#i might end up coming in here early to finish the rest of my last minute work before my first class

[southern--downpour]

been in the art building for nearly 12 hours now. going fucking crazy

[nereidprinc3ss]

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough. 

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was. 

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 

[wednesdaynn]

birthday special

A/N: HI! omg it's my birthday and i thought i'd write a little special something from myself to you, as i'll be spending my birthday alone. So here is a little special poly!marauders smutty fic to make myself happy and not dread this awful day.

i also got a cake with the faces of multiple celebrities i love, including the OG fancasts... so

not edited, not even double checked or rewritten, i did this in 3 days and expected it to only be around 2000 words, so it might be awfull, dont blame me

This is also uploaded 9 hours after scheduled time but shhh

word count: 4388

warnings: reader who feels left out and sad on her birthday/ foursome, oral sex, penatrative sex, awkward positions and understanding lovers, dirty talk, slight overwhelming feelings so a bit of crying.

pairing: poly!marauders x fem!reader

It's eerily quiet in the great hall. lunch time had just passed and most of the students were spending their time outside in the great fields outside of the castle. Spring break was coming to an end and most of ‘em filled their last couple of free days soaking up the sunlight outside, a rare occurrence in scotland. except for your friends, who had been all over the place since that morning. you suppose you had been slightly jealous towards them. Every time it was someone's birthday they made sure to plan something that would interest the birthday person. 

For Lily's birthday, you had spent the evening outside after dark playing in the snow and staying up all night in the boys dorm, drinking wine and gossiping. Remus' birthday was perfect, it had fallen on a sunday, giving you guys the entire day to do nothing except to annoy Remus, plan pranks and sneak into the kitchen to eat until you guys couldn’t . For james’ you guys had planned an entire party that lasted through all the night. 

But this morning you woke up to everyone rushing around. You had thought that because it was spring break there would be a lot of time to hang out with the lot, but to your surprise, you got a kiss on the cheek from your girl friends, and your boyfriends had to get up for quidditch practice early and stayed until lunch. They wished you a happy birthday and let you unpack your presents at the breakfast table. but the celebrations were soon pushed aside for more important tasks, such as studying. 

since breakfast you hadn’t seen anyone, the first hour after breakfast spent in the common room reading a book, you had soon grown bored. you went to the library to study but found it to be too crowded with most of the students cramming for their latest exams. the hot weather tearing them down. and right before lunch you headed outside to join Hagrid in feeding the latest creature he had brought home with him. both of you working in silence. 

But lunch rolled around and you hadn't seen any of your friends. When you walked into the great hall, your boyfriends were just on their way to return to the dorms to take a long awaited shower, while Remus and Peter joined them to finish the last part of their essay. 

And you know there was an open invitation to join them. they always made sure to let you know you are welcome there, even Peter had let you know he enjoys your company, more than the boys he had said. but you didn’t want to intrude on their tasks. you already felt like you were overreacting and the boys knew you too well. you knew they’d worry about you and set their own things aside to make sure you’re okay, but you didn’t want them to do that, feeling like a burden. 

you push yourself up from the table and swing your legs over the bench. with no idea what to do the rest of the day you make your way back up to your room, checking the last couple of assignments off of your to-do list, watering the plants, stoking the fire in the room when the evening chill started to roll around and the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. you had picked up your book again, but to no avail. you were bored, extremely. and you don’t hold it against your friends, knowing that they have things to do as well since classes are starting soon again. but you had spent the entire spring break hanging out almost every day, and the one day that was important to you, they couldn’t. 

you felt left behind. turning around one more time on your bed, you let out a sigh of annoyance. Another birthday spent doing nothing, another birthday spent alone, another birthday spent depressed. you had learned your lesson the past couple of years not expecting much. but it was your last year at Hogwarts, your last year spent with friends. you had hoped this year would be different. not a quick ‘happy birthday, and we’ll see you again tonight when we are already half asleep.’ 

Was it unfair to think that way? yes, but you couldn’t care at the moment. you were feeling lonely and bored. but you picked yourself up enough to at least head  to dinner, where you were greeted with all of your friends sitting together, laughing and having fun. you walked over to Remus and sat beside him quietly, giving him a tight lipped smile while he kissed you on your temple and put his hand on your thigh. 

The entirety of dinner had been spent in silence while your friends talked. they had tried to get you to join the conversation, but your energy had been drained from the constant worrying the entire day. the hand on your thigh had left when Remus had to start eating, but the second he was done it was around your waist pulling you in closer.

"You wanna talk?” he whispered into your ear, his hot breath a comfort on your neck. you looked up at him and shook your head softly with a thin smile, not quite reaching your eyes. the thumb on your waist moves ever so slightly, rubbing comforting circles into your skin. Remus hymned and turned back to his friends, his hand not leaving your side. 

When they finished with their meal, Remus slid his arm back and grabbed your hand to bring you along with him. you walked along with your friends, every so often listening in on their conversation. you followed them up onto the moving stairs but only raised your head when you passed the door to the gryffindor common room. Remus let out a soft chuckle, his grip on your hand getting tighter. you walked after him as he dragged you up more and more stairs.

entering the top corridor the girls giggle as they open up one of the doors to an empty classroom, and Peter walks up to you, circling around until he puts his hands in front of your eyes and covers them. you let out an annoyed sigh, but smile nonetheless. Remus leads your hand further into the room where he leaves you waiting.

you tap your foot impatiently and Peter clicks his tongue in response. you hear slight rustling in the background and Marlene and Sirius whispering, although it’s louder than they probably intend to, seeing as they are bickering about godric knows what. but the noises slowly die down and someone is back at your side again holding onto your right hand. 

Peter slowly slid his hands away from your face and in front of you laid a couple of blankets with candles and a bunch of food and drinks on the floor. the tables and chairs had been pushed to the side. you look to your right seeing James and squeezing onto his hand tighter, giving him a grateful smile. He lets go of your hand and wraps it around your waist, pulling you into him. 

your eyes stare in awe at the scene in front of you. your friends standing around you with a happy smile. Mary shakes out her hands and squeals and before she can contain herself, she runs over to you and envelopes both you and James in a tight hug. 

“didn’t think we’d forget now, huh love?” you shake your head and she pulls back from your embrace holding your face in her hands. “Happy birthday sweetheart.” you give her a sweet smile and they both release, just far enough for your other friends to congratulate you. 

pulling back from all the hugs, you all make your way down to the middle of the room, filled with sweets. sitting cross-legged on the blanket across from your friends, squished between your boyfriends, you felt slightly guilty.

you couldn’t believe you thought they were capable of forgetting, or just not wanting to celebrate your birthday. or thinking they didn’t know you well enough to know how you wanted to spend your birthday. you silently scold yourself on your mistrust towards your boys and try to focus back on the scene in front of you. 

you lean into James’ embrace next to you while he puts his arm around your shoulder and try to relax into it as much as possible. “Thank you, darling,” you whisper to him. “I love it.” he just winks and holds you tighter. 

The night carries on with lots of laughter while you stuff your mouths with a bunch of food and the alcohol, which you can only assume Sirius and Mary took care of. it was getting late and everyone was relatively tipsy, you all decided it was best to head up back to bed. standing up from Sirius’ lap, all of you stumbled your way back down all the stairs and into the common room, getting dirty looks from the paintings. He held onto your waist tightly as you walked up towards the boys’ dormitory. 

taking off your shoes next to the door, you walk over to the fireplace in the centre of the room, stoking the fire with a spell, instantly warming the room. You watch as you see your boys make their way over to the bathroom individually. Coming out with pyjamas and brushed teeth, the padding of their socked feet towards their beds. You quickly ascend to the bathroom yourself, the stressful day had made you quite tired, and the slight state of drunkenness you were in didn’t help either. 

You quickly took off your makeup and brushed out your hair and teeth. Getting out of your clothes and putting on your pyjamas. You lean your head down and take a sip of water from the faucet and make your way back to their dormitory. Getting into Remus' bed you sit cross legged on the cover. 

“I’m sorry if i acted odd tonight, i loved what you guys did for me, honestly. It was the best birthday.” you say softly. Sirius's face contorts into one of confusion and he cocks his head up towards you. “What are you talking about, love?” James crosses over from his bed to yours and leans against the bedpost, his arms crossed on his chest. 

“You were fine sweetheart, but if something is bothering you, you know you can always talk about it with us right?” you nod and give James a soft smile. Remus pats your thigh. 

“Come’ere.”  you climb up higher on the bed and throw your leg over his lap, making eye contact with your lover. He gives you a soft peck on your forehead and his thumb draws circles into your waist. You feel a dip in the mattress behind you and feel Sirius his hand brush the hair away from your neck and shoulder, leaving soft peck along the neckline of your pyjama shirt. You lean into their embrace and let out a soft sigh.

You see James get on the bed on the other side of you and look over at him. “You want us to take care of you? Or do you just want to cuddle until we fall asleep?” you’re already letting go of your inhibitions while in the hold of your boyfriends, and you know they will take care of you. 

“Take care of me please.” you let out softly, looking up at him with sweet eyes. He gives you an adorning smile and a kiss on the cheek. 

Remus his hands slowly slip under your shirt, rubbing the skin underneath. He spreads his hands across your back, “lean back for me sweetheart.” Sirius whispers in your ear as his lips ghost across your jawline. You look at Remus and he nods at you, he holds you as you lean back into Sirius his arms, your shoulders resting on his chest. 

Sirius his hands move down towards the hem of your shirt and slowly inches it upwards. His knuckles grazing your skin, leaving behind goosebumps as his cold hands touch you. He moves until he reached the underside of your boobs. 

“Can i, love?” you nod as best as you can. He lifts the shirt over your breasts and skims his hands over them, brushing along your nipples and pinching them slightly. You let out a soft sigh at the contact and look away from his movements and make eye contact with Remus who winks at you. He gestures over at James to get closer and you feel James moving on the bed as he leans down on your level.

He softly brushes some stray hairs away from your face and leans in closer kissing your lips softly. You fully let go in the embrace of your lovers doting on you and your body. The kiss quickly turns a lot more fierce and you realise in this position both of your bodies have to contort to kiss properly, so James makes his way down your body, jaw, neck, clavicle bones, and just under your shirt where Sirius pulls his hands away to give James free reign to pleasure you. 

James leaves wet kisses all on your breast, and soft bites around your nipples leaving slight marks all over your chest. He finally wraps his lips around your left nipple and sucks lightly. You let out a moan at his administration and he groans around your nipples, heat flows down your body. 

Sweat starts to form on your forehead and you notice how much of a strain your body is being put on being in this position. You move your hand to tug on Remus' arms.

“You like how he’s making you feel darling?” you nod but a slight grimace pulls at your face. “This position, baby, it’s slightly uncomfortable, I'm sorry.” you apologise to them. Sirius tuts behind you and moves his hands behind your shoulder blades to give you some elevation to get up properly. 

Being sat back on Remus' lap, he slowly lifts you up from off of his lap and moves you next to him on the bed, the spot James was previously occupying. Sitting up on the bed you roll your shoulder around, letting the tight spots ease. You remove your shirt entirely from your body and Sirius softly pushes at your sternum, easing you onto your back, your head resting on the pillows. 

James resumes his former position, leaning over you and softly kissing your chest and upwards, now finally having the space to kiss your neck and leave marks all over. Sirius, who is still sitting between your legs, ghosts his hands across your stomach and reaches the waistband of your pyjama pants. He hooks his fingers underneath the band and glides them across your waist, teasing you. 

You panting beneath them, wishing they would just do more. Having 3 boyfriends and still not getting where you need them seems pathetic, but Remus just finds your frustrations comical and sweet. He puts his hand on your forehead and strokes the top of your head. 

Sirius his hands finally make their way down when he pulls down your pants and underwear at the same time, helping you lift your hips and pulling them all the way down your legs and throwing them next to the bed. You have half a mind to tell him it’s gross to leave clothes lying on the floor, but James his lips are back on your nipples and thinking straight with them is just too difficult. 

He brushes his hands on your calves, massaging them and pushing them up, leaving your knees bent. You feel Remus’ hands skim across your stomach downwards, a ghost of a touch on your mound leaving goosebumps in his wake. 

“Please, Rem?” with the comforting touch of Sirius’ hands on your calves, soothing you into a deeper rest, you can’t help but beg for Remus to touch you. 

“Since it’s your birthday, sweetheart, I'll go easy on you.” His voice sounds rough, but he complies immediately. His middle finger and ring finger skim over your slit collecting wetness from your core and he circles your clit with them. You whine, the touch of James his lips and teeth on your nipple and Remus his light circular movements on your bundle of nerves, makes you set alight. 

They’re barely doing anything, but it’s making you let out all sorts of noises you’ll probably be embarrassed about tomorrow, but for now you couldn’t care, knowing it only eggs your partners on further. 

Remus his fingers slowly move down to your hole circling it, teasing it, before finally pushing on finger in slowly. He eases it into you, taking his time, moving it in and out slowly. He watches your face intently. Making sure to catch any noise you let out, and face you make and any sign of unease. He sees your hands grab onto the blanket and takes it as his queue to add a second finger. 

No matter how many times the four of you have sex, the stretch never gets any easier. You scrunch your face up slightly. “Am i good to continue, or do you need a second?” he asks, and you have half a mind to tell him to shut up and continue, but you find it so endearing how caring he still is. “You’re good to continue, baby, was just a pinch.” he nods and continues pushing into you, but this time at a much slower pace, taking extra caution. 

Once he feels you’re rightly accommodated to the stretch, he starts pumping in slowly again. Taking his time dragging his fingers against your walls, your pussy quivering around his fingers. You feel every drag with his slow pace, the way he barely misses your g-spot. 

Your hand curls around his wrist and he gives you a smirk. “You want more, baby?” he hymns at you.  You just nod to the best of your ability. He increases his pace, only ever so slightly making you whine. You liked when he teased, but it was god damn frustrating. 

Your nails scratch at his wrist and pull at his hand hoping to speed it up even more, but Remus is relentless in giving you what you want. He makes a tsks noise, hoping to tell you off, but he sees the desperate look on your face and he almost gives in.

“Be good for me baby, and you’ll get what you want.” you nodded fervently at him. James leaves a peck on your cheek and makes his way over to your lips, kissing you with renowned vigour. Tongue sliding in your mouth. 

You feel the butterflies in your stomach making rounds at the slow pace, not enough to make you cum, but it leaves you teetering on the edge. Sirius moves closer to you, your legs on either side of his hips. He slowly takes off his shirt, making it a show for you. He leans down to give a kiss on your knee and pushes himself down onto the bed, laying down on his stomach in between you. 

Remus makes a move to take his fingers out of you, but the hand that’s on his wrist holds him there. 

“Sweetheart, let go, Sirius wants to make you feel good, don’t you wanna cum?” he asks in such an endearing voice. You moan into James’ mouth and he takes it as a queue to lean back and observe. You whine for him, wanting to feel the taste of his lips back on your once more, but he just gives you a sympathetic smile and mouths an apology at you. 

Sirius begins by slowly kissing up and down the inside of your thigh. He sucks onto the skin leaving marks behind, maroons and reds splotched all over your legs, small indentations of bite marks etched into your skin. He kisses the juncture between your thigh and mound and puts his thumbs onto your vulva.

His thumbs spread your lips apart and he lets out a groan at the sight, wetness covering your entire pussy, your hole quivering from the need to cum. You feel a warmth spread over your face all the way down to your chest. He latches his lips onto your clit, sucking on it harshly. 

“Holy fuck.” he hums around your bundle of nerves making electricity shoot up. He agrees with your sentiment. You were on edge form cumming the whole time Remus was fingering you, and this just shoots you right over the edge. Your hands make their way downwards, grabbing onto Sirius his long hair and pulling, hard. He lets out a moan at the roughness and scrapes his teeth against your clit. You give a short warning before your orgasm takes full control. You scratch at his scalp as you pull, as Sirius pulls you through the afterwaves of your orgasm. You feel your chest going up and down, heaving. 

Sirius gives a loving pat on your inner thigh before moving up again, and getting off of the bed, standing next to James on the left side of the bed. You look over at them and you feel Remus, who is still sitting beside you on the bed, take your hand and grab onto it. 

James scurries out of his clothes, first his shirt, revealing his toned chest from quidditch. Then his pyjama pants. You see Sirius next to him gulp as James’ cock springs up. James his face contorts into a look of proudness. A smirk plastered onto his face. He resumes his movements and gets onto the bed taking Sirius his former position between your legs. He spits onto the palm of his hand and strokes his cock slowly. 

“You ready, doll?” he asks you before inching closer. You let out a soft please and he strokes his cock up and down your slit. Gathering your wetness before slowly pressing into you. He inches in closer and closer, taking his time with you, letting you get adjusted to the stretch of his cock. 

You breathe in deeply, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Taking the time to enjoy the moment and feel the intimacy with your lovers. Remus who is feeling up your breasts, encompassing them with his hands and squeezing them, pinching your nipples and rolling them between his thumb. 

Sirius is still by your side, holding your hand and stroking his thumb up and comforting you. His other hand pushing away fly hairs and stroking your head, creating a soft moment between you both. Looking up at him, you can see the love and adoration in his eyes and he gives you a sweet smile. 

James’ hands rest on your waist, pressing into the skin there, you know he’s trying to hold himself back, but he’s trying to be considerate, your sweet boy. 

“It’s okay James, please.” you give him an encouraging nod and he stares at you for a while, trying to see if you are truly okay. Finding no resistance, he pushes further in almost bottoming out inside of you. He inches out slowly and pushes back in with careful intention, making sure to make you feel every drag slide against your walls. Hearing the lewd sounds the two of you make, feeling your hole contract around him. 

You both let out a sigh of relief at the sensation followed by a deep moan. He makes sure to hit you deep and slowly, dragging the sensations out. All that you feel, everything you feel coursing through your body is love. Undevoted love. Enveloped by your boyfriends, taking care of you in the way that you need. 

It encompasses your very being and you feel yourself tune out everything around you except for the feeling of safety, the pleasure of their comfort. Peace. You know they see it, see how you’re feeling, or maybe they even feel it themselves, because Sirius is squeezing tighter around your hand and Remus gives intentional soft strokes around your breast. It makes you want to cry and release every emotion you’ve felt for a while. Wanting to cry out in pure ecstasy. 

“It’s okay, you’re safe with us.” Remus tells you and you let a single tear drop when you squeeze your eyes shut. A silent ‘fuck’ leaves your mouth and your eyebrows scrunch together. They just hold you closer.

James picks up his pace slightly, his thumb moving to your clit, rolling circles on it with the pad of his finger, increasing the pleasure that shoots through your body. 

He digs his knees deeper into the mattress, laying the top of his feet flat on the bed and shifting his hips just ever so slightly, lowering them closer to the bed and his cock drags against your walls deliciously. 

James feels all his nerves being set on fire, feeling the tightening of your walls around him, the wetness making it so easy to glide in, and he feels the tip of his cock hit that spongy spot inside of you. Making you keen,

You lean your head back, releasing a loud moan. Your eyes shoot open and you grab at the bedsheet. Curling your toes and enclosing your thighs around James’ hips. You feel the familiar flare in the bottom of your stomach, the butterflies fluttering around. 

“Baby? Babes, I'm gonna cum, please.” you beg of James and he keeps repeatedly hitting your g-spot, keeping up the pace as before and tightening the circles he makes around your clit. He lets out a high pitched whine and looks down at where your bodies are connected, seeing your arousal around his cock, your hole pulsing around him. The stickiness on his thumb. 

Your breath hitches, Remus pinches your nipple, Sirius gives you a sweet kiss on your forehead and the soft strokes of James gives you everything you need to orgasm again. You squeeze tightly around James his cock and James hisses at the constriction, cumming just after you. He pumps in just a little bit longer, riding out both of your orgasms, until both of you become too sensitive. 

“You did so well darling, so beautiful for us, happy birthday baby.” 

(Down below my bday cake cuz y’all need to see it)

[atimeofyourlife]

A family Thanksgiving

This was supposed to be up yesterday, but it took on a mind of its own and instead of the few hundred words it was supposed to be, its nearly 3k. Happy belated Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates! rated: t | wc: 2847 | cw: period typical homophobia, Steve's asshole parents

The offers from everyone to have him over for Thanksgiving had been great, any other year he would have loved such a choice, but for the first time in a long time, he was spending the day with family.

"But you hate your family." Dustin pointed out when Steve had told everyone about his holiday plans.

"No, I hate my parents. It's my grandma that asked me to go, and I want to see her and my cousins that I haven't seen in like five years. I'm driving myself to Chicago, so I won't be stuck in a car with my parents for hours on end." Steve explained.

"But you're working a late the day before, and I'm not going to cover you so you can drive up early" Robin replied.

"I'm planning on leaving by six on Thanksgiving morning. It's less than four hours to drive, so I'll be there before ten, well nine because of the timezone change. I took the late shift the day before so I had an excuse to drive myself, and my parents wouldn't have any reason to come by Hawkins before. And I drive home either the Friday or the Saturday, ready for our Sunday shift."

Come Thanksgiving day, Steve was somewhat regretting his decision. It had been nearly midnight before he'd gotten home, after a number of people came in just before closing insistent on needing a selection of movies ready for the next day. Then hadn't been happy when the movies they wanted weren't in stock, so they left the place a total mess, causing Steve to stay late to tidy up ready for the opener the next day. Then having to get up around five, so he could get ready and be on track to leave as planned. In an attempt to wake up, he was mostly surviving on a large cup of incredibly strong coffee. He was just counting down the minutes until he could get there.

When he walked in the door, he was immediately wrapped up in a hug from his grandma. "Stevie, it's so good to see you."

"It's great to see you too, Grandma." He returned the hug, melting into it a little. Exactly what he needed after the year it had been.

"Let me take a look at you." She stepped back slightly, giving him a once over. Her hand came up to trace the scar still on his neck from where he had been strangled by the bats and vines. "What happened here?"

"I. It's nothing. It looks a lot worse than it is." Steve replied, trying to get out of the awkwardness of the conversation.

"Oh, if you're sure. If you want to help with dinner, you can join us in the kitchen. But if you just want to rest, anyone who's watching football is in the living room, and the Macy's parade is on in the den."

"It's been a long drive, and I had a late finish last night, so I think I'm going to take a bit of a break. I might come out and help a bit later." He offered.

"Oh, honey. If you don't feel up to it, you don't need to help at all. Take it easy, and we'll call you once everything is ready." She kissed Steve on the cheek, before going back to the kitchen.

Steve made his way through the house, glancing into the living room as he passed. He could see his dad in one of the recliners, and decided against joining them. Wanting to delay the inevitable "you're a disappointment" lecture. He knew his mom would likely be in the kitchen, not actually helping, just drinking wine and gossiping. He moved on to the den, where most of his cousins were. He hovered in the doorway for a second, unsure what to say. So much had changed since the last time he had seen any of them.

"Wait, Stevie?" One of them, Lizzie, said as she looked up to see him.

"Uh, hey?" Steve replied, a little unsure, before he was being swamped in a group hug.

"Jesus Christ, when did this happen? Last time I saw you, you were like a little kid. Now you're a whole grown adult." Another, Mark, said.

After a long catch up, bringing Steve up to date on everyone else's lives, and him giving an abridged highlights of his last few years, they then got into more serious topics.

"Was everything okay after the earthquakes? I tried calling a few times, but I don't know if I had the wrong number because it never went through." Alice, the oldest of his cousins, asked.

"The phones were down across the whole town for a while after, then it was patchy for weeks after that. It was hard to get five or ten minutes without it dropping out. It took me like two weeks before I was able to get hold of mom and dad to let them know that the house was still standing, and that I was still alive." Steve explained.

"Wait, they weren't in Hawkins for the earthquakes?" Harry cut in.

"No, they've not been in Hawkins since February? Like over a month before it happened."

"Oh. They were telling us last night about how awful and hard it had been during the earthquakes, and how they were scared for their lives." Alice replied.

"That's such bullshit. They weren't in the country when it happened, they were in London. They didn't even know that it was Hawkins that was affected until I called them, because all they'd seen on the news was a freak earthquake hitting the Midwest. It hadn't even specified the state. And then they didn't care how I was, if I was hurt or anything, all they were interested in was if there was damage to the house, and how the earthquake could affect the resale value."

"Okay, I call dibs about bringing that up over dinner. I just want to see what shade of purple Uncle Dick can turn." Becca, the closest cousin to Steve in age, piped up. "But were you hurt?"

"Uh, minor injuries. Nothing serious." Steve lied, not wanting to worry anyone. "I was able to start volunteering within a couple of days. You know, helping out at the relief center, helping search for missing people. And when everything calmed down I was helping rebuild and stuff. Just trying to do my bit. But I'm fine now."

"That's good. But thinking of Uncle Dick turning purple, who gets to bring up Fuck Reagan?" Mark asked.

"Stevie's been through the most, I think he should get the chance." Alice replied.

"Uh, I think that would go down about as well as if I told him that my best friend is a dyke and I've spent most of my free time in the last six months sucking off the local drug dealer, who was accused of being a cult leader and murdering three people." Steve said quickly, unsure if he wanted anyone else to pick up what he'd said.

"Was that for drugs, or for fun, or what? Like a hook up?" Harry asked.

"He's my boyfriend. I mean, it helps that I get free weed out of him, but I'd do it anyway." Steve admitted.

"That is something you missed out of your round up. But I love that all of us are some variation of queer."

Dinner was...interesting, to say the least. After saying Grace, they went round the table to say what they were thankful for that year. Steve had to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing as his parents waxed on and on about how they were thankful for their lives and being able to escape the earthquake unscathed. He couldn't keep from laughing when Becca spoke up against them.

"Really? Because Alice asked Steve how he found it after the earthquakes, and he said that he couldn't reach you for two weeks after it happened because the phones were down and you were in London. And you didn't even know that it had hit Hawkins until he called you."

"Steven, why are you telling lies about us?" His mother demanded.

"I wasn't? You weren't in Hawkins when the earthquake hit. You've not been there since February. When I was finally able to call you, you only cared about how the house was, not if I was hurt. And you were pissed that I hadn't called you sooner, despite the fact the phone lines were down for the whole town. I could have died or been injured in hospital, and you wouldn't have known."

"How dare-" His father started, only to be cut off by Steve's grandmother.

"Settle down. There's no need for arguing. I am inclined to believe Steve, because I do remember you telling me that you were going to be spending a few months in Europe at the start of this year."

Both of Steve's parents were visibly unhappy, but they didn't push it any further, allowing the rest of the family to talk about what they were thankful for.

Many small conversations broke out over the table, Steve loving the feeling of being surrounded by family for the first time in a long time. He got pulled into talking to different people, but he did his best to avoid his parents' eye. Not wanting to get trapped by them telling him all the ways he had bothered them since he'd last seen them. But he knew they were up to something, when his father got up before dessert was served.

"Before we have anything else, we do have a big announcement about the future of our family." He said, using the voice he always used when talking to the most important clients.

"You've sucked enough political dick to get what ever tax exemption you were after?" Lizzie asked, before anyone could take it too seriously.

Steve's dad just spluttered in anger as a call of "Elizabeth." Came from at least four different people around the table.

"Ignoring that horrible interruption. What I was going to tell everyone is about Steven's imminent engagement. He is going to be proposing to Melissa Downey, the daughter of my business partner, at Christmas, they've been seeing each other for nearly eighteen months now, and it is going to mean big things for our family."

Steve couldn't respond, processing what had just been said, as everyone started speaking, some offering congratulations, others in confusion.

"That's news to me." Steve said loudly, to get over everyone's voices, once he could form the words. "I'm not planning on proposing to anyone."

"Well, Arthur and I have been discussing it, and it is the only thing that makes sense now, the two of you have been together for long enough, the logical next step is engagement."

"I'm not dating Melissa. We went on one date over a year ago, just after I graduated. It was awful, all she was interested in was if I made enough money to bankroll her spending addiction. I made up a fake emergency to get out of it, and I would rather stick forks in my eyes than suffer through that again." Steve got to his feet, bracing his hands on the table. Knowing he'd been right not to be optimistic that the holiday could pass without incident.

"You will if you know what's good for you. If you don't, it could destroy our business. You wouldn't want to be the reason we go broke, would you? You could end up homeless. Where would you live?"

"First, I have plenty of friends who would be happy to take me in if I had nowhere else to go. It's something we talked about after the earthquake, because some people I know did have damage caused to their homes and I let them stay with me until they could move back in. Second, I don't really care about whether or not you go broke. You don't provide any money to me. You haven't since I started working at Scoops. I pay for all my food, gas, clothes. If you go broke, my financial position won't change at all. And third, I can't propose to her. I'm in a relationship, and we're both very happy."

"Is it that Buckley girl? Or did you somehow manage to convince that Wheeler girl that you're actually worth something? Because I can tell you now, you are going to break up with whatever little slut-"

"His name is Eddie." Steve shouted before he could think it through, and a silence fell across the room. "That's right. Your son is one of those awful queers that you keep campaigning against, to keep them illegal and get them locked up. And you know what? He's easily the best sex I've ever had. Especially when we get high first."

"Why you-" His father roared, his face turning a dark red in anger. "How dare you do this to us? After everything we have done for you. You'd better hope that those friends of yours would be willing to take you in, because you are not living under my roof any longer. You will have until the end of the weekend to collect your belongings, anything left will be burned."

"Except, it isn't your roof, is it Richard? If I remember correctly, I was the one who paid the mortgage. My name is the one on the deed to the property in Hawkins. I just allowed you to live there, rent-free might I add, because it made sense for you to live somewhere close to Indianapolis when your business was taking off. I had been planning to sell up. So I think maybe you should be the one to collect your belongings from that house, because I'm not sure if I want you living under my roof any longer. It sounds life you're almost never there, anyway." Steve's grandma replied.

"But, mother-" His father started.

"But nothing, Richard. I don't know where you learnt your hateful attitude, because I know I did not raise you to be the sort of man that would kick your own son out over something as minor as who he loves. I really thought you were a better man than that."

"It's disgusting." Steve's mother added. "So unnatural, and that disease."

"What is disgusting is your bigotry. I think I want you both out from under my roof, now. So, if you would both kindly leave. And I expect you to move your belongings from the house in Hawkins, as that is now Steve's house, not yours. And you better not touch anything that isn't yours, or cause any damage, because I will take legal advice." Steve's grandmother stood up, anger radiating from her tiny five foot frame. "And, unless you change and apologize for your outdated beliefs, you can forget any inheritance. I will not have any of my money going to support hatred."

"Mother,"

"Leave, Richard. Now. I'm not afraid to get the police involved here."

Steve's parents looked at him with their faces filled with utter disgust, before they turned and left. His grandmother escorting them off the property.

"Are you okay, Stevie?" His grandmother asked after the end of the meal.

"I. I think so. I think I need to make a couple of phone calls." He replied.

"Use any of the phones, dear. Maybe if you know someone who can keep an eye on the house."

"Yeah. I babysit for the chief of police sometimes, so I might call him. He'll make sure nothing happens."

"Good. And, if you're talking to that boy of yours, tell him that he's got to come up here for Christmas. I want to meet him, and make sure he's good enough for you."

"Grandma." Steve protested.

"I'm just saying." She replied before walking away.

Steve shut himself in one of the bedrooms, for a little privacy from the still crowded house while he made the calls. The call to Hopper was quick, just outlining what was going on, and Hopper agreed to keep a check on the house until Steve was back in Hawkins. Then it was the call to Eddie.

"Baby, I wasn't expecting you to call. How's your Thanksgiving?"

"Interesting. My parents decided to announce that I was going to propose to dad's business partner's daughter. They wouldn't accept that I wasn't interested in her so I accidentally came out."

"Shit, I hope that didn't go too bad?"

"Uh, it could have gone worse? Somehow me coming out got my parents removed from the will and kicked out of the house. Because my grandma wasn't happy with them being assholes about it."

"Oh, badass grandma. I kinda want to meet her now."

"I was hoping you would say something like that. Because she has told me that you have to come here for Christmas. She wants to make sure that you're good enough." Steve couldn't help smiling as he talked, somehow the day had gone so much better than he'd ever hoped.

