#i never got over my middle school angst phase ok?

[cpacs-blog]

A fanfic I’ve been putting around a bit in my head and on my Google Drive. Origin story of how Levi picked his OG Special Ops Squad! Minor Petruo (ofc) but zero spoilers! Yay to me for finally completing 1/100000 WIPs cluttering my computer! ❤️

[munsonsreputation]

The Great War

eddie munson x fem!reader

inspired by "The Great War" by Taylor Swift

word count: [13.7k] not proof-read, sorry!

warnings: no use of y/n, angst (a lot of it), physical violence, blood & bruises, cursing, talks of insecurity (eddie), portions of fluff scattered throughout, let me know if i missed any!

summary: you and your boyfriend eddie were accustomed to the scrutiny that came with being together in a judgmental town, but you both never expect it to take a violent turn into an alternate dimension. with a monster coming for your boyfriend and his friends, you and eddie are forced to fight off everyone and anything that comes in your way. but the question is: will you both survive?

Eddie had a big reputation long before he was accused of the murder of Chrissy Cunningham. From Hawkins’ middle to Hawkins’ high, he was pegged the “weird boy” or his personal favorite, “satanic cult leader” just because he liked to play a fantasy game for hours on end. While he thought it was just a phase, all this name calling and stereotypical high school bullying, it seemed to be more than that. People loved to hit him where it hurt by going after his friends and the people he cared about just because they were associated with him.

It hurt more when they would advert that hate towards his girlfriend, the one person he truly ever loved. He didn’t know how he could protect you or if he even had the capabilities to. It wasn’t his fault that frustration would boil over and would accidentally burn you. He never meant it like that. He just wasn’t used to being defended so publicly. And things got even worse when the accusations against Eddie were out for the town to hear.

“Keep his name out of your mouth!” You lurched forward attempting to escape the confines of Dustin and Lucas’ arms, but instantly remaining in place as they held tightly.

Jason strode closer, glaring, “You’re defending a murderer. Let me repeat that again since you clearly don’t understand the severity of it all. A murderer! He murdered my girlfriend—“

“He did not!” your hand sprung as far out as it would go, palm greeting his cheek with a harsh whack that rung in the half full parking lot and taking Jason aback as he held a hand over the spot you had just hit.

“Was that really necessary?” Dustin whispered annoyingly under his breath, shrieking as Jason reached over for you.

Struggling and hands blindlessly throwing punches, hoping you weren’t hitting any of your friends and only the target of a monster, Jason, “C’mon fight me you son of a—“

“Piece of shit!”

Eddie rocketed forward, fist connected with the side of Jason’s jaw, planting him face first onto the gravel as he shook his hand, knuckles burning from the initial impact. You glanced around. A small crowd gathered over Jason’s senseless body and Eddie’s van parked beside them all. The driver’s door open, meaning he had just pulled up and hopped out after seeing the commotion.

“You ok?” Eddie turned his attention to you, drawing you out of the grips of the young boys and clasping your cheeks in his hands.

Concern shrouded his face as he looked between your eyes, trying to sense any worry, but you shook your hand. Fingers wrapping around his wrist reassuringly, “I’m fine...adrenaline is just pumping.”

Eddie nodded, letting his arms fall back to his sides, looking towards the boys, “I thought I told you guys to not let anyone get close to her.”

The two rolled their eyes, looking at you knowingly, “Kinda hard to do when she slapped him across the face.” Lucas rebutted, brushing past the couple and heading into the backseat of the van.

Eddie stared at you, shaking his head in disapproval as you furrowed your brows in confusion over his reaction.

“It was pretty sick, though.” Dustin quipped, patting you on the back and following Lucas into the vehicle.

Eddie paid them no mind, instead, clutching your hand and leading you to the passenger the seat and watching you buckle in before heading into the driver’s seat,to head to their current safe house, The Wheeler Residence. The drive there was completely silent for the most part, except for the two boys bickering in the backseat.

When you arrived, everybody had sensed the tension between Eddie and his partner. These days it was on high due to the hecticness that was surrounding the twos lives.

Eddie brushed past his friends who were sitting in the living room watching the news and headed straight for the basement, and of course you were there trailing behind him with vigor.

“You can’t possibly be mad at me for sticking up for you.” You jerked his arm, yanking him to face you, and he did so with disappointment and irritation laminating his features.

He hauled back his hand as lightly as possible, not wanting to startle you, but never letting up his emotions, “You don’t understand the risk you’re taking by acting on emotion.”

You scoffed, shaking her head, “I know what I’m getting myself into, Eddie—“

“No you don’t!”

His voice ricocheted against the walls in the small space, taking you aback by this sudden outburst that was one you had never seen before. Feeling so small, you wrapped your arms around yourself, seeking to find some sort of comfort in a time where Eddie was too wound up in his mind to do so himself. 

“This isn’t stupid high school rumors anymore ok? This is life or death...” He paused, pointing at you, “You go out there and you defend my name. They’ll kill you. I—I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anyone put their hands on you because you wanted to defend me.”

He had his reasons for tearing down the banners of support you proudly held up, and now you understood why, but still you wanted to support him. 

You unwrapped the arms from your body, tiptoeing closer into his space in order to cup his face in your hold, “N-nothing is going to happen to me, Eds,” Your hush whisper was a futile attempt to reassure him.

Eddie stretched away, not daring to make eye contact with you, knowing he’d break... mostly because he didn’t know if he could do this any longer. Continuing to run and hide, while his girlfriend picked up the slack and put herself in harm’s way for him.

Just because you loved him.

“Eds...” Your voice was barely a whisper that was accompanied with a sigh as you watched him turn his back, now facing the wall.

One of his hands rubbed along his face, attempting to keep his composure, as the other rested on his hip, “You can’t defend me in public anymore.”

“What?”

You had heard him loud and clear the first time, but you just couldn’t understand why you were the only one limited to not sticking up for your innocent boyfriend.

“I mean it,” he finally turned eyes brimmed with salty tears, and his voice cracked with the next sentence, “can’t lose you, just promise me...please.”

God, you wanted to be the understanding girlfriend so badly, but you couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly expect you to walk around town and pretend like the posters and the mobs were ok, to put on a front and let them think that what they’re doing was right.

No way.

“You know I can’t do that, Eddie.”

His fist clenched and unclenched, the dried blood that decorated the wrinkles of his knuckles opening the cuts that were once sealed, “I’m not asking.”

“I’m not taking orders.”

The two of you never backed down, especially when it came to each other. You two always wanted to be right. And god forbid one of you doesn’t agree…it all goes to hell.

Eddie couldn’t contain the mixture of hurt and enraged tears that fell numbly down his cheeks, his mouth seething and the vein in his neck popping out with each word he spoke.

“I’m looking out for you! And it’s bad enough that I’m running and hiding from this godforsaken town, but what’s worse is you putting yourself in harm’s way when I’m not asking you to!”

You grimaced, jaw trembling as your own hot tears spilled, “There are people out there who want your head on a platter, Eds—“

“Yours too, if you keep this up!”

Eddie exhaled noisily, mopping his tears away with a mean hand, while you did the same using the sleeve of your sweater. Neither one of you wanted to crack...give up on their own argument, but it was what needed to be done.

You approached him gradually, his eyes glued to the basement floor until your shoed foot came into view. He finally met your teary eyes, the sense of your hand reaching for his, bringing him back.

“I-It hurts when they say things about you...especially when they’re not true.” the sniffled voice broke him, urging him to rub a soothing thumb over your delicate knuckles, a far contrast to his scrapped up ones.

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours as you continued to talk, “I hate what they’ve done, how they made you the bad guy when they don’t even know the full story. I—I hate this fucking town. so. much.”

Your head shook against his, tears flowing again as he reached up with his free hand and brushed them away, despising the fact that you were feeling like this all because of him and this stupid town.

“Shhh, s’ok, can’t let what they say about me get to you, babe.” He kissed the top of your head, thumb caressing the hot liquid off your face.

“I let it get to me because I love you, Eddie...don’t like hearing them say such mean things about the person I love.”

It sucked from day one, and he knew it was taking a toll on you. The news coverage and the backlash that Eddie was receiving was also affecting you. So much so that you would stand out there and protest, fighting back against the bombs they were throwing at him. Trying to make them understand something that was larger than life... something that the general public couldn’t possibly wrap their heads around.

But you did it all for him. Because you saw the truth in Eddie and you were not going to let anyone, especially in this lousy town to bash your boyfriend’s name as if they were any better.

“I’m sorry, baby...it’s all going to be over soon. So soon. We can run away and find a new home when this is all over...have a fresh start. How about that?”

They were still in high school, just a twenty- and nineteen-year-olds, barely adults. But you both needed it.

Desperately. 

To get away from all of this and start a new chapter together. Things were hard enough before this Upside Down bullshit happened, and now it was like they were living in a real life hell. Somehow they just couldn’t seem to escape the madness, even with them being a couple months away from graduating, it just seemed like this would obviously happen to them. As if the world was cursing them for being together.

You smiled half heartedly and nodded, making Eddie do the same to a degree, “Yeah? I promise it’ll be ok...here.”

He pulled his hand away from your cheek temporarily to dig into his back pocket of his jeans. The white envelope folded in half as you palmed it, the front of it reading, “to my beloved,” you went to open it, but he stopped you.

“Want you to read it when this is all over...” he gulped, stuck out his pinky and staring at you, “promise me?”

“I promise.” You assured him, hooking pinky fingers with his and sealing it with a kiss for good measure.

There were many things written in that letter, some of which he hoped would come true if this all ended the way he wanted it to. But there were other things he had inscribed, if things would not turn out in their favor. Eddie knew this was bigger than any bully or jock trying to come for him. This was a monster capable of anything, especially ending his life. But if there was one thing that he knew for certain it was that if he made it out alive, everything would be ok.

Your thumb brushed over his cheek, snapping him out of his inner monologue of thoughts coursing through his brain, “Y-you’re crying.” You murmured, pulling your lips away from his slightly.

“It happens, especially when an intergalactic monster is out to kill me.”

It was a poor joke to try to make you laugh, which did so, only for a few seconds before straightening your mood back up.

“I don’t like it when you cry.” 

Lips brushing against his as you kissed him softly, he only hummed, bringing his back to yours, wanting to savor that feeling and remember it forever.

“When this is all over, the tears will stop pouring.” He finally said, and you nodded, taking a skeptical gulp before kissing him once more.

The sweet dream of your mundane and everyday life now over in a blink of an eye. Everything that made you and Eddie work as a unit and lovers now being put to the test. But you’d hope that despite his violet bruised knuckles and your banners you were forced to tear down, that everything would be ok.

But that was before everything took another turn…before the battles that you took underground now became battles you had to face outside.

“This is ridiculous!” You argued loudly, pushing yourself roughly into the leather of the police car.

Eddie sat in the passenger seat with Hopper zooming down the roads, hyperaware of his surroundings, being sure you guys weren’t being followed by any mobs. He had picked the both of you up from Eddie’s trailer, rushing you two to pack your belongings as he was taking you somewhere secluded. The mobs were getting out of control and Hop knew it was only a matter of time before something bad happened, so he had to take matters into his own hands to ensure the safety of you both.

“It’s the safest thing we can do right now.” Hopper countered, ignoring the sounds of protest that came from his backseat.

“And what about Henry...One...Vecna, whatever the fuck we’re calling him!” Eddie swung his head, running rough hands through his head that was pounding.

Hopper offered you and Eddie a reassuring glance, “We’re working on it, alright? One of us is going in there and killing that son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, except the fact that Vecna has an army...if you let anyone go into the Upside Down alone, to face him, they’ll die.” Your voice bound so much terror, yet you still managed to remain impassive, not wanting to worry the father about his daughter’s possible risk as it would most likely be her going up there to kill Vecna.

It sent shivers up the spines to think that this was really happening. A fucking fictional monster, actually terrorizing their town. Unbelievable.

The rest of the car ride remained quiet, listening to the dull hum of the radio and the engine spurt out roughly every time Hopper would increase his speed. It wasn’t necessarily the most ethical thing for Hop to do, considering the fact that the rest of the department wanted to take Munson in for questioning...but he knew that it would mean locking him up for good.

Even if he was chief, it was one against the entire department.

So he did the next best thing he could to ensure Eddie’s safety and freedom...hiding him and his girlfriend, that everyone knew would be with him, away in a secure location. 

His cabin.

“You’ll be staying here until the coast is clear.” Hopper declared, putting the car in park and gesturing you two out with a hand.

He led you through the woodlands, instructing to step over the wire trap he had built, to alert the inside of any trespassers and uninvited guests, until slowly the cabin came into view behind the trees.

You and Eddie shared skeptical glances as you observed the chief fiddle with his keys before finally finding the correct ones to unlock the two latches that decorated the door. The creaky wood pushed open, and it was fairly homey to you and Eddie’s surprise.

A small couch, TV, a somewhat clean kitchen, two bedrooms, and even a bathroom.

“Look around and make yourselves at home...I’ll go get your bags.”

Hopper headed back out to the car, meanwhile you and Eddie wandered into one of the bedrooms that you would claim as yours now. A queen-size bed was laid in the center of the room, with a small desk right across from it. The janky ceiling fan spun, and the light sputtered on when Eddie flicked the switch. It was nice, but nothing like Eddie’s trailer bedroom that you came to love.

You couldn’t accept this and you weren’t going to.

Exhaling and tugging on Eddie’s hand, you brought yourselves back out to the living room once you heard the heavy bags drop onto the floorboards.

“There has to be another option, Hop...we want to help.” You tried to reason, following behind Hopper as he walked around, checking to make sure everything was working properly, not knowing how long you and Eddie would be staying here.

“This is the only way. The safe way.” He responded, giving the top of the heating unit a firm SMACK! until it finally came to life. He turned around to give a pleased smile, but all you did was sigh again with arms crossed against your chest.

“What if Eddie takes a polygraph test and proves he didn’t kill Chrissy?”

It could’ve worked, but Hopper knew the town wouldn’t fall for it so easily, even when Eddie was completely innocent.

“Polygraph tests are only 90% accurate, leaves too much room for speculation.”

You grumbled, stopping your foot, trying to find another option than to be hidden away from the rest of the world, “Why can’t we hide out at Joyce’s house? What if you guys need help, but we’re too far away to do anything?”

Hopper exhaled deeply, knowing there was no point in shouting to get his point across. You were obviously very against the idea of staying here so far away from everything and he completely understood. But he had to at least try to reassure you, taking your shoulders into his hands, looking down.

“Listen, kid...I know that this isn’t necessarily what we had in mind, but this is the best thing we can do to make sure you and Eddie are safe. Right now, the town is too focused on trying to find Eddie, which leaves the rest of us time to focus on killing Vecna so that we can prove Eddie’s innocence.”

He looked over at Eddie, signaling you to the same as he stared on, blankly, “You’ve got to trust us...we care about you and Eddie, which is why we’re doing this. You have to trust. Both of you.”

Taking a deep breath, you nodded, closing your eyes and reeling in this moment. Having to accept this with nothing else you two could do. “Ok, you’re right.”

“Good.” Hop tightly smiled, patting you on the back before reaching into his pocket, pulling out a walkie along with a pack of batteries. “If you guys need anything, radio in. We’ll do the same.”

“Will you guys be coming down here anytime soon?” Eddie finally spoke after what seemed like hours, but in reality it had only been ten minutes. 

Hopper shrugged, making his way over to him, “We’ll radio in beforehand if we do. In the meantime, just stay put and keep your eyes peeled...try to relax, and know you’re safe. No one will be able to find the two of you here. The fridge and pantry are stocked, but if you run out of anything just radio in and I’ll swing by and drop off whatever it is that you need.”

Eddie nodded, giving Hopper a small hug of gratefulness before pulling away, “And for the love of god, just...try not to get her pregnant.”

You two smothered laughter, nodding your heads as you watched him depart the cabin and drive off out of the woods. Eddie immediately went for the door, locking it firmly and drawing all the curtains shut, relying on the yellow lighting from the bulbs to brighten the room.

“It’s going to be ok, Eds.” Placing your hands over his chest, tiptoeing up to kiss him, which he happily returned, squeezing the sides of your waist comfortingly.

“You want to go unpack and I’ll figure out what we can eat?” He suggested, and you agreed, pulling the duffle bag full of clothes and other personal items into your who-knows-for-how-long room and getting them sorted.

He rummaged through the small kitchen, searched the cabinets and fridge, pulling together a ham sandwich with some chips and retrieving a cold bottle of water for his girl and grabbing a beer for himself.

“Babe, food’s ready!” He announced out, slicing the sandwich in triangles.

You walked out a few seconds later. The previous t-shirt that you were wearing traded in for one of Eddie’s hoodies, and jeans now discarded as you sported your bare legs and underwear.

“Thank you,” a kiss laid up on his cheek as you sat down, “did you want to change?” You asked, taking a bite out of your half as Eddie shook his head, taking a swig of his beer.

“I’ll wait until we’re done eating. Are you feeling ok?”

Nodding, you swallowed before voicing a reply, “I’m ok...just happy to be here with you, even if we’re hiding.”

He smiled tightly, reaching over to hold her hand across the small table as he set his beverage down, “You know, you never had to do any of this for me.”

“And what is it that I did?” You speculated, dusting off your crumby fingers and resting them on top of Eddie’s creating a hand sandwich of fingers and palms mushed together.

“Sticking with me. Hell, you could’ve ran away the moment you heard the Chrissy died in my trailer, yet you never questioned my innocence, just stood by me the entire time and held my hand.”

“That’s because this town has preconceived notions about you, Eddie...they think they know you just because of what they see on the outside, but they don’t know anything. They don’t know the man that I love...I would scream it out from the rooftops even in the midst of all the madness, because I don’t care what this town thinks, what anyone thinks of you...of us—no ones opinion will ever come between you and I.”

Eddie’s heart rate slowed down, beating forcefully against his chest. Every word spoken from you, like a drug that he was irrevocably addicted to. Here was his girl, devoting so much love and care to him as a person, making him feel so human, after all the scrutiny he had faced for the last couple of days and his entire life.

Only when you slid your fingers through his, giving him a curt squeeze, did he feel himself come back to Earth.

“You still with me, baby?”

In this moment, yes. In the mindset, no.

“Scared of what might happen after all of this.” He blurted out wistfully, hanging his head low, eyes kept on the condensation that dripped down the side of the beer bottle and onto the wood.

You never once let go of his hand while you stood up, placing yourself in his lap, nuzzling your face further into his neck as you murmured, “There’s probably going to be a lot of trauma that we’re going to need to work through, but we’ll get through it, together. I swear on it.”

“I’m sorry for acting like a dick for the last couple of days.” He mumbled, causing you to pull away and furrow your brows.

“What are you talking about, Eds? You haven’t—“

“I have,” He said regretfully, turning to look at you.

As he stared at the face he loved to wake up to every morning, he felt instant shame for the way he had been acting and treating you for the things you weren’t responsible for.

He picked up your hand, clinging to it tightly, “I...I’ve been taking a lot of my stress out on you and it isn’t fair, ‘specially since you’re always the one who never hesitates to be here for me.”

“Eddie, I understand—“

He shook his head, giving you a pointed look, one that begged you to just let him do this.

“It doesn’t matter that I’m going through this shit, because you’re going through it, too. Doesn’t mean that I get to treat you like shit, and baby I’m real sorry for acting like that, I swear it isn’t my intention...never want you to feel like I’m not grateful for you, ‘cause I am—I don’t know if I’d even be alive right now if it weren’t for you.”

If there was a quality about you he absolutely adored, it was that you were incredibly genuine and understanding. A blessing and a curse at times since Eddie had needed to step in on the past when your old friends would walk all over you, treating his love like a floor mat and taking advantage of your kindness.

He especially never liked when you were too nice to him, never letting him apologize for things he did wrong all because you loved him. But he knew that he had to hold himself accountable, even at a time like this.

“I forgive you, baby.” You snickered softly, squeezing his hand in yours, a nonverbal way to tell him that all is forgiven and that there were no hard feelings.

The touch of your hand against his was enough to know that even in the midst of the war, you were here and you were all he needed to feel safe right now.

No matter if he drew the curtain closed and chose to drink his poison all alone…you were still here. He was never really alone. You would do whatever it took, even trusting more freely…something you never liked to do, but only with Eddie you’d ever do that. Trusting that the good faith you left was enough to get you both through this unprecedented time. That none of you were playing with fire, but doing your best to extinguish the torment for good.

But as the days past, nights were the hardest to endure for you two, even if Hopper had reassured you that the cabin was the safest place to be. When the wind would rattle the windows or the crunch of leaves and sticks when animals passed by, it was still spooky. Even on the third day, it wasn’t something you got accustomed to.

Daytime was by far the pleasantest. You and Eddie would wake up at the crack of dawn, watching the sunrise from the small bedroom window, the view from there capturing the sky perfectly. It was their little pocket of peace at a time like this.

Hours were spent cuddled up on the couch, watching whatever was on TV. Making up your own rules to the board games you assumed belong to Eleven when she had been camping out here a year and a half ago. Experimenting with whatever was left in the pantry. And listening to the brief updates Hopper and the rest of the gang would tell them through the radio.

Suspicion on their whereabouts had died down, mainly because Hopper had forged a letter in Eddie’s handwriting, saying the couple would be fleeing the state, when in actuality neither of you had traveled outside of Indiana. Nevertheless, it felt nice not being suffocated and harassed by the rest of the town. The cabin provided you two with your own solitude, which was very much needed.

You and Eddie had gotten the chance to reconnect and focus on one another, something you hadn’t done for a while since the main goal in Hawkins was about surviving. Here it was simply about waiting.

Waiting for good news.

Waiting for it all to end.

Waiting for their peace to be disturbed.

Heavy knocks on the door did just that.

The panicked screams of her and Eddie’s name echoed through the woods.

You shouldn’t have been so careless, opening it wide even if you knew it was your friends. It could’ve been a joke your mind was playing on yourself, but yet you trusted it.

There they stood, panting, out of breath some of them with blood on their clothes and hands. Others just shaken up.

“What the fuck!” Eddie shouted, watching they filed into the small space.

You immediately lock the door shut, stumbling into the kitchen to retrieve whatever cold water bottles were left. Passing them around, in hopes of it helping.

“Why didn’t you radio? You said you’d radio in if you were coming!” You were flustered, crossed arms as you stopped in front of Hop, tapping your foot heavily. 

Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead and he gulped down the water, taking a deep breath before responding, “That son of a bitch is crazy.”

“V-Vecna?” Eddie's voice stammered as everyone nodded silently, shaking in from the events that happened so quickly they couldn’t even process it.

Silence filled the small space, which had you pacing back and forth from one wall to the other. Eddie, however, staying in place leaning up against the couch, trying to keep his composure.

“I’m next.”

The words spilled out of Max’s mouth, taking the two of you aback where you paused at stared at the redhead.

“Next? Next what?” You asked, turning to the young girl who gulped thickly,

“Vecna’s next victim. I’ll be dead in the next six hours.”

Your stomach dropped and you’re sure your skin went pale. This was even worse than your imagination.

“Y-you’re lying, right? Someone please tell me she’s lying.” Eddie searched around the room hopefully, but was greeted with head shakes and Lucas stood up.

“We figured everything out. Vecna targets his victims psychologically. He uses their trauma to haunt them, weakening their already fragile state of mind, then he kills them. He did it to Chrissy. To Fred. His mom and sister. And he just killed Patrick.”

It all hit you and Eddie like a shit ton of bricks. Sure you two knew that Henry...One...Vecna, was a mentally ill monster, but you’d hadn’t fully fathomed the severity of it all. Eddie heavily sighed, running a rough hand over his face, watching his girlfriend quickly go into the bathroom, coming out with a first aid kit as you started patching them up.

Your own way of processing it while trying not worry.

“We figured out a way to get into the Upside Down, through watergate and Eddie’s trailer.” Dustin revealed and the two of you shifted your wide eyes at Hopper who glared lightly at the curly headed boy for spitting the information out so nonchalantly.

“And what about Wayne?” You both ordered worriedly as he passed them a reassuring look.

“I moved Wayne to a secure location. He said he had a friend from the plant he could stay with, so I brought him there. He’s alright. Safe. Just like I promised.”

You two took a deep breath nodding your heads, a little relief looming over the both of you, knowing that Wayne was fine and away from the mobs. You moved over to Lucas, disinfecting a scrape on his knee and pressing on a bandaid before you continued treating Nancy, Steve, Eleven, and Erica, all of which had a few cuts and scrapes on different parts of their body.

“So how are we defeating this son of a bitch?” Eddie demanded, plopping himself over the arm of the couch, looking at Nance who winced slightly as you pressed an alcohol pad on the gash that was on her cheek.

You gave the Wheeler a remorseful smile, which she returned before looking back at Eddie and explaining their game plan.

“Max is going to the Creel house in order to lure Vecna in, and Lucas, Erica, and Jonathan are going to be there to serve as backup in case anything goes south. Hop, Joyce, Will, and Mike are going with El and she’s going to piggyback into Max’s mind. Steve, Robin, and I are going into the Upside Down in order to create a distraction and hopefully help El defeat him in order to permanently close the gate. Oh! and Dustin is going to wait in Eddie’s trailer in case we need anything.”

You got off of your knees on the rough wooden floor, heading towards the bin to throw out the bloodied pads and bandaid wrappings before washing your hands clean. There was a lot to take in, and the more time that passed meant the less time Max had to live. Anxiety washed over you, understanding that it was no longer Eddie’s life on the line, but an innocent girl who you thought of like a little sister.

This was hell.

“C-can we help?” Your eyes darted to Eddie’s who nodded, looking at the room of friends who all stared at each other skeptically.

They knew they were supposed to be leaving the two of you out of the plan in order to ensure maximum safety, but they knew all too well that they needed the extra help, not knowing if this would work out the way they planned.

“Are you sure? It might put you two in even more danger.” Robin advised nervously.

You nodded and made your way over to Eddie, resting a comforting hand on his chest as he wrapped his arms around your waist. Your free hands intertwining with one another and resting between your bodies. Your friends watched on, understanding that this was the way of nonverbally communicating that you two were sure.

Eddie looked over at Hopper who smiled tightly before standing up, “They’ll need another person to go with them into the Upside Down.”

“Eddie will come, obviously.” Steve said, and Eddie nodded in agreement, feeling the squeeze of your hand that indicated uncertainty, but he just smiled at you reassuringly, attempting to ease those nerves.

Dustin perked up. “You can stay with me in the trailer! The portal is so cool, but the laws of gravity are kinda weird because if you think about it there can’t possibly be a way that —“

Mike placed a hand on his friend’s back, shaking his head, “Dude. Not right now.”

“Sorry.” Dustin mumbled, shot you a sorrowful look as you shook your head, knowing he was rambling for good reason.

Joyce stood up, removing her soothing hand from Will’s back, “Let’s get moving, time it ticking.”

And just like that, the bombs felt closer than they had before. But you promised yourself that this was the last time. That this was the end. If you all could somehow band together to defeat this son of a bitch, then there was nothing else you two would ever have to worry about.

Metal clambering against one another, heavy footsteps, and loud voices was what surrounded the cold air as the group gathered the necessary materials they would be needing. Extra bullets, protective armor, lighter fluid and matches, stakes, and hell even a trash can lid and nails. You all made use of what Hopper had lying around in the cabin before filing everything into the cars.

You gulped, taking one last look at what was their makeshift home for a last couple of days. Savoring that short-lived peace before Eddie’s hand wrapped around your wrist securely, pulling away your gaze.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, just gonna miss the time we had here.” You grinned conceivably up at him and he nodded, eyes sweeping over your features.

“Didn’t forget that envelope I gave you, right?”

You shook her head, patting the pocket of your jacket, “I have it with me. Why?”

Eddie just smiled, kissing your forehead before leading you to the stolen RV, “Just making sure...come on.”

The ride was pleasant to your surprise. It seemed as though everyone was used to battling monsters, but of course it was only you and Eddie’s first rodeo, and surely the last. Soft music played in the background as Steve drove calmly. You were wedged between Eddie and Max, soothing a hand down the young girl’s back knowing her life was at stake.

Hopper’s police car eventually parted ways, heading towards the trailer park first to set up Eleven’s bath in an empty trailer in order to mimic the sensory deprivation tank that was used in the lab.

