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solxamber · 5 months ago

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Still Into You || Leona Kingscholar

You return to your old town, only to cross paths with Leona Kingscholar—the one who got away and the one you never stopped loving. Perhaps this time, fate is offering a second chance to make things right.

or: Exes to Lovers with Leona

The bar is too loud, the kind of loud that gets under your skin and stays there. Clinking glasses, half-shouted laughter, and the heavy bass of music that thuds in your chest like a second heartbeat. You should’ve skipped this reunion.

Nostalgia, as it turns out, is a double-edged sword. The city hasn’t changed much—same old streets, same old haunts—but coming back feels like running your fingers over a scar you thought had healed. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but the sting is there, raw at the edges.

Your drink sits untouched on the counter, condensation pooling around the base. You’re too lost in the ache of everything that made you leave this place—memories you’ve tried to bury—to even pretend you’re having fun. Someone’s laughing behind you, their voice loud and grating, and you turn your head just to escape it.

And that’s when you see him.

Leona Kingscholar.

Your chest tightens, and you feel the floor drop out from under you. He’s sitting across the room, one hand cradling a glass of amber liquid, the other resting casually on the bar. The years haven’t dulled him one bit. His hair is shorter than you remember, his frame broader, his face still sharp enough to cut. And his expression—it’s the same damn unreadable expression that once made you fall so hard it left you shattered.

You almost don’t believe it’s him, but then his eyes flicker up, and they meet yours.

The breath leaves your lungs in a rush, and suddenly, it’s too much. The room feels suffocating, the walls closing in, and you’re choking on everything you thought you’d moved past. The heartbreak, the love that never really left, the ghost of the 20-year-old who walked away from him and spent years regretting it.

His brow furrows as recognition flashes across his face. And something else—something softer, something that tugs at the edges of your chest like a half-forgotten melody. You don’t stay to find out what it is.

You bolt.

Your feet carry you out before your mind catches up, the cool night air slapping against your face as you push the door open. The noise fades behind you, but the ache doesn’t. You lean against the wall of the building, gripping your arms as you try to steady your breathing.

The door creaks open again, and you already know it’s him before you look up.

“Still running, huh?” His voice is low, familiar in a way that cuts through you like glass.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Leona doesn’t push. He steps closer, slow and measured, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. His eyes flicker over you, taking in the tension in your shoulders, the way your hands are clenched into fists. His jaw tightens, and for a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pen and a folded napkin, and scribbles something down.

He holds it out to you.

“Here,” he says simply. His tone is calm, but there’s something weighty beneath it. “Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

You stare at the napkin, your heart pounding in your ears.

And then he walks away.

You watch him go, his back retreating into the night, and it hits you like a freight train: this is exactly how it felt the first time. Watching him leave, knowing you let him go, and hating yourself for it.

Your fingers tremble as they close around the napkin. His number is scrawled there in bold, unmistakable strokes.

You don’t move for a long time.

You don’t even remember dialing the number, only the week of stewing, pacing, and overthinking. By the time his familiar voice comes through the line with a simple, “Hey,” it’s already too late to hang up.

The call is brief, neither of you saying much beyond agreeing to meet at a café. It’s somewhere neutral, safer than a bar or anywhere too familiar. Somewhere with enough noise to fill in the silences you know will come.

When you walk in, he’s already there, lounging in his chair like he owns the place. Leona looks good—too good, damn him. His sharp features are just as you remember, though there’s a little more wisdom, a little more weight, in the way he carries himself. He glances up when he sees you and smirks, the kind of smirk that used to make your heart race.

“Still drinkin’ that sugary monstrosity?” he asks instead of saying hello. His voice is low and warm, but there’s an edge of amusement there.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Still judging people’s taste in drinks?”

He doesn’t reply, just gets up and goes to the counter. When he comes back, he’s carrying a mug of something steaming and a plate with a pastry you haven’t had in years. You blink as he sets it down in front of you, the scent of sugar and nostalgia filling your senses.

“You didn’t,” you murmur, staring at the drink.

“Didn’t forget,” he says casually, like it doesn’t cost him anything to remember the exact cocktail of syrups, cream, and espresso that kept you alive through your 2 a.m. study sessions.

You take a sip and instantly regret it—not because it’s bad, but because it tastes exactly like the past. Sweet, comforting, and entirely too much for you to handle right now. You set it down carefully, avoiding his gaze.

“Thanks,” you mutter.

He leans back in his chair, watching you with a calculating look that feels far too intimate. “Still like the same pastry too, huh?”

It burns, the way he knows you like this. It’s like roleplay, like the two of you are pretending to be the people you were before—young, dumb, and in love. But the heart wants what it wants, and yours wants to pretend this doesn’t hurt, so you smile and let him pull you back into that version of yourself for a little while.

You catch up. He tells you about his high-ranking position in a mining and energy facility, speaking with a mix of pride and boredom that’s so uniquely Leona. You tell him about the job you'd just left, a high-paying one far, far away from here—far from him. But you don't say that part out loud.

Despite the easy conversation, the weight of everything unsaid hangs between you like a ghost. Neither of you mentions the breakup, the years apart, or the ache that lingers just beneath the surface.

As the afternoon stretches on, he leans forward, elbows resting on the table. “You wanna do this again sometime?”

His voice is casual, but his eyes aren’t. They’re too focused, too sharp, like he’s trying to gauge your reaction.

You hesitate, then nod. “Yeah. Sure.”

When he walks you to your door, there’s a beat of awkwardness before you go in for a hug. It’s meant to be brief, but before you can let go, he tightens his arms around you. It’s quick but fierce, like he’s afraid to lose you again. The desperation in it makes your breath hitch, but you don’t question it.

“Bye, Leona,” you say softly, pulling away.

He doesn’t say anything, just watches you disappear inside.

From his point of view, the night is still. He stands on the sidewalk for a long time, hands clenched at his sides, heart aching in a way he hasn’t felt in years.

You’re everything he let slip through his fingers when he was too young and reckless to know better. It didn’t take him long after you left to realize that no one compared—no one could. Every smile, every laugh, every fleeting connection after you felt like a cheap imitation of the real thing.

But now you’re back, and he’s not about to let history repeat itself. Not this time.

Leona calls late in the afternoon, his voice calm and casual as always, but there’s something softer there, like he’s testing the waters. “There’s a carnival in town,” he says. “Thought you might wanna go.”

You freeze, memories rushing back all at once—your younger self, begging him to go with you, wearing him down with your relentless excitement until he had reluctantly agreed. That day had been filled with laughter, teasing, and stolen kisses under the glowing lights, back when you thought you’d have forever with him.

The ache of the past threatens to choke you, but you manage to say, “Yeah. Sure.”

When you meet him at the gates, the air is filled with the familiar scents of fried food and spun sugar, bright lights flickering against the deepening twilight. But this time, it’s different. You’re not dragging him from booth to booth like an overexcited raccoon. The two of you walk side by side, hands brushing occasionally but never quite holding.

You catch glimpses of the past in the present: the way Leona’s lips twitch into the faintest smirk when he sees you eyeing a food stall, the way he steps closer when the crowd gets thicker, shielding you without a word.

Then you reach the prize booth. Leona steps up, picks a game at random, and after a few tries, he tosses a ring perfectly onto the bottle neck. The booth attendant hands him the prize—a hideous stuffed cat with a crooked face and mismatched eyes.

It’s the exact same one he’d won for you back in college, the one you’d carried around all day and stubbornly refused to throw away even after the breakup.

“Seriously?” you manage to say, your voice wobbling as you try to laugh it off. “You had to pick that one?”

He shrugs, a small, knowing grin on his face as he hands it to you. “Figured you still liked ugly cats.”

You clutch the toy to your chest, scrambling to keep yourself together, but the lump in your throat won’t go away. He doesn’t say anything, just lets you gather yourself before moving on to the next thing.

By the time you reach the Ferris wheel, the sun is sinking below the horizon, painting the sky in swirls of orange and pink. The ride attendant seats you in a small, creaky gondola, and the two of you begin your slow ascent.

You look out at the glittering carnival below, but it’s impossible to ignore the weight of where you are—this is where he had asked you to be his, forever, years ago, with that same quiet determination that had always drawn you to him.

Leona leans back, his eyes on the horizon but his words aimed at you. “Y’know,” he starts, his voice low and steady, “I messed up before. Let you go when I shouldn’t have.” He pauses, his fingers tapping lightly on his knee. “But if you’re willing… I wanna try again.”

You turn to look at him, his usual confidence tempered by something raw and vulnerable. Despite all the heartache, all the time apart, you know the truth—you’ve never stopped loving him.

Your voice shakes as you answer, “Okay.”

His lips quirk into a faint smile, and he shifts slightly, just enough for you to lean against his shoulder. The two of you sit like that, watching the sun dip below the horizon, as the Ferris wheel creaks and carries you back down to earth—together, this time.

Leona calls in the morning, his tone gruff but apologetic. “Can’t make it today. Got some work stuff I can’t blow off.”

You’re not upset. Not really. It’s nice, in a way, seeing him so dedicated to something. Back in college, he’d been brilliant but uninterested, letting his talent simmer under a blanket of apathy. This new version of him, the one who actually cared about what he was building, made you proud—even if it meant canceling plans.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “Do what you need to do. We’ll hang out another time.”

You’ve already arrived at the park, though, and there’s no point in lingering. As you turn to leave, a familiar voice calls out behind you.

“Hey! Long time no see!”

You spin around and find Ruggie jogging up to you, a grin plastered across his face. He’s taller now, more put-together, but there’s still that mischievous twinkle in his eyes that makes you smile instantly.

“Ruggie!” you exclaim. “You look good!”

“Not too bad yourself,” he replies, sticking his hands into his jacket pockets. “What’re you doing here all by yourself?”

You explain your canceled plans, and he nods knowingly. “Yeah, the boss has been crazy busy lately. I see it up close now—started working at the same place as him.”

“You work with Leona?” you ask, surprised but happy for him.

“Yup,” Ruggie says, puffing his chest out a little. “Climbing the ladder, bit by bit. Somebody’s gotta keep him in line when he’s slacking off, y’know?”

The conversation shifts to catching up on each other’s lives, and soon enough, the topic drifts back to college.

“Y’know,” Ruggie begins, leaning against a nearby tree, “when you left… it hit him harder than he let on. Took him a while to admit he screwed up, but by the time he wanted to fix things, you’d already transferred out. Guy was gutted.”

You glance down, your fingers brushing the hem of your coat. “I didn’t know,” you admit quietly. “I thought… I thought it didn’t matter to him.”

Ruggie shakes his head. “Nah, it mattered. He just doesn’t talk about that stuff, y’know? Too much pride or whatever. But hey, you’re here now. And trying again, right?”

You nod. “Yeah. We’re giving it another shot.”

He grins, sharp and amused, and starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, it’s just—Jack’s gonna owe me big time,” Ruggie explains, wiping a fake tear from his eye. “I made a bet with him back in college. Told him you two’d get back together within ten years. He said no way.”

You can’t help but laugh, shaking your head. “You’re terrible.”

“Hey, I call it entrepreneurial instinct,” he says with a wink. “And what can I say? I know the two of you too well.”

The lightheartedness eases something in your chest, and you’re reminded that even in the midst of all the uncertainty, there’s a piece of your past that feels warm and familiar.

The doorbell rings, and when you open it, you freeze.

Leona stands on your doorstep, sharp as a blade in a perfectly tailored suit, a bouquet of your favorite flowers in his hand. His usual lazy smirk is in place, but there’s a softness in his eyes that makes your heart flutter.

“Well?” he drawls. “You just gonna stare, or can I come in?”

“Who are you, and what did you do with Leona?” you tease, leaning against the doorframe with a grin.

His ears twitch, and he scowls lightly, though the flush creeping up his neck betrays him. “Tch. You’re lucky I don’t just turn around and leave.”

“Not in those shoes, you’re not,” you quip, eyeing the polished leather. “Come on, you’d ruin them.”

He clicks his tongue, but his lips twitch like he’s holding back a smile. Handing you the bouquet, he steps back to let you admire them. “Hurry up. We’ve got reservations.”

Your teasing dies in your throat for a moment as you take in the effort he’s gone to, and you meet his gaze with a warmth you can’t hide. “Thanks, Leona. You look good.”

“‘Course I do,” he says, but the faint flush on his cheeks gives him away as he glances to the side.

Dinner is perfect—an upscale restaurant with just the right amount of ambiance, and Leona surprises you by actually making conversation instead of just grumbling through the meal. He asks about your work, your plans, and even shares a few stories about his own day.

By the time you’re back at your place, you’re both too full and too comfortable to let the night end.

“Wanna come in?” you ask casually, though your heart thumps a little harder in your chest.

He gives you a knowing look, smirking slightly. “If you’re offering.”

Inside, the two of you end up sprawled on the couch, a movie playing in the background. Somewhere between the second and third act, the weight of the day catches up with you both. You drift off, his arm around your shoulders and his head tilted against yours.

When you wake up, the sunlight is just beginning to stream through the curtains, and you realize you’ve shifted sometime in the night. You’re lying on the couch, and Leona’s face is buried against your neck, his arm draped possessively over your waist.

It’s so familiar, so natural, that it brings a lump to your throat. But this time, the memories aren’t tinged with pain. You feel whole, like this is exactly where you’re meant to be.

Leona stirs, his nose brushing against your collarbone as he blinks awake. His voice is gruff with sleep as he grumbles, “Why’re you smiling? It’s ass-crack morning.”

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you, warm and genuine. “No reason,” you say softly, turning to hug him tighter.

“Tch. You’re weird,” he mutters, but his arm tightens around you, and you feel him press a barely-there kiss to your shoulder before settling back down.

You close your eyes, memorizing the feeling of his warmth, his steady breaths, and the quiet contentment of this moment. For the first time in a long time, everything feels right.

The rescheduled park date feels like a quiet celebration of trying again, an unspoken promise that you’re both willing to make things work this time. The air is crisp, the sunlight dappling through the leaves, and you walk side by side, shoulders occasionally brushing.

For a while, it’s easy—light conversation about work, the occasional tease, the kind of soft ease you’ve started to rediscover with him. But then, as you pass by the fountain, you hear the unmistakable sounds of a couple arguing nearby.

One of them is crying, their voice sharp, accusing. The other is defensive, frustration written all over their face. You avert your eyes, but the scene strikes something in you. You glance at Leona and see it on his face too—the way his jaw tightens, his hands flex at his sides.

It brings you back, sharp and fast, to the way it all unraveled the first time.

You both stop walking, and for a moment, there’s just the distant murmur of water and the occasional birdsong. Then Leona sighs, low and heavy, and leans against the railing by the fountain.

“Y’know,” he starts, his voice quieter than usual, “we should probably talk about… back then.”

You swallow hard, following his lead and leaning beside him. “Yeah. I think we should.”

It all spills out, bit by bit, like picking at an old wound. You tell him how you were so bright-eyed, so hopeful back then, thinking love would solve everything. How you’d wanted a picture-perfect romance, the kind you saw in movies, with sweet words and grand gestures.

“And you weren’t that guy,” you say, not unkindly. “You were… real. Frustrated, angry, dealing with your own stuff. And I couldn’t see past my own expectations to meet you where you were.”

Leona’s quiet for a moment, staring out at the water. Then he says, “I wasn’t much better, y’know. Kept thinking you’d wake up one day and realize I wasn’t worth the trouble. That you’d see how much of a mess I was and bail. Guess I tried to beat you to the punch.”

His words make your chest ache, and you think back to that last fight, the one that broke everything.

“I remember,” you say softly. “I was so mad at you for pushing me away. I screamed that you didn’t love me, and… God, I didn’t even mean it. I just wanted you to fight for me.”

Leona lets out a bitter chuckle, his fingers gripping the railing. “And I didn’t. Thought walking away would hurt less than hearing you say it again.”

For a long moment, the two of you just stand there, the weight of old mistakes hanging between you.

“But we’re not those kids anymore,” you finally say, your voice firmer. “I’ve grown up. I know love isn’t perfect. It’s messy, and hard, and sometimes it hurts. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.”

Leona glances at you, his eyes softer than you’ve seen them in years. “Yeah, well… I’m not that idiot from back then either. Took me a while, but I figured out that… you loved me. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

You reach out, your fingers brushing his. “Let’s not make those mistakes again. Let’s just… talk. Be honest with each other. No more second-guessing.”

He nods, and when he takes your hand, his grip is warm and steady. “Deal. No running this time.”

You smile at him, small but genuine, and squeeze his hand. “Deal.”

And as you continue your walk, the sunlight seems a little brighter, the air a little lighter, as if the park itself knows you’ve turned a corner.

The café feels warm and familiar, a comforting mix of nostalgia and new beginnings. You’re seated at a round table with some of the faces you once knew so well—Rook, Vil, Trey, and Riddle. It’s strange how time has shifted them all, smoothing out edges while deepening others.

Rook, ever the enigma, waves off your questions about his career with a dazzling grin and a cryptic, “Ah, ma chérie, some mysteries are best left unsolved.” You decide to let it go when he winks at you dramatically and leans back like he’s some international spy.

Vil, unsurprisingly, radiates effortless elegance as he sips his tea. His sharp cheekbones and tailored outfit scream superstar, and he gives you a small, knowing smile when you tell him how much you’ve admired his recent work. “Well, darling, excellence demands attention. But enough about me,” he says, leaning forward with an almost imperceptible softness in his gaze. “How have you been holding up?”

Trey sits beside him, calm and grounded as always. There’s a faint dusting of flour on his sleeve, a reminder of his time spent in the family bakery. He listens with a small, contented smile as you catch up, occasionally chiming in with a joke or a warm anecdote.

Riddle looks startlingly different from the college version you knew. There’s still the meticulous sharpness in his posture, but his eyes are softer, his tone more relaxed. You’d heard he became a lawyer, and from the quiet pride in his voice when he talks about his recent cases, you can tell he’s damn good at it.

When the conversation inevitably shifts to you and Leona, you hesitate. The table goes quiet, and four pairs of eyes—each sharp in their own way—lock onto you.

“Well,” you say, fiddling with your cup. “We’re… trying again.”

Rook’s smile falters for just a second before he leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. “Ah, l’amour fou. It is a brave and treacherous thing, non? I wish you all the happiness in the world, but…” He hesitates, and for once, his voice lacks its usual poetic flourish. “Take care, my dear. You burned so brightly back then, and we all saw how hard the fall was.”

Vil’s expression tightens slightly, his fingers curling around his cup. “He has a lot to prove this time,” he says, his tone measured. “But if anyone can keep him in line, it’s you.”

Trey hums, glancing at Riddle. “If he messes up again, we’ve got backup now. Riddle can prosecute him for emotional damages.”

Riddle adjusts his tie, his lips twitching into the faintest smirk. “It’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

The laughter that ripples through the group is lighthearted, but the underlying support is tangible, almost overwhelming.

You feel a knot in your chest loosen as you look around the table. They care, even after all this time. Despite their reservations, they trust you to know what’s best for yourself.

And in that moment, surrounded by old friends who’ve grown and changed but still remain the same at their core, you feel a piece of yourself you thought was lost slowly start to return.

The afternoon sun filters lazily through the windows of Leona’s home, casting a warm glow across the room. You’re perched on the couch, cross-legged, scrolling through your phone and occasionally showing Leona something ridiculous. He’s sprawled out beside you, one arm draped along the back of the couch, the other resting on his chest as he listens to your laughter.

“Look at this,” you say, grinning as you hold your phone up to him. “Who even comes up with these memes?”

Leona leans in, his sharp eyes skimming the screen before letting out a low, amused snort. “Idiots, clearly,” he says, but there’s a faint curve to his lips that gives him away.

Your laughter rings out again, light and unrestrained, and Leona watches you. Watches the way your eyes crinkle at the corners, the way you throw your head back, carefree and radiant.

It hits him all at once.

He can’t lose this again. Can’t lose you again.

The thought burns in his chest, threatening to choke him, until he blurts out: “Be mine again.”

Your laughter fades as you turn to him, surprised. “What?”

He sits up, his gaze steady but his ears twitching slightly. “I’m serious,” he says, voice low but firm. “I messed it up before, but I’m not gonna do that again. You’ve always been it for me. So… be mine. For real this time.”

For a moment, you’re silent, your heart pounding so loudly you’re sure he can hear it. His expression is raw, his usual confidence stripped away to reveal something vulnerable and achingly sincere.

You nod, your voice soft but sure. “Okay. Yes.”

The tension in his shoulders melts as relief washes over him. A slow, almost disbelieving smile spreads across his face, and he reaches for you, pulling you into his arms.

“‘Bout time,” he mutters, but there’s no bite in his tone. Just a quiet, overwhelming joy that he doesn’t bother hiding.