[nappingmoon]

I think the way to higuruma’s heart is through acts of service.

wc: 1.3k

the first time you wake up in higuruma's bed is the day after you meet him. he's still sound asleep, and he looks like he needs it, so you let him rest while you get up. when confronted with the choice of slipping out the door or staying, you don't think twice. you make your way into his kitchen, and it's clean-- simple in a way that is just so him. you grab two mugs and get started on a pot of coffee.

you’re not too familiar with him yet; unsure of how he takes it, so you make a simple batch of black coffee and decide to wait to ask him, finding you like the idea of learning along the way.

when higuruma walks into the kitchen, still groggy and hair tussled, it takes him a moment to digest what he’s seeing. he blinks slowly, eyes adjusting to the light pouring in from the window. you’ve got a cup in your hands, full and still steaming, while another sits empty to the side.

“I didnt know if liked sugar and milk in your coffee, or I would’ve brought you some in bed, handsome.” you say, lips just hovering over the lip of your cup. you place it down softly on the coaster and stretch for a moment before grabbing his and turning around, filling it with the rest of the brew. you call out over your shoulder, asking for the instructions to his preferred tastes, but are met with silence. you turn.

“h-” he starts, but seems unsure of how to finish. “how did you figure out the coffee machine?” he asks, and you both know it’s not the question that was supposed to come out. why are you doing this? why are you still here? most of his other endeavors have always fled in the morning, the bed cold and the house empty by the time he awakes. he felt the connection between the two of you last night, but normally the people he pursue leave without a trace, and he’s gotten used to it. it’s what he knows. so why are you in his t shirt, sipping from his mug, and acting like this is normal? why does he find himself wishing it was?

“there’s only four buttons on here, and one is for the clock. you don’t think me so simple, do you?” you tease with a smile.

no, he doesn’t. quite the opposite, in fact. he thinks you’re brilliant. you had met at a bar downtown and talked and talked, the tension eased by a few fruity cocktails. taken by your wit and humor immediately, he found himself inviting you over to extend the night a little, maybe have a glass of wine or two. not entirely surprisingly, you ended up in his sheets, all giggles and sloppy kisses and passionate touches. he fell asleep, sated and content with his limbs intertwined in yours.

instead of answering your question, he replies, “just a splash of milk, please.” 

your quirked brow betrays your skepticism. "not even a little sugar?" he seemed to have had the largest sweet tooth last night, if you correctly remember the sweet drinks that were downed absentmindedly between quips, stories, and touches that lingered just long enough to be more than friendly.

he's sheepish when he replies "i shouldn't, right? i have to limit my sugar somewhere or later down the line I am going to have to see my doctor more often and I am trying to avoid that. she's a scary lady."

he's not finished with his sentence before you tip in a small dash of sugar. "you're still in your early thirties. give it another decade or two before you start worrying about your blood sugar." you bring the mug over, bare feet padding softly on his hardwood floor as you approach. "i don't think a little sweetness in your life will kill you."

as he takes the mug from your hands, his fingers brush over yours. he doesn't look away from you eyes as he lifts the mug to his lips, but just before he takes a sip, he murmurs, "it might."

you hum and walk back over to where your mug sits on the counter. leaning against it, you ask, "how'd you sleep?"

"better than I have in ages," he replies, and his tone is oddly sincere. "I wasn't expecting you to still be here."

"should I not have been?" though you try to sound confident and carefree, a light waver in your voice reveals the fear at the idea that you've gravely misunderstood him and embarrassed yourself to no end in the process.

your thoughts don't get to stray far, however, because he's quick to respond. "no, no. it was a pleasant surprise. you have been a truly pleasant surprise."

your cheeks warm and you suddenly find his cabinets fascinating. "you're not supposed to be smooth first thing in the morning, you know." you grumble.

he's closer now, directly in front of you, and he places his mug down, just to you right. as he retracts his hand, it comes up to tilt your chin back towards him.

he's so handsome it's unfair.

"i'm sorry, sweetness, can I make it up to you with some breakfast?" he asks, his voice entrancing and still thick with sleep. the gesture and the question leave you breathless, so you just nod affirmatively. he places a kiss to your temple before turning and digging around his fridge and grabbing the ingredients he needs to get started.

-

soon after that, you become a constant in his life. he hadn't planned on you as a part of his routine, but you just, fit. in the mornings he finds himself spending less time in the bathroom mirror fixing his suit. now he wakes up eager to get dressed and sit on the edge of his bed with his choice of tie, waiting for you to take your spot between his legs and tie it for him. seeing the furrow in your brow as you adjust it just right, fixing the collar and tugging on the lapels to make sure he's perfect, it all makes him swoon.

before you, his lunch couldn't even be considered a break. he would just pop open whatever prepackaged meal he had bought that day and eat it in between readings of contracts and reviews of cases. now, he leaves his office without fail, never missing the time to eat and listen to you talk about your day.

when his bouts of insomnia get worse, you're there to help him. the house starts to smell like lavender. you've got all kinds of melatonin gummies and you don't let him say no to a massage, first focusing on his temples and scalp, then laying him down to work the knots out of his back. he's snoring by the time you're halfway down.

when he gets really stressed and the pressure starts to get too much, he comes home to a quiet house. he finds you in the bathroom preparing a bath with salts and soaps. you usher him in, insisting on taking care of him- carding water and shampoo through his locks and providing him with a safer space than he's ever had in his life.

higuruma is a lawyer. he deals with people who spin words all day. lies, loopholes, and secrets are all imbedded in his quotidian conversations with clients and colleagues. you, however, don't ripen him up with flattery or kind words. you don't make promises you don't intend to keep and you don't mince and twist your words to use against him. you simply do what you think is right. your actions have captured him far more than any words alone could do. in return, to show you how much he has truly come to love and need you, he looks to what he knows best. contracts.

though, when he's down on one knee, the legalities of it mean nothing to him. all that is important in that moment, and for the rest of his life, his you.

[writersdrug]

Ghost x Reader x Konig: I Don't Need You (Ch. 10)

<- Previous - Next ->

Summary: Thankfully, things have been resolved between you and Konig. You start to settle in more with your team, and Roze shares a few thoughts with you over a smoke. The memories are still there, but just like the winter around you, they're cold and unwelcoming. You and Konig open up to each other a bit more, more than you had ever opened up to anyone.

WARNINGS: implications of masturbation, cursing, angst (if you squint?), plot building, graphic depictions of animal torture and death (PLEASE CONSIDER ALL WARNINGS BEFORE READING THIS, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MEDIA YOU CONSUME thank you kindly)

Notes: Yes! Hello! I exist!! I've been in a slump, and I really do apologize for that. Many of you have been very patient with me and I love and appreciate you all for it! I had to intake as much CoD literature as I could in the past few weeks to get me motivated, which helped a LOT (not to mention I discovered no fewer than ten works that currently have a hold on my heart). But it's here! I forced myself to write over half of the following chapter so that it would be less daunting to finish up. I also plan to make a wip post for yall, just to share will everyone what goes on in my rat brain.

This was edited at 3 am (god it's 4 am now, i just saw that), so if there are any grammatical or spelling errors you have my full consent to call me out on it! Please enjoy!

(sidenote, I completely didn't research how old you need to be to become a navy SEAL, so reader's age is a bit inaccurate in regards to that. pls ignore lol)

(last sidenote then you can read, does anyone have tips for customizing the layout of their fics? I see so many cool ways to style the font and cute banners and errything but I have no idea how nor what to do)

- - - -

The sky hung low with a blanket of gray. It looked like it was about to snow, although the threat was soon dismissed when noon came around and there wasn’t a single flake. The air was cold and dry, forcing me to zip my jacket up all the way and tuck my nose into the collar. I blew steady, warm breaths into my jacket and tried to soak up the heat into my bones.

It was as if the incident had never happened.

Konig and I ended up driving to the liquor store, which was a blessing, since I had run out of Yeungling (and I didn’t understand enough Turkish to converse with the clerk, nor did I have any of the appropriate money – Konig was graced with both of those necessities). We talked like there had never been a week and a half of silence between us. He talked about how he had nearly forced Ridgeback to drag me out of my room and into the common area, “… but it would have been too early for that.” He commented. That, and I would have rather died.

So life went on as normal: dreary, aside from shooting people and getting shot at. Nonetheless, it was normal, and there was a peace to be found in that.

I leaned against the building to the training room, with Roze to my left. I had intended to come out and soak up whatever natural light I could – when I saw her standing there, possibly trying to do the same, I felt the instinct to play it off as if I was just leaving the building. But she cocked her head in a greeting, and a part of me took an interest in her worry-free aura. Out of everyone, she always seemed to be the least-stressed person in the room, even in the middle of a warzone. It was the balm to my anxious mind that I never knew I needed, but gratefully stood by.

We remained together in a comfortable silence (one I would most definitely would not have been comfortable with a while ago), staring ahead, watching the indecisiveness of the brooding clouds above. I wondered what the rest of the world was doing – if they might have been as calm and carefree as us, or if they were in some kind of peril, and the horrors of it were blocked out by the clouds.

I was drawn back to the present when I heard the click click click of Roze’s lighter. I turned my head and watched as she shielded the weak flame from the wind, lighting the cigarette that hung loosely from her lips.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“Sure do.” She replied nonchalantly. “Want one?” she extended her pack of cigarettes towards me.

I glanced at the box, feeling a sour taste in my mouth.

I lay on my stomach, my muscles still twitching and shaking as I tried to even out my breaths. Ghost had tossed a thin blanket over my lower half. I hadn’t even moved from the position he had ruthlessly fucked me in – my body ached too much to even try, and my mind was still recovering from the past hour.

I watch Ghost as he reclined next to me, pushing the bottom of his mask up to place a cigarette between his lips. It was the first time I had seen any part of his face all day. He grabbed his lighter from the pocket of his pants that were discarded on the floor, lighting the end of the cigarette and inhaling. He tossed the lighter back down to the floor as he tilted his head back, exhaling a long stream of smoke. I watched it swirl in the lamplight, settling in a cloud around us. He continued puffing, staring at the wall across from the bed as I lay beside him, although I felt worlds away from him.

He'd started off the night with a mountain of stress from a mission gone sideways. Instead of the usual slow build, where he would run his hands under my shirt and kiss my lips slowly and tenderly – he had walked in and immediately demanded I remove my clothes while he began stripping out of his. I had assumed tonight was going to be a passionate one, until he threw me onto my stomach and shoved my face into the pillows. It wasn’t the first time he’d been rough with me, but it wasn’t just rough – it felt dehumanizing. An hour of constant, merciless thrusts, and a hand around my neck that restricted both my blood flow and my oxygen, and I had fallen into a state of shock.

But, in the end, I was happy to be caged in by him again.

I was happy.

He turned his eyes towards me, seeming to sense that something was off. He exhaled another puff of smoke. “Everythin’ alright?” he asked, completely void of any genuine concern.

I met his eyes with my own. I felt like I shouldn’t have to answer the question, and it stirred up a bitterness in me. But I didn’t feel like arguing with him, and I certainly didn’t want him to leave – so I nodded my head, slowly blinking my eyes. “Just tired.”

He hummed and faced the wall again. He brought one of his knees up and rested his arm against it. “Want a smoke?” he asked, still looking away.

I shook my head as much as the pillow beneath me would allow. “No.” I replied.

He sighed disappointedly. Apparently, my lack of enthusiasm after being used like an old fucktoy was irking him.

To be fair, I never spoke up about how I felt.

He grunted and rose from his position, snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray by my bed, and picking up his clothes and pulling them on. My heart ached slightly as I watched him slide his shirt over his torso. I felt the threat of tears sting in my eyes as I wished his hands were holding me instead, keeping me warm and grounded. He pulled his jeans on and fastened them, buckling his belt rather quickly; and all while he faced away from me.

“Well, I know you probably need some alone time.” He muttered, sliding the skull attachment over his mask. “So I’ll get going. I’ll see you around.”

He grabbed his tactical vest and jacket and slung them over his shoulder. He paused by the door. “Thanks for tonight.” He mumbled, before finally leaving the room and softly closing the door behind him.

My eyes lingered on the ashtray with the half-smoked cigarette. A thin trail of smoke plumed into the air – I wanted to throw the tray across the room and shatter it. But it was Ghost’s, so I couldn’t; I couldn’t regardless, because it was a piece of him that remained with me, even when he left.

That, and the smell of smoke.

“Nah, I’m good.” I replied, facing the cold, empty base ahead of me.

“Good.” She said, pinching the cigarette and blowing a stream of smoke. “Stay that way. Did you know these bastards give you cancer?”

I chuckled into the collar of my jacket. “Do they, now?”

She hummed affirmatively, sucking another breath in through the cancerous bastard. “Who would’ve thought…”

We fell back into silence. I continued watching the stillness of the base, trying to see if the sky would follow through with its promise to fall. Now that my free time wasn’t spent holed up in my room, it somehow felt like there were fewer ways to spend it. With another mission on the horizon – a simple recon, yet dauntingly close to a heavily-guarded compound – no one was out and about when they usually were. Finding Roze outside and seemingly not worried was usual, however, and a warm sight, compared to how the rest of the team was on edge. Even Askel seemed grumpier than most days.

I hadn’t been seeking out someone to spend time with, no… that I would never do (or admit). But talking to a familiar face provided a comfort I had grown to need over the past couple of months. And, frankly, I felt like Konig might be getting tired of how much I ran to him when I craved social interaction. Though he had never said anything about it, I felt like I needed to branch out to other team members than just my Colonel. One might think I was trying to kiss his ass (I knew the accusation had already crossed Juno’s mind, but the young soldier was good at holding his tongue – when Konig was around, at least).

“You ever think about how ‘little girl’ you would react to this?” Roze asked, and I turned to face her. She had her nose scrunched, and a tinge of pink dusted over her cold cheeks. “Guns, war, no playdates or days at the beach…”

I sighed. “Probably would have cried.” I replied, allowing my freezing nose to poke over the collar of my jacket. “Especially if I had known that being a princess now adays meant spending more time worrying about becoming a hostage than anything else.”

Roze chuckled. “It’s a good thing we didn’t know then.” Her face was mostly blank, but I thought I noticed a hint of bitterness in the way her gaze landed on the ground. I watched her flick her cigarette with a bit more aggression than usual. “I would’ve tried to convince my entire family to run away to Scotland, live in hiding and pretend the rest of the world was a dream.”

“Scotland?” I asked. Soap’s cocky grin and heavy Scottish accent stirred in my mind, but it felt like nothing more than a small cloud of dust.

“Yeah – heard it’s fucking gorgeous over there.” She waved her cigarette in no particular direction. “Now, I don’t know how peaceful it is in terms of politics and war, but it’s pretty spacious. Simple, too. I feel like if I talked about throwing all my shit away and becoming a fisherman for a living, I wouldn’t get people trying to talk me out of it like I would in the States.” She took another drag, and laughed out the smoke.

“Fisherman?”

“Yeah.” She chuckled, a hardened smile gracing her lips. “I don’t know why it sounds so appealing… it just does.”

I hummed and looked back out at the compound. I wondered about Roze’s past; she had never said or done anything to indicate that it was particularly rough, as it was for the majority of us (us – I still wasn’t used to including myself, but it was becoming more of a habit each time), but the weariness in her eyes when she spoke about her younger self made me question what that girl had been through. Maybe it was just nostalgia. A yen for simpler times. Roze seemed to appreciate the simple things in life.

“You know Askel goes ice fishing?” she said suddenly.

I smiled underneath my jacket. “Seems like something he would do.”

“Every winter.” She continued. She dropped her cigarette to the floor and crushed it into the gravel. “He takes about three weeks of leave, if we’re lucky enough to get it, and goes to Norway. Sits on a frozen lake for hours a day, just waiting for a fish.”

“You make it sound like he’s never caught one.” I point out, my eyes lingering on the cigarette.

She shrugged her shoulders. “So does he. Every time I ask him what he caught, he just laughs. Says he’s never expects to get a bite.”

I closed my eyes and hummed in response. It was easy to picture the scene – Askel, sitting on a thick layer of ice, nursing the hoppy beers that he and Konig loved so much and waiting for a fish to bite. I wondered if he even bothered to reel the line in when he did catch something. Or if he even went fishing at all. Maybe he just went out there to get a sense of peace, to pretend that war and death didn’t exist.

The motion of thick, heavy snowflakes falling from the sky caught my attention. They landed on the skin of my nose, resisting the warmth for a few moments, before they eventually melted into trickles of water. A sudden gust of wind blew a flurry of them towards us, making the both of us flinch.

Maybe fishing doesn’t sound too bad.

- - - -

The shooting range was mostly silent, save for the occasional conversation between me and Konig. The lights were low, easily illuminating the gunpowder and dust swirling in the air. Konig and I stared at the paper target as we analyzed my shots. A few hit dead center, although most of them were clustered around the lower left of the bullseye. My lips were pursed into a scowl as I glared at my sub-par aim – it wasn’t typically so awful, but of course it was while Konig had been watching.

“Eh, are you sure you didn’t lie on your paperwork about being a sniper?” Konig asked as he stood behind my left shoulder, taking the target from my hands and looking at it closely. “You weren’t even ten yards from it. This is very poor marksmanship.”

I scowled in embarrassment, taking my pistol to the counter and pulling out the mag. “Rough day.” I answered bluntly as I started packing more bullets into the small compartment. It wasn’t a lie – I had barely gotten any sleep the night before. I was in the middle of a rather interesting dream involving me and Ghost, until my alarm woke me up before anything of importance happened.

“Very bad…” he mumbled to himself. I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

“Y’know…” I grumbled, loading the mag back into the gun and shoving it in my holster, “I don’t like stereotyping, but the boot really does fit you.” I walked past him and out into the hallway, not waiting for him to follow.

“Hmm?” he made an indignant noise, momentarily stuck in his spot, before he came jogging after me. “What does that mean? What stereotype?”

I chuckled. “Haven’t you ever how Germans are extremely blunt?” I asked.

“Austrian.” He retorted. “Do I need to brand that onto my face for you?”

“Wouldn’t do me much good, with the mask ‘n all.” I replied.

He laughed – rather snorted, as usual – “Ah, you’re right. Maybe I am blunt – just as much as you are defensive.”

I stopped at the end of the hall, right in front of the exit. “Defe-“ I turned on my heel to scowl at him. “I am not defensive! Where did you get that idea?!”

He stopped behind me, his eyes widening. He gestured an open palm in my direction. “This.”

I huffed, turning back around to punch the door open. The snow from earlier that day had ceased, blanketing the base in a thin layer of white. The moon seemed that much brighter against the crystalized ground, and the yellow lights scattered across the compound made parts of the snow look like sandy dunes. My nose tingled from the nip of the chilly air, and I pulled my jacket tighter around my body as the door fell shut behind me and Konig.

“Well, what am I supposed to say when you call me defensive?”

“You could agree.”

“But I don’t.”

“Which proves my point.”

I huffed in frustration, despite the smirk curling on the edges of my lips. “So, either I have to agree with you, whether I really do or don’t, or you’ve corralled me into a paradox.”

I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “A what?”

“A paradox, like a – y’know, never mind. It’s too difficult to explain.” I let him fall in step next to me, although he was the one who needed to slow down to match my pace. “We can just agree to disagree, how’s that?”

“Agreed.” He nodded, and I chuckled. “It won’t change the fact that I’m right, you know.” He added.

I bit my lip and tried to keep my smile from growing ridiculously larger. I looked up at him and patted his shoulder – he looked down at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled back. A stray, reddish-brown curl poked through the side of his balaclava, and I found the miniscule detail warming my heart through the cold air. He felt real, and in this moment, too human for this kind of life.

“Why did you choose the military?” I asked, turning back to look at the ground as we walked.

He hummed. “Isn’t that every boy’s dream?”

“Well, yes – but most of the time, it never becomes more than that.” I responded.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, mimicking my own position. “I’m not really sure what made me push so much for it. I almost didn’t make it, for obvious reasons.”

I chuckled. “Size does matter, huh?”

He looked down at me with a deadpan gaze, one that I refused to meet. “It almost did, in a bad way. And I almost backed out before they could be the ones to turn me away. But, of course, they knew they would find some use for my size – so they took me in.”

“And what did they do with you?” I asked, looking back at him.

“A ‘human battering ram,’ as my superiors had so nicely called it.” He framed the description with his hands in the air, as if it had been written on a plaque. I laughed and looked back down at my feet.

“Seriously?” I asked. “So they just had you breaking down doors, and then what?”

Konig laughed with me. “Well, I still had a gun, so I was able to shoot, thank goodness. And I had a bit more gear so I wouldn’t break my bones against the doors – I still dislocated my shoulder a few times, however…” he rolled his left shoulder, as if there was still a lingering pain from how often he had thrown himself at doors. “It was actually during a period of recovery when I proved that I could still be a sniper. My shoulder was still healing, so I had to give up being a battering ram for a while. I was sat with Horangi on the side of the mountain to give him cover. Of course, he was ambushed – he had to fight the Arschgiege right when we were given the order to shoot, so I had to take position behind the gun.” I noticed that his chest was puffed out a bit from pride. “That really knocked their pants off.”

I chuckled, choosing to ignore the inaccuracy of his phrase. “Did it now?”

“It did.” He replied, then looked at the ground. “For a moment. I got a good earful for overstepping boundaries that day, but it’s what ultimately landed me here – so I’m grateful for it.”

I nodded and hummed. “What was Horangi picked for?”

Konig shrugged, his hands now back in his pockets. “He never said what he and Commander had spoken about in his office. But, even if he wasn’t chosen – I like to think we come as a package. If I go, he goes, if he doesn’t, I don’t.”

I felt my heart warm at his words. The memory of how Juno had described Konig couldn’t be farther from my mind. It almost felt like I was talking to someone I briefly crossed paths with in my youth – not a war criminal, not the bloody and stiff soldier who had stepped onto the heli after our first mission. I envied his ability to separate his work stress from the time he had in between missions.

“Why did you decide to join?” He asked, catching me off guard.

It was only fair that I opened up to him, since he was so willing to do the same. Always the one to go first, too. But I had to be careful. I didn’t want this to turn into a pity party, and I didn’t want to dig anything up that I had worked so hard to bury deep beneath my subconscious.

“I was… a weird kid. Like you.” I said, making Konig scoff and roll his eyes. “Looking back now, I hate my younger self. I was so sensitive to what people thought about me, and I just wanted to be independent and strong. I wanted to be a ‘different girl.’” I gritted out the words that left a sour taste in my mouth. “I think I just wanted attention at first – of course, when I heard how everyone said they hated how annoying teenage girls were, and how gullible and weak they were, it just – it made me change. I wanted to prove everyone wrong, it wasn’t just about being different anymore. So, as soon as I turned old enough, I enlisted. Didn’t get to Navy SEAL right away, of course… but I joined every program I was allowed in until I could submit my application.”

I sighed, then chuckled. “Thought my family would say they were proud, that I was successful, that I was doing a good job… they were just angry. Said I was throwing my life away for business that didn’t involve our country.” I opened my mouth to say more, but I ended up scoffing and closing it once again. I felt like I had shared enough.

I looked at Konig, expecting him to acknowledge what I said. “That’s how the story goes…” he would say. But, when I met his gaze, I only saw concern. His brow was creased with what I imagined was pity, and my stomach churned. It was the exact opposite of the reaction I had hoped for. I only wanted to share stories with him, and now it was… this.

“I think you made the right choices.” He said, and I looked away.

“You don’t need to make me feel better, Konig. I appreciate it, but-“

“I’m not just trying to make you feel better.” He said, his accent slightly thicker from his exasperation. “You’re good at what you do. Your parents are just probably worried for you, and they don’t know how to show it.”

I bit down on my tongue, my eyes settling on the building in front of us with a hard expression. If only.

“Maybe that’s it.” I muttered, hoping he would drop the subject. He seemed to understand, and turned to look ahead with a disappointed sigh. My heart sank the tiniest bit at the sound, and I internally scolded myself. Still a people-pleaser, apparently.

We continued walking in silence, the buzz of the lights above us mimicking the static of a communication system that had been severed in a time where it was needed most. The edge of the barracks appeared into our view, just around the corner of the arsenal sheds that stood between us and our destination. I continued to stare at the ground, pretending to watch my steps and try to not slip on the snowy asphalt. My heart twisted with each second of silence that sat thickly between us. It wasn’t technically a fight, but somehow, it felt worse. It felt like the first time I had pissed him off, the first time we had spoken to each other – and god, did I already hate myself for the way I had acted towards him during those first few weeks. I didn’t want to drive another wedge between us, not after the ones that had already been worked back out.

I exhaled heavily through my nose. “Sorry.” I mumbled quietly, but loud enough that I knew it reached his ears. “Sensitive topics.”

He flitted his eyes in my direction, but didn’t bother to move his head. He sighed, and I nearly jolted when I felt his wide hand on my upper back. It rubbed back and forth, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was comforting me. Or, trying to, at least.

“I know.” He said, and his hand rested on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for pushing you.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I was stuck on the feeling of the roughness of his palm, which I could gleam through the fabric of my jacket. How his fingers squeezed gently and released twice. There was no hidden meaning, no forced contact or any kind of attempt to put context into the touch. It was… natural. Warm, comforting, and it spoke a thousand words that I wouldn’t have been able to stomach if he had said them. It broke past my self-hatred and walls of ‘don’t be weak’ that I would have used as my defense if he had tried to verbally convey any sort of consolation. It was the first time I didn’t feel awkward about being so close to him, let alone when he was touching me. I wondered if he did this on purpose, or if he had no idea what he was doing at all.

I let myself stand nearer to him, almost tucked under his arm. I looked up and smiled as genuinely as I could – not that it was hard for me, but because I wanted to make sure that he really knew how much I appreciated the gesture. Although, if he knew that this simple act of comfort would pierce through my outer shell, was it really necessary?

“Thank you, Konig.” I said.

He looked down at me and smiled. That damn smile. I wondered how much more refreshing it would be when he wasn’t wearing his mask. It was already too much for my soul to bear when it was just the crinkling in his eyes that I could see.

“Anytime, Bonnie.” He replied, patting my shoulder before tucking his hand back into his pocket. I grieved minimally at the loss of the touch, but I was happy for what it was. “And I mean it. Anytime you need to talk – or not talk, and do that empty staring that you do – just come find me.”

I quirked an eyebrow in his direction. “Anytime?” I asked amusedly.

“Mhm!” Konig replied, his eyes on the ground as he watched his steps. Then, the realization hit him, and his eyes went wide with panic. “Oh- well, eh- I guess, not anytime-“

“You gonna tell me when?” I joked, and he laughed. “You need an open/closed sign on your door.” I jogged ahead, trying to reach the door to the barracks before he did.

“How about this?” he called out, and I could hear the grin behind his mask. “I’ll nail a chalkboard to my door, and if I’m busy, I’ll draw a stick guy jerking off in his bed!”

My cheeks burned after I heard him. “No!” I shrieked, laughing nervously. “You’ll traumatize Juno!” I quickly tried to pin this on someone other than me.

“Juno, hah?” Konig teased, and I had half a mind to run into the building and leave him on the quad. “I don’t care about him. Kid needs to be traumatized.”

I laughed and threw my head back, turning the corner around the arsenal shed. “That’s not very-“

Immediately, my heart leapt into my throat, and I gasped. Konig nearly ran into my back as he skidded to a halt.

Sick, sick, what the fuck, I feel sick-

“Stimmt etwas nicht?” he asked, concerned. “What- oh, scheisse-“

We both stared at the bird on the ground. A crow from the looks of it, though it was hard to even decipher that it was a bird in the first place, due to the state it was in. Its belly had been cut open, entrails and bloody bits pulled from the abdomen and strewn to either side of the bird. Its wings were stretched to their full capacity and most likely beyond it, crushed and missing a large number of feathers. Both of the legs appeared to have been ripped off and tossed to the left of the crow. Its beak was the worst of it all: pried open, the jaw probably broken from how wide it was spread. A haunting look of terror in the crow’s red, glossy eyes made a violent shiver run up my spine.

I exhaled shakily, my eyes still glued to the horror. “Holy shit – what the-“

Konig quickly walked around me and knelt in front of the crow. I shifted to look over his shoulder, still fearfully curious, but he held a hand out behind him, urging me to stay in place. With his other hand, he pulled at one of the bird’s wings, stiff and heavy. Whether it was frozen from the cold, or this was the effects from rigor mortis, I couldn’t tell.

“How – did a fucking fox do that?!” I asked. Are there even foxes in this area? How the hell did one get on base?

“Nein.” Konig replied, still looking at the corpse. His gaze fell upon it with a sense of… familiarity, maybe? “Not a fox, no.”

“Then what? It – whatever it was didn’t even eat-“

“I’ll take care of this.” Was all Konig said. He stood up and marched past me – I was barely able to catch a glimpse of his furious expression. His eyes were hard and narrow, and as he walked away, I noticed that his shoulders were tense and his hands were balled into fists. I didn’t dare say anything to him; he almost looked the same way he did after our first mission together, except this time, his anger seemed to be directed at something, instead of just a post-mission adrenaline high.

“I’ll see you later.” He said over his shoulder. There was an obvious fury to his words, and although I knew it wasn’t intended towards me, it still made me freeze where I stood – almost as if I might anger him more simply by taking a step after him.

Whatever it is… I thought, watching him disappear into the compound, he’s sorting it out. I can take care of myself. Although, with such an abrupt and tense departure, I was at a loss on what to do next. I looked back at the bird; its terrified eyes locked onto the sky above it, frozen in its last wish to fly away from whatever horror it endured.

A shiver ran up my spine, prompting me to look away.

- - - -

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[puck-luck]

new beginnings | may 27 - june 2

note: before i start this, i just want to warn y'all that it's 24.4k. if you want to read this in one sitting, i recommend locking in.

please hit me up in my inbox to give me feedback! or your thoughts! or speculation on what's coming next! i want you guys to talk to me all the time and tell me every thought you have. if i could send each of you the google document and force you to leave comments, i would.

also, i think by the time this fic is finished, it might be long enough to be a novel. should we all work together to get it published?

1:90 – TREVOR

“Do we really think it’s a good idea to spend the summer down here instead of the Michigan house?” Jack asks. “We own that one, after all.”

“Everyone knows about the Michigan house,” Trevor points out.

Cole, who had plotted this with Trevor after last summer’s debacle, sighs. “We can’t keep having the same conversation. We decided that we would train at the Checkers’ rink when we can get down to Charlotte and use the cement slab as our own rink in the yard of the rental house in the meantime. So that’s not your problem. So, what is, Jack? You’re gonna miss the girls?”

Jack fixes Cole with a cutting glare. “Fuck off.”

“You know, there are girls in North Carolina,” Cole says, a grin dimpling his cheeks. “Sweet, southern belles, even.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “I can’t wait for the rest of the goons to get here. We’ll put it to a fucking vote and I’ll get to go home.”

“If you want to go home so bad, why don’t you?” Trevor asks. “We’re not forcing you to be here.”

“You triple-belted me in the backseat,” Jack argues. “You’re taking me away from Michigan and you can’t even let me have shotgun.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Trevor mocks. “You have hands. And fingers. You’re not helpless.”

Jack huffs from his spot in the back, stubbornly turning his head to the right to watch the trees pass. Cole does the same from the passenger seat, tapping his fingers along the pane of the window.

There are twenty miles, an hour total, still on the GPS. Trevor hasn’t seen a town since they stopped at the gas station at the bottom of the mountain, the closest city being Winston-Salem almost an hour and a half ago, barely more than sparse houses and fields in the time since. They’re driving along a stream now and the latest exit off this small, two lane highway said “Love Valley.” Trevor snickers at the sign and goes to point it out to Jack, but Jack beats him to it.

“Don’t, Z.”

“It’s funny, dude.”

“It’s not, though.”

Cole cranks the volume up, drowning out the continuing argument that floats forward from the backseat. 

They drive on and Trevor thinks about it– everything. They have three unobscured months in Litchton, the only people knowing about their whereabouts are their families and coaches. The goons, as Jack referred to them, would be joining them sometime in the next day or two. Quinn and Luke had to wrap up some loose ends at home (Quinn, closing up his apartment for the summer; Luke, visiting some college friends as their semester comes to an end.