Meanwhile, Steve had dropped off the Hawkins’ Creel house group, everyone saying their goodbyes to Max, Lucas, Erica, and Jonathan. Reminding them to radio in a code red, if anything were to go down, that wasn’t a part of the plan. You hugged Max the tightest out of all of them, whispering sweet words of consolation of how she would survive and they were going to do whatever it takes to bring Vecna down.

As the RV shifted back into gear, driving away from the Creel house there in Hawkins, is when reality finally began to settle in for you. How you instantly reached for Eddie’s hand once the house could no longer be seen in the rear window, leaving only darkness illuminated by the twinge of moonlight. Your heartbeat pumped faster once you all approached roadsigns signaling the impending reach back to the trailer park.

You spotted Hop’s car parked in front of Max’s home, assuming the chief had evacuated Mrs. Mayfield into a safer place in order to use the trailer for tonight’s battle. You gulped, only vaguely catching the words Nancy and Steve shared between each other, those of which you would usually care to ask about, but all you wanted to do was run.

Far away from what was waiting on the other side.

“C’mon, the clock is ticking.” Dustin called out, snapping his fingers as he got up from his seat. Lugging some supplies with him as he threw open the door and briskly made his way into Eddie’s, as if it was his own home.

Eddie made the first move, letting go of your hand only to briefly stand up and offer it back to you, which you gladly took. You two gathering the rest of the guns, ammo boxes, and lighter fluid in their free hands and heading back into the place they use to call home.

The last time you were here was only four days ago, but the wreckage seemed to have increased since then. Most of the mugs that were once displayed on the walls, the ones that belonged to Wayne’s most prized possession, were now in shattered pieces covering the now grimy floors. The couch cushions had been absolutely ripped apart into shreds, walls covered in a coat of what looked to be smoke, and Eddie’s mattress, the one place you and Eddie used to find the most comfort if not in each other’s arms, laid out in the middle of the living room, above it a makeshift rope hung.

“Holy shit...t-thats the portal? Into the Upside Down?”

You approached it with caution, never letting up on Eddie’s grasp as you stared up into the abyss of what appeared to be like molten lava that never dripped as the vines outstretched themselves along the ceiling.

Robin hummed, dropping down her arm full of supplies onto the mattress as she stepped closer beside you guys, “Portal. Gate. Whatever you wanna call it...it leads into the Upside Down.”

“W-what does it look like in there?” Your voice full of curiosity and fear.

Nancy now joined in, beginning to load up the guns on the floor beneath them and she looked up, “Lots of vines and they’re all connected like a Hive Mind. If you step on one, you’re stepping on demo bats, you’re stepping on Vecna.”

Eddie made a mental note, preparing himself to get his clumsiness in check, knowing he couldn’t fuck this all up because of his negligence.

“It really is an alternate dimension. Everything is practically the same except time is frozen and stuck in 1983.” Steve informed you two as he got suited up.

“Here,” Nancy stood up, offering the death weapon to you, “I know we said that you’d be staying here, but just in case anyone that isn’t a part of the plan comes in, you’ll need to shoot.”

Your shaky hands took shotgun, staring at it skeptically before glancing back up at Nance who reached out her fingers to instruct you on the different parts. She was definitely more experienced that you with this type of machinery.

“Just remember to shoot and don’t stop until whoever it is is dead or leaves.”

“Got it.” You slung its strap over your shoulders, allowing it the rest on your side.

Dustin was rummaging through the place, basically ransacking it for whatever supplies would help the group once they entered the other side.

“Hey Eddie!” the young boy had hailed out from the other side of the trailer where Eddie’s bedroom was.

He groaned, tightening the bandana behind his head before making his way towards him with the rest following behind, complaining on how there wasn’t much time left, “Dude, I know this isn’t really much of a home anymore, but this is still my room.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Dustin apologized, holding his hands out before gesturing towards Sweetheart that still hung prettily against the dresser mirror despite the mess that cluttered the rest of his room.

“What?” Eddie shook his head at the kid who walked closer to the guitar, but not daring to place a finger on it, “What year did you get this?”

“’82, Wayne gifted it to me for Christmas. Why?”

The smile that broke out on Dustin’s face was one as if he won a contest. Pure and elated.

“I’m coming into the Upside Down with you guys.” He spoke confidently, and the room clattered with voices.

“Are you insane!”

“Absolutely fucking not”

“Don’t curse in front of him...you’re not coming with, Dustin.”

Nancy spoke seriously, avoiding the eyes of the young boy that was boring into her. Dustin plucked the sacred instrument off Eddie’s mirror, watching as his eyes widened, attempting to take it back from the dingus and hang it back, but Dustin had held it behind him away from his grip.

“Dustin, stop being a little shit! Give it back!” Eddie lurched forward once more, attempting to get his guitar back, but only leading Dustin to run back out to the living room with everyone hot on his tail.

He stood right under the portal and pointed, “The Upside Down is stuck in ’83, meaning this guitar is in there.”

They looked at him suspectingly, waiting for more details.

“Eddie and I can stay in his trailer and create a distraction so that you guys can make it to Vecna’s layer, without a scratch. The demo bats will be too busy focusing on the sound of the guitar.” He revealed as everyone looked at each other, not opposed to the idea, but just thinking about everyone’s safety.

“I mean shit...I can totally do it. You’d be ok with that?” Eddie looked towards you, who was now practically chewing down on your nails after realizing what was going to happen.

You took a deep breath, shrugging your shoulders, “I-I can’t make that decision for you, Eds...you’ve just got to promise you’ll make it back safely and that you’ll look after Dustin.”

He nodded, patting the younger boys back who thrusted his first up high after getting the clearance that he would be able to follow his friends into the Upside Down with some supervision.

But his moment of celebration didn’t last long as static erupted from the walkie that was strapped onto the band of her jeans, “Is everyone ready? All in position?”

It was Lucas.

You picked up the device, pressing on the button and signaled back, “We’re almost ready. They’re about to head into the Upside Down.”

“Copy.”

It was Nancy who climbed the rope first, giving you a reassuring smile as she ascended into the unknown. It was weird watching the sense of gravity enact as Steve and Robin tossed her the guns, which somehow were able to end up on the other side. Then it was Steve. Then Robin. Dustin.

You waited near the poorly tied bedsheets, watching your boyfriend, ensuring that he had all the weapons attached to his body and was ready to go. Deep down, you really didn’t want him to go into that hellhole, knowing that the things they have heard about that place were just the beginning. To be literally in that demonic place was going to be a different experience that would change Eddie’s life.

You knew it.

But you also knew that Eddie was a good man. That he would do anything to make this right. And so you had to let him do it. 

“Don’t look so tense, baby,” He attempted to joke, as he grasped your cheeks in his hands, ripping away your attention from the thoughts running through your head. 

You couldn’t laugh. You didn’t have the energy to try to fake it and make this seem normal because it wasn’t.

Nothing about this was ever going to be normal.

Shaking your head in his hold, your eyes welled with salty tears ready to slip, “W-when this is over, promise me we’ll get out of this town.”

He smiled and nodded, bringing his lips down to yours as they moved slowly in sync. Their friends watched the scene below them, knowing that with anything good or bad happening after this, the least they could do was let them share a moment like this one, not knowing if it would be the last.

“I have to go, sweetheart,” He whispered, and you closed your eyes tightly. 

You brought your hands to rest upon his, rubbing your thumb across his knuckles, giving him a squeeze, “Make it back to me, ok?”

“I will...and in the meantime, read my letter?”

His other hand patted the pocket of the jacket where you said it was kept, and the quiet crinkle of the envelope was the only sound you could hear besides their breathing, “I will. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

You shared one last kiss before Eddie had pulled away, fingers wrapping around the sheets as you stabilized it, watching him disappear into the darkness as their voices faded.

“Ok. Ok. O-ok Everything is going to be ok.” You whispered to yourself, nervously pacing back and forth, picking up the radio and signaling in your team’s update, letting them know that everyone was in position and ready to go.

Your shuddering fingers managed to pull out Eddie’s letter and took a seat on the mangled couch that once used to be you and Eddie’s resting spot, and began to open it.

You recognized the paper from his DnD notebook. It was the one that you bought him for his birthday since his last one was filled with stories and all sorts of doodles and drawings. The edges of the paper were slightly jagged from being ripped from the spine, but nevertheless Eddie’s handwritten was always surprisingly neat. The free flowing cursive letters were written in black ink, some of it bleeding from the water droplets, which you assumed were his tears...you begun reading.

It’s just our luck that this happens to us. Am I right?

We can never seem to catch a break, you and I. At first it was just silly high school rumors about the good girl and the bad demon worshipping boy, and here we are battling something else. I don’t think I deserve you, but you always scold me when I say it, but you can’t really do anything if I write it, huh? You’ll probably swat me for that one later, but it’s true. You’re my best girl in the whole world and in no means am I religious, but God do I think Jesus himself made you for me. You’re heaven sent. Truly. I mean it.

I found it difficult as a little boy trying to figure out where I fit, you know that of course. And I know I have this whole persona of being the freak who doesn’t care, but the truth is I do. I only started caring when I met you, though. I hated what they would say about you in hallways, just because you were connected to me. I hate that they wouldn’t leave you alone because of me. And now I really hate that they want to physically hurt you because of me.

Sometimes I think everyone that I love gets hurt because of me.

I want to protect you and I wish I could make this all go away with a snap because I can’t bear to witness anything remotely horrible happening to you because of little ole’ me. You’re too pure for this world...too pure for me. The love and safety that you’ve made me feel, even before all of this crap happened means so much to me. I’ve lived my whole life trying to pretend like I don’t need love to be happy since I never was truly given it by my own parents, but here you come, waltzing into my world and you’ve changed that.

Changed me.

You’re the best thing that has happened to me and I’m so grateful that I’ve gotten the chance to experience this love that I’ve longed so much for. Every little thing you do takes my breath away and I never want that feeling to end. I never want to stop seeing you strike back at anyone who tries to cross me or you. Or anyone you love, for that matter. Never want to stop seeing you smile. Or feeling your hand against mine. Never want to ever stop experiencing you.

But who knows what the future holds after this?

I’ve been nothing but a coward throughout this whole thing. Hiding behind you and our friends, and their parents who have been trying to save me. I’ve put your life in danger and I could never forgive myself, knowing that someone would hurt you all because of me. And because of that, I need to make this right and if that means dying in the process, then I hope that you would understand, sweetheart.

Know that I would do anything to protect you, even giving my life away to some demon from hell. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that you and everyone else don’t need to face this thing anymore.

The only thing that I ask of you is to not forget me...don’t ever forget. Remember the love that you deserve and make sure you go out there and find it, again. My heart will always be yours no matter what. I just hope that I can live in yours when I’m gone.

I love you with every ounce of my being.

x, EM

Your lips quivered as sobs erupted from your mouth, hot tears gliding down your cheeks as you clutched the letter to your chest, racing around the trailer, trying to process the words you had just read. But it seemed that the fates just had to collide as Dustin’s body fell through the other side of the gate onto the mattress, as he quickly rolled out of the way as Robin, Nancy, and Steve came through one by one.

Each of them in a shaken up state. Sweat lined brows and pale faces.

“Where’s Eddie!” You screamed, voice shaking with apprehension, as if you already knew the answer.

Dustin cried, eyes spilling with salty tears as he fell to his knees in front of you. Steve immediately sprinting into big brother action, attempting to comfort the boy who grabbed at his shoulders screaming incoherent words that were muffled by the battle cries.

Nancy gulped hands, dropping her weapon on the floor, “He told us to run and not to come back.”

“W-what?”

Nancy couldn’t do it. She could not bear to look you, her friend, in the eye and tell you that the love of your life just offered his will to a monster.

And so Robin knew she had to be the bearer of terrible news, “Eddie offered his life to Vecna in order to spare Max.”

“And you let him!”

You were angry.

Beyond livid that they would so easily leave your boyfriend up there to fend for himself as they got to make it back here alive. But you didn’t know the full story, however you were determined to get it.

Your feet and fingers didn’t hesitate, reaching out for the dingy makeshift rope and wrapping your body around it as you pulled your body weight up. Screeches of your friends beneath you, attempting to bring you back down to reality. One in which you didn’t want to live if it was without Eddie.

“You can’t go up there! He’ll kill you too!” Dustin pleaded, grabbing at your foot that you carelessly kicked away in the heat of the moment.

It might have been coming from a place of anger, but you needed to go and you weren’t going to let anyone stop you.

“If I don’t make it back, then at least I get to die with the person I love.”

Steve, Robin, and Nancy knew that there was no way of stopping you. And so they let you climb up. Robin picking up the walkie to radio over the happenings as her voice slowly died off as you entered the unknown.

Like your friends said, it was practically Hawkins, but with monsters. So you weren’t too shocked to see the jarring identical trailer that was Eddie’s, just more roughed up and the windows boarded up with steel and wooden planks.

It wasn’t until you opened up the door when it all came crashing down. 

The sky was pitchy black with grey clouds and red undertones that coated its aura. You were careful, remembering Nancy’s word about a Hive Mind and stepping on Vecna. The ground was cluttered with half dead bats and burnt pieces of wood and other material you couldn’t quite make out.

You followed the sounds of grumbling and thunder, racing through as quick as possible in order to find where Eddie could be in this hell. The drum in your chest thumped harder and your ears began ringing as the sounds got closer and closer until finally you had reached the true depth of this hell.

“Eddie!”

Your hoarse wail echoed in the air as Eddie struggled to keep himself upright, the bites from the bats covering his now bare abdomen and sides. The creature in front of him, tilting his head to the side with a evil sneer displayed on his eerie features.

He followed your voice, thinking it was some kind of mind game that Vecna was playing on him, as if he was drawing him to death even when he had already agreed to give his life in order to save Max.

But when he turned around, seeing you in the flesh as you ran over to him, wrapping your arms around him in a haste, he knew it was all real. You had really followed him into this place and his friends allowed you to.

“You need to go.” He managed through deep shaky breaths pulling himself away from your touch, something that he wouldn’t do, especially in an instance like this.

You shook your head, eyes darting up to the monster, and back to her Eddie, “C’mon, we can still make it out of here.”

“Please, just go.” He shut his eyes tightly, wincing as you tried to pull him in an attempt to escape this demon, but it was no use.

Eddie stayed planted on the floor, a heavy laugh filling your ears as you finally looked up at Vecna, “Adding another sacrifice, aren’t we?”

“Go to hell.” Eddie spat moving you to stand behind him with whatever strength he had left.

Before you could even anticipate it, you could feel your ankles being confined by the vines wrapping around your skin. A scream leaving your mouth as you felt yourself being pulled away from Eddie and the gun dropping from your hands. 

“No!” Your chest hit the ground, taking your breath away as your hands tried to scratch and claw against the ground continuing to be dragged across the floor until you felt your back be pushed against a rough tree. 

“Let her go!” Eddie growled, failing to stop the monster and his actions as he too faced the same fate, getting wrapped up the in the vines and pushed up against another tree opposite of you. 

You were in shambles, shaking and crying as the vines pulled tighter around your body, nearly crushing you to death. 

“P-please, why are you doing this?” You whimpered, shutting your eyes tighter and gathering a deep breath, struggling against the restrains as Eddie cursed and the monster laughed like a maniac. 

“Let her go! She didn’t do a-anything!” Eddie reasoned, wiggling in the confines only for them to tighten. 

Vecna crept closer to you, the long fingernails getting closer to your face, “Aren’t you embarrassed of him?” 

You shook your head vigorously, “N-no…never. He’s not an embarrassment!” 

Vecna huffed, laughing once again as he turned around to face Eddie, approaching him now.

“Do you really believe her? Do you really think she wouldn’t feel embarrassed that her boyfriend can’t even defend himself or save her?” 

Eddie stopped his movements, meeting the eyes of the villain that got close enough to feel his breath fanning over his face. Your body and cries now darkening in the background as Vecna continued to talk. 

“She must pity you. Do you really think she would stick around with a man like you?” 

The more Vecna spoke, the hazier everything seemed to become. As if Eddie was lured into a different body, no longer in control of what he was really feeling on the inside and allowing himself to be taken over.

You couldn’t hear what Vecna was whispering in Eddie’s ears, your cries being too loud and your screaming voice begging for the monster to stop.

“Don’t listen to him, Eddie!” Your jaw shook, trying to regain whatever breath you had left in you to stay alive as long as possible.

Eddie, on the other hand, had other plans, “…Finish the job, Eddie…”

In a snap, the vines that trapped you both were loosened, letting you guys fall to the ground. You were relieved, like something magical just had happened, quickly pushing the vines off your skin and crawling fast towards Eddie as Vecna seemed to be walking away from you both with heavy footsteps.

Like he was giving you both mercy, if that was even possible for a sick creature like himself.

“E-Eddie, c’mon,” you hissed, your voice horse from the screaming and crying that still persisted down the valley of your cheeks.

He wasn’t moving. In fact, Eddie was staring you down like you were his prey. Those chocolate brown eyes you’d come to love now pitch black, with no sense of Eddie behind them at all.

“E-Eds?” You gulped, your rattling fingertips sliding away from his torso where they were resting to guide him back up, and your legs, despite how numb they were, hustled themselves away from him.

But he came closer, never blinking nor speaking. Just you proceeding to inch back, a hand held out to keep some distance between you two until he finally jerked.

His hand brutally moving down to slap your arm aside, making you wince, “O-ouch! Eddie, p-please.”

You grasped your arm, wiping the skin before a yelp escaped you, a new pain coming from the back of your head as he shoved your shoulders back, prompting you to lie flat on the tough coarse ground.

“It’s your turn.” He snarled, poising over top of you where his grips immediately enclosed around your neck, cramming all the air out of you.

“S-stop! Eddie—g-get off me!”

You clobbered beneath him, palms pushing with all your might against his heart to get him off of you. Never did you ever think Eddie would do something like this. It was never like him to put his hands on you. Ever.

“I-I can’t bre…breathe.” Your hands floundered, weakly giving up little by little until they slouched on your sides, your eyes fighting to stay open as long as you could.

“Euugh!” The unexpected breath came to you suddenly when his hands unwrapped from your neck.

The skin around your collar was on fire, your fingers covering your throat and coughing out brutally. The tears in your eyes welling, not sure who this man in front of you was anymore.

“You don’t really love me!” He shouted, forcing you cringe a sob leaving your mouth as you cried, swaying your head back and forth with your swollen lip caught between your teeth.

“W-what? Of course I love you…p-please, let’s just go, then you can explain.”

You found it within yourself to snatch at his wrists, pleading with him to follow despite what had just happened. But he only shook his head, holding your hands down on your chest, pressing down firmly.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

The rumbling that you thought was loud before became almost deafening now. A lightning bolt stuck the sky, defining what once was maroon to become lava red, then back to twilight in a glare.

There was no Vecna in sight. Not a single demodog or demobat.

Something was happening.

Hyperventilating, you struggled to calm down, reminding yourself of Lucas’ words. It all coming back to you gradually.

He took his victims hostage. Making them see things that weren’t there. Using their insecurities and deepest fears against them.

Vecna was doing it to Eddie.

You needed to get through to him. Somewhere, Eddie was still in there.

You needed to find him.

“Edward Munson! Your name is Edward Munson, but you go by E-Eddie because you think Edward sounds too 1800s like.”

Somehow, you were able to spit that information out through your irregular breaths. The stronger Eddie forced your arms down towards yourself, the harder it was to speak and inhale, but you needed to get to him.

The only that you could think of is reminding him of who he really was.

“Y-you live with your uncle Wayne at the Forest Hills Trailer Park, and….and you’ve lived there since you were six. You started playing DnD when you were twelve, then you s-started your club in your sophomore year of high…high school.”

You took a deep gasp, noticing his hands retreat a bit, as your story went on. His eyes finally blinking, and his frenzied gaze now weakening.

“I met you when I was a junior and you were a-a senior…your first senior year! And, we had world history together, y-you would ask me for the notes because you never showed up for class.”

In some weird way, you were able to let out a minor laugh through your sobs, reminiscing about the turning point that led you to him.

The love of your life.

“I would get s-so annoyed at you, cause…cause you passed every test without even being there for the lectures and only studying the s-stupid notes.”

Your voice shuddered, cracking in between words, wanting that old Eddie back right now, instead of the possessed one.

“Then you asked me if I wanted to study together in the library…and I said yes. I-I’m so glad that I did, because that’s how we got closer, then you asked me to be your girlfriend a-and I said yes…then two weeks later when Jason Carver tried to pour his milk carton all over you, I p-pantsed him from behind. T-then you told me you loved me for the first time…and I haven’t stopped loving you since then.”

You hadn’t even realized the way that you started breaking down, but these were peaceful tears. Not the afraid ones that were shed only moments ago. There was a small smile on your face, your fingers stretching out to fold around his wrist, still feeling his pulse knowing he was still there.

“And—and I don’t ever plan on stopping,” You hiccuped, nodding your head at him almost to assure him you were still here too.

“I just need you to wake up, Eddie…I-I know you and this is just Vecna making you see things and feel emotions that aren’t really you. I love you…you know this Eds, and I know somewhere in there you love me t-too.”

Another strike of thunder resounded in the air and a lightning triggering up the sky once more. Something was taking place, there was no way for these actions to happen with no meaning behind it.

“Eddie please!” You begged, launching off his hands and shaking his shoulders roughly, “Listen to me Eddie…you cannot die like this! I r-refuse to let you die! Now wake up, Eddie!”

Thunder. Lightning. Chirps flocking in the sky, growing closer. And heavy howling becoming nearer.

You pinched his skin tight, eyes searching his orbs and to the sky and enveloping space around you, “Eddie! Wake the fuck up! I’m begging you, p-please.”

He began to shake aggressively, agonizing groans leaving his mouth and his own hands covering his eyes and rubbing his lids trying to get himself out of the trance.

You swallowed when you could pinpoint the bats in the air, driving a beeline towards you, and the footsteps you knew were the interdimensional creatures coming after getting the signal that Eddie didn’t finish the job that Vecna tasked him with.

There was no time left.

Not with the state Eddie was in.

But you needed to accept it.

That you were going to die tonight and lose him, but at least it would be with the love of your life.

You nodded to yourself, not putting up a fight anymore while you closed your eyes securely, hands finding Eddie’s and grasping them, demanding nothing more than to die with your hands intertwined.

“Wha—babe, w-what’s going on?”

You rose your brows, eyes still shut.

“Are we dead already?” You sought shakily, opening one of your eyes, only to be met with Eddies.

The dark brown chocolate ones that actually belonged to him.

Your Eddie.

You sat up and he moved off of you, instantly pulling you up and into his arms, covering your heads as he ran hastily back towards the trailer, “C’mon…f-fuck, shit, what the hell happened to me?”

The pain settled onto his body where the bats had bitten him; the gashes oozing with blood, almost too much of it, but he kept racing, realizing he had to get you and him to security, even if it meant just his shabby metal trailer keeping you two out of harm’s way.

“T-the bats, they got to you!” You shouted, flinching as you two were avoiding the falling debris from the sky only a few feet away from the trailer.

Only this time, you two weren’t alone.

Steve, Nancy, and Robin were there, guns in their arms with bullets disappearing and the homemade molotov cocktails being flung far behind you and Eddie.

You only dared to take one glace back, and there was Vecna, a distance away gradually crumbling to pieces, his flesh turning into ash and evaporating away like it was all just a bad dream.

“Shit! Steve, give them a hand!” Nancy caught the sight of the two of you first.

Lowering her shotgun briefly as she turned to Steven who darted his eyes in the direction she was looking at. By now you were the one holding Eddie up, his midriff burning in misery, as he stumbled forward with his leftover energy. Blood covered your hands where you pressed onto the wounds, hoping to stop the bleeding to the best of your ability.

“Hey, c’mon, it’s gonna be ok.” Steve assured the both of you as he bound Eddie’s opposite arm around his shoulder, essentially the two of you pulling Eddie’s body into the trailer.

He collapsed right on the floor, harshly coughing, only making you more worried about his state. Dropping beside him, you ripped off your jacket, then pulled off your shirt, using the thin pieces of cotton to act as gauze.

“Stay here!” Steve instructed, heading back out the door and shutting it strongly.

You could faintly hear the rifle firing along with Robin’s orders with glass exploding with every throw they made.

“I’m sorry…just stay awake, Eds.” You pleaded, giving him a quick glance where he cowered and nodded when you pressed harder against his morsels now covered with the material and blood.

You looked up, and the portal was still there, open, just waiting to be entered back through. You never wanted to go back to normal Hawkins so badly in your entire life.

The door opening followed by your friends’ three voices startled you and Eddie a bit. They all looked at you two only for a couple of seconds before the static rumbled through the walkie strapped onto Nancy’s belt, “G…gate, c-closing gate…hurry back!”

Steve stepped forward beside you, employing all his energy to guide Eddie up to his feet and towards the rope, “C’mon man, need a little more energy then we’re out of here.”

“T-trying.” Eddie countered, binding his arms around the sheets and dragging himself up, struggling to burying the pain that was radiating all over his body towards the back of his mind so he could concentrate.

But thankfully, arms snatched above him, peeping out through the portal, and there were the familiar voices, “Hold on, Eddie!”

Dustin and Hopper.

Suddenly he was pulled through, landing on the mattress and urgently being rolled off as everyone came through one by one.

Across the street from Eddie’s trailer, Eleven had been able to piggyback into the Upside Down, creating an illusion of a distraction towards Vecna, allowing the others to really kill him, and for her to close the gate forever.

“Please check on him!” You got up, stumbling towards Eddie with Hopper and Dustin right by your side.

Hopper held his hand out, shouting for the walkie talkie which Nancy placed in his hand, “Anyone with telephone access I need an ambulance at Forrest Hills…hurry!”

Eddie felt his eyes begin to flutter close, weakening by the minute. The only sounds to his ears were the voices of his friends calling out his name, but the only one that resounded sweetly was yours, even if it was screams of terrors begging him to stay awake.

He couldn’t.

The sleep took over before he could even process what was going on. If he was dying slowly or if he just needed a few minutes to close his eyes.

He finally awoke…after three painful days.

Disoriented and confused, the sunlight slowly flooded his senses—his eyes squinting at the brightness, yet his skin warming up at the warmth. The hospital bed beneath him felt like heaven despite the scratchy blanket they had provided and the less than springy mattress.

You were asleep curled up in the chair beside him. Hair a tangled mess just by the looks of it, and your bare arms and skin around your neck covered in small cuts and large purple and green bruises.

“B-baby?” He coughed out brutally, clearing his throat from the dryness, wincing at the strain.

You mumbled something out, moving around slightly before your body froze, eyes ripping wide open as you stared at him. He was up, eyes actually open for you to see and his chest moving up and down showing he was breathing on his own accord.

“Eds!” You straightened out of your chair, making the short distance to his bed where you stayed by his side, holding his face gently in your hands.

Somehow, from him just being awake, his features came back alive. His skin was a little less pale, with the blood seeping into his cheeks with a slight red blush and his tiny freckles glittering a dark brown against his forehead and nose.

His hands weakly wrapped around your wrists, feeling your warmth there, and smiling, “I missed you.”

You missed him way more, even if you were by his side the entire time.

You missed feeling his eyes on you. You missed him reaching for your hand and squeezing it. You missed his hair tickling your skin as he snuggled closer to you. You missed everything that made Eddie, Eddie.

Instead, you had to sit there beside his lifeless body for the last three days, watching the machine monitor his heartbeat and praying that it wouldn’t stop. Everyone came in and out of his room, checking on him and bringing you food—Wayne and Hop trying to convince you to leave so you could go home and get a good night’s rest, but you refused. You weren’t going to leave Eddie’s side.

“Me too,” you settled for, nodding your head as you appreciated your man a little more today.

His eyes finally shifted from yours and trailed over the exposed skin that was barely visible under the collar of his shirt that you were wearing. The deep purple and dark green specks coming to him as his eyes traveled lower to your arms where there were small cuts and bruises that looked to be healing now.

“What happened to you?” His voice was still hoarse yet concerned, pulling his fingers away from your wrists and gently going towards your neck.

You flinched at the feeling, still not used to the discomfort that came with the bruises so close to your face. He pulled back quickly, immediately whispering an, “I’m sorry,” when he saw the way your eyes clenched shut and your bit your lip.

“No, no, it’s ok, you didn’t mean to.” You assured him, swallowing thickly as you opened your eyes and met his again.

You didn’t know if you had it in you to tell Eddie that he was responsible for the injuries that littered your body. But you didn’t have it in you to lie to him, not after you two had already gone through so much together, and you knew it was all Eddie’s fault.

