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tobinheath · 4 years

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Leah Williamson and Keira Walsh have shared enough “written in the stars” moments in their 23 years to make them feel that they were fated to be best friends. Since meeting on an England Under-15s camp, their football careers have played out with a striking, almost eerie, similarity. They each play for their childhood clubs — Williamson for Arsenal, Walsh for Manchester City — and have a knack of picking up the same injuries at the same time.

They both received their first senior call-up on the same day in 2017. The 2019 World Cup was their first senior England tournament: they called each other to celebrate even before they called their parents, which resulted in Williamson shrieking “bloody hell — what have we done here?” in tears outside a London branch of Nando’s.

Most memorably, Williamson made her England debut coming on for Walsh, in the final six minutes of a World Cup qualifier against Russia in 2018. “My mum’s just framing my shirt, pestering me for that picture,” Williamson says.

Walsh interrupts, giddily. “I think that’s the only time I’ve actually done a full-teeth smile. I was so buzzing.”

“Yeah,” remembers Williamson, “because I was game faced, and you proper smiled at me and I went…” before jerking her mouth into a tight-lipped, nervous smile, chuckling.

“If it was anyone else,” Walsh picks up, “I’d have been, like: ‘I don’t want to come off’. But as soon as I saw it was Leah, I was buzzing.”

This is life at the top for two of England’s most talented young players: phenomenal success and too many good memories to count.

Today, best friends will turn opponent and they will face each other in the Women’s Super League (WSL) for the first time this season — hosts Manchester City are fourth, four points behind second-placed Arsenal — with Williamson pointing out that in a pre-COVID-19 world, she would have stayed after the match with Walsh’s family in Rochdale, where Walsh’s mother Tracy is “just like my mum”.

Over the hour they spent together on Zoom, they are gloriously good fun: warm, ebullient and habitually careering into laughter. They balance each other out, Walsh says: she is “shy and awkward” — though you would not know it here — and Williamson is the “buffer” in certain situations, and the more “logical” one of the two. Williamson views Walsh as the honest one, sometimes brutally so. “I have to step in sometimes and give it a smile and keep it balanced,” she says. “If I play a game and I’m not actually sure how it went, I would text Keira, because I know I’d get the most honest answer from anybody, even if that means it’s not what I want to hear. I think that is where the respect comes from.”

To track the pair’s football careers has been to often forget how young they are. Walsh made her City debut a few months after her 17th birthday and in November this year, Williamson played her 150th game for Arsenal. It is common for those in women’s football to grow up fast but in conversation, one is reminded of the duo’s gleeful, wonderful youth. There was the time, for instance, they rented electric scooters one afternoon at the World Cup in France to explore with Walsh’s Manchester City team-mate Georgia Stanway. The room-mates — Stanway with Williamson, Walsh with Lucy Bronze — had a group chat titled “The three best friends and Lucy”. Stanway, the youngest England player at the tournament, sped ahead on her scooter and they had to “rein her back in”, Williamson says.

“You were being a bit of a Cautious Claire, weren’t you?” teases Walsh, turning to Williamson, “probably as you should do at a World Cup. I think we were just enjoying being kids, weren’t we? Obviously, we were playing, and the reason we were there was to win, but we have so much free time that we were just enjoying being the younger ones.”

“All the older ones… that’s what they kept saying to us,” says Williamson. “Kaz Carney was like: ‘Make sure you enjoy your time now, because hopefully one day you will be the senior ones and there’ll be a lot more pressure on you. Just have the best time ever, make as many memories as possible. Jill Scott — I mean, she was a bit more wild than we are — said she’s got some of the best memories ever from those early tournaments and she wished she could do it again. I don’t think we wanted to waste a second.”

Do not presume, though, that the pair are anything other than serious competitors. By 20, Walsh had won every domestic title going: the WSL, FA Cup and League Cup. Williamson has won the league once, the FA Cup twice and the League Cup twice, finishing as runner-up in the latter to Walsh’s City in 2019. Walsh, an artful holding midfielder in the mould of Sergio Busquets — she grew up watching clips of him and David Silva with her father — will be among the most important players in the England squad moving forward and Williamson, capped 17 times, is touted as a future England captain.

It has not always been easy, though. An early test came in the form of Williamson’s ankle injury, sustained playing for Arsenal against Walsh’s Blackburn Rovers in the FA Youth Cup final. It was so traumatic Walsh admits there are still occasions she will search for Williamson’s results, see her friend has come off and think, “Please tell me it’s not her ankles again. My mum mentions it to me. She’ll say: ‘Did you see Leah came off?’” She addresses Williamson. “Because I’ve seen you in person do it, I feel like I automatically panic. When I see you at camp two weeks later, you’re like: ‘Maybe I was being a bit soft when I came off — it’s nothing to do with my ankles’. But I know what you’ve been through with them, so it is the first thing I think about.”

Williamson, in her own words, “basically just snapped my ankle and everything in it” after misplanting her foot. Stretcher, gas and air, a wheelchair, a doctor advising her to go straight to hospital. “I’m trying to fight back the tears and she’s nearly crying looking at me as well,” Williamson remembers. She stayed at the game because Arsenal had lost the season prior and she wanted to collect her winner’s medal.

