and Yukie the moment he laid eyes on you.

You laughed at the setter’s attempts, “Come on blondie, give it up.”

“You know, I think you’d make a great manager for our team.” He ended it with a wink.

“(F/N)-chan used to be my manager before!” Bokuto cut in, sticking his tongue out in jest at the end.

You felt strong arms wrap around your midsection from behind, Sakusa having quietly exited the changing room, before feeling his lips against the side of your head. “Sorry for making you wait. I had to wait for them to sanitize the showers again after Atsumu used it before me.”

The setter sputtered in reaction, after being implied as dirty, but was honestly used to it by now.

Only when Bokuto inclined his head toward the exits did Sakusa let go of you. But only for a second, grabbing your hand in his own as you headed out. The group had agreed earlier about going somewhere for the victory dinner - probably the usually ramen place you haunted in Shibuya.

Facing you fully now - Sakusa held your cheeks in his hands, the coarse skin affected by the endless hours of enduring volleyball. You leaned into the motion as he lowered his height closer to you. Familiar with each other’s nuances by now, you angled your head to side as your hands comfortably wrapped around his neck. Nudging your nose slightly with his own, he rested his forehead against yours before the velvet skin of his lips matched your own.

You felt one of his hands move to curve around your waist, bringing you closer to him as he deepened your act of affection. Greedy to just feel more of him, you leaned into Sakusa again, lips meeting twice, three times, before you pulled away.

His loud groan was palpable to the now silent hallway.

Sakusa was only ever so affectionate when you were in private. And so for him to be this forward while the possibility of getting caught still hung in the balance was a rare thing - not that you were complaining.

“Come on, we should go catch-up with the rest of your team.” You said almost breathlessly, still sharing the same breath in your close embrace.

You felt one of his hands travel behind your head slowly, grazing the back of your neck softly as he went. You leaned into him at the feeling, sensitive to the touch. The smirk on his face was obvious, the jackass - teasing you in public of all places.

“Do we have to?”

Was he trying to tempt you to just go straight home to your shared apartment?

Not one to be easily swayed, you gave him a small peck on the lips before backing out of his embrace entirely.

His hands dropped down to yours as you went, “Yes, we have to.”

Pulling you back to him, and chastely kissing your forehead this time, Sakusa replied. “Okay, but only for you.”

Your smile only widened then, at his affection words meant only for you.

Your relationship was never easy, busy with your respective college degrees, and the attention that came with being a professional athlete gaining world-renown. Like every other couple, you fought, and cried, and loved each other so much in your own little ways.

The two of you had a quiet sort of romance. You were not the sort who would flaunt your relationship in public, nor would you so eagerily utter the words I love you as other couples, but you knew that what you had was real.

What started as a chance encounter became the best partner you could ever ask for.

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

Author’s notes:

The only reason I’m thinking Fukurōdani has dorms is just an educated guess:

All the schools that have “Academy” in the name seem to be the ‘higher’ or more prestigious schools. Karasuno High, Nekoma High, Shinzen High - none of these places have dorms. But Shiratorizawa Academy; Fukurōdani Academy; Itachiyama Academy -> since Shiratorizawa is confirmed to have dorms i figured ayyy let's roll with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ A loooot of my assumptions are going to be based off Shiratorizawa - like the fact that they feel they’re the best and practice with colleges instead of other hs cause they’re not good enough lmao

IT ALMOST KILLS ME that we know only TWO people on the Itachiyama team and then timeskip hits and its like ?? LOL ok ?? hype them up for so long and JUST NOW we see Sakusa play ok ok ok

✧ Masterlist

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thegreatestofheck · 3 years

Text

dark of the night [A. Hotchner]

word count – 25,555 (its so long im so sorry) warnings - a lot, blood, torture, mentions (but no descriptions) of sexual assault/rape, murder, canon violence stuff, this is essentially a hurt/comfort fic so expect a lot of hurt to come before the comfort, also a slow burn. synopsis - an agent gets taken in the middle of an investigation. in a race against time, the team at the bau must find her by diving into her deepest secrets. when a video tape arrives with horrible images of the state of their friends, aaron hotchner realizes just how terrified he is of losing her. tagging: @magicalbluepanther (i hope you don’t mind the tag lol) a/n – did anyone order an extra long aaron hotchner slow burn? Because here you’ve got one. so my mental health is declining again and that means I have to write a criminal minds one shot that involves a lot of hurt/comfort. also I gave y/n a name because i don’t really like y/l/n or anything, but you’re more than welcome to replace it with your own! please dont be mad at me. anyway, stay happy, healthy, safe, and groovy!

The moment Agent Hotchner realized that she wasn’t coming back, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. It had happened once before, this feeling, the day he was in his car and he got that call from Foyet and heard Hayley’s muffled sobbing over the phone. Panic settled into his bones, unable to shake it away even as the terrified eyes of the rest of the team looked his way.

“Did we just lose her?” Emily Prentiss asked, her words wavering ever so slightly as she tried to keep herself calm.

At the sound of her voice, Hotch finally found himself able to look around the room.

Morgan had shifted his eyes back to the door that his friend was supposed to come through. Reid stared at Hotch, wide eyed, lips parted. JJ was chewing on her thumb nail, waiting for Hotch to do something, say something. Emily was looking between the door and Hotch. Rossi was standing behind him, so he couldn’t see the look on his face, but Hotch couldn’t imagine he looked any different than the rest of his team.

Agent Evelyn Caro had walked into the meeting, undercover, in hopes of baiting a serial killer into a quick and easy arrest. After three years of horrific killings, the BAU team was so close to catching him and Agent Caro was more than willing to be the one to take him down.

Hotch knew this particular case was a sore spot for Caro, as all torture/murder cases were. But during this entire case, she had been far more on edge and far more eager to tear their suspect to shreds. He shouldn’t have let her go to the meeting, he knew it was too personal for her, even if she had never told him why.

She had refused to take in a ear piece, said that the stories that would be told at the meeting were personal and their privacy was to be respected. Hotch trusted her. He agreed. They all stood outside and waited. The meeting should have been only two hours, Caro promised that she would be back with the suspect in less than three hours.

But it had now been three hours and almost thirty minutes. The door hadn’t opened a single time since the last of the members of the meeting left, all except Caro and the suspect.

She fit his physical appearance preference and possessed the confidence he appeared to have deep hatred for. It should have been an easy job.

“What went wrong?” Hotch murmured out loud, more to himself.

His words seemed to trigger something in Morgan, who pushed open the van door and unholestered his weapon before anybody could stop him.

“Morgan!” Rossi yelled after him, but there was no slowing down, and once Morgan was running toward the meeting building, Emily and Reid were on his tail.

“Hotch, what do we do?” JJ asked, turning toward him as Rossi hopped out of the car to go after his peers.

Hotch ran through every single protocol that he knew like the back of his hand. They flitted through his brain like smoke, a flurry of useless words and numbers that meant nothing to him. Not a single one told him how to deal with this. Tightness squeezed at his chest as the rules and regulations he clung so tightly to began to fail him once again.

“We find her.”

Gun drawn, Hotch entered the building with JJ on his tail. His heart pounded in his chest, but he kept his composure about him. The same couldn’t be said for some of the others.

“Evie!” Morgan called out, kicking down a door.

“Evelyn?” Rossi’s voice echoed through elementary school.

Hotch was seconds away from calling out her name himself, but he kept his jaw clenched tight. JJ followed every move he made. If he lost himself now, so would JJ. He needed at least one person on his side whose head was still level.

They scoured the entire grounds, but they could find nothing. The room where the meeting had taken place was empty. Not even the leader was there anymore. This dark room was where the team met up after searching every inch of the grounds.

There was silence for an eternity as they passed glances between each other, wordlessly asking if anyone had found anything.

“There’s not even a footprint,” Morgan said helplessly, his eyebrows pulled together in concern.

“I didn’t hear her scream.” JJ’s voice was weak and her eyes downcast.

“None of us did,” Rossi replied.

“We have to find her quickly,” Hotch said, finally trusting himself enough to speak. “He only keeps his victims for five days and if he knows she’s FBI, it’s probably less than that.”

“I’ll call Garcia, track Evie’s phone,” Morgan said, pulling out his phone and turning away from the group.

“We start from the ground up,” Hotch instructed. “Right now, Agent Caro isn’t our coworker but a victim and we have to treat her as such if we want to find her. Dig into her life, figure out what connects her to the other victims. Did he take her because she’s FBI or because she’s connected to the others. Morgan?”

“Her phone’s off,” Morgan said, pulling the phone away from his ear.

“Tell Garcia to look for a connection between all of the victims. Dig and dig deep. Hold nothing back.”

Morgan paused for a moment. They all remembered when they had to do this very thing to him, when he was a suspect all those years ago. He knew what it was like to have his friends digging into a personal life he long wanted buried, how they looked at him differently after they knew, even if they didn’t mean to. He didn’t understand then, that they were trying to help, but he did now. There was no time to hesitate. This was Evelyn they were talking about.

“Garcia, give me everything on Evelyn Caro that you can find. Dig deep. She needs us,” Morgan said.

“Got it.”

“Call me when you get anything.”

“Yup.”

She ended the call and Morgan turned back to the team.

“Garcia’s on it.”

“Okay, then we need to get back to the station and look at everything again. We have a name. We know it’s him. We just need to find them.” Hotch turned away from the team and started for the exit. “No one goes home until we find her.”

___

Hotch meant what he said, but no one needed to be told twice. Red rimmed eyes scanned the same files over and over and over again as they waited for any amount of information from Garcia.

“There has to be something here,” Morgan said with a frustrated sigh. “Something we’re missing.”

“Why did he take her?” JJ asked as she set down her file. The woman rubbed her eyes before crossing her arms and looking up at the rest of the room. “I mean, what changed in that room that made him want her?”

“He found out she was FBI?” Reid suggested, leaning back in his chair.

“How though?” Rossi piped in from his position leaning up against the wall. “Caro isn’t dumb enough to reveal herself, we were careful.”

“She must have said something in that meeting that convinced him that she was a good target,” Hotch said. He could feel all eyes on him as he watched the ground, unable to meet any of their gazes. “Maybe this is how he finds his victims. At these group meetings.”

“So we sent Evie into a death trap.” Morgan shoved his chair away from the table and stood, hands on his hips as he breathed heavily.

“We have to figure out what connects her to the other victims,” Emily said. “Just like any other case.”

“But this isn’t any other case is it?”

“Morgan-”

“This is Evelyn we’re talking about!”

“Morgan, I need you to calm down,” Hotch said, standing from his place.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Hotch.” Morgan trembled with rage, his eyes glazed over with water. “You can’t expect me to sit here and-”

“I expect you to do your job, Agent Morgan, seeing as that is the only thing that will get Caro back home.” Hotch struggled to keep his voice low. He curled his fists so the others couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking.

“You think we’ll get her back?”

“If you do your job.”

Morgan breathed in deeply and nodded his head. Before he sat back down, Morgan put his hand on Reid’s shoulder. The kid had his hand covering his mouth, his eyes glazed over like Morgan’s had been.

Hotch knew how close Morgan and Caro were. Ever since she signed on to the team, the two had been nearly inseparable. Hotch wondered if it was something he needed to discuss with them. Every time that he seriously considered it, he had to question his motivations. Was it to keep complications out of their team or was it something else, something he wasn’t ready to admit?

Turning his eyes away from Reid and Morgan, Hotch opened his mouth to address the team when Garcia stepped into the open doorway. They all turned to look at her only to see that her cheeks were streaked with tears as she clutched a file in her hands.

“Garcia, what is it?” Emily stood and walked toward her, a hand out open for her.

“You...you told me to dig deep so I did,” she stammered. “I...I did and I found...oh, God.”

“Come in,” Hotch said, trying to smooth the furrow in his brows.

Garcia took Emily’s hand and shuffled into the briefing room, sniffling through her tears.

“Our poor baby girl,” Garcia said, setting the file gently onto the round table as if it was fragile. “She never told us-”

“Garcia.”

Garcia cleared her throat and nodded her head, flipping the file open. The team crowded around the table. Staring up at them was a picture of a young girl, her face purpled and bloody. Morgan clenched his jaw, Reid turned his face away from the picture.

“Is that Caro?” JJ asked, her hand hovering over her mouth.

Hotch had seen this picture before, attached to the file so covered in black redacted lines that he barely gleaned anything from it. But there were no more black lines. Everything about Agent Caro was there for him to read. Her life was an open book for him. This was his job, the only way to get her back, so why did he feel so dirty doing it?

“When Evie-”

“Evelyn,” Hotch corrected. “She can’t be our friend right now.”

Garcia nodded, her eyes still glassy.

“When Evelyn Caro was 12 years old, she was kidnapped from her front lawn. She was held captive by her...by her uncle for four years. He did...he did horrible things to her...I’m sorry-”

Garcia choked, turning away from the file. Morgan put his hand on Garcia’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“She was held by her uncle,” Hotch continued, eyes scanning the page, when it was clear that Garcia wouldn’t be able to. “There were clear signs of r-pe and physical violence, even though she never spoke about it afterward.”

“She was held captive by her uncle?” Morgan asked. “How did no one know it was him?”

“Police talked to everyone in the family,” Garcia said, turning back into the conversation. “He was never on their serious list of suspects.”

“How did she get out?” Rossi asked from his place near the back of the crowd.

“She broke out,” Garcia said, her voice like iron even as her lower lip trembled. “She stabbed that son of a bitch the moment she got the chance and she ran until someone found her.”

“She killed him?” JJ asked.

Hotch let out a heavy sigh. Something like pride blossomed in his chest. Maybe it was vindication. He would have killed the bastard himself.

“Why wouldn’t she tell us?” Reid asked, looking up at Hotch like a lost dog.

“We all have secrets we’ve kept from each other,” Hotch told him, even though he was wondering the same thing. “Now we need to figure out if this is somehow related to why he took her.”

There was a moment of silence hanging over the room.

“Garcia, look into the lives of the other women again,” he continued. “See if there is any kind of connection.”

“I’m on it.”

There was a new kind of determination in her voice, like a fire was lit underneath her.

“Videos of the other victims were sent to the families of the victims,” Hotch said, looking back at the rest of the team. “JJ, contact her brother, see if he’s received anything and tell him to contact us as soon as he is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the rest of us?”

Once again, all eyes were on Hotch, expecting him to have all of the answers. But he didn’t. He didn’t know anything.

“Do your jobs.”

___

When the video was sent to her family, it wasn’t her estranged brother who received it.

“Hotch.” Morgan’s voice was shaking as he picked up the yellow envelope on his desk. “Hotch!”

As soon as Hotch saw the package he knew what had to be in it. He had seen four of them before all from the previous victims’ families. His heart constricted in his chest. He knew what they were about to watch. Their team member, their friend.

Grinding his teeth together to keep his face straight, Hotch took the package from Morgan and started back for the briefing room.

“Do you want me to round up the team?” Morgan asked.

“You guys shouldn’t have to watch this,” Hotch told him.

“You’re not watching it alone.”

Without another word, Morgan went to collect the others.

Once they were all in the briefing room, Garcia put the recording onto the big screen.