“Y-you did it to me in the Upside Down while…”

His eyes widened, and his fingers fell from your skin into his lap. He couldn’t fathom that he was capable of putting his hands on you. He would have never done that to you, ever. He promised he wouldn’t be like his dad and ever lay a finger on a woman or a child yet you were here covered in bruises because of him.

Realization hit him like a ton of bricks as he listened to you continue to explain what had happened a few days ago on the other side. It had all felt like it had happened in a blink of an eye when the monster suddenly invaded his entire being. It had been a terrifying experience, like nothing he had ever felt before. He remembered feeling like he was no longer in control of his own body, like something else had taken over.

It was as if the moments were replaying in his head while you spoke every detail of what you called, “the night I almost lost you.” He could see the fuzzy picture of you in his head, laying beneath him while you cried, yet never trying to attack him. You looked so broken, but yet so sure that everything was going to be ok with truth coating your eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, tears welling up in his own eyes. “I don’t know what came over me. I-I would never hurt you, I swear.”

He couldn’t believe he had hurt the person he loved most in the world. He fully expected you to tell him that you couldn’t bear to be with him after everything that happened, but your soft expression spoke otherwise.

You leaned forward, closing your eyes as some tears spilt over the precipice, kissing his forehead gingerly.

“It’s okay, Eds. It wasn’t really you, and I know that…I’m just glad you’re awake and that you’re going to be ok.”

Your apology should have been enough for him to accept everything, but still he felt so ashamed and guilty for something he had no control over. He shook his head, tears now streaming down his face as he cried, “No, it’s not okay. I h-hurt you, and I can never make that right.”

It wasn’t going to be something that Eddie would accept overnight and you knew that. You couldn’t imagine the pain and anguish he was feeling inside or out, but you knew that you two were going to get through this, eventually.

You climbed into the hospital bed with him, wrapping your arms around him and holding him close with his face buried in your shoulder, “Shh, it’s okay. I forgive you, Eddie. We’ll get through this together.”

There was a long road ahead of you two, one that you didn’t quite know the directions to, yet you held out hope that everything—all the suffering and the turmoil that came from the Upside Down would leave itself in the past as you and Eddie continued forward.

Together.

Three Months Later

Eddie felt the squeeze you gave his hand as the two strode through the makeshift memorial built for the lost lives during the time between the gates opening and Vecna’s final victim. Everyone from Barb, Chrissy, Bob, and Heather had a plaque with their names and a bed of flowers resting upon each of them.

“Somehow, this feels wrong.” Eddie whispered softly, watching you bend down to place a few of the pink and red flowers on Chrissy’s plaque, neatly arranging them and running your fingers through the letters of her etched name. 

You peered up behind you, following as Eddie awkwardly looked around that the area. Other members of the community and the family members of victims doing the same to each plaque. 

Standing up and dusting your fingers, you gave him an enthusiastic smile, enclosing your arms around his back staring up at him, “Everything is ok now…I know it’s weird and eerie but….they all deserve to be remembered.” 

“No, not that,” He shook his head and closed his eyes, the sun blaring down adding brightness to the dark before he opened and saw you once again, “I mean like…people aren’t staring me—at us.” 

You took a deep breath, breathing softly as you turned and looked around. Sure enough, no one was glaring at you two, simply doing their own thing and taking the time to honor those who died. 

It was nice. 

You didn’t notice how accustomed you had gotten to the heckling and staring that now realizing it, this did in fact feel weird. Everyone seemed to leave you and Eddie alone after Hopper had finally come clean about the Upside Down and everything that had happened. It took a while for the public to believe him, but when everything started adding up and the proof came to light, they all just sort of…stopped. 

There was no more threats. 

No more mobs outside the trailer park. 

And most importantly, no more danger. 

“It’s nice.” You whispered, resting your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat taking over your senses while he wrapped his arms tighter around you and place a kiss on the top of your head. 

Eddie was grateful that everything seemed to work out even with the turn of event that had happened. It was hard for him to accept at first that he would ever think of harming you, but you had sat him down and talked. 

Vecna possessed him…doing things Eddie was not capable of, but that monster Vecna was. Essentially using his body as a vessel to hurt you, but thankfully somewhere in that horrible trance Eddie was still there. Behind the haze, it was still Eddie and he could and would never hurt you. 

Sure it was almost the night you had lost, Eddie.

But you hadn’t. He was here with you and you were here with him.

“Do you think the kids will visit us?” You wondered, and he murmured, nodding his head tenderly against yours. 

“I think they’ll like California…maybe we can take them to Disneyland if they visit during the summer.” 

Eddie and you never liked Hawkins too much, but you had your family here. Eddie had Wayne. And you both had your friends. But it was too heavy to stay here any longer, so you two had agreed that it was time for a fresh start of a new chapter in your lives. Freshly graduated from high school with little money in either of your bank account, you two were taking a risk. One that you knew had to be taken and would eventually be worth it in the end.

You felt his hands leave your waist and instead cradle your face, bringing you to meet his lips as you shared a kiss. Then he pulled away, briefly kneeling down to pick up a stray poppy and placing it behind your ear as you smiled and kissed his lips once more. 

“We should probably go now…flight is in a few hours.” He said against your lips, feeling your smile radiate off yourself and onto him. 

You forced yourself to pull away, but never getting lost in those eyes as you reached for his hands as you two always did time and time again, “Let’s go, baby.” 

Nothing was ever easy, and that was true for you and Eddie. 

The two of you had to fight off everything. 

The rumors in the hallways. 

The bullying and teasing. 

The mobs and riots. 

And a supernatural creature. 

But at the end, you two survived. 

You two had each other to reach for in times of crisis, whether it was when everyone had found out you and Eddie had begun dating or even when people were coming for your lives. You and Eddie gave each other the strength to keep pushing back, to know that there was a light way down deep on the other side of the tunnel. 

The light that wasn’t morning glory and getting towards survival wasn’t fair, but it led you two right where you were. In each other arms and holding one another’s hand because you two had survived The Great War. 

A/N: finally i am done with this fic!!! this has been sitting in my wips for the last couple of months and im so happy i am finally done with it. let me know what you guys think!! reblogs, tags, comments, and likes would be greatly appreciated!! <3

taglist (if you would like to be added just leave a comment!): @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world

[do-y0u-have-to-let-it-linger]

EXT. The Roof (Winter) - Sunset

Not Just Attracted to Women!Peter Maximoff x Fem and Not Just Attracted to Men!Reader

Based off of a dream I recently had: Peter and Y/N have a conversation on the roof of Xavier's in mid-December. Peter accidentally lets it slip that he might not be straight, and he is afraid that Y/N will think less of him because of it because this is the 80s. Y/N reveals that she is also not straight, and is saddened by the fact that Peter could think that she could ever hate him- especially for that. She calls him wonderful. Feelings ensue. Also, a touch of Cherik at the end because I give the people what they want.

Warnings: Swearing, Peter cries, internalized homophobia (this is the 80s-ish and Peter uses the word 'queer' in a kind of incorrect and kind of offensive manner, but it was internalized homophobia and not actually intended to be mean to anyone but himself so I forgive him), a touch of angst but mostly fluff, Charles called you two "children" even though you are obviously not, Erik is happy that his son has someone that cares about him the way you do, Peter is insecure but not super blunt about it, Peter has been deprived of being adored his entire life, bad writing, I mention a serial killer twice, historical inaccuracy because the word queer was still a slur so yeah.

A/N: This is literally the first thing I have ever written so please be nice to me, I wrote this instead of an essay. I would love a comment of any kind, even if it's just a heart emoji or something, and constructive criticism would be highly appreciated. Also 'N/N' stands for nick-name.

(Ok, so, full discloser: the format is odd. The bullet points represent dialogue, and the only dialogue is between you two love birds. The first bullet point is Peter, the second is Y/N, the third is Peter, and so on.)

“I dunno, the whole ‘liking people’ thing has always been weird for me.”

“How do you mean?"

“Pppffftt- 'how do you mean,' what are you, Shakespeare or somethin’?”

“Yeah, because that’s the era when ‘how do you mean' would have been a popular term. Ok, what do you mean?”

“Just- when other people were liking people I never really was?”

He was gesturing wildly and avoiding eye contact, as always. He wasn't uncomfortable with eye contact, he just got bored easily in conversations, he needed to keep himself occupied. In this situation that meant staring at the red and green lights covering the rest of the roof, the snowy trees all over the yard, and a holly garland around the gate. Peter wasn't Christian, but man, did he love their Christmas decorations.

“Like… now? In school?”

“Well- yeah… but also when I was younger. And I never liked the right people? Or... liked them in the right way?”

“So you’ve never liked anyone.”

“No, no… I definitely have. It was just… weird! I don't-”

His hands dropped to his side in defeat.

“I don’t think it’s that out of the ordinary. I would tell you if it was. Also, if it was... 'weird', like you said, that wouldn’t mean it was necessarily bad.”

He hadn’t really heard what she said, he was too busy pondering what his next sentence would be. When she wasn't speaking, he was rambling.

"I had some of the normal crap… like in movies when they talk about the fluttery stomach junk. I've had that around a few girls I've been friends with, also that phase with the boy stuff, a-"

“Wait, what phase with the boy stuff?”

“Like- when you’re in middle school or whatever and you're gay for a second.”

His phrasing was a joke, but the statement as a whole was not.

“…‘Gay for a second’?”

“…Yeah?”

“Hmmm..."

"Is that- not-"

"I don't think that is... 'normal'... per-say..."

“Oh… Really?”

His heart sunk.

“…Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“…Mhm.”

“…Shit.”

He suddenly looked almost embarrassed. He shifted his posture, seemingly trying to shrink into himself.

“Do you... wanna chat about it?”

Panic started to slowly rise in him.

“Um- forget I said anything.”

“Why?”

Something in him said to go on the "defense". He did not appear as calm as he was intending to.

“I’m not- gay! or anything. I like girls! I do!”

She put her hand on his arm.

“Hey- look at me for a second. We are not in court, and I never 'accused' you of being gay. That would be a very funny reality TV show, but not what is happening right now. Listen, theoretically if you were gay that wouldn’t be bad! And I wouldn’t be… whatever you.. think that I would be? I mean- however you are afraid I would act in a negative reaction to it? I would try to be here for you, and be as supportive as possible.”

He didn’t believe her.

“Ok, sure.”

“Peter.”

“What? You’re going to tell me that you would honestly be friends with a queer person- be friends with me if I was... not... normal?”

She was taken aback by his tone, the word he had used, and the way he said it, felt like a weight dropping on her shoulders.

“Oh. would you… not?”

It was her turn to seem nervous.

“What?”

“Would you- stop being friends with someone for liking someone that they… I don’t know… shouldn’t... would be the word I guess?”

Why, in this situation, was she nervous? Oh. His fear was replaced with guilt.

“No.”

“Ok.”

“So… are you… do you… why were you scared?”

“... Why were you?”

She expected a joke from him, something along the lines of “touché".

“Are you… gay?”

“No.”

Yeah, he didn’t believe her.

“Uh-huh”

“Really, I’m not. I’ve liked boys, but also... I've had feelings for girls. I’m not… straight. So I just want to let you know that it’s okay if you aren’t too.”

“I never s-“

She smiled at him with a bit of pity, she had been there. The self-loathing, the feeling of walking on minefields with so many people in your life.

“You are…”

She paused.

“I am… what?”

“Give me a second I’m trying to find the perfect word.”

“… Okay?”

“Wonderful.”

That was not exactly the word he was expecting. Like, at all.

“Huh?”

“That’s the word. Wait- let me start over. You gotta look me in my eyes as I say it, because it’s gonna be really poetic.”

“Uh… should I be scared?”

“No. Maybe a little. No.”

“… Okay.”

He looked at her.

“You are… wonderful.”

“Oh... Thanks?“

He looked away again, to be honest, he was a bit uncomfortable. He rarely received compliments, especially ones that seem so... genuine.

“I’m not finished, look back at me, just for a second. You are so wonderful- and I will support you as whatever you are! I want you to know that I can- I can barely even think of something you could do that would make me genuinely hate you- like… maybe if you Dahmer-ed people or like chopped up a-“

He found this was amusing, yet disturbing.

“Y/N?”

“Sorry- I just- the fact that you thought, even for a second, that I could hate you… is just-“

“I’m sorry”

“No! Stop it. Don’t be sorry.”

She stared at him expectantly.

“What do you want me to-“

“Take it back! The sorry!”

“How?”

“Say you aren’t sorry”

“N/N-“

“Peter.”

“Ok. I’m, ya know, not sorry.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be”

“You’re weird.”

“Yuh-huh. Says the most likely, from the little information I've gathered, bisexual in denial who also happens to be the fastest boy on earth who had to slow down exponentially to interact with other people who also, also, happens sitting on a roof in the dead of winter with me.”

“What’s by smexual?”

Something about the way he attempted to repeat her words must have been hilarious, he thought, because here she was, sitting in front of him, in a fit of childish giggles. He would smile if he weren't so confused.

“No- that’s not- what I said- it’s… wait!”

“What?”

“You’re tryna get me off topic!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Am not!”

“Are t- shit.”

“HAHA! Victory is a sweet dessert... wait is that even the saying? Still, I win you lose, nerd.”

“Ok, okay! go on.”

She was attempting to gather herself to give off a less jokey aura. It was half working, the "am not! are too!" argument a few moments ago made it hard for him to take her seriously, but he could tell it was important to her that he did, so he tried his best.

“You have to look at me again. just for a second.”

“I sw-”

“Just do it? Please?”

His attempt to put up a fight was thwarted by her small "please". He was pathetic.

“Okay.”

He looked at her.

“You…”

“Me… or- wait- I…”

“Are w-“

“Wonderful, yeah yeah. just get to the n-”

“No.”

“… No?”

“When you say it it doesn’t encapsulate it. It sounds silly.”

“Ok little miss ‘you art thou wonderful’, how would you have me say it?”

“I am you wonderful?”

“What?”

“You called me ‘little miss you are you wonderful’ what does that-“

“Ok! Would you just- shut up and call me wonderful one more time, please?”

She looked at him and blinked. That sentence surely came off as less ironic than intended.

“You are wonderful.”

She grabbed his face, in a half-joking manner. Her grab smushed his cheeks and she couldn't help but laugh a bit when she did it. Even though it was clearly a bit, he was still flustered.

“W-“

She shook him a bit.

"Shut up 'cause I'm about to say some beautiful and true shit. You are wonderful. You are wonderful. You are wonderful. You are absolutely, unchangingly, and irrevocably wonderful and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, Maximoff.”

After saying what she would (in 40 years or so) recall as a painfully John Green-ish statement in her blunt and matter-of-fact manner, she let go of her semi-ironic hold on his pink cheeks. Were his cheeks pink because it was absolutely freezing, or because his heart was beating faster than he had ever (and would ever, mind you) run, you ask? No comment.

“Wow.”

“Wow what.”

“You do say it better than I do.”

“Did you like how I stressed different parts of the sentence each time? I thought that was a nice detail.”

“Wow.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Wow.”

Did his voice just... break a little?

“Peter?”

“Uh- yeah?”

Was he a little... sniffle-y? She was now very concerned.

“Are you okay?!”

“Oh- um... yeah!”

No! No he was clearly not! He was sniffling!

“Really? 'Cause, you don't seem it.”

“It’s just- I just- wow.”

“Wow, what!?”

“That was just- uh-"

“Just what? It really wasn't that fancy, you seem much too impressed with me. Oh my God, was it terrible?”

“I mean it was really corny but w-“

“I swear to God if you say 'wow' one more time I may have to add ‘use of the word wow too much’ to the list of things that could make me hate you. Right next to the Dahmer stuff. That was a joke. Your use of the word wow is only mildly perturbing. Sorry."

She was panicking "just a bit".

“I’m sorry, I mean I’m not sorry. Sorry. Shit! sorry! I mean I’m not!”

And he was absolutely... full-on crying at this point.

“Peter.”

“Yeah?”

He was looking down at his mittens. Not that this is important, but they were very pretty mittens.

“Look at me, you klepto.”

He didn’t.

“You know- I’ve been hearing a lot of that 'look at me' stuff from you today. I mean- the klepto part is new-“

“Peter.”

“What?!”

He peaked up at her.

“Talk to me. Please, you're kinda scaring me, let me help.”

“I’m not sad!”

“You’re crying!”

“Yeah but not from the sads!”

“… The ‘sads’?”

“You know- when you get sad! It just means being sad! I don't- that’s what Wanda calls it, not me!"

He wiped his nose, tears still running down from his puffy eyes to his reddened cheeks.

“What are you crying from?”

“No one’s ever called me wonderful before.”

“I'm sorry! I did a few minutes ago and you didn’t cry!”

“No! You can't 'sorry' me if I can't 'sorry' you! And- yeah but that doesn’t count!”

“Why?”

“Because it only felt big when you said it the certain way!”

“What way!?”

“You look at me, you grab my cheeks-“

“I'm sorry about that by the way I was j-“

“No! It’s really ok! Do it whenever! I mean don’t do it whene- shut up!”

“I’m not even talking! You're the one talking!”

“You look at me, you grab my cheeks, and you go: you are wonderful.”

“Yeah???”

“No one ever called me that before!”

"Peter, I- well- they- they should! They should! More often! Then the amount that it happens now! I think. In my opinion."

"Or really looked at me like that!”

“Looked at you like what, Peter?”

“Like I was somethin’!”

“Well, you are… ‘somethin'! Whatever that means! And- I think you deserve to be looked at as such!”

“See?”

“What!?”

“You just-“

A strangled sob escaped from his throat. He didn't know how to explain.

“Pete.”

“Ew. I hate that nickname.”

He crossed his arms over his chest like a toddler, trying to completely ignore the fact that he was an emotional wreck.

“Peter.”

“Yeah?”

She opened her arms and gestured for him to come closer. He was hesitant at first- but gave up all the reasons he shouldn't move to be closer to her in exchange for the promise of comfort she was offering him. He crawled over to her and curled up in her arms. The way she held him made him want to cry more. Who does she think she is- holding him like he was worth holding? With her chin sitting on top of his hair? Letting him do that gross cry sob with the spit and the snot into her only winter coat? Rocking him, and shushing him, and petting his stupid, silver hair? She was warm, too! The audacity of this woman.

When Erik brought Charles into his office to grab a chess set, they saw the two in the window. For a moment Charles considered telling Peter and Y/N to get off of the high platform, seeing as the two were the reasons the "no sitting on the roof" rule was enacted in the first place (neither of them were coordinated whatsoever). Charles quickly dropped this notion when he saw the look on Erik's face, Charles could tell it made him so happy to see Peter be held like that, cared for like that. Erik's expression made Charles want to both tell Erik that he is the most precious thing in the world, and make fun of him (look at Mr. Metal, gone completely soft). Possibly he could do both at the same time. But for now, he is just going to pretend he didn't see the two outside of the window, and have Erik grab them their game, go to the living room, and pretend not to have read Erik's mind when he inevitably asks him how he always manages to pick the white chess piece at "random".

[angeli-marco-writes]

∘◦ ♥ ◦∘ Peter Parker - Everything Happens for a Reason ∘◦ ♥ ◦∘

A/N - I only wrote it a couple of months ago and due to the close nature of it, I haven’t uploaded it anywhere. I hope you like my first (10k) Peter Parker fic. I know that the timeline doesn’t make sense, but in all honesty, Endgame and FFH messed it up plenty so I just kinda placed this in no-mans-time. And I know the compound was destroyed during Endgame, so just bear with the fact that I’ve made it so that Strange and his wizards rebuilt it for survivors :)

Warnings - making out and shadows to sex, SWEARING, bad parenting, mentions of grief, mentions of injury and disability, angst, death of parents etc. Also, don’t read if you haven’t seen endgame because it’ll be spoiled in the first paragraph of this. 

Summary - Stark!reader x Peter Parker, post endgame. Months after the death of your father, your aunt, and the retirement of your uncle, you find yourself in a sticky situation, and to make it even worse, your childhood crush doesn’t even recognise you now. Then again, doing most of your growing up while half of the population is dead doesn’t exactly bode well for your love life nor your commitment issues. When things finally start to turn around while learning to live with a disability, will you still be taken away to live with your step-mother, or will love pan out at last? After all, everything happens for a reason. 

IT'S BEEN JUST OVER THREE MONTHS since the final battle, and therefore just over three months since you said goodbye to the only three role models you had for the most important five years of your life. Well, the three are debatable. 

Your dad had died, still holding your hand, after saving humanity like he always did, allowing the burden of the Stark name to fall onto you at long last. Your uncle Steve - tutor extraordinaire - had officially retired and moved away, and you haven’t seen him since the final goodbye, leaving you more and more doubtful every day you’ll ever see him again. And your aunty Nat let herself go, she pushed herself away from that cliff, and let uncle Clint live, to help give you a better life, but what Nat didn’t realise was that you lost them both that day, because Clint hasn’t been back since. He’s never coming back now from the trauma, the man who was more of a father than your dad ever was.

It was quite possibly the worst period of your whole life, but then again, when half of the world is destroyed before you’ve even hit puberty, you don’t really have much to hold it against.

But here you are again, stuck in your room in the semi-rebuilt compound, grounded by FRIDAY while the step monster and child are at the lake house, living happily ever after. What the issue is, you don’t know. All you did was get a piercing... and be rude to Peter. And Sam. And everyone in the building- ok maybe she has a point, but hey, you’re grieving the loss of everyone major in your life, and you can barely do anything for yourself.

It’s like five years ago all over again. Everyone you’d grown accustomed to, your friends, your mom, your idols - even if they weren’t dead, they were lost for a long time - and your crush. The one and only Peter Parker. Much to your surprise, you got over most of the deaths pretty quickly. There wasn’t much to understand - they were gone and they wouldn’t come back no matter what, so what good would worrying and crying do? Obviously, as a young girl, this was the wrong response, so this is when Pepper got her name. “Don’t be so insensitive! Those were your dad's best friends, people he worked with for years. Those people were his family, and mine, and yours.”

You scoffed at her, the way you always seemed to do. “Yeah, ok. But my mum died, and am I making a fuss? No. She died for a reason, they all did,” and under your breath, you added “I still just need to figure that reason out.”

You held back from the obvious “they were my family too” bullshit, because your dad never believed that, even when you spent most of your time at his house with the Avengers instead of him. It wasn’t that you hated your mom or your dad, you loved them both equally and spent time with them both, but when one dies and one goes missing and spirals into lord knows what after going missing in space with a blue alienoid, everything gets a little complicated and stops making sense. Spending more time with your dad was scary too, seeing the intricacies of Avengers life in a capacity which you didn’t understand for a long time growing up. That only lasted for a year before he took off and made you be a tennis ball in a flawed game between him and Rhodey. Every weekend for five years you drove from the compound to the lake house. You lost out on a lot from that, and your dad didn’t even seem phased, because he had Morgan. 

But beneath all of the hatred that had made you so rebellious since you turned fifteen, there was something deeper.

Considering how stone faced and resolute you are and always have been, considering how harsh you are about the realities and never getting caught up in mindless emotions, no matter how much you claim that your grieving time was over the second that you pushed your dad's heart away, mere weeks after feeling his pulse drop as you laced your fingers with his, no one would believe that it was all a lie.

Every night since that snap more than five years ago, you’ve done the same thing. Make a cup of hot chocolate (an iced decaf latte if it was summer), and you’d take it to bed and just cry until you could no more and simply fell asleep. You weren’t even sure why you cried, because after all there wasn’t really any reason to. The world was moving on, albeit slower than before, and your life  was about as much locked into place as it could be with Tony Stark as your father, but the crying just felt obligatory. After ten, FRIDAY always turned off in your room, that was the agreement your mom had with your dad whenever you stayed there, although you weren’t sure why it made a difference, and it just stuck, so no one saw the pointless tears, no one heard, and no one cared. The only one who ever did care enough whenever you cried had been snapped away, and now he was back, you were just another repugnant face in the crowds, or so you’d guess with the way he looked down upon you.

 “It’s ok dad,” you said with a completely straight face, your hard eyes locked onto his, your entire being completely void of emotion, ���you can go to sleep.”

He squeezed your hand with his forefinger and middle finger, very lightly, and he just croaked out his final words to you, “my beautiful Sloane, so brave.” So quiet that they were only decipherable to you.

“Life functions critical,” the Irish accent rang in your ears.

Pete had already said his goodbyes, but now it was Pepper’s turn as she wiped your dad's tears away. This time you should’ve been there for each other, a support for one another, after all, they were losing him together and were in the same boat, but sometimes even grief can’t bring people together. 

“Tony, look at me. We’re going to be ok..” she pleaded. 

Your dad's eyes moved from yours to hers, a sluggish movement that took the remaining life from him. He moved his lips to form two words that broke your heart, because you knew that they were directed at all of you, and they meant so much more than anyone else could understand. Those words were his attempt at making up for being such a shit dad. ‘I’m sorry.’ 

Pepper kissed him. “You can rest now.”

You didn’t even look around to see anyone else’s face , especially not Peters or Peppers, because as soon as his pulse stopped and his skin slipped from your grip, his body cold, you knew that the chapter of your life with your father in it was over, so you pulled your mask back over your face, and strutted away, as far as possible. You ignored your limp completely, because with all of the numbness, it was like you couldn’t even feel the pain. Except you didn’t disappear, no way, you couldn’t. You watched as they all knelt for him, for the man who missed all of your firsts in life, who was absent when you needed a father and a friend and a leader, and even though you were chronically broken within, every terrible emotion gnawing at you, screaming at you to just feel something and express it; you didn’t. You suppressed it all, and walked away. And of no surprise to you at all, no one followed, or even noticed you were gone.

After all, Tony Stark died for a reason, and at least this time you knew what that reason was. 

 “Miss?” Someone’s snapping their fingers beside your ear, driving you mental but also snapping you awake from whatever dream that was, reliving the scariest day of your life. “Miss, you fell asleep at the table. We’re clearing it for dinner, please.”

You roll your eyes up at him, instantly recognising Pete’s voice, but you just don’t care. He doesn’t even know who you are. So you scoff, the way you did at Pepper so long ago, and you leave without a second glance.

“Are you a relative of Nat’s? I- I heard someone was coming over to stay...” his voice yells down the corridor.

“You can’t be serious Peter. You don’t recognise me at all?”

And with that, you snatch your water bottle from the edge of the counter with your spare hand and resolutely stamp off down the corridor, your feet loosely wading in your docs with your crutch assisting you along the way.

You’re leaving soon, so you won’t have to deal with him. But you still have another year or two of high school to compete with, and with your tutor gone - your dad refused to send you back to school after the snap, so it was left up to whoever wanted the job, and Cap wanted it a lot more than he did, so you spent your weeks driving from the city to the lake house after finishing the weeks tutoring, to spend time with your ‘family’ - and now, you seriously doubted that anyone else would want the job. Bucky is too hormonal and grieving the loss of his best friend, Banner is freaking you out, Clint is off the grid from another breakdown and it’s like he’s not even human anymore, Wilson is too busy with his new training regime and fighting Buck, and Scott doesn’t know the first thing about what you need to learn thanks to his ditsy persona. Which only leaves Pepper and Rhodey, and which forces you to go back and live in the lake house, away from the shambles of the rebuilt compound, all thanks to Strange and his wizards.

Maybe this is what you need, because now you don’t have to see Pete and get offended every single time he forgets your name and doesn’t have a clue who you are.

That night, you skipped your crying routine, and felt no better nor worse off for doing so. You simply dosed up on your painkillers and drifted off to sleep, filled with irritation and dreams of a mousey hero.

 For the next couple of days, you’d just gone about your business and avoided the funny looks from all of the other Avengers at your foul demeanour. None of them that were in and out of the rebuilt compound ever really took notice of you anymore, and you weren’t sure that any of them recognised you anymore, not with all of the piercings and hair dye and the crutches. After all, the last time most of them knew you, you were an annoying child who watched them work and ate dinners with them, and your dinners consisted of smiley face waffles and chicken nuggets. And besides, you were perfectly able back then, and you often had little friends over, or your mom would pop in to say hi on your way home. There’s no chance of that happening anymore. Bucky had recognised you, smiled at you, and occasionally made jokes about you being crippled together, so with any issues you could just turn to him, but this Peter thing annoyed you too much to talk about it, and you didn’t know why. 