You laugh, your face pressed against his chest. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” he says, resting his chin on top of your head. “But you said yes, so who’s the real fool here?”

You smack his arm lightly, but your grin betrays you. As his arms tighten around you, you can’t help but think that this—this warmth, this love—is exactly where you’re meant to be.

The familiar sound of your shared front door closing behind you feels like the exhale of a long day. You kick off your shoes, dropping your bag onto the entryway table, and glance back to see Leona loosening his tie with a tired smirk.

“Finally home,” he mutters, stepping over to pull you into a soft, lingering kiss.

You smile against his lips. “Long day?”

“Always,” he replies, pressing a quick kiss to your temple. “Go shower. I’ll figure out dinner.”

“You spoil me,” you tease, heading toward the bathroom.

His chuckle follows you down the hall. “Damn right I do.”

By the time you emerge, refreshed and in comfier clothes, the scent of takeout wafts through the house. You find Leona at the dining table, the food already unpacked and his shirt sleeves rolled up. He looks up as you sit down and slides your favorite dish toward you without a word, but the small grin on his face says it all.

“So, how was your day?” you ask, taking a bite.

He leans back in his chair, his gaze softening as he recounts his work. “Not bad. Ruggie’s really stepping up these days—caught something even I missed during a proposal meeting. I’ve gotta admit, the guy’s making himself indispensable.”

You laugh. “Ruggie’s always been sharp. I’m sure he’s just waiting for the right moment to ask for a raise.”

Leona snorts. “He’s already hinting at it. Not subtle at all.”

“And what about you?” he asks, watching you with quiet interest.

You shrug, grinning. “Same old. Meetings, deadlines, and trying to convince my coworker that microwaving fish in the breakroom is a crime against humanity.”

He raises a brow. “Still working with amateurs, huh?”

“Always.”

The conversation meanders to weekend plans, and you both agree to invite your friends out for dinner. You bring up Riddle’s work stress, Vil’s latest award, and Trey’s new dessert line, while Leona adds in snippets about Ruggie and Jack, his voice tinged with fondness he doesn’t bother to hide anymore.

Later, as the night stretches on, the two of you settle into bed. The familiar warmth of his arm around your waist pulls you closer, his head resting against yours.

You sigh, content. “Coming back here, to you, was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then his lips brush against your hair. “Thanks for choosing me. Again.”

You tilt your head to meet his gaze, brushing your fingers against his jaw. “There was no other choice. Nobody ever compares.”

His lips curve into that cocky smirk you know so well, but his eyes are soft, filled with a depth of affection that steals your breath. “Tch. Sappy as ever, huh?”

“You love it,” you retort, rolling your eyes.

“Damn right I do,” he mutters, and then his smirk fades as he cups your face and kisses you like it’s the only thing that matters in the world.

By the time you both pull away, breathless and tangled in each other’s warmth, he holds you close, murmuring softly, “We’re doing this right this time. No mistakes.”

You nod, resting your head against his chest as his heartbeat lulls you to sleep. “No mistakes.”

Masterlist

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twisted wonderland #leona kingscholar x reader #leona x reader #leona kingscholar x you #leona kingscholar #leona #twst leona

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idekkkjja · 1 month ago

Note

wholesome ig live with aeri and reader with cooper!!(inspried by her live today!)

Third-wheeler ⋆˚🐾˖°

₊˚⊹ 𐂯 Separated by the confining of your dorms, you had enough, hopeless for her affection to become physical. So you decided to annoy her on live instead! Oh, and Cooper needily nestling between, chewing restlessly on a numb dog bone.

Heads-up: no warnings here at all really, just a fluff drabble I made up quickly in my brain, and the the tiktoks I saw of her live!! But there is light suggestive things involved, but other than that, this is just pure fluff. A bit rushed sorry!!

、、Under the warm glow of the room, Giselle was drowning in her boredom, everything to do was accessible in her messy room. Including an animal, her beloved sassy dog, Cooper who played around with a small disregard ball on the carpet.

He was her son practically.

Although, she couldn’t be asked to deal with the dog today, cuddling against him was enough and scrolling mindlessly on Instagram.

Instagram.

Cartoonishly, it was as if a light bulb appeared on top of her head when an idea struck her. Maybe a light-hearted Instagram live to interact with her fans and show her dog would be the cure!

Hastily, setting up her phone to fit her on the frame, she started the live and thousands flooded in.

Comments piling up, shoving against each other to get noticed first when Giselle examined closely.

“Hi guys, do you miss my baby?” She held the dog idly in her arms, showing how he had grown so much during the years since a vulnerable puppy.

A giggle bubbled up in her throat, laughing as she covered her mouth seeing the contrast of the comments to the tender, slow moment.

Now whilst the dog sat obediently on her lap—relaxing presumingly yapped on about her day and how boring it was, appealing to the idea of how her fans always manage a way to be her entertainment instead of the way it should be.

Humorously cracking up small jokes, though she laughed at them making her look like a schizophrenic; this live was a physical embodiment of the exact scenarios she acted out on late school nights.

Later on, a comment caught her keen eyes.

gisellefangirl26282829: is cooper sleeping?

showmeurflowers: COME TO BRASIL 🇧🇷

karinakarin: girl show us a room tour

user69686969728: BLINK IF SM IS HOLDING U HOSTAGE

ynoverhere: I miss u

gigicutie: WHYS Y/N HERE OMG

blabakabasjaka: WHATS FOING ON

An inevitable smile itched upon her face, she smirked, amused by your clinginess despite you two being a room away.

“I miss you,” she repeated your comment quietly under her breath, hiding the pinkish color heating on her cheeks.

Failing miserably at acting nonchalant, she held her breath when she saw even more comments scrolling bombarding now with confused and startled questions, though she had to act uninterested since she was on camera after all.

At times, Giselle did want to reveal the true, raw side of her soul to the fans who love her so much. To see if they truly do or not, or just love the image they have of her in their head.

Like how much she loves you, she wanted the whole world to know that.

The only ‘person’ who knows about your and her true relationship is Cooper, unfortunate enough to witness in real time how plans you and her innocently co-parenting into something else entirely.

And from that day on, the grumpy dog knew he was going to be a third-wheeler to you two.

Again, she watched the screen, amused by the panicking fans, and was unable to hide a snarky snort from that.

Ning2is2b: they aren’t even trying to hide it atp…

Bitchstfueh: 🏳️‍🌈❓

Aespaisbetterthanu: let’s act surprised

RAAAAAHEHSJJS: GIRL WHAT THE HELL

Hejheheehedoglover7292: I wanna eat cooper ngl

ynoverhere: mommy wyd

BAMBOOZLED, her eyes shot wide open to the point it was bulging out of her eye sockets, gasping in unison with Cooper; as if he knew how to read too.

“Y/n,” she finally said, her voice tinged with nervous laughter that echoed softly in the air. Breathless and a bit flustered, she turned away from the phone once more, her nervous gaze filled with warmth side eyed Cooper’s who was oblivious within the context.

He barked at her instead, snapping her out of her haze, and immediately composed herself to that idol persona she forced herself to have.

Catsarebetter23: somebody save Cooper rq

homophone_yh: YALL WHAT AM I WITNESSING RN??

asspalosers28: FUCK AESPA

Replying to asspaloser28, aespa4lifers: girl i wish

fajdlpxixos8282929: img…

ynoverhere: mammy

ynoverhere: mommy wyd

Safe to say, Giselle’s face was dangerously beet red now. Look at you, putting out your and hers business like that so easily.

Cooper was too unfazed though, not caring if his owner would pass out of a heat stroke.

Enough time passed now, and you were mindlessly commenting straight unfiltered, and she had enough of trying to keep her composure about this.

Calling her mommy in front of thousands and thousands of viewers? So unclassy!

“Well, Cooper’s a bit grumpy now… see you guys, bye-bye!” Wrapping up the Instagram live, she switched tabs ‘straight’ to yours and messaged you frantically.

Come over now. - Giselle

Surprisingly so, in conclusion, you listened and ended up cuddling her under the warm blankets with Cooper wrapped amidst the tangle of your arms like you’re both of his mothers.

Well, technically you two are.

#aespa #kpop x female reader #wlw #yuri #fluff #aespa fluff #kpop #girlgroup #lesbian #giselle x fem reader #aespa x fem reader #giselle #aespa giselle #idekkkjja

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levisjinchuriki · 4 months ago

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midnight - satoru gojo

summary: gojo's new year's resolution is to tell you how he feels, but people keep stealing you away before he gets a chance

warning: fluff, friends to lovers trope, gojo pining after you, a bit of a power dynamic, small amount of angst, kissing

gojo stands near the edge of the room, one hand gripping a glass of something amber and strong, though it’s been forgotten. his other hand rests in pocket, fingers twitching with restless energy. he’s satoru gojo—jujutsu high’s golden boy, the strongest sorcerer, the life of the party…and yet, tonight, he’s anything but.

his sharp blue eyes, usually so carefree and confident, are laser-focused on you standing across the room, leaning into a conversation with a group of his friends.

you’ve always had this intense power over him, even when you weren’t trying. it’s in the way you move— completely unaware of how effortlessly you draw people in. it’s in the way you smile, disarming and genuine, making everyone in your orbit feel like they’re the only person who matters.

but for gojo, it’s your eyes that get him the most. the way you look at him commands his full attention, every time. you see him, really see him, in a way no one else does. and it makes everything else fade away.

you’ve caught him staring more than once tonight. each time, he sees that same knowing look in your eye, your lips quirking into a subtle smile that feels like a challenge. like you’re daring him to do something about the way he looks at you.

his grip tightens around the glass. gojo takes a shaky breath, trying to steady himself, but it’s no use. he’s starting to lose his mind.

you’ve been stolen away from him at least five times tonight. first, it was yuji, grinning ear to ear as he swept you into an animated conversation. then geto had pulled you aside, his smooth charm keeping your attention longer than gojo liked. now, you’re surrounded by a group of people whose names gojo didn’t even bother to catch, their laughter mingling with yours in a way that makes his stomach twist in jealousy.

it’s maddening.

every time he musters up the courage to approach you, someone else beats him to it, pulling you away just before he can do the one thing he’s been too terrified to risk for years. every missed opportunity gnaws at him, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth that even his drink can’t wash away.

because satoru gojo is in love with you.

he always has been. from the moment you first smiled at him with that effortless warmth, he was all in. but fear—sharp, unfamiliar, and relentless—has kept him silent. the thought of losing you, of ruining the bond you’ve shared for years, has held him back, no matter how much it’s tortured him to watch you be with other people.

it ached to see you cry on his shoulder over an ex who didn’t deserve you. it hurt even more to hear himself giving you advice he wished he could follow—advice he wished he could prove to you himself. but through it all, he stayed the supportive best friend, locking his feelings away and pretending that watching you love someone else didn’t shatter him every time.

but tonight, gojo feels different. maybe it’s the champagne fizzing in his veins, making everything feel a little lighter. maybe it’s the delusional bravery that comes with every new year, the promise of new beginnings and the freedom to act on desires that have been bubbling under the surface. or maybe it’s the way you keep looking at him like that—like you’re waiting. like you already know.

his chest tightens as he lifts the glass to his lips, downing the drink in one long, burning swallow. he grimaces, but the rush of liquid courage steadies him momentarily.

enough is enough.

glass abandoned on a nearby table, gojo straightens, his towering frame cutting through the crowd with ease as he makes his way toward you. his pulse is pounding, his nerves are screaming, but his eyes stay locked on you, unwilling to let anyone else take you away this time.

“can i steal her for a sec?” gojo interrupts smoothly as he approaches the group. his tone is casual, but there’s an edge to it—a subtle claim that leaves no room for argument. his towering frame and commanding presence seal the deal as his hand presses against your back, guiding you away without giving the others a chance to respond.

you let him lead you, a soft smile tugging at your lips as you glance up at him. he feels the warmth of your gaze, the way it lingers, and it does little to calm the pounding of his pulse.

“finally decided to come out of your corner, gojo?” you tease, your voice low and laced with amusement.

“i wasn’t in a corner” he lies. your raised brow and knowing grin let him know you’re not buying it for a second.

“right. and i wasn’t waiting all night for you to talk to me” you counter smoothly, the challenge in your tone making his stomach flip. the glint in your eye—mischievous and just a little smug—nearly crumbles him. he stammers for a moment, trying to form a response, but nothing coherent comes out.

“you’ve been avoiding me” your voice drops in volume as you step closer. the intimacy of the gesture steals the air from his lungs.

“i haven’t—”

“you have” your voice is firm, but still laced with that teasing edge that drives him insane. “you’ve been staring at me all night like you want something, and yet, here i am, talking to everyone but you”.

gojo swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry. you’ve cornered him effortlessly, your words peeling away every excuse he might have used to deflect. the way your eyes hold his makes it impossible to look away.

you’ve been watching him just as closely as he’s been watching you, dissecting every glance, every subtle shift in his posture. you’ve caught him staring more times than you can count, and each time, the slight tilt of your head and that knowing look in your eye made it clear: you know.

you know exactly how much power you have over him.

and you’re enjoying it.

it’s infuriating, the way you have him so completely wrapped around your finger without even trying. but it’s also exhilarating. he’s satoru gojo—untouchable, powerful, confident. no one has ever left him flustered, never made him second-guess himself. but somehow, you’ve brought him to his knees without even trying.

“ten... nine...eight…” the crowd begins the countdown, but he barely hears it, drowned out by the pounding of his heart. now, as he stands before you, the room buzzing with energy and the countdown ticking dangerously close to zero, he knows he can’t wait any longer. the way you’re looking at him— like you’ve been waiting for him to finally catch up—sends a thrill racing through his veins. it’s the curve of your lips—that faint, maddeningly confident smile—that has him completely at your mercy.

there’s no time like the present. either he steps forward and starts the new year without regrets, or he lets the moment slip away and risks losing the person most special to him forever.

“three... two...”

he doesn’t wait for “one”.

without another second of hesitation, gojo pulls you closer, one hand wrapped around your waist and the other cradling your face as though you’re something fragile and precious. his thumb brushes gently against your cheek as he leans in.

the kiss is everything he’s ever dreamed of and more—sweet, passionate, and filled with longing after years spent second-guessing and holding back. it’s not just a kiss; it’s an apology, a confession, a promise all wrapped into one moment.

your arms slide up instinctively, fingers threading into his undercut, pulling him impossibly closer. the gesture is possessive, grounding, and when you kiss him back with equal fervor, satoru knows he’s a goner.

you’re everything he’s ever wanted but was too scared to ruin. and now, with the taste of your lips on his, satoru is sure he’s addicted. he feels relieved, euphoric, and he wonders how he’s managed without this for so long.

when gojo finally pulls back, your foreheads rest against each other. you’re both breathless, chests rising and falling in unison.

“took you long enough” you tease, your voice brimming with warmth. your thumb lightly grazes his bottom lip.

for all his usual confidence, there’s a vulnerability in the way he looks at you now. his normally playful eyes are earnest, his gaze searching yours as if afraid this moment might vanish, like a dream slipping through his fingers.

“yeah, well… i like to keep you on your toes” satoru quips with familiar cockiness.

the smirk on your lips a reminder of the truth: he’s in your hands. you’ve always been the one in control. but tonight, you let him have this moment, let him play at being the one holding the reins.

you hum, the sound low and pleased. the way you’re looking at him—with affection, amusement, and something he doesn’t dare name—has his heart racing. for a second, he wonders if his knees might give out entirely.

“happy new year, gojo” you say. your fingers brush the nape of his neck.

“happy new year” he murmurs back, eyes fixed on yours as if he’s afraid to miss a single second of this.

then, before anyone can pull you away again, before the world outside this moment can intrude, he leans in, stealing another kiss. it’s slower this time, less hurried, but no less consuming. the intensity builds, unspoken feelings spilling over with every shared breath, every gentle press of his lips against yours.

it’s just him, you, and the undeniable connection you can no longer ignore.

when you finally part, both of you breathless, he lingers close, hand cradling your cheeks. there’s a softness in his gaze now, a vulnerability that’s rare for him, but is entirely genuine.

as the sound of cheers and laughter signals it’s time to celebrate with everyone, gojo laces his fingers with yours before leading you back toward the others. his grip is firm but gentle. he doesn’t let go, not even when you’re surrounded by the lively crowd.

instead, he gives your hand a squeeze, his thumb brushing against your knuckles.

he’s determined—no one is going to steal you away again.

not tonight. not ever.

a/n: happy new year, everyone. this is my first fic of 2025!! one of my resolutions is to write more. please send some requests my way!! <3

creds: found on pinterest so i’m not sure who the creator is!

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silence-ofthe-llamas · 4 months ago

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More TexAid Mecha AU-AU stuff!

No warnings for once - Vortex doesn't get to mangle anyone. Poor boy...

Also the Combaticon playlist is here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3pyBRAuoKYDEpAFaTm9j5j?si=bf63cc6e018d4ab9 It's very nostalgic to me so it was fun to make!

He got what he wanted. He thought. That’s what he was telling himself, at least – he got Vortex to stop fucking killing people.

The pilots uniform sat awkwardly on him. He didn’t have the muscle the other pilots did, the bulk to their frame that made it sit handsomely on them. He’d always been described as a twig of a boy growing up, and he didn’t fill out much as he grew into his skeleton. Stood in front of the mirror, he missed his medics uniform. It really didn’t suit him.

The back of his head hurt. The surgery had been quick – he had a suspicion Pharma didn’t use as much anaesthetic as he should have, he felt every movement of the scalpel, every connection of the nerves. He tried hard to ignore it and not inspect the swollen, angry flesh with his bare hands.

Spiteful bastard. He hadn’t spoken to him since he’d thrust his transfer documentation into his hands. His lips had been pressed tightly together, locking in the words he was desperate to say. First Aid thought it might have had something to do with the fact that Fortress Maximus was right behind him.

The other pilots treated him like a pariah. First Aid supposed that he was – the mech he piloted was reported to be haunted. The aftermath was graphic. He had been tasked with cleaning it, and now he was the next sacrificial lamb. There was no point in breaking bread with him – he’d be a dead man soon enough. Every time he stepped out whole was pure luck – he didn’t have the training, there was no skill involved. It was only a matter of time until the hourglass ran out and he’d be scrubbed from the cracks with a toothbrush like everyone else was.

Lunch was a lonely affair. Dinner was even lonelier. He ate breakfast in his room on his own – a benefit of being a pilot was having your own room, but he wished more than anything that he had a roommate. Someone who would be forced to talk to him, to take the edge off the loneliness.

The only social interaction he had was Vortex, and even that was limited. Nobody liked for anyone to get too close to him unnecessarily, First Aid included – but for fucks sake it was his mech, who were they to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to go near it?

The exception to the apathy was Perceptor. Every time he saw him, the man was studying him from afar like he were an animal at a safari. The confrontation would come soon enough – he had been the only one to notice that he was there that day he’d stolen the uniform. He must have known what he’d done, put the pieces together with ease. It wasn’t hard – he’d caught the medic red handed in the pilots quarters, and then not long after he’d mysteriously been in possession of a pilots suit and had been dragged by the cuff out of Vortex upon return to the Shatterdome. Honestly, it was childs play.

Dinner that evening played out as usual. First Aid sat down as far away as he could from everyone else, and not long after the other occupants of the table started to leave like he was diseased. He poked at his dinner – apparently, pilots received meals that were far more varied and clearly had a bigger budget than the ones served in the medics quarters did, but still pretty dire and bland – and wondered what he’d read that evening. His legs still hurt from training, and as his implants were still healing he wasn’t allowed to get back into his mech yet, so he’d had to ignore the sirens – his name was still popping up on the board of pilots being summoned, and he could see an aura of rage simmering around Vortex every time. He’d made a point to look apologetic at the cameras and vaguely gesture to the back of his head – connecting now would fry him to the point where they’d never connect again. There wouldn’t be enough time in the drop for him to show him everything he wanted to – Vortex would run out of fuel and he’d die of dehydration before they got to the point of being satisfied. He would have to be patient.

A tray clattered down opposite him. First Aid flinched, and looked up in surprise.

Perceptor.

He subtly glanced around them – nobody was paying them any attention. They were in their own bubble of privacy in the crowd, their words obscured by passing conversations.

“Felix Anwyl, correct?”

“Uhm. Yes? Can I help you? Do you require medical assistance?” He grimaced as his training kicked in – the wrong training. He wasn’t allowed to be a medic any more. Pharma had been extremely clear about that.

“I didn’t think you functioned as a medic.” Perceptor sat down opposite him, neatly folding his hands down on top of the table.

“Force of habit.”

“I see.” His eyes were intense, and First Aid felt like a mouse under the gaze of a hawk. Suddenly, he realised why he was the only ultra-long distance pilot.