“You don’t-”

“We’re staying,” JJ said, her fingers laced with Emily’s.

Hotch nodded once before looking over at Garcia and signaling her to start the video.

As soon as Garcia hit the play button, Morgan put an arm around her shoulder and she put a hand up to her mouth. Hotch leaned against a chair, his knuckles going white.

The screen was black for a few moments. When it turned on, Agent Evelyn Caro was sitting half naked on a cot. Bruises littered her body, her ribs on the left side blackened. A cut ran across a purple cheek with dried blood running down her face. One of her eyes was black. But Caro stared straight ahead of her, eyes made of steal.

“Oh, baby,” Garcia breathed.

The room was small, bland. It looked cold.

A man stepped into the frame. Caro didn’t even look at him, she just kept staring straight ahead. Before he even said anything, he raised a hand and slapped her across the face. Reid flinched, but none of them turned away. Their attention needed to be on this video, gleaning as much information as they could to get her home. Hotch refused to let her suffering go to waste. He would watch every second of it, no matter how much his stomach burned with hatred.

Caro barely reacted to the backhand, her head snapping to the side, but the rest of her body stayed in the same place, her hands clasped together in her lap. When she straightened her head, blood trickled down from her lip. She lifted a hand to wipe the blood away before looking up at the man. Her eyes carried the heat of a thousand suns as she looked at her assailant, almost as if daring him to touch her again. That was the Caro that Hotch knew. She would never back down, never give in.

“What do you want?” She asked.

Hearing her voice so raw sent a chill down Hotch’s spine. Everything about this was wrong.

“I know what happened to you when you were young,” the man said, walking in front of her.

Caro clenched her jaw and turned her face forward once again, seeming to pretend that he wasn’t there.

“Does this feel familiar to you?” the man asked, spinning in a circle. “The room, the bed, the chain.”

Hotch’s eyes shifted away from Caro and he looked more at the bed. There was indeed a chain attached to the metal of the bed frame. Caro’s jaw tightened again and Hotch watched as she ran a finger over a scar he had seen on her wrist a million times before but never asked her about. He could only imagine a young Agent Caro, chained to a bed. She carried that scar around with her and he had never even cared enough to ask her about it.

“It’s exactly the same,” Caro said.

The man sat next to her and still Caro didn’t flinch. Not even her breathing changed. Amidst his anger and his fear, Hotch felt pride. Damn right she would not even acknowledge him. Hotch expected nothing less from her. Though he wouldn’t fault her if she did.

The Unsub put his hand on her knee and Hotch’s eyes went red. His ears rang, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. He watched Caro look down at the Unsub’s hand and Hotch noticed a slight tremble in her body. Her shaking was rage, not fear. He knew her well enough to know that.

“What do you want?” The tremor reached her voice. Hotch could see her holding back from killing the unsub then and there. Her restraint told him that her captor was the only way out of her room. If she killed him now, she would be trapped.

The unsub sighed and tilted his head to the side, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“I want to break you,” he said.

Hotch clenched his jaw, but still Caro’s face stayed straight. She didn’t even blink. The words ‘I dare you to try’ never even passed her lips, but it was a clear challenge in her eyes.

The image cut and Hotch almost thought that was going to be the end. But then it suddenly clicked on. Caro was slowly sitting up from laying on the bed. The unsub was halfway in the frame, buckling his belt. Hotch heard a quiet ‘oh’ come from Garcia and when he glanced over at her, he noticed tears in Morgan’s eyes.

Caro seemed stiff as she sat up. The chain that had before been only attached to the bed was now shackled to her wrist. Hotch watched her grimace as she moved her feet to the ground. Her toes curled, telling Hotch that the ground was cold. The entire room must have been freezing.

A silence hung over the team as they waited for something to happen.

“You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” the unsub said. Caro refused to look at him. “The other girls gave in at this point.”

“And then you killed them.” Caro looked over at him, moving slowly and clearly despite the pain that was obvious settling into her bones.

The unsub shrugged his shoulders, a proud smile on his face.

“Some girls seem to think that death is better than what I did to them,” he said. “But maybe you kind of like it.”

Caro pulled harshly against her chain, shutting her eyes and turning her face away from him.

“Son of a bitch,” Rossi breathed. Hotch refrained from looking back at him.

“How does she not strangle him?” JJ asked. Her words were tight from the swelling in her throat.

“He’s her only way out of that room,” Hotch told her. “She kills him and she starves in there.”

“Not if we find her.”

They fell quiet again, just soon enough to hear a low rumble of a laugh from the man.

“I see I struck a nerve.” The unsub said.

Caro steadied her breathing and straightened her shoulders.

“I’m not surprised you’ve lasted longer than the other girls, being an FBI agent and all. I wonder how your friends are doing.”

Caro pulled against the chain again, her eyes squeezing tighter.

“Ah, another nerve. Should we poke at that one a bit more?”

The unsub stepped out of the frame. For the briefest moment, with his back turned on her, Caro’s eyes flicked toward the camera.

“She knows it’s there,” Reid said. “She knows about the camera.”

Caro sucked in a deep breath and gave a short nod of her head. She knew her taker’s MO. She knew about the videos and the envelope. She knew they were watching her, and she was telling them that she was okay.

When the unsub walked back into frame, he was holding something in his hands. With his back to the camera, they couldn’t get a good look at what he was holding.

“I am aware that your brother is the only remaining relative of yours who will speak to you, is that correct?” The unsub said.

Caro breathed deeply in once, her eyes staring straight through the unsub.

“This is him and his wife, their two daughters. Beautiful family. When was the last time you spoke to them?”

Agent Caro’s eyes moved from the unsub to the object in his hand and her eyes immediately welled up with tears. The unsub clicked his tongue.

“It’s the shame, isn’t it? It eats you up inside. You can’t bear the thought of tainting your brother and his perfect family with your past.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“This is Penelope Garcia, yes?”

Garcia straightened her back, surprised at hearing her name.

Caro opened her eyes and Hotch noticed a drastic shift in her breathing. Once steady and calm, her chest now rose and fell at an uneven pace. Her eyes darted between whatever the unsub was holding and his face.

“Jennifer Jareau?”

The unsub tossed something onto the bed next to Caro. And then another.

“David Rossi?”

For the first time, Caro flinched as he flicked what Hotch was starting to realize was a picture in her direction.

“Emily Prentiss. Spencer Reid.”

Two more pictures were thrown at her and Caro flinched twice more.

“Derek Morgan.”

A fire lit in Caro’s eyes as she stared up at him again.

“Aaron Hotchner.”

Before he could even throw the picture her way, Caro jumped up from the bed and charged at him, pulling on the chair.

“If you touch them, I swear I’ll kill you,” she seethed.

The unsub shoved her backward onto the bed, but she scrambled up again. He hit her across the face, sending her back with a yelp. Breathing heavily, she turned to look at him, like a rabid dog.

“That’s a hard promise to make seeing as you are chained to a bed and I am not.”

“She has to know that he can’t hurt us,” Emily said, looking to Hotch for answers.

“She’s panicking,” Hotch replied. His knuckles tightened over the chairs.

“You think I won’t go after them?” the unsub said as he dropped a hand onto her shoulder.

Caro turned her face away from him and shook her head.

“You can’t,” she said. Her voice was growing weak, shaking more. “They’re FBI, you can’t just-“

She didn’t get the chance to finish before the unsub threw a fist across her face.

“I won’t even have to hurt them though, will I?” The unsub sneered, bending down close to her face. “I bet by now they know every dark secret about your past. Every skeleton in your closet. They know about the blood on your hands.”

Hotch had read her file that Garcia dug up a thousand times over in the last few days since she found it. Something in him told him he had to, though another part of him wanted to wait until Caro was there to tell him herself. But she deserved better than for her story to go unknown. She deserved to have someone know.

“No,” Caro whimpered.

“You really think they’ll accept you after that?” The unsub let out a laugh.

“Evie, we love you,” Garcia said as she took a step forward. “Evie-“

“Garcia, quiet,” Hotch said, putting out a hand.

“Sir, she has to know, she has to know.”

Morgan put his arm back around Garcia and pulled her in for a hug.

“She knows,” he whispered to her.

“You lost your family once because of what you did to your uncle,” the unsub said. “Now you’ll lose another.”

“No!”

Caro threw herself at the unsub once again, her fists flying. Hotch had seen her fight before. She was well trained, and she was calculated, confident. But this was animalistic. This was pure instinct. Her punches were weak and light, hitting the places of the unsub where very little damage would be done. The chain prevented any real effort from her, though the bed shook and rattled as she yanked against the metal. It didn’t take him long to wrestle her onto the bed, pinning her down by her arms.

Her face was clearly displayed to the camera. She breathed sporadically, panting and gasping for air. Sweat beaded down her battered face. Her eyes were wide and flitting back and forth, terrified.

“How would you feel if I paid one of them a visit, huh?” The unsub asked, his nose brushing against her cheek.

Caro struggled, a growl of frustration strangled in her sore throat.

“That Spencer Reid lives alone, doesn’t he?”

Rossi put a hand on Reid’s shoulder, who had suddenly gone pale.

“Don’t touch him!” She thrashed again, trying to throw the unsub off of her. She tried to kick her feet, but they were effectively pinned under her by the weight of the unsub. She grunted and groaned in the effort it took to try and get him off of her.

“I doubt it would take much to strangle that skinny neck of his.”

Caro suddenly stopped struggled. The sweat that pooled down her cheeks suddenly started to look more like tears as her body went still.

“Please don’t hurt them,” she said, her voice quiet.

“What, you don’t want me creeping into Emily’s apartment tonight, pay her a little visit?”

Caro let out a quiet sound, something that was almost like a sob.

“Please.”

“What will you do for me in return?” He asked, pressing still closer to her face.

Caro rolled her head back and forth on the bed and Hotch could see the tears that pooled in her eyes.

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

She just nodded her head, lower lip quavering.

“Don’t give up, baby girl,” Morgan whispered. Garcia clung tighter to his hand.

“Well, well,” the unsub said with a sigh as he sat up, releasing Caro from his hold. Her body sagged even further into the cot. He stepped away from the cot and bent down to pick up some of the pictures that fell to the floor. “There isn’t really anything I want from you just now, so I might go and visit one of your friends just to keep you on your toes.”

“No!” Caro leapt from the bed and attached herself to the unsub’s back.

He threw her against back against the cot. Hotch could see him lift his hand to deliver hit after hit to his agent, but he was grateful that the unsub’s back blocked the view of the camera. He didn’t think he could stand to watch her get beaten.

Caro was surprisingly silent as the unsub hit her.

It was over relatively quickly. The unsub straightened himself out, squaring his shoulders. Without a word, he turned to the camera and walked toward it. Caro let out a quiet groan just before the unsub picked up the camera and shut it off.

There was a heavy silence that fell over the team.

“What the hell did we just watch?” Emily asked, setting her eyes on Hotch.

They were once again expecting him to have all the answers, but he had nothing to say. His hands were cramping from how hard he was clenching onto the chair. It took all the strength in him not to throw it across the room. Caro should be here with them, not in that room, not with that man.

“Garcia, can you play the end again and turn up the volume?” Rossi asked.

“No offense, sir,” Garcia said, teary eyed. “But I can’t watch that again.”

“Just the very end, as he’s walking toward the camera. Agent Caro said something.”

“Did she?” JJ asked, crossing her arms.

Garcia pressed a few buttons on her laptop and the video returned. Hotch was almost tempted to look away. The audio was louder as the unsub heaved out an exhausted sigh and started walking toward the camera. And then they heard it, the quiet groan. But it wasn’t a groan at all. She had said something, just a quiet name.

His name.

Aaron.

___

Sitting at his desk, Hotch couldn’t seem to lift his heavy head from his hands. The window, which was almost always closed, was wide open. His office was too stuffy, too hot. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t get the sound of his name from her lips out of his head.

A knock came to his door and he finally lifted his head. Rossi was standing there with his usual “something is wrong and I’m going to fix it” face. Hotch wasn’t sure if he was in the mood for this conversation.

“What can I do for you, David?”

“We have to talk about what just happened,” Rossi said.

“I don’t really think-“

“Aaron, listen to me,” Rossi said, walking into the room. “Evelyn needs you right now.”

“There’s nothing I can do that the team isn’t already doing.”

“She said your name.”

“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” Hotch’s tone was a little sharper than he meant it to be. He let out a sigh and stretched out his fingers.

Rossi sat down across from him.

“Why? We all know that she’s closest with Morgan, so why say your name?” Rossi asked. Hotch squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. The exhaustion headache that was plaguing him wasn’t helping the fact that thinking about who Caro was and wasn’t closest with lit a fire in his gut. “And why your first name? She only ever called you Hotch, like the rest of us.”

“That’s not true,” Hotch said, memorizing the lines on his hands so he wouldn’t have to look at Rossi.

“What isn’t?”

“She’s called me Aaron.”

“When?”

“When she was angry with me,” Hotch said. The thought of it pained him. He could hear her sharp tone, the way she hissed his name like venom. When she thought he was too cold, too apathetic.

“Or….”

“Or what?”

There was another time when she called him Aaron. Three other times.

On the worst day of his life, when he held Hayley’s body in his arms, Caro had sat next to him on the floor. People were calling his name. “Hotch, Hotch, Hotchner.”

She sat there on the ground and whispered his name just once, “Aaron.” It was quiet, like a pin dropping during a storm. But still he heard her.

“Aaron, your son,” she said.

That decision, to stay with Hayley or go find Jack, tore his soul into pieces until she spoke again.

“I’ll stay with her.”

The second time was a few weeks after Hayley’s death. Hotch wasn’t handling it well, or at all. She saw right through the façade that he had put forward. He was at the office late one night and so was she. Even when he tried to send her home, she politely refused, saying there was a lot of work she needed to get done.

He spent hours in his office, the grief and the sorrow and the shame building and building and building until he was suddenly standing over his desk. Everything here reminded him of Hayley. The baseball, the picture of Jack, even the piles of papers that were stacked high, shaming him for not being there for her more.

The only way to keep himself from crying was to let the anger take over. Anger at Foyet, anger at the job, anger at the world, anger at himself. Forgetting where he was, Hotch had dumped everything off of his desk with one sweep of his arm.

Collapsing to the ground, Hotch didn’t remember how long he sat there, leaning against his desk, hyperventilating, until Caro walked in. She didn’t say anything to him. She just lowered herself to the ground next to him, letting out a long sigh. She just sat there, breathing louder than Hotch was used to her breathing, but he found after a few minutes that his breathing began to match hers. A calmness returned to his body, at least enough to breathe normally.

“Aaron?”

He turned to look at her, the edges of his eyes lined with red.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Hotch nodded his head. He pushed himself to his feet before helping Caro to hers.

“I’ll drive,” she said, stepping around all of the things on the ground.

“What about-“

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” Caro had said. “Come on.”

She talked to him all the way back to the car. She asked if he wanted to talk about what made him dump all of his stuff on the ground. When he said no, she asked him about Jack instead. It felt comfortable to talk to her about his son, even though he tried to keep personal life and business separated. He had never really talked to her about anything other than work, except for the times when the team would go out to eat, back when Hayley would come with them. She would talk about her brother, his family, but very vaguely.