Speak of the devil-

“Hey, can I sit?” He asks, standing just behind the sofa and hovering awkwardly.

“I don’t care,” you say, all of your words merging and slurring. You signal to the seat beside you yet far enough away for him not to be a bother, and he takes it.

“So h-how are you?” 

You watch him suspiciously out of the corner of your eye, because you can just feel his eyes on you, namely on your tits that had suddenly appeared in the last few years. 

“I’m fine thank you, Peter. It’s not like no one knows who the fuck I am and I’m living in a literal post war, dystopian, apocalyptic world all alone. How are you, Spider-Man?”

He blanches before your eyes, and you can physically see any words die in the back of his throat.

“I-I’m good.”

Everything stills for a little while, and the only sounds are what's playing on TV and Peter’s occasional swallows, making his Adams apple Bob in your peripheral view. He doesn’t dare look at you, and you can just sense his agitation, mainly from the way he fidgets and weighs the sofa cushions down weirdly with his weird spider legs. 

It only takes half an hour for you to wear down and ask him the burning question, his presence beside you enough to make your skin tingle in anticipation and anger bubble within, not to mention the girlish sense that overwhelms you, so contrasting to your dark clothes and self-given bridge piercing. 

“Why don’t you speak to me anymore, Peter? Do you seriously not recognise me?”

His eyes fall and his face turns sallow, and he stammers over a few consonants, unable to form any real words.

“I’m Tony’s daughter.” You announce, facing him head on. “Y/N Stark.”

Only after you’ve said that do you realise that he’ll have absolutely no clue what you’re saying, but you can see the cogs whirring in his head as everything is pieced together. His eyes lock onto yours, and they’re the one feature you haven’t changed about yourself in the years that he was gone.

“I changed my name last year, I used to be-”

“-Sloane Stark.” he finishes with you. 

He doesn’t take his eyes off yours, too lost in them after he’s been without them for so long. Something’s clicked inside, but scepticism overtakes him. You grasp your hair into a makeshift ponytail at the base of your neck, all the loose ringlets in different shades tickling your neck, but it reveals a thin, pale, bumpy scar on your skin; a thin and jagged line that runs from the base of your ear to the start of your clavicle. You’ve had it since you were 11, when Peter first became a regular at the compound and you began to play together, but then an accident happened, and Peter stayed by your side as you got the stitches, holding your hand. 

Finally, he cottons on, and you can see the tears welling up in his chocolate brown orbs.

“Sloane…”

He virtually leaps from his seat and throws his arms around you, completely overcome with all kinds of inexplicable feelings. Love seeps from his body into yours, he clings to you, and even buries his nose into your hair, taking a deep inhalation before sighing in contentment. Even when the average hug time has passed, he doesn’t release you, and keeps his arms wrapped like a koala around your shoulders, his body slowly getting closer and closer towards you and for some reason making you blush. Your arms remain limp around him, and your forefinger traces figures on his lower back, but you don’t squeeze him as much as you did when the surprise of his cuddle attack first hit you. 

He eases himself away, but still keeps his hand on your arm, a gentle and warm presence. 

It doesn’t hit you for a while that it’s the first hug you’ve received in months, and the first one from Peter in five and a half years.

“I’m guessing that you didn’t snap away like the rest of us then…?” he asks shyly. 

His spare hand immediately retracts and rubs the back of his neck anxiously, just the way he used to, but only now do you understand why.

“Nah, I didn’t,” you say, “Sadly I was stuck here in this shambles of an earth, dealing with everyone else's depression and having a little sister forced upon me. I couldn’t even go to school, it was awful.”

His face falls into a deep frown and he searches your face for any sign of your words being cynical, but he finds nothing.

“W-why did you change your name then?”

You shrug, for what feels like the hundredth time in his presence, “Sloane is an awful name, it means ‘raider’ in bloody Irish. None of my family is Irish, my dad suggested the name when he was drunk, and my mum couldn’t think of anything better. Y/N makes me feel like me.”

He nods understandingly and doesn’t push the matter, so you offer a half smile and move your attention back to the TV.

“Why did you change you?” he asks all of a sudden.

The question instantly ingrains itself into your brain, and makes your heart ache. Why would he ask such a thing? Doesn’t he understand what's happened? Why does he even care? But the last thought makes you sick to your stomach, because you know that he always has cared and he always will, he promised you that the first time he was babysitting you and you got all het up over something on the TV. Maybe a part of him knew that it was you all along but he just couldn’t broach the subject, or maybe he didn’t and he thought you’d been snapped away and you simply hadn’t returned. No matter what it was,you knew that you couldn’t blame him, but as his question bounced around your brain and repeated, you had no idea what happened, but you felt any compassion shrivel up, your heart grew cold, your demeanour turned harsh, and your kind response died in your throat. You look him dead in the face and straighten yourself up, your eyes devoid of all feeling.

“My mom died, all of my idols and my family and school friends died - Scott, Buck, Sam, you - and my dad was never the same again. I was left with him and the step monster who, who for the record doesn't even like me because of my mom, and Morgan came along, so they forgot about me, and I only stayed three days a week because the rest of the time I was stuck here with a depressed Nat and  counsellor Steve, and the latter had to teach me everything I needed for the finish of middle school and my freshman and sophomore years, which was hard in itself. Dad was so depressed, he wouldn’t listen to the words I said about the other Avengers, so apart from Steve tutoring me, I basically raised myself for two years, without friends or anything, and they were two of the most important years of my life . Everyone forgot about me. I was just turned fifteen and more adept at coping in this world than any adult I’ve known. I hated my name and what came with it, and I never really liked myself, that's always been the case. I hated my appearance and I had no one to make me feel nice when you died, because you always told me that I was pretty, just like a princess, and you kept me sane. Fuck, Pete, you held me together, and all of that faded when you died, because as soon as you were gone, everything else around me crumbled.” You inhale a sharp intake of breath, and move to stand, snatching your crutches from the floor. “Long story short, while all of you were gone, I grew up. I’m 17 now, I may be different to how you remember but at least I feel comfortable now. I really did grow up peter, and you need to start doing the same. My dad is never coming back.”

And just like the days before, you scurry off back to your room and bury any inhibitions beneath your pillow, leaving Peter in the living room, completely crushed and left to mull your words over alone while he waits for May to get home.

 Five days later, and you can’t take the silence anymore. Peter practically hides and runs for shelter each time he hears you approach, you saw the footage on FRIDAY’s cams. It really upset you for the first two days, but with each shy, rushed smile and fleeting glance he takes at you, each one that makes your stomach do little flips, they just remind you how cruel you were to him, how brutally honest, when Peter needs more time to heal than you do most likely, as your dad meant more to Pete than he did to you, and if anything then that's a reflection on Tony. He wanted a son. Maybe Peter feels guilty, mabe he’s sad, maybe he just straight up doesn’t like you, but whatever it is, you don’t fucking like it, so you’re preparing for the move in two days time. Far earlier than planned. 

With each piece of clothing you fold, with each piece of metal shrapnel you toss into your jewellery box, with each eyeliner you tuck away in a bag, you run everything that's happened in the past week through your head. You called Scott up to see how he’s getting on with Hope and Cassie, you spoke to Laura - no longer a secret - who just told you that Barton is in almost as bad a place as before, just without the machetes and with a lot more crying and whiskey, you spoke to Rhodey for an update on the lake house/new home situation and put all of the plans in place, but you did shut down his heartfelt offer to be another father figure, starting with a controversial suggestion to send you to therapy or rehab for your ‘lashing outs’, and you’d made amends with Sam who was surprisingly okay with your whole new thing going on, and he said he loved your vibe and gave hair dye suggestions, making you rethink your decision to leave all over again. Bucky had taken you shopping, hoping for retail to cure both of your depressive episodes, but it didn't really help even if the long, deep conversation over milkshakes at a nearby diner did help, and he cradled your head in his lap as you told him you’d miss him more than the others. He told you that you were being stupid about Peter and that the kid really likes you, but you retorted with a scoff, saying he’d never fancy you the way you fancy him.

Ah, yeah, that revelation, the one which makes you throw a sweater full force into your open trunk, sitting at the base of your bed. With a loud groan, you throw yourself dramatically down onto the bed and savour the soft comforter for one of the last times; after all, the place will probably be gone, along with the remnants of FRIDAY by the time you return, if you ever go. 

“Where are you off to?” Peter asks from the doorway, his voice inquisitive and startling you from your angered daze. 

He must’ve seen your bags half packed in your room, lying out on your bed beside you. You turn your head to look at him, your eyes thin and bullet-like.

“I’m leaving.” You snap rather viciously, and prop yourself up on your elbows. “The Cap’n has gone, and I’ve been out of school too long to go back. The Step-Monster needs to ‘tutor me’, and I need to teach the little brat.” You’re referring to Morgan, but Peter doesn’t seem to pick that up by the looks of his furrowed brows. He certainly looks relaxed though, leaning against your doorframe. 

“Why can’t you stay here?” Peter asks and You shrug, unsure how to respond. “I- I’m sure Mr Falcon would help teach you, or- or Wanda?”

Shit, Wanda. You’d practically forgotten she existed from how much of a recluse she was now. You should probably go and check on her or at the very least have a chat with her. She was dead for five years, just like Vis, but when she comes back she’s still not over him after months? Sounds fake but ok...

“Wanda has even less of an education than I do.” You retaliate with a foul attitude and an even fouler taste in your mouth, turning your back on him when you stand, and going back to your packing. You try your best to ignore his presence, but you can just feel him hovering metres away, itching to do or say something to you.

“Well then you can stay living here and enrol in Midtown High with me. We’d be the same year now and I could show you the ropes.”

Ok now you know he’s fucking with you.

“Peter, I can’t go to midtown.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve been out of co-ed for too long, let alone education, as I haven’t had any since like fucking February, and I’m too traumatised and crippled for them. How would that look eh? Y/N Stark enrolling for junior year after the death of The Tony Stark?” Peter goes quiet. “And anyway, it’s not like I have the brains, at all. I’m not smart like you, Peter. I’m as thick as two short planks. I got my mom’s brains and some of my dad's abilities. I can chuck on suits all I like, I can build shit all day, and I can play sports like no one's business; or at least I could.” Having your one ankle completely useless is a complete bummer, maybe even more so than losing everyone, because now you actually have to live with being this way. They don’t have to live. “But the second you give me a math equation, I’m gone.”

“Couldn’t you live with your mom then? Mr Stark said she doesn’t live too far out of state, nowhere near as far as the lake house.”

“My dads fucking dead Peter, he doesn’t control shit anymore” You find yourself shouting, your eyes burning into his with a fire of fury behind them. “My mom came back after the snap but she hasn’t answered any of my calls, and she fled the house when I turned up on her goddamn doorstep. She ain’t no option anymore, my authority is Potts.”

He gives you a sad smile but slinks away. No surprise there, last time he saw you, you were twelve years old and tugging on his trouser leg to get him to play basketball with you. You didn’t have anywhere near this level of anger, and you’d never have dared scream at him, let alone repeating the words that hit him like daggers mere days ago. 

 The next day comes too soon, and you’re just chilling , finishing up the last of your packing, and trying to ignore anything pushing you to stay. Why did your chat with Peter compel you to want to stay here instead? What is it about him that always brings you full circle, and makes you feel like that love struck child again?

From your mirror, as you’re adjusting your blouse and switching out your nose stud, you see Peter approaching, steadily advancing down the corridor. Twice he stops, and takes a step back, as well as turning and looking the other way as though doubting his decision to come into your room, but when you see his knuckles come in contact with the wood of your door, as he knocks gently, and the sound floats into your ears, making you turn around to see his meek smile with his head hung low.

“You can come in Pete,” you exhale, “I won’t bite your head off.”

He chuckles lowly and advances towards the bed. He gestures, and you nod, giving him permission and hobbling over to join him moments later. He seems flustered, you can tell me by the way he’s struggling to maintain eye contact and the manner in which his hands are convulsing in his lap. Seeing him like this makes you uncomfortable, and you can even feel bile rising in your throat. 

“Peter, I-”

“No, Y/N, please let me, I mean, I wanna talk.”

You smile and bow out, allowing him space to align his thoughts with his words, after all, you’ve known that it takes him a while to do that, but it’s necessary in any kind of emotional situation with someone as awkward as Petter; just the thought causes butterflies to flutter around in your stomach and windpipe.

“I’m sorry for yesterday, for nagging you and insisting, and for asking you those questions and trying to make you stay. I just, I really just don’t want you to leave. I was insensitive, and I should’ve recognised you beforehand.” You can feel tears pooling behind your eyes, and it takes all of your willpower to not let them fall. “I just want you to do as well as you can, and I wish you all the best, I just wish I could’ve gotten to know you better  before it was too late; ok Stark?”

His lips quirk into a smile, yet his voice breaks as he calls you Stark. It physically hurts to hear him say that, and you want to tell him that it’s okay, and he has every right to be upset and grieving, and you know you shouldn’t have shouted at him and gotten so defensive because after all he’s one of the only people you can let your guard down around. You just want to say that it’s not his fault, except you can’t find the words.

“Why can’t you stay?” He asks sincerely, even a touch of desperation there.

Your heart drops to your feet at his expression, and your next words come out as a hushed, pained whisper, your words slow and detached. “I have no reason to stay.”

He nods dejectedly, almost like he’s giving up on something, and he even moves to stand up while your eyes are glued to the way his muscles ripple with each movement, but halfway to being upright, he changes his mind and turns towards you.

The next thing you know, you feel the soft pressure of his thumb on your chin, followed by the pads of his fingers on the soft skin underneath, tilting your head up to look him in his gorgeous eyes, like molten honey in the soft sunlight of your bedroom. Just the sight of his lips slightly parted causes your mouth to go dry, but you don’t have too long to think about that, because all of your thoughts dissipate with the featherlight pressure and sweet, intoxicating taste of his lips on yours. His nose nudges your cheek ever so gently. It’s barely there, and over far too soon, it still makes your head spin. Christ, you’ve been waiting for that to happen for upwards of five years, and it was just as beautiful as you hoped it would be.

“How about now?” He inquires, a stark contrast of shyness and courage written all over his face.

“Why don’t you kiss me again and we’ll find out?”

You fist the fabric of his t-shirt and pull him towards you, leaving Peter shocked by the strength in just one hand, seeing as he finds his body hovering above yours just seconds later. He looks hungry, already ravishing you with his eyes as you kiss and kitten lick just below his ear. He holds his weight up but leaves no time to press his lips against yours, urgently, passionately. You moan a little at how desperate he is to get his hands on you, the way he knots one hand in your hair, splayed out on the pillow beside you, the way he’s senselessly grinding his crotch onto you. You don’t mind at all, especially not the breathy calls of your name he lets out when you knot your legs around his lower back to pull him closer. It's a primal desire that keeps you moving. His tongue glides across your lower lip, prying its way in, and you just let it happen, too caught up in the moment to do anything else.

“Pete, fuck…”

Your one hand slides under his shirt and runs across the ripples of his abs, you savour the way he tenses beneath your touch, the way the scars feel tenders beneath your hungry touch. You other hand threads into his soft brown locks. You pull gently and elicit the most perfect guttural groan from him.

“Y/N,” he almost pleads, and his lips move to gently suck on your jawline. 

You’re surprised that he isn't calling you Sloane, but you certainly aren't complaining. Your name from his tongue does things to you that you can’t even explain.

You dance your fingers from his hair across to his face, and push his cheek gently. Your eyes are thin, focussed on him, but Peter’s pupils are heavily blown with lust, leaving only a faint rim of golden brown around the edge. 

“You’re so perfect,” he rasps out, and your stomach coils in desire. Your face must look so pouty, so wanton, but you can’t find it within yourself to care.

“Fuck me, Peter.”

He looks like a deer in headlights momentarily, but gets over it quickly, attaching his lips back on yours and allowing his tongue to roam your mouth, savuring and swallowing every whimper and moan that escapes your pretty lips.You let your hand, the one still beneath his shirt, skim over his muscles to where his heart is, beating at a double pace, thrumming gently beneath your hand. It makes your ego inflate tenfold, knowing that you’ve gotten this flustered and needy.

Just as you’re really getting lost in the pleasure, Peter’s hand cupping and massaging your breast as his mouth works wonders on intoxicating you, you hear a rather loud cough from your doorway, and everything stops. You and Peter both freeze at the same moment, and you drop any stance, fully detaching yourselves to glance at who’s there.

“You kids should be careful, and next time, close the door.”

And with that, Bucky’s gone from view as quickly as he appeared, leaving you both with a mere glimpse at him in his sweats with a coffee cup in his hands, no doubt filled with earl grey tea being the old lady he is. 

In the heat of the moment, you’d both forgotten to close the door and turn FRIDAY off. And Rhodey can access all of the footage. Fuck. Oh well, you’ve already been caught once, why stop now?

You wrap an arm around Peter's shoulders and pull yourself up until you’re straddling his lap and upper thighs, eagerly rubbing yourself against the material of his jeans to try and get some kind of friction. He slides an arm around your waist, and you move in to kiss him, only for him to turn his head the other way. 

The moment couldn’t have been lost from Bucky’s playfully snarky comment, could it? You want nothing more than for him to kiss you again, earnestly, fervently, but he doesn’t even spare you a glance, not even when he pushes you from his lip and stands up with his head in his hands.

Apparently he doesn’t feel the same.

“Crap, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do that? Y/N…”

He even begins to pace, that’s when you know that he thinks he’s fucked up.

“You know why I shouldn’t have done that right, don’t you?” he asks, stuttering random syllables in no specific order, but you do notice that with each pace, he paces his way closer to your open door.

“Yeah,” you lie, but you’ll work that out tonight, “I get it. But it’s fine. And I need to pack…”

He smiles nervously, and with a few careless gestures and no words, he stalks into the corridor and closes your door behind him. You can hear him lettering a long-held breath out. 

All of a sudden, you feel completely sick to your stomach. Why would he do that? It was so God damn cryptic. One second he’s apologising, asking you to stay, pashing you senseless, and the next he’s keeping as much distance from you as possible, apologising, and treating you like a child.

That’s when it hits you.

He feels like he’s kissing the old you. You grew up without him there, and in the space of what was merely a nap to him, you grew five years older, grew tits, matured, changed every aspect about yourself, and developed a sex drive; whereas he didn’t change one bit, he’s still the same peter that he was when you were an aggravating child, crushing on him from afar and trying to be like him. He feels predatory at kissing you, because all he’s ever known you as is a child, and this is all new territory, a territory he’s too scared to broach because he can’t get permission from the man himself.

Maybe that’s why your dad had to die, so that you’d never end up with Peter, and that’s Earth punishing you for some godforsaken reason.

So you just lie there, far salty tears involuntarily dripping down your cheeks as you sit there and think. Will you ever just be fucking happy?

 Happy’s set to pick you up at noon today, and after a night of scarcely five hours of sleep, you are not in the mood for anyone and their funny business, especially not Peter, and you aren’t exactly peppy for the hour long drive to arrive there with the Bimbo and the Brat. Well, at least everyone has low expectations of you, so it shouldn’t be that much of an issue when you simply scowl at them and flip them off until you chuck yourself into the car and wave them goodbye for the last time. You’re not sure if the gravity of the situation has hit you yet, maybe you’re repressing it, or maybe it simply just does not bother you, the same way that most things don’t.

You don’t even bother with your appearance, and stick to black trackies and a cropped tank top, with a mildly colourful button-down open over the top. Seeing as your docs are packed in the ‘hide from Pepper’ box, you toss on your worn down black converse and begrudgingly throw your hair up in what you hoped would be a messy bun but ends up looking more like a lopsided half-up ponytail, so you snap the hair tie and throw it away. Hey, that’s an easy way to deal with the Peter issue. Snap him in half and chuck him in the trash where he rightfully belongs after yesterday. 

All you have for breakfast is an iced coffee, and justly so, no one dares even make eye contact with you. By ten, all of your bags are out in the hallway, and not a single personal affect is left in your room. You say a quick goodbye to FRIDAY, and hobble out into the living room, where you spend the next almost two hours either staring blankly ahead of you and ignoring what’s on the screen, or picking at your crutches while you analyse the previous day with Peter. No matter how much you want to hate him, you can't refute the way he made you feel, completely under his control, so willing and malleable, so eager and hungry and loved.

 Happy pulls up at 11.55, and you begin to help him load everything into the car, but get refused after two bags and therefore two trips downstairs after you nearly fall face first and your crutches slip from your arms. The rest is down within seconds by Sam and Bucky.

You said goodbye to Wanda a couple of days ago when you popped in for a chat, but she’d still made her way out here, so you give her a quick hug and wish her well, and you see that May has made her way out to see you off, but Peter is nowhere to be found which makes your cheeks burn with anger.

“I’m so sorry for now knowing who you were my love,” she tells you, running a hand through your hair, “Peter told me all about you before it all happened, he said you were such a cutie, and I know that he would’ve made more of an effort had he recognised you.”

You chuckle softly, hug her, and simply don’t reply. What are you supposed to say to something like that? Bucky and Sam appear back at the top of the stairs and advance towards you, knocking each other out of the way in a playful battle to hug you first. Sam wins by tickling Bucky just beneath his ribs, and bear hugs you, making you feel like a baby koala. 

“Use protection next time, and please, God, shut the door.” He whispers in your ear, making you jump away, your jaw slack, utterly aghast, but he just laughs at your expense.

“You told him about that?” you accuse Bucky, shoving a finger at his chest.

He raises his hands in surrender and even lets out a chuckle before cuddling you, his metal arm somehow a comforting presence around you. 

“Of course I did, Doll. It was too good not to tell.”

You swat him gently on his chest, but instead of pulling away just yet, you bury your face in his t-shirt for possibly the last time. 

“You two kids get along, or I might have to come here and whip your asses.” you glance between Bucky and Sam, making them laugh, but they nod nonetheless and step backwards to join May, allowing you to leave. You grasp your crutches and let your arms fall through the rests, your hands slipping around the handles like second nature, and you start to make your way out. Something that resembles hope begins to blossom in your stomach, so you muster all of your courage and take a fleeting glimpse over your shoulder, but much to your disappointment yet not very much surprise, he isn’t there. You feel something within your chest physically break, and with the pain all over your body, emotional above all else, stemming from betrayal, you wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t your heart strings. Oh well, you tell yourself, and in recovery from bowing your head down in embarrassment, you hold your shoulders high with any remaining pride as you take the few steps to the door, ignoring the tears that begin to fall. Your tears are possibly the most confusing thing about this ordeal, you never cried before, not from emotion at least. 

“Stop- Y/N, wait, please Sloane…” you hear breathless shouts, followed by hurried footsteps on the linoleum. Instantly, you recognise his voice. “Please stop, I’m begging you.”

You halt your steps, and prop your crutches against the wall, but are slow to turn around, and even when you do, it takes you a moment to actually meet his gaze. His eyes hold all of the hurt he’s feeling. He hardly slept, you can tell by the red rims and deep, sallow bags. The warm chocolate colour is slightly murky, something of an anger in them, maybe even a sense of loss.

You can’t track anything more, because you take one step forwards, and he begins to virtually sprint towards you, his hair bouncing as he dashes across the floor and entwines his arms around you like vines, relentlessly squeezing you and ceasing to let go. He simply just stands there, glued to the spot, holding onto you, and once more you feel the tears well in your eyes. You’ve never been hugged this way, not by anyone, so you make the most of it and gently grasp his t-shirt to draw him impossibly closer, his scent enveloping you in a blanket of warmth and adoration. He moves one hand up to knot in your matted hair, and buries your head closer into his shoulder, which you welcome, even if you’re wetting the shoulder of his shirt with your tears. You lose count of the time until you let go, just savouring the way he holds you so lovingly, and you don’t particularly ever want to let go. All of the rest of the world has disappeared. But still, you both detach yourselves just a little, and you find your lips mere inches away from his perfect lips. Without another thought, something otherworldly takes over, and you find your lips planted together in the most intimate way possible. The tip of his tongue barely has to swipe your lower lip before you grant him access, and as you do, your mind and soul proclaim thanks to the gods. He tastes like heaven and cherry pie - his favourite - and he feels even better. The way his tongue dances with yours is like a massage, second nature, and God, you never want it to stop with how crazy he’s making your mind go, let alone the flock of butterflies fluttering around your stomach. His one hand shifts to the small or your back, and you find yourself wrapping your arms even tighter around Peter until your hands touch, and you have him held in place, in the most perfect position, the one where you know he belongs.

You separate, gasping for air and gulping as much down as you can in such a short amount of time before his hands are in your hair again and he’s kissing you just as sweetly, yet hotly, as before. The sensual way he gazes at you makes your insides turn to mush in seconds, and you have to look away even before he kisses you again because you fear you shan’t be able to keep his gaze if you ever want to leave this place with your heart intact. This kiss isn’t as long, you realise that as your hands drop to his waist and stay there lightly, feeling the skin above his hips rippling beneath his tensing muscles. His body shifts, as does his grip on you, and he starts to pepper kisses on your lips and cheeks, just small, precious pecks that keep your heart beating with joy and longing. Just the feeling of his lips kissing away your tears as he hovers above you makes you feel alive at long last, and he makes you feel more cherished than you ever imagined you could.

“You need to go, Happy’ll start honking for you any second.” he breathes, the softness of his breath running your eyelashes and allowing your eyes to flutter clothes, his freckles disappearing from your view for a second. Then, as if on cue, Happy's horn resounds. “I’ll walk you down.”

He looks so crestfallen as he pulls away from your and passes you your crutches, keeping a safe distance. And although you both know that everyone saw, it doesn’t matter, and no one says a word, they all just observe quietly, but you can tell that they’re smiling down on you both. You can still taste your salty tears mingled together pressing on your lips, the taste of just indescribably, distinctly Peter stuck in your mouth, a taste you never want to stop tasting. 

When Peter crushes, you oblige and scramble onto his back as he carries your crutches, and the walk down the stairwell to where Happy’s parked on the sidewalk is a silent one, but it’s still comfortable. There are so many things the two of you want to say to each other, but it’s too hard to express them given that you’re about to be shipped off somewhere that he’ll probably never make your acquaintance again, no matter how much he wants to spend all of his time with you. You’re more conflicted than you’ve ever felt, so stressed, so hurt, but at the same time you’re so happy that you got to make those memories with Peter before you leave, elated that you made up with him, pleased that you got to feel him kiss you one last time. 

When you reach the concrete, Peter gently places you down on your feet, and he puts your crutches into the open door at the back of the car and proceeds to stand nervously beside you, his hands behind his back as he rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. You have your head down, anxious beyond comparison, just staring at the gravel, until one of Peter's hands comes out from where it was and takes your trembling hand into his palm, his fingers slowly tangling around yours and giving you a gentle squeeze. He switches his gaze over to you and catches your eye. He smiles briefly before bringing your knuckles up to his lips. 

“I’ve fancied you since I was eleven,” you tell him, “That’s almost six years, that’s a long ass time.” a brief hint of humour creeps into your pained, quiet voice.

He just chuckles and rubs his thumb over your knuckles, making you smile, despite the pain of the situation. He speaks to you real soft. “I know.”

Your hand feels like it was meant to fit in his and sends a new sort of warmth shooting through your body, but it doesn’t last long before he’s helping you into the backseat of the car and reluctantly removing his nimble fingers from their grip around yours, and placing a gentle, chaste kiss to your forehead for good measure, a kiss you’ll always treasure.

“Don’t,” you plead, feeling a sob suddenly choke your throat when all that’s left are his fingertips grazing yours. “Don’t let go, Peter, please.”

It’s difficult to remain stoic around Peter now, it’s like everything just completely pivoted the day he kissed you, and if you’re honest, you don’t want to go back. You don’t want to be the hateful girl you once were, just longing for him to come back. Now he is back, you don’t have to wait anymore, and he can help you be your old self again. If only he’d just hold your hand forever, and you could actually be together.

And then it hits you. You need Peter almost as much as you need air to breathe, and if he lets go, you’ll be lost, and it’ll feel like it did for five whole years, you’ll be lonely and isolated, and even in the few days that you’ve had him back in your life, that feeling has completely dissipated and been replaced with an albeit confused elation and a warmth of love. 

“I have to,” he whispers back his eyes already red, “I have to let you go. It’s what Mr Stark would want.”