“I think I played most of the game thinking, ‘I just hope she’s OK’,” says Walsh. “The only thing I actually remember from that game — not the goals or anything — was afterwards, I saw Leah on the side in a wheelchair with an Arsenal bobble hat on, having to wheel herself on to get her winner’s medal.”

A few months on from Williamson’s injury, Walsh damaged her ankle ligaments — it was an impact injury, and on her laptop, Williamson has pictures of her and Walsh “in wheelchairs at different times”. Walsh collected her second ankle injury at a training camp in La Manga, by which point Williamson’s ankles had betrayed her again. “We were both sat on the bench laughing because it was just crazy luck that we’d both done it again,” Walsh smiles. “I knew I couldn’t sit there feeling sorry for myself next to you.”

During their separate rehabilitation processes, they maintained the habit of visiting each other as often as they could. Their close friendship meant they were never allowed to share a room on international duty to ensure they didn’t isolate themselves from the rest of the group. Walsh was the class clown and Williamson the captain, meaning that “Leah would always get told off for me. They’d always be like: ‘Leah! You need to tell Keira she needs to be a bit more professional!’”

What it all meant was they had lost time to make up elsewhere. Each Christmas, Walsh would come to London from Rochdale and Williamson’s mother Amanda “would treat us to something from Jack Wills. That was like an annual little thing that we did, because I don’t think that I’d ever heard of Jack Wills, being from the north, until I met all these southerners at camp that used to wear it. I think I actually used to go down to see Amanda more than you, to be honest.”

What did they think of each other when they first met?

“You first,” says Williamson.

“No — you go,” Walsh replies.

“I’m going to big you up here,” Williamson begins. “Keira’s always been… she was always one of the best there, and you always want to be mates with the good ones.”

Walsh returns the favour: “I think I was quite jealous of you when you first came because everyone was like: ‘She’s amazing. I was thinking, I want to be amazing, as well, so I want to be friends with her.”

“That’s good, that we both thought the same thing.”

“There you go, then. That’s why we’re friends.”

“I’d say I’m your fangirl, Keira. I’m your hype man.”

Walsh has always been Williamson’s biggest supporter — “when you scored your first goal for England, I think I was happier for you than I would have been if I’d scored” — but probably has good reason to worry about Williamson calling herself a hype man. Before the World Cup, Williamson visited Cex, the second-hand goods chain, and spent £50 on some DJ decks to master during downtime at the tournament.

“I just looked across the corridor and I was like, ‘What is that noise? I’m sure that’s Leah’s room’,” Walsh recalls. “I opened the door and you had these big headphones on, mixing the decks. I saw Georgia just lying on the bed and I was like, ‘What is going on in here?’ They had the balcony door open and you were like: ‘Wait for the drop. Wait for the drop’. I was like: ‘OK – I’ll wait for the drop. You like your music, you are good with music and you actually might be very good. I trust you’. And the drop just never came.”

Williamson hoots with laughter. “Never came. I thought it would be so much easier than it was. It was so hard.” She shakes her head, jokingly rueful. “Massive flop. Massive flop.”

“I feel like you just try your hand at loads of random stuff,” continues Walsh. “I see you on camp and you’re like: ‘I’m doing the harmonica now’.”

Williamson says she has “found her calling” playing the piano in lockdown, but Walsh is unimpressed. “It’s just you try to give off this cool vibe and I feel like people don’t really know you. It just makes me laugh. What have you got — a lightsaber pen? And Star Wars pyjamas? People would just not think that. When you see the exterior of Leah, you would just think, ‘No – not Star Wars’. She’s done all these photoshoots, she’s dead cool, and then she just whacks out the craziest stuff and just makes me laugh.”

Williamson holds up her hands. “It’s true. I can’t deny it.”

The World Cup was particularly testing for Walsh, for whom fierce social media criticism left her questioning whether she wanted to continue to play football. Walsh has spoken numerous times about the impact on her confidence, but what was it like for Williamson, who did not feature as much as Walsh, to witness? She pauses. “I think it’s hard,” she begins, “because you just feel so powerless when you’re not playing. It’s not even like I can go on the pitch and have a shocker to save her from the criticism,” she laughs. “If I tell Keira she’s great, there’s a slight bit of her that’s… I’m her best mate, so I’m going to try and pick her up as much as possible.

“The main thing, especially from a squad perspective, is that we all know how valuable Keira is to us and how — I’m bigging you up here — she’s the centre of what we’re doing as a team. It just annoys me. I wish I could eradicate all those other people because we, as a team, appreciate her so much. That’s all I ever said to Keira – if anybody was picking a team, you’d be the first name on the teamsheet. But it’s hard to get… like I say, I’m her best mate, so I’m honest with her, but at the same time, she probably needed to hear that a little bit more.”

They didn’t talk about it so much, Walsh says. “Because you weren’t playing, I didn’t want to put that on you because I felt like it would be selfish,” she adds. “I thought, at the time: you know what? We’ll just make the best of it off the pitch, and I think that’s why we had such a good time.” Williamson’s first appearance, from the bench in the round-of-16 match against Cameroon, changed Walsh’s perspective “because I was just so happy for you that I didn’t care what people would say about me at that moment. People could say whatever they wanted because I’ve just played in a World Cup with my best friend. Not many people can say that.”