“I was a big fan of you as a kid. Collected all the trading cards and stuff.”

Perceptor ignored him. “I was curious about what kind of person you were. Sneaking into the pilots quarters, stealing a suit just to get into a mech. At first I thought you were just some gullible young fool who fancied themselves a hero, that you’d bought into the idea of piloting being some glamorous lifestyle, but that’s not quite it, is it?”

“He was killing them.” First Aid quietly replied. He wanted to look away from the eyes that were looking straight through him, but he couldn’t. “He’d made it clear what he wanted, but nobody would listen – I couldn’t stand any more people dying. Just because they’re cadets, doesn’t make it okay to sacrifice them like that.”

“He?”

“Vortex.”

“You’re talking as if it’s actually alive.”

“Haven’t you heard the rumours?” First Aid quirked a brow. “That he’s haunted?”

“Ghosts don’t exist.”

“You’re not very fun.” First Aid poked at his mashed potato. “Fine. Call it the Tamagotchi effect then, or anthropomorphism. I’m not a trained pilot, it’s different for me.”

“Your colleagues aren’t either, but none of them refer to Vortex as a ‘he’.”

“They’re terrified of… them.”

“And you’re not?”

He was, but not for the same reasons. “Not really.” It was like asking him if he was afraid of his reflection.

Perceptor hummed. He turned to his own dinner – he neatly chopped up his sausage with the blunt knives they’d been provided with and chewed carefully. First Aid felt himself fall into a sense of security, thinking it was over, and took a spoonful of his mashed potato.

“How did you learn to pilot, then?” He suddenly asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you’re not a trained pilot, and I know just by looking that you’re telling the truth. You’re a medic. Your clothes still smell of disinfectant and bleach. But the way your mech moves… That’s a fully trained veteran.”

“The AI kind of just… handles it all.” First Aid hoped his expression wasn’t too awful, he felt his face twitching. “I guess with how many pilots he’s had, he’s had plenty of time to memorise it all.”

“I suppose so.”

Perceptor didn’t ask about it again. He pulled out a paper to read, and First Aid had made the mistake of asking him a question about it in attempt to be polite. Thirty minutes later and he was still talking – the words had stopped making sense twenty-five ago.

One lunch time, he’d had enough of the solitary lifestyle he was being forced to lead and the lack of things to do with his hands since Pharma still hadn’t let him back into the medical bay and the brass had caught him running a clinic from his quarters. He grabbed his portion – it looked like it was some kind of soup today – the accompanying bread roll and fruit pot, filled his flask with coffee and marched down the catwalk, sitting himself directly in front of Vortex before popping the lid off and inspecting what the canteen had served that day. It was bright red. Obnoxiously so. He paused and checked the label again.

Yup. That sure was food, alright. Beetroot, beef, pork, assorted vegetables. The good stuff.

… He didn’t know beetroot could get that red.

Vortex’s cockpit popped open with a hiss. First Aid secured the lid back on and hopped on inside.

[WHAT DID YOU GET TODAY?] He asked. For a man without a mouth, he was always curious about what was for lunch.

“I have no idea what it is, but it is bright red.” First Aid replied, sitting down in the pilots seat and popping the lid back off again. He felt Vortex tremble as the cameras zoomed in on it.

[YOU’RE FLIRTING WITH ME NOW <3]

“You know what this is?” First Aid offered it to the camera. “It’s warm.”

[BORSCHT. YOU DON’T KNOW IT? PILOTS GET IT ALL THE TIME.]

“Medics don’t get fed so well.” First Aid made himself comfortable and took a curious sip. “Oh. That’s something.” He pulled a face.

[NOT TO YOUR TASTES?]

“I hate beetroot.” First Aid stuck his tongue out. He poked a lone piece of pork with his spoon. “It infects everything it touches with mud.”

[CHILD.]

“I would say you eat it then, but…”

The helmet loudly dropped, smacking him in the head. First Aid yelped, narrowing his eyes at the camera pointed at him. “Pot calling the kettle black much?”

[I CAN TASTE THROUGH YOU, YOU KNOW. PUT IT ON.]

The connection at the back of his head was mostly healed. It was safe, they could connect without any issues as of his check-up that morning - but he still hesitated. The marks on his arms felt hot.

[WHY THE HESITATION?]

[DON’T YOU WANT ME?]

“I don’t want to get into trouble again. Pilots aren’t meant to connect outside of combat.”

They’d been very clear to him on that. He’d been labelled a risk, a liability - he was abnormally attached to his mech. Swindle was starting to look at him funny - and if Swindle was noticing…

[PUSSY. I JUST WANT YOUR TONGUE. FINE, HOW ABOUT THIS.] The helmet disappeared up and another panel popped open. The service connection - engineers could connect using similar technology on tablets to diagnose issues with the mech faster. This was much more acceptable. [YOU WERE BITCHING ABOUT THAT PANEL IN MY FOOT. WANNA CHECK THEY DID THEIR JOB?]

“You’re so clever.” First Aid praised him. He hopped over with his soup, sitting against the wall as he let Vortex plug himself in. He had braced himself for pain and a jolt, the cleaving of his awareness in two, but it felt smooth as butter. A brush of fingers along the nape of his neck, the pressure of someone leaning on his shoulders and resting their chin on his head.

Vortex.

… That damn panel still wasn’t right.

“Borscht?” Vortex reminded him. He sounded more like a man than a machine now.

Obediently, he took another sip. He felt Vortex tremble as a memory pushed against his awareness, just out of reach - a vague sense of it ran through his fingers. A wooden table, dried sunflowers in a repurposed jug decorated in bright designs, hands that were clean and unmarked by years of self-inflicted hardship.

“Damn, that’s the good shit.”

First Aid had finished the whole bowl before he realised it, riding the wave of Vortex’s reaction. He hiccuped, firmly putting the lid back over the bowl.

“I still don’t get how you like that.”

“More for me. I suppose I have a more refined palette.”

“Didn’t you smoke? You probably couldn’t taste anything.”

“Heh. Excuses excuses~ You sound jealous.”

First Aid pouted. “Do not.”

“Do too. Come on, don’t be shy, I like it when you get a jealous streak.”

“When have I ever been jealous over you!” First Aid squeaked in embarrassment. Vortex rumbled, memories pushed against him - his face twisted in a shape he didn’t recognise when other people were cleaning him, other people were inside and scrubbing. He felt his cheeks warm.

“I was only jealous that they got to go near you.” He couldn’t look at him, he couldn’t look at the cameras that were all trained on him. “That was when I wasn’t allowed - remember? Because you kidnapped me.”

“Kidnap is a strong word. I prefer borrowed for a moment.”

“Thank you for not killing me that day.”

“You’re welcome? I guess?”

“Forgive me - you’re dubbed the blender for a reason.” He popped the lid of his coffee and took a big gulp – it had already started to go cold. It was vaguely lukewarm in a way that made him feel queasy, but he needed the caffeine.

“Black?”

“Americano, yeah.”

“I thought you’d have the sugary shit.”

“I saw what some of the other pilots were putting into their coffee and it scared me off of it, honestly.” He shuddered. “Did you know you can fit thirty three creamer pots into a pilots standard issue water bottle? I didn’t until I saw someone do it.”

“… That’s disgusting. Coffee flavoured cream at that point – just drink it from the carton. Doesn’t the shop here sell flavoured milk?”

“They had flavour syrup in there too.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

“Fucking hell.”

Swindle had this godawful idea of pilot interviews. The media were interested, and once the investors had caught wind of that their ears had perked up. Swindle saw coins falling from the sky, and had promptly agreed and cleared his diary. Making them seem more human brought in much more attention, and with attention came money and government contracts and more boots on the ground. It also brought in his favourite thing in the world; unpaid interns. The prestige would be enough of an incentive.

And so First Aid found himself with a docket shoved into his grease-stained hands as he worked on clearing out random debris from Vortex’s right knee – the mechanics were still afraid of him, and First Aid had an idea of what it was supposed to look like in there from when he’d been tasked with extracting a pilots thoracic vertebrae (T4 through to T6 only – he wasn’t sure how they’d even gotten there and he had never asked. The rest of her spine had gone missing), he was doing their job for them. Vortex was doing a stellar job of subtly shifting his plating out of the way to give First Aid better access – it was enough debris that it was pissing him off too.

“What’s this?” First Aid asked, putting it down on the table next to him before reaching back into the joint. He could see something in there, hard and transparent and vaguely blue. It was quintesson hard tissue – he’d have to call the hazard team in. What a pain. He gestured for his visitor to take a step back before reaching in and trying to get a good grip on it so he could tug it free.

No dice. He sighed, knowing he’d need to give Vortex some clear instructions on what he needed but not able to do it with an audience - he had left a walkie talkie up in the cockpit for him, but he knew damn well that it would cause a scene if he started nattering away into it.

So they got his attention instead. They were waiting with impatience thinly veiled with a smile and too-wide eyes. Someone from human resources, maybe? Media? Public relations? He didn’t know. They wouldn’t be hanging around long enough for it to really matter.

“It’s some papers for you to sign. For the interviews. So, you’re not on the interview list, but we did want to get some footage of you with your mech. Is that alright?”

First Aid looked up at Vortex as if expecting him to say something. He blinked at him before he realised he wouldn’t be saying a single whisper, and quickly looked back at them.

“I’m not getting interviewed?”

“Instructions from the big brass!”

“Right.” He wiped his hands down on a dirty rag and shoved it into his belt. “Sure. Fine, I guess. I’m just going to be digging around in his joints – he’s got some quintesson guts in there, so I’ll need hazard around. Is this going on TV? It will give a good show at least, right?”

Their eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s perfect.”

The cameras were obnoxious. The people behind them were worse.

Could you do that again? Can we get this person to do it? Turn your face this way, have your hair like that, take your jacket off, can you try it with your jacket on again but your feet like this?

Real fucking irritating. First Aid wanted them to just get lost. The hard tissue was still in there. Vortex was starting to get annoyed, and nobody wanted to find out how far he was willing to go for some peace and quiet. He’d called the hazard team well before the camera crew had arrived – and they still weren’t there. He could hear the creak in Vortex’s joints, the faint rumbling and vibrations of his systems gearing up, the tremors of plating desperate to move.

Solace came with Swindle, the cavalry marching in behind him. The hazard team. Finally. First Aid quickly scuttled up into the cockpit with a walkie-talkie in hand to play pretend at moving the mech so they could extract the hazardous tissue, covering his eyes to block out the obnoxiously bright flash of their cameras, and wondered if they’d keep his footage in. His parents would worry.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had a twink writhing.

If he still had a body, he’d be doing awful things to that man. His screams would be perfect, so loud and like music to his ears. And he knew that First Aid would have been thanking him, begging him for more through his tears the whole time. It was such a shame that the human body was so fragile. All he wanted was to be able to take him apart and put him back together after he was done so he could do it again. Over and over, until he was nothing more than a husk of a man.

And he would still be thanking him.

If god were real, he must have been smiling down at him for such a gift. If he were capable of love, he thinks that what it might be.

The tragedy was that he was being punished by finding First Aid too late. They should have been two ships passing at sea - Vortex knew that if anyone gained a single inkling of what First Aid was into when they should have, they’d have thrust him into the system to get lost and fade away into obscurity. A footnote on the family tree. That uncle that vanished as a child. Or maybe they’d pretend that he’d never have existed at all. But no, Felix had glided by unassumingly, his good nature and kind face a front, a shield against what was straining against the surface, shining through the cracks and splitting his skin.

Oh, what a joy it was to have him there with him. What fun it had been to watch him, to study him. The moment he’d seen First Aid chew his bottom lip, core temperature rising as he stared at the disembowelled remains of the first pilot he’d been tasked to excavate from him, he knew he had to have him.

He also knew this should have been working him up. He should have been whipped into a frenzy, unable to contain himself - but lacking any appropriate organ to produce any of the hormonal response that pushed him over the edge, Vortex was left feeling vaguely hollow and empty.

It really, really pissed him off.

Why had they kept him alive if they were just going to waste him like this? It was torture. It was the worst thing he could ever think of.

And it was, annoyingly, the perfect punishment. He’d begrudgingly give those researchers that – they’d achieved their goals on that front. Creative ways to stretch out death row, Vortex had called it at the time. If you asked him now, he’d say that they just gave him a bigger body to create a wonderful slaughter with, but the anger at the situation would be simmering beneath the surface. It was fun popping someone like a grape, but he couldn’t hear their breath whistling out from what remained of their thorax any more.

All he could do all day in between waiting for fights and splitting alien life forms in half with his bare hands was nose around at the cameras and browse the internet.

For such a high security base, their internet security was pathetic. A couple days of poking around at it and he’d been in, briefly toying with the idea of taking down the base and watching them scramble around like the ants they were, before instead heading over to YouTube and seeing if there was anything worth catching up on.

The news announcements about him and his teams deaths had been amusing. Very, very amusing.

But today, he settled on the cameras. He had fun games he’d made to entertain himself with, creating false stories and dramas – he’d spent a lot of time whilst he was still alive figuring out peoples brains, what made them tick, how to get them to tell you exactly what you wanted without them noticing they were even doing it, so he considered his fantasies to be gospel – and looking for people.

He’d always hunted down First Aid. The man had just the cutest face, and he wanted to see how many different expressions he could make. The bad ones, the good ones, the really good ones – god above, especially the really good ones – everything. It was a fun game to catalogue them all, to guess what had been said or done to him to make him look like that. Thinking of ways to replicate it. He wanted him to look at him like that. He wanted him to just look at him.

It had only been a few weeks and already First Aid was as obsessed with him as he was. Mutual obsession was always the best. Matching the energy was so much more fun than watching them tremble and cry knowing they’d just make the bad kind of fucking mess.

The man was excitedly asking Vortex if he’d seen that, preening at something he’d done on the field, eyes sparkling and wide. Looking at him, you’d have been forgiven for thinking he was talking about seeing something as marvellous as a pod of whales arching out of the water instead of the pristine harvest of an alien organ that he was actually talking about. If he were a dog, his tail would be wagging hard enough to sprain.

God, he wanted to make him his.

He wouldn’t share. He couldn’t. He’d never been any good at it.

First Aid even came to eat lunch with him. Vortex had called him ‘some kind of loser’ the third time he’d done it, and First Aid had looked like such a kicked puppy he’d never done it again.

He’d thought about it, but he wouldn’t. He’d promised, and his little man had made it clear how highly he valued promises. It wouldn’t do to upset him, he’d grown rather attached.

And having something to do that involved someone else for once wasn’t actually half bad.

Being interred into a mech was a strangely lonely existence. His snippets of social interaction had come in the form of the human sacrifices they’d offered up to him, cocky and overzealous and never recognising that they were sat in his jaws and ready to be consumed. He would never ever admit it, but having First Aid there to actually speak to was… nice. It was a break from the monotony of pushing IT’s buttons and seeing how ruffled he could get the brass to be in just a single sentence.

He hated being forced to stay still. He’d had practice at it, sure - their line of work didn’t come without its fair share of hazards and they were no strangers to bed rest. Fuck, the longest he’d had to entertain himself was when he’d been on the bad end of a grenade - Brawl had tugged him out of the wreckage missing a healthy chunk of his face, blood pulsing down in a fiery heat he didn’t soon forget. His poor handsome looks had been destroyed in an instant - at least the nurses had been nice to him. If it was because they were scared of him or if it was because Swindle was paying them handsomely he didn’t know and he didn’t particularly care - it had the same result. Endless telenovelas in a language he didn’t understand, with a TV he wasn’t able to adjust. He woke up to the opening jingles, and he fell asleep to the ending songs.

He took having to find his own entertainment over that. At least he could set the language.

And today’s entertainment: watching Swindle.

It was weird watching him from cameras. Usually it was the other way around - Swindle would work his way up into their security rooms and then watch the rest of them from the cameras, guiding them around and warning them of any danger. Instead, he was a silent witness, watching his every move. He was on his phone, nattering away into it as he walked with his coffee. A fun game Vortex liked to play was voicing over him - the cameras didn’t come with any audio, so he was left to fill the blanks.

He paused when he saw his mouth clearly form the word ‘Felix’.

Huh. What did Swindle have to say about him? Good things, Vortex hoped. They were more alike than Swindle ever liked to admit - surely he had to see the beauty in First Aid too. But actually - he hoped he didn’t. First Aid was his. He found him, he had done all the hard work. Felix wasn’t someone he was going to share. He’d do what it took to keep him forever.

#tf mecha universe #llama writes #texaid #tf vortex #tf first aid #maccadam #transformers #There's just a few chunks of setup stuff in here lol

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everythingisamazing · 14 days ago

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I really feel like we, as jayvik shippers, need to talk about this shot more:

Like, I have seen it mentioned here and there, but I actually think it's one of the most glaringly obvious hints (its not even a hint tbh) that what is going on between Jayce and Viktor is undeniably framed as romantic. As it was stated by one of the animators: Every detail in animation is intentional. This shot was chosen and it was chosen for a reason.

First of: The timing. This happens after Viktor leaves Jayce. We all know the scene - it often gets (jokingly) called the breakup scene, leading up the "divorce era". So what do we typically see in movies or whatever media after the big breakup? What's the cliche? We see the protagonist, reminiscing and yearning for what has been lost. Often in a montage. Overlaid with some music. Well, it's exactly what we get with Jayce. And while we hear Heimerdingers song in the background going "Go and make some mistakes. You live and you learn", we see Jayce sitting in the rain looking at those two very much male looking figures looking like they are leaning in for a kiss. If that's not enough, I will add more: Jayces scenes are altering with Ekkos in the AU, where he developes his romantic relationship with Jinx. Arcane in general relies heavily on parallels to tell the parts of the story that are not directly shown on screen. And they will very often do it in this manner, were they cut back and forth between scenes, that are thematically relevant to eachother. I will let you decide for yourself, what the thematic relevance could be. Also, speaking of heartbreak - I actually could not remember this shot from watching the show, so I always believed it was edited when I saw it posted as an image, but it's real? Like, you can see the heart, broken in half by the ravine Jayce just climbed out of? The ravine in which he hallucinated Viktor in the fire? Yeah, okay. I am sure whichever highly skilled artist who drew this blatant symbolism (in red and pink, mind you), did it completely by accident. Or maybe they just thought that would be the best way to show their platonic brotherly relationship *shrugs*

Here is something else: As a few people pointed out before, the shot reminded them of the "Lovers of pompeii" - two human remains that were initially thought to be women, but then later discovered to be men. I say, if the people watching made that connection, there is no way in hell that the artists, who work on these shots for months, would not think of this comparison. Especially because the way the corpses are hardened but retain their shape in the AU, is very much like an Arcane-corrupted version of Pompeii. So yeah. I get kind of annoyed when I read comments complaining why people can't accept that Jayce and Viktor are just brothers (I'm talking about the "why does everything have to be sexual/gay" comments). I get annoyed, because if you have a quantum of media literacy, you will CLOCK all the tricks they pulled in the show, that are frequently used in media when portraying romantic relationships. And again, I am talking about a single shot here. As we all know, there is SO MUCH MORE.

#arcane #viktor arcane #arcane meta #jayce x viktor #jayvik #jayce arcane #arcane analysis #jayvik meta #arcane season 2 #arcane spoilers

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oncewhenalongtimeago · 7 months ago

Note

would love to request a "friends to lovers" story between Hiccup and the reader.

They could have been friends since childhood, but I’m not sure what you think about the idea where, as they grow up, it becomes completely normal for them to hold hands or even share more intimate moments, like a kiss. (Don’t let it show how much I love this dynamic).

I’d love to see how you would develop this story (only if you feel like it, of course). I seriously ADORE your writing! Blessings and kisses, MUAK! ❤💗

One of These Days

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Fem!Reader

Words: 3,740

You didn’t know when it started; maybe it had been when he’d smiled at you for the first time, or he’d held your hand, or leaned his head over yours.

Tags: httyd 1, httyd 2, friends to lovers

It was growing darker outside.

Frigid air licked at the frame of your back, slithering and scraping past cracks in the walls and shutters. It tasted just as cool as it smelt.

You didn’t know when it started, nor were you sure how to feel about it, what with that odd thing sitting between the two of you. You could tell he expected something, what with the way he often shuffled closer than was necessary and fumbled over his own words in an effort to impress.

“Pass me the hammer?” He asked you without looking, lanky shoulders square, hands pressed against parchment, fingers sliding absentmindedly over scrawled-out charcoal and past thick-handled tools.

You snuffled, blinking from where you sat just beside him.

It was just to the right of you on one slightly uneven workbench, closer to the forge’s main window than away. You grabbed at it with slightly wobbly fingers, grimacing as it nearly fell from your hands.