He pulls away and closes the door in one swift movement, turning his back on you. You see his mop of brunette curls slip down from view when you peer out the window, hot tears burning your cheeks. You know he’s sitting on the side, his head in his hands, but you can’t look that far, so instead you listen to the soft purr of the car as it comes to live, and you let your laboured breath steam up the glass that your hands are placed on. As you begin to pull away, your final glimpse at your old home escaping you, you see Peter waving frantically and beginning to job alongside you, only stopping once you exit the driveway. Thanks to the tinted windows, you know he can’t see you, but you see him anyway and wave back before your pain overwhelms you. That happens the second he’s gone from your peripheral vision, and your chest caves in loud, wrenching sobs that’ll leave you in pain for days. 

Is this what it feels like to have your heartbroken? 

Of course it is, you know this, but all of the times you’ve felt it before, it still hasn’t felt this bad. You know that it’s happening for a reason, that God is punishing you this way for a reason, but no matter how hard you try, it just seems endlessly painful, and all for nothing. What could possibly be the reason for this?

You’re so locked in your thoughts that you barely realise that Happy has slowed the car down, and is looking over his shoulder at you, trying to bring you back down by asking how you are and how you feel. Did he not just see that display?

“If I was allowed to stay,” you slightly pant, your teeth gripping and your first clenching of their own accord, “then it could’ve been me and Peter. Just the two of us, the way it was supposed to be as I was growing up. But everything happens for a fucking reason, right?”

Happy just swallows and mumbles something incoherent before sliding the glass back over and starting up at another steady speed. You don’t know why you’re so... angry all of a sudden; you shouldn’t be angry, you should be upset and almost grieving, crying for the loss of an old home but excited for a new one. But yet, what’s the point in all of that? You’ve felt those emotions plenty of times in your short life, and you always thought you felt them for a reason, but where the ever loving fuck is that reasoning right now when you actually need it? 

Grieving has lost its effect on you by now, and your mind feels hostile from all of the thoughts whirring around. You’ve had the same thoughts every time someone died - every time you thought your dad died, when your mom died, when Peter died, when everyone else just turned to dust. Then you felt them all over again when your dad died, for real this time, but what was the point? Nothing good ever came of it… nothing except grieving for Peter. You felt the same way you do now, only now it's somehow worse, yet he isn’t dead. You grieved for him more than you did your own mother, because he cared, because he actually paid attention, because he told you that you were pretty for the first time in your life. He always treated you like a person, like an equal, even when you were just a clingy child, vying for someone's attention when neglected by both of your parents because they had better things to do. But even now, now he recognises you again, he’s treated you like an equal, maybe even put you on a pedestal after you were extremely terse and treated him horribly. He still kissed you and cared for you and loved you-

SHIT.

You love Peter. Surely that must’ve been obvious for a long time, but now you’re finally admitting it. You really, genuinely, wholeheartedly love the little shit. Your stomach churns with nerves, and your mind tells you that you’re insane, but your heart… your heart has known all along, despite how much you fought it, and it’s now telling you to go along with it. You’re so… overcome with emotions that you don’t even know where to start or how to react or even try to begin to suss them out to deal with them so you do what feels like second nature the past few days, and you begin to cry, unable to choke it down any longer.

“Turn back happy,” you plead, “Shit! I said turn back now Goddammit!”

“I can’t, Sloane, you know I can’t, bosses orders.”

His words just hurt you more, if that was even possible, and pile something new onto the burning pile of emotions battling for territory within your exhausted brain. 

“Happy, turn back right the fuck now, or I will scream until the glass breaks.”

When he does nothing, your sobs become harsher, and something in your throat snaps, forcing you to become hysterical. It’s something primal that takes over your body, a demon's force, because God knows you wouldn’t usually have this in you. You scream. It’s just a shrill sound to begin with, until your heaving chest and tears break through, and make it into a full hysterics game.

“HAPPY! TAKE ME HOME, TAKE ME TO PETER!” you screech, and you repeat the same words until you can’t breathe any longer, but even when your lungs fail you, your hands don’t. 

You clip your seatbelt undone and begin punching the glass. It starts off just to be the dark tinted window separating you from happy and the wheel that would allow you to drive home, but even though the glass begins to wobble, it isn’t enough, so you move to the windows, your knuckles and palms coming in contact with the night shaded glass again and again until they’re rattling and even beginning to crack, but the second you feel you can, you release the most bestial, guttural scream that you can muster, and punctuate it with a rough shove to Happy’s chair.

You want to stop, but with all of the loss you’ve been through, you just need this one thing, this one person, this one place to feel complete, and none of it’s happening. It’s unspeakable, indescribable the way you feel, the turf war that’s occurring all over your body driving you insane. 

“Just take me to Peter,” you finally beg after what seems like an eternity, collapsing completely into your seat, “I need him, Happy. I need Peter, please… please.”

You’re drained, dehydrated, hurt, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change any time soon. You’re driving away from the only happiness you’ve ever known to live in the arse end of nowhere with two people you hate, and so a void just takes over everything that previously embodied you, and you succumb to the emptiness, your last thought being of all the tears you’ve cried over one boy, the only one you’ve ever loved, and now you can’t even tell him that. 

It was hard to grieve for someone, only for them to come back, the same way it was hard to grieve for someone who never gave a toss about you. That's what you’re finding so hard about all of this. But now, none of that matters, because he’s gone.

Two months later

The doorbell to the house rings for the third time today, driving you utterly up the wall. First it was the postie with some kind of oversized parcel for Morgan, then it was Happy, here again to help outside and be a ‘watchful eye’ while Pepper is out grocery shopping, apparently since they still don’t trust you rough to take decent care of your own sister.

“MORGAN!” You yell from your place at the back of the house, knowing that from her spot on the sofa in front of paw patrol or whatever shit she’s watching, she’ll hear, “Get the fucking door!”

“Mummy told you not to say bad words, Y/N.” She shouts back, and you can practically hear the signature Stark smirk in her words, although it should be far too early for her to actually be making that face.

That’s one thing they got right with Morgan, though, at least she calls you by your actual name instead of fucking Sloane, even if Pepper does ‘accidentally’ slip up and call you by that awful legacy name from time to time when you really annoy her, say by breaking a vase or some china, or screaming at her using all of the profanities you can think of. She’s really regretting taking you in, now, because you’re simply that much of a handful that she had Happy and Rhodey actually build a quiet room for some respite. You’re still in the rebellious phase, and you don’t seem to be leaving it any time soon, although you have let the dye in your hair grow out and you haven't bleached it… yet, and some of your piercings have naturally closed over, although that was more so that Morgan wouldn’t continually take a metal detector to your face. 

Abrupt, your thoughts escape you, and you can’t catch the thread, because after multiple attempts of Morgan’s to click open the reinforced vibranium locks on the doors (Rhodey’s suggestion), and the shifting of a stool to allow her to climb to it, you hear a shriek and some mess of words that sound like ‘Peter’. But no, that's simply impossible. You’re imagining things in your annoyed state, knowing it would’ve been a lot faster and quieter if you just made your way over there yourself. 

“It’s for you!”

Now this peaks your attention. No one has been to see you in the whole time you’ve been here, nor have you ever gotten mail. No one comes to see you, so maybe your ears didn’t deceive you.

You leap up from your seat and begin charging to the door, running as quickly and carefully as you can over Morgan's toys, but you’re also careful to not aggravate your injury. One good thing that came from your time there - the only good thing - is that you were able to work with your dad's remaining technology and do intensive physio, resulting in your mobility improving tenfold, also meaning that now you can not only walk but kind of run without assistance. But that doesn’t matter as soon as you see the man standing in the doorway, a bunch of flowers in his hand, and an expression of pure delight on his puppy-like features. 

“Y-you can walk?” he blubs, his cheeks red with joy.

The flowers fall from his hands onto the deck, and your eyes fill with tears as your hands fly up to your mouth, only just containing your sobs. Your whole being is overcome with happiness like you’ve never felt before, and it seems like all of your depression since you left him has melted away, and a new you is born.

“You came back for me…” you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear, and in response, he draws his lips into a tight line to contain his smile, and nods his head at you, soft brown curls falling into his soft eyes.

“Why are you sad, Y/N?” Morgan asks, and tugs at your shirt, but you don’t even realise, because the sight of Peter coming towards you is all that you can see and feel, and you begin advancing towards him too, until you collide in a heated kiss. Everything just seems like a tangle of limbs, a clash of teeth, and a battle of tongues. You’re too wrapped up in the feel of him, the passion of the moment, the intimacy of the kiss, that you don’t notice that Peter’s already got you picked up with your whole body tied around him. He tastes utterly delectable, the same as before, and his tongue feels incredible as it sweeps your mouth.

“Morgan-” you pant, “Go find Uncle Happy in the yard, now.” When she doesn’t move, you open your eyes to glare at her, stunned and traumatised into silence with her mouth slightly agape. You can’t bear detaching from Peter’s lips for even a second, so your words are all rushed. “Morgan get out now, I can see him there, in the yard, go!”

The little squirt smiles wryly up at you, but does as she’s told, and scurries off into the mass of flowers and perfectly cut grass. Seeing her gone, you let out a long held breath and smile into Peter’s passionate kiss. All of the love floods back to you, and you feel whole once again. But before you can get too caught up in the sappiness, Peter is already blindly stumbling through the house and kicking the front door closed behind him. Your fingers in his hair, you guide him to the couch.

As he kisses you so tenderly, even in the heated moment, you finally understand what everything was for. Every trial and tribulation in your life was teaching you, helping build you up for this very moment, where it all makes sense.

Everything in life has been for a reason, and that reason is this very moment. The thought makes you smile, but nowhere near as much as Peter’s own smile does.

[hlupdate]

In a never-before-published 2012 interview, Harry Styles and Niall Horan talk about their childhoods, the future of One Direction, and much more

In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, an 18-year-old Harry Styles and 16-year-old Niall Horan sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

It was late morning, and they had both just rolled out of bed. Styles wore a hotel bathrobe; Horan, with braces still on his teeth, was in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Dallas Mavericks hat a fan had given him during a recent trip to Texas. The conversation was casual, full of laughs, and focused on their formative years.

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

In 12 hours, you have to do Saturday Night Live. Are you ready? Harry: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s going to be a fun day. It’s just really exciting, obviously. The show is so huge. For us to get the opportunity to be on it at all was just amazing, and to us, to be performing and just be involved with the show is amazing.

Have you seen whole episodes of it? Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing? Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was…I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever…in the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in…you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school, I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

You were onstage as a kid and were like, “This is what I like”? Harry: I knew it was fun, I had a lot of fun doing it, and I stopped when I started high school, and then I didn’t really do anything, I just sang at home, in the shower, in your bedroom, that type of thing. I guess it started again when my friends were in a band and they wanted to do this battle of the bands competition that was at school, and they needed a singer, and one of my friends asked me.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

How about you, Niall? Niall: I always knew I wanted to sing. I was academic…I was one of those people that if I’m not interested in something, I don’t really care. If I’m not interested in school, I would have never trained or done my homework or anything, I’d have just gone outside and played football or whatever.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Niall: So I always wanted to sing. I was singing here and there, not gigs or anything, but I always sang around the house or whatever, and I played Oliver in a school play. And then I just did that, and people told me I should do something…I was only 10, what could I do at 10? I just did a couple of gigs, and when I got to high school, they told me that I should just try out for The X-Factor.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

What did that entail? What were the steps from being a kid in high school to getting on the show? Niall: It was the final of The X-Factor the year before, and at the end credits of the final, it says, “If you want to apply for 2010, go online,” so a couple of weeks later, I said, “Right, I’m going to do it,” and I filled in the form online, we were sending emails back and forth, going to this place at this time. The first one is at a big stadium, then if you get through that, you come back the next day. Is that the way they did it with you?

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Niall: I was there at five a.m., I got seen at 12, and I was out of there by quarter past 12, and the next day I came back at 10 in the morning. You get through the first round, then they do a round where they don’t tell you if you got through after that.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: The producer and someone from the label. They film it and show it to whoever. Then if you got through that, it takes about two or three weeks until you find out. I was in Spain. Then you just go through the audition.

Harry, how did you wind up on X-Factor? Harry: I basically said, the same as Niall, I was watching the year before, and I remember looking at the young guys on there, and I was kind of like, “I’d love to have a go at it just to see what happens,” and that was kind of it. My mum actually did the application, and then three weeks later, I walked upstairs and she said, “Oh, you’ve got your X-Factor audition Sunday,” and I was like, “OK.”

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Harry: Yeah. 160 quid, between all four of us. 40 quid each…we said we’d do it, and then we found out it was the weekend coming up, and we hadn’t done anything for it, so we asked the bride what kind of stuff she wanted, and she said she didn’t mind, but she wanted some Bob Marley songs. Literally in three days, not even three, probably two days, we learned like 25 songs. We might have known like three of them before. I was 16, maybe 15, singing these Bob Marley songs. There was a girl a couple of years below us, and it was her mum, she said she wanted us to play.

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

Did you think the band could be something? Harry: A bit. My friend’s mum was a radio presenter, and she did a radio show  for a bit, so she was trying to sort us out a little bit of studio time, we were going to go in and record.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA.  My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs]  “Now you go to bed.”

Were you happy as kids? Did you have adolescent angst and stuff? Did you go through depressed periods? Harry: Not really. I think at one point, I started acting like I was…I had a phase of listening to really heavy music.

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Were you pretty happy go-lucky? Niall: Yeah, I was always happy. I think me and Harry were lucky. Our parents got divorced quite early, didn’t they, when we were really young. I was four, I didn’t know much, so I was always a happy kid, always up for a laugh, very carefree, and I’m a bit like that now.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

Niall: I went between both, my mum moved to the country and I didn’t have any interest in it. I always felt like the country is for when you’re older. I was with my mom for a while but got bored, all my friends were in town, I went to school in town and all that stuff. It was more like that.

Harry: I lived with both parents, and then moved with my mum, and we owned a pub for like five years. I remember the first night, it was like a night where a band was playing, and I just thought, “How am I going to get to sleep?” I was three stories up, I was like, “How am I going to get to sleep with this noise?” I was next to a road in Sussex in the middle of nowhere, and by the end, I could fall asleep next to the band, I was so used to the noise.

Was it imprinting your brain? Harry: Maybe. One of the guys who used to play every so often, he used to be in Deep Purple or something… He started teaching me guitar when I was like 10, I think 10, maybe nine.  I loved it. I was 10, 11, all of the regulars, I got on with them. I’d walk behind the bar and my head would barely go over the bar. It’s still going now. We sold it to my best friend, we go in all the time still.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

Harry: I don’t know, maybe.  I moved when I was seven or eight from Cheshire, and it was still Cheshire, but half an hour away, but in terms of not driving and stuff, all my friends lived near my school, so that was a bit further out. One of my friends there was my sister’s age, he was 16 when I was 10. It was so tiny, they were the only teenage boys…we’d ride our bikes and go to the driving range and stuff. It was good, it was fun.

You both wanted to entertain – if it hadn’t worked out, would you have been really unhappy? Harry: Yeah, I think it would be kind of like…one of the reasons you go for X-Factor in the first place is that you want to do this, and it kind of helps you get out of the life that you were doing before. I worked in a bakery for two years. Obviously, I didn’t want to do that for ages!

If you’d asked people at school, would they have said, “Yeah, they’re probably going to be famous,” or would they never have guessed that? Niall: My aunt, I was in the back of her car. We used to go across Ireland to go to the beach for a couple of weeks, and I remember we were in the car, I was singing, and she thought I was the radio, and she told me, I never forgot it, that she thought I was going to be famous since I was six, seven. She was the only person who told me that, so I always remembered that.

Harry: My dad said it. I used to listen to a lot of the music he was playing, he’d play Elvis Presley to death, the Stones, I’d sing along to that and he’d say, “You’re going to be famous,” or whatever. He came on tour with us for a few days out here, he came to the Radio City show. He just said, for him, it was so educational. Obviously, he hears about what happens when I call him, but to see it and see it actually happen and how everything works was so good for him, he really enjoyed it. So that was nice.

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

What have you learned about life from the last few years, what didn’t you know? What advice would you give yourself? Niall: How much more independent we actually are – me, anyway. Your mum attends to your every need and does your food and washing and gives you somewhere to live. Then you go into the real world, as you’re told as a kid…

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Niall: We do our own washing, we make our own food, we rent places, we’re out on our own now. You mature so quick, you’re dealing with big businessmen every day, you’re not dealing with school, people your own age. It’s a bit different.

Harry: You seem to learn so many life lessons, but in such a short space of time. If I speak to my friends and they’re having problems with girls, whatever it is, now I seem to just have the answer. I don’t know, it’s just different. Or I think I have the answer. In terms of…one of my friends was trying to decide what to do with school, stuff like that, and I would have had no idea what to say to him before.

The last two years must feel like 10. Harry: Yeah, but at the same time, it feels like six months, it’s weird. X-Factor was two years ago, but it seems like five years ago, but at the same time, it’s gone so quick. It’s a really strange dynamic of how it feels.

Do you have a sense of how this is going to go? Does it matter if it’s two years, five years or forever? Harry: I think how much we all enjoy it, because we love what we do – if you have to call it a job, it’s an incredible job to have, and we love it. We’ll all want to do it for as long as possible. If we have the opportunity to have a Take That kind of career, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t want to do that. If we don’t, I don’t know…we’ve done some amazing things already, but we don’t want to stop there, we want to keep going. I guess if we didn’t, I think we’d probably want to still be involved in…I’d just write, I guess.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Harry: [laughs] We’ll all do swing albums. We’re just so focused on this, we all feel so lucky just to be part of this opportunity that we’ve all been given, it’s incredible, we’re just loving it. It’s sick.

People make a lot of assumptions about people in your position. They think you’re puppets and do what you’re told. What do you do when people make those assumptions? Harry: When you look from the outside, especially if you’re a skeptic of groups made through TV shows, which is fair enough, people don’t see what we do on a daily basis, people don’t see…I think from the outside, it looks so glamorous, they see us do TV performances every now and again, see us doing an interview every now and again, but they don’t know that we work seven days a week.

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

Niall: You’ve got to remember that you’ve got people on your team that have been doing this for many years and have been through the mill. You have all that experience around you, even from our tour manager, who’s been doing this for 20 years, they know what’s right, but at the same time, we want to have creative control, because at the end of the day, it’s us stepping out onto the stage of SNL tonight and have to sing these songs. We want to be singing what we enjoy, as we said last night. The music we all listen to is what we try and blend together to make this One Direction sound.

Harry: We obviously want to make it authentic and have our say without going, “People say we don’t control it, so we need to take control.” We’re not…we haven’t been writing songs for 20 years, we’re not producers. We’ve got an incredible team around us. Luckily, we’ve been given a lot of freedom, so we don’t go, “OK, we just need more and more control,” because we have a lot of control already. I think we find a really good balance in the way we work with our record label and our management, and it’s just how we work together, I think.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

I interviewed some fans downstairs, and asked if they knew who you were six months ago, and they all said yes, and a year ago…They were all early adopters, heard you from the Internet, watched X Factor on YouTube… Harry: It’s the internet. People have friends over here that might tell their friends and look on YouTube and show their friends. It’s insane how it’s blown up. We’ve had the opportunity to come over to America and do shows, and release our music over here, which is amazing. Through the power of social media, we already had a bit of a following before we’d ever been over here, we hadn’t done any shows. We had some fans out here, which was amazing, but weird, really strange. I don’t know, it’s gone crazy. We don’t really see loads of it. We do the shows, then we’re in hotels, then we fly somewhere else. We don’t see massive amounts of it, we just go with it. This whole thing has gone on, and it’s sick.

Do you ever feel anxious through all this? Harry: Yeah, I think, obviously, just naturally, you think about what’s going to happen in the future. We’re 18, 19, 20 years old, we’re young. I wouldn’t say anxious, we’re just excited most of the time, and having so much fun, that if stuff were to finish and you were to look back on your time and all you did the whole time throughout this amazing stuff was shitting yourself about what’s going to happen next, then it would just be…I think you have to enjoy it while it’s going on. I think you should be wary about the future, but not worrying about it all the time. We still enjoy it and have fun, but obviously, you do think, “What am I going to be doing in 20 years, 30 year?” I’ll have kids by then.

Harry, I saw a tabloid with pictures of everyone smiling, and you were looking thoughtful. Do you get down sometimes? While everyone else is having fun, do you start drifting off? Harry: No, I think I’m naturally…not everyone is happy all of the time. I think you always have times when…like when you’ve just landed off a really long flight or miss home or something. They got a picture of me where I wasn’t smiling. I usually smile, but they got one where I wasn’t smiling and used that, and then said I wasn’t happy. They did that for a few days, that’s when we were in L.A. last time. It goes with the morbid voice.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Niall: I think that’s what’s good about it, people see us as individuals as well as a band, we all have our own personality, and we all give something to a band. Previous bands, they go around and can never explain themselves, they can explain the band, but as individuals, what we bring to the band and stuff…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

[dailytomlinson]

In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, Harry Styles and Niall Horan, both 18, sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

It was late morning, and they had both just rolled out of bed. Styles wore a hotel bathrobe; Horan, with braces still on his teeth, was in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Dallas Mavericks hat a fan had given him during a recent trip to Texas. The conversation was casual, full of laughs, and focused on their formative years.

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

In 12 hours, you have to do Saturday Night Live. Are you ready? Harry: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s going to be a fun day. It’s just really exciting, obviously. The show is so huge. For us to get the opportunity to be on it at all was just amazing, and to us, to be performing and just be involved with the show is amazing.

Have you seen whole episodes of it?

Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing?Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was … I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever.… In the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in … you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

You were onstage as a kid and were like, “This is what I like”? Harry: I knew it was fun, I had a lot of fun doing it, and I stopped when I started high school, and then I didn’t really do anything, I just sang at home, in the shower, in your bedroom, that type of thing. I guess it started again when my friends were in a band and they wanted to do this battle of the bands competition that was at school, and they needed a singer, and one of my friends asked me.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

How about you, Niall? Niall: I always knew I wanted to sing. I was academic…I was one of those people that if I’m not interested in something, I don’t really care. If I’m not interested in school, I would have never trained or done my homework or anything, I’d have just gone outside and played football or whatever.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Niall: So I always wanted to sing. I was singing here and there, not gigs or anything, but I always sang around the house or whatever, and I played Oliver in a school play. And then I just did that, and people told me I should do something…I was only 10, what could I do at 10? I just did a couple of gigs, and when I got to high school, they told me that I should just try out for The X-Factor.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

What did that entail? What were the steps from being a kid in high school to getting on the show? Niall: It was the final of The X-Factor the year before, and at the end credits of the final, it says, “If you want to apply for 2010, go online,” so a couple of weeks later, I said, “Right, I’m going to do it,” and I filled in the form online, we were sending emails back and forth, going to this place at this time. The first one is at a big stadium, then if you get through that, you come back the next day. Is that the way they did it with you?

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Niall: I was there at five a.m., I got seen at 12, and I was out of there by quarter past 12, and the next day I came back at 10 in the morning. You get through the first round, then they do a round where they don’t tell you if you got through after that.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: The producer and someone from the label. They film it and show it to whoever. Then if you got through that, it takes about two or three weeks until you find out. I was in Spain. Then you just go through the audition.

Harry, how did you wind up on X-Factor? Harry: I basically said, the same as Niall, I was watching the year before, and I remember looking at the young guys on there, and I was kind of like, “I’d love to have a go at it just to see what happens,” and that was kind of it. My mum actually did the application, and then three weeks later, I walked upstairs and she said, “Oh, you’ve got your X-Factor audition Sunday,” and I was like, “OK.”

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Harry: Yeah. 160 quid, between all four of us. 40 quid each…we said we’d do it, and then we found out it was the weekend coming up, and we hadn’t done anything for it, so we asked the bride what kind of stuff she wanted, and she said she didn’t mind, but she wanted some Bob Marley songs. Literally in three days, not even three, probably two days, we learned like 25 songs. We might have known like three of them before. I was 16, maybe 15, singing these Bob Marley songs. There was a girl a couple of years below us, and it was her mum, she said she wanted us to play.

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

Did you think the band could be something? Harry: A bit. My friend’s mum was a radio presenter, and she did a radio show  for a bit, so she was trying to sort us out a little bit of studio time, we were going to go in and record.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA.  My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs]  “Now you go to bed.”

Were you happy as kids? Did you have adolescent angst and stuff? Did you go through depressed periods? Harry: Not really. I think at one point, I started acting like I was…I had a phase of listening to really heavy music.

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Were you pretty happy go-lucky? Niall: Yeah, I was always happy. I think me and Harry were lucky. Our parents got divorced quite early, didn’t they, when we were really young. I was four, I didn’t know much, so I was always a happy kid, always up for a laugh, very carefree, and I’m a bit like that now.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

Niall: I went between both, my mum moved to the country and I didn’t have any interest in it. I always felt like the country is for when you’re older. I was with my mom for a while but got bored, all my friends were in town, I went to school in town and all that stuff. It was more like that.

Harry: I lived with both parents, and then moved with my mum, and we owned a pub for like five years. I remember the first night, it was like a night where a band was playing, and I just thought, “How am I going to get to sleep?” I was three stories up, I was like, “How am I going to get to sleep with this noise?” I was next to a road in Sussex in the middle of nowhere, and by the end, I could fall asleep next to the band, I was so used to the noise.

Was it imprinting your brain? Harry: Maybe. One of the guys who used to play every so often, he used to be in Deep Purple or something… He started teaching me guitar when I was like 10, I think 10, maybe nine.  I loved it. I was 10, 11, all of the regulars, I got on with them. I’d walk behind the bar and my head would barely go over the bar. It’s still going now. We sold it to my best friend, we go in all the time still.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

Harry: I don’t know, maybe.  I moved when I was seven or eight from Cheshire, and it was still Cheshire, but half an hour away, but in terms of not driving and stuff, all my friends lived near my school, so that was a bit further out. One of my friends there was my sister’s age, he was 16 when I was 10. It was so tiny, they were the only teenage boys…we’d ride our bikes and go to the driving range and stuff. It was good, it was fun.

You both wanted to entertain – if it hadn’t worked out, would you have been really unhappy? Harry: Yeah, I think it would be kind of like…one of the reasons you go for X-Factor in the first place is that you want to do this, and it kind of helps you get out of the life that you were doing before. I worked in a bakery for two years. Obviously, I didn’t want to do that for ages!

If you’d asked people at school, would they have said, “Yeah, they’re probably going to be famous,” or would they never have guessed that? Niall: My aunt, I was in the back of her car. We used to go across Ireland to go to the beach for a couple of weeks, and I remember we were in the car, I was singing, and she thought I was the radio, and she told me, I never forgot it, that she thought I was going to be famous since I was six, seven. She was the only person who told me that, so I always remembered that.

Harry: My dad said it. I used to listen to a lot of the music he was playing, he’d play Elvis Presley to death, the Stones, I’d sing along to that and he’d say, “You’re going to be famous,” or whatever. He came on tour with us for a few days out here, he came to the Radio City show. He just said, for him, it was so educational. Obviously, he hears about what happens when I call him, but to see it and see it actually happen and how everything works was so good for him, he really enjoyed it. So that was nice.

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

What have you learned about life from the last few years, what didn’t you know? What advice would you give yourself? Niall: How much more independent we actually are – me, anyway. Your mum attends to your every need and does your food and washing and gives you somewhere to live. Then you go into the real world, as you’re told as a kid…

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Niall: We do our own washing, we make our own food, we rent places, we’re out on our own now. You mature so quick, you’re dealing with big businessmen every day, you’re not dealing with school, people your own age. It’s a bit different.

Harry: You seem to learn so many life lessons, but in such a short space of time. If I speak to my friends and they’re having problems with girls, whatever it is, now I seem to just have the answer. I don’t know, it’s just different. Or I think I have the answer. In terms of…one of my friends was trying to decide what to do with school, stuff like that, and I would have had no idea what to say to him before.

The last two years must feel like 10. Harry: Yeah, but at the same time, it feels like six months, it’s weird. X-Factor was two years ago, but it seems like five years ago, but at the same time, it’s gone so quick. It’s a really strange dynamic of how it feels.

Do you have a sense of how this is going to go? Does it matter if it’s two years, five years or forever? Harry: I think how much we all enjoy it, because we love what we do – if you have to call it a job, it’s an incredible job to have, and we love it. We’ll all want to do it for as long as possible. If we have the opportunity to have a Take That kind of career, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t want to do that. If we don’t, I don’t know…we’ve done some amazing things already, but we don’t want to stop there, we want to keep going. I guess if we didn’t, I think we’d probably want to still be involved in…I’d just write, I guess.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Harry: [laughs] We’ll all do swing albums. We’re just so focused on this, we all feel so lucky just to be part of this opportunity that we’ve all been given, it’s incredible, we’re just loving it. It’s sick.