To be best friends, as professional athletes, is a balancing act: in any other walk of life, they would — could — rage at each other, moan, weep, get angry. As professional footballers, they are wary of distracting the other. “I know what you want to achieve, so my problems taking a back seat is fine with me if I know you’re going on to achieve what you want to achieve,” Walsh tells Williamson.

To Sunday, then, and what will happen when two best friends turn competitors for 90 minutes. Walsh smirks. “I feel like you try and keep a really focused head, and then I’ll just be like…” she cups her hands for a high-pitched whisper and springs up like a Jack in a box. “’Leah!’” Williamson rollicks back with laughter. “Then she’ll turn around and she’ll start laughing, but I do it because I know she’s going to laugh and I know that she’s trying to focus. I feel like I’m a lot more relaxed than you. You’re like, ‘Game face, game head, here we go’, and you just have that annoying friend in the background.”

Stanway is the worst, apparently, to the point where Walsh and Williamson will intervene — Williamson with a stern “we’re not having that today” when Stanway inevitably flattens her early doors. “We always text each other a couple of days, speak to each other earlier on in the week before we play each other,” says Williamson of her and Walsh.

“In the game and stuff, we have our little tiffs, and if I say something and she doesn’t agree with it, we’re both playing for the win, and we both understand that,” Walsh concludes, “but then afterwards, we’re straight over to each other.”

She starts to sign off, but Williamson beats her to it. “See you Sunday,” they chorus, in unison.

#leah williamson #keira walsh #lionesses #arsenal wfc #mcwfc

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beerandpresentdanger · 4 years

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Something in the Water

These fragments are all culled from a larger piece of work about beer, family, place and memory that is still fermenting somewhere in my head. I was inspired to finally put out a flight of snippets in response to Boak & Bailey’s #BeeryLongReads2020 challenge

* * *

Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man.

A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

* * *

The first sip of a pint of ale made in Burton upon Trent can be off-putting to a newcomer. There’s something intangibly difficult about it, a shrugging note of unpleasantness that many find unsettling - a mineral toned, brackish kind of scent, that most immediately brings to mind sulphur; that distinct, diffuse, almost rotten egg character that you find in the water of towns that marketed themselves as spas, and once sold their healing properties to gullible Victorians with chronic nerve conditions.

Connoisseurs have a name for it, likening it to the fleeting sensory overload of an old-fashioned match being struck in a dark, draughty room.

They call it “The Burton Snatch”.

* * *

My father’s family have always lived in Burton and its surrounding villages, nestled among the hills and valleys between Staffordshire and Derbyshire. My great-grandfather was a farmer and a money-lender, who kept a cast iron safe in the living room with a lace doily and a bowl of fruit on top. He would open it up on Sunday evenings to take stock, counting out the large paper notes on his scrubbed wooden table while the rest of the family looked on.

My grandfather, Jimmy, was a promising football player who did a stint with Burton Albion, before going into business in the town, setting up Farrington’s Furnishers in two large units on the Horninglow Road. It was the kind of traditional, rambling shop that doesn’t exist much anymore - a haphazardly laid-out assembly of sofas, beds, dressers and wardrobes, tables, chairs, footstools and chests of drawers. At the back, there was a room full of rolls of carpet, piled high to the ceiling. My father and his brothers were playing there when the news came over the radio that JFK had been shot.

* * *

Brewing has happened in Burton for centuries, but the process really began millennia ago, when the substrata of the Trent valley settled with deep deposits of sand and gravel, a unique and serendipitous combination of minerals that built the foundations for everything that was to follow. An unusually high concentration of sulphates from the gypsum, coupled with healthy reserves of calcium and magnesium and low levels of sodium and bicarbonates, meant that when springs eventually burbled forth from the land around the river, the water had its own particular and unique character, a distinct presentation that the French might call “terroir”.

Beer-making started in earnest when an abbey named Byrtune was raised on the banks of the Trent, and the brothers did as all good monastic orders did, growing their own crops, raising their own livestock, and brewing their own beer. Over the centuries, the reputation for the region’s fine ale grew and spread, until the secret could no longer be kept.

When the canals came to Burton they made it into a city of industry and empire. Tentacle-like, capitalism stretched and unfurled its penetrating waterways across, through and over Albion’s gentle hills, bypassing the wild weirs of the Trent’s natural descent, domesticating the landscape and bringing uniformity, neatness, and standardisation to what was a tangle of disparate places and processes. By the middle of the 18th century, the Trent Navigation had been connected to the Humber, to the mighty Mersey, and down through Birmingham to the Grand Union, and suddenly, Burton was now a central hub functioning as part of a single network that ran throughout the country and onward, through its bustling ports, to Europe, Russia, and all points beyond.

* * *

Once their children grew up, my grandparents also left for the continent. Nearly every summer holiday of my childhood was spent visiting them in Portugal. Their home, known only as “The Villa”, was an idyllic place, where my brothers and I learnt to swim, where the smell of barbecue smoke lingered over every evening, where the coarse Mediterranean grass hurt our feet when we tried to play football on it. When I was young, I only really knew my grandparents in this sunlit, bright blue light - tanned, shortsleeved, wearing hats. Their accents may have been rounded and roughened in the heart of England, but their very essence to me was more exotic, more glamorous, more European.