Litchton was the safest bet and Krebs had mentioned North Carolina to Trevor in passing the one time they caught up throughout the year, heaving heard from Leschyshyn that the mountain towns of his home state were notoriously quiet and drama-free and that their inhabitants, although lovers of gossip, kept to themselves. 

After those girls had snuck into the Michigan house at the end of the summer and started showing up wherever the boys went in the evenings, Trevor just wanted a summer off. He wanted time with his friends the way they used to have it, just working out together and drinking until they dropped, swimming and parading around the town like normal guys in their early twenties. 

In Litchton, they could pretend to be guys that were home for the summer, ready to start some corporate finance or everyday-tie job. It was a look into what could’ve been, had they not dedicated their lives to their sport. 

For three months, he gets to be Trevor Zegras, the kid who complained about his name being last on the roster in every class growing up and the kid who worked in his mom’s store after school. But he’s also Trevor Zegras, NHL superstar, ninth overall pick, owner of the best Michigan goal in the United States, so he might toss his name around in Litchton this summer. Just to see if it gets him anything.

If it doesn’t, his good looks certainly will. What’s flirting with a few old ladies on the street? It’ll be the highlight of their year.

Trevor misses the driveway the first time the car passes it. It’s hidden by brush and along a curve. The GPS reroutes them– but they have to drive an extra fifteen minutes along this road before they can turn around. 

They drive into a small town, a strip of eclectic stores littering the main road. There’s a small grocery store with a fruit stand out front that Cole points to.

“We could pick up some food while we’re out here,” Cole suggests. Upon hearing Jack’s mouth open in the backseat, he continues, “Just so we don’t have to come back later.”

Jack slouches against the backseat, huffing about being cut off at the opportunity to express his discomfort. 

“Jacky, will you relax? We’re going to have fun this summer.” Trevor tells him, turning into the parking lot and choosing a spot close to the entrance. 

Cole laughs when Jack unbuckles his three seatbelts in the wrong order and has to untangle them. Trevor flips the mirror down and fudges his hair, fluffing the ends. He had gotten it cut just before they left for this trip, so the edges were still even and sharp. 

Jack is the first to exit the car, practically throwing himself onto the pavement with his excitement to leave the vehicle behind, if only briefly. They’d been driving for hours. Cole flew into New York from Montréal, so Trevor had to pick him up from the airport. They picked Jack up in Jersey in the early morning and started driving south. 

Trevor can’t blame Jack for his annoyance. They’ve been in the car with him for ten long hours and they forced the first stretch of driving on him, having spent about two hours in the car before getting him. He had just woken up and had to drive four hours through the traffic of Philly and into Baltimore. He napped while Cole drove down through most of Virginia, and then woke up grumpy anyway when Trevor took over to take on North Carolina. 

It’s been a long fucking day.

They shop together, but they bicker quietly. After years of friendship, their arguments seem more like brotherly spats. The knowing smiles from the women in the grocery store prove that they’ve heard encounters like this before, likely in their own homes. 

Eventually, Trevor rolls his eyes and goes to sit in the car. He leaves Cole and Jack to pay for the groceries. Upon leaving the store, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and pulls up Instagram, hoping to catch up on the posts that he had missed on the long drive.

Walking past the fruit stand out front, Trevor bumps into someone and he stumbles back.

“I’m sorry,” Trevor apologizes, reaching out and steadying the girl with a touch to her elbow. “I didn’t see you.”

“Hard to see me when you’re on your phone,” she replies with a tilted smile. 

Trevor lets out a little laugh at her reply, barely a breath. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

She nods with an approving hum and turns back to the stand, picking up a peach and turning it over in her hand. 

Trevor turns and walks to the car, climbing into the vehicle and settling behind the wheel. He watches the sliding door for his friends, but his eyes drift back to the girl.

She’s tied a red bandana in her hair and she slips peaches into her mesh bag. She talks to the vendor, using her hands to speak. She’s pretty, he realizes, far prettier than the girls he knows from California. The vendor hands her a basket of strawberries, which she takes carefully, inspecting the red berries by twisting the basket’s handle from side to side, spinning it. Trevor can see her profile this way– the slope of her nose, smooth. Her eyelashes, long. Her lips, pink and pursed into a little smile. Her stance is tilted, one hand on her hips.

Trevor is back outside the car before he can think. He approaches her as she pays for her fruit, standing behind her when she turns around.

She jumps when she sees him. “You’re still here?” She asks.

“No, but I’m back,” Trevor replies, realizing just how lame he sounds. “My friends and I are staying here for the summer and I just wanted to introduce myself.”

When he falls silent after explaining himself, she looks at him expectantly. He can see the bottoms of her teeth as her lips part. “So introduce yourself.” She gestures for him to go on.

“I’m Trevor,” he says, sticking his hand out. “My friends call me Z.”

Her eyes drop to his hand briefly. She considers it before reaching up and taking his hand, shaking it. “Why?” She asks.

“My last name starts with a Z,” Trevor supplies. “Zegras.” The smile he gives her is strained, expecting her eyes to light up in recognition. They do, but it’s not in the way he expects.

“You’re Greek?” She asks, her interest piqued. 

“Yeah,” Trevor replies. “But not, like… Greek. I’m from New York, but I live in California now.”

At the mention of California, her face stiffens. She hums disapprovingly. “Got sick of the West Coast, I take it? Is that why you’re back east this summer?”

Trevor flounders for a moment. “I love California, but the guys and I always spend our summers together. Usually we’re in Michigan.”

“So y’all travel all around, huh?” She asks. She doesn’t sound impressed, which makes Trevor nervous. In fact, she sounds almost disdainful, but the look on her face appears as though she’s holding back a laugh. Whether that is at his expense, he doesn’t know.

“We’re very lucky,” Trevor confirms, nodding tightly. “Most of our travel is for work, though. We all work in the same industry and it involves a lot of, um, business trips.”

“Business trips?” She asks, letting the laugh overtake her this time as she looks him up and down. “You?”

Trevor looks down at his own outfit, the basketball shorts and loose t-shirt. They’re two of the few clothes he owns that are not branded with the Ducks logo. He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “We’ve been driving a while and I wanted to be comfortable.”

“You certainly look comfortable,” She agrees with a nod, her grin knowing and wide.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Trevor says with a similar grin, shuffling forward just a step now that he’s got her smiling and laughing.

It’s then that Cole and Jack exit the grocery store, each with a hefty load of grocery bags on their arms. They’re laughing, so it appears Cole has managed to cheer up the sullen Jack in Trevor’s absence. Trevor watches the girl’s eyes leave his, drawn to the movement and volume of his two friends. He curses them in his mind, watching as they find him and decide to approach.

“I thought you were warming up the car, Z,” Jack accuses, his eyes flickering between Trevor and the girl. “D’you get distracted?”

Trevor bites his tongue before forcing a smile on his face. He turns back to the girl. “These are the some of the friends I mentioned, Jack and Cole. The other ones, Jack’s brothers, aren’t here yet.” Trevor knows he’s overexplaining, but he can’t help it. Something about this girl has him awkward and tongue-tied, yet his tongue can’t stop forming words and pushing them out.

“Yeah, your business partners.” She rubs a hand over her face, smoothing out the half-smile that was clearly keeping a laugh at bay. “Are they also from California?”

Cole snorts. “Business partners?” He repeats. “From California? No way. You’d never catch me dead in Anaheim, unless we’re playing there. Believe me, I’d be on the quickest flight back.”

“I just said we all worked in the same industry,” Trevor corrects, throwing on his most charming smile to try and salvage the situation. He wasn’t lying, but this girl might think he is, and that would be disastrous. He doesn’t know why, but it would be. He wants her to think highly of him and now he’s made two bad first impressions.

The second one is his friends’ fault, of course.

And she does think he’s lying– Trevor can tell by the way she looks him up and down, then Cole, then Jack. Her eyes squint imperceptibly at Cole’s mention of “playing” in Anaheim, rather than working. It was a statement that could have extended the conversation, but this girl seems to decide that she is uninterested.

She nods sarcastically, then scoffs quietly. “I have to go,” she says. “It was nice to meet you, Trevor. Have fun in Litchton this summer, boys.”

“Oh, we will,” Jack assures her. Trevor hates how his eyes rake over her, combing through each detail of her skin, her clothes, and her hair.

“Nice meeting you!” Cole calls after her as she walks away.

Both boys turn to Trevor, equally annoying smiles on their faces. 

“Shut up,” he hisses before they can say anything. 

“Who was that?” Cole asks.

“I didn’t get her name,” Trevor growls through gritted teeth. “She was just about to tell me and then the two of you showed up.”

“Boo-hoo,” Jack teases. “So you won’t be the first to bed a girl this summer, for… how many summers in a row is it now, Coley?”

Cole’s laughter breaks his face, but Trevor interrupts before he can speak.

“It’s not even a real competition, Jack. You only act like it is because you fuck the same girl every summer as soon as we get to the lake house. It’s trashy.”

“Being a winner isn’t trashy, Trev. In fact, maybe I should go follow after the girl you were just chatting up. I’ll show her how a real man flirts.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Trevor feels a flare of anger well up inside of him when Jack insinuates taking this girl for himself. It should be anger about questioning Trevor’s manhood, but it is not. “Get in the car.”

He stalks off, starting the car this time and situating himself behind the wheel. Jack vies for the passenger seat unsuccessfully, souring his mood yet again. Despite Cole’s smaller stature, Jack is the one left in the backseat with the bags of groceries around him. Soon, Trevor’s shirt joins him after a misguided throw to the trunk of the car where their luggage resides.

When they arrive at the house, Jack only carries the groceries inside. He claims he’s been stilted all day and Trevor can’t really do much to prove otherwise. Cole carries in his and Jack’s luggage into the home– a rental that Trevor paid good money to book for the entire summer. 

“I get the best room!” Trevor yells after them. “I paid for it! I want the ensuite bathroom!”

“Go fuck yourself,” Jack replies. He’ll leave the room for Trevor to take anyway. 

The three boys had planned this ahead of time. They would be in Litchton the whole summer, so they will take the three bedrooms that have king beds. Quinn and Luke will take the queen beds in the other bedroom, and the various guests throughout the summer will take the bunk beds in the basement. From the pictures alone, Trevor realizes that the house could sleep more than ten people. If they can find ten people, maybe they could throw a party. 

and invite that girl, Trevor thinks.

He’s taken aback by the thought and its suddenness. He doesn’t even know her name or if he’ll see her again– so why is he thinking of her?

Trevor shakes the thought and grabs his bags from the back of the car. He used an extra practice bag from the bottom of his closet in Anaheim to pack his clothes for the summer, so he has a free hand to open the door that Cole closed behind him. 

He finds the big bedroom easily and drops his bag in the closet, not bothering to unpack. He looks out the sliding door onto his porch, the wrap-around that encircles the entire back of the house. His porch holds two rocking chairs and a wooden bench. The house is built out of wood– almost overwhelmingly so– and the decorations match. His bedframe, his dresser, his bedside table, his small desk, the fan, even the blinds on the window… all of them are made of wood. 

His bathroom has double sinks and a granite countertop. The handles are gold in color, but likely not in material. The spout of the sink is more like a water spigot that one might find outdoors, but it’s classy. When Trevor enters his bathroom, he’s in awe of the jacuzzi tub and shower on the other side of the room. 

The tub and shower are both built from dark marble, bespeckled with lines of darker ore. The tub has wooden cabinets beneath the feet of marble on either side of the tub, which holds towels and toiletries on the right and left respectively. The tub has jets and a handheld spout that’s detachable. Trevor considers them. He can think of a use for both.

The shower is spacious with an overhead spout, wide and fancy. It has ledges for toiletries, as well as a seat in the corner. The door is glass and there is a hook for towels next to the opening. The shower stands from ceiling to floor, completely confined. Despite the windows to the side of it, the occupant of the shower would be completely hidden from sight, once the glass door steams up. 

Trevor explores the house further, but doesn’t take up residence anywhere. Cole and Jack seem to have put the groceries away while he found his room and looked around. Now, they’re nowhere to be found. They’ve likely taken up residence in their bedrooms for the night, tired from their eleven hour drive.

Lord knows Jack needs sleep before he braves this vacation. He always gets grumpy when he’s tired, part of the reason why he naps prior to every game. 

Trevor is glad that all of the boys can make it up for the summer. He can’t wait to get things started.

2:90 – HONEY

She wakes with the sunrise, as she does every Tuesday. It’s her first day of the week at the bookstore and she has to open. The Reading Nook is always closed on Mondays and she is one of three workers– the owner, Ada and her best friend since childhood, Bea. Ada opens the store on Thursday, whereas Bea opens it on Friday. Every other day of the week, the responsibility falls on her.

She makes her coffee and drinks it on her couch, looking out the window towards the mountains in the distance. It’s clear today and she can see the rows of mountains clearly– ten rows back. Once, her father had told her that if you could count ten rows back, you were looking at the mountains across state lines. If you could count ten mountains, then you could count all the way to Tennessee. 

She believed him, until she realized that the sun always rises behind those mountains. She faces east. Tennessee is to the west.

Still, the memory comes with fondness. It was before she moved away from home to pursue a life of quietness in the mountains, her favorite place in the world. Those days are long in the past. She has no interest in returning to them, given how far she’s come. The only person from her hometown that was welcomed into this new life was Bea and she has proven time and time again that she is deserving of that role.

Not only did they grow up together, but she got her nickname because of her friendship with Bea. As children, a long-forgotten teacher had made a comment about the two being attached at the hip, stuck together like glue. She had corrected herself with a laugh, evidently feeling clever when she said: “No, more like a bee to honey, right, girls?” From that day on, she had only gone by Honey and Bea had shortened her name from Beatrice to keep the analogy. 

She drives to The Reading Nook and unlocks the store, wiping the counter and sweeping the main room while she waits for her regular patrons to enter the store.

On Tuesdays, the “founding” women of Litchton convene in the bookstore and knit. Some days, Honey joins them. Others, she just wishes to sit and read at their table, listening in on the gossip of the week. The women are not so much founders as the grandmothers who lived in Litchton since their birth, having married and worked and raised families here. They are true Appalachian women– driven by superstition and fantastical solutions, lovers of a good story, and wonderful bakers who only crave to share their gift. They are churchgoers, often multiple times a week, and headstrong believers in their chosen politician. These are the attributes that Honey does not share with the women– she was an outsider, although she has been welcomed into the Litchton society since moving here. She attended church when the ladies asked her to, usually for the rare wedding or baptism. Rarer for a funeral, luckily. Honey does not feel any particular way about politics, at least not out loud, and she’s lucky that the ladies try to reserve that topic for the debates of their husbands over dinner parties, not the knitting circle on early Tuesday mornings.

Sacha is the first to arrive to the bookstore that morning, armed with blueberry muffins in a tupperware that Honey will have to wash in the little sink in the back while the women are knitting. Sacha has left one too many tupperwares and bowls in The Reading Nook and Honey won’t allow her to leave another behind. 

Honey plates the muffins for Sacha while the elderly woman secures the long table in the store for her friends. It does not take long for Scarlett, Gillian, Vera, and Rosalind to join. The women each knit their own project, waking up over coffee and muffins before the gossip starts.

It begins with Vera’s son’s divorce, something she had been dreading since he proposed to his soon-to-be ex-wife while they were still students at NC State. They had moved to Raleigh permanently, an action that Vera believes started this whole thing. When her son left home, and his wife finally revealed that she didn’t want children, Vera knew it was over. Or so she said. Honey thinks that she’s just butthurt about her son fleeing the nest… ten years ago. She wonders, briefly, if her own mother feels this way about her.

Honey shakes herself out of her thoughts as soon as Scarlett introduces the next topic, the topic that Honey knew was coming since the night before.

“Did you see those young men at the store yesterday? I know you always do your shopping on Monday evenings, Rosalind.” Scarlett tilts her head like she’s conspiring with Rosalind, like Rosalind has been holding information from the group.

Rosalind nods, eyes glinting behind her wired glasses. “They were such handsome boys. Lord, I tell you, if I were a young lady nowadays…”

She trails off and Honey stifles a laugh, looking down at the counter. She can feel the ladies’ eyes on her, no doubt hoping that the mention of boys piques her interest. Honey knows how these ladies were in their day– boy crazy but also efficient, looking for the perfect match and settling for no less. All of them prevailed, although from their complaints, you would never know their husbands were the loves of their lives.

“Ladies, you know this conversation would be better suited for Bea,” Honey teases. 

“Bea is too forthcoming, you are still somewhat of a mystery.” Gillian lifts an eyebrow. 

“Where is Miss Bea?” Vera asks. “Wasn’t she supposed to be here half an hour ago?”

Honey doesn’t stifle her laugh this time. “Miss Vera!” She exclaims. “It is a Tuesday morning. You know Bea has no interest in showing up to work for at least another hour.”

Vera shakes her head. “You and Ada have got to stop allowing her to show up so late.”

Sacha laughs. “As if they could stop her if they tried!”

All of the women, and Honey, laugh at the joke. It’s well established in Litchton that Bea is the tardy sort, whereas everyone else prefers to be early or on time. Bea has the attitude of a city girl, to quote the old ladies, but the work ethic and priorities of a Litchton woman. She likes her men, she likes her job, but she loves a nice lay-in.

“Besides,” Honey tells the women, hesitating with a coy smile before dropping the bomb of information: “I’ve already met those men.”

The effect is instantaneous. All of them drop their knitting onto their laps and gasp. Gillian clutches at her chest, always the most dramatic of the quintet. 

“My darling,” Rosalind marvels.

“Well?” Scarlett questions. “How? When? Tell us everything.”

Honey moves from behind the counter to an empty seat at their table. She sits next to Sacha, the woman taking her hand and holding it tightly. 

“You ladies seem to forget that I go to the fruit stand outside the store on Monday evenings,” Honey begins. “Which is where I ran into them. Literally, too– one of them had his nose buried in his phone and bumped into me. He could’ve knocked me over!”

“You should have fallen so that he could have helped you up,” Rosalind suggests. The women murmur in agreement.

Honey rolls her eyes. “I did not. He apologized, I told him that he only bumped into me because he was caught up in his phone, and he said he would be more careful next time.”

“Next time,” Gillian repeats, nodding. “So he wishes to see you again?”

“Turns out, ‘next time’ was about five minutes later, when I went to leave the stand and he was right behind me!” Honey reveals, purposefully lacing incredulity into her voice. She places a finger on her lips and widens her eyes, playing into the dramatics of the ladies as if to say “What do you think of that?”

The women gasp in time. 

“Which one was it?” Scarlett asks.

“I only saw the other two for a moment, so I don’t think I could describe them well enough to you,” Honey says. “The one I spoke to is named Trevor.” She pauses to roll her eyes before adding sarcastically, “But his friends call him Z.”

Scarlett and Rosalind nod and look to each other. 

“It must have been the one who left earlier than the other two,” Scarlett says. “With those awful tattoos.”

Honey bites back a giggle. Once a southern mother, always a southern mother. “He did have tattoos,” she confirms.

“You two would get along,” Vera suggests, not so subtly casting a glance at the leafy vines that crawl up Honey’s arm.

Honey goes quiet, glaring at Vera. She has worked to try and get the ladies to stop commenting on her body and habits over the past few years, but the ladies are stubborn and traditional in most senses.

“How long will they be here? Or were they just stopping through?” Gillian asks.

“They’ll be here all summer, so I’m sure we’ll get our fill of them.” With that, Honey effectively ends her role in the conversation. She returns to the counter and opens her book, pretending to read it.

She knew the ladies would have caught wind of the men’s arrival by now and would want to discuss it. She knew that the ladies would be interested in setting her up with one of these new arrivals. They were cute, she’d give them that. At a glance, any of the three could have been nice company at a brewery, but Honey wasn’t looking. She was perfectly content with finding herself and making her own life, even if it meant that she wasn’t finding a husband like most women in Litchton wanted her to do.

The other thing was this: Trevor hadn’t made the best first impression. He bumped into her, then startled her, then told her some story about business partners or colleagues that definitely was not true, and he was from California. He’s a yuppie, a hipster who probably enjoys the bustle of Los Angeles and can’t handle the slow, satisfying life of a small town. To her estimate, Trevor has got a week before he leaves Litchton for something more glamorous and fast-paced.

The ladies relay the news to Bea when she finally shows up for her shift, a travel mug of coffee in hand from which she sips throughout each tantalizing detail of Scarlett’s retelling. Upon Honey’s information, Bea’s eyes flicker knowingly toward the counter and Honey just shrugs. Bea’s eyes then narrow, accompanying a questioning tilt of her head. Honey shakes her head at that, and Bea lets it go.

“Well, I heard the reason that Mr. Mayes wasn’t at church last week wasn’t his hip acting up,” Bea says to the ladies when it’s her turn. That starts a whole new tangent for the knitting club, one that will keep them occupied and in their seats for a number of minutes. It gives Honey the time to slip into the back and cut up one of the peaches that she brought from home to snack on during work. 

The ladies leave The Reading Nook about an hour after Bea’s arrival, leaving the store empty except for the two girls and floaters looking for their next novel.

Bea leans against the counter with a smug smile, blinking innocently at Honey. 

“What do you really think about them?” She asks.

“I think they’re trouble,” Honey says. “They didn’t seem on the same page about their jobs, they don’t know anything about living in a small town, they travel a lot, and I think I saw one of them carrying a 48-pack of beer.”

“Are they cute?”

Honey fixes Bea with a stare that could put a stop to anyone else’s questions. Unfortunately, Bea is immune to Honey’s intimidation tactics and her sarcastic jabs. She sees right through them. Honey’s silence is another thing she sees through.

“Interesting.” She draws herself up to her full height. 

“I think you would find them cute,” Honey says.

Bea hums. “You can’t backtrack now. You said enough without saying anything at all.” She crosses her arms over her chest then leans back down onto the counter. “So, tell me, Honeybear,” she muses. Fortunately, she changes the topic. “Did you get my strawberries from the stand, or were you too enthralled by the pretty boy in front of you?”

“He wasn’t pretty.”

“Sure he wasn’t.”

Honey scoffs, then leaves to the back to grab the basket of strawberries. She does so carefully, not touching the strawberries in case she breaks out in hives like she did last time. Bea swears that more exposure to the fruit would “cure” her allergy, but Honey only picks up the baskets to humor her. Honey doesn’t think she’s missing out on much, being allergic to strawberries. It’s her peaches that she would miss, and the blackberry pie that Ada makes when her vines turn ripe. That’s something to look forward to– blackberry season is starting and Ada could show up with a pie any day now.

The day continues slowly, with Ada making an appearance to close down the shop with the girls and help unpack a new shipment of books. After they’re done, Honey and Bea head to their respective homes.

Honey curls up with her book in her bed and listens to some music before the soft noise of the background and the comfort of her blanket draws her to her sleep.

3:90 – TREVOR

They have to go to the hardware store today. 

Yesterday, the boys wasted the day, sleeping later than they have in weeks. They ate a late breakfast, which turned into their lunch. They played pool on the pool table, ping and beer pong on the foldable table, and sunbathed out on the porch. Cole watched lazily as Trevor and Jack tried to outline half of a rink in chalk on the cement slab. They never finished the other half of the rink.

Today, they have to go get some wood and tools to make the rink into a 3D structure so the pucks don’t go flying into the woods when they shoot them. Trevor and Cole are the ones who are supposed to go to the store– Jack has decided to stay behind and wait for Quinn and Luke if they show up while the other boys are at the store. 

A convenient excuse, even though the goons are planning to show up today. Trevor expects the brothers to try and weasel their way out of working on the rink, claiming that they’re too tired from travel or they need more time to unpack. The thing is, the boys are flying into Charlotte and renting a car for the summer so that there will be two at the house, so they’re only driving for like an hour compared to Trevor’s eleven. They have no right to be complaining, but they will likely enact a vote and outweigh Cole and Trevor because if the Hughes are anything, it’s lazy and loyal to each others’ laziness.

They’re very driven, but only when they choose to work. When it comes to hockey, they’ll work all day. When it comes to creating the hockey rink or putting together equipment, they would much rather watch. Jim spoiled them that way– he was always the builder of the family and the boys were left to go do whatever they wanted as long as they weren’t annoying their father.

Trevor and Cole put off the trip as long as they can, hoping that maybe the Hughes brothers will show up early and they can force them to go to the store before they can even get out of the car. 

When the clock hits two, Trevor decides that the waiting is useless. They could’ve done so much during the day instead of sitting around waiting, but no. He was lucky enough to sit around and do nothing all day and watch stupid daytime TV with Cole while Jack read his texts with his brothers out loud.

The hardware store would be heaven compared to this.

He leaves without Cole at first, driving slowly down the driveway until he sees Cole’s figure run out of the house and after the car. Trevor can imagine what he’s saying as he yells after the vehicle– something about not being left with Jack in case the other Hugheses show up, something about how Trevor is a dick. 

They follow the one road on the mountain up to the strip where all the stores are. The hardware store is just a few doors down from the grocery store, so they park in the same parking lot.

Cole and Trevor walk side by side, Cole’s eyes on his phone as they walk while Trevor takes in the brick walkway beneath them. Names are etched on some of the bricks– Jude Doyle, Frederick Lawson, Ansley Hood… Grandma. Trevor has seen stuff like this before, but there’s something different about these names being etched on the bricks of this small town. Everyone probably knew these people, or knew someone who knew them, when they died. It’s so personal.

When they reach the hardware store, Trevor holds the door open for a man leaving. They give each other a curt nod, just a passing glance. Trevor sees absolutely no recognition in his eyes and comments on it. Cole doesn’t care, and says so. Trevor punches his shoulder.

“Welcome in,” the elderly woman at the counter greets. “What are you boys looking for?”

“Hi,” Cole replies, a charming smile on his face. “Could you point me towards the power tools? I can find my way from there.”

The woman smiles and points toward the back of the store. “They’re on the left, sweetie.” She turns to Trevor. “And what about you?”

“We’ll be needing some plywood,” Trevor says. “We’re building a little roller rink.”

“Oh, how fun!” The lady, named Vera if her nametag has any truth to it, claps her hands. “How much do you need, dear?”

“How much have you got?” Trevor asks. 

Vera waves her hand. “I don’t know. I’ll call Earl, he’ll send you off with what you need.” She turns and takes a breath before shouting the man’s name. Trevor’s heard that shout before– his grandmother used to do the same thing with his grandfather. 

The balding, age-spotted man appears at the door to the back of the shop. “I done told ya I have my hearing aids in, woman,” Earl grumbles to his wife, fond and mean and familiar in the way that only a couple who has been married for fifty years can be. 

Vera smacks Earl’s arm as he ambles by her. Earl pulls his arm away and puts another foot between them. 

“What do you need, young man?” Earl asks.

“Lots of wood,” Trevor says. “A couple of sheets of plywood and some 2x4s, maybe?”

“Boy, you do not think I have all’a that laying around.” Earl fixes Trevor with a stink-eye. 

“Don’t you tell him that!” Vera chimes in. “I know you’ve got plenty of wood out back because you bought all of it and never finished our damn basement.”

“I’m going to finish it!”

“Earl, you’ve been saying that for thirty years, you ain’t never finishing the basement.”

Trevor wants to laugh at the absurdity of this conversation. He wants to laugh at this domestic argument and how unreal it is that it’s unfolding in front of him. Instead, he clears his throat. “Excuse me,” he interrupts gently. “I don’t know if I want thirty year old wood for this. We’ll be hitting pucks off the boards all day and I’d like to keep the pucks inside the rink, please.”

“You’re a hockey boy?” Earl questions with a raised brow. When Trevor nods, he lets out a grunt. Trevor can’t tell what that means. Nonetheless, he waves Trevor to follow him into the back.

Trevor squeezes past Vera– she pinches his butt, he thinks– and catches a glimpse of her knitting under the counter when he walks by. She’s knitting something green. It’s too bundled up for him to tell what it is, though. Maybe he’ll ask later.

When he enters the back room, Earl gestures around. “Take your pick of the wood and make a pile over there–” he points to the corner– “and you can drive around back and we can put the wood in your truck there.”

“Oh, I didn’t drive a truck down,” Trevor says before he can help it. Earl makes a face. “But my friend and I can carry the piles ourselves to the car, don’t worry about that.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Earl gripes, shuffling away to sit at a bench with a circular saw and a half finished product on the table. 

Trevor sifts through the wood, all neatly arranged into piles of similar sizes– but labeled completely wrong. Trevor thinks that Earl might’ve refused to follow Vera’s labels when she first put them up in the shop, but realized that they’re more helpful than harmful. He’s just petty enough of an old man to ignore the labels, but follow the categorization.

Trevor ends up with a pile of ten sheets of plywood– four that are as long as lunch tables, and six that are just squares. Those will go behind the goals, while the long ones will go around the sides of the slab. He picks up a couple of 2x4s, just in case he needs them, and throws them on the pile with a clatter.

“I’m going to go grab my buddy,” Trevor says to Earl.

Earl grunts, but doesn’t budge. He also doesn’t look up from his station.

Cole is chatting up Vera when Trevor rejoins them. He’s leaning over the edge of the counter, asking about Vera’s knitting and her grandchildren. He’s got a bag of goodies next to him– powertools and nails, Trevor assumes. 

“Coley, come help me,” Trevor interrupts.

“No manners, this guy,” Cole says to Vera, scoffing and pointing his thumb at Trevor with a shake of his head. 

“Well, don’t keep the bear waiting,” Vera replies. Trevor watches her pinch Cole’s ass as he passes, but Cole just laughs and bats her hand away.

Fucking annoying. Always so good with the grandparents.

“The bear?” Trevor asks once Vera is out of earshot. “Is that me?”

Cole smirks. “We’ve got nicknames.”

Earl looks up when they reenter the back. He lets out a laugh, just a short bark. “This is your friend who’s going to help you carry all that wood?”

As the smirk falls off Cole’s face, Trevor picks it up.

“I can carry some wood,” Cole insists. “Probably all of it. I’m stronger than Z is, anyway.”

Earl’s gaze slides over to Trevor. “Z,” he repeats. “I hope you don’t stick with that one.”

Trevor laughs. “You sound like–” he cuts himself off. He never did learn her name, anyway. What’s it to this old man, who he sounds like?

Cole picks up on it though. “Like who, Z?” He asks with a tilt of his head.

Trevor glares at him. 

“I don’t give a rat’s ass who I sound like and I don’t want to hear your smug little bickering,” Earl admonishes. “Get your wood and get outta my shop.”

Trevor laughs in Cole’s face, then pushes him over towards the pile of wood. “Go on, strong man.”

Cole makes like he’s going to throw a punch at Trevor– Trevor doesn’t flinch, because he hasn’t fallen for that since their first stint on the US team– and puffs up his chest before deciding to pick up the long pieces of wood.

“Compensating for something?” Trevor asks.

“Go fuck yourself,” Cole replies cheerfully, turning on his heel and swinging the wood around with him, hoping to hit Trevor in the stomach. Trevor jumps away.

He picks up the rest of the wood and follows Cole out of the shop, bidding Earl a quiet farewell.

Earl grunts.

Trevor nods to himself, not surprised by the response. Vera is much more sad to see them go, gushing over how strong they are and telling them to come back soon. 

“What’s your nickname?” Trevor asks suddenly, as they load the wood into the back of the car.

Cole grins, crooked and smug. “Sweetie.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Oh, I assure you, I’m not. I’m a real hit with the ladies.”

“Yeah, you’re a real fucking hit with the married seventy year olds,” Trevor scoffs. “Don’t fucking talk to me, dude.”

Cole laughs, tossing his head back. He looks over Trevor’s shoulder. “Hey, isn’t that your girl?”

Trevor spins around. “Where?” He asks, looking to his left and right. 

When Cole starts cackling behind him, Trevor takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I’m gonna fucking kill you, dude.”

“Bear, you wouldn’t know what to do without me.” Cole pats Trevor on the chest before rounding the car, settling in the passenger seat.

“Fucking passenger princess,” Trevor seethes. 

“You wish you were me.”

“I fucking don’t.”

“The more fucks you say, the more fucks you give.”

“Fuck off.”

They drive back to the house in silence, Trevor’s knuckles white as he deliberates driving off the mountain and taking Cole with him. There are pros, certainly, the top one being that Cole would no longer be part of this vacation. The cons, unfortunately, outweigh the pros: without Cole, Trevor would be alone with the Hughes brothers all summer, except for the occasional visiting savior.