At twelve winters, you still had some time left before you’d really be expected to bloody your hands, and by bloody your hands, you meant to be able to take down a full-grown dragon on your own.’ Of course, most children by now had done their fair share of slaughtering, both animals and otherwise, but none had been able to make it during a raid without help. While you hadn’t done any of it, putting you sorely behind, you were still fine.

For Hiccup, son of Stoick the Vast, feared dragon-killer, the deadlines were a little bit tighter.

You placed the hammer firmly, determinedly into Hiccup’s open palm, the tips of your fingers dragging against slightly sweaty skin.

Gobber had been generous enough to let you in. He didn’t often or ever stop the two of you from doing things. Even still, this was the first time you’d been invited into the forge, and he hadn’t said anything.

Hiccup had also been generous enough to invite you in. You hadn’t quite recognized the invitation for what it was, nor did you think Hiccup did, either. Really, the experience was proving to be rather close. It was the first time you’d ever seen him so enraptured in his work, though, to be fair, you hadn’t known him for long. He’d hardly talked about it.

You doubted he’d told anyone else- it was going to be a larger machine. He definitely didn’t have everything he needed to make it. Not the wood, which would make up a frame large enough to swarf half your body, or all the metals and ores he’d need to make all the levers and rods.

He wasn’t wearing any fur coat, just an apron and his green tunic. He scribbled notes down like the world might be swallowed if he didn’t. You could tell he’d never done that before- made such detailed instructions, thought up such an elaborate contraction.

You liked him happy. You’d seen him frustrated and you thought that was alright too, puzzling over his own work, tongue peeking out slightly from between two teeth, not comically. It was more a subtle, awkward thing.

With his back to you, he worked with a dedicated, single-minded focus, almost tireless. He worked from the moment he sat down to the moment he finished his task with a passion usually only meant for the battlefield, spotted in the eyes of the hungry past floating ashes and spraying gore. It was a passion that said that nothing had ever come natural to him.

He taught himself how to try.

You thought that he must be daring, more than any Viking warrior.

Maybe he wasn’t yet a man, but you could see the shadow of the man he would be-mature, confident, skilled, focused. The way he worked in the forge- his need to shoot down a dragon paled in comparison.

You wondered if anyone else would ever get to see him the way you did, red-and-orange firelight warming his cheeks.

He caught you looking and he smiled, something almost half-toothless and completely crooked, revealing brown-auburn hair made to glow in the light of the fires, spotted gaps in rows of teeth, freckles dusting over a nose’s bridge like speckles on bird’s feathers.

He spoke almost hesitantly, confusedly, as if he’d just realized he’d forgotten to respond, and hadn’t realized it was that important, or that you would have been expecting it, though that didn’t matter to you, because he’d hardly needed to, “Thanks.”

Even unsure, he was much more at home here than out in the open world.

You felt your head perk, shoulders dropping as a soft, gawky thing curled and writhed bashfully in your stomach, not unlike the way a worm reveled in soft, blooming dirt.

Wow.

It hadn’t occurred to you that during all of a fortnight, you hadn’t seen him smile. Now that you’d seen it, you weren’t sure how you’d ever lived without it.

You thought you could feel the heat radiating from his body as you shuffled closer to him, your fingers curling around his bicep, slightly damp through thick cloth. Your legs were nearly brushing then, leather smock teasing against cloth trouser as you pondered what it might feel like to be handed back soft, honeyed flowers by those very same sooted hands.

You shifted, the grass beneath you wet, dew clinging to the sides of your skirt like a few shiny glass beads. You felt the warm sun against your face, tickling against small hairs and soft skin. Your journal was to your front, scratched up leather cover pressed to your hands, a charcoal stick laying abandoned across empty parchment.

Nearby was a trickling stream, water weaving past water, spraying hollowly against rocks and moss- you could have likened it to yourself and the feeling in your soul, knotting up your chest and mixing up all kinds of squishy insides.

The last you’d seen, Hiccup had been walking. Now, he was nearly falling over himself, legs jerking as his saddle’s straps and reins restricted the movement of his ankles. His shouts echoed around the whole cove, sound bouncing off cold, stone-basin walls.

His dragon slunk off in the distance, still apprehensive and avoidant. It hadn’t quite gotten used to you yet, which was fine, because you were alright with keeping your distance.

Even after you’d had your hand on its slightly-sticky snout, whenever you saw it, you thought of wide, razor-sharp maws and torsos torn from small bodies. A dragon was always going to be a dragon and they were very much deadly creatures- his reassurances of the fact that the Night Fury was just as harmless as any man did you no favors. After all, the only creatures as deadly as a dragon were, in fact, bears… and men. It made you nervous.

It had large, slitted serpent’s eyes, though its scales were flatter and its skin more leathery than warted or slimy as you’d expected from such a fearsome beast. Its face was oddly symmetrical and squat in an abhorrently off-putting way, its horns or fins or whatever else that came sproutings from its skull sort of floppy and bashful and sort of too-big and not-grown-into-yet, just like it’s bulky, soft-looking paws, sort of like Hiccup.

“T-Toothless!” Hiccup practically yowled, distressed and scolding as he fell over, face-planting into dirt and short grass, half helped-along by the wet nose of his dragon. The difference- you felt almost enraptured by it.

He was awful and very often sort of standoffish and sarcastic though not often crude. He was picky and sort of insensitive and he often trampled over boundaries like he was dancing hand-in-hand with trouble, except he didn’t know how to dance, and the hall’s fires hadn’t been lit in a while- not for a celebration, at the very least.

In that moment, though, you remembered the way it felt to have his folded knuckle digging slightly into your shoulders as he nudged against you distractedly, just out of view behind the wooden barricade as he was scolded by Gobber. There was something about it that you thought might be either meaningful or accidental that turned over something in your stomach, most particularly because -and not in spite of- the fact that it had come from such a scrawny, lanky, often very, very clumsy-footed boy.

The way he’d seemed, looking off reminded you of his father a little bit. You saw it, really- all the good and awful parts of the Chief that he’d most definitely inherited, even when most others couldn’t see it. You were scared of it somewhat; of how confident it made him, how distracted and sort of brave-like he could be, even if it only ever ended up making things work for the worst.

Past all your yearning, aching, wanting, and needing-to-have-ings, it scared you just as much as you thought you could watch forever. Did he ever feel the same way about you?

You hadn’t noticed as Hiccup had untangled himself from his trappings. He must have though, and quickly, as during the time you’d spent thinking, he’d walked up close enough to you to cast a long shadow over your face, pulling you out of your own reverie.

You blinked aimlessly as he settled down next to you. You spoke hesitantly, “So, uhm, how did the saddle…?”

“He didn’t let me put it on.” Hiccup grumbled petulantly. While nothing more or less than sort of scrawny, with the way you were slumping and the way he was sitting with his back straight, he looked sort of tall. It did nothing to erase the pout from his face or the nasal from his voice.

You started, squeaking as his dragon -for the dragon was most definitely his, now- stepped out from the shadows, melded to its back like a fresh set of armor as it stalked its way around the clearing, eternally predatory.

Hiccup seemed to relax some as you leaned against him, sort of using his shoulder as a shield, scooting behind it as the Night Fury grew closer. You felt particularly offended, even as he let you drape his arm over your middle, leaving his hand dangling awkwardly in the air. Protect me!

“Wow. What did I do?” Hiccup asked, half-smiling, shifting where he sat, unintentionally pressing your shoulder into slightly jagged rock as he got comfortable.

Sometimes you caught him looking, eyes agonizingly blank though the rest of his expression looked to be somewhat soft, the corners of his mouth pressing into a sweeter-looking half-smile.

You grumbled incomprehensibly as you felt yourself once again eclipsed by shadow, much bigger this time.

You leaned harder against his shoulder, one hand coming to tangle in his sleeve. You eyed it apprehensively, feeling thin twine catch against the place nail met skin. He didn’t get it.

“Don’t leave me behind.” You said suddenly, abruptly. “Ever.”

Hiccup rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, freckles and thin fingers easily losing themselves under the mop of your hair.

“I-ah, yeah, okay.” Hiccup said, brows crinkled, slight confusion evident in his voice, though it didn’t seem any less calm or comfortable for it. He especially didn’t seem to mind as you clung closer to him, something in his face glowing a blotchy, raw pink. “Alright.”

You were in danger. Really, if enjoyment was all he could bother to feel for your predicament, then you took back all of your praises.

You scoffed miffed-ly at a brown, quirked, knowing brow. The devil- He was such a boy.

It didn’t matter what configuration of the face you had or your height or size of hair color. That wasn’t what he thought of when he thought of you, at least not at first.

He looked back at you, sitting in the grass, leaning behind him and he couldn’t help but to think about how pretty your smile was, the way the sun lay over the side of your face and made you look as if you were glowing. Something in his neck twinged as he did, probably sprung or pulled earlier while he was trying to wrestle the saddle onto Toothless.

You were smart- a lot smarter than him on a lot of fronts, though he was pretty ingenious on his own, something anyone, even you, was hard-pressed to match.

Now, he realized, you were just as squirrely as you were cynical.

He’d never really thought of you as someone that needed shielding. You were just as capable and incapable as him in equal measure… mostly. But in that moment, the realization came to him that maybe you… wanted to be?

He looked at you as you muttered something foul under your breath, feeling the same way he did trying to figure out a puzzle and the same way he felt piecing axles, barrels, ropes and wheels together to make up something interesting.

There really wasn’t much else to it, was there?

Really, if that was what you wanted, Hiccup was anyone but the right man for the job, but, well, if you wanted him… Hiccup winced as you dug your nails into his arm, leaving what was probably a deep set of crescent-shaped imprints in his arm, even through his tunic.

Yeah, he still wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

“It’s cold,” You mumbled absentmindedly, eyes shutting some as a breeze brushed over your cheeks and past your ears.

You were right. It was chilly, of course, so high up in the watchtower. It was only your second time up there.

“Yeah…” Hiccup said, leaning closer to the fire.

The two of you bumped shoulders, using a spare piece of kindling like a chair. Your ankles were hooked together, tied like a knot in a rope. The sides of your legs were so closely pressed together that they were nearly flush, despite the fact that no one else was there besides the two of you, everyone else having long since packed up their things and left. He wasn’t sure what they’d talked about. He couldn’t remember.

Hiccup kept his eyes exactly where he shouldn’t, watching you.

Your eyes were half-lidded. You leaned over your knees more than not as you turned over a small, split spit, a chunk of lamb speared over one end, his fur coat draped over your shoulders, one hand clutching at the opposite, empty sleeve. You looked very pretty like that, contented.

“They’ve got to add some walls up here, you know,” You said, your head tilting upwards as you examined a particularly soft bit of meat, thumb sliding up your skewer as you tilted it slightly downwards.

Wow. Hiccup’s eyes were half-lidded, even as he poked at the fires with a stick, nudging the ends of charred logs closer to the fire half-heartedly.

He could hold you by the waist and sway with you and touch your foreheads together and you could play-wrestle and fight in the grass but he couldn’t kiss you and tug his hands through your hair unless he was braiding it and it was driving him crazy. He didn’t want to or have to but now that he knew he could, he thought about it pretty often. He was a teenage boy and you were a teenage girl and he’d always been curious, so of course he’d considered it.

He needed to. He had for years with all the force of a child who’d just learned how to dream. It was- It was… The feeling was surprisingly moral, but no less impassioned.

“One of these days…” HIccup mumbled distractedly.

One of these days. He thought that every morning, now.

Hiccup blinked, the two of you standing in front of each other, curling your fingers around each other, with your fingers still relaxed. It was comfortable, warm… easy. He turned it over in his head, again and again.

The cheering of the arena was nearly deafening to his back, the sound of metal weapons crashing against cage bars grating to his ears. They wanted him, blood, the Nightmare… Astrid was waiting behind you, eyes burning holes into him with all the conflicted feelings of a lost warrior. Even past all that, it wasn’t hard, he found, to focus on you; the lines of your face, the soft and hard curves, each and every blemish and soft patch of skin.

Huh. He thought.

He leaned forward and pressed his face against your bowed head, your forehead touching his shoulder dully past thick brown furs. He felt the split of your hairline against the tip of his nose. His eyes were closed tightly shut.

He reveled in the feeling for the moment, taking in the way your hair felt against his cheeks and the way the leftover grasses and burnt wood and juniper left a scent that laid thick over your scalp, both dusty and spiced, a lot like pine.

Ultimately, he was doing this for Toothless, but now, today, he thought that he might be doing it a little for you, too.

The whistling of Toothless' -no, the Fury’s- wings nearly stunned him, loud enough to make it more difficult to think.

Hiccup nearly choked on wind as he gripped onto the handles he’d built into Toothless’ saddle. For a moment, he thought they wouldn’t hold. After all, one small strap of leather was nearly nothing against the full force of the Gods’ cursed offspring.

They had never gone this fast before, his body felt hollow, both as if he was being nailed to the back of his dragon and as if he might just float off at any moment. The feeling It made him cautious just as much as he was focused.

Even past all of that, the space to his back felt abhorrently empty, and not just because of the way they pierced through the sky. Your tears staining the back of his shirt as he and Toothless dived and shot… He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen you cry before. He still hadn’t- it was silent for the most part, and he’d just felt it, really. If he ever had, it hadn’t been like this.

He couldn’t bring you up with him. He couldn’t. Just as he’d almost died in the ring, you had too.

It wasn’t merely a roar, more of a phenomenon, something that shook even the air around him. It was all-consuming and nearly inescapable. The Queen had followed.

Hiccup furrowed his brows and kept urging his dragon upwards.

Rain beat heavily against the roof of the Chief’s hut, making the world around you feel even more cold, weak and hollow. Thunder roared violently outside as the storm raged on.

“Hiccup,” You choked on air and spit and half a sob as you stared down at a sickly, freckled face, sweat running down both too-pale and blotchy red cheeks, staining his shirt dark. Freshly-changed bandages bled a deep crimson, changing with the color of hot blood and foul puss as his knees, one foot-less and the other not, jerked reflexively against the sheets of his blanket.

He’d been consistently out between long bouts of delirium and fever, his eyes rolling beneath his lids, just barely visible under the flickering light of a single, dying candle, twitching viciously. You clutched at Hiccup’s slick palm with both hands as he fitfully fought his way past conscious dreams.

You’d stayed- you’d stayed all night and day.

If dedication had ever really meant anything, if worship and hope and work had ever really meant a damn, if the Gods had ever been real and if their decree had ever meant anything, you hoped your will reached the heavens.

“Lass,” The Chief rumbled deeply from behind you, his heavy weight causing old floorboards to creak deeply as he shifted.

You didn’t even have the energy to shake off the nearly unbearable heat of his father’s palm on your shoulder as you cried yourself nearly sick with tears and snot and spit gathering at every orifice. It was an ugly cry, an undignified, ungainly one, followed with all your fears and hopes and despairs.

You had your own injuries to tend to, yet you felt as if you couldn’t, not in that moment, not even if it meant that you’d have to be fighting off your own pains and fevers later, if you hadn’t already fallen under their grasp. The only thing you could do was watch and feel a need for Hiccup to be okay so deep it rendered you helpless. Ultimately, though, you knew his recovery had nothing to do with you.

Hiccup’s dragon had left to cauterwal outside, to wail and wreak havoc and feast on the latest fisherman’s catch. He seemed less worried than you and the Chief but more worried than everyone else, and rightly so.

Suddenly, you started.

With a voice both intensely raspy and wet, Hiccup mumbled your name. It hadn’t been anything special, more a simple expression of his recognition, yet you sniveled as Hiccup clutched back at your hand, his grip weak compared to yours, his eyes dull with the force of his fever. For a very long moment, he held it.

“Hiccup.” You tried again.

The Chief’s hand tightened over your shoulder, squeezing already stiff and sore muscles.

The last time you’d seen his eyes, he’d been staring you in the face, mouth opening and closing pointedly and yet no words had come out. He’d dropped you then, right before rushing up into the sky on Toothless’ back.

Parts of you had been pinned by the rubble after and you had nearly been left behind. You could barely think past the pain, yet you still remembered how it felt to be left on the ground, hands clutched to your chest, mind completely fogged with pain and fear, hoping and hoping and hoping, cringing and in pain as the sky flashed. The terrifying outline of the dragon queen in the sky, smoke and fog larger than life, everyone certain Hiccup was going to die, himself most certainly… It seared a painful picture into your mind.

Part of you had been in danger, then. You weren’t anymore. Now, you really loved Hiccup Haddock, and you needed him to be okay.

He hoped you were safe. He didn’t know what he would do otherwise.

He couldn’t ever let you go. Never. Not until- Not unless he died, even if it hurt and his forehead felt weighted with the pressure of all the world’s fires.

#httyd #how to train your dragon #x reader #hiccup x reader #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #httyd imagine #fem reader #female reader #toothless #stoick the vast

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dearsnow · 8 months ago

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A WAITING GAME

- coming from a broken family, you often had to wait for next time you would be loved. meeting your new neighbor changed that. (robert “bob” floyd x fem!reader, angst and fluff, SLOW BURN, essentially just scenes of you growing up with our favorite WSO, slight prequel to the events of top gun: maverick, includes random original characters to drive the plot ⚠️ alcoholism is a major theme, some instances of harassment from a bully, and like one sexual innuendo but nothing graphic)

word count: 20,135

a/n - ohhhh my gosh, it’s finally here 😭 it’s genuinely the size of a novella, which is insane. i really hope you guys like this bc it took so much time and effort. it’s also the longest thing i’ve ever written, which is amazing in its own right. if you’re the type to listen to music while reading, i suggest a steady stream of hozier, noah kahan, phoebe bridgers, and leith ross <3

Your whole life was a waiting game. Waiting for school to end, for school to start again, for the house across the street to finally have new occupants, for your mother to put the bottle down, for the fairies you were so sure existed to appear in your popsicle stick fairy house, for your stones to finally skip across the creek, for something, anything to happen before you drove yourself insane. And, above all else, you waited for love. It was a pitiful way to grow up, really. Just sitting and letting the days pass by so you couldn’t feel the burning ache of loneliness that writhed and spat in your stomach. You never thought that you could cease this pattern of waiting for something that would never fulfill you, until, inevitably, things changed.

The “for sale” sign that you could see so clearly from your second-floor bedroom window had been replaced by a cheery “sold” sign. Something about it excited you; new neighbors, new people to talk to and play with and bother with your incessant imagination. There was also fear, too. The fear that they would turn a blind eye to the scent of cigarettes woven into your papered walls and the nail marks on the insides of your palms. You took your mind off the notion when you saw a boy right around your age step out of the moving van.

He had glasses, sandy brown hair, a cast on his foot, and a scared little frown. You slid off your bed with a small huff, your socked feet hitting the dusty carpeted floor. This was something new, for once. The stares of the stuffed animals strewn around your room comforted your mild anxiety as you walked through your door frame and down your rickety wooden stairs. You had to move one foot down and then pull the other to match. You were too afraid of keeping just one foot on a single step, even while you clutched the peeling handrail. You hit the bottom and opened the unlocked front door, peering out into the hazy, sunny day.

You were still in your socks, but you figured it didn’t matter. They were pink and yellow striped, just a bit too small. You traipsed across your dying front lawn and across the street, cautiously watching for cars. There were none. The boy turned, his blue eyes locking with yours, and you froze. It was the middle of a hot Montana day, the dry, summery kind that makes your mouth shrivel up, but all you could focus on was how he looked at you with curiosity. Gone was the frown. You peered down, staring into the black asphalt. Oh. You were still on the road. Your feet moved on their own, and you found yourself on the sidewalk, toeing the grass of his lawn. It wasn’t dying.

“Your socks are inside-out,” was the first thing he said. His voice was quiet and kind, like he was trying not to embarrass you. He pointed at the threads hanging off of the seams.

You nervously tucked your hands behind your back. “I know. I like them to be.” He accepted the statement, pulling his hand back and planting it nervously on his hip. His one sock was right-side-in and tucked into a little orange shoe.

That day, as mundane as it was, became one of your favorites to remember.

The next day, after your introduction, you and the boy (who you quickly came to know as Bobby) went down to the creek. His mother had supplied you with sandwiches and cookies in little brown paper bags, folded neatly and marked with your names. You had never eaten out of a brown paper bag before.

Bobby was careful in how he scaled down the small, rocky hill that bordered the creek. He smartly put your lunches on a safe outcropping, to be eaten later. While climbing, he put all his weight on his non-injured foot and was sure to not step on any stray branches. You, having been down this path many times, guided him.

“Don’t step there, Bobby. That’s where the snakes are.” You said, eyeing the little gathering of rocks. He hummed gratefully and adjusted his path.