Some of my first memories of drinking come from those summer holidays. Sips of pungent sea-dark wine, acidic and overwhelming; a sample of gin and tonic, bitter and medicinal with a gasping clarity; and of course, beer - not ale, nothing my grandfather would touch - but lager, cold and crisp and gassy, a fleeting glimpse of adulthood.

* * *

Beer, like everything else in a free market of money and ideas, has been subject to fashion and changing tastes, and it was a fashion for pale ales that truly put Burton on the map. With the proliferation of the waterways, hops from Kent and barley from East Anglia could make their way to Burton where, combined with the local water, they were turned into a revelatory, and wildly popular beverage.

Breweries proliferated throughout the town. At its peak, more than 30 rival businesses competed for space, ingredients, and workers to keep the kettles boiling and grain mashing. Burton became the brewing capital of the world, home to emblematic firms like Bass, which by 1877 was the world’s largest brewery. Its famed pale ale was so acclaimed and copied that the distinctive red triangle that adorned its labels became the UK’s first registered trademark, a mark of its singular quality.

* * *

Even when my grandparents lived abroad, Burton still pulled my family to it. Christmas called us back year after year, or Boxing Day at least, catching up with uncles and aunts and first and second cousins, some removed, to sit in sitting rooms in front of three-bar fires, eating ham cobs, drinking flat Schweppes lemonade, watching World’s Strongest Man on the television. The arresting vision of a large man pulling a tractor down a runway or throwing a washing machine over a wall would be accompanied by the sound of adult chatter, long-delayed catch-ups on weddings, births, and especially deaths - distant relatives and long-lost school mates, old girlfriends with cancer scares, run-ins with the police.

One uncle, who worked in a brewery like a true Burtonian, kept terrapins. I would gingerly feed them sunflower seeds, holding my hand above the dark waterline of the cramped tank, waiting for the vicious snap to emerge from the depths. “Pedigree doesn’t travel well,” he once told me, referring to a renowned local bitter. Some things cannot leave Burton behind.

* * *

Burton’s skyline doesn’t have church towers, it has fermentation vessels. Over the decades, as companies have merged, collapsed, consolidated or been taken over with some hostility, the name on the side of the largest set has changed, so that what drivers on the bypass see reflects whatever corporate overlord assumes feudal control in that particular age.

In the middle years of the twentieth century, brewing, like many industries, saw the white hot intensity of competition eliminate all but the largest of breweries. Experts will tell you that the beer suffered along with it, accompanied by punitive taxation from the government and a nannying attitude to pubs and drinking, the hangover of Victorian prudishness being enacted by the grandchildren of those who first envisaged it. Tastes changed under the weight of global pressures, and ultimately, Burton lurched along with them, becoming, through a complex web of corporate exchanges, the brewing site of Canadian brand Carling Black Label.

In the ensuing decades, Carling would become the UK’s best-selling beer, a “domestic” rival to the traditional European lager brands that dominated in Germany, France and Denmark. The attritional battles left their marks on Burton though, as closures and collisions shuttered various facilities and churned through generations of workers, leaving tracts of vacant space even in the centre of town. Coming off the train now, you overlook the whole of Burton, and get the sensation of standing in the middle of a vast and scattered industrial facility, where smokestacks and grain towers overpeer gritted-teeth terraced houses, pockmarked shopping streets and vacant lots.

The make-up of the town shifted too. In the middle of the Midlands (Burton is linguistically and administratively part of the East Midlands, but geographically in the West Midlands) the town received its fair share of immigration. A town my grandparents knew as almost entirely white and Christian is now almost 10% Pakistani Muslim - a thriving community of teetotallers, in a town famous for its beer.

* * *

My grandparents celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2014, flying back from Portugal to hold a party at the National Brewery Centre in the middle of Burton. It was a lovely evening, with a large cake and lots of happy stories, relatives and friends I’d never seen before and would never see again. After an early finish, my cousins and I went to a pub, drinking pints of milk-smooth ale, before ending up in a small, loud, nightclub playing cheesy pop hits. The next morning, hungover, I walked with my parents to Stapenhill Cemetery to stare at the headstones of ancestors I had never met.

* * *

There is a popular documentary series on the BBC which sees celebrity costermonger Gregg Wallace visit various sterile facilities around the UK to witness firsthand how automation and mechanisation has changed food production. Each episode has him walking through eerily empty factories, vast and cavernous spaces where robotic production lines operate 24 hours a day, speaking to the remaining human operators who exist now as mere caretakers, there to tend and nurse the machines like temple virgins, dressed in hairnets instead of togas. It is an uncanny sight. Every installment inevitably begins with drone shots, hovering silently above the landscape, showing the immense scale of these conurbations, raised in places where land is invariably cheap and generations of people have been bred into cycles of tireless shift work. But the workers are not needed any more. Efficiency has eradicated the need for fleshy points of failure.

Now, Gregg can skip through the barren hallways, silent save for the harmonic hum of perpetual machinery, flashing his blinding white overalls and quoting mind-boggling statistics about the weight of crisps the average British child eats in a year. Various natural products are ushered in off the backs of lorries and railway carriages, fed along whirring conveyor belts and pumped through pneumatic tubes, before being baked, frozen, cut, dried, soaked, dessicated, rehydrated and reformulated into whatever bland final product can now be ejected out into the world, via shipping containers and along motorways, all to sit on a supermarket shelf before making an appearance in your cupboard, a moment on your table, and a lifetime rotting away in some far-off landfill.