Quinn and Luke have arrived by the time the duo returns to the mountain house. They brought with them another SUV, this one only slightly bigger than Trevor’s vehicle. It’s got a third row of seats, but it’s cramped– they’ll definitely have to take both cars down to Charlotte when they go to practice. Because of the limited trunk space in Quinn’s rental car, Trevor’s car will likely end up being the gear car. 

Which is lucky, because who wouldn’t want to spend three hours total in the car with smelly gear while the other car gets to have fun and smell nice?

On second thought, the time alone might be good for Trevor. He loves his friends, he really does, but it’s hard to be around them for so long. He’s lucky that they’re all on different teams, that they keep up when they can, and that it’s not constant. Jack can’t escape his brothers, especially not Luke, but Trevor can escape all three of them.

He spends the evening building the outdoor rink, mostly alone. Quinn helps a little bit, mostly chalking up the lines on the remaining half of the slab. He holds the wood for Trevor while he screws some nails into the pieces to keep them in place. They work mostly in silence, as they often do. Trevor is itching to talk with Quinn, see how he is, but he knows that Quinn is a man of few words. He also knows that Quinn is quick to say that Trevor talks too much. They’re at the point in their relationship where Trevor lets Quinn dictate how much they speak.

Luke tries to cook dinner, he does. Trevor can’t fault him for trying. Jack had to jump in to save them from burnt steaks and soggy vegetables, and even if he can’t salvage everything, he does a pretty good job. Luke apologizes and does the dishes. He’s quiet for the rest of the night, falling asleep on the couch during the movie they picked out, and Quinn wakes Luke like a good big brother and shoos him to bed. 

It’s more calm than the lake house, Trevor thinks. They’re not really doing anything differently, are they? And yet, here they are, sitting together in calm silence. They’re drinking bottled beer and laughing over the same jokes they’ve heard a million times, reminiscing about summers past and what they’ll do this summer. Quinn wishes for a lake. Jack tells him they’ll find one.

Trevor goes to bed when the movie ends, frogs croaking past his bedroom window in the depths of the night.

4:90 – HONEY

It’s a Thursday, so Honey gets to sleep in until nine. Sleeping in until nine means that she really wakes up at eight, because she just can’t sleep in late after working at the bookstore for five years now. She sits on her couch on Thursday mornings and reads. She does the crossword in the Litchton Local, the newspaper that comes out weekly on Wednesdays. 

There’s an immeasurable stillness in the mountains.

Honey noticed it the first time she came up to this house as a child. Everything moves, like the bugs outside and the leaves on the trees, but everything is so still. Like it’s being held in place by something bigger. She knows the feeling well, but it’s comforting here. 

At home, it was uniforms and piano lessons after school. She loves piano, even still, but there was something so crushing about the weight of her perfect posture on that bench when there was all the pressure of beauty breathing down her neck.

Home, Honey thinks again, and laughs. 

In the mountains, all of the beauty of the world is there and present and taking up space– but it’s not forced. It’s not the idealized version of everything. It just is.

And everything is so green, especially on a rainy day like this. Honey thinks there’s something sacred about the greenness of the mountains, but it’s the melancholic side of divine that leaves you waiting for another whisper or breath in the wind that never comes.

She used to have a piano that she could play in the mornings. She toted it to the antique store down the road when she made the mountain home hers. Sometimes, she wonders why she did that and regrets it, staring at the dents on the floor where its legs used to stand.

But then she remembers that she’s thinking about the past again and she shakes herself out of it. Five years later, but it’s hard to forget all of the things you grew up knowing.

Honey picks Bea up on the way to work, relishing in the girl’s consistent lateness because it allows her the chance to catch up with her friend. They see each other every day, yes, but the bookstore isn’t suited for some topics.

Such as Bea’s current woes:

“I’ve run out of dating app men,” she complains.

Honey bites back a smile. “Did you run out, or did you just swipe left on all of them?” She asks knowingly.

Bea cuts her eyes at Honey. “All the ones I swiped left on are ugly,” she says. “I can promise you that.”

“Is anyone good-looking in Litchton, Bea?”

Bea’s silence speaks for itself.

Honey laughs, her hair whipping around her face in the breeze from the rolled-down windows of her car.

“If I had known you were dragging me to the Ugly Capital of the World, I wouldn’t have come with you,” Bea announces, like it matters. She’s a liar. She wouldn’t have let Honey leave their hometown without her, no matter where she was going.

“You couldn’t turn it down, you had to come,” Honey replies. “Especially since they asked you to be Mayor.”

Bea gasps, affronted. She stares at Honey, her jaw hanging open. “Are you mad at me? Be honest.” She pouts, her voice whiny.

“Oh my God,” Honey groans, rolling her eyes. “No, I’m not mad at you.”

“Okay, well, stop being a cunt, please,” Bea sasses. If Honey were more annoyed, she’d reach out and slap Bea’s arm for the attitude. “We have to go to work and I need to put all my focus into pretending to like you.”

“Yeah, because it’s so hard to like me,” Honey says. Her voice is dripping with sarcasm, monotone and grating. 

“Yeah, it is, you suck.” Bea flips her hair over her shoulder, digging through her bag to find her Walmart lip gloss. She smears the cherry flavored gloss over her lips and puckers up, batting her eyelashes at Honey exaggeratedly. “Gimme a kiss.”

“No.” Honey pulls up to The Reading Nook and parks on the street in front of the building, parallel parking with the practiced ease of someone who’s been dealing with nothing but parallel parking (except in the grocery store and church parking lots) for the last five years.

“Ugh, one day you’ll kiss me,” Bea mutters, staring forlornly out the window. 

Honey rolls her eyes. “Bea, we’ve already kissed. You weren’t that good and I didn’t like your lip gloss then, either.”

Bea cringes. “That was like ten years ago, Hon. Things have changed since then. Number one, I’m not in middle school. Number two, I’ve had boyfriends and I’ve had sex since then. Number three, you know it wouldn’t mean anything. I want you to try my lip gloss so bad, come on.”

Honey stares. Bea’s got a stupid smile on her face, teasing and annoying. They hold each other’s eyes for too long before Honey speaks. 

“You’re insufferable, did you know that?”

Bea nods. “You are so easy to work up.”

Bea and Honey exit the car at the same time and enter the store through the front, the bell jingling behind them. Ada greets them from behind the counter, teasing Bea for being late again and threatening to cut her pay. She never will, never. Bea is too good with the kids, too happy to talk to mothers, and just dry enough to understand the miserly old man that walks through the door looking for a new World War I book. 

In the back, Ada has a bowl of biscuits and jam that Honey reheats and eats over the counter before she starts her day. 

She’s supposed to reshelve some books from their Borrow Before You Buy section, the part of the store that acts as the town’s public library. It’s a small task. The pile of books that were returned yesterday is less than a hundred. A good portion of the books are little kid chapter books, the kind you could finish in an hour as an adult because the font is so big and there are full-page pictures twice a chapter. 

Bea has to read to the kids at noon– some of the mothers bring snacks, like the end of a youth soccer game. It’s like a potluck lunch and the kids love Bea. Most weeks, it’s just her, but since it’s summer, she’s starting to bring in guest readers. Honey refuses to do it every time. Well, that’s not true– she acts as guest reader once a summer, right before school starts. It’s her one moment of the year. 

As she’s restocking the books, Honey hears the bell twinkle with each new customer that walks in. She’s grown used to the noise over the years, so it doesn’t draw her eye anymore.

What does draw her eye, however, is the blunt tap on her shoulder. When she turns around, Bea is blinking innocently at her– no doubt the offending hand in this scenario– with Trevor by her side.

“I was just talking to Trevor here, Honey,” Bea says. “And he was wondering if we had any books that a man his age might like. I thought maybe you should talk to him.”

Honey glares at Bea, purposefully obvious about it so that Trevor sees. What does she know about book recommendations for a man in his twenties? He probably wants some shit sports biography, or worse– he’s embracing his inner old man and he’s ready to venture into the world of World War I non-fiction. Either way, book recommendations are Bea’s thing, not Honey’s. She just stocks the books, builds the shelves, and bonds with the old ladies who come in on Tuesdays.

Bea shrugs with a coy little smile– Honey wishes she could slap it off of her face– and disappears behind the stacks. Honey can tell that she’s still listening from a few feet away, always nosy and overly interested in Honey’s exploits. If she can’t indulge in her own, she’s happy to butt in on Honey’s.

“Trevor,” Honey says, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn’t wear a bra today. She doesn’t trust him not to look. She also doesn’t trust her nipples not to peak in the cold air. 

“Is Honey your real name?” Trevor asks. 

She balks at him. “What is it with you and my name?”

Honey expects Trevor to back down, to act timid and normal and earnest like he did at the fruit stand on Monday. She expects him to apologize, yet again, for another inadvertent mistake that Trevor seemed unable to avoid. It’s because he doesn’t think– he just says the words as they come to mind, hoping that the sentence comes out fully formed and making sense.

And yet, he doesn’t.

“Just wanted to know what name I’ll be saying when I’m telling you to come,” is what Trevor answers. 

Honey gathers her wit quickly, scrambling to find a response to Trevor’s bold statement. She wants something clever, something to turn him down, something to tell him that he’s a cocky prick for saying such a thing while she’s at work, but she comes up with none of the above. Instead, she settles for: “It’s a nickname.”

A smirk tugs at Trevor’s lips and Honey wants to reach out and strangle him. He’s smirking because he thinks he bested her– bested her– and that he’s got the upper hand.

“What kind of book are you looking for, Trevor?” Honey changes the subject, trying to get back on task. She turns, continues restocking the Borrow Before You Buy shelves. 

“I’m not sure, Honey,” he replies, really milking his use of her name. “What kind of books do you think I’d like?”

She glances at him, looks him up and down. She tamps down a smile and says in a curt, monotone voice. “Guides on how to make the best of your business trip.”

Trevor laughs at that, more of a shake of his shoulders than a real laugh. “You’re funny, Honey.”

Honey raises her eyebrows and waits for him to continue.

“Hey, that rhymed. Maybe a book of poetry? I need to study my craft if I’m going to be waxing poems about you.”

He’s bold, she thinks. He’s really bold, much more sure of himself than he was on Monday. He’s much more confident, a sharp 180º from where he was the other day.

“Why don’t you keep your waxes to yourself?” Honey asks.

“How can I?”

She turns to him, planting a hand on her hip. “Don’t you have something to do today other than bother me at my bookstore? You don’t even know me. Why are you here?”

“I’m here to get a book. I’m not trying to bother you, I’m just trying to make conversation.” Trevor shoves his hands in his pockets and has the decency to look ashamed, even if it’s just for a split second and just to see if Honey will crumble. She knows his type. She’s seen them before.

“You’re flirting with me,” Honey accuses. “Not making conversation.” She puts air quotes around the last two words.

Trevor smiles. “You caught me,” he says simply, no shame evident in his voice. The smile stays on his lips as he and Honey look at each other. He raises his eyebrows and she takes it as a challenge.

“I’m not interested, Trevor.”

“I could show you a good time, Honey.”

“In Litchton?”

“Don’t you hear how good it sounds when I say your name? It’s like we’ve been hooking up for ages and I’ve got a special little name for you.”

“A name that everyone else uses.”

“It’s special to me.”

“How about a self-help book?”

Trevor clutches at his chest, jaw dropping in fake-misery. “You think I need help?”

“If you’re not going to buy a book, then you need to leave me alone.” Honey places the last book in her stack on the shelf and looks at Trevor expectantly. The silence sits between them, suspended for a moment.

“Do you have any books about space?” He asks. 

Honey notices that his voice is softer, a little more genuine. She examines his features, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She waits for the joke about not wanting space from her, needing her in his orbit, or whatever. It doesn’t come. She scans his figure one last time, realizing that her brow is furrowed and she’s chewing on the inside of her bottom lip as she does so. She smoothens her expression, hoping Trevor didn’t pick up on her calculating stare.

“How do you feel about creative nonfiction?” Honey asks.

Trevor scrunches his nose.

“Memoirs, personal histories, stuff like that,” Honey supplies. She softens her voice to match his tone. She almost feels a little shy. “We only have one book about space that I’ve read and it’s creative nonfiction, but it’s really good.” Quieter, then: “I liked it.”

Trevor nods, a little hesitant. This is the Trevor she met on Monday. “Okay.”

“Follow me.” Honey leads him to the nonfiction section, to the rows of books whose authors bear a last name that starts with ‘D.’ She runs her fingers along the titles of the books at the height of her chest while scanning the upper shelves. “It’s there,” she says, pointing to the row just out of her reach. “It’s by ‘Dean.’” She looks down, around her on the floor. “Where’s my step ladder…?”

“I can reach it,” Trevor says, stepping forward. He places a hand on the small of Honey’s back and reaches up, fingers hesitating as he searches for the right book. When he finds the spine bearing Dean’s name, he bounces up on his tiptoes for just a second to slide the book from its position on the shelf. 

Honey has never been more aware of a hand in her life. His touch is light, just a passing glance really, but it weighs on her. It’s like she’s standing in quicksand and she waited too long to try and get out.

He’s so close to her when he stands flat on his feet again. He’s got the book in one hand and his other still rests on Honey’s back.

She steps away.

His eyes follow her, but instead of saying anything, he just flips the book over in his hand. He reads the back cover and as he does so, Honey puts more space between them. She takes a breath, trying to stay quiet, and grounds herself.

“Is it really any good?” Trevor asks. “Do I have to buy it?”

“Yes, and, um.” Honey throws a look over her shoulder. She lost track of Bea while she and Trevor went to find this book. Fuck, her nosey best friend could be anywhere. “You can borrow it. We just usually give people a week or so to bring it back, and if you don’t, we track you down.”

“Track me down?” Trevor asks, chuckling. 

“Yeah.” Honey nods. “Small town. Everybody knows everybody, or knows somebody who knows everybody.”

“Stalking me, Honey?” Trevor teases.

“We’ve met twice, and both times it was because you came up to me. If anyone is the stalker here, it’s you.”

Trevor turns the book over in his hand again, looking down to avoid Honey’s gaze. “Leaving Orbit, huh?” He bites his lip and takes in the sight of Honey in front of him. He taps the book with his other hand. “I’ll let you know if it’s any good.”

“I know it’s good. I read it.”

“Baby, if you knew good, you’d be all over me.”

Honey scoffs. “Alright, fun’s over. Get out of here, Trevor.” She shoos him away, practically pushing him out of the shop. She sticks her tongue out at him through the glass after closing the door behind him. She watches him laugh, run his hands through his hair, and turn away.

‘Zegras’ is written in bold letters across his back, the number 11 in the center of his t-shirt. The detail catches Honey’s eye as she watches him walk away, down the street towards a car with a New York license plate that looks far too perfect and expensive to belong in Litchton. She bites the inside of her lip again, pondering. If anyone asks, she doesn’t care, but Trevor’s different than anyone she’s ever met. She wonders why.

But no, she doesn’t care.

Bea does.

“He plays hockey,” Bea announces, revealing herself. “He’s good, too. NHL. He was a top ten pick when he was drafted.”

Honey just nods. Twice. That’s all she needs. They’re small movements and she’s still chewing on her lip.

“What did he get?”

Honey clears her throat. “Just the, uh, Dean book about space.”

Honey can practically hear the face Bea makes behind her back. “You think he’ll enjoy that?” Bea asks. “It’s really personal.”

“It was the only book I could think of,” Honey replies with a shrug. She finally turns around to face Bea. “You’ve got to stop spying on me. I know you listened to our whole conversation.”

Bea pouts and stomps her foot, the sound echoing along the stacks around them. “How could I not?” She demands. “‘Just wanted to know what name I’ll be saying when I’m telling you to come?’ Honey, girl. Be serious.”

“Bea, you know I’m not looking for that right now.”

“You’re never fucking looking for that,” Bea hisses, pinching Honey’s wrist until she flinches away. “It’s falling into your lap and you’re pushing it out the door! What’s wrong with you?”

Honey glares at her with a tilted head. 

Bea relents. “One of these days, I’m going to kick your ass,” she threatens. “You can’t be a spinstery old maid forever, Honeybear. They’re only here for the summer. Maybe you should embrace it.”

“He’ll be gone within the week.”

Bea sighs. “Whatever you say.”

5:90 – TREVOR

“We need to throw a party,” Trevor says over breakfast.

“Why?” Luke asks, voice scratchy from lack of use. He yawns and runs his fingers through his hair, further messing up his already messy curls. He’s not wearing a shirt– none of them are– and Trevor is astounded by how pale Luke is. 

“We need to get you outside more,” Trevor mumbles, then clears his throat and continues speaking. “It’s like a housewarming thing.”

Unimpressed, Cole rolls his eyes. “Who do you want to invite?” He asks.

Trevor pauses, side-eying his friend. “Nobody,” he deflects. 

Quinn snorts, the spoon he’s using for his cereal clinking against the side of his bowl. “Not much of a party.”

“He wants to invite the girl that he met the other day,” Jack says, butting into the conversation. 

Luke frowns. “What girl?”

“Some townie that he met at the fruit stand when we went to the grocery store,” Jack explains. “He doesn’t know her name.”

“Her name is Honey, actually,” Trevor interrupts. 

The table stills. Each of the boys’ eyes turn towards Trevor and he suddenly feels like an ant under a child’s magnifying glass, boiling under the glare.

Cole pushes up an invisible pair of glasses and raises a finger, pursing his lips. “Actually,” he mocks, then drops the tone. “How do you know her name, Z?”

Trevor shrugs noncommittally. “I ran into her when I went into town yesterday.”

“Oh, when you were supposed to pick up laundry detergent and you came back with a book instead?” Cole asks. “That makes sense, much more sense than what Luke said.”

Trevor blanches. “What did Luke say?”

Jack snickers.

Trevor turns to Luke. “What did you say?”

Quinn smiles and hides his face, taking a large mouthful of his cereal to leave Luke hanging if he asked for help.

Luke flushes. “I mean, you know… that maybe you confused the two.”

“How the fuck would I confuse laundry detergent with a book?” Trevor snaps. “They’re two completely different things, fuckface.”

Luke throws his hands up in surrender. “We were just thinking of reasons why you might’ve come back without the one thing we needed.”

Trevor looks around the table. “You guys are such assholes.”

“Bro, you’re the one that forgot laundry detergent because you were too busy chatting up some chick,” Jack defends the group. “Now we can’t even do our laundry.”

“If it’s so fucking important to you, go get the detergent yourself!”

A smile breaks out on Jack’s face. “Maybe I will,” he says, his voice shit-eating. “I might need to grab a book for myself, too.”

Trevor’s anger increases tenfold, for no fucking reason. “The fuck you do,” he snaps. “You don’t even know how to read.”

Jack’s face twists, his emotions finally aligning with Trevor’s own. “Fuck you, dude. You know I can read, I just don’t like to.”

Trevor scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I just want to have a party,” he mutters, stabbing at his eggs with his fork. 

The boys fall into silence, finishing their breakfasts. Trevor pouts, frustrated that the boys weren’t immediately on board with his idea for a party. 

If they were in Michigan, the Hughes brothers would have the front door of the house unlocked past 10pm. The people they know from the golf course, from the lake, from the pickleball courts would all be pouring through the doorway and into the party. Everyone knows that on Saturday nights, the Hughes brothers invite people over and they have a big bonfire. Apparently, that only applies in Michigan.

Trevor leaves the breakfast table first, to jeers from the other boys about being pouty and bitchy for not getting his way. Trevor knows that he’s going to invite Honey and her friend– Bee? Bea? B?– over tomorrow night no matter what the goons say. There’s not much to do in Litchton, he knows that, so he doesn’t want to leave the girls out. Otherwise, they might just sit at home all night. Trevor can’t have that.

Obviously, that’s his only motive. He would never have any other reason to invite Honey and Bea over to the house at night. Never.

Maybe one other reason.

But that’s irrelevant. 

He spends the morning outside, using the extra wood from Earl to build a fire pit in the half-circle clearing near the edge of the forest. When they were younger, Trevor’s sister might’ve thought this area was where the fairies lived, and maybe she would have built them a house. He wonders briefly if Honey was the same way when she was a child, when she was growing up in rural Litchton with nothing else to do but imagine.

Come to think of it, he doesn’t know if Honey grew up here. She seems so intimately integrated into the town that she has to be from here, has to have grown up here. She must know all the town secrets and all the town gossip and fuck, Trevor wants to know all of that and more. 

He can’t explain the feeling he has about Honey. He’s just… drawn to her. It doesn’t make sense– he doesn’t know her. He’s barely met her. She did not exist in his life a week ago and yet, she’s popping up in his thoughts like they’ve known each other for years. Like they’ve been inseparable for years. When he thinks about it, he decides that Honey is like one of the girls he would have met in elementary school in Bedford. Honey is one of the girls that he would have grown up with, one of the neighbor girls from down the street with whom he rode his bike on hot summer days. 

She’s got a hometown charm feel to her. Trevor has to see her again.

He finishes building the wooden part of the fire pit before realizing how stupid it was to build the pit out of wood. A lightbulb seems to go off in his head, though, because it’s an excuse to go see her, to invite her to his party. He can go to the hardware store on the way, pick up some stone and gravel to line the wood, protect it from catching flame. He can pick up some firewood from the grocery store for their first fire and pick up the laundry detergent he forgot yesterday. Jack won’t be so annoying then.

Trevor doesn’t bother telling the boys where he’s going– he just gets in the car and drives away. 

It takes all of fifteen minutes to make his way to the bookstore. It’s still early, so he doesn’t even know if it’s open yet. Trevor and the boys are so used to waking up early for hockey that they’ve been up for about two hours and the whole day is still ahead of them.

When Trevor pulls at the front door of The Reading Nook, it doesn’t swing open the way it did yesterday. He knows the doors are easy on their hinges, considering how easily Honey slammed the door behind him yesterday, but today, the wood is barely budging. He knocks on the door, loud. 

Honey’s friend’s head peeks out from behind a stack, confusion written all over her expression. Trevor waves at her, gesturing at the door. She laughs, then approaches the door. She points down at the ‘Closed’ sign hanging near the handle.

Trevor tilts his head, unimpressed. “I have to talk to you,” he says through the glass.

Bea unlocks the door and opens it with a snorted laugh. “What’s up, Trevor? Honey’s not here yet.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

Bea steps aside and lets him into the store. “You want her.”

Trevor sputters at her honesty. “I don’t know her.”

“You want her,” Bea repeats with a nod and a knowing smile. “And you want to know how to get her.”

“Well, yes,” Trevor says. “But also, no. I wanted to invite you– both, you both– to a party tomorrow night.”

Bea smiles. She crosses her arms over her chest. “You want my best friend and all I get is some measly party? Come on, Trevor. What’s in it for me?”

Trevor thinks for a minute. “What do you want?”

Bea laughs. She pokes her tongue into her cheek and looks expectantly at Trevor.

“Whoa,” Trevor says, taking a step back. “That’s really… forward, but–”

“I don’t want you, Trevor,” Bea scoffs. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “So self-centered, Honey was right about that. But, I’ll help you get her and I’ll make sure we make it to your party if you give me what I do want.”

Trevor hums, narrowing his eyes. “What do you want?”

Bea smiles, devilish and conniving. “The dating pool up here is pretty dry, and I hear you’ve got a few friends.”

Trevor nods.

Bea blinks at him. “Do you have any pictures of these friends? I would’ve looked you up, but Honey and I swore off Instagram years ago.”

That makes sense. That’s why he couldn’t find Honey when he looked her up last night– not that he had much to go off of. Still, “Honey Litchton NC” didn’t reveal many results.

Trevor fumbles with his phone, showing her a picture of the group from last summer. He watches her fingers pinch and zoom in on the picture, on each individual. She keeps her expression neutral, a poker face that impresses Trevor. She hums, thoughts racing behind her eyes too quick for Trevor to understand them. 

“We’ll come to your party,” Bea says simply, handing the phone back to Trevor. She snatches it back at the last second. “Wait,” she says, and clicks around for a second. 

Trevor waits, then she hands the phone back. On the screen is a contact page for ‘Bea McLean.’ 

“It’s pronounced like McLane,” Bea tells Trevor. “Since you’re so obsessed with names.”

“Okay,” Trevor cuts her off with a sarcastic nod. 

Bea laughs. “Don’t get sassy with me, I have all the power here.”

“Yeah, but I have your number,” Trevor flaunts.

“I could just block you, easily,” Bea points out. “Then where would you be?”

Wisely, Trevor bites his tongue. After a deep breath, he asks, “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Now get out, Honey’s supposed to get here soon and I don’t want her seeing you. She’s annoyingly on time. She’ll know we’re in cahoots.” Bea, much like her best friend did yesterday, pushes Trevor to the door and shoves him through it. She slams it behind him, flipping the sign so it says ‘Open’ instead, and waving Trevor off with a blown kiss.

she’s a flirt, Trevor thinks. those guys will not survive her for a second.

He doesn’t know which boy she has her eye on, but it doesn’t matter. Quinn’s too quiet for her, Luke is too awkward, Jack is too cocky, and Cole is too… short. 

Trevor snorts at the insult, laughing to himself. He heads to the grocery store, where he parked, and purchases two gallon bottles of laundry detergent and a Sharpie. He writes “JACK” on one and puts them both in the trunk of the car. Then, he walks to the hardware store. 

“Bear!” Vera greets from behind the counter, joints creaking as she moves from her chair behind the counter to give Trevor a hug. 

“Oh, Vera, you don’t have to come all the way over here,” Trevor says awkwardly, but hugs the woman back nonetheless.

“Of course I did!” Vera exclaims. “You look so handsome, young man.”

Trevor blushes, shying away from Vera’s examining fingers. She squints at the logo on his chest, one of his shirts from Anaheim. 

“I live in Anaheim,” Trevor explains to the woman, catching her hands in his and holding them securely in front of her body before letting go. “Do you have any stone that I could secure a fire pit with?”

“Yes, baby!” Vera claps and leads him to a section of the store that’s, somehow, even more peculiar than Earl’s workshop. There’s bags of gravel, sure, but it looks like fish food compared to some of the other bags and miscellaneous stones on the shelves. “Pick whatever you’d like. I’ll give you a discount for being so darn cute.”

Trevor chuckles. “I bet you give that to all your customers,” he teases.

“I had a local girl put it in the computer for me after we met you and Sweetie on Wednesday,” Vera teases back, batting her eyelashes. Her cheeks are red with blush, too much blush. “His discount is a little more because I see you’ve changed the body God gave you.”

Trevor follows her eyes to his tattoos. He rubs his opposite hand over them sheepishly. “Yes, ma’am.” He tries to smile charmingly. “Maybe I should’ve sent him to do the shopping today, since you like Sweetie so much.” He throws a wink into the mix to punctuate his sentence.

Vera laughs, a twinkling sound.

“Plus, it’d be cheaper for me,” Trevor says, like it’s a scandalous secret.

“I know that’s right!” Vera claps again, waves a hand at Trevor like she’s slapping her knee. She walks off, back to the counter, leaving Trevor to shop for his stones. 

He shops through the stones for about half an hour, choosing his favorites. He settles on a midsize gray stone, one that he can stack and seal with cement. He buys the quick drying cement as well, and carries it all to his car. Vera carries the quick dry cement and giggles when Trevor easily shifts the stones in his grasp when she complains about the bucket being too heavy for an old lady. He picks up the bucket and shifts the stones again, knowing he can carry more than this if he needed to. He swears he hears Vera sigh dreamily behind him as he packs the car up.

Like he said, what’s flirting with a few old ladies?

When he bids her goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, Trevor makes eye contact with Honey in the bookstore window. He grins at her and winks to her for good measure. He thanks Vera for her help while he escorts her back to the store, just for the sake of Honey seeing how selfless he can be. He’s not self-centered, no matter what she told Bea. 

Vera insists that Trevor and “his band of boys” join her and Earl at church that Sunday morning, pledging to introduce them to the other members of the community. Trevor agrees, thinking that being on Vera’s good side might get him even closer to Honey.

Trevor drives back to his home for the summer to find that the boys are playing in the rink he built.

Come to think of it, he’s making a lot of improvements to this property, and the only one who has actually helped is Quinn.

Not self-centered at all.

He deserves a party.

“We’re having a party,” Trevor calls out, carrying his stones toward the fire pit. He dumps his supplies on the ground. “And I invited two girls.” He wipes the dirt and dust from his fingers. “Someone else needs to finish this fire pit because I’m tired of building your shit. C’mon, Quinn.”

He leads the way inside, to grab a beer from the fridge, and Quinn follows after kicking off his skates, eager to avoid the work. The other brothers and Cole are left dumbfounded on the concrete. Jack makes eye contact with the cement mix first, and he smiles. 

They always did love a little project, and maybe they can hide a drawing of a dick in the cement for the owners to find at the end of the summer.

6:90 – HONEY

“Where are we going?” Honey asks. 

Bea has barely crossed over the threshold of Honey’s home before the question falls from her lips. Bea’s been cagey about it all day– just explaining that “we have plans” and that “you’ll enjoy them.” Honey loves her, sure, but this is absurd. She feels like she’s being kidnapped. 

“More like when are we going,” Bea corrects. “Let’s get you an outfit.”

Honey stumbles back, Bea pushing her out of the way. She closes the door behind her friend, following Bea as she stomps up the stairs to Honey’s bedroom. Bea knows Honey’s place as well as she knows her own, a little townhouse off of the main street in town. Honey’s lucky to live a little farther from city center, closer to the magic of the mountains. 

“What kind of plans do we have, at least?” Honey presses. She looks at Bea’s outfit– a jean skirt that falls like an old Poodle skirt and a white bandeau top. It’s sort of see-through– Honey can see the shadow and outline of Bea’s nipples through the skimpy top. “I don’t want to dress like you,” Honey says.

Bea scoffs and turns to Honey. “My plan tonight is to get laid, your plan tonight is to accompany me while I evaluate my prey.” 

Honey pretends to gag. “I hate when you say that.”

“Maybe you’ll find someone to flirt with,” Bea says. 

“So, where are we going tonight? Statesville? Winston?” Honey asks again, hoping Bea will relent since she now knows the purpose of their adventure. 

“Dude, I’m not telling you,” Bea laughs. 

She reaches Honey’s closet and throws the curtain open. She strolls into the closet, looking through Honey’s clothes. 

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Honey asks, looking down at her athletic shorts and little tank top.

Bea turns around and surveys Honey. “The shirt is fine.” She returns to her task. “Nice tits.”

Honey looks down. It’s a revealing top and she’s not wearing a bra, because it’s a Saturday and she didn’t know they had plans until Bea told her this afternoon. “Maybe not, then.”

Bea glares at Honey out of her peripheral. “But that’s your favorite tank.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to get hit on if I wear this shirt.”

“You’re going to get hit on anyway. Keep the shirt.”

“No, I won’t, because my bitch face will keep most of the guys away.”

“Most of the guys. Which is the whole thing. Those ones will come to me.”

“Ew, you’re going to have a threesome tonight?”

“A threesome?” Bea spins around. “God, no! One at a time for me, thanks. I’m just going to fuck the other ones.”

“Other than who?” Honey asks. “I’m not fucking anyone tonight.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “You don’t know that.”

“Trust me, I do.”

“Whatever.” She digs through the closet, finding a long-buried white tennis skirt, the back pleats of the skirt puffy. Honey would never wear something like that, but Bea would– it’s probably Bea’s skirt in the first place. 

“I’m not wearing that,” Honey states.

Bea wrestles her into it– seriously. She tackles Honey onto the bed and literally redresses her, the absurdity of the situation so bizarre that it completely bypasses both girls’ minds. Honey fights Bea the whole time, but Bea comes out on top. She gets her way, Honey wears the skirt, but she’s not happy about it.

“Do I, at least, get to drive?” Honey asks.

“Oh, I was going to force you,” Bea laughs. “You don’t expect me to drive you home, do you? I’ll be… indisposed.”

Honey scowls the rest of the time they spend getting ready– Bea does Honey’s hair and forces Honey to put on some light makeup, just a bit of mascara, eyeliner, and some lipgloss. 