People make a lot of assumptions about people in your position. They think you’re puppets and do what you’re told. What do you do when people make those assumptions? Harry: When you look from the outside, especially if you’re a skeptic of groups made through TV shows, which is fair enough, people don’t see what we do on a daily basis, people don’t see…I think from the outside, it looks so glamorous, they see us do TV performances every now and again, see us doing an interview every now and again, but they don’t know that we work seven days a week.

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

Niall: You’ve got to remember that you’ve got people on your team that have been doing this for many years and have been through the mill. You have all that experience around you, even from our tour manager, who’s been doing this for 20 years, they know what’s right, but at the same time, we want to have creative control, because at the end of the day, it’s us stepping out onto the stage of SNL tonight and have to sing these songs. We want to be singing what we enjoy, as we said last night. The music we all listen to is what we try and blend together to make this One Direction sound.

Harry: We obviously want to make it authentic and have our say without going, “People say we don’t control it, so we need to take control.” We’re not…we haven’t been writing songs for 20 years, we’re not producers. We’ve got an incredible team around us. Luckily, we’ve been given a lot of freedom, so we don’t go, “OK, we just need more and more control,” because we have a lot of control already. I think we find a really good balance in the way we work with our record label and our management, and it’s just how we work together, I think.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

I interviewed some fans downstairs, and asked if they knew who you were six months ago, and they all said yes, and a year ago…They were all early adopters, heard you from the Internet, watched X Factor on YouTube… Harry: It’s the internet. People have friends over here that might tell their friends and look on YouTube and show their friends. It’s insane how it’s blown up. We’ve had the opportunity to come over to America and do shows, and release our music over here, which is amazing. Through the power of social media, we already had a bit of a following before we’d ever been over here, we hadn’t done any shows. We had some fans out here, which was amazing, but weird, really strange. I don’t know, it’s gone crazy. We don’t really see loads of it. We do the shows, then we’re in hotels, then we fly somewhere else. We don’t see massive amounts of it, we just go with it. This whole thing has gone on, and it’s sick.

Do you ever feel anxious through all this? Harry: Yeah, I think, obviously, just naturally, you think about what’s going to happen in the future. We’re 18, 19, 20 years old, we’re young. I wouldn’t say anxious, we’re just excited most of the time, and having so much fun, that if stuff were to finish and you were to look back on your time and all you did the whole time throughout this amazing stuff was shitting yourself about what’s going to happen next, then it would just be…I think you have to enjoy it while it’s going on. I think you should be wary about the future, but not worrying about it all the time. We still enjoy it and have fun, but obviously, you do think, “What am I going to be doing in 20 years, 30 year?” I’ll have kids by then.

Harry, I saw a tabloid with pictures of everyone smiling, and you were looking thoughtful. Do you get down sometimes? While everyone else is having fun, do you start drifting off? Harry: No, I think I’m naturally…not everyone is happy all of the time. I think you always have times when…like when you’ve just landed off a really long flight or miss home or something. They got a picture of me where I wasn’t smiling. I usually smile, but they got one where I wasn’t smiling and used that, and then said I wasn’t happy. They did that for a few days, that’s when we were in L.A. last time. It goes with the morbid voice.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Niall: I think that’s what’s good about it, people see us as individuals as well as a band, we all have our own personality, and we all give something to a band. Previous bands, they go around and can never explain themselves, they can explain the band, but as individuals, what we bring to the band and stuff…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

[greatfay]

atla for the ask meme, again! and some unpopular opinions thrown in maybe? mwah

my all-time ultimate fave character: 

Prince Zuko. The angst, the drama, the stream of terrible choices, the hair (all four phases of it), and of course, the redemption. Zuko fucked me up as a kid. He set the bar so high for redemption arcs, and still to this day I’ve yet to see someone live up to it. STILL. Actually maybe Minya in Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, where the only truly evil characters are long-dead before the story starts. But Zuko really set the bar. He just tries SO hard, the way they handled his character was celestial.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do:

Azula. Don’t drag me but obviously the first time I saw Azula, I was, what, 10? I actually think my timeline was off, in my Harry Potter post I said something about Book 2 coming out when I was 10 , I think I was 11. Anyway, the first time I saw Azula I was just like fuck she’s scary, and throughout book 2 she compounded this point by being fucking scary, so I didn’t like her because she’s The Bad Guy.

But then my brain grew in and now I’m like “she’s the most psychologically complex character I’ve ever seen in my life” and I literally love her. I could write an essay on how she’s not a sociopath at all, she’s got a Machiavellian type-A personality but she’s not a sociopath (which I think strips a lot of complexity from her character), she’s very much a product of her environment and it’s a fascinating examination of Nurture vs. Nature when you compare her and Zuko.

She turns defense into offense, look at that. She never loses ground in a fight.

a character I used to like but now don’t:

Hmm... I don’t think my opinion has changed on any of them tbh. They’re well-rounded, likable characters. Oh there’s one, Master Pakku! As a kid I was like oh he sucks cuz he’s sexist, then he trains Katara and I’m like ok he’s cool. But then?? I grew up and realized this man enforces this same societal bullshit, he just made an exception for Katara because he had a hard-on for her grandma so it’s some Snape bullshit lmao. So he’s the only I started to like and stopped liking.

a character I’m indifferent about:

Suki. She’s often depicted (in media and out) as a part of Team Avatar, despite appearing in only 4 episodes. FOUR. I really like her character, mostly because she’s a great example of a character playing important roles who doesn’t need a big character arc or development or even flaws. Think about it: Suki doesn’t have character flaws. She’s noble, honest but not naive, clever, a good leader, she doesn’t have flaws, she’s there to be there, and that’s perfectly fine. Wish I knew more about her tbh, like where is she by the timeline of Legend of Korra.

a character who deserved better:

Suki, lmao. Because she doesn’t appear a lot. And Ursa I guess, because I read Smoke & Fire and her arc with her daughter rejecting her face is so weird to meeeeee. It’s such a weird element.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into:

Zukaang. One’s a middle-schooler and the other is a high school junior, ew lmao. Zukka as well because idk, by the time these two interact without anyone else, other ships have cropped up and taken hold. Also Tyzula because Azula is cruel to her (but she’s also one of the few people she shows genuine affection toward without performing).

a ship I’ve never been able to get over:

None. I’m fine with most of the canon pairings but not head over heels. Maybe Sokka/Yue? That was sad.

a cute, low-key ship:

Zuko and his honor.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it:

None tbh!

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened:

Ursa/Ozai lmao. Poor Ursa.

my favourite storyline/moment:

All of the tension from several gd episodes that led up to the Crystal Cave climax of Book 2. Runner up is Katara’s revenge arc. Bro... she stopped the rain. And I loved the look of awe on Zuko’s face like “thank GOD I switched sides.”

a storyline that never should have been written:

None?? ATLA is a near-perfect story. The ending is the most controversial part but I’m old enough now that I get it. I guess energy bending could’ve been hinted at way earlier, like maybe by the Guru guy, but I’m cool with the ending.

my first thoughts on the show:

Great show, love it, I wanna be an airbender, wtf was that ending.

my thoughts now:

Great show, love it, I wanna be an airbender, ohhhh of course the 12-year-old wasn’t going to murder a man on a children’s show lmao I get it now. And that’s that.

Ask me about a tv series/movie/franchise/book!

[pcygoldenchild]

Love Me Right 3: Sehun

⛓summary: You’re in your senior year of high school. But you oh so unfortunately had to move away. Which meant you would be spending your last year of high school at a new school. Luckily you’ve done some research on this school and from what you’ve heard, you’d be in for an interesting year.

⛓warning: slight adult themes, slight angst.

⛓A/N: This chapter is a lot more serious than I thought it would be. A lot of character development and relationship building between Moe and Sehun. Next chapter will be Baekhyun or Chanyeol, I haven’t decided yet.

March 2nd

↳ Sehun: hey Mrs Oh :)

↳ You: it’s 3am sehun

↳ Sehun: no shit sherlock

↳ You: good night

↳ Sehun: Mrs. Oh

↳ Sehun: I have something to say

↳ Sehun: I know you’re not sleep, you never are

↳ You: then say it

↳ Sehun: I can’t

↳ You: then good night

↳ Sehun: I’m...

↳ You: what Sehun

↳ Sehun: outside

You got up out of your bed and walked to your window rather annoyed. You didn’t see anything outside your window and took a deep breath. Why of all times did he think this was the time to play games? Then you heard knocking at the door; soft but in a silent house you’d hear a pin drop.

You were walking downstairs but forgot... well you were in nothing but your bra and underwear. You went back up to put on a oversized sweater. Even though Sehun wouldn’t mind seeing you more than naked. It’s not really something that bothered you anymore. You and the boys have gotten closer. It’s nice to have a couple people to call your friends. It’s nice to have people to sit with and joke around with. And it was nice to have people flirting with you if you were honest. The attention was a confidence booster and you liked the feeling of being the center of their attention.

You walked to the front door and peeked outside and there Sehun was standing at your door in a hoodie and sweats. You didn’t know why he was there at 3 am or why he was there at all. You all usually hung out at Chanyeol’s place since his parents were always away like yours. It just seemed more platonic if they were there and not at your house. You opened the door a bit and looked around before opening it more and glaring at him.

“What’s so important that I had to get out of my bed at 3 am?” you whispered. You didn’t need to whisper but it felt like you should.

“Are your parents home?” he asked completely avoiding your annoyance. You just took a deep breath and looked at him.

“No Sehun. What is wrong with you? You’re kinda scaring me.” you said. He looked fine and all but why was he there?

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“If you tell me what’s wrong.” you deadpanned. You wouldn’t let him in just because he wanted to come in. You’ve watched too many movies and crime shows to do that. It’s not that you didn’t trust him, but people are never as they seem. (Always remember that.)

“I couldn’t sleep.” he said. He couldn’t sleep.

“And?” you said. How was his lack of sleep your problem?

“And I wanted to talk to you.” he said. You looked down and took a deep breath, still not seeing how this was your problem.

“Please? I just need a friend.” he said. You looked back up at him and couldn’t say no. He was your friend and this is what friends do. Even friends that flirt and occasionally think inappropriately about each other.

“Come in.” you said stepping to the side. He walked in and kicked his shoes off. When he pulled his hood off you noticed his hair was wet.

“Um you can go to my room. It’s the third door on the left. I’ll get some comfort food.” you said pointing him to the stairs. He nodded and went on his way. Now that he was in some light, you noticed he was looking a little more like his quiet self. And that meant he was either overwhelmed or upset. So you softened up and thought to be an actual friend for once. You grabbed what you thought he’d like: a boba tea, popcorn and water. That sounds...comforting enough.

When you walked back upstairs and into your room, he was looking at your pictures and all around your room. He was really tall even in your high ceiling room.

“Hey.” you said coming in and putting the food on the bed. He turned to you and smiled ever so briefly. When he walked over, you noticed he hesitated to sit on your bed.

“Sehun. You show up at my door in the middle of the night and now you’re scared to sit on my bed?” you joked. That’s not even the worst he’s done. He calls you Mrs. Oh for crying out loud. He laughed a little and sat down on the edge not facing you. Something was really bothering him.

“Hey. What’s got you so shy all of a sudden?” you joked again. Your humor was never the best but they would always react to it in someway.

“Nothing. Let’s watch a movie or something.” he said scooting more into the bed and laying down. He was making himself at home like he did everywhere he went but it was obviously forced. He was just pushing whatever was bothering him deep inside instead of telling you.

You two decided on watching ‘Paranormal Activity’ since Sehun only liked watching scary movies with you even though you were never scared of them. He started out leaning on your headboard but eventually ended up laying on your shoulder. His hair smelled like lavender and honey. You also noticed he didn’t have a shirt on under his hoodie.

“Did you take a shower before coming here?” you asked.

“Yea why?” he replied not bothering to move, still eating his popcorn.

“No reason.” you said. You let out a deep sigh to over exaggerate that you wanted him to tell you what was going on. He looked up at you and fed you popcorn before looking back at the TV.

“Sehun?” you asked.

“Yes I took a shower before coming here. I just...I went to the gym earlier today and wanted to make sure I smelled nice. Is that such a crime Moe?” he said sitting up. You rolled your eyes at his obliviousness. You didn’t care about why he showered.

“Sehun that’s obviously not what I’m talking about.” you said. He rolled his eyes and laid back down on your lap hugging your waist. It was unexpected by him. Baekhyun was always the touchy one to that extent. Sehun was the most reserved and would always get upset when one of them touched you.

“Sehun, I know something is wrong so just tell me and then I can help you.” you said. He was being so stubborn.

“I just want to hold you.” he said with his voice muffled by his arm. He sounded like he was about to cry. And you didn’t want him to cry for whatever he was going through. He came to you and felt that you could comfort him. What kind of friend would you be if you didn’t try?

“Come on.” you said in a sigh. You put the snacks on your bedside table and waited for him to sit up so you could pull the blanket over you both. He laid on your chest and after the awkward phase passed, you got more comfortable and played in his hair. You don’t know what had him all upset but he’d tell you eventually.

An hour passed of you just laying there. You thought he fell asleep; he didn’t move or say anything. He was starting to get heavy as he was a 6ft built man. You shifted a bit trying your best not to wake him up but he held you tighter.

“Please don’t leave.” he whispered. His voice was a little deeper so he must have been asleep at some point.

“I’m not leaving. You’re just not as small as you think you are.” you laughed. He let go of you and sat up. His face was right in front of yours. The eye contact that you’ve never had with him before was intense. He looked down at your lips and between your eyes. You two sat like that for what felt like forever.Why was your breathing getting so heavy? You’ve seen him plenty of times.

“Just once?” he whispered. And no you weren’t thinking right. Would anyone be able to think with Oh Sehun’s face right in front of theirs asking for just once? No.

“Just once.” you replied. He leaned in and kissed you. It wasn’t bad. It was the kind of kiss two friends have where they test the waters. Or the kind where you kiss to practice how you’d kiss with your crush. Except that’s only how it started. The longer it lasted the more it got to be more than just a friendly kiss. But you wouldn’t stop it. He was incredibly attractive and your friend. And maybe this is what he needed to feel comfort. These were all excuses to not stop but the only real reason was because you didn’t want it to.

“Sorry.” he whispered. He said sorry but kissed you quick again before laying down next to you. What just happened? Ok time to think. Either he really is going through something not related to you and just needed the type of comfort you would give. Or whatever he was going through was related to you and that kiss was premeditated. You looked over at him and saw him staring at the ceiling.

“I didn’t know where else to go.” he said.

“The guys would have been there for you. You’re their best friend. You guys are literally brothers at this point.” you said.

“The guys can’t comfort me the way you can. This isn’t something I can come to them about. It’s...it’s not the same.” he said. His eyes were starting to get watery. You grabbed his hand and held it tight. You’d never seen any of them so vulnerable.

“Sehun you’re here. I’m here for you. Just tell me what’s wrong.” you said. You didn’t want him keeping it anymore. You know from personal experiences that it’s not healthy.

“I’m so lonely. So incredibly lonely.” he whispered as a tear escaped out of his eye and into his hair.

“Sehun,” you started but he cut you off.

“No it’s not like that. I didn’t come here to guilt you. I came here because you’re the only girl I’m close to and the only person who would listen to me. The guys would just make fun of me. They’d say I’m not lonely. That I can have any girl I want. But we are all lonely. They just keep it in a lot better than I can.” he said looking at you. His words were sincere. One thing Sehun would never be was a liar. He sniffled before sitting up on one shoulder and you did the same facing each other.

“I’ll be honest. I haven’t been the best to woman. I’ve used them, but I’ve only given them what they wanted. None of those girls wanted me. They wanted the rumors about my dick or the fun sex. That’s not me. Well it’s me but that’s not all me.” he said. You were following but the ‘rumors about my dick or the fun sex’ part kind of caught you off guard. It was evident on your face.

“What?” he asked. You shook your head and cleared your throat.

“Nothing, continue.” you said.

“You don’t know the rumors?” he asked with honest confusion. You looked past him for a second to think but nothing came to mind.

“How would I know about them? I don’t talk to anyone but you guys and other people aren’t just going to come up to me and talk about...that stuff.” you said. He rolled his eyes and laid back down.

“What do you think of me then?” he asked after a minute. You took time to really think of an answer. Sehun was not the guy you thought he was. None of them were.

“Well, you’re kind and loyal. You’re really smart and a great athlete. Below your good looks and incredible physique, you’re an amazing person.” you said honestly. There was no need to lie. Everything about him was great once you actually got to know him.

“You see me for me. Those rumors? They point out the most insignificant things about me and make that all they see. One accident in gym where my shorts got snagged on the volleyball net and exposed me. Now everyone says I have a big ‘nose’. If you know what that means, it’s not a name I want to be known as. Or one hook up at a party and the girl tells everyone in school how ‘amazing and rough I am in and outside of bed’. These things are so insignificant.” he rambled on and on. He was talking, moving his hands animatedly while staring at the ceiling. When he was done, you didn’t say anything. He looked at you and you were looking down at the bed smiling a bit.

“What now?” he said.

“I mean...that’s pretty significant.” you joked. But he didn’t find it funny. He sat up and mumbled to himself how he shouldn’t have came to you and that you wouldn’t take him serious.

“Sehun wait! Listen. Wait ok?” you said grabbing him before he could walk out of your room. He stopped and turned to face you. It was only evident now to him that you were in just a shirt but he tried to ignore it.

“Listen. I was joking. I see you more than that clearly. It’s my first time even hearing any of it. And you have walked around owning those things. Everyone associates your...size and...things with you because they don’t get a chance to know you like I have. Maybe if you told them that you’re more than that, they’d open their eyes. But you can’t parade around with a clown outfit on and expect people to think you’re an astronaut.” you said. He took in all your words and stayed silent. Maybe you were too harsh or maybe you didn’t get across to him. Or maybe your joke wasn’t correctly timed.

“I know.” he said. He grabbed your face and kissed you again. This time more fiercely and attentive to your senses. His hand held your face as his other grabbed your waist to pull you to him. He walked you back to your bed and you both fell down on top of it. The kiss never once stopped. Neither of you wanted it to. It was unexpected but somehow you felt it was needed. His hands pushed your shirt up past your hips. Before he could push it up any higher you grabbed his hands.

“We both know we shouldn’t do this.” you whispered. He was emotionally not there to make this decision. And, you were friends. Who knows how things would go if you did sleep with him. He knew that. He stilled on top of you for a minute before collapsing onto you, face resting in your neck. You could feel that his face was warm and his hands shook a bit on your hips. You wrapped your arms around his back and shoulders to soothe him. When he moved up a bit to get comfortable, you felt his bulge between your legs.

“Your big nose is pushing on me Sehun.” you whispered. He laughed a bit in your neck and you thought he was moving to adjust himself but he just moved so you felt more of him. Rumors weren’t rumors if they were true. He was a thick dicked guy.

“Can’t help it.” he said biting your neck. You wanted everything in you to just say fuck it and do what your body wanted but there was too much to think on.

“Sehun we can’t.” you said raising his face up.

“Why not? We both want to and...I really want to.” he said. You looked at him and he was just so lost, it would feel like taking advantage of him.

“You’re not emotionally stable right now. And there is too much at stake. Things could be awkward later and I really don’t want to lose the bond we just developed.” you said. In all honesty, that was more important to you. Having him be closer to you was too valuable to waste on fucking him and losing that connection. Even the blind could see that.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I sprung this all on you and am already messing it up.” he said sitting up completely. It was hurting you to see him so distraught and done on himself. You moved back to lay properly on your bed. What he needed was just for you to hold him and let him know that he wasn’t messing anything up. He was being himself, vulnerable and confused. That made you trust him a million times more.

“Come. You need to sleep this off.” you said patting your lap. He looked over at you and thought it over before standing up. He took off his hoodie and rejoined you back in your bed, laying on your stomach and wrapping his arms around you. His back should never look that good. Like ever.

“What is your intention with me Mr. Oh? You’ve made me very confused tonight.” you joked. You played in his hair and layed in the dark. This was definitely a jump in your friendship. But you didn’t mind it. It was comfortable to you. Here he was in your room laying on your half naked body in nothing but sweatpants in comfortable frustrated silence. You were past fond of Sehun at this point, but this broke a barrier you didn’t know existed.

“I am all yours Mrs. Oh. My intentions are nothing different from the first day. You’re just starting to see that now.” he whispered.

[thewincestgospel]

Someone sent me this...

Hi, do you have any recommendations for weecest fics? Long, plotty ones? Your recs are some of the best. Thank you for your service. ♡

And I was like

But then life kept happening and I had to put it to the side and I was like....

But then I finally got some time and I started composing my list but then I accidentally posted it before I was done then it wouldn't let me save it to queue so I could finish it so I had to copy it, delete it and start again. Then it wouldn’t save on my cell or tablet after two days of trying I said fuck it and just waited until I got back home (I travel for work) to do it off my laptop.

So so sorry to the Anon who sent me this request.

I hope the long list makes up for my tardiness.

Weecest Recs

All the Way by  BenLMoore   A family court orders that Sam and Dean be separated because they're too close. These people don't realize, there's no keeping the Winchesters boys apart.              

And I Have Asked to Be Where No Storms Come by candle_beck Family is the first to break your heart.

The Ballad of the Invisible Boy  by dollylux   This is a story of adolescence. This is a love letter for the slow burn, for Led Zeppelin, for the 90s. This is the first of two sets of stories about how Sam and Dean didn’t fall in love. They never had to. It was always there, this desperation between them, like a real, breathing thing. When they came together, it was inevitable. As sure as continents colliding, as the phases of the moon and the life and death of stars. This isn’t a love story, but it’s a story of love.              

Birthday  by   helena_s_renn, Helenas_bitch, orphan_account     Sam turns fifteen two weeks after Dean ended their relationship. In order to celebrate Sam's birthday, Dean decides to get him laid – with a girl.        

Crown and Anchor Me (or let me sail away) by Sena Sam Winchester is fifteen years old, at yet another new high school in yet another state, he doesn’t get along with his distant, distracted father, he’s figuring out that he likes guys just as much as he likes girls, his clothes never fit and his limbs ache at the joint ever since his growth spurt started, he has to study for the PSAT and, oh yeah, he’s a little bit in love with his brother, Dean, who’s taken a break from hunting monsters to work at a local garage for minimum wage.

Crush by BewareTheIdes15 Dean looks at him different now, Sam just can't figure out what the difference is.

Everlong by Lux Aeterna  Sam and Dean’s feelings come to a head a year before Sam leaves for college. They struggle with the implications and complications of their relationship, but no matter where they go or what they do, it’s impossible to forget.

The Good Days  by  Danceswithfiends 'His stomach jumps at these small glimpses of Dean, and he tries to push it down, but thoughts of Dean bending him over in the back seat of the car flood his brain anyway. Sam swallows heavily and looks away, trying to focus intently on the road. If this doesn’t stop soon, Sam is going to go absolutely nuts.'The sexcapades of Sam and Dean's relationship in its early days and the days that follow.    

Hard-Won Inches by BewareTheIdes Dean’s developed this thing lately where he likes to touch Sam’s mouth while he has the amulet in there, fingers tracing so gently it almost tickles, around the little pouty spot where the cord disappears between Sam’s lips. It’s kind of weird, but probably not weirder than the fact that Sam’s ten and still sucks on his brother’s necklace to go to sleep at night.

A History of Love  by lyryk (s_k) When Sam is sixteen, he’s gotten pretty good at hiding what he’s been feeling for his brother for the last couple of years. But the most dangerous thing is not Dean finding out how Sam feels—it’s what happens when their father finds out.

The Hottest Days  by WevyrDove John is away on a hunting trip when Sam experiences his first heat cycle. Dean panics and makes Sam lock himself up in his room in a desperate attempt to keep temptation at bay.

Incubus by Ithiel_Dragon, virtualpersonal   Sam and Dean are left alone in Georgia in the middle of the summer while John is away on a hunt, and unfortunately the brothers haven't been getting along lately.  Sam's moodiness, and Dean's temper (not to mention his crush on his own brother) are not helping matters.  Things get even more complicated when Dean is attacked by an Incubus.              

A Life Made of Nights by BewareTheIdes Dean’s always loved Sammy more than anything, but what happens when brotherly love turns into something more? (A timeline of Sam and Dean’s relationship, starting from the time Sam’s a baby)

Lonely Harmonies  by Linden Dean maybe gets why John insists on separate beds, these days. 

More Than A Taste By BewareTheIdes After school, Dean finds out what Sam had to say about walking in on him

Never Again by made.of.bees   Dean walks in on Sam having some alone time and decides there are better things to do than leave. Sam freaks out but makes the best of the situation. After all, it's just one time, right? As long as it doesn't become a habit or anything...

Of Hot Showers and Female Intuitions by  cyndrarae  Sam‘s journey through teenage angst and sexual experimentation leads him to an irrefutable truth… he loves his big brother more than he should.

One Love, One Bond  by  RudexAndxNotxGinger   Sam and Dean have a special relationship. And it all started when Sam hit puberty.     

The Only Thing By BewareTheIdes  Ok, look, there’s not a delicate way to say it; Sammy sucks Dean’s nipples.  

P A R A D I S E (Born to Die!Verse) This story follows the lives of two young brothers as they try to make it in a dark world. After an overdose threatens to tear them apart forever, Sam and Dean vow to never leave each other's side again and hit the open roads of the American West to live fast and free together. They fight and fuck like every day could be their last because one day it just might be.

Plausible Deniability by BewareTheIdes Dean get a little freaked out about his relationship with Sam, and a whole lot freaked out when calling it off gets Sam interested in some other guy.

Sam’s First Love by  JAYJEN11   Dean was Sam’s superhero, his protector, he taught him everything. It only made sense Sam loved him but then he thinks he fell in love with him and Dean had taught him everything else so why not this too? This is not a love story. This is real life and sometimes real life sux.

Sam Liking Boys (And Dean)  by  stuck_as_sarah Titles pretty self-explanatory, just weecest thats pretty much a pwp. 

Sammy's Rule by Sammy_Rae22   John Winchester leaves his 12 and 16 year old sons for a hunt. While he is away Sam gets closer and closer to his brother, till he has to form a rule to control himself. That rule is to NEVER look at his brother like he is some sex lord. But what happens when things start to get a little out of control?                            

Sequelae  by candlejill After annihilating the boundaries between them, Sam and Dean both struggle to accept the change in their relationship. With Dean battling his guilt and Sam counting down the days until he’s able to put hunting in his past, they attempt to salvage what is left of their brotherly bond.

Note: Sequel to Situational Machismo

Situational Machismo by  candlejill  While on a hunt, Sam and John are hit with a mysterious spell causing them to switch bodies. Sam is devastated at the repercussions that could affect his future. The Winchesters are left with the monumental task of figuring out how to change back. Dean, previously believed to be unaffected, begins to have new troubling thoughts towards his brother causing him to think that maybe he did not escape the spell untouched after all.

Note: There is no sexual relationship between Sam and Dean while Sam is in John's body.

So It Goes by  jenajasper Dean would always remember the first time               

Teen Antichrist Master List by smallcaps Crack!AU teen antichrist Sammy has horns and a tail…and a hammer!  Dean keeps his hands to himself.  Barely.

A Thousand Miles to Get There  by  alakewood   Dean's not quite sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line he and Sam started messing around – it started with chaste kisses and graduated to more physical expressions of their desire. And, at some point, he fell in love with his little brother. Now, while on a cross-country roadtrip with his family, in the deceptive privacy of their RV, Dean has to prove to Sam that going away to college isn't going to change how he feels.              

The Time Traveler’s Brother by AmyPond45 Dean’s life is turned upside down the night his mother dies. But that’s also the night a mysterious grown-up version of Dean’s brother first appears in his life. While Dean grows up, “Old Sam” is often there, especially when Dean’s father isn’t. As Dean learns what the future holds, he begins to question everything his father has taught him about who he is and what he is supposed to become. Can Dean find a way to save his little brother from his own future?