It was inevitable that Burton’s MolsonCoors brewery, the home of Carling, would get its chance in the spotlight. The programme highlighted the noble history of brewing, from its pre-modern farmhouse days, when fermentation was practically a shamanic ritual, to its domestication and commodification, where each step in the process was refined and perfected, to where we are now, when every aspect has been exactingly costed and painstakingly budgeted to ensure maximum productivity, and maximum profit, with minimal ingredients, energy, or intervention. There has been a backlash to this macro-attitude, of course - “craft beer”, an ill-defined, equally co-optable movement that alludes to provenance, quality, care, and a confused sense of heritage, has become a big business in its own right, backed by venture capital and crowdfunding campaigns - but industrial brewing is still the fixture in the firmament, the thing that keeps the lights on.

When one of the few remaining humans showed Gregg the tiny, almost homeopathic quantity of hops that would add a semblance of bitterness and aromatic flavour to a lake-sized vat of Carling, it felt almost like a knowing wink - look at what we can get away with - one made safe in the knowledge that their beer will still pour in nearly every pub and take up the most shelf space in corner shops and petrol stations across the country. Of course they’ll get away with it. They’ve always got away with it. They will sell us beer with barely a sense memory of taste in it, and we will literally lap it up.

* * *

My grandfather died in hospital, in Portugal, after an indeterminate period of undramatic but gradually worsening health. His four children took turns flying out to spend time with him and their mother in the hospital, sitting by his bed, holding his hand, finishing the crosswords he was no longer able to complete.

He was cremated there, but a memorial service to remember his life was held in Burton on a crisp, February day a few weeks later. Alighting at the railway station, I watched steam from the breweries crowd the startlingly cold air, while waiting for my parents to arrive and drive us the ten minutes to Rolleston Cricket Club where the small gathering would take place. On the way, we drove up Horninglow Road, past what was once Farrington’s Furnishers, now Zielona Żabkal, a Polish supermarket. We got there early and spent some time setting up, arranging the folding tables and stackable chairs, hanging up photos, and laying out some mementos of my grandfather’s happy life - a table tennis bat, some puzzle books, a golf club, his familiar white hat.

I was tasked with approving the beer for the day. There were two casks of Bass on the bar - one which had been there a few days, the other tapped that morning. “I’m a lager man,” the bartender told me, so I tried both to see which was in form. The first had the faintest tang of vinegar that suggested oxidation, a beer that was at the end of its life, drowning in the air around it. The second was lively, enthusiastic, a little overly keen and overripe, but would settle down through the afternoon as the long goose-necked pump poured pint after pint for the guests who shuffled in, in suits and raincoats, shiny shoes and walking sticks, to pay their respects. Everyone told stories. I read a letter on behalf of my cousin, working on the other side of the world. We drank many, many pints of Bass in good nick, then when we were finished, we went to a pub, and drank many more.

When I had to catch my train back to London, I staggered back through the freezing night, to find that the town was mashing in - somewhere in the vast floodlit breweries, a switch had been thrown and malted barley was being soaked in that famous hot water, and the streets were being filled with the scent of porridge and healthy, earthy grains; a warming, nostalgic tide that overflowed down the road and spilled through the centuries; riding, falling, on the biting cold air.

#beer #writing #beer writing #food writing #ale #hops #barley #burton on trent #burton #family #memoir #beerylongreads2020 #craft beer #bass #cask ale #real ale

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loki-in-hogwarts · 6 years

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The Yule Ball

Peter Parker x reader Summary : Each year your school organises a Christmas ball, and each year everyone is very excited about it. You only wished that a certain someone would invite you... Words : 3.6K oops Warning : none A/N : A major thanks to @double-leo as always she has amazing ideas ! This is part of the 12 days of Christmas writting challenge.

Winter. Christmas. Decorations. Snow. Tree. Gifts. Holiday. The Yule Ball.

You were in your Math class, being bored as always and writing all the things you loved about this time of the year. Winter, because it was your favorite season. Christmas because honestly who doesn't like Christmas ? The decorations because it was so fun to gather the family and spend time together to prepare the house. Snow because the snowballs fights were the coolest thing to do. The tree because you adored going to a shop to find the perfect one and the smell was sweet perfume in all the house. The gifts because either receiving them or offering them was amazing. The holidays because everyone loves a good vacation and being free from work. And finally, the Yule Ball, the best party that your school ever threw, after homecoming indeed. The Yule Ball was an event that no one wanted to miss, under no circumstances. It was a tradition of your school to do a party the last Friday before the holiday and every year was a success. This year, you were part of the organization team and you wanted it to be perfect. You turned the pages of your notebook until you found the one listing all the things needed for that night. You felt a pat on your shoulder and turned around. Peter Benjamin Parker, aka your biggest crush, aka the cutest and sweetest guy of the school.

"Hey y/n ! What are you writing that is more interesting than the Math class ?", he asked with a big bright smile.

"Anything would be more interesting than the Math class Pete !", Ned stated with a chuckle.