As you both made it to the bottom, he made sure to stay far enough away from the water so as to not wet his boot. You, however, didn’t really care. Your feet plunged into the soggy ground; it’s not like your shoes weren’t meant to get dirty. He picked up a stick and poked at the rivulets of water in front of him, squinting into the glare. “So, how old are you anyway?” He asked. He was crouched down to help the slightly too short stick prod into the mud.

“Seven.” You responded. You had picked up a stick of your own. “How old are you?”

He watched your movements with careful eyes. He was always watching, you noticed. Always planning. It’s like he was trying to predict every movement of the creek, every motion of your arms. You felt a shiver run down your spine. You didn’t think you could ever be so observant. “I’m eight, been eight for five months now,” came his steady voice. He furrowed his eyebrows as you waved your stick into nothingness, jabbing at something he couldn’t see. He gazed at the air like whatever you were so focused on would materialize if he stared hard enough. “What’cha fighting?”

You smiled crookedly. You could see the scene so clearly in your mind. You and him on a pirate ship, fighting off the attackers who were trying to claim your ride. You were balancing on the plank, sword ready. “Pirates. It’s real fun, you should try.” You slashed the air and saw clothes tearing, blood pooling at the wood under your feet.

“How do I try?” He asked curiously. He stood up fully and held his stick in both hands.

“Just imagine. They’re coming from a ship across the creek, and our ship is here. I’m… I’m fighting the one with a big axe, and the one comin’ after you has a shiny sword.”

Again, he raked his gaze over the creek in front of him like he was trying to see exactly into your mind. He gave his sword an experimental swing, and you laughed from beside him. “You hit him! Keep going, we’ve almost won.” His eyes lit up, and he began fighting like he saw it too.

He smiled, and you cheered him on, making sure to fend off your own opponent. The creek bubbled, and he could hear the ocean roaring. He could see the flag flying high above his head, the ship across the ocean, could hear the ‘shing’ and ‘swish’ of his sword. And he saw you, warm and full of life, immersed in this world you had created. He didn’t think he had seen anything quite so pretty.

In the days after that, you saw Bobby often. He never went inside your house, though, that was off limits. Instead, you went to his.

His mom was kind. She was the type of woman to greet you with a hug, the smell of warm food simmering on a pot behind her. Her apron was stained with food and love and tiny paint handprints. When you ran up to his door and knocked (you were too short to reach the doorbell), she would open it kindly and invite you in.

Bobby’s room became a kind of utopia for the both of you. For the first few days, you would help him unpack his toys and crafts and other things of the sort. He had a lot of green army men, you noticed. But after that, you played and played until his mom had to kindly remind you of his bedtime. Your favorite games were imaginary.

He would be a merchant selling his toys, each with a special magical power. You’d assume the role of a traveling knight and barter with him, finally picking out what you believed would help with your quest. Then, in a twist of fate, Bobby would invent some sort of way the magical item went wrong, leaving the both of you to dream up new methods to best your foe. Or you’d be a mermaid and he was the sailor you were friends with. Sometimes, and this was his favorite game, he would be a pilot in the military, and you would be the person giving him instructions on the ground. He would shoot his arms out like airplane wings and soar, causing you to collapse into giggles on his soft rug. You formed a bond with him like no other. By the end of the summer, you knew him inside and out, and he knew you too.

You knew he liked blueberry syrup instead of maple on his pancakes, that his favorite subject was history, how he had a little sister three years younger and an older brother who was in middle school, and the exact expression he made when things went a awry; this sort of half-pout, where his bottom lip would jut out a bit. You knew that he got his cast from slipping on a stone in a big river during a camping trip, and even though he hates not being able to move, he thinks the scar on his ankle is pretty cool. And he knew that you were the most creative person he’d ever met, there was a monster that lived in your house, you had never broken a bone, and your eyes shone if the light hit them at the right angle.

When you finally left, as the sun was dipping down the horizon, you felt lighter.

The days without his presence were much harder.

Your mom was a hard person to pin down. She would leave early in the morning, dressed in her work clothes, and return late at night, stinking of the bar. Sometimes you’d see her periodically throughout the day, between her two main events, but she was elusive. She would stroke your hair during moments like this, eyes filled with something you only later realized was regret.

You loved her too much to notice that the way you were living was not at all how a child should grow up. You survived off of your dingy little microwave and frozen food when you weren’t with Bobby and his family. The nights, however, were worse than being alone all day.

You would pretend to be asleep more often than not, but you couldn’t really be asleep with how much noise she made. Shouting words you didn’t recognize into the phone, slamming doors, crying, pulling the magnets off the fridge and shattering the few framed pictures that were scattered around your house. It made the pit inside of you grow larger and larger.

Afterwards, when she was done with her rampage, she’d sweep up the pieces and put everything back together. She would spell out notes for you in the fridge magnets. She would open your door, just a crack, and whisper, “I love you, baby. I’m sorry.” with a blown kiss. You knew she was sorry. You knew she loved you, that she kept the cabinets stocked with the snacks you liked from two years ago, around the time she first started drinking. There was nothing you knew more than how bad she felt for treating you like she did. In your mind, you forgave her. She was doing her best. That didn’t stop you from wishing you lived in Bobby’s little house, with his kind and loving mother and stern but kindhearted father. You wished for pirates and pilots and blueberry syrup.

Sometimes, you just imagined you were there, tucked under his navy blue comforter. That thought filled the pit just enough to let you drift off to sleep.

As the days grew shorter and the weather chillier, school started. School was fun until it wasn’t.

The first day was always the best, in your opinion. You never really had any friends to miss if they were placed into other classrooms, and some of the other kids didn’t even know who you were. It was scary, sure, but it was new. It was a fresh start. This year, though, you had Bobby.

Luckily for the two of you, you were both in Mrs. Moore’s class. Even luckier for you, Brady was not in Mrs. Moore’s class.

The boy had a tendency to pick on you in school. Ever since first grade, when he caught you whispering to a dandelion, he made every day in school tougher.

He would knock your books out of your hands, scribble on your drawings, and tear your flower crowns apart. You didn’t know why. He just didn’t understand your far-eyed expression and your tendency to bury your nose in books. He was loud, with a grating voice and windswept blond hair, and people liked him. He played sports and shared his lunch. That made him very, very different from you, in a way that was hard for child brains to accept.

You were scared that Bobby would find his own trouble here. He was quiet, and that made him a target. He was too kind, too caring, too good at blending into the background.

You walked up to classroom B8, holding your little dirtied backpack on one arm. The door was painted a sort of industrial teal, with a chipped but cheery sun done in acrylics in the middle. The title, a magnet, read “Mrs. Moore fun!”. Bobby hesitated from next to you. He held out a silent hand, and you gripped it in yours. His hands were bigger, warm and slick with a thin sheen of nervous sweat. Knowing someone else was going through the day with you was a quiet comfort, so you met his wavering eyes and smiled. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

The door swung open, and a woman with a brown bob ushered you inside. She had big pencil earrings and a pretty patterned dress. She showed you to your seats, and you were happy to learn that you were just one person away from your friend. In between you was another girl with bouncy auburn curls and freckles, whose name card read “Margaret”. You didn’t know her, but she offered you a kind grin.

“Hello, class!” Mrs. Moore began. “I know you saw my name on the door, but I’d like to learn all of yours today. How about we go around and say our names and favorite colors so I can take attendance?”

Your time in the quaint little classroom sped by like a whirlwind, barely giving you enough time to adjust to everything before you were ushered out to be served lunch and play on the sun-faded playground. Bobby’s mom had packed you both lunch today. It was like she knew that your mom couldn’t, and that you never had the money to buy the school lunch. It gave you this warm sort of emotion, like a fuzzy sweater. You and he sat on a bench shaded by a rickety old tree.

He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully as you went for the little bag of Oreo cookies first. “How do you like it here?” You asked, biting into the crumbly treat.

“It’s okay. Back in my old school, our playground had wood chips instead of sand,” he commented simply. “I like being here with you, though.”

You beamed. Bobby had lived in the town adjacent to yours before he moved, still in Montana, but with a different atmosphere. He often noted the differences, like how the cars here sputtered more and there was never quite enough shade. This, however, was all you had ever known. It was all you ever thought you could know. Your world ended after the big road that cut you off from the rest of society. Bobby made you want to wait for the day you could cross that road, in your own car that hopefully didn’t sputter, and see the world that he had known. “Me too. Most everyone is pretty great here, you’ll see. Just watch out for Brady, the one on the monkey bars. He might try to tease you.”

“Why would he?” Bobby questioned. He studied where you gestured, light eyes straining against the bright sun and wavy heat coming up from the asphalt.

You started on your sandwich, which was beginning to warm. You didn’t mind. “I dunno. He’s just like that, I guess.”

“He must be mean,” The boy beside you said, finishing off the last bite of his sandwich. He never chewed with his mouth open, you noticed. He kept it neat and tidy. “Anyone who picks on you has got to be.”

You felt your cheeks warm at his words, so you buried yourself into eating your sandwich. “Thanks. I hope he doesn’t pick on you, ‘cuz you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Bobby’s face turned a shade of red you had never seen on him, and suddenly the hand that was underneath yours was fidgeting against the wood of the bench. “You really think so?”

“I know so. You’re nice, and you let me play with your glasses. And you’re really good at climbing, even with your boot. And you make me feel good.”

The corners of his mouth tugged up impossibly high as he handed you his bag of Oreos. He liked sweets, sure, but he liked giving them to you more. He could sit there and watch you eat forever if it meant you smiled like you were doing now. “You make me feel good too, like I can’t stop being happy.”

“Ex-act-ly!” You punctuated each syllable with a little tap of your finger on the back of his hand. When he was around, you felt like you could fly. Every dandelion, 11:11, shooting star, fallen eyelash, they all went to trying to keep him in your life. Without you knowing, he did the same thing. “Oh, do you want to see what I drew during art time?”

The conversation carried on, although there are snippets you don’t remember. Something about the stray cat that you saw down at the creek and the field trip the older kids bragged about going on. Looking back on it, that era seems so far away that it could have been another life. You were so small then, so hurt, and so innocent. You just had your neighbor and dreams, both waking and asleep.

School continued, and you and Bobby began to fall into a sort of rhythm. You would pass notes to each other through Margaret, play hopscotch and four-square and wall ball until you were tired of running around, learn until you thought your brains would explode, and walk home, laughing and bright-eyed. Even Brady couldn’t dull the shine. Bobby was, surprisingly, a hard person to make fun of. Despite being quiet, he would puff up his chest and stand strong in the face of any adversity. Mostly, though, he stood up for you. He would pick up your books, help you turn scribbles into twisting dragons, and make you new flower crowns when Brady tried anything during recess. Bobby cared. In a sense, though neither of you knew what the word really meant, he loved you. So he took care of you, and you filled his life with so much wonder and joy that he wished he could be with you forever. It was like that for a long, long time.

The years came and went in elementary school. For once, you accepted every day that came to you as a new era, a new chance to prove to yourself that life is more than crumbling foundations. You experienced growth; you no longer waited for things to be over. Instead, incredibly, you anticipated each coming event, no matter what it was.

It took you a while to realize that Bobby was the catalyst of your change.

Your 5th grade promotion was a blur of smiles and hugs and tears from Bobby’s mom, coral colored fabric, and paper confetti. You posed for pictures, sang a song, and received a little certificate to display in some homegoods frame that most mothers buy. Other than that, it was just another day. You went home and played with Bobby some more, like you always did.

That certificate, crumpled and browned around the edges, is now sitting in a box, deep in your closet, paper-clipped to a photograph of you and Bobby. It rests against a snapped wishbone, one whose exact wish you have entirely forgotten, but it more than likely had to do with him. There is also a crushed penny, a number of birthday cards, and a wooden rose, among other things. It’s silly, you think, to keep them after so many years, but something in you begs to keep them safe. You suppose that you can’t be rid of every memory, not when the Floyds made so many good ones for you.

Middle school was another stage in your life, one that swirled your emotions while all you needed was stability. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it was the beginning of years of confusing feelings.

Bobby stopped being Bobby during the 1,095 days between elementary and high school. He wanted to be called Robert, and he combed his hair back, and his voice started cracking. He listened to rock and metal instead of whatever his mom found on the radio. He didn’t turn into a bad person like some of his peers, no, but he changed. You remember the first time he put in contacts instead of his big, thick-rimmed glasses.

You were sitting on the edge of his sink as he pulled his eye wide open, his fingers trembling slightly. “I can’t do it. I don’t want to poke my eye out,” he whined, setting the finger that held the contact down. “But I don’t want to wear glasses, either. I’m too old for that.”

He stared at you while you let out a short, stifled laugh. “Don’t laugh, I’m trying my best,” he groaned, but his mouth was curving into a smile, too—it just always happened when you laughed, like how he couldn’t help but smile at wedding bells.

“Can you even see what you’re doing?” You asked. You tapped the glass reflection to the side of you, sending out a soft clink. His vision had never been the best, but his optometrist just upped his prescription. He didn’t want to be seen with the thickness of the glass he was given, no, he wanted to “look cooler”. So there he was, with blurry vision and a nearly invisible contact balancing on the tip of his finger.

“Yeah.” He paused, considering his options, before looking down with a sigh. “No. I can see the blue, but I have no clue if my eyes are two inches or two millimeters away.” He sounded so disappointed that it sent a twinge of hurt through your heart. He liked dealing with problems on his own, namely so that no one else would have to go out of their way to help him, so that must have been a humbling experience for him.

“Let me guide you, then,” you chirped. “I’ll use your hand to put the contacts in so you can get a feel for where to stop next time.” You let the tips of your fingers brush over his hand, ghosting over the raised hairs just enough to let him sense it. Robert squinted at you.

You seemed like an angel perched on the tile counter. He couldn’t see the exactness of your details, like the curves of your lips, but you had a form that he could recognize anywhere. The shade of your hair, the sparkle in your eye. He would carry those memories for as long as he lived. What worried him was that he didn’t know exactly how far away from him you were sitting. So, because he didn’t trust himself to not miss his eyes, and because he trusted you like he trusted his heart to beat, he agreed. “Okay.”

You took his hand in yours, careful not to knock the precariously balanced contact off, and he widened his eyes. You weren’t sure if it was because of your touch or because he wanted to assist with the contact placement. You slowly brought his hand up, towards his eye, feeling his pulse under your fingers. His lips were pursed, a testament to his nervousness. He never did like things touching his eyes, but he would brave it until he unavoidably went back to glasses. With a gentle, caring motion, you helped him rest the contact on his eyeball. He flinched at the initial touch, but accepted it, blinking rapidly to shake off the contact solution. His eyes were pretty, you noticed. As messed up as they were, they had the most intoxicating shade, like a stormy ocean.

“Want the next one?” You were already unscrewing the contact holder as he nodded slowly. He closed the eye without a contact and gaped at you.

“I can see!”

“I think that’s what contacts are for,” you quipped. He pretended to roll his one eye, but you could see the humor bubbling up from within him. The lighting was nice, he thought. The way it shone around the edges of your hair was heavenly.

“Well, yeah. Could you help me with the other now?” He probably didn’t need much help this time, given that one half of him had 20/20 vision, but he liked feeling your hand on his. He liked being helped by you. It was a revelation for him, who had always been a bit of an independent spirit. Don’t get him wrong, he liked being around people, and as a kid he would clutch at his mother’s dresses, but he preferred to do certain things on his own. You changed that.

“Definitely.”

Things took a slight turn after that. School became harder, more work and less play. Your middle school was bigger than your previous school, so it came to no surprise to you that Robert made his own friends. Namely, he hung out with a tall, dark, curly-haired boy named Aaron and a shorter, sturdier, pale as snow boy named Samuel. They were alright, in your opinion. You liked Aaron much more. Sam became bossy and annoying when you let him ramble for too long, and though both Robert and Aaron were too polite to say, it annoyed them. It’s Aaron that you still talk to now, while Sam moved to upstate New York during your freshman year of high school.

The boys were not the most popular group in school, though you knew you weren’t either. But, to your surprise, your good friend Margaret was.

You didn’t really expect to become friends with her. She was loud, happy, excitable. She was always polite in elementary, but she truly took you under her wing as Robert started spending more time with his group. She introduced you to Sarah, Charlotte, Elizabeth, anyone that you could even remember the names of. And, along with her constant joviality, she wasn’t a bad friend.

The only problem was that she was deeply in love with Robert Floyd.

“You don’t even get it ‘cuz he’s like your brother at this point, but he’s gorgeous. He’s basically perfectly my type,” she sighed, falling back onto her plush pink bed. Her legs kicked up just a little, and her curls fanned out around her head like a halo. “I want to ask him out soooo bad. Do you think he’d like me? Wait, do you know if he’s a good kisser? That’s important, I think.” You threw the pillow you were holding on top of her face, and her laugh rang out like the chime of a bell. She was perfect. She deserved someone like Robert, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

You didn’t know why it hurt at the time. Just the idea of him dating someone else, holding hands with someone else, loving someone else, made you sick. You chalked it up to being jealous that eventually another person would take up your best friend’s heart. It was only much, much later that you realized you were in love with him, too.

Margaret tossed the pillow to the other side of her bed. “Really, you need to tell me.”

You gave a tight-lipped smile. “He'd like you, Margie. I mean, who wouldn’t?” Her smile was genuine. It hurt you to say, but you weren’t lying. You didn’t think you could ever lie about something like that.

“But is he a good kisser? Please, I need to know, I’m dying!” She prodded. You rolled your eyes, glancing up at the perfectly painted ceiling. Like everything about her, it was pristine.

“No idea. He’s never kissed anyone.” He could be good, maybe. Everything he did was soft and methodical, so just the idea of him capturing a person’s lips with his own, his calloused hand resting on the back of their head… no, you couldn’t think about it. Your eyes snapped to attention.

“I’ll have to change that.” Her tone was sing-songy, and to you, it sounded almost mocking. It couldn’t be, because neither of you knew your actual feelings, but it struck you the wrong way.

“I’m sure you will.”

Margaret tried everything to get closer to Robert. She flirted, she downloaded songs from his favorite bands, she begged and pleaded for you to invite him to every outing the two of you planned, and she talked to him constantly to try and worm her way into his heart. She never knew him like you did, though, and she hated it.

When it was just you and him, things were different. You were the only one he let call him “Bobby” and play with his fingers when you were nervous. He even let you ruffle his hair, despite him spending half an hour in his bathroom trying to get each strand to lay perfectly. He would open his closet and pull out his comic collection without a hint of embarrassment, and you and he read them together underneath a blanket tent in the middle of the night—after his parents started letting you sleep over, of course. They gave you both “the talk” before you spent your first night there, and Robert was rolling his eyes and blushing the whole time. He would never do that with you, he assured them. You were just friends.

Friends who ultimately ended up falling asleep on the same bed, paying no attention to the blow-up mattress on the floor of his room.

In any case, you tried to get Robert and Margaret together. The time you tried the hardest was the start of your seventh grade year, when Margie insisted that she needed a boyfriend before Christmas. You, being a good friend, invited them both to go to the mall a short drive away from your houses.

Margie’s mom drove, because she was always up for helping her daughter with her romantic interests. She knew about Robert, sending you and her daughter knowing smiles whenever he would politely answer Margie’s rapid-fire questions. You felt a little bad for the boy, who wasn’t used to so much attention.

The little car (too little, in your opinion; Margaret took the middle seat and was pressed against Bobby for the whole ride) finally arrived at the mall after a few minutes of slight awkwardness. You all stepped out, and Margie’s mom kissed her on the forehead and said she would be back in two hours on the minute. Two hours was a lot at that time.

Your friend immediately pointed out a clothing store, pulling you along to look at flouncy dresses and colorful tops. You could tell that it made Robert a bit uncomfortable, but he went in anyway. During your usual mall trips with him, the both of you made a beeline for the comic store, or simply shared some pretzels while walking and talking. It was only rarely that you wandered into the clothing stores, and most of the time, you just looked and walked back out. You never had the money on you to buy anything more than a volume or two of a comic. “These shorts are just perfect, don’t you think?” She asked you, but her eyes were staring pointedly at Robert.

“They’re nice,” you said. He nodded in silent agreement, slipping his hand into the pocket of his jacket. He didn’t ever really have an opinion on clothes. Someone could wear the most awful outfit and he’d shrug, offering the notion that people should wear what they want, while Sam laughed at the silly combination. Margie tore through the rest of the store, giving you hanger upon hanger of clothing to hold while she rifled through the racks. Robert trailed behind.

Just as the weight of the tops you were holding on your left arm accumulated into a painful soreness, you spotted something out of the corner of your eye. It was a dress.

Robert silently grabbed the clothes from you, following your line of sight. The dress was as close to perfect as a dress had ever been to you. The color, some variation of your favorite, complemented the tone of your skin perfectly when you held your arm up to it. The cut, the stitching, the little details sewn on—it was gorgeous. As you reached out to touch it, Margie squealed.