To The Edge and Over   by   paperstorm, slf630   Here’s the thing. Dean’s mostly perfect in Sam’s eyes. He’s beautiful inside and out – cocky, charming, brave, fiercely loyal, flawed and stubborn and annoying and amazing – and Sam’s so stupidly in love with him it isn’t even close to funny. And there’s no way in hell Dean can ever know.     

Two-Headed Boy  by dollylux Sam's life from sixteen to twenty-two years old. This is a story of the last days of innocence during a sweltering Southern summer when Sam is so in love with his brother, he can barely stand his touch. It's the pain between them through lies, through jealousy, through seeing each other with someone else. Theirs is a story of leaving and Stanford, of Dean feeling lost and Sam nearly losing himself without his brother. It's fire and reunion and a love never lost - ever-present and no longer deniable.

Under the Blanket by Colette_Capricious   Sam is relentless when he wants something. Dean is helpless in the face of Sam’s desires and this thing that is building between them. It can’t happen, it won’t happen. It’s wrong. But why isn’t John doing anything to stop it? Could there actually be something on this earth than John Winchester is afraid to face?  

Verses Like Yours and Mine by rivers_bend   Sam/Dean are regular brothers – no demon, no hunting, Mary’s alive – who fall in love with each other.  

[taeken-my-heart]

Independent {f} Chapter 13

Summary: Your mom calls you stubborn, your friends call you wild, and the boys you’ve left in your wake call you a frigid bitch.  You’ve built a life of independence and you like it that way. Kim Taehyung, however; seems to be able to change your mind.

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: fluff, mild angst

Word Count: 19925

Notes/Warnings: This chapter has some angst, a few instances of self deprecation and the OC just being kind of mean to herself, but there is a light and growth at the end of that tunnel! 

Oh my goooosh. Tumblr has made the process of getting the draft on here so dang challenging. Please forgive me if there’s any choppiness or the layout is weird, I’ll be tightening it up over the next few days. 

**There is a read more linked but it doesn’t seem to be working and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m sorry! TT

                                                          ****

December brought with it, dark skies, chapped lips, and an accelerated time line. The semester was quickly coming to a close and you wanted to run head long into the winter break and get this misery over with. It had been almost a full week since you’d seen Taehyung and each day had brought a new wave of misery. 

For the first three days you’d woken to eyes crusted closed and a sore throat. Courtesy of all-night cry sessions. It didn’t help that Taehyung had decided to stop attending your Art History class and begin taking only office hours to help your classmates. There was a part of you that was happy you didn’t have to see him right now, since you were too busy licking your wounds; a bigger part of you that wished you could take back everything you said so you could see him again, and the biggest part of all that was more devastated with yourself. 

Why couldn’t you just be normal? Everyone else could date someone without freaking out, but you, no you were a mess. All you ever did was alienate people. You were probably better off on your own. You couldn’t hurt anyone if they couldn’t get close to you. You had too much baggage, anyway, who would want to saddle themselves up with that?

The library was quiet; every seat taken by a student in the throes of final exams panic. There were only 17 days left until the end of the semester and then you could throw yourself headlong into a project that didn’t remind you of your current misery. You were thankful, at least, that you were nearly done. As soon as you finished this paper your project for Art History would be done and then you only had three written finals to take. 

Anna sat across from you; hands fisted in her hair as she starred down at her book in despair. If you weren’t so out of it, you might have laughed. She looked the picture of stress; eyes bugged, brow pinched, a silent scream in the arch of her lips as she softly read back the words of the textbook that she couldn’t seem to commit to memory. 

The library door opening caught your attention and you glanced over to find Jimin entering slowly, vision trained on the tangled earbuds in his hands. You don’t know why or what possessed you, but suddenly you were jumping to your feet, making your way through the tables and over to the door. 

“Jimin.” You called softly. He glanced up at you, dark eyes lighting in recognition before he stopped, frowning. “Hi.” You said, stopping just in front of him and the corner of his lips lifted in a careful smile. 

“Hi.” He said, glancing around the room. This was not the place to talk, too many people trying to work. 

“Can we talk for a second?” You asked, motioning out the door to the empty hallway. He paused before nodding, pushing the door open behind him and allowing you to exit first. 

As soon as the door closed you watched him, fiddling carefully with the strings of his earbuds, and twisted your fingers together apprehensively. “How have you been?” You asked carefully. 

He shrugged, glancing up at you. “I’ve been ok. What about you?”

You glanced out the window into the dreary, cloud scattered sky. “Yeah, I, uh, I’ve been ok. Finals, you know?”

He nodded, studying you with pursed lips. “What’s up, Y/N? What do you really need?”

You frowned, staring down at your shoes, scuffed and still a little soggy from the snow. “I guess I was just wondering how Taehyung is.” You whispered. 

Jimin sighed and your frowned deepened. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Y/N. He’s pretty crushed. He hasn’t really been himself recently.” 

Your heart ached at the thought. Gorgeous, smiley, carefree Taehyung was hurting and it was all your fault. “I’m so sorry.” You whispered, tears beginning to burn your vision. 

“I can appreciate the sentiment, Y/N, but I’m not the one you should be talking to. I can’t receive apologies in his honor.” He replied and you were at least grateful that his tone was gentle. He was trying hard to be kind but honest and that wasn’t easy to do.

“I wish I could talk to him.” You admitted, looking up at Jimin through wet eyelashes. He shook his head gently. 

“I wouldn’t. It’s not the time right now. You really hurt him, Y/N. He’s an all or nothing kind of guy and when you rejected him, he took it really hard.”

“I didn’t mean to reject him.” You whispered, a tear escaping down your cheek and you brushed at it angrily. “I’m just scared.”

Jimin sighed, reaching out and patting your shoulder, “well, maybe talk to him when you’ve got things figured out. He’s not a test drive, though. You can’t just use him as practice and hope for the best, you know?”

You nodded, biting on your bottom lip to stifle a sob. “Will you please take care of him for me?” You whispered, looking up at him. “Help him be happy again.”

Jimin smiled, nodding. “Of course; he’s my best friend.” He glanced down at his watch, frowning, “I’m sorry, Y/N, but I’ve gotta meet with my study group, I’m already running a little late.”

“Of course.” You said, stepping off to the side. “Thank you, Jimin.” 

After checking your reflection in the bathroom mirror, you returned to the table, waving away Anna’s questioning look and staring back at your laptop. You had one more page to write and then you could allow yourself to return to your bedroom and cry in peace. You wouldn’t do it here. 

If your dad were here…well, he wouldn’t have any answers, he was bad at this sort of thing, but the thought of how he’d flounder trying to make you feel better made you smile. You missed him every day, but especially when you were sad because it reminded you that you were going through phases of life that he was missing. 

If he were here, things would be different. Maybe you wouldn’t even be at this school. You’d chosen it mostly because it wasn’t too far from home if you needed to go back for any reason. You’d always been adventurous and independent, though, so you may have gone somewhere much further away…if life had turned out differently. 

There was no use in dwelling on the what if’s, though. Life was what it was and you couldn’t change it; only your attitude towards it. Besides, right now you had finals to get through. Then…then you could focus on something new to distract you. 

Paris couldn’t come fast enough.

                                                             ****

The morning felt better already. The last 2 weeks had been horrible; for lack of a better word. When you weren’t pulling your hair out in the library you were stressing out about whether you’d see Taehyung in the hallways. You’d just finished your last final of the semester and felt…free. Now you only had to finish packing your suitcase and you could head home for a few days before flying out to Paris. 

The house was empty when you got there, dropping your bag by the doorway and sighing. Someone had turned on the electric fire and you shuffled your way to sit in front of it, outstretching your hands to warm them. 

You’d forgotten your gloves, which was dumb because it was the middle of December and stupidly cold. Glancing around the room, you sighed. You’d miss this house during the winter vacation. Even though you were coming back to the same house and same people for spring vacation, it was going to be different, you’d make new memories, meet new people, but there would be no Taehyung and you hated how dependent you felt on him now. This was why you didn’t fall for people; why you didn’t open your heart to someone. It hurt too much. 

You looked out the window, heart stuttering when you noticed Taehyung walking sluggishly by. He was bundled warm and you could barely see his face under his hat and scarf, but you’d know him anywhere. He paused by the mailbox, sighing, a sad frown stretching across his full lips as he reached out his mittened fingers, patting the duck softly on the head. 

It felt like your heart was bleeding in your chest. You wanted to run to him and throw your arms around him, tell him you were sorry and you didn’t know why you were this way…but even the thought of it made your stomach churn with discomfort. What could you even offer to him anyway? Love? Stability? No, it was better this way. No man wanted to be with a broken woman. 

Taehyung walked slowly away from the mailbox, fingertips dropping from the beak of the duck and down by his side and you sat frozen where you were, watching him leave. It all felt so final. You couldn’t wait to get out of the country and just escape your own mind.

                                                               ****

Later after dinner, when your bags were packed and you were sat in the front room, your roommates came to join you, a tray of hot chocolates in Anna’s hands. Setting it down on the table, she sat down beside you on the couch, grabbing a mug for each of you before settling further into the cushions. 

“Can’t believe we’re all heading home tomorrow.” Sarah said, sighing into her mug. “This semester went by so fast.”

“Too fast!” Anna agreed. “I can’t believe you’re going to Paris in just a few days!”

You smiled softly, “It’s pretty crazy right?”

“I’m crazy jealous.” Charlotte admitted, “Paris has always been top of the travel bucket list for me.”

“Really?” Anna asked in surprise, “I never knew that about you.”

“Yeah, it’s home to the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triumphe. What’s not to love? Plus, it’s the fashion capitol of the world.”

“You have to buy so many clothes!” Sarah gushed, “I seriously can’t believe you get to go shopping in Paris!”

You smiled, chuckling, “I honestly probably won’t have a whole lot of time to go shopping between the internship and touristy stuff, but I’ll try to have one good shopping trip in your honor.”

“If you don’t come back in a beret and a peplum pea coat, I’ll be seriously appalled.”

“Pretty sure the French don’t actually go about their day in a beret.” Charlotte remarked dryly.  

You giggled, smiling at your friends. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“You say that like you’re going to war. You’re going to Paris, honey, you won’t even notice we’re not there.” Anna grinned, flicking your forehead with her finger and you wrinkled your nose at her. 

“I’ll definitely notice.” 

“Well, anyway,” Sarah commented, pushing her hair over her shoulder, “You’re going to go, you’re going to have a fabulous time, and you’re going to come back a changed woman. I’m super jealous.”

                                                            ****

After returning home and spending a few days with your family, they were bringing you to the airport for what was probably the biggest adventure of your life. You’d never been on such a big trip alone; in fact, you’d never even been on an airplane by yourself. The nerves were clawing at your chest at the thought, but there was a soft simmering of excitement bubbling just under that surface. 

The airport was cramped and busy, people heading home for the holidays and you felt a little sad that you’d be missing the celebrations with your family, but the experience was going to be worth it; you were sure of it.

The evening was blanketed with a soft mist when you arrived. It was cold, but nothing a coat and scarf couldn’t combat. The woman in charge of your internship had met you at arrivals and you’d grabbed your bags, making your way out front. 

“Our car is over here.” Marie smiled, holding her arm out and you followed after her, the driver taking your things and putting them in the trunk. After sliding into your seat and buckling in, you sighed, leaning your head back against the headrest. “The drive to your hotel is around an hour so that will give us time to talk and go over some details.”

“Great.” You smiled, sitting up straight and facing towards her. “What is your job with the Paris Fashion Week?”

“I’m the head of Une voix de femme, a fashion and photography company. There are a lot of interns that come all year round for various purposes in the different shows and fashion industry and we get a lot of applicants so we’re a bit picky.”

The idea that the boss herself had come to retrieve you was a little mind blowing and you felt extra nervous at the idea of it. Maybe she picked up every intern, but even so, you couldn’t help but feel special. “May I ask how exactly my work was brought to your attention?”

“Pure coincidence.” Marie said, flipping open a file. Inside were some of the stills you’d taken over the years, mostly from school activities that you’re sure your professor had sent to her and others from the Winter Recital. “We do a lot of searching on our own. Not everyone who is talented will apply, some need to be sought out. I saw the pictures you’d taken of your school recital and I knew right away you needed to be with us. You have too much talent that shouldn’t be wasted.”

“Thank you,” you smiled softly, face feeling warm. “I never would have applied; I would have never thought I’d be good enough for something like this.”

“Common symptom.” Marie nodded, thumbing through some of your pictures, “the worthy never actually know their true worth.” She looked over at you, winking before returning to the file in hand. 

“So, what exactly will my responsibilities be while I’m here?”

“We’ll go over most of the details tomorrow when you come to the office. You’ll need to be flexible and move quickly because we’ll have you in a few different locations. I don’t have your exact schedule with me currently, but I know you will be photographing the Dior, Saint Laurent, Mugler, and Hermes lines. We’ll also have you working with some couture design shoots.”

“Wow, those are some big names.” You mused, stomach twisting at the idea.

“Don’t feel nervous, dear, we wouldn’t have flown you out if we didn’t like what you have to offer. You have an ability to capture small details; that is what we are looking for. The models move quickly and they stop for no one; you’ll need to catch the details of their clothing with precision. Because you’re an intern, we know you don’t have access to all the equipment that other photographers will have with them so of course you will have all of our equipment at your disposal.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you!” You said softly. Honestly, at this point you were feeling honored, of course, and also completely overwhelmed. 

“Don’t worry about too many details tonight, though. Tomorrow I’ll have my assistant Danielle meet you in the lobby of your hotel and she’ll accompany you for the remainder of your internship with us. Any questions you have, Danielle will be able to answer them.”

“Thank you very much, I’m so appreciative of this opportunity. I intend to make sure you’re happy with your decision to recruit me.”

“I have no doubt you will.” She smiled over at you. 

Once you’d reached your hotel, the jet lag was beginning to hit strong. You’d begun falling asleep the last 5 minutes of the ride and were so grateful to be up and standing. With the door closed behind you and your suitcase deposited at the end of your bed, you made your way to the large French doors, pushing open the curtains and stepping out onto the balcony. 

“Wow.” You breathed, hands reaching out for the metal railing, cold from the bite of winter. You could not have asked for a better view than the one you were given. The Eiffel Tower, just off to the right of your window, lights bright in the dark of the evening. The streets below were still filled with people, a busy Christmas market just a moment’s walk from the entrance of your hotel. You felt completely spoiled. 

Of course, you wished you could have shared the experience with someone, but instead you’d focus every moment of your time enjoying this great new experience.

                                                           ****

The next morning you were awoken by your alarm at 7:00 am. Your eyes were bleary and stung as you opened them, body warm beneath the fluffy white down comforter. You were expected down and waiting for the car at 8 am sharp and you still had to shower, get ready, and eat. 

You moved sluggishly from the warmth of the bed, grabbing your shower supplies and trudging into the bathroom. After showering and getting ready, you made your way downstairs to have some breakfast. Ecstatic to find an assortment of French breads, jams, and a buffet of food you already felt yourself drooling over, you grabbed a plate, making your way through the line and allowing the greed of your eyes and growling stomach to take charge. 

After stuffing your face with more food than was probably considered proper, you made your way out to the front of the hotel, checking your bag again to make sure you had everything you needed. 

“Y/N!” Someone called and you turned to look around you, a young woman with short, dark corkscrew curls and beautiful dark brown eyes smiled, waving over at you and you smiled back, making your way towards her. “Hi there, I’m Danielle.” She greeted, reaching her hand out towards you for a handshake. 

“It’s so nice to meet you.” You returned, shaking her hand and following the motion of her hand into the back of the car. “I’m so surprised, I really thought I was going to end up being with someone who was much older than me. It’s nice to see someone similar in age.”

“It’s nice to have someone to relate to,” Danielle grinned, leaning back in her seat as the car started driving, “plus, after we get the details sorted this morning, we get to go out exploring. Work officially starts tomorrow.”

“Are you serious?” You grinned and she winked. 

“Course, girl. I hope you brought your money with you because we’re going on a shopping spree.”

“I’m gonna go broke by the end of this internship, for sure.”

“No way, this internship pays and it pays well. Anything you want to buy while you’re here?” She chuckled and you chewed on your bottom lip in thought. 

“Well, my friends definitely told me if I don’t come back with a beret and a peplum pea coat that they’d skin me alive, so…”

“Put it on the list!” She laughed loudly, “No skinning alive. So, tell me about yourself, Y/N.”

“Well, I guess it depends on what you want to know. I’m currently in school studying Visual Arts with a minor in photography and I live in a small, run down, but cozy home with 3 of my best friends. When I’m not at school I’m at home with my mom, brother, step dad and our dog Goose.”

“And now you’ll get to say you interned with Paris Fashion Week.” Danielle teased and you grinned. 

“I know, I can hardly even believe I’m in France. What about you? Tell me about yourself, Danielle.”

“Well, I’m originally from Pennsylvania, but my dad is actually from France. When I was getting ready to go into high school my dad got a job back here in Paris so we all moved here and have been living here ever since. I have two sisters, one older, one younger, and I’ve been working with Marie for the last three years.”

“Wow, so did you start working with Marie right after graduation or something?” You asked, eyes wide. 

Danielle chuckled. “Something like that, yeah. I actually did my internship with Marie as well and then just ended up getting hired on and have been with them ever since. It’s been a pretty crazy amazing ride.”

“I believe it!” You breathed, “That’s really wild. I’m not sure what to do when I graduate, but I still have a couple years to figure it out.”

“Do you have any ideas or anything you want to do?” Danielle asked, twisting a curl around her finger and letting it spring back into place. 

“Not a lot,” you admitted bashfully, “I’ve kind of thought about maybe starting my own company or something, but to be honest I really just like being able to take pictures of whatever I want and not being commissioned to do something, you know?”

“Oh yeah, I totally get it.” Danielle nodded, “a true artist’s spirit. You want your cake and to eat it too.” She grinned over at you and you shrugged, smiling. 

“Guilty.”

“Something I’ll recommend is to get your feet wet first. Sometimes you’ve gotta do other people’s dirty work first before you can really get into your own stuff. Build enough of a name that being able to photograph your own stuff will one day work in your favor.” 

“Yeah, I get that.” You nodded, watching as the car came to a slow stop out front of a large glass building that looked rather out of place among the ancient and beautiful cream-colored limestone of the other buildings. 

“We’re here!” Danielle chirped, sliding from the car as the door was opened for her and you followed closely after, pulling your bag high on your shoulder and glancing around. The streets were busy with business people and tourists alike and you followed after Danielle as she led you into the building. 

“We’re up on the 32nd floor,” Danielle said as the two of you stepped into the glass elevator and you gripped the railing, staring out into the streets in awe. 

“Wow, you guys really know how to live, huh?” You murmured, watching the city sink below you. 

Danielle laughed, leaning against the railing with you. “Pretty nice, right?”

You nodded mutely. “I just feel so lucky.” You finally admitted, “there are so many people who would want this opportunity and I got it without even trying.”

“Don’t feel guilty about it.” Danielle scolded and you turned to smile at her. “you deserve this internship. Marie loves finding people who are unassuming about their talent because they’re always the best. Just because you didn’t apply doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it.”

“Thank you, Danielle,” you grinned, “you’re giving me a pretty decent boost in self-esteem.”

“It’s my job.” She winked, nudging you with her elbow. The chime of the elevator reaching your floor brought your attention back to the door and you stood, facing forward. “Besides, I wouldn’t say any of it if it weren’t true. You’ve definitely earned it.”

The office was busy with movement, desks occupying the first half of the room and filled with people having conversation. The back was divided by rooms separated with glass. Two rooms currently occupied with photoshoots, a couple offices, and a conference room. It was noisy, but in a good way. 

“This is where we get the technical parts of our jobs done. Paperwork, photoshop, that sort of thing. Certain magazine shoots are done in the back, as you can see. This is the behind the scenes dirty work that has to be done. The real fun stuff will be when fashion week starts tomorrow. Ok, follow me, your desk is over here.”

You followed after her to the right-hand side and she patted a desk with only a laptop to boast about. “This is your desk, right next to mine. It’s pretty bare right now, but the good thing is you can decorate it in any way you see fit.” 

“This is so cool.” You grinned, “I get my own desk!”

Danielle chuckled, sitting down at her desk. “Ah, I remember that feeling, like a real grown up, right?”

“Yeah,” you admitted, sitting in your seat. “Feels like I’m suddenly an adult with all sorts of responsibilities. It’s so cool.”

Danielle grinned, shaking her head. “Well, Marie’s gonna want to have a meeting with us in a few minutes but she told me she had a conference call first so let’s chill and talk before then.”

You nodded, leaning eagerly forward. “That sounds great.”

“So, you’re still in university, right?” At your nod, she continued, “any boys?” She teased with a wiggle of her brows. 

You sigh, shrugging, “Mmm…no, not right now, I guess.”

“That sounded very mysterious.” She replied, eyebrow raised and you moved your elbow from the arm rest of your chair as someone bustled by shouting something in French. 

“Just…” you huffed, blowing air up across your cheeks, “there was a guy a few weeks ago, but I blew it.”

“Oh?” You asked, waiting patiently for you to continue. 

You shrugged again, “he wanted a bigger commitment than I was ready to give him so I kind of pushed him away and we both ended up getting hurt. It sucks pretty bad.” Danielle watched as you tried not to sulk too hard and sighed. 

“It can be really hard when something doesn’t work out the way we’d hoped it would.” She said, staring over at the elevator as a group made their way out and over to the studio. “I was in a situation back in college that was…well, it was pretty challenging. Life changing; in a good and bad way. I had to make a decision that I’ve often wondered was right, but I think what I’ve decided since then is that if things are meant to be, then they will be. Of course, that’s not to discount effort,” she said, eyeing your reaction, “but if you’ve put in the effort, done all you can to make it work, and it doesn’t then it wasn’t meant to.” 

“Before I left for the semester I ran into this guy’s roommate,” you said, “and he told me I should probably give him time to recover so I wanted to do that, but I worry that I’ve just completely ruined my chances with him. I haven’t done everything I could to try and make it better because I didn’t want to push him, but I think I want to try again when I get back in the spring semester.” 

“I think that’s a good idea,” Danielle said, twisting back and forth in her chair, “give the both of you the time to cool off and think about what you really want.”

“You said you made a really hard decision in college,” you said, watching her expression carefully, “what made you feel like that decision was the right one?”

Danielle paused, fingers drumming against the armrests of her chair, lips pressed together in thought. “Because I knew was doing the right thing for someone else. In the end, the decision I made wasn’t about me, but about her. I had to do it for her.”

“Your friend?” You asked and Danielle smiled softly.

“No. My daughter.”

“Oh,” you said, sitting straighter in surprise, “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“I don’t. Not anymore, anyway. At the time that I had her, the father and I were no longer together. He was from Belgium and had moved home; he didn’t really have any interest in being a parent. I was only 20 and I knew I couldn’t give her the life that she deserved, so I gave her to a family that could provide the life I couldn’t.”

Never had you met someone who’d made a decision like that before. You couldn’t even imagine having a child only to give them away. It would take a lot of love and self-sacrifice to do that sort of thing; you weren’t even sure you were that strong of a person. 

“Wow,” you said, blinking down at your hands, now clasped in your lap. “How long ago was that?”

“She’ll be turning 6 this summer.” Danielle smiled. “I receive pictures of her sometimes, here, this was from just a few days ago, actually. They’ve gone on holiday in the Maldives for Christmas.” She handed you a handful of pictures from her desk drawer and you looked down at the family, a little boy and girl with their parents.

“She has your eyes and hair.” You smiled and Danielle chuckled. 

“And her dad’s ears. Poor thing.” You looked up at Danielle as she pushed her ears slightly out and giggled. 

“She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

“Her parents named her Emile.” Danielle smiled and you handed the picture back to her. 

“Did you ever have a name for her?” You asked gently and she nodded, staring down at the pictures.

“In my heart, she has always been Felicity.”

“That’s a beautiful name.” You said, watching as Danielle slipped the pictures back into her desk. 

“Thank you.” She said. The phone on Danielle’s desk rang and she picked it up quickly, talking softly to someone in French before hanging up. “Marie is ready for us. Let’s meet her in the conference room.”

You followed after her, weaving your way through rows of desks to the back and into the conference room where Marie sat with stacks of books and papers that you presumed were for you.

“Good morning, Y/N.” She greeted you, standing to extend a handshake which you returned. 

“Good morning.” You smiled. 

“Today I will show you around the office, give you the details of what this week will be like and what we expect of you. I’ll show you the equipment that you can use and take with you. Of course, Danielle will be with you the entire length of your internship so if you do have questions, you can ask her too.”

She pulled paperwork from the folders in front of her, explaining in detail what they were about and giving them to you to read and sign. After the preliminary work, she went over your schedule with you in more detail, giving you a step by step program of what you’d be doing each day. 

After about an hour in the conference room going over paperwork and details, she took you into a storage room, showing you types of equipment you could use for the week. You felt like you’d died and gone to heaven. Anything you could have ever dreamed of needing or even wanting for your photography was placed carefully around the room and against walls, beckoning you to take a look. 

“You will have access to any and all of our equipment; whatever you feel will make the shots better.” Marie said, watching you stare wide eyed around the room. “Feel free to look around.”

You moved towards the left side of the wall, examining one of the cameras they had there, picking it up and flipping through the settings. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” You mumbled and Marie and Danielle laughed from behind you. 

“We’re happy to appease you.” Marie smiled. “Danielle, once she’s chosen the equipment she’s going to be using for tomorrow, the two of you are free to explore Paris. I’ll leave the schedule and everything you need on your desk and forward you the rest on your phone.”

“Yes ma’am.” Danielle nodded as Marie left the room with a squeeze to her shoulder. “Don’t worry about not being able to use all the equipment at once,” she said, smiling over at you, “you can trade things out each day based on what you’re feeling.” 

You smiled at her sheepishly, holding the camera in your hands close to your chest. “Ah, I must be so easy to read.”

Danielle grinned. “Feel free to grab what you need for tomorrow. We’ll pack it up and have it ready for you when you get here.”

After exploring the room and picking the equipment you’d need for the next day, Danielle had some of the other staff come and help to pack it safely for you. The two of you grabbed your bags and ventured back out onto the street where the car was waiting. 

Sliding in and fastening your seatbelt, you and Danielle chatted and laughed as you made your way further into the heart of Paris. The sun was deceptively beautiful as you stepped from the car; high in the sky and tricking you into the belief that somehow it was suddenly warm. 

Shivering, you fastened your arms around your waist as Danielle joined you at your side, motioning with her head to follow her. “This is my favorite place to shop. It’s called Avenue des Champs Elysees and it’s probably the most famous shopping district in Paris. It’s got a great mix of things to do here, including luxury brands and affordable.” 

“I like the sound of affordable.” You grinned. 

After spending a good portion of the morning and afternoon shopping (and finding the cutest ebony peplum coat and even a gorgeous red beret) the two of you made your way to lunch in a nearby café. The exterior was a beautiful crimson with two six pane windows on either side of the door and garland wrapping across the edged of the roof and down the columns in front. The inside was cozy and warm with soft colors and a beautifully decorated fir tree in the corner. 

“It’s so beautiful in here!” You smile, gaze shifting around the room and Danielle grinned. 

“It’s my favorite café,” she admitted, “I always get the same so I’ll wait until you’re ready to order and then we can go grab a seat.”

After placing your order and finding a nice cozy table in the back, you dropped your bags below the table and slipped out of your coat, fingers wrung together to try and encourage warmth. “We start work officially tomorrow, right?” You asked and Danielle nodded, flipping through her wallet before placing it on the table in front of her. 

“Yes, tomorrow is the first official day.”

“And you’ll be with me the whole time, right?” You asked, nerves heightened now that you had a moment to think about it. 

“Yeah” she smiled, placing her hand over yours and squeezing, “don’t worry. I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ll guide you and make sure you know where you’re going and what you’re doing. We’ll even go to the venues early so that we can get settled into our spots and so that you can have a look around and get a feel for the location.”

“That would be great.” You breathed, the tightness in your chest lessening. “Sorry, just a little nervous.”

“Totally normal,” Danielle nodded, leaning towards you across the table, “I’d think you were a little weird if you weren’t nervous. This is a big thing, I get it. New place, new people, new experience. It’s understandable why you’d be nervous. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

“Thank you, Danielle.” You grinned. “So, what should I expect for tomorrow?”

“Well, tomorrow is going to honestly be a little overwhelming and kind of busy. You and I will both be in the pit together taking pictures, but Marie has got two spaces sectioned off for us so we don’t have to worry about that too much.”