The only problem with Bea and Honey’s relationship is that Bea likes to go out, likes to meet people, likes to have a wild time, whereas Honey prefers to stay in. She’d rather watch a documentary or read a book or be present in nature than packed into a club dancefloor like a sardine in a larger can. Not that that matters to Bea.

By the time they get in the car, Bea is jumping off the walls trying to keep her secret destination to herself. Honey keeps trying to push, hoping for the right moment, but Bea won’t reveal her plans. All she does is direct Honey to the main road and type away at her phone, sending text after text to an unknown recipient, an unknown recipient that Honey is sure they’ll be meeting up with later.

They drive further into the mountains, to Honey’s surprise. They don’t head towards Winston or Statesville. They drive up, farther from town, farther from their neighbors. Near the top of the mountain, the houses are miles apart.

Perfect for a party.

Perfect for a party… thrown by boys in their twenties.

It clicks in Honey’s mind as Bea tells her to turn into the hidden driveway along the curve. “You’re not,” Honey says.

Bea laughs. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to catch on. I thought for sure you would’ve clocked me when we turned left instead of right.”

“Bea,” Honey scolds, her voice sharp. They’re on the driveway now, safe from the curves of the road, and Honey stops the car. She turns to her best friend. “You can’t be serious.”

For all of her audacity, Bea manages to understand the gravity of the situation at hand. It finally clicks in her head, why Honey isn’t happy with her plans, and why she’s even unhappier that she was dragged out here without knowing what she was walking into. She can’t just drop Bea off and leave– she would be abandoning her best friend in a house of strange boys all evening. Bea might be outgoing, but she hasn’t been hurt like Honey.

“It’s not going to be like that,” Bea reassures Honey gently, grabbing Honey’s hand with both of hers. “I promise, they’re not like that.”

“You don’t know them, Bea,” Honey explains. 

“You don’t either,” Bea points out. “And this time, we’re together. The second they do something– I mean it, the second– we’ll leave. I’ll go with you. Fuckery be damned.”

Honey grimaces, rolling her shoulders to try and relieve some of the tension. She takes a deep breath, then squints at Bea. “Are you really going to fuck all of them?” She asks.

Bea grins, knowing that she’s convinced Honey to at least try and hang out with the boys. She’s smug, getting her way once again. She winks at Honey, coy. “Just the ones you don’t want,” she simpers, giggling. “You get your pick of the litter.”

“I don’t want to fuck any of them. I don’t know how many times we have to go over this.”

“So, you don’t want Trevor? ‘Cuz I was thinking–”

“Don’t fuck Trevor,” Honey groans. 

“Why not?” Bea teases.

“You’re better than that, Buzzy,” Honey scoffs with a shake of her head. “He’s weird and a flirt and annoying.”

“I’m weird,” Bea says. “And a flirt. And annoying.” She puckers her lips and blows kisses at Honey as she shifts the car into drive and begins to creep down the driveway again. “Maybe it’s a match made in heaven, me and Trevor.”

“You don’t want him,” Honey growls, her voice short. 

Bea shrugs and faces forward in her seat, her hands tapping her thighs. Whether it’s from nerves or excitement, Honey can’t tell. If she had to guess, though, it would be excitement. Bea is the least anxious person that Honey knows, the kind of person who can talk to anyone or anything no matter the situation.

While they might be athletes, they’ve never met anyone like Bea. Honey never has, not since she met her best friend all those years ago. They’re fucked– and she’s irresistible.

Honey and Bea pull up to the house and park under the cover, right next to the front door. This house was a point of contention when it was being built the first year Honey moved to Litchton. It was her first introduction to the gossip of the founding ladies. Scarlett and Gillian had felt particularly perturbed by the building– a five bed, four bathroom house complete with a hot tub and a game room and two stories of wraparound porches. 

And it’s all made of the same wood, the same stain, the same ugly pattern. Honey cringes when she thinks about the number of trees that were cut down to make this house match. She’d think the same thing if it was made entirely out of the same stone. 

Bea knocks on the door as Honey wipes her sweat from her palms. It takes a minute, but then Honey hears the scrambling of feet and the shouting between one man and his group of buddies, who are just giggling as they do what they can to cut him off from the door. Honey can see it through the thin windows bordering the door, how they rush up the stairs and down the hall. She can also see how they’re holding Trevor back as much as they can.

The brunet from the first day opens the door with a charming smile. “Hi,” he greets. “Can I help you?”

“Jack, you motherfucker–”

Honey bites back a laugh as Trevor curses and struggles, still in the grasp of the shorter boy from the first day and one of the newcomers– another brunet, a taller one. She looks at him carefully– the curl of his hair at the nape of his neck, partially hidden under a baseball cap, the curve of his eyebrows, and the slope of his lips give him away. He must be one of Jack’s brothers. 

“We were invited to come over tonight,” Bea replies.

No matter how many times she hears it, Honey is always impressed by the way Bea turns on her charm and makes the people around her melt. It worked on her, too, when they first became friends all those years ago, and then less and less when Bea moved into Honey’s place when they first came to Litchton together and shared a bed for almost a year before Bea found her own townhouse. Then, her charm just got annoying, like a younger sibling who tags along with you everywhere because Mom said they had to.

It’s better for them when Bea and Honey have their time apart. Honey, especially, needs her time alone.

Jack’s eyes finally find Honey behind Bea and he grins. “That’s right,” he says, tapping his forehead like he just remembered. Honey can tell that all he’s doing is messing with Trevor, though. “The party! You must be the girls that Z invited. Hi, Honey.”

“Hi, Jack,” Honey replies, short and sweet. She turns on her customer service voice just for this. She finds Cole next to Trevor and smiles when her eyes slide over the imprisoned boy, as passive as she can be. “Hi, Cole.”

“Hey, Honey,” Cole says with an easy smile. Honey wants to snort and laugh– he’s got a smile that could get him into or out of anything. She wonders briefly if he’s childish and impish, still, even in their adult age, just because he’s got the smile to match.

Jack steps aside and lets the girls enter the house. He closes the door behind them and Honey has a sneaking suspicion that if she turned to glance at him, he’d be staring at one of their backsides. She doesn’t look. It’s not worth the joke that she could make if she caught him.

Bea nudges Honey and points up.

Honey tilts her head, and– “A chandelier made of moose antlers. Wow,” she marvels. She makes a face at Bea, then continues. “That’s really… something.”

“Isn’t it sick?” Cole asks, finally dropping Trevor’s arm and joining the girls where they stand. He spreads his arms out from his sides and spins in a slow circle. When he makes a full turn, he looks at both girls and wiggles his eyebrows. “Want a tour?”

The girls agree and Cole takes them throughout the house, leaving the other boys behind. From their pounding feet, Honey figures they’re headed downstairs, while Cole takes them upstairs. He shows them the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the common areas, the hallways, the outlet in his room that doesn’t work, and much more. They go back downstairs and get the same treatment– Cole even opens the fridge and helps himself to a beverage before offering anything to the girls. They see the kitchen, the living room, the den, the dining room and patio. Cole shows them the wraparound porch and its chairs. Honey takes in the view– it’s just as good as the one from her living room. 

Finally, finally, they make their way down to the basement. It’s a smaller room, minimized by a covered porch and larger patio with a hot tub. The basement is clearly the man cave, the game room, or whatever you want to call it. There’s a pool table, a large TV, a ping pong table, a foosball table… everything a boy could want. 

As evidenced by the two boys sitting on the couches near the pool table, while the other two wield sticks and study the position of the balls on the table.

Honey finds Trevor on the couch with Jack. His eyes found her first as she walked down the stairs and he hasn’t stopped staring. Neither has she, to be fair.

“Pool,” Bea notices. She looks at Honey and Honey shakes her head. Bea nods. “Honey and I are next,” she announces anyway.

“Oh, yeah?” Jack asks with a little laugh. “Are you any good?”

“I’m okay,” Bea says. She pauses, lets a smirk on her face grow as she looks over to Honey. “Honey’s worse.”

The boys turn to Honey. “Are you?” Trevor asks. 

“I wager she could still beat you, Z,” says the only boy that Honey had not seen when they arrived at the house earlier. He’s got dark hair, but it’s also hidden under a backwards cap. The only difference between him and his brothers, assuming he is one of the brothers that Trevor mentioned on Monday, is that he’s smaller, more sullen. The telltale sign is that his comment is offhanded, delivered with the calm venom of an older brother who knows exactly where to bite. He doesn’t even look at Trevor as he lines up his shot and sinks the ball.

Honey likes him immediately.

When she looks over, she notices that Bea likes him too. Her lips are pursed in thought, only the minutest pout on her mouth. There’s a tiny smile pulling at her cheek and her eyes are twinkling under the bright lights, but they would be hazardous in a club.

It’s a game they’ve played before. Bea sucks at pool– she always has, but… when you suck at pool, either the person you’re playing with will laugh at you or they’ll try to give you tips. The night usually ends with Bea sinking the 8 ball with a little bit of help from her gentleman caller and a celebratory, “thank you” kiss. 

Honey, however, loves pool. She wasn’t always great at pool, but found that, like almost everything, the more she practiced, the better she became. When Bea’s celebratory kisses turned into rushed hookups in the Winston-Salem dive bar bathrooms, Honey got her fair share of tips and tricks from the other men around. Usually, she would try to shack up with the alcoholic middle aged men who had nothing better to do than sip on their beer and play pool after dinner with their wives. It was rare that they flirted with Honey and she liked it that way.

The game goes like this: Bea finds a group of men that puff up their chest at the idea of beating a woman at pool, she “lets them win” against her (as if she would’ve won in the first place), and then it’s Honey’s turn. Honey, of course, feints a few shots and lets the men get comfortable before coming from behind and beating them. Usually, her win results in two drinks for her and her friend.

Today, the drinks won’t be her bargaining chip.

“What would you wager?” Honey asks the boy who last spoke. “If it were a real bet.”

His stormy eyes look her up and down while Jack’s brother, the tall one, paces around the table to find his best shot. “Money, normally,” he drawls. “But I’d rather not lose my money betting on you if you’re worse than her.” He nods to Bea, who takes the chance to blatantly look him up and down.

“How about this,” Bea proposes, twirling a strand of hair between her fingers. “I’ll play the winner of this game and then we’ll see if Honey can beat Trevor. If I win, I get whatever I want, obviously. If Honey wins…”

Honey meets Bea’s eyes. She nods, knowing that Bea is thinking back to the night when they visited ECU their junior year of high school and witnessed a rugby party in the flesh. It’s their usual punishment when their outings feature a house party and a pool table.

“...Trevor has to do a Zulu Run,” Bea finishes. 

Honey finds Trevor again and smiles, overexaggerated and sickly sweet. 

“What’s a Zulu Run?” Trevor asks, looking to the other boys and finding nothing but confusion. On the girls’ faces, he just sees plotted mayhem. 

“It’s fun, don’t worry,” Honey reassures him. “You only have to do it if you lose. Which, I mean, if I’m worse than Bea, then you should be fine.”

Honey sits on the loveseat across from Trevor and Jack, while Bea sits down next to Jack. Her knee presses against his, subtly, just enough that you can’t tell if it’s deliberate or just a lack of room on the couch and Honey presses her hand to her lips to hide a smile.

“So you’re Jack,” Bea says, interrupting the conversation that he and Trevor had been in when the girls walked down the stairs. 

Honey watches as Bea makes her eyes look wide and soft, very flirtatious and fairy-like. She’s got the perfect complexion for it– the light dusting of freckles over her skin, the ounce of baby fat still left in her cheeks and all the right places along her body, her expression just the right amount of interested but not desperate.

For a brief moment, Honey wishes she was more like Bea.

“You’ve heard of me?” Jack asks with a little smirk.

Bea scoffs and waves him off. “Don’t flatter yourself. Honey didn’t even tell me your name.”

Jack’s bright eyes turn to Honey. “Oh, yeah?” He tilts his chin up in challenge. “What is it with you and names? You wouldn’t tell Trevor yours, you haven’t properly introduced me to…”

“Bea,” Bea supplies.

Honey shakes her head fondly at her best friend’s eagerness. Honey bites her tongue to keep her comments at bay, and instead plasters a tight smile on her face. “I didn’t realize I would be seeing you all again,” Honey says, forcing politeness into her voice. “And I’m not the one who’s weird about names.”

Jack and Trevor share a look. Jack hides a snort poorly.

“What?” Honey asks, her eyebrows raised and her mouth in a straight, unimpressed line. 

Jack smirks and Trevor shakes his head. Jack speaks anyway. “I don’t know how you would have avoided us,” Jack says. “Considering.”

“Considering…?” Bea asks, leaning around Jack to look at Trevor. Honey catches Trevor’s panicked glance and can guess what Jack’s alluding to. She jumps in, hoping to switch the subject.

“Nothing to consider,” Honey and Trevor say at the same time. Trevor sounds rushed, Honey sounds indifferent. Both of their jaws drop and they stare at each other, Honey affronted and Trevor surprised. 

Cole, who had been sitting on the stool-saddles near the pool table, steps over the back of the couch and weasels his way between Trevor and Jack. “Creepy,” he says. “You’re like the twins from the Shining.”

Trevor cringes. “You know, I don’t think we are.”

Honey just hums, picking up her drink and taking a sip. She clears her throat and turns back to Jack. “So those are your brothers?” She nods over to the pool table, where the shorter boy is lining up the 8-ball with the corner pocket. “Trevor said you had family coming.” 

Honey doesn’t miss the smirk and blush on Trevor’s face when she says his name, even as he dips his head and takes a gulp of his beer to cover it up.

Jack smiles, a genuine smile. It’s easy to tell the difference with him, when he’s really smiling or if he’s smiling because he thinks he’s supposed to. 

“Yeah, the goons.” Jack looks over his shoulder and grins as his taller brother loses his game of pool. “C’mon, Rusty, you brought that pool stick all this way and your game still sucks?”

The taller boy glares at Jack and sulks, re-racking his stick. He walks over and stands awkwardly behind the couch, but flicks Jack on the back of the head and Honey giggles before she can help it.

She looks down at her lap after letting out the little laugh and misses the way Trevor’s eyes light up and train on her. 

“Luke, you fucker,” Jack swears, flinching at the impact of Luke’s flick. Jack frowns, his eyebrows furrowed as he rubs the back of his head. “He’s my little brother.”

“Little brother,” Honey repeats. “And you’re just going to let him flick you like that?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Very funny, Honey. Obviously I’m not going to let him get away with it.” He reaches around and half-asses a punch to Luke’s dick, just hard enough that it expels an “oof” from the younger boy and he doubles over a little bit.

The other boy interrupts. “Quit it,” he says. He glares at his brothers, then his eyes fix on Bea. “Your turn.”

Bea stands and smiles, a smug little smirk reserved for her conspiratory looks with Honey that signifies that she’s getting what she wanted. She joins the man by the rack of sticks and clasps her hands behind her back, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “Which stick should I use?”

Jack looks a little put out by the loss of Bea at his side, and casts a glare toward his other brother. “And that’s Quinn,” he says curtly. “Pool master, or whatever.”

“So he’s the best in the house?” Honey asks.

“We’ll tally scores at the end of the summer,” Luke jumps in as Quinn says, “Absolutely.”

Jack scowls. “You just think that because you’re older. Remember, Quinn: first is the worst. Second is the best.”

Trevor snorts and takes another sip of his beer. 

He’s unnaturally quiet, Honey thinks. Trying to be cool in front of his friends, maybe.

“I take it you’re the second child,” Honey says. “That makes sense.”

“That makes sense?” Jack asks, repeating her statement like he can’t believe she dared to say that. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Honey looks over at Bea, who presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows. Daring Honey.

Honey rolls her head back, stretching the muscles of her neck. “You…” She starts, trailing off because she’s not sure how to finish the sentence without sounding mean. She scratches her eyebrow and scrunches her nose. “You like attention,” she decides, trying to keep her voice as free of judgment as possible. 

“Do I?” Jack asks, sounding unimpressed.

Honey shrugs. “You– I mean. Jack, you asked. You opened the door for us because you knew it would annoy Trevor, probably because you knew it would bother him that you were opening the door for m– us, instead of him. You flirt and smile when Bea sits next to you but you lean back and manspread when she gets up like you don’t want us to notice that you’re sitting without a girl at your side. You call your little brother a “fucker” and retaliate because you can, honestly escalating the situation from a flick to a punch to the dick. You act annoyed because your older brother is beating you at pool already this summer and it only just started, plus he took the girl from your side. It’s, uh… yeah. You like attention.”

Everyone but Jack starts to laugh.

“Stand up,” Cole says to Honey.

She does, her arms resting by her side awkwardly, her fingers twitching as she waits for him to do something.

Cole looks around the room and swears under his breath. “I didn’t think this through, one second,” he mutters, and disappears upstairs. 

Honey continues to stand there. She pats her hands against her thighs and looks around the room, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, but especially not Bea. If she makes eye contact with Bea, she’s going to burst out laughing. 

Trevor is still snickering, hiding his face in his shirt. Honey can still see the little crinkles by his eyes.

“She clocked you, man,” Quinn says with a shrug before pulling out a pool stick and standing it next to Bea. It comes up to the tip of her shoulder, Quinn’s chest. He nods in satisfaction and hands the stick over. Honey lets out a relieved breath of air at his approval, and then stifles a second when she watches Bea’s fingers brush over Quinn’s on the stick, her eyes lingering on his for just a second too long.

It’s too easy for her. 

Cole comes bounding down the stairs with a plastic soccer trophy in his hand. “Found this when I was snooping,” he says, approaching Honey and holding it out. He stands directly in front of her, makes eye contact with her, and stares into her eyes. “Thank you,” he says with a sincere nod. “For taking Jack down a peg. He needed that. We all needed that.”

And he hands the trophy off to Honey with a handshake, like she’s graduating from high school and he’s the principal handing her a diploma. He takes the handshake and pulls her into a hug, the trophy crushed awkwardly between them. 

When he pulls away, Cole puts both hands on Honey’s arms and stares into her eyes again. “If you’re going to do that again, please don’t do it to me.”

Quinn breaks the rack with a crack of his stick, standing at a slight angle, and Honey sits back down, cradling her trophy in her hands.

Cole engages Honey in conversation for a few minutes, with Luke jumping in here and there. Jack turns on the TV and pouts. As much as she tries not to notice it, Trevor just stays quiet and sips his beer and sneaks glances at Honey out of the corner of his eye. 

Eventually, the conversation dies out and the group turns their attention to the television, which is streaming some hockey game that Honey doesn’t have an interest in. The boys are chitchatting away, throwing out names and positions and yelling at the TV when a call doesn’t go their way– Honey can’t tell who’s cheering for what team, but she can also tell that Jack and Luke don’t like the team in white… at all. Trevor seems to prefer them over the team in red. Cole doesn’t seem to care. He’s just laughing, still, at Jack. Jack just sulks, but he seems to cheer up once the team in red scores, late in the first period.

“You all really like hockey, huh?” Bea asks between turns. Quinn has sunken a ball almost every turn, but Bea has only sunken one. Honey grins at her, then glances at the pool table and back to Bea. Bea sticks her tongue out at Honey, playful and easy. If Quinn’s the kind of guy that Honey thinks he is, it’s only a matter of time before he starts teaching Bea some tricks to tighten up the game. 

Cole laughs. “Yeah, I mean, I’d hope so.”

“What do you mean?” Bea asks, batting her eyelashes innocently, like she didn’t read all of Trevor’s Wikipedia page before coming here. 

“We play,” Luke says with a shrug.

Honey and Bea lock eyes and Honey plays along with her game. She tilts her head and blinks, as if this is the first time she’s hearing it. “Are you any good?”

Quinn snorts and shakes his head as Bea leans over to line up a shot and Honey notices his hand on her waist when he points at a different ball, explaining that that would be the better shot for her. Bea sinks the recommended ball and jumps up with a cheer, smiling brightly at Quinn and standing just a little closer than she would if she wanted to be just friends.

“We’re alright,” Trevor says, the first words he’s said to Honey since she walked through the door. He stands. “Does anyone want another beer?”

The boys’ voices ring out in a chorus of yesses, whereas Honey stays mostly quiet. Bea agrees to another drink as well, which is when Trevor turns to Honey. “You’re sure you don’t want another drink? I’m already getting them for everyone.”

“I’m sure, but thank you,” Honey says. 

“Why don’t you go and help him carry the drinks,” Bea suggests from her post next to Quinn. 

Honey glares at her, but stands. She leaves her trophy on her seat, saving it. “Fine,” she replies, hoping the edge in her voice is only detectable to her best friend. She follows Trevor up the stairs to the kitchen, like an antisocial cat who has FOMO, but only when it comes to their owner. She crinkles her nose in disgust when she realizes that that’s how she looks, not that Trevor would notice or care. Actually, he would probably be elated if she compared herself to a cat following him around.

Trevor opens the fridge and sifts around, the bottles of beer clinking. The beer takes up most of the bottom shelf, unsurprisingly.

“Do you think you have enough?” Honey asks, unable to help herself when Trevor passes her a third bottle, each a different brand of beer, to carry. 

“Q and J like Michelob, Luke is a Miller guy, Coley likes Budweiser, and I’m more of a Modelo drinker.” Trevor’s head is buried in the back of the fridge, rifling through a pack of Millers that seem to be running low. “We’ve had to go to the store three times since that first day because we keep running out of the one beer that someone wants.”

He retreats from the refrigerator and turns to Honey. He’s got two beers in his hand. He holds them up and asks, “Which one do you think Bea wants?”

Honey weighs her choices, but ultimately chooses the Michelob. Bea will use it as a jumping point for her conversation with Quinn– it’s a no-brainer. As annoying as Bea’s boy-craziness is, Honey is always going to be her wingwoman and helper when she can.

“Cool,” Trevor says and returns the other beer to the shelf. He turns back to Honey and takes two of the beers she was carrying, leaving her with just two, the Budweiser and the Modelo.

“I thought you were a Modelo drinker,” Honey says.

“I am,” Trevor replies, heading towards the stairs. 

Honey follows. “Then why am I holding your beer?”

“Because I want you to hand it to me.”

Honey snorts out a laugh. “Okay.”

When they return downstairs, they distribute the beer. Honey hands Cole his Budweiser and waits for Trevor to finish handing out the beers to the Hughes brothers and her friend. Bea has finally managed to get Quinn to do the work for her, with him leaning behind her and guiding her arms over the cue, pointing out where she should be looking and where to hit the ball. There are no other balls on the table except the 8 ball, which makes Honey chuckle. There’s no way Bea sunk all of hers– Quinn had to have “mistakenly” knocked a few in for her.

Trevor returns to the sitting area and Honey stands, offering him the Modelo in her hand. On purpose, she realizes, Trevor closes his hand over her own to take the beer from her and thanks her with a smile, his eyes far too kind to be harmless and friendly. 

Honey shakes her head with a look, then frowns when Trevor plops his happy ass right down on the other side of her loveseat. She shakes her head again and chooses to watch the end of the pool game, sitting on one of the stool-saddles near the table. She claps when Bea finally sinks the 8 ball after her third whiff. The ball only sinks because Quinn leaned over Bea again and did it for her, working together to finish the game.

“I win!” Bea squeals in delight, jumping in celebration in front of Quinn.

He lets out a little chuckle, the most awkwardly and quietly endearing laugh that Honey has ever heard. “You won,” he agrees. “With my help.”

Bea tilts her chin up and smiles at Quinn, proud of herself. “So we both win,” she says. “That means we both get whatever we want.”

Honey bites her tongue and ducks her head, waiting for what’s coming next. She wants to turn around and look out the window, even though you can’t see anything in the dark mountainside now that the sun has set. The thing is, she also wants to see the boys’ reactions to what Bea is going to say next.

Quinn smiles, a little tiny smile. His focus is only on Bea, who has inched her way closer to him somehow. There’s not much more room between them. “Whatever you want,” he repeats. “What do you want, Bea?”

Honey watches Quinn’s face, but she’s torn. She also wants to watch Jack.

“You know that tour Cole took us on when Honey and I first got here?” Bea asks, reaching out and smoothing out the turned-up fabric of Quinn’s sleeve.

“Yeah,” Quinn replies, a little confused.

Bea rests her hand on his arm, slowly making her way down so she can wrap her hand around his fingers. She watches herself do it, then looks up at Quinn through her lashes. “I don’t think I saw your bedroom,” she says. “Would you care to show me?”

Quinn’s lips part in surprise and Honey watches his eyes search Bea’s own for… insincerity, maybe? 

At the same time, Jack chokes on a sip of his beer. Honey’s eyes fly to him and Cole pats his back as Jack coughs it out. 

“Jesus Christ,” Jack says, clapping his hand against his chest and coughing one last time.

Bea smiles at him, oozing confidence and a little showmanship, as Quinn leads her to the stairs. He lets her climb them first and Honey giggles when Quinn sneaks a glance at Bea’s ass and visibly relaxes before hurrying to catch up with her and get his hands on her hips. Bea’s twinkling laughter grows softer and softer as she bounds up the stairs, her footfalls growing heavier as Quinn closes in on her.

“Well shit, Jack,” Cole says. “I guess you’re not the first to fall into bed with a girl this summer. The streak is finally over.”

“You don’t know that,” Jack says, pushing Cole’s hand off of his shoulder. He turns to face Honey, looking hopeful and a little desperate. “Wanna help me keep my streak up?”

A loud honking laugh escapes Honey. “Absolutely fucking not,” she replies, still laughing. She shakes her head at Jack, then notices the small, but mightily proud smile on Trevor’s lips. 

Choosing not to focus on that smile, a smile that she’s inadvertently becoming very fond of because she’s never seen him smile at his friends the way Trevor is smiling at her, Honey hops up from her stool and starts to gather the balls from the pockets of the table. She racks them, then grabs her cue and waves Trevor over. “I believe we had a game to play.”

“You had a game to lose,” Trevor corrects, standing and approaching Honey. He grabs his own stick, the one Quinn abandoned on the edge of the table when Bea proposed her bedroom shenanigans. 

“Hmm,” Honey voices, raising her eyebrows and exaggerating a grimace. “Consider me scared. Your break, Trevor.”

“When I win,” Trevor says. “I want to buy you dinner.” He lines up the cue ball and shoots, the colorful triangle of balls destroyed in a single swoop. One of the solids finds its way into a pocket and Trevor smirks.

“What a boring prize,” Honey muses. “But if you insist on those terms, then I agree.” She sticks out her hand to shake his. “And when I win…”

She leans down and eyes a line of three balls. The striped nine is farthest from the hole, but Honey wants to prove a point, so she angles her stick down at a steep slope and pushes– noticing Trevor’s mouth flattening into a line when her ball jumps over the other two and tips into the hole. She stands back up to her full height, tilting her head to the side. She cocks her hip and positions her hand against it, holding the cue up on her other side.

“I’m really going to enjoy your Zulu Run, Trevor.”

Cole whistles lowly from the couch. “I need to find you another trophy, girl.”

Honey shoots him a wink.

They play on. Trevor takes it easy– plays the safe route. With each easy fall into the pocket, he fistpumps to celebrate. Honey can only imagine how insufferable he is at the bowling alley. 

She shows him up, not even daring to let him pull ahead in their race and convince himself that he has a chance. She sinks the final black ball into the right-center pocket, bending herself all the way over the table to give him a good view of the girl who’s beating him. Her hips are high on the other side of the table, balancing up on her tip toes, facing the seating area. She doesn’t even look at the ball when she hits it, no, she’s looking up at Trevor with a tilted smile and mocking, bragging eyes. 

His eyes evaluate her– eyes, to lips, to chest, to ass. To the boys, making sure they aren’t looking, aren’t gawking at the round globes of Honey’s ass that are presented before them. Back to her ass. Her ass.

Honey stands, slowly, making sure Trevor memorizes the curve of her waist when she does. Her eyes drop to his pants, a smirk growing in time with his bulge, and she rests her hands on the edge of the table. She pulls her shoulders back, broadening her chest. 

It’s just a dominant stance. All Honey enjoys about this is the fact that his resolve and dignity crumble at the mere sight of a pretty girl bent before him. She likes knowing that he’s weak for her, but that she’ll never do anything about it.

She’s not looking for that.

“A Zulu Run,” Honey explains, clearing her throat to rid her voice of its sultry tinges. She shakes her hair back, over her shoulders. Trevor’s eyes darken at the sight of her throat. She smiles, but continues. “Is when you have to strip, sing a song, and streak around the house until the song is over.” She throws a glance over her shoulder at the other boys. “Usually your friends get to pick your song.”

Jack perks up at that. Honey turns and hops up on the ledge of the pool table, knowing that Trevor’s eyes have fallen to her behind. Jack looks at Honey with delight in his eyes, seeming to forgive her in an instant for psychoanalyzing him earlier in the night. His eyes slide to Trevor and the look in them seems more akin to yearning for vengeance.

“So, boys,” Honey drawls. “What’ll it be?”

They scramble over each other to reach her, shouting song suggestions as they fly into their head. Honey can’t hear anything they’re saying, so she laughs until they fall silent. Cole’s hand presses into the side of her thigh, she looks down at it in disgust, then back up at him. It falls to the edge of the table, noticeable space between her and the appendage. 

“How about this,” Honey decides. She sneaks a glance at Trevor, gloating as she lets her eyes roam all over his body. She takes in his arms, his thighs under his shorts, the way his shirt falls over his shoulders. “Trevor looks pretty fit. Why don’t we all pick a song?” She winks at him. “Make him run for, oh, eleven minutes or so?”

A flicker of recognition passes through Trevor’s gaze, but it’s quickly replaced by disbelief. He doesn’t know how she would know– weren’t they subtle about it? She lets out a breath of a laugh at the look– no, Trevor, you weren’t subtle, she thinks. but it’s cute that you think you are.

She realizes what she was thinking in a split second and shakes herself out of it, snapping her face forward and crossing her legs knee-over-knee. 

“But only his friends get to pick, so I guess I’m out.” Honey hops down from her perch and breaks through the boys, settling herself on the loveseat with her trophy, laying out to take up as much space as she could. She picks up the remote from the table and places her other hand behind her head, navigating to the Roku menu screen. “Do we have Spotify on this thing?”

Luke, Jack, and Cole each pick a song and Cole helps Honey connect to the outdoor speakers. He re-presents her with her trophy with a flourish and a bow, playful and lame. The boys push Trevor out to the patio with a whoop, pulling at his clothes even as Trevor fights them. 

Honey follows at a distance and watches through the glass door. She looks away when Trevor sheds his underwear and waits for Luke’s countdown to end before looking back up. She doesn’t want to see it. That’s just too far. She gets an eyeful of his ass as he rounds the corner of the house, though. 

As Trevor starts his third song, Cole’s cheesy Taylor Swift pick (“You can’t outrun my music now, bitch!”), Jack joins Honey at the door. 

“I think I’m going to head home,” Honey tells him, rubbing over the skin on her arms. 

Jack nods at her, shrugging easily. “I’ll walk you out.” 

Honey leads him up the stairs, hearing Trevor’s whoops grow louder as he finishes the second verse of the song. She knows he catches them walking up the stairs because his singing falters for a moment. His steps speed up. So do Honey’s. 

She walks briskly to the front door, bordering on a speedwalk, with Jack behind her. She swings her keys over her finger and wrenches the front door open. Jack catches it before it hits the wall. 

“What about Bea?” He asks, calling after Honey and making her pause. 

“She’ll find her way home,” Honey replies and steps off again. She has to get out of here before Trevor races up the stairs to stop her from being alone with Jack and she gets an eyeful of his– junk.

“Honey!” Jack calls again. 

She lurches to a stop and cringes, turning to face the boy. 

"Honey, I don't think I'm going to flirt with you anymore."

Honey takes a breath, walking back and reaching up to pat Jack's cheek, just forceful enough that it'll sting for a moment after she walks away. It's not quite a hit, but it's definitely not a love tap. "That doesn't hold the power that you think it does," she tells him with a nod and a close-lipped smile. She goes to leave, but Jack stops her by grabbing her hand.

"Trevor likes you, you know. He was quiet tonight, but he likes you. He's reading that book you gave him and everything," Jack says in earnest, his blues boring into Honey's own eyes. 

Honey picks up on the unsaid words. He's trying, take it easy on him, he might be annoying but he's good, and he likes you. You should like him too, and all of that.