You laughed and answered : "I'm doing a list for the Yule Ball ! Everything I have to get ready, the dress I need to buy, the decorations I need to order online for the room..."

"That seems like a big organization ! I'm eager to see how it will be in the end", Peter gently replied.

There was a moment of silence then Ned elbowed Peter and asked you straight away : "Hey y/n ! Are you going with anyone this year ?"

Peter's eyes widened and he glared at Ned. You looked at them both, puzzled. "Well, no one asked me out already so no, not for now. But that's cool ! I'm going to be with my friends so...I don't care !"

You clearly did. And you clearly wanted to ask Peter out but since you had no gut when it came to this boy...no dates for the ball ! You had even wrote and crossed it multiple times on your list, not managing to decide whether or not to do it. But since there were all these rumors about Peter having a crush on Liz, you eventually just forgot the idea.

"Why ? Do you what to ask me out Ned ?", you added with a knowing smile, in an attempt to fill the awkward silence and glaring that Peter and Ned were exchanging.

"I know you're joking, but I am fine about going with Maria. And yes, I'm saying this to brag over the fact that I'm going to the ball with Maria"

"Dude, you asked Maria out ? Who would have thought you were into her ? Congrats !", you declared impressed.

Ned simply smiled and said : "Yeah well, there are people here that have nuts..." He gave a knowing look to Peter.

You felt concerned and awkwardly laughed.

"What about you Pete ? I heard you wanted to ask Liz out", you questioned with a fake smile.

"I-I, no I didn't actually I..."

Driiiiiing Saved by the bell.

"I need to go. See you after class ?"

You took your stuff and left with a wave to the boys behind you.

"Dude, what was that ?" Peter whispered angry.

"I should be the one asking that !", Ned replied, "That was the perfect moment to shut this stupid rumor down and ask her out ! What were you thinking ?"

Peter shook his head in desperation and sighed.

"She thinks I'm into Liz now ! You know what, it doesn't matter because she's obviously not into me otherwise she would have taken the opportunity to ask me out."

Ned widened his eyes and laughed.

"Honestly man, I can't believe you just said that. Can you sense the irony in what you are saying ?"

Peter shrugged.

"Maybe she's just stupid like you, or maybe she prefers it's the guy to ask out... It doesn't seem too much like y/n though. No, she's just shy and didn't dare to do it. Like I said : some have the nuts, some don't ! Handle that without me, you're both hopeless", Ned finished with a desperate gesture of the hand.

"Ned come on ! I need you here ! You're my guy in the chair !", Peter replied with an imploring look.

"I see what you are doing here and honestly I hope you feel bad about it because it's totally working. Alright, think about a moment when you are together."

"Math class", Peter interrupted him.

"Another one. Maybe some moment when you are closer ?"

"Lab class ?"

"That could haveed work but you don't have lab class before tomorrow, we need something else..."

"Wait, you want me to ask her out before tomorrow ?!"

Peter was freaking out -once again. Ned glared at him and put his hands on his friend's shoulders.

"Do you or not want to invite her to Yule ?"

"I do but what if I totally screw this u-"

"Peter ! When can you see her before tomorrow ?"

"No-nowhere, we don't have...anything planned together...", he muttered.

"Peter !", Ned called him back.

"Fine ! She is dropping at mine. This afternoon. I have to give her a book back."

"Perfect ! That's settled. You will give her the book, ask her to help her for your homework and boom-"

"Boom what ?"

Your head popped behind Ned's locker door and the guys jumped.

"Y/n...nice to see you !", Peter replied with a weird smile.

"Are you boys okay ?", you asked with a puzzled look.

"Yes !" "No !" They answered at the same time.

"Peter was telling me how bad he was in foreign literature. And since there is this test tomorrow, he wanted some help. I would have, but I need to cheer for my brother's football match", Ned justified, sorry.

"How sweet of you !", you started with a sympathetic look. You turned to Peter and added : "I can help you Pete, foreign literature is one of my favorite class ! How about I stay a bit longer at yours after school so we can study together ?"

Peter blinked and muttered : "Y-yeah, yeah, that would be cool. Thanks !"

You greeted them and left with a delighted smile.

"Ned, I don't know if I want to kill you or if I'm grateful."

"You'll thank me later", he said, patting his shoulder.

You were walking to Peter's house and were undoubtedly a little anxious and excited. On the way, all you could think was that you were going to have some alone time with him and you didn't want things to be awkward. You rang the bell and waited. A woman you recognized to be May Parker, Peter's aunt opened the door. She definitely looked younger than her age and displayed a gentle smile.

"You must be y/n ! Peter told me he was waiting for a girl. Come, come in !"

You entered in the apartment that you had already seen once or twice, and May showed you the way to the kitchen.

"Peter ! Y/n is here ! Would you like anything to drink or eat, dear ? "

"No, I'm fine, thank you !"

Peter showed up, out of breath, wearing weird clothes.

"Hi y/n... Sorry for the wait..."

"Peter, are you panting ? What were you doing ?", May asked.

"I was doing, hum, my work out ?", he answered sounding more like a question.

May frowned and then widened her eyes at her nephew.

"Oh right, hum, y/n, follow me to my room ?", he muttered.

You nodded and May declared : "If you want anything, just tell me dear alright ?"