Now he supposed he knew why she was always so vague.

The third time she called him Aaron, they were on a case. Young girls being kidnapped, assaulted, and dumped. This was one of many cases just like it. Hotch couldn’t even remember what town they were in now. All he remembered was walking by Caro’s hotel room and feeling like he needed to go inside. Something pulled him to a stop outside her door that night and he couldn’t ignore it.

He knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for a respond before he opened in.

Caro was still up, even though they had left hours ago. She had skipped the meal they all shared together, which was unlike her. She sat at her desk, the lamp on but not the overhead light. The case that they were working was laid out in front of her. When she looked up at him, startled that he had come in, her eyes were red and he couldn’t tell if it was all of the reading or if it was something else.

“What can I do for you, Hotch?” Caro asked, one of her legs propped up on the swivel chair.

“I….” He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. “….wanted to check on you, see how you were doing.”

Caro’s lips pulled into an amused smile.

“You never check on me.”

“Maybe now’s the time to start.”

They were quiet for a few moments until Caro let out a sigh. She patted the bed, signaling for him to sit.

“These cases, the ones with the young girls, they’re hard,” Caro told him after he sat down.

Hotch felt like a foreigner sitting there and talking to her, awkward as he sat on her bed, like it shouldn’t be him here doing this. But she seemed so eager to talk, like she was just waiting for someone to ask.

“I understand,” Hotch said finally, looking at the carpet. “They’re hard on all of us.”

“Aaron.”

At the sound of his name, he looked back at her and he could see the tears in her eyes. He didn’t realize it then, but she had been begging him to understand so she didn’t have to say. She didn’t want to have to say it.

He couldn’t sleep that night and he didn’t know why.

“She called you Aaron when she was mad at you or….” Rossi’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Or she needs me to listen.”

“So, what does she need you to hear?”

___

“He knows her,” Hotch said suddenly, startling the life out of the half sleeping agents.

“What?” Morgan asked, sitting up.

“The unsub knows her. There is no way that he learned all of this about her at the meeting they went to. No way he could have replicated the room that she was kept in when she was a child unless he had personal information.”

“He knew everything about her…and us…before he even took her,” Rossi said, his voice laced with awe. “Which means….”

“All those other murders were about getting her here.” Hotch felt his heart restrict in his chest. “This has all been about her. She was the piece we were missing.”

“Sir?” Garcia hurried into the room, meaning she had found something. “The link between all the victims, I think I found it.”

The team turned toward her.

“Evie is the link.” Garcia swiped up on her laptop, a couple different screens popping up on the big screen. “Sarah Jordans went to kindergarten with Evie. Paulette Bobin was the daughter of the police officer who found Evie after she escaped her uncle. Robin Everard was her high school drama teacher’s niece. Celia Hough was the sister of a woman she walked dogs for in middle school. They weren’t close enough to Evie for her to recognize them, but they were all a part of her life in some way.”

Hotch looked over at Rossi and shook his head.

“It’s been about Caro all along. All of it.”

“That means that the place she’s being held is about her too,” Morgan said. “More than just making the room look the same. He’s holding her somewhere that means something to her.”

“Garcia,” Hotch said, turning his attention back to the tech analyst. “Who owns the uncle’s house now?”

“You think he took her back there?”

“She said the room looked exactly the same. Maybe because it was the same.”

“The house passed onto his wife’s son when he died,” Garcia said.

“Where is the son now?”

“He is….” They all watched her carefully, waiting for the last piece of information. “…. He changed his name just after his father’s funeral to….”

Hotch turned back to the screen, where the picture of the unsub was plastered so none of them would forget it.

“Ralph Bennet,” Morgan said, venom in his words. “The unsub.”

“How did she not recognize her own cousin?”

“His father and mother got divorced when he was young. He didn’t even know he had a step-dad who was still alive until he was dead,” Garcia said.

“So, Ralph Bennet was the step-son of Caro’s uncle. He feels like he has to punish her for taking another father figure away from him,” added Reid.

“He wants her to pay. He wants to hurt her in any way possible.”

“He’s got her at her old house.”

___

Evelyn could barely see. Her eyes were weak and tired, partially from the crying and partially from the lack of sleep. She was terrified of letting her eyes shut, of letting her guard down. She needed to stay awake, to keep her guard up. But she couldn’t take her eyes away from the red stain on the floor.

The cot mattress was itching her skin. If she could ignore the itching, she would begin to feel the sting of the metal chain against her skin. She preferred the itching.

A thud from downstairs echoed to her room. The attic. Pretending like this wasn’t that room she had been kept in for all those years was the only thing that was keeping her from breaking down, but that wall between what she pretended was real and reality was growing thin.

Breathing in through her nose, Evelyn shut her eyes and imagined herself back in her apartment, safe and warm. In her hands was a cup of tea, chamomile with only one sprinkling of sugar. It was raining outside. Not too hard, but hard enough that she could hear it pattering against the window. Her dog slept at her feet, breathing softly. In her lap was-

Another thud from downstairs, tearing Evelyn from her fantasy. She opened her eyes and looked toward the door.

“Ralph?” She called out, voice hoarse. There was no response.

When the door burst open suddenly, Evelyn yelped and jumped backward, curling her legs in on herself.

Ralph stood there, his face red and sweat beading down his forehead.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asked, curling up tighter.

Ralph let out a growl of frustration and started toward her.

“Ralph- no!” Evelyn kicked out at him, but he grabbed hold of her ankles and dragged her to the edge of the bed. “What are you-“

“Shut up,” Ralph snapped, unlacing the chains around her wrist. “We’re leaving.”

“What-“

“I said shut up!”

He tugged down hard on the chain, making it dig deeper into the wound around her wrist. Evelyn hissed in pain, but she quieted as he told her. There was another thud from downstairs and Evelyn snapped her head in the direction of the sound. Things were slowly starting to come together; Ralph’s shaking hands, his red face, the thudding downstairs.

Evelyn looked between Ralph and the door. She sat a still as she could while his trembling hands, waiting for the just right moment. As soon as the chains were loose, Evelyn slipped her wrist out of the chain, kicked Ralph over with as little strength as she had, and ran for the door.

“Aaron!”

Her cry echoed through the house just before Ralph grabbed her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He hissed, dragging her back into the room.

“Caro?”

Evelyn gasped through Ralph’s hand at the sound of Hotch’s voice, trying to shout back. She struggled against Ralph as he pulled her back to the bed, thrashing her shoulders to try and break free.

“Agent Caro?”

I’m here, Hotch, I’m here.

Ralph threw the weak Evelyn onto the bed and backhanded her across the face so hard that her head started to spin. She stretched her jaw, blinking away the blackness in her vision.

“Evie!” From somewhere far away, she thought she could hear her best friend, Derek Morgan, calling for her. She opened her mouth to call back, but all she felt was numbness.

By the time she finally felt like she could see again, there was someone else in the doorway. At first glance, she thought it was Ralph, but he was still there in the room with her. The man in the doorway had a gun, the man in the doorway was Aaron Hotchner.

“Ralph Bennet, step away,” Hotch said.

Evelyn watched, head blurry as Ralph did as he was told, backing away from her. But he was going the wrong way. There was something wrong that way. Something she needed to tell Hotch about.

“You came for me,” she said, trying to smile.

“Are you okay, Caro?”

Evelyn could feel the headache behind her eyes begin to fade. She nodded her head once, letting her eyes close. There was something she needed to tell him, something really important.

“There’s something,” she said, shaking her head to try and clear it. “Over there-“

Before Evelyn could even finish, Ralph stepped forward and swung a bat at Hotch, the bat that Evelyn knew was in the corner. The bat that broke her ribs. That was what she needed to tell Hotch about. But now it was too late.

The bat knocked Hotch’s gun out of his hands and onto the ground. Hotch wasted no time in jumping into action, springing at Ralph without a second thought. Evelyn tried to shake herself out of her stoper. She would be no help to anyone weary. Even if malnutrition and the beating she got that morning were the cause of her exhaustion, she wanted to be of more help.

Hotch knocked Ralph backward, but Ralph held tight to the bat in his hands, using it to push Hotch backward. It was hard for Evelyn to follow the fight, her eyes not able of following every hit and swing. When her eyes finally caught up with what was happening, the ringing in her ears starting to fade, Evelyn found that Hotch was on the ground, Ralph standing over him with the baseball bat, ready to bash his head in.

Evelyn pushed herself off of the bed, her legs weak and shaking, and ran toward Ralph.

“Don’t touch him!” She growled, reaching up to grab hold of the bat.

“Let go, bitch!”

It didn’t take much for Ralph to throw Evelyn’s grip off the bat, but only by throwing the bat out of his hands as well. She hit the ground with a thud, the force rattling through her bones. Ralph immediately turned his attention back to Hotch, who was still on the ground but in a less vulnerable state.

On the ground with Evelyn were the bat and the forgotten gun, but they were all the way on the other side of the room. She didn’t know if she could make it there and back before her legs gave out.

She was laying on the ground by the edge of the bed, hearing Hotch and Ralph go at it. There had to be something that she could do. She had to do something. As she pushed herself up, Evelyn’s had grazed over the chain, the chain that had been used to keep her tied to this bed for days. Looking up at Ralph, Evelyn dug into all that bitterness and all the rage that she had been brewing for the past twenty years of her life and found some ounce of strength.

Strength enough to wrap her hands around the chain. Strength enough to pick to chain off the ground. Strength enough to stand.

With Ralph paying attention to Hotch, his back was left exposed to her. He didn’t think she had the strength left. He thought he broke her.

But she was unbreakable.

Wrapping the chain around one of her hands, she walked up behind Ralph and swung the chain around his neck. He let out a startled gasp, lifting a hand, but not before Evelyn grabbed the chain with her open hand and pulled. Ralph stumbled backward into her. He slapped at her hands. He tried to hit her with the back of his head.

But the adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her strong. She pulled tighter, tensing her hands.

Ralph gagged and Evelyn scrunched her nose. He let out a gurgling sound and Evelyn groaned as the muscles in her arms began to cramp from the tightness. But still she did not let go.

Hotch stood, his lip bleeding and his eye beginning to bruise. Ralph and Evelyn stumbled over; he fell to the ground and she landed on the bed, never once letting the chain go slack.

“Agent Caro,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

Evelyn only pulled tighter. Ralph smacked at her hands lamely, choking sounds gurgling from his throat. His legs kicked out, struggling in the same way that she had been. His legs kicked and his body twitched and his arms flailed out and he maybe felt an ounce of the terror that Evelyn had.

“Caro.”

Evelyn’s face twisted she breathed heavily, pulling tighter against the chain until Ralph’s eyes were rolling.

“Evelyn.”

She froze, looking up at him. All the tension in her face faded as her eyes met Hotch’s. She always used his first name when she needed him to listen to her, but now it was her turn to listen to him. Ralph gasped for the air that was slowly entering his lungs.

“You can let him go.”

Evelyn remembered that scared little girl she was all those years ago. There had been no other option then. It was just her, her uncle, and the knife in her hand. It was kill him or live the rest of her life in a prison. She felt like that again. Alone, terrified, trapped, cornered. There was no other way out.

“You’re safe now, Evelyn,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

She wasn’t alone anymore. Hotch was here with her. She wasn’t that terrified little girl with no way out. She was an FBI agent. She had grown and she had learned and she was no longer alone. Her team had come from her. Her family had found her.

She let go of the chain, pulling her legs onto the bed. Ralph heaved in lung fulls of air, but Evelyn kept her eyes on Hotch. He took a step toward them, pulling out his handcuffs. Evelyn flinched away, pulling her legs in tighter.

“These aren’t for you,” Hotch told her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Relaxing her muscles as best as she could, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

She sat there on the bed while Hotch roughly rolled a still coughing Ralph onto his stomach to handcuff him. Once the handcuffs were on, Hotch turned back to Evelyn, who was still staring at him. Her eyes were full of tears.

It was hard for Hotch to say that he didn’t enjoy beating Ralph into the ground. He shouldn’t want to keep beating the shit out of the man now that he was in handcuffs, but seeing those tears in her eyes made Hotch want to. He had been tempted to let Evelyn kill Ralph. She deserved that bit of closure. But he knew the guilt that she already carried, the guilt she would carry on top of that. He knew because he carried that same guilt.

Still, he wanted to see that monster dead. He wanted to wipe those tears from her eyes before they even had a chance to fall.

“Caro-“

“Evie!”

Morgan burst into the room, his eyebrows pinched together in worry. Evelyn tore her gaze away from Hotch at the sound of Morgan’s voice.

“Derek.” The relief in her voice as she said his name made Hotch’s stomach drop.

Morgan rushed toward the bed and dropped to his knees in front of it. He reached forward and pulled the tattered blanket on the bed up and around Evelyn’s shoulders, covering her. Evelyn just stared at him, the tears threatening to fall from her lashes. Morgan brushed hair from out of her face as a smile began to pull at his lips. His smile made her almost able to break a grin too.

When Morgan first put his arms around Evelyn, het body immediately tensed. She expected to be surrounded by Ralph’s smell, feel his clammy skin on hers. But it was Morgan’s smell; that expensive cologne she had bought for his birthday mixed with the laundry detergent he always used. He held her tight. Even when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t able to look down enough to see Ralph, which was probably Morgan’s intention. She would have done the same thing.

The adrenaline had succeeded in keeping her heart rate steady, but now that Morgan was holding her, her heart started to pound.

Hotch grabbed Ralph off the ground and hoisted him to his feet. Evelyn listened as he shoved Ralph down the stairs, Ralph grunting and groaning all the way down.

It wasn’t until they could no longer hear him that Morgan pulled away. She didn’t want to let him go, afraid that she would begin to crumble without him there. Morgan put a hand on her cheek and leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Let’s get you home.”

___

The first worst part about walking down those stairs was remembering the last time she had done this. That red stain on the floor had been there for twenty years. Evelyn had left her uncle bleeding out on the floor while she stumbled down the stairs, dazed, terrified. She knew the blood was the same because she had been covered in it too.

The second worst part was when everyone turned to look at her.

JJ, Emily, Reid, and Rossi were all in the downstairs of the house. They had holstered their guns, but Emily still had her hand on hers. The stairs were too narrow for Morgan to walk alongside her, so he held her hand as he walked in front of her. She was almost hesitant to take that final step, terrified of how the others would look at her.

When they heard the stair creak, they all turned their heads toward Evelyn. She froze, her blood running cold. She expected the concerned stares, the pitied eyes, it was all she got last time. Tightening the blanket around her shoulders, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to look them in the eyes.

JJ walked toward her, stopping only a few feet away.

“Can I hug you?” JJ asked.

Evelyn looked up to see that there were tears in her friend’s eyes, but a smile on her face. There was no pity, only relief.

Slowly, Evelyn nodded her head. JJ didn’t need to be told twice. She closed the distance, wrapping her arms around Evelyn’s neck. Emily was next, pressing a gentle kiss against the side of her head. Reid’s hug was awkward, shaky.

“If you ever need to talk,” he said quietly.