The edges of Honey's smile soften and she gently pulls her hand from Jack's. "It's nice to know he can read," she replies, deflecting. Whatever Trevor feels for her, not that he can really feel anything because he doesn't know her like that, doesn't matter. She's not looking for that right now. "Thanks for hosting us, Jack. I'm sorry for what I... said."

"It's okay." Jack shrugs. "Thanks for coming."

"Goodnight," Honey bids him, and starts to walk away.

"Come back," Jack says, and Honey whips around and finds him looking like the words surprised him when he heard himself speak. He clears his throat. "Friday. Um, it's— it's National Chocolate Ice Cream Day and National Donut Day." He scuffs the tip of his shoe against the ground. "Really... important holiday."

Honey can't do anything but laugh. "I'll bring the donuts."

She walks to her car and ignores the chirping of bullfrogs echoing in her ears as she drives down the mountain to her home, alone.

7:90 – TREVOR

Jack glares at Trevor when he walks down to the kitchen early the next morning. As Trevor rubs the sleep out of his eyes with a yawn, Jack shifts under the frozen pack of peas that rests precariously on his shoulderblades. Trevor had barely touched him last night, he was just being dramatic. So he had a bit of soreness on his back from where Trevor pushed him against the wall and asked him what the hell he was doing, who cares? He went upstairs with Trevor’s girl. Alone. 

“Bea’s taking you to church with her this morning for laying a finger on me,” Jack growls out when Trevor looks at him and laughs.

“No shit,” Trevor replies, snorting.

“It’s true,” comes the female voice from the couch. Bea leans forward, her tube top skewed and tilted enough to draw a wandering eye. Trevor rolls his. “You shouldn’t get violent, not on my watch.”

“You weren’t even with me last night, Bea,” Trevor says sweetly, tilting his head down to dismiss her. “You didn’t see me do shit. How can you prove it was me and not Luke?”

“Luke put a video of it on his private story, then showed me,” Bea snickers in the same tone. “So you’re taking me home and helping me choose my best church outfit to hide these hickeys, and then you’ll join me at the service. It’ll be good for your reputation in town.”

“I don’t really care about my reputation in town,” Trevor laughs.

“Honey cares about your reputation in town,” Bea clarifies, a tight, ‘there’s no room for discussion here’ smile on her face. She pointedly looks him up and down. “Little Bear.”

Trevor scowls at her condescending tone and use of the nickname. How dare she flaunt her inner circle-ness to Trevor. 

“I was going to go to church anyway,” Trevor boasts. “Vera told me to bring all of the boys.”

“Well, you’re the only one resorting to violence–” Jack begins, seething, before Bea cuts him off.

“No, this is a good idea,” she says, waving her hand to quiet him. “We should all go to church.”

Jack scoffs. “I don’t think we need to go,” he says. “Sounds like you’ve got an ulterior motive.”

“I don’t want the town to think y’all are reclusive party folk who have no interest in the happenings of Litchton,” Bea snaps. “You’d be surprised how quickly the old grannies will turn on you.”

“And you get to walk into church with five guys on your arm,” Jack says, still scowling. This time, his attention is focused on Bea, not the man who physically hurt him the night before. 

“Said she wanted five guys, she ain’t talking ‘bout burgers,” Trevor deadpans, a disgusted look thrown Bea’s way.

She’s unperturbed by it, probably from many years of Honey– Honey.– throwing her similar looks. All Bea does is smile and reply, “My pussy already got murdered, Trev. I didn’t need five guys.”

“No way Quinn ‘murdered’ your pussy, Bea,” Jack jumps in, air quotes around the word. “The dude doesn’t fuck.”

Bea laughs. “I assure you, he fucks.”

“Yeah, I fuck,” Quinn agrees, descending the stairs. He veers to the couch first and drops a kiss on Bea’s head in greeting.

“Well, fuck your way to church,” Jack says. “Bea’s making everyone go with her.” Jack looks at Quinn expectantly, maybe waiting for pushback.

Quinn shrugs. “Okay,” he says. “It’s not like there’s anything else for us to do on a Sunday morning in this place. Everything is probably closed.”

“It’s true, everything is closed on Sundays except the grocery store and the gas station,” Bea says with a nod. “And the church, of course.”

Jack scowls and removes his pack of peas from his back. Trevor takes his opportunity to approach the fridge, conveniently behind Jack. “Why can’t we just stay here?”

“Because it’ll be fun,” Trevor replies, trying to exude optimism now that he’s not the only boy being forced to attend church and wash themselves of their sins. He turns and purposefully claps his hand down on Jack’s shoulder, hard. Jack howls in pain. Trevor squeezes just to watch him tense up. “It’s our chance to become one with the community, Jacky.”

Bea smiles, voice dripping with cheerfulness. “Yeah, Jacky, it’ll be good for you. Why don’t you two head upstairs and change?” Her eyes fix on Quinn, whose shirt rides up as he grabs a glass from the upper shelves of the cabinets. “I want to chit-chat with Quinn for a second.”

Trevor and Jack make a face, but scramble towards the stairs. They push and shove each other all the way up– Trevor is particularly satisfied when Jack bumps into the wall and groans– then split off into their respective rooms. Trevor treats it like a race– whoever finishes changing first wins.

Jack is already back downstairs by the time Trevor returns. Cole is there, and Luke, and both of them seem to be dressed for the service too. None of the boys have the best church clothes, but it’s a small town with farmers. Surely not everyone will be in their Sunday best every Sunday. Quinn is noticeably missing, but Bea is standing by the door with a smile on her face. Her lips look a little more red than they did before Trevor went upstairs. He narrows his eyes at her.

“You, and you,” Bea says, pointing at Jack and Trevor. “Come with me. Trevor, grab your car keys. You’re driving.”

“What about Luke and Cole?” Trevor asks, picking up his keys from their spot on the hook next to the door and trailing behind Bea. Jack trails behind Trevor, still grumbling and pretending like his shoulders hurt for dramatic effect. Trevor ought to show him some real pain next time.

The three people climb into the car, Trevor behind the wheel and Bea in the passenger seat. Jack, once again, finds himself relegated to the backseat. He straps himself in and Trevor catches his murderous glare in the rearview mirror.

“Quinn’s going to drive them,” Bea explains. “They’ll meet us at the church.”

“Whipped,” Jack coughs out. He does a terrible job of masking the word. 

Trevor rolls his eyes, just like Bea. She opens her mouth to say something, sass him, but thinks better of it.

They drive on in silence, the occasional sigh or grunt from Jack as he shifts in his seat. Trevor glares at him again in the mirror and Jack hits him with a fake smile before looking out the window to watch the trees whip by.

Bea directs them to the main strip of shops, then tells them to take a left onto one of the sidestreets near The Reading Nook. They pull up to a big brick house, separated down the middle by a massive staircase. Bea climbs the stairs and turns to the left again, unlocking and pushing her front door open.

She leads the boys into her living room, which is decorated exactly how Trevor expected it to be. The couch is white with pink pillows and a white shag rug beneath it. Her furniture is odd, thrifted and worn in. None of it matches, although Trevor suspects that her theme was “Barbie girl aesthetic.” It’s messy, and comfortable, and Trevor almost envies how she lives. His apartment in Anaheim is sparse– when you’re on the road so much and as busy with your job as Trevor is, you really only need a place to eat and sleep. His decorations reflect that.

Trevor sprawls out on the couch, leaving Jack standing awkwardly next to the coffee table. Bea disappears down the hall and enters her bedroom, her closet door creaking open.

“Jack, come here, will you?” Bea asks. 

Jack’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, but he starts down the hallway nonetheless. 

Trevor snoops in his absence, Jack’s presence no longer a threat to his comfort. He drags himself off of the couch and stands, advancing towards the shelves of knickknacks on the wall near the television.

Bea has got a number of books on her shelves, overtaking two of the four rows. The other rows are sparse and far more interesting– there are picture frames spread along the rows, six frames that depict Bea’s life and what she loves.

Four of the pictures feature Honey. The other two are groups of people that Trevor assumes are Bea’s family, her extended family on each of her parents’ sides. He can ignore those easily, not caring about about Bea to scan each of her cousins’ faces. The pictures with Honey are a different story.

There’s a picture of the two when they were ten, or eleven, riding their bikes down an asphalt street lined with suburban houses. Bea’s bike is pink with streamers and flowers and a little basket. Honey’s is dark green and sporty, similar to Trevor’s own bicycle from childhood. Honey’s smile is wry, whereas Bea’s is glowing.

The second, from a birthday party. It’s Honey’s birthday and they’re four, from the looks of the lit candle on her cake. Honey’s smile is wide, much wider than the previous image. Her hair is messy and her tongue is stained green, probably from a lollipop or a Jolly Rancher. Her arms are wrapped around Bea’s neck and she’s pulled her friend close, their cheeks pressing together. Bea’s expression is a little different. Only one of her eyes is squeezed shut, the one closer to Honey. Her lips are pursed like a duck and her little fingers are raised in a peace sign.

Trevor chuckles. If his mom had been the one taking the picture, she would’ve said “What a ham” about the girls’ goofiness.

In the next picture, they’re older. They’re sixteen, probably. Bea’s wearing these short jean shorts and a bikini top and Honey wears a matching top under some long, gray sweatpants. She rolled the waistband up and her back is mostly to the camera, Bea lifted off the ground in a swooping hug. Bea’s legs are kicked up behind her like she’s experiencing a really good, Princess Diaries kind of kiss and her face is frozen in laughter. Honey’s is the same. Trevor’s heart clenches at the smile on her face and the way her hair blows out behind her.

Finally, there’s a selfie of the two of them in a handmade frame. It’s from a high angle and Trevor can’t tell if it’s a .5 picture or a regular one. Honey’s eyebrow is raised and she wears an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, goofy enough to tug at Trevor’s smile. Bea’s mouth is open and she has a hand pinching Honey’s chin, while the other is raised to take the picture. Behind them is the Welcome to Litchton sign that Trevor passes each time he goes into town. 

Trevor’s eyes glide down to the handmade frame, the written message along the top and bottom borders.

“New Beginnings!” and smaller, in the corner, a more personalized message. Trevor thinks that she wrote the message in a thin Sharpie– it’s too pristine still, after years. “There’s no one I would rather have join me in Litchton than you. Thank you for always being the Bea to my Honey! Honeybea 4ever <3”.

Trevor reaches out and takes the frame in his hand, inspecting it. He turns it over. More script, also in a Sharpie: “2019”, it reads. He replaces the item, making sure it’s back in the exact right spot. 

“Bea, hurry up!” Trevor calls, returning to the couch.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” she replies, leading Jack out of her bedroom. She’s clasping a necklace as she walks, then holds out her wrist and a bracelet for Jack to clasp. “We can go now.”

They leave the apartment and climb back into the car, Jack beating Bea out for the passenger seat this time. He’s smug about it too, grinning to himself while he buckles up. Trevor opens the back door for Bea and helps her into the car with a guiding hand in hers. When Jack realizes that he fumbled the chance to look like a gentleman, his face returns to its scowl. 

“If you’re not careful, your face will get stuck like that,” Trevor warns when he finally sits behind the wheel again. He shifts the car into drive and pulls out of the parking space.

Bea directs them to the church and Trevor pulls into the parking lot next to Quinn’s car, which is still running. They’ve got about five minutes before the service begins and Bea chastises the three boys for not going inside and reserving seats early. 

“There’s only a few instances where the whole town goes out to do something,” Bea complains as they walk inside. “Church is one of them. We’re never going to find a spot for all six of us.”

“No Honey?” Trevor asks, taken aback. He expected her to join them, especially since the ‘whole town’ is here.

Bea casts Trevor a look and snickers into her palm. “You’re sweet, Trevor,” she says and Trevor rolls his eyes at her saccharine tone. “But Honey decided a long time ago that she had enough religion in her life growing up. She and God know where they stand.”

Trevor reaches the door to the church first and holds it open for the group, letting them file in. He’s grateful that they’re in the church now, because all of the other boys are either too respectful of the space and what it represents or too awkward in a silent building to make fun of Trevor for seeking out Honey. Or they don’t want to get on Bea’s bad side and act a fool in church and suffer her wrath.

They file into one of the back pews, Bea sandwiched between Quinn and Luke. Trevor sits on the other side, right at the aisle. 

For an hour, he stays quiet and moves and speaks with the congregation. He counts the number of times that Cole tases Jack’s side, sticking his fingers between his ribs to cause him to flinch and make noise in the reverent area. He does this five times throughout the mass before Bea leans forward and threatens to cut his hands off herself. 

For an hour, Trevor stares forward and lets his mind wander to Honey, and all the thoughts he has about her. She’s a mystery and she’s quiet like Quinn, but confident in a way that Quinn never achieved. She knows exactly who she is and won’t budge for anyone, won’t change herself or act in any special ways around certain people. 

Trevor admires it– he’s spent his whole life performing for people, in a way. Hockey is his life and always has been, but sometimes it’s tiring to realize that all of his friends are people he met on ice. To think that he can be surrounded by his teammates and the fans in any arena and still feel lonely– it’s the kind of thing that leaves Trevor wondering if this career was a good idea. 

In another world, he’s playing in a beer league in a town like this, with a girl like Honey on his arm. 

The thought leaves him feeling heavy, weighed down. It ruminates in his mind, even after the service is over. It sours his mood completely and Trevor wishes he was back at the house so he could take a shower or something and stop the prickling feelings from taking over his skin.

In the parking lot, the group chats about nothing. Trevor doesn’t listen. Bea introduces the boys to come of the townsfolk and Trevor smiles and shakes the men’s hands, hugs the ladies or send a special look their way. Vera and Earl honk as they drive past the group, Vera blowing a kiss towards Trevor and Cole through the passenger window. Cole catches it and sticks it to his cheek, then sends one back. It makes Vera laugh.

Trevor tunes back into the conversation as the boys discuss plans for the upcoming week– Jack edges away from Trevor before he mentions that he invited Honey over that coming Friday and that Bea should come too. 

“Well, you’ll rarely find a Honey without its Bea,” Bea teases. She claps. “Okay. I’ll see you guys then. Quinn, take me home?”

Quinn nods and puts his hand on the small of her back to direct her to the car. Bea pauses and waves Trevor over, shooing the other boys away. Quinn stays, his hand still on Bea’s body.

“There’s a fruit stand outside the grocery store on Mondays,” Bea says.

“I know, I’ve been,” Trevor interrupts.

Bea quiets him with a click of her tongue. She chooses her words carefully, her eyes hard. “Go tomorrow at, like, six,” she suggests, a faux-nonchalant shrug lifting her shoulders. “You might find something that you like there. I recommend buying the strawberries. They make a lovely gift, Trevor.”

Trevor frowns, confused. “I don’t like strawberries,” he replies.

Bea closes her eyes and processes his words for a moment, a tight smile on her lips. “They make a lovely gift, Trevor,” she repeats.

“Sick,” Trevor says, his voice hard. He doesn’t understand what she’s saying. “I’m not buying strawberries for you, Bea. I don’t know you enough to give you gifts.”

Bea stomps her foot. “Good fucking God, Trevor. Quinn, can you explain this shit to him?” She asks, then walks off to the car. She takes Quinn’s keys from his hand and gets behind the driver’s seat herself. 

Quinn watches her walk away, then turns to Trevor. “She’s telling you that you’ll run into Honey, you fucking idiot, and that you should buy her strawberries.” 

He leaves Trevor standing there, eyes wide.

Yeah, he’s definitely heading to the fruit stand tomorrow and buying strawberries.

He concocts his plan on the drive home, silent compared to the other three boys, that are laughing and flopping around the backseat with every turn in a game of Jell-O. They’re not wearing their seatbelts. When they get too loud, Trevor envisions ejecting them from the backseat, leaving them sailing down the mountain, falling through the air.

He holes himself up in his room to nap when they get home, too excited to see Honey to let the time pass organically. It’s like time travel, this way. Trevor will wake up and be two hours closer to seeing her, to getting another chance to win her over. This time, with a gift.

In the afternoon, he laces up his blades and skates with the boys. Quinn has come back by now, not spending much time at Bea’s apartment after church, according to Luke. They all skate and shoot for a couple of hours, playing a game of pickup with an extra player to sub in and out. When that ends, they run some drills. Luke and Quinn play defense, like always, with Trevor, Cole, and Jack recreating their legendary line from USNTDP. It works out perfectly, and each boy pushes himself like they’re playing a real game. It’s the brotherly competition that fuels them– and when the drills start to fall into disarray from hits and other penalties that would certainly be called out in a game, they head off to shower.

The night ends slowly, fizzling out compared to the way it ended the night before. The boys lounge in the game room, sprawling out on the couches and snacking and sipping their beer. Trevor isn’t made to perform another Zulu Run, no one picks up a pool cue, and they watch shitty TV movies on the Spanish channel instead of English. They make up the dialogue as they go and Trevor is the first to go to sleep. He makes it to midnight, but then he forces himself to go to bed. 

He’s got a big day ahead of him… after 5 p.m., anyway.

–end–of–chapter–one–

[sydsaint]

Love Of My Life <3

Summary: The reader shows up to her hotel room late in the morning after a particularly interesting night out. Upon arriving back to her hotel room, she is confronted by her best friend regarding her whereabouts.

It's around 10 o'clock in the morning when you finally make it back to yours and Mia's hotel room. You turn the knob slowly with your free hand, clutching your jacket and purse in the other. You pray that Mia has already gotten up and is at the gym, which will spare you the embarrassment of explaining where you've been.

"YN LN!" Mia screams at you as soon as the door creeks open.

"Hey, Mia." You slip into the room with a sheepish smile. "You're here late. Skipping the gym today?" You joke with her.

Mia moves across the room at lightening speed toward you. You wince as she stops just inches in front of you with a worried and annoyed look on her face.

"Where in the world have you been?" Mia confronts you, setting her hands on your shoulders. "I've been worried sick!" She scolds you.

"Okay, mom." You giggle. "Sorry, my phone died so I couldn't text to and let you know I wasn't coming back last night." You explain.

Mia lets you go and you head over to your bed so you can set your stuff down. You walk over to your bed and plop down onto the mattress with a sigh. Mia eyes you curiously, catching a glimpse of what appears to be some hickeys littering your chest and neck but skillfully hidden by your shirt for the moment.

"Oh my gosh!" Mia walks over to your bed. "You were with someone last night?" She points to your neck.

"What? Pfft, no." You lie. "That's a bruise from my curling iron." You insist.

Mia doesn't believe a word coming out of your mouth as you lie to her. But she backs off for a moment to give you some space. You rest for a moment before you get back up and head for the bathroom. Mia follows after you and watches you walk like you're legs are bothering you.

"YN, girl." Mia trails after you. "The hickies? The sore legs? Who dicked you down last night, girl?" She asks you.

"I'll never tell." You giggle and turn on the shower. "As eager as you sound, you might try and steal him from me." You joke.

Mia laughs and twirls the ring on her finger. "Right." She rolls her eyes at lets you shower.

Later into the day, you and Mia head down to the arena for Smackdown. The two of you head for the locker rooms and get changed for the tag match that you've got against the Kabuki Warriors later.

"Damn, YN." Mia catches another glimpse of the various hickies and love-bites on your neck and chest while you're changing. "I hope that you brought extra foundation." She jokes. "Unless you want the whole world to know you were getting freaky last night with someone."

You laugh and pull out a brand new bottle of foundation from your makeup bag. "I've got that covered, thanks." You assure her.

"YN." Mia whines and scoots up next to you. "Come on! Tell me who it was!" She begs.

"Nope." You shake your head. "You can guess. But I'm not giving you any hints besides the fact that it's someone we work with." You insist.

Mia groans and you flash an amused smile as you watch the wheels in her head turn. Mia sits in silence for a while lost in thought while you apply your makeup.

"Come up with an answer yet, Mia?" You ask her once you're makeup is done.

"Austin Theory? Or Grayson Waller? Or both?" Mia asks you.

You burst out laughing and shake your head. "Mia!" You giggle. "No! Neither of them."

Mia groans again and the two of you head out to catch your match. You arrive down at the ramp a bit early so you hang out and watch LA Knight finish up a match against Santos Escobar.

You watch the tv monitor intently, soaking up Knight's charisma through the screen. Mia notices you're staring and ponders on whether or not you've just accidently given yourself away in regards to who you where with last night.

Knight's match ends and he heads backstage. You and Mia pass him on your way out and you lock eyes with the Megastar for a moment.

"YN." Knight nods to you as you pass him. "Why the throwback outfit?" He asks you slyly. "Hiding something?"

You smile to yourself and roll your eyes at Knight's comment. You and Mia head down to the ring and Mia is pestering you with questions the moment you're in the ring.

"LA Knight?" Mia confronts you. "Oh, YN, girl. You have got to give me details later." She pleads with you.

"Mia! No!" You laugh.

You and Mia pick up a lucky win against the Kabuki Warriors and head backstage again. Mia is quick to start pestering you again once you're back in the locker room.

"YN come on!" Mia insists. "Did you see how you looked when you came back to the hotel this morning?" She asks you. "Because I did. He gave it to you good, girl. And I need details!"

"No, Mia. Not happening." You laugh.

Mia hovers at your side, unrelenting in her quest for the intimate details of your night. "Come on! Just some small details!" She asks again. "Is he kinky? I bet he's kinky. What position? Doggy? No! Cowgirl? He kinds seems like a cowgirl type of man to me."

"Mia Yim!" You burst out laughing and shake your head. "You are married!" You remind her. "Do i need to call your husband and let him know that you're pestering me about my sex life?" You threaten her jokingly.

"Bold of you to assume he cares." Mia giggles.

You and Mia both laugh and get packed up to head out. You are in the middle of packing away your boots carefully into your bag when someone knocks on the door. Mia answers and you see her step out into the hall before you can see who's at the door.

You don't pay much attention to Mia's absence until you hear a familiar hearty chuckle out in the hall. Your eyes widen as you realize whos out in the hall with Mia and sprint to the door.

"Mia!" You stumble out into the hall and find Mia leaned up against the doorframe and chatting with LA Knight. "Go! Out! Now!" You grab her shoulder and pull her back into the locker room.

"YN, darlin'." Knight chuckles as you shove Mia back into the locker room. "You're friend here is quite the curious little lamb." He teases.

You turn around and glare at Mia before turning back to Knight. "I am so sorry about her." You apologize.

"Don't be!" Knight waves his hand dismissively. "I ain't shy, darlin', you know that." He reminds you. "Happy to share some fun details with a mutual friend." He winks at Mia behind you. "Anyway, we still on for tonight?" He turns his attention back to you.

"Yeah yeah." You nod. "Just give me a minute to grab my bags and beat my best friend." You turn back to Mia.

Knight chuckles again as you shove Mia back into the locker room. He hears you and Mia laughing and playfully arguing for a moment before you pop back into the hall with your bags in hand.

[daisynik7]

Dirty Thirty

Pairing: Kishibe x f!reader

Rating: Explicit

cw: thigh riding, cunnilingus, fingering, spanking, spit play, vaginal sex (doggy, cowgirl), cockwarming, use of pet names (princess and Master)

Word Count: ~5.6k

Summary: An alluring stranger gives you a special treat on the night of your 30th birthday. 

Notes: Kishibe is in his mid 40s. Also, apparently he is 6’4”, so reader is shorter, below 6’. This is very self-indulgent considering my own 30th is in a few days (shout out to all my fellow Pisces babes)! Also, I started this after finishing Chainsaw Man a few weeks ago, so this is a result of heavy Kishibe brainrot.

Additional Note: Check out Part 2 here: After Last Night! Reblogs, likes, and/or comments are appreciated. Thank you for reading!

--------------------

The bass of EDM music reverberates through the speakers at the DJ’s booth. This particular bar you frequent turns into a club at 11 PM. College kids from the university down the street congregate in this establishment on the weekends, like today. You and your friends have been here since an hour ago, drinking and chatting in a booth hidden away to the side of the dancefloor. After dinner, you stopped by for a quick drink. With the booze and vibes just right, you ended up staying. 

Tonight, you celebrate your birthday. It’s the end of an era, really. You’re officially thirty. You’ve been dreading this day for the past few months, sad to bid farewell to your twenties, which wasn’t all that anyways. The number of times your friends reassure you that your thirties are the new twenties only brings you mild comfort. Glancing at the crowd tearing up the dancefloor, you can’t help being envious of their youth. 

Maybe it’s your buzz talking. You’re not one to feel sorry for yourself, especially about something as inevitable as aging. Thirty is young. Who cares if you’re the only one in your inner circle who’s single, unmarried, or childless? There’s no shame in it. You’re sick of women being scrutinized each year they get older for not doing what society tells them they should do. Who the fuck cares if you don’t have a ring on your finger or haven’t popped a baby out your vagina yet? It isn’t on your radar, and that’s perfectly fine. Men don’t get this much shit for remaining bachelors well into their forties or fifties, why should you?

You fidget with the glittery Dirty 30! sash you wear over your little black dress. A shimmering tiara sparkles on top of your head to complete your ensemble. Your friend’s voice in your ear snaps you out of your thoughts. “Hey birthday girl, how’s it going?”

Smiling, you hold your half empty glass up towards the middle. “Good. Thanks so much for coming out to celebrate tonight!” You’re ready to chug the rest of your liquor so you can head to the dancefloor. The other three women in your group cheers, clinking their drinks with yours. 

You’re about to suggest dancing when your friend says, “Shall we call it a night?”

It catches you off guard. The music just started and it’s not even midnight yet. You’re not ready to go back to the real world; it’s your special day until you fall asleep, which you don’t plan to do for a few more hours. You’re silent though, listening as the other girls repeat a similar sentiment. 

“My husband is waiting for me at home, so yes.”

“And my babies have an early morning play date tomorrow!”

Your friend beside you turns to you and asks, “Ready to go?”

Contemplating for a moment, you respond, “I think I might stay, actually. Have another drink or two.”

They stare at you bewildered, surprised you want to be here alone, which is unusual for you. “Are you sure?” they clarify.

“Yeah! Go ahead, I’ll be fine! I’m a big girl now,” you joke, standing up to hug them. They kiss you on the cheek, greeting you one last happy birthday before leaving together to go home to their husbands and children. 

Craving another drink, you abandon your booth to approach the bar. You order your favorite: a vodka cranberry, your comfort cocktail throughout your 20s. A reminder that you’re still the same you despite moving up a decade. 

You close your tab, promising yourself this is your last, and go back to your table. It’s now occupied by an older man in a black coat, sipping on amber liquor. Annoyed, and slightly intrigued, you sit opposite of him in the same booth. He lifts his head up slowly, noticing you. 

“Hi there,” you greet him. Even in the dim light, the stitched scar on his left cheek stands out. The metal piercings on his ears glisten, the strobe lights reflecting off them from the dancefloor. 

“Can I help you?” His voice is low and raspy, either naturally or from the alcohol. 

“I was sitting here earlier. The other tables are all occupied, and I really don’t want to stand around on the dancefloor by myself. Can I sit here until I finish my drink? There’s plenty of room for the both of us.” You put on your most charming smile.

“Where are your friends? I’m sure you’d rather sit with them instead of with an old man like me.”

“They ditched me to go home. Besides, it looks like you could use the company.” You tip your cocktail into your mouth, keeping your gaze on him. 

He watches you, skeptical. “How old are you?”

You glance down at your sash, which is now twisted so that the answer to his question is on your back where he can’t see. You grin at him. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a woman her age?”

He hums, unamused. “I’m not keen on hanging out with girls in their 20s. Not really my style. Not tonight, anyways.”

“How old do you think I am?” 

Narrowing his eyes at your tiara, he responds, “You’re wearing a crown, drinking a cranberry vodka at a bar that plays this shit music. I’d say you’re 23.”

This amuses you, like getting asked for your ID does, which is becoming rarer nowadays. It’s flattering.

“Hey, you’re here too. The only difference is that you’re drinking a whiskey,” you tease him, pointing at his glass. 

“In my defense, I finished work nearby and this shitty cesspool was the closest bar I could find.” He takes a swig of his alcohol. “So, am I right?”

Sliding the sash to face him, you answer, “Nope. You’re wrong. Lucky for you, today is my birthday. And I just turned thirty.” 

He cracks a smile at this, giving you a flutter below your belly. You’re not typically into older men; however, this guy has piqued your interest. There’s something about him that is alluring. Exciting. 

“Happy birthday,” he says, swallowing the rest of his whiskey. “Get anything good?” 

“No. But the night’s not over yet.” You’re full-on flirting now, not at all ashamed of how brazen you’re acting. Fuck it. You only turn thirty once, right?