“That dress! I need it, grab it for me, would you?”

You hesitated. It was the only one like it on the rack. Instinctively, you glanced back at Robert, and he had this confusing expression on his face that you had only seen once or twice; furrowed brows, tight lips, and a burning in his eyes. You looked away and took the dress down.

You probably wouldn’t be able to afford it. Checking the tag, you were right: thirty-eight dollars. Even after doing yard work and tutoring the little boy down the street, you hadn’t been able to keep that sort of sum. “Thanks,” she purred, “I’m gonna try everything on now. Wanna watch the fashion show?”

A part of you didn’t. You were envious, glowing green at the amount of things she could pick up without even checking the tag, but as a good, people-pleasing friend, you pushed it aside. So, you followed her past the door of the spacious dressing room while Robert waited outside with the clothes that didn’t fit into the ten item dressing room limit.

She looked stunning in every outfit, but she threw most of the pieces off with a frustrated sigh. The waist wasn’t cinched enough, or the color clashed with her hair, or the pant legs were too short to cascade over the top of her shoes like she wanted. If you had the money, you didn’t think you would care.

Then came time for the dress. It was one of the last things that she tried on, and she slipped it back over her head almost immediately after putting it on. “It just doesn’t work for my figure,” she muttered.

You picked it off the floor gingerly, holding it up to yourself in the mirror. “Can I try it on?” You asked. She lit up with surprise, a happy glint dancing in her grin.

“Of course! Go ahead.”

You undressed in the corner and stepped into the dress. Margie helped you smooth it out and fasten it just right, her fingers ghosting over your shoulder blades. When you looked in the mirror, your jaw almost fell open.

It hugged you perfectly, the length stopping just where you assumed it was meant to stop. It was casual enough to be worn normally, but it had that fancy touch that made it suited for a romantic dinner date or uppity party. You almost looked like royalty. You could just imagine it, waving to crowds with a slow hand from a horse-drawn carriage. Bobby would be beside you, as always, and Margie and Aaron in the carriage behind you. Sam would be dealing with the horses.

You were shaken out of your thoughts by a faint knock on the door. “Hey, are you guys ready? There’s a bit of a line out here,” came Robert’s voice. Margie was dressed by that point, so you opened the door, still clad in the dress.

“I just gotta change out of this and then we’ll be ready.” You gave a small twirl, and Robert choked on air. “It’s too expensive, but it’s nice to dream,” you said with a small grin. You didn’t know if it reached your eyes or not, but you knew the boy wouldn’t call you out for it. Not in public, at least.

You looked beautiful. That’s all that he could see, all that he could fathom. You slipped back into the dressing room, and he was left stunned.

Before anything else, though, you looked happy in the dress. Sad that you had to leave it, but it made you happy. Robert was nothing if not a sucker for seeing you happy.

Your group finally checked out after a few minutes of the cashier ringing up Margie’s clothes. It was nearing the end of your mall trip, but you managed to visit the comic store and pick up a bite to eat along the way. At some point, while you were flipping through a comic book, Robert slipped away and returned with a grocery bag. It was something his mom wanted him to pick up, he said, and you didn’t feel the need to question him. You just mumbled a conversation starter into Margie’s ear and slipped away as she excitedly whipped around to relay it to him.

She never did win him over. She tried and tried, and you helped and helped, but it seemed he didn’t have an eye for her.

Everything came to a sort of explosion near Christmas. The ground was powdered with a thick blanket of snow, the trees were bare, save for dripping ice, and houses put out beautiful, twinkling lights. There were even singing decorations from your neighbor to the left. When you breathed, the air would puff out in gentle clouds. It was, in essence, a perfect, picturesque winter. It was also one of your favorite times of the year.

Your mom always made an effort during the winter months. She came home earlier to hide in the bathroom, trying to muffle the sounds of wrapping paper and scissors. In the morning, you would see the fruits of her labor tucked under your little plastic tree. It wasn’t perfect, but she wanted you to experience some sort of joyful Montana holiday. You also spent more time indoors, snickering with Robert in the library or blowing on sweet hot cocoa by his crackling fire. It was times like these that you really felt at home.

His family knew about your situation. They didn’t make your mom feel like a villain, no, but they knew she was struggling, and they did their very best to help you out. That’s why you were bundled up on their couch on one frigid day, when Robert came home with a pinched frown.

He wasn’t mad, exactly. You had never known him to be mad. But he was uncomfortable in a way that made you want to throw your blanket over him and make him whisper his troubles to you.

“What’s wrong?” You asked. He wasn’t surprised to see you in his home—he never was. He sat down next to you with a heavy sigh.

“Margaret asked if I wanted to date her,” he murmured, throwing his head back against the couch cushions. This piqued your interest. You knew something like this would happen eventually, but you didn’t expect him to be so uneasy about it. Margie had been talking about asking him out for ages, and you just smiled and nodded. Her bright, bubbly personality was a large contrast to his, but you figured that opposites attracted. He had never shown a hint of distaste at being around her. No distaste that you had seen, at least.

You looked at him, confusion creasing your face. “What did you say?” Maybe it was just the wrong time. If he were to crush on anyone, it would be her, not that he had ever talked about his crushes to you. That seemed like something he would only tell Aaron, despite you being his closest friend.

“I said no. I just… I don’t like her like that.” His voice came out as an almost groan as he rubbed at his eyes. He turned his head to rest it on your shoulder. The weight sent a heavy warmth through you, but you were still so bewildered that it hardly even registered.

“I thought you would. Did she do something wrong?”

He shook his head, looking up at you, and then back down at the fire blazing away in his fireplace. Slowly, he wrapped your blanket around himself, as well, sharing your heat to ward off the cold. “No, she’s nice, but I don’t feel that way about her.” You still didn’t get it. If you were him, you would jump at the chance to date her. She was pretty, funny, and her family was well off. However, something in you uttered that it takes more than that to make someone love you. And that something was a bit happy, because Robert rejecting Margie meant that you could have him all to yourself again.

“Oh,” you breathed. “Do you feel that way about anyone else?”

That question breached the sanctity of your relationship in a way. You had never asked him about his love life, and he had never asked about yours. It was unspoken. You knew, deep in your heart, that if he asked you, you wouldn’t be able to say anyone’s name but his.

His face was tinged with red. It was hard to see, but you knew it was there. “I dunno.”

You lapsed into a subdued silence, not knowing whether to press forward or not. You decided on the latter, just listening to the near-silent spitting of the fireplace. You knew that Margie wouldn’t be happy, and you would get an earful over the phone that night, but you knew that, like all things, this would pass.

Bobby would be your closest confidant for another Christmas.

You were right when you assumed that Margie wouldn’t take it well. You spent night after night listening to her laments, rubbing a soothing pattern on her back as she cried. You didn’t even know if she was upset that Robert didn’t like her or if she was upset that she got rejected, but you gave her a listening ear no matter what. The calls and in-person interactions only ceased when she went to spend the week of Christmas with her family in Utah.

You, naturally, spent most of your time with Robert. For the entirety of winter break, it was just you and him, which was something that hadn’t happened since elementary school. It gave you a chance to think about things—your feelings in particular.

You slowly realized that you didn’t want to just be his friend. You didn’t know it was love, not yet at least, but your heart beat faster when he was around, and you felt the need to keep him around for as long as possible. It was something further than platonic. A crush, maybe, that was only furthered by the events of Christmas day.

You spent the rare morning with your mother, who had been given a single day off by her boss. It was odd to have her around to make breakfast, not smelling of the bar, and humming around a piece of toast. “It’s almost ready, honey. Why don’t you start on the presents while we wait?” Her voice was only slightly muffled by her food. You nodded silently and pulled out one of the three little gifts wrapped up under the tree. Two from her to you, and one from you to her. It didn’t disappoint you to not receive the dozens of wrapped boxes that your friends did; from a young age, you had realized that any gift at all was precious. You slipped your fingers beneath the wrapping paper and pulled the taped folds away gently, careful not to rip them.

As you unfolded the creases, the box underneath revealed itself to you. It was a shoebox, and within were a pair of shoes that you had been eyeing for a while now. Your face lit up with surprise. She had really remembered? “Thank you, mom.” You grinned. She laughed, turning the heat off from under the scrambled eggs she was tending to.

“I’m not a bad gift giver, hm?” she hummed, sitting down next to you. You pushed the gift that you wrapped for her into her grasp, and she looked down at it with a guilty expression. “I didn’t notice you got anything for me, sweet thing. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be the type of mom that doesn’t deserve a Christmas gift.”

You took her hands off of the present and wrapped them around your shoulders, her normally cold fingers giving off a soft heat. “You aren’t. You do your best, mama, and I love you all the same.” You couldn’t bring yourself to be mean to her when she had spent an important part of her paycheck on you. It was true, that she did all she could think to do, but some part of you wanted her to be better. You still hoped that she could pull herself together and make breakfast for you every day, so you wouldn’t have to microwave pizza pockets or slump over to Robert’s house for a bite to eat. But you were her child, not Georgia Floyd’s, and hoping and wishing couldn’t change that. You had come to terms with it when you saw her watery eyes undoing your sloppy wrapping.

It was a jewelry tree that she said she wanted nearly five months ago. It was expensive, sapping your meager funds, but you knew it would make her happy.

Your mother was one for jewelry and pleasantries, when pleasantries were made to be found. You figured that she liked to feel fancy, with glass diamonds and greening gold. It was the best gift you could think to give her.

She looked up at you as tears began to stream down her face. She wiped them away hastily. “Thanks, baby. I appreciate you more than you know, more than I could ever tell you.”

Your next gift was a book you had wanted for a while but could never seem to find at the library. You thanked her profusely, and spent the next half hour eating with her and talking. Like normal families do. Normal families with normal moms. You could almost picture a man, your father, coming in from the cold outside with the mail in his hands. A roaring fire, a sibling, a pet. Maybe a beagle like Bobby had. But the illusion was shattered when she pulled herself up and wrapped her scarf around her neck, muttering apologetically about having to pick up a Christmas shift after all as she hugged you close. You needed the money, she said. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

Nearly as soon as she left, there was a quiet knock on your door. You opened it slowly, not excited about hearing from the Jehovah’s Witness that frequented your neighborhood. Instead of him was Robert. And he was carrying a gift bag.

“Hi,” he blurted, “this is for you. Merry Christmas.” He handed you the bag, careful not to put his foot through the threshold of your house. You opened the door wider, a pleasant grin spreading onto your face.

“Come in, I have something for you too.”

He hesitated. He had never been inside your house before. You had never explicitly told him he wasn’t allowed, but you usually had some excuse as to why he couldn’t stay over. Over the years, he had learned to just stop looking past the barely cracked-open door and pull you away to his place instead. But, with your insistence, he breached the unknown.

Your house wasn’t as furnished or comfortable as his, but it didn’t really matter. There were two brooms laid against the kitchen wall and a dustpan between them, and your small couch had a tear on the seam. The cabinets didn’t exactly close right, and your faucet leaked. Other than that, it was a normal house. He marveled at a picture of you and your mom stuck to the fridge with a magnet, with the edges folded over like it used to be in a frame. You let him wander for a minute or two before pulling him into your bedroom.

It was completely and utterly you. Books, comics, and little craft projects filled much of the shelf next to your bed, and the sheets were messily crumpled on your mattress. You had a little closet and a mirror that rested against it, slightly smudged with fingerprints. There was even a poster from some movie you liked hung above your headboard. You opened your closet and pulled a small wrapped parcel out from the depths.

You handed it to him with a shy look. “I hope you like it.”

As he took the gift from you, he could feel a significant heft to the package. “I’d like anything if it was from you. It’s the thought that counts, right?” He sat on the edge of your bed as you nodded slowly. You were still a little worried that he wouldn’t be happy, but you knew him. He would thank you profusely if you had wrapped him a lump of coal. He might have even displayed it proudly on his shelf. The thought was enough to have you stifling a laugh. “You should open yours first.”

You obliged, pulling out the tissue paper delicately. Your fingers closed in around something soft, like fabric. Through the gaps of your hands, you could see your favorite color. Your heart leaped out of your chest. “Is this…?”

Bobby nodded, beaming. You took the article of clothing out fully and almost cried at the sight.

It was the dress you had wanted at the mall. The one that had fit you perfectly, and the one that Margie had almost taken from you. You hugged it to your chest. “Thank you, Bobby, thank you. I love it so much.” Your voice was quiet, brimming with emotion. He just opened his arms, and you dove into them, the both of you uncaring of the tear marks that would form on his thick jacket. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” You exclaimed, louder this time, but still muffled by his chest. He just laughed and pulled you in closer.

“You’re welcome, you’re welcome, you’re welcome.”

That meant more to you than anything else could have. Not only did he notice what you liked, he bought it when you couldn’t. It was more than just a gift.

Robert would’ve given up his entire stash of money, carefully tucked away in his dresser drawer, to make you react like that. It was no contest.

He opened his gift next and had to scrub the wetness away from his own eyes. It was a model plane; more specifically, a version of the Super Hornet. The plane he had heard about entering service years ago, and the plane that he dreamed of flying. He ran his hands along the wings in wonder. “It’s perfect.” He choked out. “Thank you. I’m gonna put it on my shelf as soon as I get home.” You knew he would say something like that, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling good.

He stayed for a bit, after that, talking to you about anything and everything, as you usually do. It was nice to see him lying on your bed, staring up at your ceiling. And it was nice to have this sort of alone time with him. When he reached up to pick a piece of fuzz off of your shirt, you almost melted in place. You never thought your heart could beat that fast.

After he left, you felt your joy walk out the door behind him. All you could think was that you couldn’t wait to see him again.

You never had to wait long.

The rest of middle school went by fairly quickly, as did Margaret’s sadness. She got over her affections before moving on to the next poor sap, dragging you along with her. After eighth grade, she would always mention how nice Aaron looked in his church clothes and how pretty his eyes were. Not having to worry about someone taking Bobby away from you was just another weight off of your shoulders. You also grew a lot during that time, physically and mentally. You were taller, happier, bigger, stronger. It was in part due to Rob, as he liked to be called sometime during your freshman year, and in part due to your mother finally going to rehab.

You didn’t know it was rehab. You didn’t know much at that age, not of yourself or other people, so it was just one more thing to add to the list. She just told you that you would have to stay at Rob’s for a few months, and they accepted your presence with kindness. His mom seemed to look at you sadly during that time. You chose to ignore it, focusing on how grateful you were to have a home while your mother was away.

High school was better. Much better, in your opinion. You felt like things were finally coming together.

You had a small, quaint, stable friend group, consisting of you, Margaret, Rob, and Aaron. They were fun. You didn’t think you could enjoy going to football games or pep rallies until they were there with you, cheering and joyful. Even studying was full of inside jokes and nudging each other with your elbows until the flashcards were forgotten and the air was thick with laughter. You started to enjoy your classes, too, because you had a clearer goal in your mind. You were going to apply to your city’s college and room with Margie, considering you both got in. So you threw yourself into school with full force, hoping that your future would be just as great.

Rob wasn’t planning on going to your college. He hadn’t told you, not yet, but he was applying to the Naval Academy. He was finally going to achieve his dreams, even if he felt endless guilt about leaving you to be on your own. He didn’t want to lose you, but the temptation of the sky drew him in until he couldn’t escape the magnetizing force.

The first year was, other than a few football games and watching Margie perform in the school play, relatively uneventful.

Dungeons and Dragons began to reign supreme as your group’s favorite pastime, although Margaret didn’t quite understand the story that Aaron concocted. To her credit, she tried. She played an elvish ranger with long flowing hair and a past of tortured princesshood, while you decided on a sweet halfling druid, and Rob a powerful human wizard. Nothing was more fun than losing yourself entirely to the tale, drawn in by Aaron’s dark voice impressions and the little figures that danced across the map he drew. It was a more grown-up form of playing pretend, and you were entranced by every second of every session.

By the time your mother returned home, fidgety yet quiet, you had established a nice sort of life. You moved back to your house, bittersweetly thanking Rob’s family for taking you in, and you spent the rest of the school year and the summer that followed with her.

She was different. She wasn’t like she was prior to the drinking or during the drinking, but a new person entirely, like she shed every part of herself and started fresh. She slept in, but got ready for work as you were walking out the door. She cooked, but with a tremor in her hand that was never present before. There were no more midnight rampages, but you got the feeling that she didn’t fall into her bed until very late hours. It was odd, at best, but like always, she did what she could with what she had. You continued to support her every step of the way.

Starting your sophomore year was less exciting than transitioning to a whole new school, and the nerves that had preceded every other year had faded into the background. You were more sure of yourself. Still naive, but there was some confidence in your step. The classes were tough, but you were tougher. Of course, the people who picked on you in the past were still jerks, but it was nothing you weren’t already used to.

You finished the year with a smile on your face and a finger linked with each of your friends.

Summer was the same as it always was. Fun, lazy, anything you wanted to make of it. You and the rest of the group frequented the lake closest to Aaron’s house, as his older brother was no stranger to driving you around in the car he had fixed up the summer previous. It was during one of those trips that you discovered quite a few things about the people around you.

Margaret was splashing around in the lake, completely unfazed by the freezing water. Well, she was fazed at the beginning, but she quickly adapted. “Come in, it’s so nice!” she called, flicking a drop of water towards you. You blocked it with the edge of your towel, not keen on getting your book wet.

“Later, I’m still reading,” you grumbled. Rob was perched behind you, reading over your shoulder as the pages flipped. You had just returned from the water and were trying to wait out the little kids that were flailing around in the shallows.

She made a face until she spotted that Aaron was also out of the water. Shrugging, she stepped closer to the shore, and tugged on his arm. That action sent him stumbling into the lapping waves, to her delight.

He let out an indistinct shout before resigning himself to being wet once again. “Warn me next time, geez! I could’ve died,” he moaned, pushing a wave of water straight into Margie’s face. She just laughed in delight.

You ignored the two as you worked on your book, delving further into the story of a girl on a mountain, traversing through the thick forest in an attempt to wake her comatose father. Rob read right along with you, keeping your pace perfectly. You never needed to ask him when he wanted you to turn the pages—it was like your eyes read at the same speed, your brains processing the same things. Among other things, that was convenient.

The air began to grow colder as you began the second-to-last chapter, the sun casting longer and longer shadows. It wasn’t evening quite yet, but the blazing afternoon sun had softened. You looked up with a start. It had clearly been a couple hours, but where were the other two members of your group?

You turned around to face Rob. “Have you seen Aaron and Margie recently?”

He quickly scanned the area with a slight look of panic sewn into his features. The lake was empty, the shore was clear of visitors, and even the sky was barren. “No, but we really need to find them before Marcus comes back with the car.” They were simply gone. “Here, why don’t you stay with our stuff and I’ll go look?” he suggested, standing to wipe the gravel off his shorts.

“I don’t want to split up.” You were wary of the quiet, unsure if something would come out of the land around you and take you, too. “We can hide the bags in that dry spot under the dock and come back for them later.”

He just nodded in agreement, taking the larger share of your things and helping you conceal them within the rocks and overgrown water weeds. The two of you then set off to find your friends, calling their names into the sound of sloshing water and twittering birds.

It was almost twenty minutes later when you began to hear someone sniffling and a distinctly feminine voice trying to calm them down. Margie and Aaron. You and Rob looked at each other, then swiftly moved towards them.

Aaron was crouched down in the middle of a little clearing, his head in his hands. Margie was sitting and whispering to him, something you couldn’t quite make out. You had never heard her whisper before. It didn’t matter, though, because they quickly spotted you.

“Guys, I’m not sure it’s a good-”

“No, it’s okay.” Aaron cut Margaret off. “They can hear it.”

You dropped to your knees to get on their level, Rob quickly following suit. “What happened?” you asked, gently reaching out to brush Aaron’s hand. His face was slick with tears, his normally neat hair lopsided like he had tried to run his fingers through the thick coils.

He hesitated, slightly, but Margie patted him encouragingly. “Margie told me how she felt.”

Okay, another confession within the friend group. That wouldn’t explain the running away or the crying, at least not him crying, so what else? Rob spoke up, voice restrained. “How did that make you feel?”

“Bad,” he muttered, looking up at the girl with guilt in his brown eyes. “Not because I don’t like her, but because I can’t.” His voice trailed off into muffled sobs once again as he sunk into Margie’s arms.

Oh. You exchanged glances with Rob.

That wasn’t exactly news to you, but you had never been able to voice your suspicions out loud. It just made sense. Margie liked Aaron, and Aaron didn’t like girls. He didn’t even have to explain fully, you and Rob just hugged his shaking form.

There was a very hushed, heartfelt talk after that. The fact of the matter was, you and your friends loved Aaron, and that was just a new fact about him for you to love. It also surprised you a little.