Evelyn nodded her head. She knew that he understood what it was like, to be taken and held against your will. She gave him a gentle smile that he returned. Rossi was the last to approach her. He had teary smile on his face as well. He didn’t hug her entirely, but instead put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her toward him to press a kiss against her forehead.

“C’mon,” Morgan said. “Ambulance is out here.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Evelyn said, looking over at him and giving a shake of your head.

Morgan raised his eyebrows, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Same old Evelyn.” He put an arm around her shoulder, as he always did. The action was simple, but it was enough to make her smile, to make her feel normal. “But yes, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes but let him lead her outside to the ambulance. Hotch was already out there, talking quietly to the EMT. Ralph must have gone in a different police car. He was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital?” Morgan said once she had a quick once over by the EMT.

“You’re not going to ride with me?” She asked. Evelyn hoped that the fear of being alone again that she was feeling didn’t show through in her voice.

“Hotch’ll go with you.”

Morgan dropped a hand on Hotch’s shoulder, who wore his usual scowl, his arms crossed. He turned toward Morgan, who raised his eyebrows and walked away.

“I’ll be right back,” the EMT said before turning and walking away.

Evelyn sat on the bed, still wearing the blanket Morgan had wrapped around her. Her stomach twisted as Hotch walked toward her. She kept her eyes at the ground, chewing on the inside of her lip. She could feel only shame as he looked at her. Maybe it was because he could see the bruises and the cuts and the blood. Maybe it was because she was at her lowest and he was her boss who should only ever see her at her best. Maybe it was because he had to talk her down from choking the life out of a man. Maybe it was some combination of everything.

“Are you okay?” He asked her, leaning up against the ambulance.

Evelyn nodded her head slowly. She would have responded with a decisive yes, but her mouth had gone too dry to talk.

“That’s a stupid question, of course you’re not okay,” Hotch muttered and looked down at his feet.

“I’m okay,” Evelyn affirmed. “I’m okay.”

When he looked back up at her, Evelyn was surprised to see his eyes were watery.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get you sooner.”

Evelyn shook her head as aggressively as she could manage.

“I knew you would come, Hotch,” she told him. “I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault.”

Hotch let out an almost bitter laugh.

“I should be saying that to you.” Hotch looked at her in such a way that made Evelyn’s stomach squeeze. “All this time, and you’re still looking after me.”

Evelyn gave him a small smile in return.

“Thank you for coming to get me.”

“Of course.”

The EMT returned, telling Hotch that they were getting ready to go. He pulled himself into the ambulance and the EMT followed after him.

“Lie back,” the EMT said. Evelyn did as she was told, feeling a suffocating feeling settling on her chest as she stared up at the white ceiling. The sting of tears returned to her eyes and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to hold them back.

Her hands tensed at her side, clenching around the blanket of the gurney. Hotch, now sitting in the chair beside her, reached out and took her hand in his. She turned her head to look at him, sniffing in deeply.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hotch told her before giving her a sharp nod.

Evelyn nodded back at him, breathing in deeply. She let go of the blanket and shifted her hand around until her fingers were laced through his. She didn’t know how comfortable he was with holding her hand, but at the moment she didn’t care. She needed someone’s hand to hold. She needed his hand to hold.

She wasn’t in the hospital for very long, which she was grateful for. Garcia got there as soon as Evelyn was released and put a pair of shaking arms around her, already dissolved into tears. Evelyn laughed, grateful for her friend’s antics.

“I love you so much,” Garcia said, her tears watering Evelyn’s neck.

She had ditched the gross blanket and was currently sporting a wonderful hospital gown and Hotch’s coat.

“Are you staying somewhere? Do you need somewhere to stay? I’ve got some clothes and a warm bed and I can make you some tea-“

“I really appreciate it, Pen,” Evelyn said, “But Hotch offered me a bed already.”

Garcia stopped her rambling to stare at her, glancing behind Evelyn to where Hotch was talking to the rest of the team.

“Hotch offered-? Right, okay. That’s good. I still brought you some clothes to wear. Come with me.”

“O-okay.”

Garcia led Evelyn to the bathroom to put her in some clothes.

“As soon as they went to get you, I went home to grab you some clothes.” Garcia dropped her bag on the ground. Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from laughing. It was sweet of her friend, but Evelyn didn’t think she needed that many clothes for a few nights. “I hope it’s enough.”

“Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Evelyn stepped into one of the stalls and pulled a thin sweater on over her head and a pair of sweatpants. It wasn’t the cutest outfit, but it was comfortable, and it covered her ill looking body, so it would do.

Penelope was wiping tears away when Evelyn stepped out of the stall. Evelyn smiled at her and put her hands on her friend’s shoulders.

“I’m okay, Pen.”

“Evie-“

“I’m really okay. I promise.”

Penelope let out a heavy sigh and nodded.

“Can I have a smile? It’ll make me feel better,” Evelyn said in a sing-songy, letting her hands fall back to her side.

A smile tugged at Penelope’s lips and she turned away, letting out a little laugh.

“There you go. Now the world’s right again.”

Evelyn and Penelope left the bathroom and rejoined the group just as Hotch was finishing his little speech.

“Go home, everybody. Get some sleep. We’ll come back to work on Monday,” Hotch was saying.

“Thank you,” Evelyn piped up before they turned to go their separate ways. “For everything.”

___

Hotch opened the front door of his apartment. It was dark inside, only one of the lamps were on. It was silent, still. Part of it was reassuring, the stillness. Part of it was unsettling, the quiet.

She looked back at Hotch and he nodded his head, so she stepped inside.

It felt better once she was inside. It was warm, warmer than the attic.

She had never even imagined stepping into Hotch’s home. She expected it to be stiff and cold like his office was, impersonal. But it was lively, with pictures hung on the walls and décor covering shelves full of books. Evelyn wondered absent-mindedly how much of it was Hayley’s sister or if Hotch had a secret interior designer in him somewhere. The thought made her smile.

“You’ll sleep through here,” Hotch said, his voice in a hushed tone. Jack was probably already in bed.

“Your room?” She asked, keeping her voice equally as low.

Hotch nodded.

“I’m not going to displace you,” Evelyn said. “I can sleep on the couch.”

On the couch, there was already a blanket and pillow set up.

“No, Caro. I can’t let you sleep on a couch your first day back,” Hotch said, giving his head a shake.

“Hotch, seriously-“

“Agent Caro…”

Evelyn tilted her head down and raised an eyebrow.

“Now you’re using your boss voice on me.”

To her amazement, Hotch actually smiled. He was looser here, less uptight. Something about passing into his house must have been some kind of release. Domestic Hotch was very different than at work Hotch.

“Fine,” Evelyn said. “But only for tonight.”

“I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She turned down the hall as Hotch walked toward the couch. Evelyn stopped, turning to say one last thing to him, but she decided against it. He sat with his back to her, taking off his shoes. She watched him let out a deep sigh and roll tension out of his shoulders. Evelyn couldn’t help but think that she was the cause of that tension and the sooner she was out of his hair the better.

It was strange, standing by Hotch’s bed. This would be the first warm, safe bed she would be falling in to and it wasn’t her own, it was Hotch’s. It felt wrong to touch. It wasn’t hers. Even if he had said she could, it wasn’t hers. This bed belonged to someone else. Hotch’s permission didn’t feel like the only permission she needed.

On the bedside table, there was a picture. Hotch, Jack, and Hayley, all huddled together and smiling. Evelyn felt herself smiling as she looked at it. Reaching out her hand, she ran a finger along the picture frame.

“I hope it’s okay with you,” Evelyn whispered, looking at the picture of Hotch’s late wife.

They’d met a few times in the past and she was just the gentlest woman. She loved Hotch and she loved her son. There she was, staring up at Evelyn and smiling. But the only image that Evelyn had of her in her mind was Hayley’s limp body, the blood that stained her shirt.

Turning away from the picture, Evelyn pulled the blankets back before she kept overthinking. She dropped the bag that Garcia had given her onto the ground, flicked off her shoes and socks, and crawled into bed.

The warmth of the blankets was strange to her. Even her own bed wasn’t as warm as this one was. Still trying not to over think it, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut and rolled onto her side. She breathed in deeply and was overwhelmed by his scent. With a heavy sigh, she rolled back onto her back and opened her eyes.

“Get over yourself, Evelyn,” she whispered to herself.

Breathing in slowly and steadily, Evelyn let her brain relax. She went to that safe place in her mind, that place far away. She didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep, safe and warm in that room where no one could reach her.

It wasn’t until blood started to seep through the walls that she realized she was asleep.

She woke up to someone screaming. The sound echoed off the walls of the bedroom. Someone was crying.

“Caro. Caro.” Someone was calling her name. Someone close by. Someone far away.

“Evelyn!”

Her eyes snapped open, her heart pounding so hard she thought she might be having a heart attack. The room was still dark, but the bedside lamp was turned on. The blankets were half on the floor. She had been throwing them off when she kicked her legs. Hotch was sitting in front of her. Not just sitting in front of her, but holding onto her shoulders. He had been shaking her. There was worry on his face, his eyes wide. Behind him was Jack, tears rolling down his face.

He was the one who was crying. That must have meant she was the one who was screaming.

“You’re okay,” Hotch said. “You were just dreaming.”

Evelyn lifted her hands to her face to find that there were tears on her cheeks.

“I…I’m sorry,” she said, a scowl in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Hotch shook his head. He looked tired. She must have woken him up.

“Is she okay?” Jack asked and sniffled.

“She’s fine, Jack, go back to bed,” Hotch said. When Jack hesitated, Hotch gave him a smile. “It’s okay. Go back to bed.”

Jack nodded and shuffled out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn whispered again, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hotch said again and dropped a hand onto her knee. “You’re safe here, no one can hurt you here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

Her hands were shaking too badly for her to say anything else. She already couldn’t remember the dream, but there was blood, so much blood. And she remembered she couldn’t breathe, like there was a chain wrapped around her neck.

Evelyn shut her eyes and put her shaking hands up to her head.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

Hotch let out a sigh. He was frustrated with her. The thought made tears sting her eyes.

“It’s not your fault.”

Even with her eyes closed, the tears still managed to slide down her cheeks. Hotch reached out his hand and rested it on the back of her neck. The contact only made her tears fall faster. She moved her hands to cover her face, ashamed of her reaction. Hotch pulled her in toward him and the closer she got to him, the harder she started to cry.

He put his other arm around her and she lowered her forehead to his shoulder, the sobs shaking her shoulders. But Hotch held her tight, one hand on the back of the neck, the other on her back.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sure what she was really sorry for. Sorry for waking him up. Sorry for sleeping in his bed. Sorry for invading his space. Sorry for getting kidnapped. For getting in the way. For making his life harder. For setting them back from work for days.

“It’s okay, Evelyn. It’s okay.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped her apologies. She heard her first name come from his mouth so rarely, she didn’t want to talk over him. She just wanted to hear him say it again. Finally letting her hands fall away from her eyes, she let her hands fall into her lap.

“It’s not your fault, Evelyn,” he whispered, hesitantly letting his fingers lace through her hair.

She sniffed.

“It wasn’t your fault and none of us are upset with you,” Hotch told her.

Slowly, her breathing started to return to normal, sucking in short, gasping breaths of air, but they were steadier.

He pulled away from her, brushing her damp hair out of her face and resting a hand on her cheek. She wouldn’t look at him, still taking shallow breaths, tears still rolling down her cheeks, body still shaking.

“None of us blame you for any of it,” he told her, leaning down to try and catch her eye. “And there’s nothing that could have ever happened to you or that you could have possibly done that wouldn’t make us come for you.”

He brushed a tear off of her cheek as it slid from her eye.

“Evelyn, look at me.”

It took her a moment, but she finally managed to lift her eyes to meet his. They were wide and terrified, trembling like the rest of her body. Hotch tightened his jaw.

“We’re not going anywhere. I know your last family left you after what happened, but I promise you, we are not going anywhere.” Evelyn let out another shuddered breath and nodded her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It took a few more moments to calm her down and by the time she had stopped crying, her eyes were getting heavy.

“Sleep now,” Hotch said, slowly standing up from the bed. She was still sitting up, her head hanging and her hands in her lap.

“Aaron?” He paused at the door and half turned toward her. “Will you….”

She scowled and cleared her throat, shaking her head.

“What can I do for you?”

She breathed out heavily and looked up at him again.

“Would you stay, here, with me?” She felt stupid, asking.

But he wasn’t looking at her in pity or loathing. He nodded his head before walking to the other side of the bed.

Evelyn laid back onto the pillow, pulling the blankets up to her chin. She closed her eyes, embarrassed to see him, as if her request was ridiculous and gross. But she didn’t think that she could have fallen asleep if she was on her own.

She felt the other side of the bed dip in and the blankets rustle.

“Do you want the light on?” He asked.

“You can turn it off if you’d like.”

The light flickered off and they were shrouded in darkness.

“Goodnight, Evelyn.”

“Night, Aaron.”

___

When Hotch woke up the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. He got used to the empty bed a long time ago, but there was a pit in his stomach this time. Evelyn should be there. She should be-

There was a smell coming from the kitchen. A pleasant smell.

Sitting up and stretching, Hotch made his way to the bedroom door. He heard laughing coming from the kitchen. When he opened the door, he had a direct line of sight to the kitchen. Jack was already awake, sitting happily at the table. There were usually only two chairs at that table, but Jack had pulled up a third.

Standing in the kitchen with a smile on her face was Evelyn. Jack was saying something to her, barely incoherent through all his laughter. Evelyn was just laughing along with him. Hotch shuffled through the hallway, leaning his shoulder against the corner of the and crossing his arms.

“What is going on here?” He asked with a smile on his face.

Evelyn and Jack both turned to him, both smiling.

“Eggs, bacon, French toast,” Evelyn said. “Want some?”

Hotch couldn’t help the smile on his face. He nodded, walking toward Jack and sitting down at the chair next to him.

It was strange, seeing Evelyn this way. She was generally serious at work, like he was. She would laugh and tease with Morgan and the girls and Reid, but Hotch was so used to her being solid, so stoic, so ready. But here she was, smiling and laughing and making jokes with him.

Evelyn walked over to the table carrying three plates of food and set them onto the table. She sat down, the biggest grin on her face.

“Dig in,” she said.

Hotch and Evelyn both knew that this happiness on her face went only so deep. Her suffering and her pain were just starting to bubble to the surface. But for now, she could eat this breakfast, laugh with Jack, pretend everything was okay.

“Would you like to watch my soccer game today, Evie?” Jack asked as they took the empty plates back to the kitchen.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, hesitant.

“That would be great, buddy,” she said before looking back at Hotch. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

Jack’s grin was the brightest Hotch had seen in a long time.

Hotch knew of course about Evelyn’s competitive nature. They had been working together for years. He had seen enough games between her and Morgan to know that she liked to win. He still somehow didn’t expect that much competition to come out of her during his son’s soccer match.

She yelled from the sidelines, cheering for Jack and shouting at the ref and even exchanging glares with other parents. It was hard not to be distracted by her as Hotch tried to coach his team, trying to keep his laughing to a minimum. When the game ended, after Hotch had a word with the players, Jack ran straight for Evelyn. He stopped just in front of her, remembering what his dad had told him about not getting too close, and grinned up at her.