There’s distance between you, but the tension is so thick, you could smell the bold scent of liquor coating his lips. He leans closer, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Well, I guess it’s my responsibility now to give you something good.”

~~~

Minutes later, you’re in the back of the cab, riding towards an address he mutters to the driver. He holds you, interlocking his fingers with yours, peering out his window in silence. You focus on your entwined hands resting on the middle seat, the intimacy of it all distracting you from the fact that you’re about to hook up with this attractive stranger. 

The driver arrives to a swanky apartment complex. Once inside, Kishibe doesn’t give you enough time to marvel at the beautiful interior of the room. In an instant, his lips are on yours, both palms cupping your cheeks assertively. Breath hot and chalky from the mint you saw him savor earlier in the car. It barely masks the lingering taste of that cigarette you witnessed him drag waiting for your ride. He didn’t have the same type of smoker’s breath that you’re sick of from your coworkers. With him, you don’t mind it at all. 

His hand trails down your neck, thumb carefully brushing over a pulse point right below your chin. His skin is rough and calloused compared to yours. The scraggly facial hair scattered along his jaw is scratchy on your cheeks. 

He breaks the kiss, gazing at you while he removes his overcoat, hanging it on the rack in the corner, kicking his shoes off in the process. There’s a small bar cart in the kitchen, where he pours himself a whiskey. At the freezer, he reaches for the ice, dropping three cubes into the dark liquor with a plop. You stand still, observing him, nervous and thrilled about what this mysterious man will do to you tonight.

At the couch, he takes a seat, thighs spread wide, his wrist hanging low between them, gripping the top of the glass with his fingertips. “Come here,” he beckons. 

Removing your heels quickly and abandoning your purse, you step towards him, ready to sit beside him until he demands, “No. Not there.” He pats his thigh with his free hand. “Here.”

Your body trembles with lust as you straddle him, pussy pulsing against his muscular thigh. He studies you, from your hazy stare down to him between your legs, savoring his cold liquor all the while. You gulp loudly, obediently waiting for his next command. 

Gently removing the crown atop your head and tossing it aside, he asks, “What do you want from me, princess? It’s your birthday after all.” Hearing him call you princess gives you a rush you can no longer contain. You start moving on his thigh, riding it to feel the glorious sensations on your clit.

His chuckle vibrates through his chest as you grasp at his collar to hold you steady. “This is what you want? Okay. Take what you need. Come on my thigh. I’ll watch.” His gravelly voice in your ear makes you ride him harder, grinding against him until your creamy mess is soaking through the thin fabric of your panties. You clench his tie, loosening it around his neck. He continues to watch you, sipping on his booze, enjoying his own private show.

Once the glass is empty except for the melting ice, he sets it down on the coffee table, pulling you in closer, his hand behind your neck. Lightly blowing cool, whiskey breath along your lips. You lean forward to kiss him, his tongue slipping past to explore your needy mouth. The longing for his touch on every inch of your body grows stronger by the second as you moan into the kiss, bouncing on his leg. 

“Can you come by yourself? Or do you need my tongue on it? I can lick it up real good if you’ll let me.” His obscene suggestion surprises you, as if you weren’t already performing lewd acts on his lap. You tug at his tie to pull him into another fierce kiss before sitting next to him on the couch, lifting the hem of your dress up to reveal your wet undergarments. 

“I’ll let you do whatever you want to me. But I’m not calling you Daddy,” you tease, spreading wide for him. 

His voice is low in his throat, kneeling on the carpet, face positioned between your thighs. “Good, because I prefer to be called Master.”

You roll your eyes at him, to which he responds, “What? You don’t like that? I bet I’ll have you screaming it all night long.”

This has you speechless as he drifts towards you, staring at the wet spot soaking through your lingerie. “Look how fucking wet you are for me.” He hooks his fingers around the fabric, stretching it to the side to expose your sopping cunt. Leaning in closer, he flicks his tongue gently onto your clit, causing you to squirm above him. 

He’s testing the waters, starting slow to gauge your limit. It’s gentle at first, toying with your bud until it’s plump and sensitive. Until your wanton moans are bouncing off the walls of his big, fancy apartment. There’s no doubt that he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s obvious this man has years of experience beyond you. Having this stranger swirl his tongue on the most intimate parts of your body makes you weak in the knees. This is the first time all night that you’re thankful to be turning thirty. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in this apartment, getting wrecked and torn apart by him.

“I’ve always wanted a plaything I can ruin,” he breathes out, finally wrapping his lips around you. “Will you be my pretty plaything tonight?” He surrounds your clit, drawing an erotic whimper from your mouth. 

“Fuck, Kishibe. Yes. Use me as your plaything, fuck.”

He eats you out noisily, emphasizing every wet sound his mouth makes on your swollen bud. Several times, he spits on it, spreading his saliva up and down your pussy, plunging his tongue into your entrance to get it lubricated with his own drool.  

“You’re fucking drenched down here. When’s the last time you let a grown man eat you out like this? I bet you’ve never been with someone like me, huh?”

You shake your head, swiping through his hair, spreading yourself wider for him. “Never.”

“I can tell,” he says, slipping his middle and ring finger into your entrance. “So fucking wet for me. I love it.” He pumps into you, curling his digits just right, resonating all the way down to your toes. His lips latch onto your clit, drinking you up to quench his insatiable thirst. 

“Hold these for me,” he says, guiding your fingers to your panties. “Want to stroke my cock while I eat this gorgeous pussy out.” You hear the unbuckling of his belt, the sound of him shoving his fist into his slacks to jerk off. The vibrations from his moans tickle your skin as he nuzzles himself deeper into your arousal, practically drowning in it, flattening his tongue to smear his warm saliva all over. You whine in ecstasy, heedless of attracting any neighboring attention to your explicit blubbering. 

“Come on my face,” he muffles, too busy lapping up your clit to pull away, fingers pumping in and out of you, shiny and sleek with your slick.

It doesn’t take much longer for you to reach your orgasm, pleasure jolting through your body while he works you until you’re overstimulated, twitching from the euphoria. He laughs softly, face glistening with your essence, taking a seat beside you. You watch him in a daze as he sticks his cum-coated fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean. “You want a taste, too?”

You nod, disoriented from your intense climax. He drags your bottom lip down using the pad of his thumb, mumbling, “Open.”

Obediently, you stick your tongue out for him, knowing fully well what he’s about to do. Your pussy throbs again, ready to be fucked for real by this provocative stranger you were so fortunate to meet tonight. 

He grazes your open tongue, then spits in your mouth. “Swallow,” he demands, voice husky with desire. You do, making sure to gulp loudly, incredibly aroused and needy for his cock. 

“Show me,” he whispers, opening his own mouth to mimic you. “Ah.”

You show him your tongue again, a dumb expression on your face while he inspects. Satisfied, he grunts, “Fuck, you’re bad. You’re a bad girl, aren’t you?” He reaches down to your soaked panties clinging to you. “Take these off.”

He slides out of his trousers, revealing briefs that barely conceal his obvious bulge. As you slip out of your underwear, he removes his, displaying his impressive cock. “You going to ride this cock now?”

Without a word, you nod. You’re already anticipating how fucking amazing he’s going to feel inside you. Your brain is jumbled with naughty thoughts of him taking you in all positions in every room of his apartment. 

There’s a hungry gleam in his eyes as he watches you mount him. You hoist your dress up, stripping it from your body. He unclasps your bra, baring your breasts to him while he still wears his dress shirt and tie. For some reason, you want him to keep it on. Get it nice and dirty with slick and sweat.

You reach behind you to position him at your entrance. Once aligned, you slowly sink onto his cock, allowing yourself a few seconds to adjust to his size. Given his stature, it’s not surprising how big he is, both in length and girth. When you bottom out, he lets out a raspy fuck, holding your ass to squeeze your plush cheeks. “I’m ready whenever you are, princess. Like I said, take what you need from me. Milk me dry. I know you want to.”

Spurred by his provocative encouragement, you ride him, rocking your hips back and forth onto his lap, gripping his cock tight with your wet cunt. Forehead pressed to his, lids closed, jaw hanging open, experiencing the best fuck of your life. With a brief glance, you catch him watching you, a similar dazed expression on his face. You bounce on him faster, his dick pounding into you over and over again, determined to feel every inch you possibly can. 

“Fuck, Kishibe, feels so fucking good,” you moan, directing his fingers down to your clit. “I want to come all over this cock. Make me come, Master.”

Bingo. His eyes widen as soon as it slips from your mouth. It’s the magic word. The trigger. 

Without hesitation, he brushes his thumb ruthlessly onto your swollen bud. “Say it again,” he demands, pressing it hard as he massages it, eyes wild with lust.

“Fuck, make me come, Master. Make me come.” You’re riding him so fucking good, couch creaking, clutching his shoulders tight, his carnal stare locked on your every movement. 

“Tell me when you’re close,” he growls.

“I’m close, I’m close!”

Suddenly, he pulls out, cock covered in your arousal, wet and stiff against his abdomen. Strings of slick cling to the hem of his dress shirt. You’re about ready to yell at him for teasing you. Before you can, he stands up, grabbing your wrist to lead you into the bedroom. His breathing is heavy as he points to the bed, hastily removing his clothes. “On your knees, ass up. I’m going to fuck you so good. Make you squirt all over my fucking sheets.”

The anger immediately subsides and you’re back to being eager again, knowing damn well that he means every fucking word he says. You do as he commands, wiggling your ass to entice him. He chuckles behind you. “I’m sorry for denying you earlier. I just really want to see this ass bounce on my cock like this.” He teases you with his tip, tapping your clit, sliding it along your pussy lips. 

“You’re not forgiven,” you pout, growing impatient. 

Placing a soft kiss on your lower back, he laughs again. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” 

If there’s one thing you’ve learned about this stranger you met mere hours ago, it’s that he is a man of his word. 

He guides his cock into you slowly, stretching you little by little until you’re squeezing him, his entire length inside you. “Look at you, sucking me in again like you were made for me.” He starts thrusting, holding you steady to penetrate you deeper. 

“So fucking good!” you cry out, fists bunched on his silky sheets, drool leaking from the corner of your mouth. 

“I know, princess. It’s amazing for me too.” His heavy balls slap your damp skin with every brutal thrust of his hips, fucking you hard, dipping into your sweet spot until you’re woozy with pleasure. “You take it so good. So fucking sexy.” He tightens his grip on you, increasing his pace. “So fucking beautiful.”

You throw your ass back, arching your spine to get the perfect angle. With your cheeks bouncing obscenely against his thighs, you beg, “Spank me, Master. Spank me like a bad girl.”

Not wasting a second, his rough palm connects with your ass, the loud smack ringing in your ears. He spanks you again and again, your pussy clenching him tighter while you continue to thrust back onto his cock. You’re about ready to burst, desperate to reach your second orgasm after being denied earlier. You play with your puffy clit, electricity rippling through your body upon contact. Whimpering, you rub your bud faster as he pounds into you, cursing under his breath. 

“Fuck,” he moans, staring at your ass jiggle after each fresh slap he delivers. “Come on my cock, princess. That’s it. Get it creamy. Just like that, fuck.”

Waves of pleasure sweep over you, the intensity of it causing you to tremble before him. In the midst of your climax, you plead for him to finish inside you, greedy for his cum. It doesn’t take long for him to fill you up, staying nestled deep in you as he releases his warm load, letting out a husky fuck.

He pulls out, his warm release leaking from your pussy, dripping onto his sheets. He ogles at the pornographic sight in front of him, pleased with himself.

“Like what you see?” you tease, lowering your torso and relaxing on the bed.

“You are a naughty, naughty girl,” he says, collapsing beside you. “Can’t believe I let you seduce me.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault? You were the one who offered to give me something good for my birthday.” 

He raises a brow at you. “Did I succeed?”

You gaze at him, properly examining his appearance. Scruffy facial hair, eyes that are perpetually tired, the striking scar aligned with his frown. You find yourself wondering what his story is; someone this fetching must have a story.  

“Considering the mess we made, I would say you exceeded my expectations.” You lay your palm on his firm chest, his now steady heartbeat lightly thumping against your fingertips.

“I’m glad to hear I wasn’t a disappointment.” He doesn’t take his gaze off you. Normally, you’d be intimidated by such intense eye contact. With him, it’s different. You feel safe. He places his hand on top of yours, rugged thumb gently caressing the skin of your knuckles. The two of you stay like this, enjoying each other’s presence in an easy silence. 

“We can’t do this again,” he mutters, finally looking away from you. He turns onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, your hand still snug under his.

“Why not?” The shift in energy surprises you. This is not the typical pillow talk you’re accustomed too. 

“I’ll keep wanting to see you if we keep this up,” he admits. Although it’s a sweet sentiment, he’s deciding to end it here and now, not even waiting until the morning like in a typical one-night-stand.

Matching his candid demeanor, you ask, “What’s wrong with wanting to see me again?” A strange feeling of unease swells in your chest, anxious for whatever truth he’s about to reveal. 

He takes a breath before explaining, “I’m a Devil Hunter. The best in the world. My job is very dangerous. A young woman like yourself shouldn’t get attached to me. My life is expendable.” He avoids you while he speaks, eyes laser focused on the ceiling, barely blinking. It’s as if he doesn’t want to say it; rather, it’s part of a script, forced to recite the lines like it’s standard procedure. How often has he had to deliver this sober spiel to his ex-lovers? You start to pity him, speculating how detached he must remain to the outside world strictly because of his risky profession. 

You continue to stare at him, letting the information sink it. The air is thick with a serious tension. It’s a sudden switch from the wild romp you just experienced. Choosing not to pester him further, you decide to lighten the mood. You scoot towards him, mouth skimming his ear, muttering, “Well, l didn’t really like you anyways.” The cold metal of his piercings contrast the soft warmth of your lips.

He turns to you again, the tension in his brows easing slowly as he gives you a small smirk. “Oh yeah?”

You nuzzle your nose against his. “Yeah.”

“Good. It’s better this way,” he says, planting a kiss on the forehead. 

Sighing, you ask, “Can I at least spend the night?” 

“Of course. I’ll even cook you breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean a cup of coffee with a splash of whiskey and a couple cigarettes,” you joke. 

He chuckles. “I’ll throw in some eggs for protein, does that work?”

“Sure. I’ll take whatever I can get, since this is the last time we’ll be seeing each other.” 

There’s a small smile on his lips as he gazes at you. A minute passes and he reaches for you, grazing your cheek delicately. You feel comfortable in bed with him. Protected. You snuggle into his chest, his arms wrapping you into a bear hug. Cozy in his embrace, you listen to his rhythmic breathing, lulling you to sleep.

~~~

In the morning, you wake up alone, tucked under the covers, clothed only in a dress shirt, barely buttoned. The bedroom door is wide open, the sound of a pan scraping on iron ringing in your ears and the inviting smell of food cooking wafting from the kitchen. 

You spot a pack of baby wipes on the drawer next to you, noticing that your body is fresh and clean, opposite the sticky mess you fell asleep to. Next to it is a brand-new toothbrush and toothpaste. With these items in hand, you tip-toe into the bathroom, appreciating his thoughtfulness.  

When you’re done, you study his bedroom for the first time, and probably last. There are no pictures hung anywhere, no personal touch to anything. Only small traces of a man whose entire existence is his job. Several ties scattered on his dresser next to a metal flask. A mini calendar on his nightstand with random scribblings of future work commitments. Hamper in the corner of the room, filled to the brim with white dress shirts, black slacks, and a couple of mismatched argyle socks. You’re slightly tempted to investigate some drawers to see the type of weapons a Devil Hunter of his caliber carries, but you don’t.

You lean against the doorframe, watching him in the kitchen. He’s in a plain white t-shirt with navy-blue pajama pants. As promised, he is cooking a batch of scrambled eggs over the stove, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, spatula in the other. Looking domestic and sexy as hell. His words replay in your mind. You shouldn’t get attached to someone like me. You almost regret sleeping with him, knowing you’ll miss him after you leave. 

Quietly, you stroll towards him until he notices you. When he does, he takes a sip of coffee and mutters, “Morning, princess.” 

Positioned behind him, you wrap your arms around his waist, raising your heels to place a gentle kiss on the back of his neck. It’s only now that you realize how much taller he is than you. “Good morning, handsome. This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I told you I’d cook you breakfast, didn’t I?” He cranes his neck to face you, smirking. 

“You did. I’m pleased to see you keep your promise,” you tell him, resting your cheek on his back. “You’re truly a man of your word. I think that deserves a reward.” You slide your thumbs under the waistband of his pajama bottoms, teasing him. 

“If you tempt me, you won’t be able to taste this delicious meal I prepared for you,” he comments, setting his coffee mug down the counter and turning off the burner. His hand covers yours, maneuvering it over the growing bulge in his pants. 

“Maybe I’m craving something else for breakfast.” You start palming his erection, suddenly hungry for him rather than the food. 

He turns to face you, looking at you up and down in his dress shirt, your legs clenched together to hide your arousal. Still smirking, he says, “You’re making this much harder than it needs to be.” He slowly pushes you against the counter, running his fingers up your inner thigh, spreading your legs to expose your wet cunt. 

You moan, anticipating another round of intense fucking, this time in his kitchen. It makes you want to christen every part of his apartment. 

“How are you this fucking wet for me already?” He whispers, rubbing his thumb on your throbbing clit. “You’re so sexy, it’s driving me insane.”

“Kishibe,” you breath out, struggling to steady yourself. “Fuck.”

“I got you. Get on the counter for me, princess. Spread those legs so I can lick that pussy clean.” 

With his hands on your waist guiding you, you hop up, opening wide for him. Knees bent and body folded forward, he starts licking your clit, palming his erection through his pants. You come within minutes, gushing over his tongue as it glides along your slit, nose digging firmly onto your swollen bud. 

“Fuck me, Kishibe. Want that big cock inside me. Want you to fill me up again with your cum.” You hop back down, turning around and lifting the hem of the dress shirt past your ass, ready to get railed right there on the countertop.

“Not like this,” he murmurs, kissing you on the cheek. “Wait for me in my room. We’re going to have breakfast in bed together.”

Minutes later, a tray with a plate full of eggs, toast, and bacon set on top is temporarily forgotten as the two of you fuck on the other side of the bed. Him sitting up, back pressed to the headboard, you riding him until he spills inside you, causing you to orgasm again all over him. 

You slump forward, resting your head on his shoulder, tired and satiated from another amazing fuck. Attempting to slide off him, he kisses you on the lips, his grip firm on your waist, unyielding. “Keep my cock inside you. Can you do that for me?” 

In your blissful state, all you can do is nod, getting comfortable on his lap. He reaches for a slice of bacon on the tray, letting you take the first bites before he finishes it, doing the same for a piece of buttered toast. He feeds you forkfuls of scrambled eggs, using the same utensil for himself. It’s pleasantly intimate for two people who just met. Playing the role of a long-term couple, indulging in simple delights together, like breakfast in bed.

Plate cleared, both your bellies full of nourishment, you stay in this position, kissing each other leisurely, no rush to separate. He whispers your name, fondling your breasts through the fabric of his dress shirt that you’ve made yours. He repeats it a few more times, relishing how it feels on his lips before he never has to utter it again. 

It’s bittersweet, knowing it’s ending as soon as it begun. You have no reason to be so smitten with him. You’re two people who hardly know each other. Still, you find yourself not wanting to say goodbye yet. Something’s there. A tiny spark flickering in the distance. Maybe you’re one of many women he’s done this with before. Maybe you’re nothing special. But in this fleeting moment, you let yourself believe it’s real.

The two of you reluctantly part after an especially long, passionate kiss. You dismount him, grabbing the wipes to clean up the mess that was made earlier. He gives you a smooch on the forehead before getting out of bed to exit the room, returning in less than a minute to hand you your outfit from last night. You briefly recall carelessly discarding it all over his living room floor right before you pounced on him. Is it too soon to consider that a fond memory? It hasn’t even been 24 hours and you’re reminiscing about him already. 

He leaves you alone in the bedroom to change. Before you undress, you bring the sleeves of the shirt to your nose and inhale deeply, memorizing his scent. You almost want to keep this shirt as proof that this happened. That Kishibe is real.

Back in your black dress, you sit at the edge of the bed, waiting for his return. When he walks in, he points at the sash and tiara next to you on the bed. “You’re not going to wear that?”

Shrugging, you respond, “It’s no longer my birthday, so it feels silly wearing it. Just toss it.”

You check your phone, estimating the time of arrival for the ride you requested. Any minute now, they’ll be here, ending your short-lived tryst. He offers to drop you off, but you refuse, not bothering to explain that doing that will result in you dragging him into your own apartment and keeping him a willing hostage for another few hours. It’ll only make it more difficult to not get attached. He doesn’t question it, probably understanding this himself. 

The ping from the app chimes through your phone. You stand up, smiling at him, swinging your purse over your shoulder. “That’s my ride.”

He walks you to the door, waiting for you to strap on your heels. Once they’re on, you smile. “I guess this is it. Thank you for a fun night.”

“Thank you too. This was fun.” It could be wishful thinking, but you hear a waver in his voice. Is he a little bit sad too?

You face the door, ready to turn the knob, when you feel his grip on your wrist. He spins you towards him, kissing you feverishly, his hand caressing your cheek, the other behind your neck. Yearning for one more moment of intimacy with you. He breaks away, resting his forehead against yours, eyes shut as he says goodbye with one last whisper of your name. You avoid his gaze as you exit, walking out of his life.

It’s better this way. 

[brownbearwrites]

clean laundry | Carl Grimes

carl grimes x reader

warnings: angsty fluff, carl talks about lori. this is the first ever fic i've written for carl, so my characterization of him might be a little off!

You let out a content sigh at the feeling of soft cotton fabric slipping over your arms and torso, the clean scent of freshly washed laundry filling your senses. Alexandria was like a dream come true. After spending weeks on end on the road, not knowing if or when you’d next find clean water, something as simple as clean clothes felt luxurious to you. You’d been here for almost two weeks now, and still, you sometimes struggled to believe that this was all real. That you were actually able to take warm showers, sleep in a plush bed, and cook on a stove. That you could rest. Of course, you never knew how much longer this would all last; that threat always seemed to loom over you. Even so, you were hell-bent on enjoying life in Alexandria for as long as you possibly could.

Behind you, the door to your bedroom creaks open, interrupting your moment of peace. You turn your head, Carl’s eyes meeting yours from where he’s perched against your door frame.

“Hi,” he says, cracking a smile you can’t help but return.

You reciprocate his greeting, beckoning him into the room with a wave of your hand. “Weren’t you supposed to be watching after Judith?” you ask him.

Carl shakes his head no as he unceremoniously throws himself down onto your bed, “Michonne finished her watch early, so she came to take over from me. I thought I might as well come over and see you”.

“How sweet of you,” you respond, turning to face him. Carl reaches out to you, his hand resting at the juncture of where your calve and thigh meet. His thumb rubs the exposed skin below your shorts, his touch soft and gentle. He carefully tugs you towards him, and you easily allow yourself to be pulled down to sit down on the bed next to him. You brush some stray hairs away from where they were obscuring his eyes, tucking them behind his ears.

“Jessie has been trying to convince me to cut it off,” he confesses to you. You see the uneasiness on his face clear as day. Sometimes Carl was like an open book, you thought. It was just always so easy to figure out exactly what he was thinking. Or, more likely, you just knew him a little too well.

You shake your head, your hands inching up to stroke through your boyfriend’s brown locks, “You don’t have to cut it if you don’t want to, you know? She can’t make you”. You smile at him, leaning down to kiss him, “I think the long hair looks good on you, anyway”.

Carl laughs, his arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you toward him. You give in, letting your body slot against his, and your head coming down to rest on his chest. Like this, you can hear the gentle thumping of his heartbeat. For a while, neither one of you speak. The only sounds in the room are your soft breaths and the distant voices that drift in from outside through the open window. You allow your eyelids to slip shut, fully enjoying the peace of this moment.

Below you, Carl takes in a shaky breath. “It reminds me of my mom,” he softly tells you.

You let out an inquisitive hum, giving him the freedom to elaborate.

“She cut my hair for me back at the quarry. It was right after my dad found us again, remember?” he says, waiting for you to nod before continuing, “she used to do that for me all the time, even before all the walkers and stuff. She’d sit me down on the porch steps and just start chopping away at me. I used to hate it”.

You laugh, finding it surprisingly easy to imagine Lori struggling to keep a tiny Carl sitting still for long enough to finish a haircut.

“It’s just—”, he continues, his voice heavy with unshed tears, “It’s just that she told me that, one day, I’d be wishing that she could cut my hair for me again. And she was right”.

His arms wrap around you tighter, and you feel him shake with the effort it takes to not cry. You allow him his comfort for a bit, not daring to move except for where your hand has come up to rub his arm through the worn fabric of his shirt. You’re well aware of the fact that Carl hates it when people see him cry. You know that it makes him feel weak and vulnerable. Still, when you begin to hear the sobs rack through his body, you cannot help but untangle yourself from his arms so that you can sit up straight. You swing your leg over his hip, now sitting down on his lap. You lean your head down to meet his, your foreheads resting against one another. Carefully, you wipe the tears away from where they have begun to run down his flushed red cheeks.

“You’re allowed to miss her,” you softly say, “and you’re allowed to grieve her. But please, talk to me about it. You can’t keep pushing it all down until it explodes out of you. You’ll just hurt yourself doing that. You can share your pain with me, I’m here for you”.

At this point, Carl’s breathing has evened out a little. He shoots you a watery smile, leaning up to kiss you deeply and full of emotion. “You’re right,” he gives in, “I’ll be better. I’ll try”.

The smile you give him is warm, and full of love. You lay yourself down again, once more pressing the full weight of your body down onto Carl. You know that there is still a long way to go. But, with Carl’s steady heartbeat in your ear, his warm body pressed against yours, and the smell of clean laundry still wafting through the room, you allow yourself the benefit of the doubt. You’ll be okay. Both of you will be.

[firstdivisiongirl]

Mitsuya x Fem Reader: Trust in Some

@yv1-chxn asked: CAN YOU MAKE A MITSUYA X FEM READER THAT HAS ISSUES? LIKE, ANGER ISSUES, TRUST ISSUES OR JEALOUSY ISSUES AND THERE'S MITSUYA WHO IS REALLY UNDERSTANDING PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU. Hi! Thank you so much for the requests. You are actually my first requests on here. Mitsuya is one of my favorites so I’m happy to do it. I decided to do trust issues. Hope you enjoy!!!

You had a hard time trusting people.  It all started when you were a kid and your dad went to work and never came home.  And it only got worse when your last boyfriend cheated on you with your best friend.  When you and Mitsuya started dating, you thought you’d get over all of these trust issues.  Mitsuya was an amazing guy.  He made you feel like the only girl in the world.  Yet here you were, sneaking around with Hakkai.  “I told you he’s not cheating on you,” he said exhausted, “he doesn’t have a secret girlfriend.  Now let’s go.”

“No,” you exclaimed and whispered, “I don’t believe you!”

“Trust me.  All he talks about is you all the time.  I could write your biography.”

You took your attention away from your conversation, just to see exactly what you hoped not to see.  A girl walked up to him.  She had a short blush pink haircut with bangs.  She was really cute, of course he’d cheat on me with her you thought.

You ran out from your hiding spot, snout and tears running down your face.  “Mitsuya,” you cried, “I should have known you’d cheat on me.”

“Sweetheart.  This is Hina” he said, gesturing to the girl next to him who gave a friendly smile.

Your head was spinning.  You felt so dumb.  He loved her and you’d never be good enough for him.  Just like how you weren’t good enough for your dad or ex boyfriend.  The tears came out harder.  You ran away, afraid that Mitsuya would break up with you.

After running for a while, you ended up in the park.  You sat down on the plush grass.  You looked out at all the happy people, wishing you were them right now.  

“You okay?” he asked, sitting down next to you.

“No,” you answered, too ashamed to look at him.

“Hina is just a friend.  I don’t even find her attractive.  The only reason she came with me was because I needed help with something.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“I’ve been so indecisive about an anniversary gift for you.  I needed her help, so she said she’d help.  Come on, let’s go to my place.  You can play with Luna and Mana, while I finish it.  Then I’ll show you.”

You went home with him feeling a little better.  You played with Luna and Mana while Mitsuya was busy working on your gift in his room.  After about an hour, he came out, holding something.

“Happy Anniversary Y/N!  I know I'm technically a few days early, but I felt bad for making you think I didn’t love you.  So, here it is,” he said, handing you a denim jacket with lots of different patches, “I knew you loved this jacket and I felt bad it was falling apart, so I fixed and customized it so you never have to get rid of it.”

You looked at your jacket, it had all these patches in lavender and gray patterns where the holes used to be.  But you noticed the left pocket had embroidery on it.  It was a gray outlined heart with his initials and yours inside it in lavender thread.  “You embroidered it with our initials?” you asked, staring at it.

“Yeah, that’s why I asked Hina to come with me.  I didn’t know what color to use.  I asked Luna and Mana, but they both said hot pink, but you don’t like pink.  Hina suggested I use both, hence the gray heart and lavender writing.”

You kissed him passionately as a thank you for the gift.  After a few seconds you broke apart, resting your foreheads against each other’s.  “Thank you,” you said with tears welling in your eyes, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.  I’m sorry I’m like this.”

“Don’t apologize.  I understand.  I’d never ask you to change because I love you for you.” He kissed you passionately again.  It might still be hard for you to fully trust people, but this moment showed you that maybe some people you could fully trust.  And Mitsuya was definitely one of them.

Please do not copy, modify, translate or repost my writing on other platforms. Comments, reblogs and likes are highly appreciated!

[desultory-novice]

"Brightest Star"

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Dumb, boring stuff like die where you'll never find me...

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[Apologies AU]  “Apologies”  “One Sneeze”  “Summer”  “A Walk in the Snow”  “The Swordsman” “Wonderful Gift” "Damnation" "Salvation" "Unstoppable" "Brightest Star" [You Are Here]

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[Apologies AU Masterpost]

[Next] “Sibling Reunion”

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...

It's done. To be honest, with this, Apologies would normally be complete. The tragic story of the death of Adeleine's brother and the birth of Dark Matter Swordsman has been told.

...But you guys asked me a bunch of questions early on like "What about Gooey?" and "Does Adeleine ever reunite with Noir after his transformation?" and also tearfully begged me to give the siblings a happy ending so there is, in fact, more to the story!

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THAT SAID... I put a lot of things aside to focus on finishing these last three comics in good time and I am completely SPENT! Thus, I'm announcing a) that Apologies is going on semi-hiatus and b) when it comes back, it's probably going to look... a lot sketchier.

I used this comic series to practice my inking and other skills but now that I've proven I can do it I'd like to not have to break my wrists worrying about that and focus on just finishing it up.

PS: If you think panel six looks familiar...you're right!

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......Btw, if the hiatus goes on too long or I decide I'm just not feeling up to finishing this story in comic form, I will drop the rest of the script in a document just so the story isn't left on a cliffhanger!

There are some good parts coming up though (and a gimmick I specifically want to try out) so I do want to give it a shot~

I also have a "cheat" happy ending in hand that is much, much shorter than the original ending that I can provide in such circumstances. (And might draw anyway because it's a little fun!)

[jpmarvel90]

PR Relationship

Masterlist Scarlett Masterlist

Word Count: 3110

Relationship: Scarlett x Singer Reader

Summary: Y/n and Scarlett are in love with each other and have a secret relationship that only a select few know about. Things change when Y/n finds out that Scarlett may have her eyes on someone else.

(I do not own the rights to the lyrics, I just think this sounds fits the story perfectly. It’s Secret Love Song by Little Mix.)

Y/N’s POV:

For the last 3 months, I have been dating the beautiful Scarlett Johansson. However, as she hasn’t come out yet, it was a complete secret with only Lizzie Olsen knowing the truth. At first it didn’t bother me at all. It was exciting. The sneaking around was fun and trying to sneak dates and kisses without being caught was exhilarating. But the last couple of weeks have started to get tiring. If ever I stay over, she’s kicking me out at like 5am so I don’t get caught by the paps, we never travel anywhere together and I’ve lost count of the amount of times she’s totally changed her demeanour around me because someone has walked by us.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that Scarlett is scared of coming out. I’ve already done that and it wasn’t easy. I would never push her to do anything she’s uncomfortable with. But it’s starting to hurt, it feels more like she’s hiding me rather than protecting herself. Thing is, I love her and I’m willing to wait for her. Which is the problem, I’m scared this might break me.

So here I am, 4:30 in the morning tiptoeing around her bedroom getting ready to sneak out. I don’t want to wake her, she’s been so busy at work she deserves a good rest. I throw on some sweatpants and a hoody whilst picking up my underwear from the floor after last night’s activities. I leave a gentle kiss on Scarlett’s forehead before slipping out of the house, unheard, into the early morning.

As I’m sat in my car I can feel the exhaustion seeping through my body. I had been spending most nights at Scar’s which meant I was only getting a few hours sleep and it was starting to catch up with me. I’ve got to be at the studio at 8am so I decide there is no point in heading home. Instead I make my way to the beach to watch the sunrise and go for a swim. There’s no better way to start my day. Well other than getting to sleep in my girlfriends arms past 5!

I get to the studio early and I start having all of these thoughts in my head which I start to collate and write down. Lyrics forming as I write. I’ve not felt this inspired for a long time

We keep behind closed doors

Every time I see you, I die a little more

Stolen moments that we steal as the curtain falls

It'll never be enough

It’s not until I start to pull the lyrics together that I realise how much this whole situation is hurting me. By the end of the day it’s all starting to come together, the quickest that I have ever written a song. My team love it and are already planning for me to sing it on Jimmy Kimmel. I push back though. It’s not fair to Scarlett to hear about my feelings through an interview. But writing the song has helped, I’m feeling better already.

As I get into the car I check my phone. I’ve not spoken with Scarlett all day. That’s not unusual as for us though. But a smile forms on my face when I see a message from her.

Scarlett:

Hey Babe, thanks for this morning. I really needed that sleep. I know you’re in the studio all day so can’t talk. I’m working late but perhaps you could come over tomorrow? Love you xx

Me:

Hey Scar, no problem, you need your sleep! Tomorrow would be great. Love you too xx

The next evening I’m sat on the sofa in Scarlett’s living room her legs draped over mine as we watch TV. She has her laptop resting on her legs finishing up the last bit of work before she’s done for the day. I’m just sat scrolling through my phone when I seeing articles popping up about Scarlett and her new partner. We’d been so careful to not been seen together in more than a friendly capacity. In fact, by the way we act in public you wouldn’t think we were that close as friends.

But then my heart stops, the articles aren’t referring to me but Chris Evans. What the fuck?! I can feel my heart beating faster like it’s going to beat out of my chest. Then I click on one article, “Co-Stars Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans spotting kissing on a dinner date.” A photo accompanying it. That was yesterday! I sit up with a jolt feeling like I was going to be sick. My God she’s cheating on me and she’s not even trying to hide it!

“Hey what’s wrong Babe, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Scarlett says concerned looking over her laptop to me. I try to speak but I can’t form words. I can see her starting to get worried as she puts her laptop down on the table and goes to put her arm on my back. I’m quick to pull away and just throw my phone in her direction. She looks at the screen and her eyes grow wide.

“Y/N this isn’t what it looks like, I swear. Please..” Running my hands through my hair I stand up not even able to sit next to her. “I mean it looks like you’ve got your tongue down Evans’ throat. Not sure what else it could look like Scarlett!” I say coldly trying so hard not to yell. “Is this why you hid me? Not wanting anyone to know. Am I the dirty little secret to keep until you have Evans?” Pacing round the room I can feel my chest get tighter and my breathing becoming erratic.

“NO! I’m not cheating on you Y/N, I love you!” “THEN WHAT IS THIS!” So much for not shouting. I can feel my heart breaking in two. “Please just let me explain. With the new Avengers movie coming out our teams thought it would be good PR if we got some rumours going about being in a relationship. We had lunch and dinner dates here and there making sure to look like a couple for the paparazzi. I promise you Y/N there is nothing going on.”