You knew you would be okay with it, but Rob and Margie grew up with you. They knew your area and the opinions that floated around. You never expected them to be hateful, no, but putting aside the thoughts that were so instilled in your hometown would be difficult for anyone lesser than them. It showed you that your friends wouldn’t dream of hurting the people around them, the people they loved.

When anyone, you included, presented the group with a new side of them, they were accepted with open arms.

Junior year was tougher than the previous. Your rocks remained by your side, but certain people pulled at the strings binding your sanity like a child with a ball of yarn. One of those people ended up being Brady, who after a couple years of a mild hiatus, began making fun of you more than ever.

He was in all the same rigorous classes as you and your friends, leading him to be able to torture you during lessons. In addition to that, his last name was similar enough to yours for him to be placed behind you in most of those classes.

The vast majority of the torture involved stealing your belongings, throwing things at the back of your head, making fun of your looks, hobbies, anything, and passing you notes that read like a stupid teenage boy’s jeers. Sexual innuendos, frankly abhorrent pick up lines, and gross questions crumpled under your fist almost every day.

You tried to tell the teachers, the principal, anyone that would listen, but they all said the same thing: boys will be boys. Brady was too good of a student and too important of an athlete to punish. Hell, the most he got for cutting off a section of your hair was a verbal warning. Every day, you and your friends got closer and closer to punching him in the face. None of them liked him, for good reason, but even their protection couldn’t fully stop him. Everything exploded in the spring, right before your junior prom.

You sat at your desk during your English lecture, desperately trying to pay attention to your teacher who was droning on and on about The Great Gatsby. You shifted your leg a bit, just enough to feel a piece of paper pressing into the underside of your thigh. You pulled it out, confused.

It was a thick, decorated section of stationery with a few words scrawled on it in cursive. It read, “Meet me by the gym after school,” signed by someone who called themselves your secret admirer. You looked down at the prose. It didn’t look like Brady’s handwriting, something you were quite sure of. But who else would’ve written it? You tucked it in your pocket, not wanting to decide whether or not to go right then and there.

You did end up going, which was your biggest mistake. You sat on the edge of a planter near the entrance of the gym, picking at the seam of your shirt. It wasn’t long before everyone who had gym class last period filed out of the school, leaving you utterly alone. It also wasn’t long before Brady appeared, walking towards you like he was on a mission.

You stood up, poised to leave if he did anything other than walk right on by. Unfortunately for you, he held up a hand as if to tell you to wait. “Hey,” he grinned, “you got my note?”

You paused. “Your note?” You didn’t think he even knew how to write in cursive, much less make it as neat as it was on the stationary. You wouldn’t be surprised if he paid one of the artsy girls to write it for him.

“Yeah.” He stared down at you. There was a gleam in his eye that you didn’t like. “I wanted to ask you to prom.”

Prom? He wanted to ask you to prom? You were baffled. There were a million better fitting people at his disposal, ones that didn’t hate him with a passion. He had made your life hell that year, and multiple years previous to that. You almost scoffed at his words.

“Well, I would rather you didn’t.” You said. You turned to leave, but his hand caught your wrist in a vice-like grip. His eerily green eyes burned holes into yours.

“What, you’re just going to leave? After leading me on for so many years, playing hard to get?”

You were stunned. You weren’t aware you were playing anything. Everything he did just seemed mean, and you responded to it like any victim of bullying would. You just balked, uttering a quiet “huh?” when he wouldn’t let go. Try as you might, you couldn’t break his grip as he ranted about you being so obviously into him. He even tried to pull you closer, until two familiar hands grabbed his arm and shoved him back.

It was Rob, and he was furious. “What the fuck? Leave her alone,” he snapped, forcing himself into the gap between you and Brady. You rarely heard him curse, and you had never seen him as mad as that. Brady just rolled his eyes with a psychotic little laugh.

“Oh my god, did you think I was actually into your little girlfriend? Shove off, dude. I was joking. Who in their right mind would want that thing hanging off them in public?” he scoffed. You couldn’t tell if he was serious about anything right then. He was contradicting himself constantly. If the prom thing was a joke, was he just making fun of you again? Or if the prom thing was serious, was he deflecting? Your mind was reeling, and you just wanted to sit down and get your head straight. The place where Brady had grabbed you was pulsing, sure to form a bruise during the night.

Rob said something you didn’t remember before he put a protective hand on your shoulder and ushered you away. All you could hear was laughter, Brady’s and a couple other boys’. You didn’t even see the other boys arrive, and if they were there the whole time, you weren’t aware. The whole walk of shame just felt like a fever dream, with you fading in and out of reality until Rob sat you down on the edge of his mattress. You couldn’t even tell how you got there. Rob tilted your face towards him, concerned, and you realized you were crying.

“Don’t let him get to you.” His voice was soothing, like he was speaking to a scared puppy. “He was just being an asshole.”

“Did you hear everything?” You sounded pathetic, but you didn’t care.

Rob shook his head. “When I came over, he was in the middle of some spiel. I was just on my way to lacrosse practice before I saw you.” Ah, yes, he was in lacrosse. And he was usually early. The things you remembered after dissociating continued to surprise you. He wiped the tears off your cheeks with the pad of his thumb.

He hated seeing you like that. Brady didn’t deserve to make you cry. No one did, not even yourself. He wanted to pull you under his covers and let you sigh into his shirt, like always. He wanted you to forget about everything and just hold on to him.

You wrung your hands in your lap, trying desperately to process everything. The situation was just so… bizarre. You didn’t know what to believe, but at the end of the day, you figured it didn’t matter. Brady will be Brady. Out of nowhere, you started to laugh. Rob’s eyes widened, but he cracked a smile too.

You devolved into cackles on his bed, with him doubled over next to you. Hysterics, some might say. But it was all you could think to do at the time, all your tired mind could handle at the moment. Of course, you talked about it after, but the laughter was the key to getting you through the situation.

You had waited all your life for a big confession of love, and your “first one” went to shit immediately. Luckily, like always, Rob was there to pick up the pieces.

Prom came and went without another word from Brady. Instead of going to the dance, however, you and your friends spent the night at a diner. The place had a playplace definitely designed and designated for little kids, but that didn’t stop you from climbing up the sides and playing a good old game of tag. You were winded by the end, a cramp crawling its way down your side, but it was more fun than sitting around a bowl of punch would be. The dances were never your thing, anyway.

Both Margie and Aaron had a curfew as the night marched towards 10:00, but you decided to go back to Rob’s house for a movie or two. He could drive, and it was the most amazing excuse for him to ferry everyone everywhere. He never minded. So you got in his car, and he let you choose the music, and you talked the whole way home.

As you finally arrived, your voices fell to hushed whispers. His family was more than likely asleep—save for his brother, who was spending his first year in college on campus. Rob locked the door and fumbled for the TV remote in the near-darkness as you thumbed through his DVD collection.

There wasn’t much selection. His family encouraged spending time with each other instead of spending time staring at a screen, so their DVDs consisted of old children’s films, a few action movies, and The Princess Bride. You had seen every one of them countless times, but the action movies more so. Frankly, you were tired of Men in Black and The Terminator, so you pulled out The Princess Bride. It was his sister’s favorite, but you liked it enough.

Rob raised his eyebrows at the selection but accepted it, popping the disc into the player and tugging a blanket over your body, already nice and comfortable on the couch.

The first few times you watched movies together, Bobby would be silent. He stared at the screen with rapt attention, losing himself in the plot and acting. Over time, as you both learned to remember each twist and even a few distinct lines, you started talking while the movie played. It went from movie discussion to just anything, with the film serving as background noise to your conversation. A bit of you wondered why you didn’t just pause the video or talk somewhere else, but it was familiar, and somehow far better than conversing in silence. This time, you were discussing how far you could go in your friendship before Rob would stop metaphorically saying “as you wish”.

“I feel like you would say no if I, like, asked if I could pick your nose. Which I wouldn’t do, but you wouldn’t let me, right?”

He considered it for a moment, shrugging noncommittally. “If I had a reason to believe there was something in it, I might.” You scrunched your nose in response, shaking your head to the thought of it.

“Well, I’m not sticking my finger up there any time soon.” You pushed his face away from yours with your finger, pressing lightly into his forehead. He fell back, settling into the couch cushions.

“Thank god. I really think I’d let you do anything, though.”

You sat up, following him onto his side of the couch. There was a playful smile on your lips. “Anything?”

He nodded, face flushed in the dim lighting. He blushed so easily at the slightest provocation—it would be funny if you hadn’t already teased him for it hundreds of times. “That’s fair. I’d probably let you do anything too, but within reason.”

He tensed, eyes flicking across your face. He seemed like he was considering something. He had a concentrated look on his face, weighing the pros and cons. You had seen that face numerous times in the past, but right now, it confused you. Before he could think any better of it, and before he could get in his head about his newfound impulsivity, he opened his mouth. “Is kissing you within reason?”

You paused. Don’t get ahead of yourself, you thought. It’s for the sake of the conversation. Right? It wasn’t like he thought about kissing you as much as you thought about kissing him. He was just so handsome, every day, all the time. It only got better with the years developing his features. It wasn’t like he had a major crush on you, too. “Sure.”

“Then…” His gaze dropped to your lips. He was hesitating, like you were going to shove him away and call him disgusting. But it was finally happening, and your heart beat faster and faster in your chest.

“As you wish.”

Your lips connected, and his hand cradled the back of your head. It was like nothing you had ever experienced before.

Warm, soft, a bit of teeth, but that didn’t matter. You felt like you were flying. Your dream finally came true—the one where you had his loving touch, where you melted into his arms like he would be able to hold you together. You prayed to anyone that would listen to never let you wake up.

When you pulled away, Rob’s face was red and dazed. He could hardly believe that he did that, and that you let him. He had been harboring so many feelings, ones that he himself had only realized in middle school. He tried everything to deny them, to push them to the side, because he didn’t think he could make you as happy as you deserved. But he couldn’t deny himself enough to not kiss you, not when you looked so perfect, lit up by the television screen. He was a strong person, but not that strong.

You were utterly flustered. A short silence filled the air for a moment before you opened your mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to speak. “So…”

“Can I be your boyfriend?” He blurted. That was quick. “I know it’s… weird, but I really love you, and I have for a while.” He looked away shyly, blue eyes pointed towards anything but you.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” you smiled.

Your school year finished with an absolute flourish. You had a boyfriend for once. Margie was delighted when she found out.

She squealed so loudly that you thought she would collapse the walls of her room, her hands immediately finding a place on your shoulders to shake you. “You and Rob, oh, I knew it! You’re perfect together.” She had matured so much after middle school, and the thought made your lips curl up into a smile.

Telling Aaron was easier. He looked at you with a knowing smile and then nodded, satisfied that you had both pulled your heads out of your asses long enough to realize you were in love with each other. As Margie was your victim while you were contesting your feelings, he was Rob’s. He knew that everything would work out better than any of you.

Bobby didn’t quite know how to go about informing his family, so he decided on inviting you over for dinner and giving a whole, uninterrupted speech about how he wanted to let them know that you were more than just a friend now. His little sister, Jodie, just rolled her eyes and said, “We know.” He reddened under their laughter, but his hand was firm in holding yours under the table.

Your mom was the person you were most worried about. She liked Rob, but you had never really been able to talk to her about those things. In the end, you casually dropped it during a conversation, she made some little comment about it, and you moved on. It wasn’t much of a big deal.

After the initial reactions, your relationship with him didn’t change much. You still did everything together, and you still spent hours talking with him, but there were a few sneaky kisses in between words and a few instances of hand-holding. It was heaven.

Despite you having a similar dynamic, it felt more real, like you weren’t skirting around a touchy subject anymore. You were fully immersed in said subject, and Rob was the perfect accomplice.

You knew him to be kind, gentle, and smart, but everything was amplified tenfold over the summer before your senior year. He held you with a special determination, never hiding how much he loved you through touch alone. He pulled you away from Brady whenever he approached, letting you hold his hand instead of looking at him. You saw a side of him that he kept carefully locked away.

He never left behind his love of comics and flying, but he let you in on those secrets. He finally told you that he was applying to the Naval Academy (which you realized was the reason he was spending so much time at the gym, and why he was an Eagle Scout, and captain of the lacrosse team, etc. etc.), and even though he was worried that you would react badly, you tried to support him. It lifted a kind of weight off of his shoulders and let him be fully honest with you about everything.

You had never been in a better place. He kissed you, brought you flowers, held your hand, and walked on the outside of the sidewalk. A gentleman, as he always had been.

One of your favorite memories during that time was when he took you out to eat with his first ever paycheck. It wasn’t any place particularly fancy, as he worked a minimum wage job flipping burgers, but it was special all the same.

Rob was dressed in a polo, hair smoothed and combed (which was a whole lot better than his style in middle school, in your opinion), and glasses perched on his nose. He had taken to wearing them again as he hated getting dry eyes while working out. And, man, did he work out. He was getting a bit big for his clothing, his arms pushing against the fabric of his shirt, and chest noticeably straining against the cloth. You pulled your eyes away from his body, face a little warm when you noticed he noticed.

For once, you didn’t know what to talk about. It was your first real, proper date, and the pressure left your mouth dry. You drummed your fingers on the table before deciding to end the tension. “Do you remember when we first met?”

He blinked, but smiled fondly at the memory. “Yeah. I still had that big cast, and you didn’t have any shoes on. I was jealous, you know,” he laughed lightly, “you got to feel the ground with both your feet.”

He reached out to take your hand, but stopped just short of your digits. You closed the gap and linked your fingers. “I was jealous that you had a cast with signatures on it. Apparently breaking a bone was cool to me, until I realized it meant you couldn’t go splash in the creek or roll down a hill.”

“That was awful. I think I cried once because I couldn’t chase a newt into the water.”

“And I had to sit by the edge of the stream and hold your glasses so you could wipe your eyes!” It was like yesterday for you, hand resting on his shoulder and mouth whispering soothing words until he could pick his glasses from your outstretched hand. He didn’t cry often, but you supposed that particular day took a toll on him in a way that you could not recall.

“You’ve always been great at comforting me.”

“I haven’t done it in a while, though. Hey, maybe you should get that boot back so I can see if I still have the magic touch,” you teased. He shook his head vigorously.

“Are you kidding me? I never want to see another medical boot again.” He paused. “Well, actually, it wouldn’t be so bad if you were there. Y’know, for moral support.”

You rolled your eyes, but your mouth betrayed you as it formed a smile. “For sure. I would dote on you—cucumbers on your eyes, a warm towel wrapping your hair, anything you want. Maybe I could even carry you down to the creek and find a few newts for you.”

“Carry me? You would probably break your back.” he scoffed, somewhat shyly. You didn’t even know a person could scoff shyly, but he was the king of consistency; he did everything with that little bashful tilt of his head.

“You never know. I’ve gotten pretty strong lately.”

“Show me sometime, then we can discuss the ‘carrying me down to the creek’ thing.”

“...give me a few more years and we’ll see.”

You talked about memories for hours upon end, until the restaurant workers had to gently push you out the door. The time you accidentally ate a fly while swinging, and he consoled you as you washed your mouth out a million times. When Margie accidentally left you two locked in her closet because she didn’t want her parents to make you leave. Even when Rob’s parents sat you down and said it would be okay with them if you two dated—which was met with outward disgust and internal hope. Throughout the reminiscence, his hand was held tightly in yours, and his eyes sometimes watered. It took everything in you to not sob at the idea of not being able to form these kinds of memories with him. It was kind of your last-ditch effort to truly be with him, in a way that no one else could be, before school started up again. You knew that soon, you would be stuck in class, and after that… after that, there were but a few brief weeks until he had to leave. You hadn’t been apart from him since you met, and each new day ticked down like a massive, ominous clock. You would just have to wait for him to return, as you waited for him to arrive in the first place.

Just like you assumed it would, time passed quickly. Senior year was packed with homework, tests, college applications, more homework, more tests, watching lacrosse matches, cheering and whooping at football games, club meetings, swinging on the local park’s swings until you got sick with laughter, driving, and breaking curfew. It was fun. Everything could be fun if it was with the right people.

After things had died down, you discovered that your college and Naval Academy decisions happened to align somewhat perfectly with each other. Margie, Aaron, and you all got your letters a few days before Rob did, and you waited to open them together. Even holding the envelopes was stressful, like your entire future rode on a few printed words. They did, actually. That made it even scarier.

“Okay, we’ve all actually got to open them this time,” Margie groaned. She had counted down from three at least four times at this point. You and the boys were too scared to rip open the seals. It was amazing that she had held back from tearing them apart herself. “Three, two… one!”

The sound of tearing paper filled Rob’s bedroom, and you all eagerly held up the letters to the soft, warm glow of his overhead light.

Congratulations!

…pleased to offer you…

You did it. You all did it. A beat of shocked silence filled the air as you took glance after glance at your own and everyone else’s papers, but it was quickly broken by Margie’s scream. She threw her arms around you, tackling you to the floor, as she yelled, “Everyone got in! Everyone got in! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” You laughed in her grasp, everyone releasing a breath of relief that they didn’t know they were holding. Margie pulled Rob and Aaron into her bear hug as well, until everyone was in a big, happy pile. A twinge in your heart knew that these letters meant nothing would ever be the same again, but you pushed it aside for the joy of now.

Rob grinned, his glasses crooked on his face. “Good job, guys. Congrats. You all really deserve it.”

“You deserve it too, Bobby. Getting into the academy is hard, but I know you worked harder.” You gave him a peck on the cheek as Margie swooned and Aaron gagged.

It took about two more seconds for the moment to devolve. Aaron folded his acceptance letter into a boat, which he then got stuck in Margie’s hair. Six pairs of hands worked to detangle it, but she didn’t make it any easier with the amount of giggles she was releasing. It was going to be okay, you thought. High school would end, and college would begin, but you could deal with everything coming your way. Your best friends would be with you, and your best-est friend would be an email away. An email and a million miles, but an email nonetheless. He had already created a folder just for you.

Things changed, as they always have and always will. You would cry, and yes, you were stuck biding the time before your soon-to-be long distance boyfriend returned, but that change was beautiful.

After packing your meager belongings into a duffel bag and a half-wheeled suitcase, your mom drove you to your college dorm for move-in day. She was sad to see you go, but she joked that she could host the A.A. meetings in your room during your absence. She was okay to live on her own, she assured you. For the first time in a long time, you fully believed her.

She helped you set up, greeting Margie as well, then gave you a squeezing hug and walked back to her car. You likely wouldn’t be able to see her for a while, considering that you didn’t have your own car, but you had survived without her in the past, and you would again.

Everything felt new and exciting, the world alight with opportunities. Every class prompted a discussion within yourself, and every party forced that discussion to present itself. You found that enjoying reality had a sort of grounding effect, even when you were clinging to a wall during a wildly chaotic frat house rager. Margie had joined the adjoining sorority, so those things were often places you could hang out. Man, did you hang out.

With (almost) complete and utter freedom, you could do just about anything. You worked at a Jersey Mike’s on campus, so you had access to free sandwiches and money; that meant the world was your oyster. You and your friends dabbled in school organizations, danced to loud music, stuck your heads out of sunroofs, and edged your way into the campus culture. The librarian ended up kicking you and your English 101 classmates out of the library after you violated the “quiet study” rule a few too many times.

The school part was, admittedly, less fun, but it was a good experience nonetheless. You ended up switching majors twice during your first two years of college, as you were not exactly sure what would be useful or even what you wanted out of life, but you settled on something eventually. Aaron stuck straight on his path to pre-med with biology, while Margaret switched from political science to education. As the general education requirements were fulfilled and the more targeted classes began, your hangouts dulled down a little bit. Aaron was constantly stressed and no longer had time to roll down the sunroof, and even Margie had things to do. She was interning at a school district a few miles from campus. The new friends you made had less and less time to talk. It left you feeling a little disgruntled, but between harder work and dictating your newly boring life to Bob, there was no time to spare.

He started signing off his emails as Bob; whether it was to sound professional or because it was what everyone in the academy called him, it didn’t matter. You accepted it, like you did so many things about him.

One email chain in particular is now printed out on thick, bordered paper, stuck in one of your million half-filled-in photo albums. You thumb through them from time to time, just to look at the memories.

From: [email protected]

Hello, my love!

I haven’t had a chance to read your past emails, sorry! They keep me busy here (not as busy as plebe summer though haha) and downtime is a thing of the past. I will read them in a few days, if all things go well. I’ll tell you about my past few weeks in the meantime. Well, my past few weeks haven’t been all too interesting, but I figured I’d write it down anyway.