Evelyn put her hand on his head and ruffled his sandy blond hair.

“You were great out there, kid,” she said. “You got the most goals on your team.”

“We, uh, don’t usually keep score,” Hotch said as he walked over.

Evelyn looked up at him with the brightest smile.

“Well, I did and your team did a great job.”

One of the other moms walked over, her daughter and Jack immediately engaging in teasing and chatting about the game as they tried to kick each other in their still guarded shins.

“My name is Mary,” the mother said, reaching a hand out for Evelyn to shake. Evelyn startled, her heart rate spiking at Mary’s sudden movement. She recovered quickly, shaking Mary’s hand.

“Evelyn Caro.”

“Are you and Aaron-“

“We work together,” Hotch said.

Mary nodded her head.

“That explains the….”

She gestured toward Evelyn’s face before pausing and forced a smile.

“Right.”

Evelyn had forgotten how horrible her face must look. She had been absently rolling the scab on her lip between her teeth all day. Her bruised and cut cheek was sore, her other eye throbbing every now and again. The battered shape of her face hadn’t even crossed her mind while she offered to go to Jack’s game.

Evelyn looked over Hotch for assistance. His smile was still there, but thinner.

“Mary, how is your husband?” Hotch asked, clearly trying to direct the attention away from Evelyn. She was grateful for it.

She listened to their conversation with a smile until Jack walked back over to them and grabbed her by the hand. She turned to look at him with a smile. He beckoned for her to bend down and she did. Jack even stood on his toes so he could whisper in her ear.

“Can you ask Daddy if we can get McDonald’s on the way home?” He asked, his voice so quiet that Evelyn barely heard him.

Still, she let out a laugh and straightened her back.

“I can do that.”

Jack grinned and ran back toward his friends. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him run away. She had met Jack only handful of times in the past, but he was such a light. He meant so much to Aaron that it was impossible for Evelyn not to love him, too. The poor boy had been through so much already.

“What did he want?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn turned back around to find that not only was Mary talking to Hotch, but three other unaccompanied women were hanging around as well. She resisted the urge to tease him about it right there. Teasing Hotch was also something new. She never would have done it before. Their relationship was strictly professional.

“Jack wants to go to McDonald’s on the way home,” Evelyn told Hotch.

“Ah,” Hotch said, his hands on his hips.

“The kids always do,” a blonde mother said, no ounce of amusement in her tone as she glanced at Evelyn.

“I suppose he thought you asking would make the likelihood of me saying yes higher?”

Evelyn shrugged. The other moms stood there, laughing joylessly, but Evelyn didn’t even see them.

They did stop at McDonald’s on the way home. Jack happily sang a song to himself in the backseat, munching on his apple slices and French fries. Evelyn was sitting in the passenger seat with one of her feet propped up on the dash.

“This feels like cheating,” Evelyn sighed, staring at the fries in her hands.

“How?” Hotch asked with a short laugh.

Evelyn shrugged, shoving the fries in her mouth.

“Something about it. They’re too good, I guess. There’s gotta be a downside.”

Hotch opened his mouth to say something but she held up her hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to profile my eating habits, Hotchner,” she said.

Hotch simply laughed.

When they got back from the game, Jack went to take a nap, leaving Evelyn and Hotch alone in the apartment.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I invited the team over to watch the game this afternoon,” Hotch said.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Evelyn said. “This is still your home.”

“Right.” Hotch nodded his head.

She dropped herself onto the couch, her eyes tired, but she had no desire to sleep, especially if the team was coming over.

But her eyes were beginning to droop against her better judgement. The apartment was quiet, she could barely hear Hotch moving around until there was the soft sound of music flitting through the room.

Hotch sat down at the table, trying to be far enough away from the sleeping woman on his couch to help her feel comfortable. Light music floated through the room as he sat, flipping through a book that he wasn’t really reading. It seemed like every three seconds, his eyes would move from his book to where Evelyn was sleeping. He justified it to himself, trying to tell himself it was just to make sure she wasn’t having another nightmare. Last night had been hard on all of them and he didn’t want a repeat. But there was something else that kept drawing his gaze to her.

She just looked so at peace. Like none of the thousands of terrible things in the world could touch her. Her breathing was short, but steady and there was almost a bit of a smile on her face. His hands were tense around the book, just waiting for her breathing to change to signal to him that she was going to a place in her mind where she didn’t want to be.

He was almost tempted to ask the others to not come to allow Evelyn the chance to sleep. But Hotch thought it was best to allow her the time to socialize with the people she loved. She needed to be surrounded by support at this time and Hotch knew he couldn’t possibly provide enough of it to be any help.

An hour and a half later, fifteen minutes before the others were due to arrive, Hotch walked over to where she slept on the couch. Again, he was tempted to just let her sleep. But he put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a light shake in hopes of rousing her.

“Caro,” he whispered.

She woke with a startled gasp, her eyes snapping open. Hotch was prepared for some kind of emotional response. He was ready in case she needed his help, but after the initial shock of being woken up, she sat up normally. Rubbing her eyes, Evelyn let out a yawn.

“Are they here?” She asked.

“Not yet,” Hotch said. “Soon. I’m going to wake up Jack. Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” There was a little bit of a scowl on her face as she continued to try and wake herself up. “Anything I can do to help get ready?”

Hotch was already halfway to Jack’s room, but he shook his head.

“Everyone else is bringing food. We’re off the hook for this one,” he told her before slipping into Jack’s room.

Evelyn forced herself off the couch, even though her bones were still stiff and tired. She straightened the cushions she slept on before rubbing her eyes again. She didn’t think she had dreamed, which was the first time she hadn’t in a very long time.

She was rubbing tension out of her neck when there was the first knock at the door.

Evelyn started and reached for the gun that should have been there but wasn’t. Her heart pounded in her chest, her hand still on her hip where her gun should have been. She wanted to move, but her muscles felt frozen. Eyes wide and body tense, Evelyn struggled to breathe. There was a tightness in her chest she couldn’t shake.

There was a knock at the door again, but she still couldn’t move.

“Caro, you okay?” Hotch asked as he came back from Jack’s room. “Evelyn?”

He stopped on his way to the door. She saw him standing there, staring at her, but all she could do was watch the door. Her body began to shake ever so slightly from the tension in her muscles.

“It’s just the team, Caro,” Hotch said, slowly putting his hands out toward her. “They’re not going to hurt you.”

Evelyn heard what he was saying, but something in her bones told her that it was a bad guy, someone who wanted to come in and hurt her, hurt Hotch, hurt Jack. She wouldn’t let that happen.

“Caro, I need you to look at me and just breathe,” Hotch was saying, taking a step toward her. There was another knock at the door and she flinched. “Look at me. Breathe.”

Evelyn sucked in one deep breath in through her nose before flickering her watery eyes away from the door and toward Hotch. He titled his head to the side, taking on a non-offensive stance. Her eyes strained to look at him.

“I’m going to open the door, okay?” Evelyn gave a sharp shake of her head, her body jerking forward but her feet not going anywhere. “I’m going to open the door. It’s going to be okay.”

He took a step toward the door and Evelyn shook her head again. Hotch turned away from her and kept walking toward the door.

“Hotch,” Evelyn said, her words just barely above a whisper.

When his hand touched the handle, Evelyn shook her head again, staring at the door unblinking. The door unlocked and the handle turned.

“Hotch-“

The door opened. Evelyn’s eyes widened even further, waiting for Ralph to be standing there on the other side.

But it was just Penelope and JJ and Emily, all grinning wildly.

Evelyn blinked her eyes hard and shook her head, dropping her hands back to her sides and relaxing her defensive stance.

“Come in,” Hotch was saying.

Evelyn forced a smile onto her face and went to greet her friends as they came in. She helped them set up the table with the food and drinks they brought.

“How are you doing?” JJ asked as she tore into the chips.

Evelyn sighed, still trying to smile.

“I’m doing okay,” she said.

“I might not be as good a profiler as any of you guys,” JJ said. “But I know you well enough to know when you’re lying.”

Evelyn turned to face her, leaning her hip against the table and crossing her arms.

“I am doing as well as you can imagine I’m doing,” Evelyn said. “But most of the time I’m doing okay.”

JJ put a hand on her friend’s arm and offered a small smile.

“If you ever need anything-“

“I know you’re always there for me, JJ,” Evelyn said. “I won’t ever forget it.”

JJ nodded and they turned back to the table. It was only a few more minutes before the boys arrived. After greeting Hotch and Emily, Morgan came straight for Evelyn, who was still at the table rearranging everything for the fifteenth time.

“I swear I’m going to lose it if you ask me if I’m okay, Derek Morgan,” Evelyn said, moving the napkins off the plates where she had just put them.

Morgan let out his signature laugh before throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“I know how you’re doing, so I don’t need to ask,” Morgan told her. “I just came over here to give you a hug.”

Evelyn let out a breath and turned toward him, eagerly putting her arms around his waist. There was safety in his arms. Her muscles were still tense from her moment before, and it felt impossible for her to relax and fall into normalcy with her friends. But with Morgan there, everything seemed to be at least a little bit okay.

“Keep fighting,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s how you win.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She pulled away and quickly swiped away a stray tear before wiping her hands on her jeans. She back at Morgan briefly with a strained smile, glad to see him smiling back.

“Let’s go sit,” Morgan said to her.

Evelyn sat herself on the very end of the couch, knowing how much her team loved to cram in together and not really feeling comfortable being stuck in between Morgan and JJ as they shouted back and forth at each other about their opposing sports opinions. She sat with her feet up on the couch and her knees pulled up to her chest.

Reid sat next to her, still and quiet.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey, Reid.”

He didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t really want him to. Still, she leaned toward him and put her head on his shoulder. Reid tensed for a moment, but then he relaxed.

“It’s good to have you back,” he whispered to her.

“It’s good to be back,” she whispered back.

A few minutes before the game had started, there was already yelling going on between Rossi and JJ about something Evelyn couldn’t really follow. Jack came out of his room, hair a mess and eyes looking tired.

“Hey, buddy!” Hotch said. “Come for some food?”

The newly awake Jack shook his head and hobbled over to Evelyn. She dropped her feet to the ground as he struggled to crawl into her lap. He dropped his head to her shoulder.

“You okay, kid?” she asked him, rubbing her hand up and down his back. He nodded and yawned.

A chip flew over her head that Morgan had definitely thrown at Rossi who sat in the chair next to Evelyn. Penelope was watching the commercials eagerly, shouting at everyone to quiet down. JJ had roped Emily into her argument with Rossi and Reid was telling Morgan something about some sports statistic that Morgan was desperately trying to refute.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, who was watching them with a look in his eye that she couldn’t really read. She was usually good at reading Hotch, but every now and again, he’d get this look that she didn’t understand. When he noticed her looking, he gave her a smile and nodded his head.

Part way through the game, Jack left her lap to go and grab some food. She offered him her seat when he came back so that she could go over to the table for some food and a breather. Hotch met her there, scooping cheese dip onto his paper plate.

“Intense game,” Evelyn said, popping a grape into her mouth.

“Very.”

“Oh, come on!” Morgan yelled.

Evelyn laughed quietly to herself.

“If you need to step out-“

“I’m fine, Hotch, really,” she said, turning toward him. “Everything’s good. What happened earlier-“

“Was a completely normal reaction.” Evelyn was startled by his rebuttal interruption. “You’re allowed to have bad moments or even bad days.”

“I know that.”

“You’re also allowed to have fun.”

“I know that, too.”

Morgan stood up quickly from the couch, letting out half a expletive before remembering Jack was there and switching it up half way through.

“I really missed this, though,” Evelyn said through a laugh.

Hotch looked at her and then looked over at Morgan and let out a sigh.

“He was really worried about you,” Hotch told her, his hands tightening around the poor paper plate in his hand.

Evelyn nodded her head, looking down at the grapes in her hand.

“I thought I’d never see him again. I thought I’d never see any of you again,” she told him.

“You didn’t think we’d find you?”

“Oh, I knew you would,” she looked back over at him. “I just didn’t know if it would be soon enough.”

“Evelyn-“

“Evie, come look at this!” Penelope called, waving her over.

“Pardon me, Hotch.”

Hotch watched her walk away and kneel on the ground beside Garcia. They laughed about something. Smiling looked good on her, but he knew that it only ran so deep. He couldn’t wait for the day that smile would be real again. He just hoped he was there to see it.

By the time everyone left, the sun was almost down. They stayed long after the game, talking and laughing and throwing things at each other like a bunch of children. Penelope was the last to go, always asking for one last hug while Morgan waited for her just outside.

“I’ll see you soon, Pen,” Evelyn laughed, trying to push her friend toward the door.

“I hate leaving you,” Penelope said.

“I think I’m in the safest hands I can be.”

Penelope pulled away at that.

“You’re right.” She looked over at Hotch. “Hotch won’t let anything happen to you. You’re perfectly safe here.”

Evelyn gave her a smile.

“Exactly. Now, go. Morgan’s waiting for you.”

Penelope straightened her jacket and nodded her head.

“Right.” She turned and walked out the door. “Let’s go, Derek.”

Morgan offered one last wave, tossing an arm over Penelope’s shoulders. He sent a look Evelyn’s way that she read perfectly. If she needed anything….

Hotch shut the door and the apartment was silent. Evelyn let out a heavy breath.

“That was fun,” Jack said, laying on the couch.

“Time for bed for you, buddy,” Hotch said.

The team was generally good at cleaning up after themselves and taking the food that they had brought with them, but there was always a mess to clean up afterward. The few times Evelyn had one of these gatherings at her own place taught her this well enough. Hotch walked Jack toward his room while Evelyn turned to start cleaning.

“You don’t have to do that,” Hotch said, emerging from his son’s room as Evelyn pulled the full trash bag out of the trash can.

“I won’t be able to sleep knowing this place is a mess,” she told him.

It was these quiet moments when it was just the two of them that Evelyn felt the most exposed, the most terrified. Not that he would hurt her because she knew he never would, but just knowing that all of his attention was on her made her almost sick to her stomach.

“I’ll take the trash to the can outside,” Hotch said, walking toward her.

“Alright.”

She handed the bag off to him, his fingers just barely grazing over her hand. Evelyn elected not to look up at him as electricity crackled up her arm. She breathed in deeply and turned toward the couch.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. He took a few steps away from her and Evelyn just nodded her head.

She didn’t look at him as he left the room. With a pounding heart, Evelyn sat slowly onto the couch, shutting her eyes and breathing deeply until she dropped her head into her hands.

What was wrong with her? She had always been able to keep her emotions under control around Hotch. Always. Even when he was talking about Hayley, even when he cared so deeply about people it made him rage, even when he did that thing with his eyes that silenced even the haughtiest narcissist, even when he gave her a look that put all other looks to shame. She had always kept her cool because that was what she had trained herself to do.

But now her training was backfiring on her. Her training was making her think danger was there when it wasn’t. Her training was making her question the movements of everyone she loved. Her training was taking her sleep from her. Her training was crumbling and slowly revealing that terrified girl that lay underneath.

Evelyn opened her eyes, hoping to think of absolutely anything else than the heat in her cheeks and the pounding of her heart in her stomach.