I immediately stop my pacing, turning to her in disbelief. “So you can’t tell anyone about me, but you’re happy to go along with a fake relationship for you movie. Great, good to know where I sit in your priorities. Did you even consider telling me, it’s weird but I would have understood? Instead I find out by finding a picture of you kissing!” I can’t stop the tears anymore, but I won’t let her see me sob.

“Y/N please…” Scarlett grabs my hands trying to get me to look at her. “I-I can’t do this anymore.” I whisper pulling my hands away. “Wait, what do you mean? Y/N?” she says in a scared tone. “I’ve spent the last 3 months doing everything you ever asked. I never pushed for you to do anything you were uncomfortable with, even if it was at a detriment to me. I was waiting for you to be happy in yourself that you could share us with the world. I have always put your first. I knew this could break me and it has. I need to put myself first this time as it’s evident you won’t.” Turning my back on her I grab my things and walk towards her door.

I can hear her running up behind me and she grabs my shoulders spinning me around. “No, you can’t go. I’m so sorry Y/N, I love you, please you can’t leave me. Don’t go we can work this out.” Looking in her eyes I can see the pain. Her cheeks are stained with tears. “We don’t need to work anything out Scar, you do. I just hope you find happiness one day without having to hide yourself way.” With that I walk out, my heart tearing from my chest. A part of me just wishing that one day she might be ready for this relationship as a whole.

Scarlett’s POV:

I had really fucked this up. I hadn’t slept for days and had shut myself away, calling in sick to work to avoid seeing anyone. I had never felt pain like this. Y/N was my world. I love her with all my heart. I had always intended to tell the everyone but it just felt too hard and she was so great at giving me time. But this PR relationship with Chris was by far the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. This isn’t me, I don’t intentionally hurt people but it feels like I did with Y/N.

Whilst in my cave of self-pity and depression I hear banging on the door. Dragging myself up I find an angry Lizzie stood there with her Wanda head tilt. Shit that’s terrifying! “What the fuck Scar?!” She huffs pushing herself into my house. “Well hello to you too Lizzie” I half chuckle. “You broke her when all she has ever done is put your first. I warned you that you needed to be honest with yourself or you’ll lose her.” She’s angry but her tone softens when she sees the state I’m in. “Geeze Scar when was the last time you slept?” She said pulling me in for a hug. “I can’t sleep without her.” I whisper tears starting to form in my eyes.

We move to the sofa and she takes my hands in hers. “From what I hear, Y/N didn’t get much sleep with you. Staying up til God knows when with you then being kicked out at 5am. Did you not notice how tired she’d been?” I just shake my head in shame. “I’ve screwed up Lizzie and I don’t know how to get her back. I’ve told my team I won’t go ahead with the fake relationship anymore but I know I need to do so much more than that to show her I’m in this for the long run.” I don’t dare even speak that I’m terrified that I’ve lost her forever, in fear that speaking it will make it true.

“Scarlett, you need to decide what scares you the most. Coming out and fearing people will see you differently, or losing Y/N, the woman you are madly in love with, for good. Just don’t take too long in making that decision or it could be too late.” She pulls me into a hug and we lie together on the sofa. “I miss her Lizzie” I sniffle. “Well, she’s performing on Jimmy Kimmel. How about we watch that?” I nod and she grabs the remote switching over to her performance.

Y/N’s Performance:

Jimmy: Performing her latest single, please welcome to the stage, Y/N Y/L/N!

The lights dim with a sole spotlight shining on Y/N who is sat at a piano. She starts to play as the notes ring out through the studio.

We keep behind closed doors

Every time I see you, I die a little more

Stolen moments that we steal as the curtain falls

It'll never be enough

As you drive me to my house

I can't stop these silent tears from rolling down

You and I both have to hide

On the outside where I can't be yours and you

Can't be mine

But I know this

We got a love that is homeless

Why can't I hold you in the street?

Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't it be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

Why can't I say that I'm in love?

I wanna shout it from the rooftops

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't it be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

It's obvious you're meant for me

Every piece of you, it just fits perfectly

Every second, every thought, I'm in so deep

But I'll never show it on my face

But we know this, we got a love that is homeless

Why can't you hold me in the street?

Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't we be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

Why can't I say that I'm in love?

I wanna shout it from the rooftops

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't we be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

I don't wanna live love this way

I don't wanna hide us away

I wonder if it ever will change

I'm living for that day

Someday

When you hold me in the street

And you kiss me on the dance floor

I wish that we could be like that

Why can't we be like that

'Cause I'm yours, I'm yours

Oh, why can't you hold me in the street?

Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't it be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

Why can't I say that I'm in love?

I wanna shout it from the rooftops

I wish that it could be like that

Why can't we be like that?

'Cause I'm yours

Why can't we be like that

Wish we could be like that

The lights faded as the camera zoomed in close enough to see that Y/N was crying before the stage went dark and the audience erupt in applause.

Scarlett’s POV:

Lizzie and I just sat there in silence. I could hear the pain in her voice and it hurt me to know that it was me that caused it. I was pulled out of my trance by Lizzie squeezing me into a tight hug whispering in my ear. “If this didn’t help you decide then I don’t know what will.” She was right, the only person who I care about is Y/N. I’m not scared anymore. I’m going to win her back.

I’m up all night with Lizzie working a way out that I can come out and show my love for Y/N. An Instagram post didn’t seem like enough and a press release was too impersonal. It needed to be something special, and that’s when Lizzie came up with a risky but perfect plan. I just hope that she could forgive me and we can start out lives together a fresh.

Timeskip

It was a week later and here I am sat in the back of Y/N’s limo. She just doesn’t know it. It’s the night of the Grammy’s and Y/N is up for an award. I’m so proud of her and it’s time to show her that she is my number one priority. Lizzie’s grand plan so far had worked. We spoke with Y/N’s team and I explained the whole situation. Her manager was surprisingly nice about and said that it explained a lot about her behaviour recently. She had agreed to arrange a secret plus one for Y/N. I would wait in her car to surprise to walk down the red carpet with her, as her girlfriend. I just hoped she wouldn’t kick me out on the curb.

My heart rate starts to pick up as I hear her talking as she walk towards the car. God I’ve missed that voice. The car door opens and she gets in letting out a slight sigh as she sits. It takes her a moment before she notices me sat there with a nervous smile on my face and she jumps “Jesus Scar, you scared the shit out of me.” We both let out an awkward chuckle. “What are you doing here?” She asks not quite able to maintain the eye contact. This is it, the moment I win my girl back.

I put my finger under her chin and lift it so she’s looking at me. My God she is breathtakingly beautiful! I then take both of her hands in mine taking a deep breath “Y/N. Since the day I met you, I knew I was going to fall madly in love with you. Every day I spent with you I fell more and more in love. No one has ever made me as happy as you do. I know it’s only been 3 months but I know you are the women I want to spend the rest of my life with. I screwed up, I know I can’t take that back. I was so paralysed with fear about coming out and people’s reaction to it, that I didn’t think about you and our relationship. I just let you carry on making the sacrifices for me. But today that changes. I love you with all my heart and I’m not prepared to lose you again. I am so fucking proud of what you have achieve this last year. You deserve everything you are going to get tonight. And…. If you’ll have me… I want to be there for you every step of the way. No more hiding. I want to walk down that red carpet on your arm as your proud girlfriend. And then I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you.”

There is a long silence as her eyes flicker between my own trying to get a read of me. I hope she can see how sincere I’m being, that I mean every word that I’m saying. “Don’t hurt me again. I don’t think I can survive if you do.” She whispers. The biggest smile appears on my face as I reach up and put my hand to her cheek wiping away the stray tear. “I promise I won’t. Can I kiss you?” I ask. “You never have to ask Scar.” And with that I pull her into a passionate kiss. I have missed her lips connecting with mine. It makes me feel complete. “You look absolutely beautiful Y/N. I’m so glad I get to call you mine.” She laughs and pulls me in for another soft kiss.

As we pull up to the venue Y/N grabs my hand. “Are you sure Scar? I don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret.” I look at her and smile. “The only regret I have is not telling the world how much I love you sooner. Let’s do this.” The fear is gone, I’m only excited now. As the door to the limo opens, I see the start of our new life together.  

[messedupfan]

Chapter 3

Summary: Wanda gets help watching the boys from her mom. Y/n walks into a surprise when helping your friend.

A/N: Hello! Hope all is well and as always, enjoy! ALSO SPEAK NOW TV IS OUT!!! jhgefhjeghjgfe

Masterlist | All Chapters | All Stories Taglist

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Summers made working from home the most difficult. Wanda could hardly concentrate on her work before one of her boys started complaining about being hungry or getting bored or asking to go to a friend's house, etc. She sometimes wishes that she could have sent them to a camp but Vision was against it because he wanted them at his house during his weeks since he had the time off as well. She knows that she would have missed them terribly as well which is why she was okay with dropping the subject then. But now that she was dangerously close to her deadline without even being close to a finished product, she thought she might go insane on her boys. 

That's when she calls her mom in for back up. Then instantly regrets it as soon as she sees the hole in the house. “Honey! What happened here?” 

“My marriage fell apart,” Wanda says simply as she rushes to her office. “Pietro is going to fix it, don't worry!” She shouts from the stairs so she can get to work before her mom can catch her in a lecture. The woman shakes her head and makes her way to the kitchen to start lunch for the boys and her daughter. She comes over consistently for the rest of the week to help with house chores, breakfast and lunch, and entertain her grandsons. 

Wanda is grateful for her mother's assistance and is able to get a decent design for pitch at the end of the month and start a few backup ideas. She likes to over prepare. She was even able to complete a budget report and the booklets for the investors by the start of the weekend. Wanda feels bad that she had to prioritize work over her kids but her mother reminds her that she was doing this work for them. That she needs to provide for them. Besides, Wanda was still cooking dinners with Tommy and Billy as well as watching movies every night before bed. Though, it was getting a little tense between the two boys with different interests. 

On Saturday morning, Pietro arrives with his sleepy daughter and Wanda tries to hold in her laughter as she helps the little girl to her bedroom so she can rest. “You’re here early,” Wanda says as she returns downstairs. 

“Mom called me last night. Told me that I should have started the minute I found out. Thank you for that by the way,” Pietro says as he drops some material on the ground. He had pushed some furniture around while she was helping his daughter. “Unfortunately for Luna, she still wanted to come with me. I told her last night we’d be here at six am sharp. She said she was fine with it until I actually had to wake her up. But,” he shakes his head in amusement, “she still wanted to come here.” 

Wanda crosses her arms and leans against the wall. “She loves her cousins,” she yawns. 

“That she does,” Pietro stares at his tools. “Can I tell you something that you can't tell anyone?” Wanda confirms that her brother can confide in her. “Crystalia and I are considering trying for another. She could use a sibling, you know?”

“Oh, Pietro, that's wonderful news!” Wanda congratulates her brother. 

“Thank you, but please, don't tell mom. She'll call about positions and give other advice that I do not need to hear again,” he says recalling the conversation he overheard his mom and sister having a few years ago. Wanda cringes at the memory herself. 

“I’ll spare you, don't worry,” she says. “I’m going to start some coffee, do you want any?”

“Yes please,” he rolls out the plans Wanda had sent to him. 

You are knocking on Jean's door as you check the time again to make sure that you aren't running late. Your friend asked you to be at the location by noon and he sent you the address this morning. From what you saw from the images online, the place looked nice enough. You wondered why it needed altering at all but remember that he said there was an accident that led to this alteration. 

The door opens and it's Anna, Jean's wife. “She’s almost ready, you're welcome to wait in the living room,” she says kindly. 

“Thank you,” you step inside. It never gets easier walking into this house even though it's been years since you've lived here. It was a gift from both your family and Jean's when the two of you got married. Because the two of you were so young, neither of you cared about a wedding. In fact, the two of you were engaged for less than a week when you drove off to a cheap chapel and eloped. Both of your families were upset because they wanted to be part of the wedding process but were still happy the two of you decided to tie the knot. And since there was some money being saved for future weddings and college funds, that at the time weren't going to be used, they pooled together that money and surprised you and Jean with this house. 

It was a fixer upper for sure and you worked on it every weekend until you were twenty-two. When you and Jean got divorced. You paid for every repair and upgrade with the tips you got bartending and any extra scraps from the job sites that your foreman approved for you to take. You still did repairs for the house here and there whenever they needed it and couldn't afford to hire someone. But, it was no longer your house and with how much time and money you put into the place, it was the hardest part of the marriage to let go of. 

You bounce your leg anxiously as you wait for your daughter to come out of her room. “Can I get you anything?” Anna asks before she enters the kitchen. “You seem a little anxious.”

“No, thank you,” you politely decline. “I’m doing a favor for my boss and I just want to do a good job and make a good impression,” you admit. “Plus, his sister is apparently some great architect and she could be a great connection but you know how I get around new people.” 

Anna nods, ignoring your words and listening to your body instead. “I’m making you some tea. It can help soothe your nerves so that you're not this loud jumbled energy. Your whole aura is a mess and it won't help you make a good impression.” She disappears in the kitchen before you can decline the beverage again. 

“Hey, babe! Who was at the- oh! It was you,” Jean says as she enters the living room space. “She’s almost ready,” she remarks about your daughter. “She’s a little nervous about all of the new friends she's going to make. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about it but these kids are going to be nice to her right?” 

“Yeah, yeah, well,” you pause. “I hope so. But they're not all new to her. She's met Luna a few times and they get along great.  He said her cousins are sweet boys, closer to Rachel’s age. Besides, they'll have parental supervision and I'll be nearby the whole time.” You assure the mother of your child. 

“Okay,” she takes a relaxing breath as she joins you on the sofa. “That makes me feel better. Where's Anna?” 

“Making me a tea,” you say and lean in close. “Apparently my aura is a mess,” you say in a manner that lets Jean know that you find her wife's assessment of you ridiculous. Jean laughs at your silliness. 

“You’re a jerk, she's only trying to help,” Jean defends. 

You lean back with your hands up in surrender, “I never said I wasn't grateful. I am going to chug that tea, I promise. Scouts honor.” 

Jean rolls her eyes, “You were never a scout.” 

“That’s because I was corrupted by your bad influence,” you retort playfully. 

“Oh whatever, if I remember correctly, you were the one pulling all of the crazy stunts. I never did anything. I was an innocent bystander,” Jean points out. 

You laugh at the flood of childhood memories that you and Jean share. She wasn't wrong, you were constantly getting into trouble as kids. Only because you were trying to impress her and maintain her attention. No matter what the cost was. It was amazing that the two of you were still alive today. “Okay, that's fair,” you say as Anna returns with a thermos for you. “Oh cool, thank you. I'll bring this back to y'all next weekend.”

“No problem,” she sits next to Jean and throws her arm around the woman. Jean falls comfortably against her wife and the two share a sweet smile with each other. You look away from them as you feel longing for a relationship again. Not with Jean, of course. The two of you didn't have what she had found with Anna. But you want that with someone. To have the close connection these two have. It was difficult dating as a single parent at twenty-seven. Not everyone was understanding that Jean and you are better off friends and maintain a healthy relationship. Many situationships fail because your best stories involve your best friend, who happens to be your ex-wife. Another relationship killer is surprisingly that your daughter is always going to be your number one priority. Always. 

Luckily, your daughter comes into the room and hops on your lap as she happily greets you. Clearing your mind of any thought of loneliness. “Hey, pumpkin! Are you ready to go?”

“Hmm,” she looks at you nervously and then to her mom's. They are worried about her as much as you are. She doesn’t have many friends due to her social awkwardness. You jokingly claim she inherited it from her mother but you both know it was from you. “Is Luna really there?” she asks. You shift around to grab your phone and pull up your conversation with Pietro and find the picture he sent of Luna with her cousins and show it to her. “Oh! I know those boys! They go to my school,” she says excitedly which lets you know that is a good thing. “They were in my class last year!” She hops off of you and straightens her outfit out,“Okay, I'm ready.” Jean, Anna, and you laugh as her tone has changed so fast. 

“Alright, I’ll see the two of you next Saturday,” you say as you get up and follow your daughter. The two of you jam out to whatever pop artist that has her interest at the moment. You couldn’t keep up with her and the stuff she likes. Songs were simple enough to catch on with the lyrics and it amuses her when you get them very very wrong. 

When you arrive at the house, you see that Pietro has made a lot of progress on his own and torn up most of the wall from the outside. As you park, you receive a text from Wanda asking if the two of you were still on to buy her a drink later on. Another one saying that she is looking forward to it. You regretfully message that a work thing came up and that you will have to let her know. Then, you knock on the door and are surprised to see Wanda is the one answering. 

She looks at you as confused as you are. Her expression quickly drops to one that she hopes is threatening. “What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?” Wanda starts out defensively. Whispering in a sharp tone so she doesn't alarm her kids or her brother. You gulp as you try to find the right words to explain that you're not some crazy stalker. 

But Rachel speaks before you can get a word out. “Can I go play with Luna?” She asks Wanda sweetly. 

This throws the woman off as she looks down and notices your daughter. She freezes as she connects the dots. “Um, of course, sweetheart. Go on in, she's upstairs with her cousins.” The little girl runs inside and disappears up the stairs. “You’re the person my brother asked to help with the hole?” Wanda asks, still not letting you inside. 

“I really had no idea the two of you were related.” You say as you hold up your tool box. “But, uh, yeah. You're the work thing that might prevent me from buying you a drink later,” you try to lighten the mood. 

Wanda isn't sure if she wanted you in her house. You know nothing about her and she liked it that way. She knew that eventually she would have to open up to you if the two of you kept up with the meetings. But not like this. Not with you repairing the damage she did to her home. But when Pietro comes to the door she has no choice but to let you in. “Hey, Y/n, I'm glad you could make it. This is my little sister, Wanda,” he introduces. You stand there watching Wanda. Waiting to see if she wanted the two of you to be strangers. Or if you were allowed to reveal your acquaintance. But she remains quiet. Taking her cue, you offer your hand in greeting. “Wands, this is the person I told you about. They do fantastic work. If dad were still alive, he'd have us competing to take over the company,” he boasts. 

You laugh, “You speak too highly of me, P. It's great to meet you, Wanda.” 

“Thank you for coming to help my incompetent twin brother,” she emphasizes to let you know that she isn't younger than her brother as he claimed. “I truly appreciate it.” 

“Ouch,” Pietro holds his chest, “I’m doing a nice thing for you and this is how you treat me?” He shakes his head. “Come on in,” he waves you into the house. You follow him in and Wanda walks away, announcing that she's starting lunch. You keep your eyes in her direction a little longer than you should have and Pietro notices. He snaps his fingers in your face and you look at him. “Don’t think about it,” he says sternly. 

You hold a hand up in surrender, “I wasn't. She just,” you can’t continue because he doesn’t believe you. “Nevermind, are you ready to get to work?” You ask as you set your toolbox down and remove your jacket. 

Wanda checks on you and her brother every few minutes. Seeing the two of you sharing a laugh while you work. The ease at which you remove pieces of the house. She didn’t like that she couldn’t keep her eyes off of you, but deduced it to her not trusting the stranger in her house. An hour later, she’s offering everyone lunch. The kids come running down and Pietro tries to get you to take a break. But you aren’t certain you’re allowed to. 

“Are you hungry?” She asks as she steps over the line of tape Pietro made for the kids. 

“I’ll be fine,” you assure as you pull off another piece of the wall from the inside. “Hey,” you stop her from walking away. “Are you going to block my number?” you set the piece on the pile. 

“Why would I do that?” She asks with her arms crossing over her chest. 

“I’m not sure if accidentally finding out,” you make a noise as you pull another piece out, “where you live is considered a creepy offense.” You grin at her as you look at her over your shoulder. 

Wanda smiles a little, “No, I'm not going to block you. Only as a thank you though,” she steps around and looks back when she hears the kids laughing to see Pietro being silly. She turns back to you, “For the free labor, of course.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” you grab the water bottle you had nearby. “Maybe you're the one who tracked me down,” you jokingly accuse. “Heard your brother rave about my work so you found me at a liquor store and charmed me so that I wouldn't charge you.” 

Wanda rolls her eyes, “Don’t flatter yourself.” Then she scoffs as she remembers the two of you meeting. She certainly wasn't dressed to charm anyone. 

The two of you stand there for a moment, neither certain if that's the end of the conversation. She wants to walk away to go eat but she wants to be certain that you're fine with going on without a meal. You are trying to decide whether or not it's too late to accept her offer and aren't sure if she's going to ask again or leave you to continue working. When she doesn't move you pull your gloves off as you step closer. “What’s for lunch?”

“Food that I made,” she says vaguely but still playful. 

“Am I still allowed to find out?” You shove the gloves in your back pocket. 

“I suppose I can't let you starve,” she replies. “But you didn't seem like you wanted any before.”

You shrug, “I didn't want to appear rude.”

Wanda nods once and drops her arms, “Some people might say it’s rude to decline a meal.” 

“I wasn’t raised that way,” you say, “But I do know people that have, so that’s a fair point.” 

She smiles at the floor as you stand a few inches from her now. “You are welcome to take a break and eat. Consider it another part of my payment.” She looks back up at you then quickly turns away. You follow her to the table where everyone else is eating. You pass them to wash your hands in the kitchen sink. There is more laughter and you turn to see your daughter, who you think is hilarious but is normally very shy around people she isn’t comfortable with, causing the laughter. Wanda notices a bit of food on Rachel’s chin and she instinctively wipes it with a napkin. You dry your hands and join the table. 

You sit in the empty seat next to your daughter and serve yourself a plate. You get to know Tommy and Billy as the group of you enjoy the lunch together and you feel better about letting Rachel hang out with them. Pietro was being truthful when he said that they are sweet boys. Once the kids finish up, they are racing up the stairs to resume their activities, leaving the adults to the table. “Thank you guys for helping me out. I truly appreciate it,” Wanda says as she sips her drink from her cup. 

“Thank us when the work is done, alright?” Pietro says as finishes his plate. You agree as you finish your food as well. 

“We should get back to it. Thank you, the meal was delicious,” excuse yourself from the table, grabbing as many plates as you can carry to the sink. Wanda tries to intercept but ultimately grabs what you can’t carry and follows you to the sink.

“You really didn’t have to, I could’ve taken care of it,” she says as she moves the plates. “But thank you, again.” 

You smile at her, “It’s really no big deal, Wanda.” You walk away to continue to work with her brother. 

As it gets close to dinner time, Pietro receives a call from his wife and he has to call it a day. He quickly packs his things, pulls Luna away from a serious Mario Kart competition, and bids everyone a goodnight. “I’ll see you guys in the morning before you’re off to your dad’s,” he says as he hugs his nephews goodbye. “Thank you for helping me with this,” he says to you. The two of you slap your hands together and pull into a short hug. 

“No problem, man. You know I’m always willing to help,” you reply. “Besides, I owe you.” 

Pietro nods once in acknowledgement and then moves on to his sister. “Do I need to rent a wood chipper? For tomorrow? Send the bastard a good message.” 

Wanda laughs, “No, he’ll just sue you for property damages. You don’t need to be dealing with that on top of everything else. He’s not worth it.” 

“But you are,” he says and hugs her. “Give your aunt and cousins hugs,” he tells his daughter. She does as he says sadly because she doesn’t want to go yet. Pietro promises the crying girl that they’ll be back the next morning but she is still reluctant to go. Unfortunately, he has to carry the girl crying all the way to his truck. The boys run off with Rachel to try and finish the match before it’s time for her to go too. 

You laugh as you watch them disappear. “I guess that’s my cue as well,” you say as you start to pack up your things. There’s an awkwardness to your movements as you aren’t sure if the previous plans for the two of you were still on or not. But you aren’t sure how to ask. “I’ll uh, see you tomorrow?” 

Wanda nods slowly as she watches you. “I wanted to keep our plans but, I’m sure you’re exhausted and well, keeping those kids entertained was pretty draining.” 

“Oh, yeah, no,” you wave your hands around as you play off the disappointment. “I get it. Another time then?” You toss your jacket over your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Wanda nods, “I don’t have Tommy and Billy this week. Maybe we can figure out a time to meet up. And it doesn't have to be at the store.” 

“Um,” you look to the floor then look back up, “Rach and I have a camping trip planned this week. We're leaving Monday morning. We'll be back on Friday, though. So maybe Friday night?” Wanda begins to worry about what the meet up might be interpreted as. She isn't sure why now she was having this anxiety. She said that she was looking forward to the store. She suggested that they meet somewhere else. Almost as if you can read her mind, you include. “It’d be nice to have a friend that isn't my ex-wife or my boss.”

“Aren’t I technically your boss until this is done?” Wanda asks with a playful tone. 

“You’re not paying me,” you retort. 

“I am, in food,” she reminds you. 

You click your teeth, “You’ve got me there.” You walk to the bottom of the stairs and call out for your daughter to let her know it's time to go. “So, Friday?” 

“Will you be offended if I bring someone?” Wanda asks as she thinks about how she can solidify that it's just friends hanging out. Nothing more. 

You laugh, “No, I won't be offended. The more, the merrier.” Rachel comes running down the stairs. “Ready, pumpkin?” You ask as she stops beside you. 

“Yeah, I almost beat Tommy, but he got me,” she frowns. “I will get him tomorrow though. I'm going to kick his butt!” she says with determination. Then she looks at Wanda and freezes, not noticing her there before. 

Wanda smiles at the young girl and leans forward, “Can you keep a secret?” Rachel nods, her eyes still wide. “I hope you win,” she straightens up and follows you and Rachel to the front door. “I'll see you tomorrow,” she says to you as she leans against the front door. 

“I will see you tomorrow, Wanda,” you bid her a goodnight and climb into your car. 

“I think Tommy and Billy will be great brothers,” Rachel says as she gets her playlist ready. 

“What are you going on about over there?” You say with a laugh. 

Rachel shrugs as she finds a love song, “It's okay, you’ll catch up eventually.” You laugh at her randomness. 

Wanda calls the boys down so they can start dinner and she smiles every time she thinks of your name.

Chapter 4

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[99corentine]

Afterword: Will there be a sequel to GHD?

After almost four years, GOL HAH DOV is finally a finished project. 50 chapters, just shy of 375K words (about 4-5 full novels’ worth of writing) and I don’t want to know how many hours of furiously typing, here we are at the finish line. As we started getting near the end a few people asked whether I was going to write a sequel, but the answer was too complex to put in an author’s note, so I thought I’d discuss it in more detail here.

Unfortunately, the short version of this is probably not, but let me explain why.

So, there are many things that could go in a sequel. Off the top of my head, I’ve yet to write about: the events of the Dawnguard DLC. The truth about Chrysanthe’s past. How they contend with Hermaeus Mora, who is still gunning for them. How the civil war unfolds when the First Dragonborn looks at both the Empire and Stormcloaks and says ‘nah, I’ll make my own faction’. How the Thalmor react to this. Miraak’s rise to power when he’s not allowed to use his mind control powers, and Chrysanthe’s general struggle to keep Miraak on a morally good path.

All of this could definitely make for another longfic but what I don’t have is any sort of romantic development. The trouble with writing a soulmates fic is that once the couple have overcome their personal issues, there’s very little further tension. Chrysanthe and Miraak actually got together very early in the fic (about chapter 12 out of 50) and the rest has been about them learning each other, becoming more intertwined… but I’m not really sure how they can get more intertwined, after the events of GHD. There are many external points of tension (politics, Thalmor, daedra) but there’s nothing internal - only Miraak’s dubious morality, but we already know that he’ll change his course for Chrysanthe, so what else is there to add?

Essentially, I can’t see how to further develop the relationship, and to me the romantic tension is what makes a fic worth writing. Without it, I just know that even if I started a GHD sequel, I wouldn’t have the enthusiasm to see it through to the end. Now that may change, and I might think of something new… but for the time being, I’m going to put GHD down and focus on other things.

Those other things are: 1) The Tav/Astarion Baldur’s Gate 3 longfic I’ve started, Tooth for a Tooth, which has all my attention at the minute. It’s darker than GHD but the protagonist has the same steely-stoic paladin vibe, so if you liked Chrysanthe you might like him too 2) A while ago I posted a fic idea in which the Last Dragonborn (Chrysanthe, or a totally new character) ends up in the past with pre-Apocrypha Miraak. Again this is a longfic that I’m not sure I really have the spoons for, but I’d say I’m more likely to write this than a GHD sequel 3) Various other bits and pieces, unfinished oldfics, etc.

I know that might be disappointing for some to read, but I hope my reasons make sense at least! And I hope that you still enjoy GOL HAH DOV as its own piece of work, and come back to read anything else that I might write in the future. Thank you again for coming on this Skyrim adventure with me!

[whorekneecentral]

Wait hang on, I just saw ur post!! THANK UUUU!!!🥳

Fernando x Hamilton!reader where they’re in a secret relationship that most people know about: except Lewis, who doesn’t find out abt the whole arrangement until he catches them making out behind the Merc motorhome

- nando anon

you guys are soooo into this old man but.. anyways -- tw: age gap! (reader is 25-27)

It was unseasonably warm in France this weekend. The hospitality building was full because everyone was hiding from the heat, trying to cool down in the air conditioned building for as long as possible before having to go back outside.

Your brother, Lewis, sat next to you while George and Carmen across from you two. "I think I'm gonna go for a walk," you announce, getting up when you notice the time on your phone.

Lewis looks over at you, his brows furrow. "You're going out in this heat?"

"I just need some air, it's cramped in here."

He nods, "okay, be careful." He hands you his water bottle and you take it, confused. "You'll need water, it's hot out there."

You set the bottle back down and George gets up. "I forgot something in my driver's room," he says and Carmen stands too. "I have some work to finish up, I'll walk you out?" Carmen links arms with you, pulling you away from the table.

"Are you going to see him?" She asks quietly when you were far enough away from Lewis.

"Who?" you looked at her confused. Carmen gives you a look, "y/n, we all know." She giggled, "you need to be careful, your brother was asking George if he thinks you're seeing someone."

George appears behind you two, standing between the two of you with his arms over your shoulders. "Plus, isn't Fernando too old for you?" He asks and earns an elbow in the side from both you and Carmen.

"Leave the girl alone," she tells her boyfriend. "Just be careful, okay?" She gives your arm a squeeze, the two of them leaving you as you step out the backdoors.

Behind the hospitality was fairly quiet, considering there was currently a heat wave and nobody wanted to be out.

"You're late." He says, his voice pulling your attention and causing you to turn.

"I'm never late, you're just early." You smiled, walking over to the man.

Fernando's hand rests on your waist, your back against the building as you looked at him. "I missed you," he says and you can't help the smile on your face.

"I saw you this morning, remember?"

The whole thing between you two started by accident; one too many drinks post race and you ended up in bed together. The more time you spent with him, the more you realized you liked him.

You has spent last night with him, Fernando sweet talking you into spending the night in his room.

"I don't remember," he mumbles, his lips meet your neck, kissing over the chain that hung on your neck.

"I knew you were old, but has your memory gone already?" You joked, earning a pinch to the side.

"I think I might need a refresher," he says, hand cupping your jaw.

"Well," you start, "I think it was something like this." You lean in to kiss him, pulling his hand to your waist. Fernando's hand finds it way down to your ass, giving it a squeeze. His other hand was on your thigh, pulling your leg up to hitch on his hip and you can feel it wander up your bare leg and just under the hem of your skirt.

"Are you fucking serious ?" The man groans, causing you two to separate and look in the direction of the noise.

Your brother stood there with his hands on his hips, an exasperated look on his face, much like a disappointed father.

"What are you doing out here?" You asked, fixing your skirt.

"What am I doing? What are you doing? You were taking forever to come back in so I thought I'd come out and check on you to see if you got a heat stroke or something, but instead I find you making out with Fernando of all people."

"I mean, I came onto him just to make it clear before you try to beat him up or something." You giggled, you can feel Fernando's hand on your lower back as he stood next to you.

"It's not funny, y/n."

"It is, actually." You tell your brother, the man rolling his eyes. "Whatever," he sighs, "just be.. safe. I don't need my niece or nephew to be an Alonso."

"What's wrong with being an Alonso?!" Fernando shouts after him as he walked back into the hospitality building.