Mickey and I have been going through the motions. The classes can be tough, but nothing compares to Ms. Norton’s gov assignments. There’s workouts, class, and a little downtime before it all starts up again. Luckily, I’ve been getting more freedom lately. That’s the perk of being a responsible student ;)

Yesterday, I saw this guy flick peas at his friend (were they friends? Possibly, maybe, I’m not sure) and get absolutely torn apart by an instructor that was watching. I had to cover Mickey’s mouth before he laughed so he wouldn’t get reprimanded. That’s the kind of “exciting” thing that happens here, by the way; I’m sure the others get up to mischief, but with the hawks watching and the stakes so high? I’d rather imagine all the trouble you get into at college instead. It softens the blow.

That being said, enough about me. I want you to send me a million (ok, maybe not a million, I’d be fine with a couple thousand) emails about everything you do. I hope that wasn’t super creepy. I just miss you a lot.

I miss your humor, your laugh, and your smile. I miss feeling your thumb rubbing the back of my hand when you get bored. I miss smelling your shampoo, and I miss kissing you. I wish I had snuck some of your perfume in with me along with the photos, but that might be too sappy of me. I’d get made fun of relentlessly if this email were to fall into the wrong hands, but I don’t care anymore. Oh, I miss home, too, so visit my family when you have the chance. Tell me everything.

Anyways, I hope this email finds you well. I’ve got to go to bed now, but I’m sure I’ll be dreaming about you. Catch you at midnight!

Love,

Bob.

P.S.: Mickey wanted to say hi, so I let him have the keyboard for a few seconds. Bob is such a sap about u, Hometown Girl, I send my deepest sympathies. Also HELLO! -That was Mickey. Expect a message from him every email from now on, because he won’t stop threatening to tape my socks to the ceiling??

To: [email protected]

Hi Bob!! And hello Mickey. I hope he hasn’t been bringing me up too much.

Don’t worry about reading all my emails all the time—nothing too eventful ever happens anyway. And if it did, I’m sure Margie and Aaron would let you know as well.

All the work you guys have to do sounds insane, like crazy insane. I don’t think I could ever work out and then go through a million tough classes. I die after 30 minutes at the gym. You’re lucky all the instructors like you, because I’m sure the others get a ton of flack.

The most trouble I’ve gotten into this week was forgetting my homework and having to lie to my teacher. I told her I got frat flu and couldn’t get out of my dorm to go to the library… which was highly unethical, but you do what you have to do. As for the others, I haven’t seen Aaron in weeks because he’s prepping for his finals. We just finished midterms. He’s so studious it actually shocks me. Our favorite roommate is asleep at 7:49 PM, and I have to shield my laptop screen from shining too close to her. I’m sure she gets into trouble that I don’t even want to think about… she brought two separate guys to the room within four hours. TMI, but you’ve heard it all anyway.

Instead of a million emails, I hope a few long ones will suffice. I miss you too, so much. I hate having to wrap my arms around a pillow instead of you—it should be classified as a deficiency, honestly. A Bobby deficiency. I’m the sickest patient imaginable.

I visited the fams on Sunday. Jodie is doing really well in high school! She’s in all the advanced art classes and is enjoying her schedule immensely. Chris was there too, with his fiance. Which reminds me: even though the wedding hasn’t even been planned yet and probably won’t be for a couple years, he wants you to be his best man!!! He asked me to warn you before the fancy wedding court invitations go out. Brotherly love and all that. You don’t have to say yes, he said, but he wants that unfortunate little buzz cut by his side on his big day.

Your parents are doing well, and so is my mom. We’re all getting together this weekend to prep a giant care package, which I hope will be well enjoyed by you and your friends. I need to finish up my stats homework (ugh), so I’ll cut this message short, but expect more after I close my textbook. I hope to see you in dream world too <3

Love,

Hometown Girl.

From: [email protected]

Good morning, Randle,

I was wondering about placing a hold on the item we spoke about over the phone. I can call again on Saturday, sometime during the afternoon. Please reach out if it’s still an option.

Thanks,

Robert Floyd.

From: [email protected]

Sorry about that last email, honey! That wasn’t meant for you. I’m just looking at a lock for my bag. Mickey likes to rifle through my things. I’ll email you more later.

Love,

Bob.

To: [email protected]

It’s alright, enjoy your lock lol.

Love,

Not Randle.

You didn’t have any reason to question his words at the time. Well, you never had a reason to question any of his words, because he could beat George Washington in a telling-the-truth competition. Now, you know that Bob’s a damn good liar—not that he would ever lie to hurt you. It’s just the nice secrets he keeps, like the one he kept the entire time he was training to be a naval aviator.

As his education progressed, though, his eyesight kept him from doing the one thing he truly wanted to do: be a pilot. He just missed the requirement, as he explained in a short, sad email after his eye test. It was crushing, to say the least, but Bob bounced back quickly. He always did. He was never one to sit and mope about a problem, no, he took the next best thing. He began training to be a weapon systems officer, and he was damn good at it.

His graduation, adorned with the markings of a star student, came with no surprise, and neither did his transition to the actual Navy. He did flight training, conditioning, and every other rigorous step to climb his way to the top; by the end, he was a new man. He graduated from Top Gun for god’s sake. Documenting his development were emails, short visits, letters, the whole shebang.

The one thing that didn’t change was his love.

He was still goofy, nerdy, and kind. His skin may have been tougher, after years of being hardened by the world around him, but he took the time to care for the people in his life. He people-watched, just as he always did, and called you every sweet nickname that would get anyone lesser embarrassed. He still blushed like a madman, whether it was from pulling Gs or your tight hugs. And, which may just be the best thing he kept, he maintained his loyalty to the people in his past. He was a Montana kid, through and through.

You changed, he changed, the world changed. Everything was constantly moving. You maintained consistency in your waiting, though. That was the only thing that didn’t budge. You marked the dates that Bob would come back home in your calendar, counting down every second like you would miss him if you didn’t. One of those dates ended up being Margie’s wedding.

The year of weddings was upon you; Bob’s brother had just gotten married half a year before, and three of your other friends got married between then and Margaret’s wedding. Even Aaron was eyeing rings, constantly emailing you pictures from catalogs in an attempt to find the “perfect” band for his boyfriend. It came with being full-fledged adults, you assumed. Everyone was settled in their grown-up jobs or grad school, and therefore had more time to spend with their respective partners. Except for Bob, of course. He was sent everywhere under the sun. From Virginia to Hawaii, Hawaii to Texas, Texas to Nevada, and, most recently, Nevada to California. The last in-person interaction you had with him was four months ago when you flew to Lemoore to visit. There was no time for proposals, even if you had been with him long enough to be considered married in everyone else’s eyes.

You were Margie’s maid of honor. You helped with planning, invitations, booking, buying, organizing, setting up, and pretty much all the details since she showed you the large, sparkling diamond on her ring finger. You even helped pick out her dress. It was a classic ball gown-style beauty, with delicate lace and heavy frills. It was exactly her.

Bob was a groomsman, even though he and the groom weren’t particularly close. It was your closeness to both Margie and her fiance that brought him to the bachelor party in the first place. In the days before the wedding, you and Bob shared a room close to the wedding venue.

Being with him again made you the happiest you had been in a long time. You felt complete, like when he was gone, your heart just ached and ached until he could come plug up the holes again. Living in that small motel room was a breath of fresh air, and sharing a bed with him in complete privacy was amazing in more ways than one.

It was strange, in a way, like you didn’t really know him anymore. He had friends you had never met and a job you knew nothing about in a place you had only visited once, but he was intricately tied to your hometown through a series of souls and bonds. He was balancing between two worlds, and a part of you wondered where he would fall if the beam were to become unsteady. And another part of you hoped he would take you with him when the time came.

During the ceremony the next day, you thought that you wanted to be the one walking down the aisle next.

The wedding went well, as most weddings did. There were tears from you, tears from the audience, tears from everyone except for the children Margie taught, as they were too young to really understand the beauty of two people devoting their lives to each other. The cake was cut, frosting smeared on the newlyweds’ cheeks, the dances flowed flawlessly, the pictures turned out perfect, and even Margie’s mother-in-law was happy. It was honestly the most beautiful wedding you had witnessed in your life.

When the time came for the bouquet toss, you were so far back in the crowd that it didn’t even have a chance of landing in your outstretched hands. You stood there for moral support, really, as the girls around you pushed their way to the front. There was a countdown, a little shove from the person next to you, and a bouquet of poppies tossed high into the air. It sailed in an arc, red and orange streaking through the air. Despite everything, despite the odds being stacked against you, it was heading right in your direction.

You reached one arm out, squished between bodies, and caught it.

The uproar of the people around you filled your ears as you pulled the flowers to your chest. The crowd parted, and Margie came barrelling towards you, wrapping you in her lacy arms. “Yes! I just knew you would catch it, I always do. You’ve got to help me plan the wedding when it happens, because I know it will, and you’re going to need the perfect dress and the perfect venue and the prettiest invitations and…”

She carried on for a while, and you smiled into the soft, decorative leaves.

You saved the flower petals, pressed in a big dictionary under your desk. You saved every flower you had ever been given. Parts of them, at least. Your corsage from senior prom, the bouquets Bob had shipped to your door, and the marigolds your mother grew in her new garden are spread out across your bedroom. Most of your memories are tucked away in secret places, only noticeable if you know where to look.

After the wedding, you returned to your little apartment, smack in the middle of the busiest part of your town. The cars speeding by were significantly worse than Bob’s light snoring. It was the first time you had lived on your own, though, which was supposed to be important. You were free.

You could eat ice cream for breakfast, or in the late hours of the night, and you could sing loudly in the shower. You could even buy most of the clothes you saw in stores on your brand new salary and organized savings. However, you found that you didn’t necessarily want to do all that. You just wanted every day to be over already. Work was too much, waking up to an upset stomach was too much, checking your email every thirty minutes and seeing nothing was too much, and those goddamn people in the room above yours were too much, constantly blasting music and stomping around. Like always, you found yourself waiting for things to change again. You imagined you were anywhere else with anyone else, finding a sick sense of comfort in the fantasies. You thought you put those little phases behind you, but being an adult alone was so frustrating that you found yourself going back to old patterns.

Margie was caught up in the married life, Aaron was constantly working, and your frequently long-distance boyfriend was states away. The only comfort you got was periodic visits to your old neighborhood, checking up on your mom and Bob’s family.

You stood in the middle of Georgia Floyd’s flower bed, tugging at a weed, hands adorned with thick, weathered gloves. The thing just wasn’t coming out. The little thorns were sticking to your sleeves, and you were drenched with sweat. It was the beginning of fall, and the leaves were turning all shades of fiery reds and somber oranges, but the sun was still high in the sky. The thriving asters and dahlias next to you taunted you with their beauty, bending in the slight breeze. Georgia stood in the shade of her doorway, one hand on her hip and the other holding a glass of lemonade. “Sweetheart, you’ve been workin’ so hard here. Take a drink, go home, be merry. I’ll get B… I’ll get someone else to pick up where you left off, ‘kay?”

You sighed, wiping the perspiration away from your brow with your forearm. “Yes ma’am. Thank you.” She handed you the glass and shooed you away from her flowers, making sure to take the gardening gloves you had peeled off and tucked under your arm.

You hadn’t expected to be weeding today, but with Jodie at a friend’s house, Chris a state away on a work trip, and Bob’s father, Harold, off somewhere, she needed a helping hand. She had gotten a bit weaker over the years, no longer able to bend as well as she needed to in order to clear away the low-growing weeds, and you loved her more than enough to help out. You were her second daughter, she always said. A part of the family, no matter what. You walked across the street to your mom’s place and opened the door with your key.

She had to go grocery shopping a while earlier, leaving you alone in the house. Given that the grocery shop was less than five minutes away by car, she should’ve been back by then. You didn’t pay it much mind, though. You just stepped into your bathroom, hung up your clothes, and took a well-deserved shower.

After a good forty-five minutes of steam, hair dryers, and other pampering, you were ready to do absolutely nothing. The chair on your small front porch was all set up, and you held a book in your hands, ready to sit and see the yellow and orange sky cascade over the pages. When you stepped through your doorway, however, someone was waiting for you.

Bob. His hair had changed since you last saw him. It was longer but still military-issued, combed neatly, not a lock out of place. He was dressed well, too, with slacks and a slightly open button-up. You were suddenly glad that you had put on the prettiest dress in your arsenal—one he knew very well. He opened his mouth and then shut it with a look of determination.

“Bobby? What are you doing here?” you asked. He wasn’t expected back for months yet, and you certainly didn’t think he had time to visit. You were happy to see him, of course. Hell, you were overjoyed to be in his presence. But what was he doing?

He stepped forward, shined shoes crunching on a bit of gravel, and you met him in the middle. As he pulled you into his arms, hugging you tight to his chest, you breathed him in. He was really here, back home, after all that time. You finally pulled away after what seemed like eons and a millisecond all at once, and he clasped your hands in his, your book forgotten on the ground. His eyes were stormy, brimming with what looked like an onslaught of tears. You rubbed your thumbs up and down his hands worriedly.

“Is everything okay?” Your voice came out as a tremble, slightly terrified at the prospect of something having gone wrong. Did someone die? Did he almost die? It didn’t help that he cleared his throat like he was steeling his nerves.

He put one of your hands on his chest, over his fluttering heart, and pressed a gentle kiss to the other. “There’s something I need to ask you.” You nodded, too concerned to speak. “I’ll… I’ll start with this. I love you so much it hurts me. When I first met you, years ago, I knew that I wanted to be around you forever. Your kindness, curiosity, your heart, everything just pulled me in and never let me go—not that I ever wanted to go, no, I knew you were too special to leave behind. I had to put so much in the past, but not you. Never you. I grew with you, and laughed with you, and loved you in a million ways. Throughout all that time, you waited and gave me your utmost support when my dreams took me a thousand miles away. Now, I’m still living a thousand miles away, but I don’t want you to wait here anymore. I want you to come with me and stay.” He took a breath, and his heart hammered under your fingertips. “What I’m really trying to get at is that I want to have a future with you. I want to be your husband.”

The world stopped in that moment. Did you hear him correctly? His eyes searched for a response on your face as he slid a black, velvety case out of his back pocket. He slowly lowered to one knee, keeping eye contact, and opening the box to show you the shiny contents.

“Sweetheart, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

You brought your hands up to your mouth. After all this time, the moment you dreamed of as a kid was finally happening. You nodded once, dropping down on your knees and nodding a million more times. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you,” you breathed, voice loud and quiet at the same time. Your arms found their place around him, like they had many times before, but something was different. New, in a good way. Like you were safe, completely safe.

Like while his ring was on your finger, you would never have to wait to be loved again.

You smile at the printed digital photos spread out on your bed. Bobby hugging you in 5th grade, the both of you in matching witch and black cat costumes, pumpkin buckets dangling from your fists. A snapshot of “the shaving incident”, in which you had come out with cut up legs and Robert with a cut up face. There was even a silly photo of him carrying you bridal style on your prom night, with your arm thrown over your face like a swooning princess. Your favorites, though, are the proposal photos.

Your mom hid around the corner to take pictures of your silhouettes in the sunset, while Bob’s mom pulled out her camera from across the street. They had coordinated everything perfectly, down to the fake shopping trip and weeding break. It was no coincidence that your mother washed the load of laundry that contained your favorite dress first. The meticulous planning from the people who know your routines best still makes your head spin when you think about it. They all knew about the proposal for at least a week before it happened, and they made sure it was absolutely perfect, down to the manicured background and time of day. Bob even managed to get away from work for a couple days to propose.

The ring is beautiful too. It’s the perfect mix between flashy and subtle, the main stone is cut exactly how you like it, and the band is the right amount of tight. When you asked your fiance about how he got it so exact to everything you had dreamed of, he said, “research”. You later found out from his mom that he had bought the ring while he was still at the Naval Academy from the best jeweler he could find: Randle Montgomery. Knowing that he was planning on proposing all those years ago makes it a different kind of special.

Your closet is open, the boxes and boxes of memories all pulled out and scattered around your room. The dictionary under your desk has been opened, and the flower petals and other flower material placed carefully into a container. A few minutes earlier, you even stumbled upon a written agreement you and Bob signed in middle school, agreeing to marry each other if you weren’t taken by 30. The wooden rose he gave you, also in middle school, was halfway sticking out of a cardboard holder, leaning on a series of first day of school photos Georgia took. You’ve taken to calling her Mom now, at her request.

All of your photo albums are open, with most of the pictures taken out. You’re trying to compile everything, every memory, into a new, large album. The new album is brown leather, stamped and embroidered with little inside jokes and important moments. Inside, you’ve documented every single stage in your life with Bob.

Some of the pictures even feature Margie, her husband, Aaron, Jodie, Chris, Georgia, Harold, your mom, Mickey, and everyone you’ve met along the way. Seeing the compilation of every person, every moment, that made you who you are brings tears to your eyes.

You spend the next two hours tucking pictures, flower petals, and anything flat enough to fit into the album. By the time you’re done, your hands are coated in a fine layer of dust, and your front door is opening.

“Honey, I’m home!” the intruder calls, and you hear the telltale jingling of him placing his keys on the bookshelf in your living room. You stand up, wipe your hands on your pants, and walk out of your shared bedroom.

Bob unzips his flight suit to the middle, letting it hang around his waist for the time being. His boots are neatly placed with the rest of his shoes; he’s tidy even when he’s tired, which is a phenomenon you don’t understand whatsoever. His hair is messy, his glasses are crooked, and he’s giving you a tired little smile. It was surely a long day for him. You open your arms, and he slouches into you like he was meant to be there.

“I was just about to get dinner started. Go take a nap, and it’ll be done by the time you wake up,” you murmur, kissing through his undershirt. He shakes his head softly. His hands hold steady on your waist, his pulse humming through the contact.

“I’ll help. What were you thinking for tonight?”

You lead him into the kitchen, pulling out various ingredients from the pantry on the way. Pasta sauce clinks on the tile counter as you say, “Pasta. It’s quick enough. I’ll put mushrooms in the sauce, too, as a treat. You deserve it after the day I’m sure you’ve had.”

“You read my mind, baby,” he sighs, resting his head on you. “We had some rough ejections, but nothing too scary. And there’s talk of calling a few people to San Diego for a Top Gun mission, so every little mistake pulls people further away from that opportunity.”

He steps away from you for a moment. The absence of warmth sends a chill down your spine, but after he opens the box of spaghetti and turns up the heat on the pot of water you’ve placed on top of the stove, he stands behind you again. You look up from your place chopping vegetables. “Do you want to go back to San Diego? I feel like we just got settled in Lemoore.”

“Well, I’d like to marry you before moving, but I’d be honored to be a part of Top Gun again. Those missions are… dangerous, though, to say the least, so I want to have a wedding ring with my dog tags.”

You tap on his chest lightly, eyebrows furrowed. “If you do get chosen, you’d better be careful. I’m not prepared to be a widow.”

He smiles, a little sadly and a little reassuringly. “I’ll do my best.”

When you hear the pot of water boiling, Bob drops the pasta in, and you turn your attention to the sauce simmering in your saucepan. You add mushrooms, onion, some ground beef, parmesan, and a lot of love. Before long, both parts are done, and you put a heaping portion on your fiance’s plate.

Your dining room furniture is basic, just a wooden table and two chairs. Neither of you have been able to decorate the house to your standards, considering you’re both working and you just moved in a month ago. It’s nice, though. Not permanent by any means, but nice.

Not having any big decorations make it easier to move, you figure. By now, you know very well that living with a Naval aviator means moving from place to place until he gets a permanent station. Even then, there’s a chance they could change their minds and slap him onto the opposite side of the country. You’re just hoping that you can get married by a beach before that happens.

Speaking of the wedding, you need to do some serious planning. You swallow your bite of pasta. “I finished the photo album today.”

“Really? That’s great!” Bob beams. “I’m going to call the venue after work tomorrow to see if the date we picked out is possible. If it is, I think we can put the album by the entrance so people can look through it.”

“That sounds really good. Margie’s coming down next week to help me pick out decorations and stuff, so we need to decide on a color palette.”

“Hm… what do you think about our favorite colors? So we can represent both of us together.”

All the wedding talk makes you both excited and tired. You want to marry the love of your life and have a great time doing it, so every detail needs to be looked over again and again to ensure it goes according to plan. Bob’s a great help, despite him having so little time during the day. Living with him, finally, is like a dream come true.

Everything is like a dream come true now. When you were little, before the Floyds appeared in your life like a fairy god-family, you prayed for something like this to happen. You begged and pleaded for your mom to get better, for you to have friends, for you to fall in love. Every part of that, miraculously, happened. Your life changed from miserable to joyous in a matter of days.

You’re going to marry the boy next door, and you’re going to be happy doing it. As you settle into bed, with his arm around you and a ring carefully placed on your bedside table, you think that all you’ve ever waited for has finally come to lull you to sleep.

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