Maybe keeping her eyes closed may have been better because as soon as her eyes were open, they landed on Hotch’s bag propped up against the coffee table. Someone must have moved it during the game. Sticking out of the top was a file. There was no name on the file, but Evelyn knew it was hers, or at least from the last job they’d done, which was hers.

Instinct took over and she bent down, snatching the yellow folding from his bag. It was thick, thicker than she’d have liked. Laying it on the table, her suspicions were confirmed as she flipped open the first page. It was this last case and the very first picture on it was the one they took in the hospital when she first arrived.

Evelyn didn’t realize how terrible she looked until just then. She was thin, trembling. Her hair was matted with blood. She looked dirty, covered in blood and bruises. Evelyn gagged, covering her mouth with her hand. That was how all of her friends had seen her that day. The thought made her shiver.

The picture just underneath it was the one they had taken when she was a kid. The similarities in the pictures made her even sicker.

She shuffled through the files, eyes scanning the pages just like Reid had taught her, until she found Hotch’s report.

She pulled it out, hands shaking as she held it in front of her. She had always wondered how Hotch managed to write these reports, summing up everything they went through during the case in just a few short pages.

Her throat swelled as she read through the beginning. She read about the women Ralph killed, how they were assaulted and murdered, how the team discovered it was Ralph. She read through them deciding to send Evelyn into the meeting to find Ralph and lure him in. She didn’t know then that he was the step kid of her uncle. If she had, she wouldn’t have gone in there empty handed.

Then she read how they had found out she was missing and what they did to find her. Her heart plummeted into her stomach, dropping from her chest like a ton of rocks. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth, hoping swallow the sob that was threatening to come from her mouth. Sitting in that attic, Evelyn had wondered what the point of killing those other women was. She had spent hours pouring over ideas. She thought him running into her was an accident, pure coincidence. This case already put her on edge, seeing as it took place in the very same town she grew up in.

But the team had solved it. They had figured it out. All those women that Ralph had killed….

Tears clouded her vision, but she refused to blink. A quiet moan of distress came from her. She didn’t even hear the door of the apartment open.

“Evelyn?”

She didn’t jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice. Instead, she turned toward him slowly, those same tears gathered in her eyes.

“It’s my fault,” she said, holding the report in her hands. The tears dropped from her lashes, hitting her cheeks with the strength of a butterfly.

“It’s not.”

“It is!” Hotch let out a defeated breath. “It says right here that-“

“That report says Ralph Bennet made the decision to assault and murder those four women.”

“Because of me!”

Hotch walked over to her and sat on the couch beside her, but not too close.

“Did you kill those women, Caro?”

“No, but-“

“No, you didn’t.”

“Hotch, he killed them because I knew them. He killed them because he knew it would lure me in. If I hadn’t-“

“What? If you hadn’t what?” She was quiet. “If you hadn’t killed your uncle? You did what you had to do to survive, Evelyn. No one will fault you for that.”

“If I hadn’t….” she trailed off, staring at the paper with her teary eyes.

“If you hadn’t come with us to solve this case? More women would have died.”

“I fell right into his trap,” she whispered, her hands tightening around the paper. “I didn’t even know he existed, and he knew me well enough to set the trap and just wait for me to walk right into it. I can’t believe I was that stupid.”

“Do you want to know what that tells me?”

She looked up at him.

“You returned to a town where you had been traumatized to help bring justice to these women. You went into that meeting trying to catch a killer. You stayed alive long enough for us to find you using clues that you gave us.” Evelyn sniffed, wiping the underside of her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re not stupid, Evelyn. You’re the bravest person I have ever met.”

She looked over at Hotch again, her lower lip trembling.

“They died for me,” she said and took in a shaky breath. A tear slid down her nose. “How do I repay them for that?”

Hotch was quiet for a moment and heaved out a sigh, just allowing him time to think of a proper answer.

“You live,” he told her. “You survive this and carry on for them.”

Evelyn closed her eyes. She was hearing him and her brain was telling her that he was right, but her heart wasn’t believing him. She couldn’t believe him.

Without saying anything, Evelyn pushed herself off the couch and made for the door, hoping to escape before he could see the tears that were threatening to run from her eyes again.

“Caro, where are you going?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“I need some air,” she replied as she struggled with the lock on the door.

“I’ll come with you.”

“I need to be alone right now,” she said, finally getting the door open.

Hotch put his hand on the door and pushed it shut. Evelyn froze, keeping her hand on the doorknob.

“You’re not going anywhere by yourself.”

Evelyn turned around slowly. Hotch was looming over her, his hand still on the door to keep her from opening it again.

“Let me out, Hotch.”

“You’re not a prisoner here, but you’re not going out there alone.”

She stared at Hotch unblinkingly. Evelyn’s breathing started to speed up, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but it wasn’t anger or fear that made her heart rate spike.

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?”

Evelyn knew she was poking the bear, but she felt like she had to. Poke the bear yourself, make it roar on your terms before it decides to do it itself.

“Why can’t I go out there alone? You think I can’t handle myself?”

“No, I know you can-“

“Then why won’t you let me leave?”

“Because I want you to be safe.”

The calmness of his voice made her even angrier. It made her want to poke harder.

There was a gaping wound in her soul and it was still gushing blood. Hotch was trying to patch it up, help her to heal, but he was getting too close to the only thing that kept her breathing. He was getting too close to the wound and she was terrified of the idea of him seeing her, feeling her, so she recoiled. She would snap at him until he left her alone. Until he left her wound bleed in peace.

“Why did you come for me?”

“Why did we come for you?” Hotch repeated, astounded by her question. “You’re part of the team. Why wouldn’t we come for you?”

“I’m not asking about the team, Aaron. I’m asking about you.”

Hotch straightened at the sound of his first name. She knew why. She’d done it on purpose. She needed to convince him she was angry. That was the only way to keep him at bay.

“I couldn’t just let you rot there; the team needs you.”

“The team?” She let out a bitter laugh before pushing past him and stalking into the middle of the room. “It’s always about the team with you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“I could have died in that house, Aaron, and all you can come up with is the team needed me and that’s why you came?”

She hated the taste her words left in her mouth. She hated saying them. But she had to. She had to push him away if she had any hope for surviving. She had tied her heart to his and if she didn’t severe it now….

There was real anger in his eyes at her words. Finally, an emotion. A chink in his armor.

“If you had died in that house, I would have killed that bastard myself!”

Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath. It was so rare to see an emotion on Aaron Hotchner. In the last few days alone, she had seen more from him than she had ever seen in all her years working with him; fear, joy, grief, anger, relief. And it was mostly because of her.

“Enough with the team needs me bullshit.” Evelyn dropped the tone of her voice. “I’m going for a walk.”

She turned her back on him and walked toward the front door. She made it all the way there, her hand on the doorknob before Hotch spoke again.

“I need you.”

Evelyn froze, her hand glued to the doorknob as if it was ice and her hand was burning hot. Her blood ran cold and her heart stopped in her chest.

“What?”

“You don’t accept that you’re a vital member of the team as a worthy reason for us to come and help you? Fine.” There it was again, anger in Hotch’s voice. His dark eyebrows were pulled together. “I need you.”

Evelyn had started this argument because she needed to keep his hands away from the wound she was nursing, the wound that every breath seemed to tear open a little bit more. His kindness and compassion were just insult to injury. But his sincerity in this moment punched through every wall around her wound that she had been attempting to build up in the last few minutes.

He said it like he would say any other truth. He said it like he would say anything during a case; without a hint of uncertainty.

She turned toward him. For the first time in a while, she felt no shame as tears glimmered in her eyes.

“You mean it?” She asked, pulling on the edges of her sleeve.

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

“I mean when, Emily-“ Evelyn stopped herself and cleared her throat. “No. You haven’t.”

Hotch stood there, clearly not wanting to say anything else that would set her off. Evelyn bowed her head, let her hand fall away from the doorknob, and she crossed the room, putting her arms around his waist before he even realized that she was coming toward him.

Hotch was frozen for a second, her change in mood so rapid that he almost couldn’t register it. Evelyn’s eyes were screwed shut as she prayed that he wouldn’t reject her embrace, though she could understand if he did. But, eventually, he put his arms around her, pulling her in closer and she could finally relax.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, letting the tears stream down her face, fast and hot. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” he told her, his words just as quiet.

“Please don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m trying.”

Hotch knew from the report what happened with her parents after she had escaped from her uncle. He knew how they turned their back on her in the following months. She had come back to them after four years, after killing her father’s brother, and she wasn’t the little girl they had lost anymore. They reported anger issues, lashing out, screaming and hitting and breaking things. They told authorities they couldn’t handle her anymore. They just didn’t know what to do.

But Hotch also knew that she was a child who was cut so deeply by someone she trusted and that she deserved to be loved and protected by her family no matter what. No matter how loudly she screamed, no matter the mess she made, they should have loved her. They should have fought for her just as hard as she was fighting to survive. He wouldn’t abandon her like they did.

“I promise not to give up on you if you promise me not to give up on yourself,” he told her.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Promise,” she said.

___

The following months were hard. Moving back into her own apartment where it was quiet and the silence was deafening was the hardest part. When there was no one to wake her from her nightmares or hold her while she cried, when there was no Jack to make her laugh even when she wanted to cry, when there was just her and the mirror. She hated being back home. She wanted to back at the Hotchner’s, but she knew she couldn’t impose on them any longer.

There were days when her promise to Hotch was the only thing that kept her going. He had made her promise not to give up on herself and she would be damned before she disappointed Hotch again. So, she fought, tooth and nail, just to stay afloat. Some days, that looked like lying in bed and letting the tears fall. Some days, that looked like calling Morgan or Penelope and asking them to play a board game with her. Some days, that looked like running until she couldn’t breathe. Some days, that looked like dancing around her apartment at 3 am.

Slowly, she began to remember what it was like to feel alive. And she started to love it again.

The day she came back to work, the smile on her face reached deep into that wound in her soul. It wasn’t healed, but it was better. It didn’t hurt to breathe anymore.

The team acted like she knew they would on her first case. Hotch didn’t let her go anywhere by herself. Someone had to be by her side at all times. It was suffocating, but she knew it was for the best.

By the time the case was finished and the guy arrested, Evelyn almost felt like herself again. This is what she was meant to be doing. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting by herself in her room all day, wasting away. The field was in her blood. It was part of her.

They all went out to dinner that night and everything was right in the world again. Evelyn used to sit in her apartment, Hotch and Morgan and Garcia sending her updates as they went. She knew when she got the triple text that the case was over that they’d be going out to eat, celebrating, having a laugh to cope with everything they had seen. And she would sit in her dark apartment.

But now she was in the right place. They went to a pub downtown. She ordered fries and a coke with a little cherry on top. Morgan made fun of her for smothering her fries in ketchup. She stole a bite of Emily’s pasta as she talked to Rossi. Life had returned to normal, and it was just what she needed.

The next few cases went the same way. Hotch began to trust her being alone again, allowing her to have the space she needed to do her job. There were cases where she needed to step into the bathroom and cry. There were times when she stayed behind with the local police because she couldn’t even think about going in without panicking. And the nights in her apartment alone were the worst.

But as long as she was on a case with her team, things were actually okay. She could push away her fear and the anxiety that made her bones rattle and her muscles freeze. She could go back to be Agent Evelyn Caro, where she was at her best.

Almost a year passed. Evelyn knew that the anniversary fear was a thing, but she was determined to be fine. The case they came in for was the farthest away from anything that could remind her of what she went through. Men were being taken and killed. The pattern was easy to solve, the profile quick to figure out. Everything was going to be okay.

Until Hotch and Evelyn were hunting the killer on their own. Evelyn was walking through a suspect’s house with her gun drawn, knowing that Hotch was upstairs doing the same thing. There was a thud coming from the second floor.

“Hotch?” Evelyn called out. “You okay?”

There was no reply. Her heart started to seize.

“Hotch?”

Walking toward the stairs, her gun drawn, Evelyn told herself to breathe. She would be no help to Hotch if she was panicking. She took one step up the stairs before a sudden and sharp pain exploded against the side of her head, sending her into the wall, knocking her unconscious.

When Evelyn woke up, she was in a basement. Her head squeezed and ached, jaw stiff. She shook her head and forced her eyes open.

Sitting across the room from her, still unconscious, was her boss.

“Hotch!”

Evelyn scrambled over to him, barely standing at all before she dropped to the ground next to him.

“Hotch, hey, you good?”

She saw him breathing, so that was something, but he was unresponsive to her voice. She shook his shoulders, but still he slept.

“Please don’t fire me,” Evelyn whispered before pulling her hand back and slapping him across the face.

Hotch gasped and his eyes flew open, his body falling over to the side.

“Oh, thank God,” Evelyn breathed.

“Did you slap me?” Hotch asked her, sitting back up.

“You wouldn’t wake up.”

“So you slapped me?”

Evelyn shrugged as Hotch rubbed his jaw with his hand.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he told her. Evelyn felt herself almost smile. “Where are we?”

Evelyn looked around the basement and let out a heavy breath.

“Not sure,” she said. “We got the profile wrong, didn’t we?”

Hotch nodded his head and used the support beam in the middle of the room to push himself upward.

“There was a woman. I thought she was hurt, but….”

“She got the drop on the mighty Aaron Hotchner? I’m impressed.” Evelyn teased, needed to joke about something before her brain exploded from the pain or the panic she felt growing in her bones took over completely.

Hotch looked down at Evelyn with a stern look that told her maybe joking wasn’t his favorite way to cope with being kidnapped. Evelyn pursed her lips and pushed herself onto her feet.

“Lions got me, I think,” Evelyn told him, using the support beam to keep her standing.

“So there are two of them and one of them is a woman.” Hotch breathed out a sigh. “How does that change the profile?”

“We know that the men were chosen because Lions wanted something they had.”

“Position, status, money-“

“A certain woman.”

Hotch turned to look at Evelyn, who was scanning the basement as if it would hold the answers. There were blood stains on the ground. This was definitely where the victims were killed. There was a door at the top of the stairs, but if these guys were any good at what they did, the door would be locked.

“You think his partner could have been the wife of one of the victims?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn looked back at him and shrugged.

“A wife, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter. Maybe the person he wants to take her from isn’t even dead yet, but he’s the reason Lions is killing.”

“Why would she help him?”

Evelyn breathed out again.

“Maybe she feels trapped where she’s at and he’s got her convinced this is the only way to save her? If she feels completely dependent on him, she might just do whatever he says.”

“Even kill?”

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders again, but they both knew that the answer was yes. A woman caught in a corner was just as capable of killing as anyone else.

“Well, that’s good then,” Hotch said, putting his hands on his hips.

“How is any of that good?”

“It means I’m the one they want, not you,” Hotch said.

Evelyn’s eyebrows pinched together.

“That really doesn’t sound good, Hotch.”

“You can get through to the partner, Caro,” Hotch said, walking back toward her. Evelyn narrowed her eyes even further at him.

“Maybe, yes.”

“Good. That will get us out of here.”

He turned away from her again. He pulled off his blazer and loosened his tie and the temperature in the room raised about fourteen degrees. Evelyn had to shake away her imagination before responding.