You followed Peter and entered his room. It was simple, with a bunk bed and some photos pinned here and there on a board hung to a wall. You took a step closer and recognized him and Ned, him and May, May in flower field, Ned smiling, wearing a hat, etc. You knew you wouldn't find a picture of his parents because they were dead when he was little, but there was a man you didn't recognize on a photo with Peter, and you assumed it was Benjamin Parker, Peter's dead uncle. Thinking about it, Peter hadn't had the easiest childhood and you could only imagine all he had been through.

"Uncle Ben was always smiling. He was an amazing uncle."

Peter's voice coming from behind you pulled you out of your thinking.

"I'm sure he was. And he raised a very nice kid. He should be proud of you", you declared, staring at his doe eyes.

He cleared his throat and you noticed that his beautiful hazel eyes were a bit wet.

"Anyway, should we get the job done ?"

The truth was, that Peter wasn't bad in foreign literature. At all. In fact, there wasn't a single class he was bad in. So pretending to get nothing from a class he was rather good at was starting to become difficult. When you asked him what were the things he wasn't understanding, he just answered "everything", and you started to explain all the lesson. He loved watching you speak about something you liked. Your eyes were glowing and you were moving your hands to support what you were saying. The hard part began when you asked him questions to see if he had understandood and he was getting all of them correct. You were starting to have some doubts.

"Are you sure you need my help ? You don't seem to have any problems understanding this lesson...", you questioned.

"I-I just wanted to be sure about it and getting help from the smartest of the class seemed like a good idea !"

You laughed.

"Peter, you're the smartest of the class."

He rubbed his hair, embarrassed.

"Do you need help or anything while we're here ?", he asked, looking down.

"Actually, I wouldn't refuse to take a closer look to a lab lesson I didn't understand."

And that's how you ended up being helped by Peter instead of helping him. You were actually having fun and he was a very good teacher. You sometime stopped for some minutes, drank a Caprisun and laughed about everything and anything.

"Did you get it or do you need more explanation ?"

"I think I got it", you answered with a sweet smile. "Thanks, for this afternoon, it was really cool."

"I thought so too..."

He wanted to say something, you saw that, but whatever it was, he couldn't get it out.

"Y/n, I..."

"Yes."

Your heart was beating fast and you hoped what you thought was going to happen was really happening.

"You know about the ball..."

"Yes", you simply replied once again, full of hope.

"I was wondering if...you knew how to dance", he said all of the sudden.

"Oh...", you replied, disappointed before adding "Yes, I do...I can show you if you want !"

Peter wanted to slap himself. He was so close and he ruined it once more. Stupid stupid Parker !

"Let me just grab my phone...So, the mic is broken, and it only works with earphones, we'll have to share...", he declared, as he passed a hand in his hair awkwardly.

"That's fine. Hit it !", you exclaimed as he was looking for a song and he gave you a pod.

I'm not in love from 10cc started to play and you took a step closer to him.

"My mom loves this song, she danced on it with my father", you told him as you were clumsily playing with your hands.

Peter took them and gently pulled you against him. You wrapped them around his neck and you positioned his around your waist. You started to dance slowly, waddling from one foot to another. You were staring at each other and he tucked a lock of your hair behind your ear. May suddenly opened the door, carrying a basin of washed clothes, causing both of you to take a step back from each other.

"Oh my god ! I'm sorry, I'm interrupting. Continue as if I wasn't there !", she exclaimed, leaving the room.

You pinched your lips and smiled softly.

"I'm-I'm sorry. I told her to knock on the door befo-", he muttered, embarrassed.

"It's okay Pete, I should head back to mine anyway."

"Y-yeah right. Thanks for coming."

"Thanks to you !"

You walked out and he followed you to the door.

"I see you tomorrow ?", you asked.

He simply nodded and you walked away. You couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. Even if the afternoon had been awesome.

You opened the door to go out of the building and found Peter in front of you.

"Peter ?"

"Would you go to the Yule Ball with me y/n ?", he asked you out of breath.

You blinked and exclaimed, surprised : "Yes ! I would love that !"

He sighed, relieved.

"Ned would have killed me if I hadn't asked you."

You chuckled.

"How did you manage to arrive here before me ?"

"Emergency stairs ?", he replied, passing a hand through his hair.

You laughed and grabbed his collar to leave a soft kiss on his cheek.

"I can't wait to be on Friday night", you simply said before leaving him amazed.

He made a fist and whispered : "I did it !"

It was Friday afternoon and all the students were impatiently waiting for the ball, you included. You had seen Peter a few times since that afternoon and he seemed just as excited as you. You had found the perfect dress and all the preparations for the night were ready, the room was entirely decorated and all the job was done. When the bell finally rang, delivering everybody from the torture, you headed to your locker and found Peter waiting for you.

"Hey ! What time should I come to pick you ?", he questioned, a bit anxious.

"8 should be good, what do you think ?"

He simply nodded and looked down to the floor.

"I'm really excited about tonight...", he said.

"Me too. Very !"

You wanted to hug him but you caressed his cheek.

"See you tonight, date", you declared closing the locker and leaving.