“And what are you going to do?”

“What they brought me here for.”

___

“Please, stop!”

The female unsub, Rosalie, held tight to Evelyn’s arms, holding her back as the male unsub, Jeremy Lions, pounded his fist into Hotch’s face.

“You think you’re so strong,” Hotch laughed, taunting Lions. “Don’t you?”

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“You have to stop him,” Evelyn said to Rosalie. “No one else can get through to him.”

“He’s doing what he has to to keep us safe,” Rosalie whispered to Evelyn, but despite the strength in her arms, her voice was weak. “Your friend just needs to give in. It’ll be easier that way.”

Lions hit Hotch again and Evelyn cried out, pulling against Rosalie.

“Shut her up, Rose!”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie whispered in Evelyn’s ear, holding her right from behind. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No!” Evelyn struggled against the woman holding her, jerking her shoulders in hopes of breaking free.

“You really think that any of this will earn you manhood, Lions?” Hotch said with a laugh, turning the unsub’s gaze back onto him and away from Evelyn.

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“Stop it, damnit!”

Lions whirled around and backhanded Evelyn in attempts to get her to quiet down. Rosalie gasped and let Evelyn fall to the ground.

“Jeremy! You said we wouldn’t hurt her!”

Lions let out a growl and grabbed onto Rosalie’s arm, dragging her out of the basement and leaving Hotch and Evelyn behind.

“You need to get through to Rosalie, Caro,” Hotch said as soon as she took a single step toward him.

“I am,” she huffed. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “She doesn’t want me to get hurt, that much is clear. If she associates you getting hurt with me getting hurt, she’ll push for Lions to hurt you less.”

Hotch nodded his head once, stretching out his jaw.

“You trust me, right?” Hotch said.

“Of course.” Evelyn’s response was immediate.

“Good.”

That night, they slept in the basement on opposite sides of the room, even though it was freezing cold. Saying they slept was an over exaggeration. Evelyn could barely even close her eyes. It was the cold that kept her eyes frozen open, but it was also the reality of it all. She was trapped, once again. She was a prisoner, once again. She was at the mercy of a man, once again.

And Hotch was here but she had never felt more alone.

The door creaked open and Evelyn sat up with a gasp. She shuffled backward, away from the door, but it was just Rosalie walking down the wooden stairs. The woman locked the door behind her, but still flinched.

“Hi,” Rosalie whispered as she neared. There was a cup and a plate in her hand. She watched the sleeping Hotch as she walked by, only turning her attention back to Evelyn once she passed him.

“Hi,” Evelyn whispered back, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“I…I’m not going to hurt you,” Rosalie said. She lowered herself to the ground a few feet away from her. Rosalie set the cup and the plate down and scooted it closer to Evelyn.

Evelyn looked between the food and the woman.

“You need to eat.” Rosalie’s voice was soft. Kindly.

Evelyn straightened her back and lifted her chin, giving a slight shake of the head.

“I’m not hungry.”

Rosalie let out a sigh and turned to look over at Hotch, who still slept soundly.

“Saving it for him won’t do anything for either of you,” Rosalie said, almost sadly. “Only one of you is making it out of here. I think you know which one it’s going to be.”

___

“Here, eat.” Evelyn pushed the plate of cold potatoes and toast in his direction, the cup of water sitting on top. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “Rosalie came in last night. Brought us some food.”

“Did you eat?” He asked her, sitting up from his sleeping position.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Caro-“

“I ate, Hotch,” she said, a little more harshly than she meant to. “You need to keep your strength if we’re going to have a repeat of yesterday.”

Hotch almost laughed as he hooked his finger over the edge of the plate and slid it toward himself. Evelyn watched, her stomach gurgling as he took a bite out of the bread.

“Stale toast is just ravishing, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked as she leaned up against the wall he also sat against. Hotch hummed his response. He ate slowly, took a sip of water.

“How are you?” He asked.

Evelyn rolled her head against the wall to look over at him.

“Just peachy, Hotchner. How are you?”

“I’m serious. How are you doing?”

Evelyn let out a sigh, looked up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

“Taking it one breath at a time,” she said. “I’ll deal with the aftermath once we’re out of here.”

Evelyn looked over at him again and attempted a half-cocked smile. Hotch wasn’t smiling. He was staring at her, staring right through her smile and her outer shell of calmness and straight into her soul where her wound was, her wound that was slowly starting to heal.

“I’ll be okay, Aaron,” she said, dropping her smile. “Promise.”

Hotch nodded his head and turned away from her.

“Don’t do anything stupid today, Caro,” he told her.

“Do I ever?”

___

“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Hotch sighed as Evelyn let out a hiss of pain.

“I didn’t realize that trying to stop you from dying was considered something stupid.”

“It is when you get put in harm’s way.”

Evelyn held a strip of her shirt against her bleeding nose. Hotch rolled up his sleeves.

“We’ve got two days left here,” Hotch said, pacing back and forth in front of Evelyn.

“The team will find us,” Evelyn replied. She lowered the piece of her shirt and scrunched her nose before stretching it out again.

“I don’t doubt it.”

The sun went down sooner than Evelyn thought it would, meaning she had slept longer than she thought she had.

“You should sleep,” Hotch said.

“I’m not tired.”

“He won’t hurt you, Caro.”

The dark concealed Hotch’s face from her, even though he was only a few feet away. Evelyn shifted uncomfortably.

“I know.”

“If I don’t make it out of here-“

“Hotch, stop. We’re both going to walk out of here just fine.”

“But if I don’t, promise to take care of Jack.” Evelyn breathed in deeply, ready to shake her head and tell him again that they were going to both survive this. “Promise me.”

Instead of arguing, which she knew would get them nowhere, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I promise.”

Hotch didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t sleep. The change in his breathing after a while told her that he had fallen asleep.

She didn’t know how long it was before the door creaked open. Evelyn startled and sat up straighter, gasping in a breath. But it was just Rosalie, coming down with more food. This time, she didn’t say anything. She sat right next to Evelyn and set the food between them.

“You have to eat,” she said finally.

Evelyn reached out and took the cup of water and brought it to her parched lips. She drank some, but set it down before it was finished.

“You don’t have to save it for him.”

Evelyn turned her head to look at Rosalie.

“He’s my friend. I’m not going to let him starve.”

Rosalie was quiet for a moment.

“I think he’s more than that.”

“How did you meet Jeremy?” Evelyn asked. She thought she saw a smile on Rosalie’s lips.

“I lived with my brother and his wife as their live-in nanny of sorts. Jeremy worked for them as a gardener. My father kept me locked up my entire life and when he died, my brother took over. His sister’s keeper or something. But Jeremy he…. he made me feel free and alive and seen. And so, so loved.”

Rosalie stopped there, her smile lingering for a few moments before falling.

“But he changed, didn’t he?”

Rosalie nodded her head slowly, her lower lip curling and tears starting to run down her cheeks. Evelyn just let her cry for a few moments, until the woman collected herself. She sucked in a sob and stuffed her hands full of her dress.

“He took me from my brother’s house, brought me here,” Rosalie said. “Said he needed my help.”

“He used you to lure in men that he saw as superior to himself so that he could kill them.”

Rosalie nodded again, tears still rolling from her eyes.

“I never wanted to…I tried to tell him that I love him as he is…that he doesn’t need to-“

“Rosalie, listen to me. Nothing you could ever do will convince him of that because his issues have nothing to do with you,” Evelyn said, turning to face her.

“I don’t….”

“Jeremy Lions may love you, Rosalie, but he is very sick. He is not killing people to be a better man for you, no matter what he has told you. He feels inferior so he thinks he has to kill to be superior. That’s why he wanted Hotch.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

Evelyn heaved out a breath.

“Hotchner is everything Jeremy thinks he’s lacking. Confident, strong. He’s got a high-ranking job. He’s respected by his peers. He’s good looking and has a nice home and great friends. Jeremy doesn’t think he has any of this and he wants it, which is why he wants to hurt Hotchner.”

“To take something he doesn’t think he has.”

Evelyn sucked in a breath and reached forward to take Rosalie’s hands in hers.

“No matter what you do, Rosalie, you will never be enough for him, do you understand? He has you, he has love, but that will never be enough for him.”

“No, no!” Rosalie stood up quickly. “No. Once we’re married, everything will be okay. We’ll buy a new house. Live a happy life.”

“Rosalie-“

“No! You’re wrong.”

“Rosalie….”

“You’re wrong!”

Rosalie hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Evelyn shut her eyes again. With a growl, she pounded her knuckles into the hard concrete ground.

“You okay?”

Hotch was barely awake, his voice gravelly and tired.

“I’m okay, Hotch, go back to sleep.”

He grumbled something and was soon asleep again. Evelyn could do nothing but sigh. Still, she didn’t sleep.

The next day went no better than the last. It was night again before Evelyn knew it. She sat on the ground, head between her knees. Hotch stood, leaning up against the support beam in the middle of the room.

“You’re not sleeping,” he said. Evelyn didn’t move. “Talk to me.”

“I told you, I’ll deal with it after we get out of here,” she told him, her words muffled by her knees.

Hotch walked toward her and let out a groan as he lowered himself to the ground.

“You can sleep,” he told her, his words even quieter than they were before. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

Evelyn lifted her head finally to look at him.

“That’s not why I’m not sleeping,” she said, which was partially a lie. She didn’t sleep because she needed to be aware at all times. She couldn’t risk nodding off and letting her guard down. But there was another part to it.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked her.

“I thought I was going to die alone in that house, Aaron.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Twice. I stay awake because I can’t stand the thought of dying alone. And if you die while I’m sleeping-“

Hotch reached out and took her hand in his. When she looked over at him, he was staring straight ahead, not looking at her. She let out a shaky sigh and let him lace his fingers through hers. It was all the comfort that she needed.

“You’re not going to die alone,” Hotch told her. “You’re not going to die here at all.”

Evelyn nodded and let a few of the tears in her eyes fall, grateful for the darkness to cover her face. She lowered her head slowly to his shoulder, damning all protocol to hell, if there even was protocol for maybe dying in a basement with your boss. When Hotch didn’t immediately pull away from her or shake her off his shoulder, she settled in and shut her eyes.

“You’re not dying here either,” she said. “Not if I can help it.”

For the first time in days, Evelyn slept.

She awoke to someone grabbing hold of her hand. Her first thought was that it was Hotch squeezing her in his sleep. But when she gasped and opened her eyes, she found that it was just Rosalie sitting in front of her. It was still dark outside. She thought that the woman had brought her more food, but she turned out to be wrong.

“We have to go,” Rosalie whispered. “We have to go.”

“What?”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie put a shaking finger to her lips and pulled on Evelyn’s hand. “You were right. We have to go now.”

Rosalie pulled Evelyn to her feet, dragging her toward the door before she was even fully awake.

“Wait, stop,” Evelyn whispered, trying to shake herself awake.

“No, now! This is the only chance you have.”

Rosalie dragged Evelyn out of the basement doors and up the stairs into the house above. It wasn’t the same house that Hotch and Evelyn had been searching before, she could tell that even in the dark.

“Where are you taking me, Rosalie?”

“You have to get out of here, now! Jeremy doesn’t want to kill you, but he will,” Rosalie said, pulling her through the rundown and dirty home.

“Stop. Stop!” Evelyn dug her heels into the ground and forced Rosalie to stop. “I’m not leaving Aaron.”

“You don’t have time!” There was nothing but pure desperation in Rosalie’s voice. “Jeremy knows I left. He’s coming here. You have to go now or you’re not going at all.”

Evelyn wrenched her arm out of Rosalie’s grip.

“I’m not leaving him.”

“Jeremy will kill you.” Rosalie sounded desperate, terrified.

Evelyn shook her head and took a step backward.

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving him.” Rosalie’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Go. Call the police. Tell them where we are.”

Rosalie nodded her head.

“Go.”

Without another word, Rosalie turned around and ran from the house.

Evelyn watched her go. Her heart rate spiked when headlights flashed through the front window. All she could do for Rosalie was hope that she found some place to hide until Lions entered the house. If Lions was here, this was it. He was coming for Hotch.

Evelyn ran back to the basement as quietly as she could. She shut the basement door, hearing it lock with a heart wrenching click, just as the front door opened. She hurried down the stairs and dropped to the ground next to Hotch, startling him awake.

“What’s going on?” Hotch asked, still sounding stuck in sleep.

“Lions is here,” Evelyn whispered to him. “Rosalie is gone, she’s calling the police.”

“How-“

“We need a plan and quick,” Evelyn told him.

“We don’t know how long it will take for the police to respond,” Hotch replied quietly, his voice surprisingly calm. This might be his last few moments on earth, and he wasn’t terrified or angry or anxious. He was just calm. “All of his attention will be on me. You can escape then.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“This isn’t a time for heroics.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

Before Hotch could argue, Evelyn pushed herself to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“Like you said, Lions’ attention will all be on you. He won’t be expecting me.”

“Caro-“

She sunk into the shadows just as the door of the basement opened. Lions trudged down the stairs, grumbling to himself.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward Hotch.

“Where’s the girl?” Lions asked, his voice low and gruff.

Hotch was silent.

“Doesn’t matter,” the unsub grumbled to himself. With his back to her completely, Lions started for Hotch. Evelyn would make sure he never reached him.

She crept out from her shadows, walking toward Lions. The ever present ache in her head from when Lions knocked her out didn’t even stop her. She was silent as she moved until she was right up behind him. In one quick motion, Evelyn kicked the back of his knee, dropping him to the ground before wrapping her arm around his neck.

Lions struggled against Evelyn. He was strong and she was weak from days with little food and water as well as the head injury. But she held on as tight to his neck as she could.

Hotch ran to check the basement door, but Lions had closed it, leaving it locked.

As he did so, Evelyn was so focused on keeping her grip on Lions, that she didn’t see his hand moving toward his pocket. He pulled out a knife and rammed it into her shin. She cried out, falling back and away from Lions.

“Evelyn!”

Hotch turned away from the door and ran back toward her as Lions stumbled away. Evelyn fell back against the support beam, lowering herself to the ground as she pressed her hands against the cut on her leg.

Hotch ran toward Evelyn, but Lions intercepted him. Fire spread throughout Evelyn’s leg, dark blood seeping through her fingers. She clenched her jaw in hopes of easing the pain. Hotch and Lions tumbled, a blur of bodies that Evelyn once again couldn’t distinguish. This scene was all too familiar to her.

Hotch was trained, but he was weak. Lions relied mostly on his size and strength, but lacked any formal training. Evelyn needed to get back into the fight, that was the only way Hotch would win this.

With a groan of effort and a sharp stabbing pain shooting through her leg, Evelyn forced herself to stand. Using the support beam as her support as well, she allowed herself a few moments to breathe through the pain before lurching forward.

Lions had Hotch pinned against the wall, his arm across his chest to keep him there. Evelyn hurtled toward Lions, pushing through the pain in her leg and barreled into him. This knocked him off balance. Being unable to stop herself once she started, she and Lions tumbled over each other until they were both on the ground. Hotch started forward to help Evelyn to her feet, but Lions had an arm around her waist and the knife pressed to her neck before either of them could really react.