Since you were living near the school, you didn't need to take a car and you would just walk to the school with Peter. It was nearly 8 and you were ready. Your elder sister had came home just to help you get ready and because she wouldn't miss that for nothing. Your dress was long but thin, so you hoped you wouldn't be cold. It was a dark blue, shoulders uncovered and comfortable material. Your sister took charge of the makeup and you were delighted. The bell rang. Your sister opened the door and you rushed in the living room. Peter was beautiful with his black suit and his hair slicked back. He was staring at you, opened mouth.

"Hi", you greeted him.

"H-hey ! You look stunning !", he exclaimed, awed.

"Thanks. You're beautiful."

"This is for you", he said, giving you a wrapped up gift.

You opened it and found a small box with a necklace in it. The chain was in silver and there was a pendant shaped as a tree.

"The tree of life !", you exclaimed, moved.

"You told me that you like Celtic culture and I thought you might like that."

"I love it. It's perfect."

You tried to put it around your neck and Peter approached to help you. He moved your hair and closed the chain. You took the pendant in your hand and admired it.

"Thanks but, I don't have anything for you. I will find a gift, I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry, you're my gift tonight", he replied but then noticed what he had just said and opened his mouth.

You stopped him by pressing a kiss on his cheek.

"Should we go ?"

"Yea-yeah", he answered.

You greeted your family after having taken thousands photos and left, followed by Peter. You were walking side by side, your hands brushing against each other. You eventually grabbed one of his finger than fit your whole hand in his. Your heart was beating faster. You talked a bit about how your day went and joked about school and teachers, your hands always into each other. You arrived in front of the school, where a lot of students were waiting for their friends.

"Where is Ned ?", you asked, giving Peter's hand a squeeze.

"He's already inside. Come on !", he exclaimed excited, pulling you.

You followed him in and reached the gymnasium, decorated as planned and many students already dancing or laughing with their friends. You looked around you and spotted Ned, with his date Maria. She was a sweet brunette girl, rather skinny, that everyone liked because of her kindness. He waved and you joined him.

"Hey guys ! Nice necklace y/n, you don't know how much I heard about it !", he declared with a giggle.

You and Peter flushed, and let go of your hands.

"I wanted to dance a bit with Ned, since we waited for you. If you want to join us, we'll be on the dancefloor !", Maria said, pulling Ned to the crowd of people dancing.

Peter rubbed his hair and looked at you.

"What do you want to do ?", he asked with a shy smile.

"I don't really like the music and I'm very excited to see all the activities we have imagined. Would you mind to take a look at them ?"

He laughed and whispered in your ear : "Thank God, I don't like this music either. Let's go to the activities then !"

You got closer of a stand where people had to say the words of a song while having multiple ice cubes i their mouth and their partner had to guess the song. It was a two against two. You played with Peter and all you could say was that you were a good team !

"That was fun ! Was it one of your ideas ?", he asked, his tongue still uncooperative because of the cold ice.

"Yes ! I imagined a new version of the Whisper Challenge. Come with me !"

You headed to a stand where people had to pose in front of a landscape of winter and the best photo was winning a price. You did some shoots with Peter more to keep them as a memory than to really take part of the competition.

The next stand was a Christmas calendar where people had to put their name in one of the day and they could get cool reward such as a TV or a phone.

The last stand was a game where there were different cords and you had to choose one and pull it. Then, there was a dare that you had to do to win a prize. You took a wire and pulled it. At the end, there was a mistletoe and a small paper. You took it and read what was written.

"Kiss the nearest person under this mistletoe", you read and immediately turned to Peter. You both flushed and the student in charge of the stand laughed.

"I suppose you are not a couple...Well, if you want to win this sweet plush, you have to do it !", she exclaimed as she handed you a reindeer plush.

You took a step and without thinking it twice, put your lips on Peter's for a small and very quick peck as you were holding the mistletoe on top of your heads.

You blushed again, took the plush and left the stand. Peter ran after you and grabbed your hand.

"Do-do you want to dance ?", he asked, without watching you in the eyes.

You nodded and let him guide you to the dancefloor. Obviously, the music playing was a slow. You stared at him and he placed his hands on your waist. You put yours on his shoulders and started to dance. You pressed your head on his breast.

"Hey, hum, about the kiss...", you started, "I'm sorry, it was inappropriate of me."

Peter stopped, surprised.

"Are you seriously apologizing because you kissed me ? I just wished you hadn't felt pressured to do so."

You rose your head, shocked.

"I thought you didn't want-", you were interrupted by his lips on yours, in a soft kiss. You cupped his face and deepened the kiss. You took your breath and place a small kiss on his neck, that gave him goosebumps and he held you tighter.

"You're amazing y/n", he stated as if he was talking about the most obvious thing.

"And you are made of boyfriend material, Peter", you replied with a smile. "You are so kind and sweet and beautiful and pure. I like you a lot."

His eyes twinkled and he grabbed a small branch of mistletoe from an inside pocket of his jacket.

"I know how to settle this. Y/n, would you be mine ?"

As an answer, you kissed him underneath the mistletoe.

"Were you carrying this branch hoping we would kiss ?", you asked with a mocking smile.

"Was I wrong ?", he replied as he kissed your forehead and you danced into each other's arms.

#peter parker #peter x reader #peter parker x reader #reader x peter parker #peter parker x y/n #spiderman #spidey #spiderman x reader #spiderman x y/n #spidey x reader #the yule ball

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