“Back off,” Lions said, his voice even more gruff than before. Blood dribbled down from a broken nose and he wheezed, telling Evelyn that Hotch had hit him enough times near the diaphragm to knock the wind out of him.

The cool of the metal knife pressed against Evelyn’s throat didn’t scare her. Especially when she met Hotch’s gaze. That dead calm he always put forward she now felt flow through her veins. Everything was going to be okay, she could see it in his eyes. Evelyn breathed as shallowly as she could, trying to keep her throat from extending too far into the knife.

Lions pushed himself off the ground and brought Evelyn up with him. The knife cut into the first few layers of her throat and Evelyn flinched, feel the cool of her own blood dribble down her neck. Hotch put his hands in the air, trying to show that he meant Lions no harm.

“She’s not a part of this,” Hotch said. “You know that, Lions.”

“She’s a bitch is what she is,” Lions snapped, pressing the knife harder against Evelyn’s neck.

Hotch flinched forward and Evelyn shut her eyes.

“You want me, Lions, not her.” This was the calmness that Evelyn had never understood before. Her negotiation skills had never been good. Hotch said that she was too emotional. She cared too much and it was too easy to read in her voice. But Hotch was too good at pretending not to care at all. “Let her go and I’ll go with you.”

“No, Hotch-“

“Shut up,” Lions seethed in her ear. “You don’t get to talk.”

“Is that how you treat Rosalie, huh?” Evelyn asked, her hands on his arm that held the knife to her throat. “You call her a bitch and tell her shut up?”

“Be quiet!”

Evelyn could feel blood soak into her shirt, weighing it down.

“Lions, look at me,” Hotch said, pulling his attention away from Evelyn. “You can let her go.”

Evelyn felt her wounded leg start to grow numb and her balance shifted. In not too long, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to keep herself standing upright.

The door behind them burst open and Evelyn let out a gasp. Lions flinched and loosened his grip on her just enough that she broke free from him and stumbled forward, right into Hotch.

“Jeremy Lions, drop the knife and put your hands in the air!” Emily Prentiss said, her voice deep and commanding.

Evelyn’s leg gave out, every ounce of weight put on it causing a shooting pain up and down her entire body. Hotch held her up by her arms, her back pressed against his chest. He was the only thing keeping her standing and she could barely even do that.

Lions didn’t turn around, but he put his hands up in the air.

“Rosalie did this,” he said, his voice deadly low.

“Drop the knife, Lions,” Emily said again.

“You turned her against me.” Lions shifted his angered eyes away from Hotch and onto Evelyn. “You did.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, Lions, but I will.”

“You turned her against me!”

Lions took half a step toward them, the knife now facing her. Hotch turned Evelyn away, preparing to step between them, but Emily fired a single shot, the bullet tearing right through Lions’ shoulder. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain, the knife falling out of his grip.

Evelyn, still unable to stand on her own, turned to Hotch, her neck still bleeding.

“Are you okay?” she asked him, noting the bruises on his face.

“Are you guys alright?” Emily asked, her gun trained on Lions.

“We need a medic,” Hotch said. Emily nodded her head, her eyes flickering down the cut in Evelyn’s shin and neck.

Emily relayed the information through her earpiece, as well as saying the offender was down. Evelyn stayed leaned up against Hotch, his hands clinging to her arms to keep her steady, as Emily took Lions away in handcuffs.

Morgan and Reid came running into the basement along with the paramedics.

“Evie,” Morgan stepped toward her and she just smiled.

“We’re okay,” she told him.

“Ma’am,” the paramedic said. “Let’s get you to the ambulance.”

The paramedics stepped forward, one taking hold of Evelyn. The other moved toward Hotch.

“How are you feeling?” the paramedic asked him.

“Can you make it to the ambulance?” the paramedic asked Evelyn, who nodded her head.

“I can carry you,” Morgan said, stepping forward. Evelyn let out a quiet laugh.

“I can manage on my own, Derek,” she told him. Still, he followed her and the paramedic, his hands out just in case she started to fumble.

They helped her up the stairs and she looked back at Hotch, to find that his eyes were still on her. He nodded her head and she smiled at him.

The pain that flared throughout Evelyn’s leg was white hot, but with the paramedic taking most of her weight and Morgan just behind her, Evelyn was able to make it to through the house and to the ambulance without letting a single tear fall from her eye.

Hotch came out of the house a few minutes later, the paramedic still trying to get him to sit for a moment while Reid filled him in on everything they missed in the case.

“I’d like to speak with Rosalie,” Hotch said.

“She’s over here,” Reid said.

Hotch tried not to look over at the ambulance where he knew Evelyn was. He still had a job to do and he couldn’t focus on that if all he could think about was whether or not she was okay. He knew she was okay. She was always okay.

Rosalie sat in the back of one of the cop cars, her eyes closed and silent tears running down her cheeks. Hotch popped open the door, but she didn’t look at him.

“Is he alive?” she asked.

“He’ll survive,” Hotch told her. Rosalie let out a shaky breath and slowly opened her eyes. “Why did you help us?”

“I didn’t help you,” she said, looking away from him and toward the ambulance. “I helped Evelyn.”

Hotch scowled.

“She loves you, you know?”

Her words startled him and Hotch felt ice run through his blood.

“What?”

“She loves you. I gave her food at night but she’d only eat part of it, saved the rest for you. And last night I came to take her somewhere safe before Jeremy came back to kill you, but she refused to leave. I almost had her out of that house, but she ran back in. For you.”

Hotch looked down at his feet. He didn’t really expect anything less of Evelyn Caro. She always put everyone’s lives above her own. He shouldn’t expect her to act any different toward him.

But anger still bubbled up inside of him. She could have gotten herself killed and for what? She should have left him there and ran to get help. She should have….

“You better be damn sure you’re worth it.” Rosalie’s words were venom and Hotch could feel their sting deep in his blood.

Hotch shut the door, leaving Rosalie to her silence and grief. He turned to look at the ambulance, just as Morgan was stepping into the back. The paramedic shut the door, closing Hotch off from Evelyn. The siren started to blare, and the ambulance rolled out of the driveway.

“They’re taking her to the hospital,” Prentiss said, walking over to him. Hotch nodded his head. “Lost too much blood to just let her come back with us.”

“She kept antagonizing him,” Hotch said as he placed his hands on his hips. “If she had just let me go with him-“

“Caro was protecting you, sir,” Prentiss said. He looked at her, scowl deepening. “She knew that as soon as Lions had you, he would kill you. She had to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Hotch watched the ambulance as it drove away, the sirens ringing.

He never got the chance to ask if she was okay.

___

Evelyn lay back in her bed at the hotel, staring at the ceiling. A bandage wrapped around her leg and it itched, making it impossible for her to sleep. There was something else keeping her awake. Her mind reeled, the last few days playing over and over in her head. Trapped in a room with Hotch for days on end was the perfect time to talk to him about all the things that were bothering her, but even then, she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t even know where to begin because she didn’t even know what she was feeling anyway.

Sitting up with a huff, Evelyn glowered into the darkness. She threw off her blankets that were making her too hot, lowering herself onto the ground and landing on her good leg. She hobbled over to her discarded clothes and threw them back on.

Air was what she needed. A breath of fresh air. And then she’d be okay. She could go back to pretending that everything was fine and normal, like she always did.

As she pulled a coat onto her shoulders, she opened the door and froze.

Hotch was standing there, wearing a broken down version of his usual suit. His tie and jacket were discarded, his shirt buttoned up sloppily. She wondered if he had ever even gone to bed. And he was standing in front of her door, his hand not even raised to knock. He was just standing there.

He looked at her with wide eyes, shocked to find her there.

“Um, hi,” Evelyn said, dropping her hand from the doorknob.

“I just wanted to check to see how you were doing,” Hotch said.

“Hotch, it’s like three in the morning.”

He looked down at his hands. He was actually fidgeting. Something had made him motivated enough to come here, but nervous enough not to knock.

“I know. I can go-“

“No, wait.” He froze. “I never got to ask if you were okay.”

Hotch nodded his head.

“I’m okay.”

“Good.”

They stood there in silence. Evelyn felt her throat tighten every time she wanted to say something. Hotch wouldn’t look at her. The silence seemed to drag on for eternity before Hotch finally broke it.

“I talked to Rosalie, after everything, and she said something,” Hotch said. Evelyn finally put her eyes on him.

“What…what did she say?”

There were a thousand terrible things that Evelyn could think of that the woman could have possibly said to land her standing in front of her boss at three in the morning.

“She said that you had a chance to leave that house and you came back,” he told her. Evelyn straightened her back. This was going to be a lecture, she could just feel it coming. She just didn’t know why it couldn’t wait until morning. “Why?”

Evelyn scowled and looked at the ground, her hand still on the door.

“Why?” She repeated. “Because I couldn’t leave you there.”

“You should have.”

Evelyn felt her temper begin to rise. What was it with this man?

“A ‘thank you for saving my life’ would suffice,” she said, her tone harsh. “If I hadn’t come back, Lions would have killed you. From where I’m standing, I made the right decision.”

“And got yourself hurt in the process.”

“I’ll survive.” Hotch fell quiet again. “Listen, Aaron, if you’ve come to pick a fight, I think it can wait until morning.”

Evelyn took a step back and started to close the door, but Hotch lifted his hand and stopped it from closing. She looked over at him, jaw tightened, and found him staring back at her.

“I’m not here to pick a fight with you,” he said.

“Then why did you come?”

She could see the question rattling around in his brain, as if he had been asking himself that very same question ever since he left his room.

“I’m sick of this, Aaron,” she said finally, when he didn’t answer. “I’m sick of neither of us being able to say what we really mean. I’m sick of running in circles around each other. Just tell me why you came here.”

“I came to make sure you’re okay.”

“Mission accomplished then. I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She started to close the door again and this time he didn’t stop her.

“Rosalie also said you loved me.”

Evelyn froze, the door almost shut so she couldn’t see his face anymore. Which was good because it meant that he also couldn’t see hers and the fear that was etched into every feature. Her breathing became heavy, like every breath took so much more work. She closed her eyes, and slowly started to open the door again.

“Rosalie said that?” Hotch nodded his head once. “Did you believe her?”

He was quiet for a moment, letting out a long but quiet sigh.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a profiler. Tell me, what do you think?”

He took a while to answer.

“I think you’re a deeply compassionate person who cares for the team. I think you would give your life for any one of us in a heartbeat.” Evelyn looked down at her feet and Hotch tried to follow her eyes with his. “I know that you would never do anything to jeopardize the dynamics of this team because we’ve become your family.”

“Okay.”

“So, I don’t know how much of what you say and do is because the team is your family and how much is because-“

“-I love you.”

The words came from her mouth like any other fact would. She had known it for so long, never said it, not even to herself, but she knew it. And she managed to say it so casually. She was just completing his sentence after all.

Hotch stood still, as if trying to decide whether or not she was finishing what he was saying or confessing. He searched her eyes, but she stayed motionless. It was time he figured things out for himself, she decided. They’d both spent so long trying to figure the other out, it was high time someone just made the first move.

“When you were at Ralph Bennet’s house,” he said finally, “I had these horrible dreams about finding you there already dead. I was too late to save you.”

Evelyn could have sworn there were tears glimmering in his eyes.

“You did though, Aaron. You did save me.”

“But was I too late?” He asked. “Did I wait too long for…everything else?”

“What do you want, Aaron?” Her voice was just at a whisper, her hand still on the door.

It was the last time she would ask. This was the last time and then she’d let it go, let him go. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life, however short that might be, pining after one man.

Hotch surprised her then. He didn’t say anything else, he didn’t try to talk. Talking was clearly getting him nowhere. Everything he said somehow came out wrong. Instead, he took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. Putting a hand to her cheek, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.

His answer was clear. It took her a few moments to over come her shock, but when she did, she reached out to grab hold of his shirt collar, pulling him in closer.

She pulled him into her room and shut the door, leaving the hallway empty and quiet.

Her room was still dark as he moved her backward, his hands never leaving her. He thought he had lost her. But here she was, with him, and that’s all he needed.

“You,” he whispered against her skin. “Just you.”

Every raging fire that made up Evelyn Caro met the calm seas that built Aaron Hotchner, burning and boiling and soothing in every possible way.

He kissed her lips, her bruised cheek bone, her jaw. His hands rested against the side of her neck, gently though, so as not to irritate her wound. She tugged at his wrinkled shirt, trying to pull him closer.

Hotch knew this was breaking protocol. But he left behind every rule in the book when he left his room two hours ago. Every inch of contact with her made his stomach twist, every time her teeth grazed his lip made his heart pound. For so long he had wanted her and for so long he had pretended otherwise. He was so, so tired of pretending.

He was pulling off her shirt and she didn’t stop him and he didn’t stop himself, but he couldn’t. He just needed all of her.

Evelyn gasped, her intake of breath so sharp that Hotch pulled away. She breathed raggedly, her chest rising and falling.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes moving to her neck.

Consumed by her, he had forgotten the shape she was in. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.

“I’m not that fragile,” she told him. There was a smug look on her face, her lips twitched up into a smile.

Hotch leaned forward to kiss that smile, soft and gentle. His hands dropped to her waist and he kissed her again. He intended to pull away, leave her be for the night, but every time he tried, he came back to her like a magnet.

Evelyn had just as hard as a time keeping away from him. His calloused hands were grazing over her sides, her waist, her stomach, her back. Her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Her heart pounded like a drum beat in her chest, so hard that she could hear it in her ears and it made her hands shake.

She expected him to stop her, to realize what he was doing and take her hands a politely decline, but when the last button came undone, he pulled away from just long enough to take the shirt off himself.

Hotch put his lips back on hers as soon as he could. Evelyn smiled against his kiss.

As if she had burned him, he suddenly stepped away, leaving Evelyn leaning against the wall, heaving for breath. He stared at her, his own breath ragged, his dark eyes smoldering.

“Is something…did I…?”

Shame pooled in Evelyn’s cheeks, making them burn. There she was, completely and utterly exposed, barely able to stand well enough on her own to scurry away.

“You’ve had a very hard year, Evelyn,” he said.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at the ground, locking her jaw.

“Hotch….”

“And I can’t take advantage of-“

“Aaron!” She said with a laugh, forcing him to look at her. “I’m fine. This is fine, more than fine.”

“Is it what you want?” he asked.

She gave a small smile and heaved out a sigh.

“Aaron Hotchner,” she said. “Have I ever done anything I haven’t wanted to?”

Lifting a hand, she curled her finger, beckoning for him. He stepped toward her until he was just a breath away.

“I’ll tell you if I need to stop,” she said to him, just above a whisper.

Evelyn reached up and kissed him again. It took him a few moments to respond, but once he accepted what she said, he leaned into her.

He placed a hand on her chest, right over her heart.

And for once, in a very, very long time, that wound in her soul didn’t feel so gaping.

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #ssa hotchner #aaron hotchner x oc #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner fic #hurt/comfort #tw: abuse #tw: violence #hotch #ssa aaron hotchner #idk what else to tag this so that more people see it #because it took me three weeks to write #this is literally a quarter of a novel what am i doing with my life #anyway #i hope you guys enjoy

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