“The pit?” You asked. “Like an orchestra?”

Danielle smiled, leaning back as the server brought your drinks to you and you wrapped your chilled fingers around the warm ceramic of your hot chocolate mug. “Not quite. It’s an area at the very end of the stage reserved for the photographers. We’re probably going to be standing on boxes and it’s a little cramped with everyone shoved together, but it’s part of the thrill.”

“And we’ve got reserved spots?” You asked, sipping at your drink.

“Yeah, but it’s a bit cut throat in the pit at times so we’ll be having some markers going over a number of hours before us to make sure that no one tries taking our spots.”

“What’s a marker?” You asked, eyebrow rising.

“A marker is just someone that goes and marks your spot. We’ve already got ours marked, but like I said, it can be a bit intense so we’ll have people reserving our spots by sitting in them until we get there.”

“Wow,” you sighed, “there’s a big learning curve.” You had no idea the fashion industry was so do or die, but you were actually kind of looking forward to sinking your teeth into it. 

“There is,” Danielle nodded, “but don’t worry, I’ll make sure to guide you through it and answer all your questions. Also, I think that’s our food.”

You turn around to watch the waitress carry your food over, setting it in front of you before thanking her and digging in. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent meandering through the shops in different alleyways, picking up small knickknacks or clothes that you liked before heading back to the hotel to drop your stuff off. You’d asked Danielle about the market outside your hotel and she’d enthusiastically agreed to take you. 

“This Christmas market comes every year and lasts a week into January. They’ve got cute things for your home, souvenirs, and a lot of really yummy food. Have you ever tried chestnuts?” She asked, turning to look at you as you refastened the buttons on your coat and twisted a scarf around your neck. 

“Chestnuts? As in the things squirrels eat?” You asked, following her back out into the square in front of your hotel and turning off to the side where you could see the Christmas market waiting. 

Danielle laughed. “Yes, squirrels eat them, but so do humans. Do you smell that sweet, rich smell?” She asked as you walked slowly towards your destination. The wind picked up slightly and you shivered from the cold, but you could smell it. You nodded and she continued. 

“That’s a chestnut. We roast them in the winter and then eat them. They can be a little interesting to open, but they’re a fun experience to have and I personally love them. They taste a bit like a sweet potato.”

“A nut tastes like a sweet potato?” You asked, staring around in amazement as you stepped into the market and the vibrancy of the colors instantly grabbed your attention. It was surprisingly warmer and you supposed that was due to the steam coming from the different food stalls nearby.

Everything you could have ever dreamed of was in this market. Small wooden stalls reminiscent of the swiss style chalet’s held chestnuts, crepes, mulled wine, gloves and scarves, games, Christmas decorations and so much more. The market wound further down the street and around corners that you could not see. Your greedy eyes devoured as much as they could as Danielle talked more about chestnuts and the different things that she wanted you to try. There were children nearby with a man selling balloons outside of a cotton candy stall and your mouth watered at the smell. Directly next to you was a stall with waffles and around 30 different toppings. Different artisan booths selling things you knew you didn’t need but definitely wanted. 

In the center of it all, and right beside a glowing carousal, there was a small band of performers, violins and guitars playing Jingle Bells with children weaving in between their parents in the square, playing a game of tag and screaming in delight. 

“This is so amazing!” You grinned, turning to find Danielle watching you and she smiled, bumping your shoulder with hers. 

“Let’s get some food.”  After grabbing a small paper bag of chestnuts, two different kinds of crepes and a couple mulled wines between the two of you, you found a table to sit at and put your stuff down. 

“First, I want you to try the chestnuts.” Danielle grinned, shaking the bag in front of you in excitement. “Don’t worry if you don’t like it, I’ll be happy to eat them all, trust me, but you should at least try it. It’s part of the Christmas market experience!”

“Ok, ok.” You chuckled, pulling a chestnut from the bag. It was still hot and you hissed, bouncing it between your fingers as you began to peel away the layers. “How long until I get to the actual nut?” You exasperated, once you’d made it down to a fuzzy skin under the shell.

Danielle laughed, sipping at her wine, “there’s only two layers. Under that fuzzy stuff is the actual nut.”

Discarding the two outer shells, you finally held the nut between two fingers. “Wow, the texture is so different than what I thought it would be.” You marveled. It was firm, but had a spongey consistency, almost like an uncooked mushroom.

“Try it.” Danielle encouraged, popping her own chestnut into her mouth and chewing. 

She was right, it did sort of taste like a sweet potato, sweet and a little earthy. The taste was a little bland, but it was warm and with a little salt would have made a good snack. “It’s OK,” you smiled, “not really my thing but I can see why people like them.”

Danielle nodded, pulling another from the bag and beginning to peel. “Yeah, it’s not everyone’s thing. Here, we’ve got these too.” She said, pushing your crepe towards you and you smiled, grabbing the fork from the plate and cutting off a piece.

“Now this is what I was really looking forward to.” 

With bites of warm food and sips of mulled wine to heat your insides, you spent the rest of the night talking and laughing until you returned to your bed, warm from alcohol and conversation, ready to take on the exciting new day in less than 9 hours.

                                                           ****

You’d never felt more like a chicken without its head than you did right now. The office had been hectic, people running around, grabbing the things they needed and looking like they were in some sort of well controlled panic as they fled the building to their different shoots. 

On the car ride to the venue, Danielle told you that the two of you would be covering two shoots today, both Hermes and Dior. Just hearing the names made you a little dizzy so you mostly listened instead of talking. You were glad that Danielle was going to be there with you, taking pictures herself. There was a little less pressure to not mess things up since they would still have her professional pictures to fall back on if they needed them. 

The Hermes shoot was teeming with life. The walls and ceilings were made to look like you were in an outdoor tent and you tried to look around and admire as much as you could while still keeping your place behind Danielle and winding towards where the other photographers were setting up. None of the seats were occupied yet, since you’d arrived an hour before the show was due to start. Danielle said this was typical because you needed to be in your places with things set up and ready to go before the crowds started filing in. There would be no time once people started showing up. 

Thankfully you’d had time this morning in the office to fiddle around with the camera you were using today, checking settings and getting comfortable with its abilities. That was something that had made you nervous in the beginning; that you wouldn’t have enough time to adjust to the equipment. Each camera was different and you were afraid you’d get stuck trying to make something work when you were supposed to be taking pictures. 

Danielle had helped you find a camera with an f/2.8 aperture and pretty decent zoom range. “The models will be moving fast; you’ll need to adjust quickly. Make sure you’re getting well acquainted with that camera because once the show starts, you won’t be able to fiddle around with it without missing important moments.”

The two of you came to a stop beside the photographers, Danielle greeting a man and a woman sitting on two stools in the center towards the front and after a short conversation, they left and Danielle directed you to take a seat on one of the stools. “So, this is the pit.” Danielle grinned, adjusting her camera bag on her lap and digging through for what she needed.

You sat down beside her, looking around and nodding in greeting to a few of the photographers whose eyes you caught. “Wow, and we’re all just gonna be shoved in like sardines, huh?” You asked, turning your gaze back to Danielle who smiled. 

“Welcome to fashion show life.” She leaned forward to whisper, “all of these people can either help you, or hinder you. Always make sure you are kind and friendly, establish relationships…but always be weary. Everyone is looking for their next big break, even if it comes at a cost, you know?”

You nod, leaning back on your stool and digging through your bag to grab your camera. You were pretty comfortable with it because the settings were similar to your camera back home, just way better quality. Now you just needed to make sure it was on the right settings to capture the images you wanted. You quickly switched your camera to manual, 1/250 at f/4 and took some practice shots of the people still putting the final touches on the stage. The pictures were so crisp and clear you had to stop yourself from doing a little happy wiggle in your seat. It was going to be hard to go back to your own camera after using such an amazing piece of equipment. 

You chatted briefly with some of the photographers around you, mostly men, a couple from New York, 3 from London, but almost everyone else around you seemed to be from France. It was intimidating to look around and see only 1 other woman aside from Danielle and yourself, but that wasn’t going to stop you from kicking their photography butts. You weren’t competitive most of the time, but if you felt like somehow you were going to have to fight for something, you definitely would. 

Slowly the room began to fill and you could barely contain your amazement. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood were sitting mere steps away from you, but there was no way you were going to show the other photographers how much of an amateur you were, so when Charlize Theron sat only 10 feet from you, you focused your eyes on the walkway in front of you and swallowed down your squeal of delight. 

When the show started you felt like your stomach had jumped into your throat. You followed Danielle’s cue, pulling your camera up to rest against your eye and taking a deep breath in. This was it. This was the moment you’d been waiting for. The music started and models began walking down the runway, cameras flashing all around you and you let determination settle into your chest before quickly focusing in and snapping pictures. 

Adrenaline kicked in, pouring through your veins as you watched the models move from the lens of your camera, taking as many pictures as you possibly could while they were in front of you. All noise funneled into a pinprick of sound until it was gone and you were alone with just your camera and the show in front of you. You never thought you’d actually enjoy the thrill of a high scale fashion show, but here you were, pulse erratic and stomach bubbling with excitement. 

When the show was finally over and the other photographers were packing away their equipment, rushing on to the next show, you felt like you could finally breath again. “How was it?” Danielle asked, carefully placing her camera in its bag and gazing at you from the corner of her eye.

“Wow.” You said, and she laughed. “That’s the best word to describe it. There was a lot going on and it was a real challenge to stay focused at first. Especially when there were so many celebrities around. Did you see Charlize Theron sat right there?!”

Danielle giggled, nodding, “I did see. These shows get quite crazy. You’re really in for a treat when we go to the Dior show, they always, always put on a massive production. They’re doing their show at the Louvre this season and it’s inside this dome of flowers. It’s incredible.”

You frowned, eyebrows pinching in the center. “Inside a dome of flowers? Did they construct that inside the building?”

“You’ll see.” She grinned. “For now, though, we’ve got an hour and a half before we need to be there so let’s grab some lunch quickly. There’s some food trucks nearby.” You followed after her, bag slung across your shoulder with all your equipment safely inside and made your way outside into the crisp afternoon air.

“I didn’t realize how stuffy it was in there until we got outside.” You said, taking a deep breath in.

“Yeah, the pit always gets a bit stagnant, so many bodies, so little air. Ah, there they are.” She said, pointing off to the left and you followed after her, sitting down at an open table outside of one of the trucks. 

After Danielle ordered, you switched places, leaving her to watch over the equipment and ordering your own food and drink. A full stomach later and a quick drive to the next venue, you found your spots, relieving the markers of their duty and setting up camp on your stools. 

Danielle had been right. A giant dome of flowers had been built, within the Cour Carrée, the courtyard at the east end of the Louvre. Purple delphinium stems sprouting from every corner of the rolling garden turf. You felt like you’d entered some fantasy land as you stepped through the guarded doors and made your way towards the pit with Danielle. 

“This is so cool!” You whispered and Danielle smirked. 

“I told you, Dior always means business.”

This show was unlike anything you’d ever seen, making the hairs at the back of your neck stand to attention. This venues photographers were far more cut throat than the last and you definitely had to physically avoid some sabotage shots, but you were proud to say you held your own and at the end of it you even managed to get a picture with Rihanna and Elizabeth Olsen. That one was just for you, though. 

“Ok,” Danielle said, after she’d finishing packing her bag and you’d put your own equipment away. “Let’s head back to the office and get some editing done. We’ll be working one on one with Marie to go over your work and see what kind of guidance we can give you for the next few shows.”

“Sounds great.” You smiled, slinging your bag over your shoulder and following her out to the car. 

It was still afternoon, though slightly late afternoon by the time you made it back to the office. Setting your equipment gently down on your table, you unloaded your camera and sat down at your company provided laptop to turn it on and get the pictures uploaded. 

It was going to take some time to get everything on the computer and then even more time to get things edited to the proper standard. You also had a meeting at some point with both Marie and Danielle to go over the pictures and find a better direction for the next few photoshoots. From what you understood, tomorrow you’d be doing the Marc Jacobs and Hussein Chalayan shows. You were going to have so much editing to do. You already had a headache. 

“We’re going to meet with Marie in about an hour so go ahead and get some editing done. That way you can show her your raw images as well as the edits and she can give you some critiques.”

You nodded, pursing your lips and turning back to the computer as the main screen pulled up. “Sounds like a plan.”

Loading the pictures took longer than you’d initially wanted, but you had taken a lot of pictures so you couldn’t really be upset. The computer was doing things as quickly as possible. As soon as you were able, you began clicking through pictures, finding the ones you liked the most and beginning the editing process. You’d only been able to edit 2 pictures by the time Danielle was motioning you towards the conference room so you quickly saved your work, before closing your laptop and bringing it with you. 

The conference room was significantly cooler than the rest of the office and you sighed in relief. You were beginning to get a little too warm at your desk and editing when hot was never a good combination. You sat down, waiting for Marie to join you, watching her through the all glass windows as she finished a phone call, grabbing her things and pushing out of her office, making a quick left to the conference room. 

“How was it?” She smiled, her long dark cardigan billowing behind her. She pushed a wave of grey hair from her forehead and back towards her bun and you smiled excitedly. 

“It exceeded expectations!” You gushed, watching as she sat down across from you, “really, it was so exciting seeing all those incredible models through the lens of my camera. Totally different from what I’m used to shooting.” 

“I’m looking forward to seeing some of your pictures, then.” She smiled, hands held out in request of your laptop and you quickly opened it, logging back in.

“I’ve only been able to edit 2 pictures so far, loading them was more time consuming than I thought it would be.”

“That is ok, you have plenty of time today to edit. This is why we did not want to overwhelm you with photoshoots. You will need time to edit them before the conclusion of your internship.” She replied, scanning through your pictures carefully. You watched with apprehension as Marie scanned your pictures with what you hoped was interest, it looked like interest, at least. 

Finally, she nods, turning to smile at you. “These are excellent. I’m very impressed with your style. Don’t be afraid to try a few more angles. It’s a little difficult to do in such a small space, but I think you can do it. I’d also like to see a few more pictures of the venue and the guests attending. Your attention to detail on the clothes is really astounding. Sometimes even professional pictures can be blurry with the models walking so quickly, but your pictures are so clear.”

After going back and forth about more you could do to increase the effectiveness of your work, your computer was returned to you and you excitedly continued your editing. The three of you remained in the office until dinner time when you finally wished each other farewell and the car dropped you back off at your hotel. Danielle had to have dinner with her family, so for tonight, you would relax, take a bubble bath, order room service and attempt to find a movie you could understand.

                                                             ****

The Marc Jacobs show was filled with a lot of neutrals, which wasn’t a bad thing, but it made for less interesting pictures. There was a quartet of string instruments playing in the corner; a song that was a little too sharp, but perfectly representative of the mood of the clothing. 

You made sure to get as many different angles as you could, keeping in mind Marie’s and Danielle’s different advice for your pictures. After the show, Danielle pointed out the French celebrities you should definitely get pictures of, and you made sure to get a good selection of pictures of anything else you felt might be relevant. 

The next show was Hussein Chalayan, which you were particularly interested in because you’d never actually heard of him. From what Danielle had told you, he did some pretty quirky things with his outfits so you were looking forward to seeing what he had in store. 

The atmosphere of the show was deep and moody. The clothes varied between muted tones and reds with a rather boxy style, but they made for excellent pictures. The audience was extremely receptive and it made the environment even more exciting. You could hear the shutter of Danielle’s camera in time with the click of your fingers on your own. You hadn’t gotten the chance to see any of her pictures, but now you were curious. 

After the show ended and you were packed and ready to go, the two of you went to a nearby restaurant to sit and go over your pictures. “I am so curious about your style,” You said, just after your drinks were delivered. 

“My style?” Danielle asked, eyes wide as she looked at you.

“Yes,” you chuckled, “your photography style. You were hired on after your internship, I could probably learn a thing or two from you.”

She smiled bashfully, spooning some sugar into her coffee and shaking her head, curls brushing against her cheeks. “I don’t know, you’re already pretty good. Marie has been really impressed with you.”

“Come on, come on, don’t feel shy. Let me see one picture, just one!” You bargained and Danielle laughed, opening her camera bag and pulling her camera out. 

“OK, but only one.”

You nodded, reaching for the camera and pulling it towards you, staring down at the picture sitting on the screen. It was a picture of the last model, perched at the end of the runway, staring down into the lens of the camera as though Danielle were the exact person she was looking at. The angle was beautiful, the sheer of her dress captured beautifully in the lighting. Everything in the background faded making for a beautiful forefront. 

“This is beautiful, Danielle. Wow, now I feel like the amateur I am!” You pouted and Danielle laughed, swatting your arm. 

“Oh stop.” She said, taking the camera from you, powering it off and placing it back in its casing. “Your pictures are beautiful, Y/N. You capture details I couldn’t even dream of.” 

“Well that’s just a bald-faced lie.” You grinned, rolling your eyes good naturedly at her. “So, you said this was our last fashion shoot, right?”

“No, we have two more fashion shows tomorrow and then the rest of the week will be editing. Then next week you’ll have two couture design shoots to do in office.”

“Oh, who are we going to photograph tomorrow? I don’t remember.”

Danielle glanced down at her phone where Marie had sent the schedule, “Tomorrow we’ve got Thierry Mugler and Saint Laurent.”

“Oh that’s right. I’ve heard of Thierry Mugler. I thought he just did perfume, though?”

“Nope,” Danielle chirped, putting her phone back in the pocket of her dress pants. “He’s mainly a fashion designer. I generally enjoy his shows. They are clear cut and to the point.”

“That sounds like my type of show!” You giggled. 

After lunch, the two of you made your way back to the office, burying yourselves in editing until you could barely see straight. But so far, you’d accomplished a lot and were already ¾ of the way through editing the first two shows. Tomorrow you’d finish those two and then move onto the two new ones. It was exciting and overwhelming and you were really starting to feel a sense of power in your work. 

Everyone around you was a powerhouse; Marie and Danielle the most inspiring of them all. You’d met some of your other coworkers and while most spoke only French, the few you were able to talk to had taught you a lot. 

Aluin, who sat beside you on your right had given you some invaluable pointers on how to take better photographs and he showed you some of his own work from back when he was in college. The work ethic and self confidence that he’d built over the years was inspiring. He was so self-assured about anything he tried. 

Even if he didn’t meet his goal or it ended in a way that was less than what he’d wanted, he just used that as an opportunity for growth and to push for better and you admired that attitude so much. You’d spent so much time feeling sorry for yourself; you didn’t want to do that anymore. You were going to be better than ever before.

                                                             ****

There was something about the wave of adrenaline that you would get just as the show was starting that was addicting, and your final fashion show was the cherry on top of your fantastic cake. Saint Laurent was not only right at the top of all the fashions you’d liked from the experience, but the show itself was so thrilling. 

A dimly lit room with floor to ceiling mirrors and lights flashing in and out like rolling ocean waves along the ceiling of the venue. If you hadn’t been taking pictures, you would have been dancing with the blood boiling in your veins. You weren’t sure you would ever choose fashion photography as your future career, but you could certainly see why someone would. 

The pictures turned out amazing, the venue was the perfect environment for a dark and sexy vibe and you were so excited, scanning through your pictures of both the Thierry Mugler and Saint Laurent shows that your hips couldn’t help wiggling away in the back seat. 

Danielle chuckled at your enthusiasm and you smiled at her, tilting your camera in her direction. “Look at these pictures!” You enthused, “I’m not one for tooting my own horn or anything, but these are freaking amazing.”

Danielle leaned closer, scanning the pictures as you flipped through them, nodding in appreciation. “It’s amazing, you’ve only been here, what, four days? You’ve already improved so much; I can seriously tell.”

“Thank you so much!” You grinned, embarrassed but pleased by her compliments. “I’m honestly feeling pretty good about myself.”

“As you should. You’ve got a lot going for you.”

The office was only half full when you got to back; most of the photographers and markers out on location. A few photographers were still in the building either editing or doing a couture shoot in the back and there were a few other staff members whose jobs you actually weren’t really sure of. 

You spent the next few hours really focusing on work, getting as much edited as possible. Your first two shoots were now safely edited and sent off for review and you were already around 1/3 or the way through the second two. The office slowly filled the more people came back from their respective photoshoots and conversation picked up, loud with excitement from the week. It was close to dinner time when you finally shut your laptop off for the day, stretching your arms over your head with a groan.

“Hungry?” Danielle asked, standing behind her chair and pushing her arms through the sleeves of her coat. 

“Definitely.” You smiled, standing up. You pulled on your slouchy knit hat, and wrapped your scarf around your neck before grabbing your own coat. Just as you were slipping your arms through the sleeves, Marie came and stopped by your desk, bundled chic and warm.

“Will the two of you accompany me to dinner? My treat.” She asked, purse hanging high on her perfectly rounded shoulders. 

“Well, with an offer like that, how can we refuse?” Danielle said and you grinned. 

The restaurant of Marie’s choosing was far fancier than your blood could afford and you immediately felt like you should be refusing such generosity, but at her insistence, the three of you sat down at a table close to the center and began to look through the menu. 

After ordering and seeing the waiter off, you turned back to Marie whose glossy red lips were pulled into a smile. “How has it been, Y/N, going to photograph all those shows?”

“Absolutely incredible!” You beamed. “I could never have imagined such an amazing opportunity for myself, I’m honestly so grateful. I have already learned so much.”

“Which show was your favorite?” She asked, taking a sip of the red wine the waiter had poured for her shortly after you’d sat down. 

“Honestly, it was Saint Laurent from today. His pieces were elegant and not too flashy and the show itself just felt really exciting.” You admitted

“I remember when I first started going to fashion shows,” Marie commented, twirling her glass in her hand, “I was really young, just recently graduated from university. I met a man there in the audience; a very promising fashion designer. His name was Pierre Dubois and he was really something special. I greatly admired his work and he is actually what gave me the idea for this company. I wanted so badly to photograph his art and publish it, but I did not have the skill of photography so instead I just spent my time with him; admiring him.”

She smiled at the memory; eyes wistful as she looked down into the swirling red of her glass. “We married in the spring when I was 25. Young and in love and a little bit foolish. Pierre was trying to start his own fashion company because his designs were beginning to find recognition and I was just happy to enjoy the journey with him. I still wanted to start this company, though, so Pierre encouraged me and with the money we’d made from the selling of his clothing, I started this company. It was very challenging for a while, it was a different time and so many people believed I could not be successful because I was a woman, but I was determined and what I say goes. Soon enough, he was becoming a bigger name and eventually my company started to grow. The rest is as you say, history.”

You smiled at the idea, that two people could start something so special together and see it become so successful. It made you crave something like that, in the future at least. Whether it was with a romantic partner or a friend, you hoped someday you could make something special like that. “Is your husband in any of the fashion shows?” You asked, taking a sip of your own wine. 

Marie smiled softly, shaking her head. “No, he actually died shortly after his 40th birthday. It is unfortunate that the world could not have seen more of his designs. He really was a visionary.”

“Oh,” you said, heart sinking. “I’m so sorry to hear that. My dad died when I was 11, so I understand. He was a talented author and I’ve often wondered what else he could have come up with, if he hadn’t left so early.”

“Some of the best people this world has known, have been taken far too early.” Marie nodded, placing her glass down on the table and smiling over at you, “that is why we must be strong and continue the work for them. I may not be able to design fashion like my Pierre, but I can show the world what he loved and keep that dream alive. I love doing that for him.”

The food arrived just then so conversation switched quickly, but Marie’s words stuck in your head for the rest of the night. You wanted to be strong like Marie, to keep your dad’s visions alive. You couldn’t write wild and vivid stories like he could, but you could find joy in the little things and you were determined to share those things with the world.

                                                          ****

It was already Friday and the work was long and tedious while you were editing. You didn’t have any more fashion shoots until next week on Tuesday and Wednesday so you had today and Monday to get the rest of the editing done for Fashion week. The editing was the worst part of photography, but the end product was always worth it. 

Danielle had, had to leave for a doctor’s appointment about two hours ago and you were craving her company already. You dreaded thinking about when you’d go back home and she wouldn’t be there anymore. You’d been staring at your screen for 20 minutes now, wondering what was missing from this picture’s edit that you weren’t seeing. 

Rubbing at your eyes, you leaned back in your chair, yawning with a stretch of your arms over your head. You still had a few hours left of work and you needed a short break. A sudden thought popped into your head, and before you could think better of it, you were clicking onto your Instagram and flipping through your friend’s pages. You knew you shouldn’t, but your fingers had a mind of their own and you were already typing in Taehyung’s name before you could even register what you were doing. 

His page popped up with a flood of mostly familiar pictures, but there were two from the winter break you hadn’t seen yet. The first was a picture of him at the entertainment company he’d been signed to back at the beginning of November. He was standing with someone from the company and looked really excited and that made you happy. 

You wished you could have made him happy, but you just hadn’t been ready. Flipping to the next picture, he and Jin were on the beach, the sun setting behind them and bright smiles on their faces. You were really happy for them; living out their dreams. Not very many people seemed to be able to do that, but you were happy they could; they deserved it. 

“Is that the guy?”

You jumped, glancing to your left as Danielle set down her bag and sat in her seat, a knowing grin on her face.

You chuckled, nodding. “Yeah, that’s Taehyung.”

“Did you come up with a game plan?” She asked, shrugging off her coat and slipping her scarf from her neck. 

You shook your head, pursing your lips. “Not yet. Honestly, I’ve been so busy I haven’t really given myself time to sit down and think about it.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” Danielle remarked, bringing her laptop back to life, “You’re giving yourself time to really clear the air and then it will be easier to find a solution to tackle the problem. Sometimes if we think too much about something, we end up going in circles and never find a real solution.”

You nodded; lips puckered. “That’s true.” You admitted. “Man, I’m gonna miss your insights!”

Danielle laughed, squeezing your arm from beside you. “You still have another week of this internship, don’t miss me yet!”

“That’s true, maybe I’ll be sick of you by the end of it.” You teased. “So, how’d the doctors go?”

“Good.” She smiled, pulling up her editing software and pictures, “it was just a routine checkup. I had surgery a few months back so I’ve been going in to make sure everything is healing properly.”

“Oh wow, and everything’s good so far?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, leaning back in her chair and looking over at you. “It was a slipped disk that’s been bothering me for a while. It’s been years now, but when I was pregnant there were some complications and I got a herniated disk because of it. I didn’t think much of it because it didn’t really hurt at first, but over the last year or so it was pretty painful so I went and got surgery to take care of it.”

“Wow, so you’ve just been working this whole time with a slipped disk?” You gaped, leaning forward in your seat and she chuckled, waving you off.

“Adulthood. I have bills to pay and can’t really afford to take the time off. Besides, it doesn’t hurt anymore.” 

“You are way tougher than me.” You nodded, going back to your laptop and surveying the picture you’d been stuck on before. 

“Naw, no way,” Danielle said, “you’re only as strong as you say you are.”

You smiled over at her before twisting your laptop towards her, “I’m in need of your help, oh wise one. What’s missing from this picture?”

Danielle grinned, leaning towards the picture, eyebrow scrunched in thought. “Turn the resolution up just a little and it will be perfect.”

                                                           ****

Saturday morning was a welcomed break from the hectic schedule of photoshoots and editing. Danielle had told you to sleep in and be ready by 11. She was going to take you sight-seeing and you were crossing your fingers for the Eiffel Tower and a museum or two. 

“Of course,” Danielle said, once you’d told her what you were hoping for, “no trip is complete without at least going to the top of the Eiffel Tower and seeing the Louvre in all of its grandeur.”

“I am so glad we agree! What about Notre Dame? I would love to see that.”

“Add it to the list!” Danielle grinned and you cheered.

After having a light lunch at a café not far from your hotel, the two of you made your way to the Eiffel Tower, paying and taking the elevators all the way to the top. The air was quite cold, but the sweeping view was worth it. 

All of Paris was set out around you. It had snowed the night before, only enough to dust the ground and trees, but somehow it made the sight more beautiful. Buildings made of Limestone could be seen for miles, all topped by pristine white. The river Seine was just to your left, beautiful and shivering in the breeze. 

You were pretty sure you took an obscene number of pictures, but you didn’t care. You weren’t sure if you’d ever come back here again so you didn’t want to forget a thing. Notre Dame was equally impressive, walls covered in stone and beautiful portraits. The statue Pieta was absolutely breathtaking, you couldn’t help but marvel at how someone could make something from a single slab of marble. 

You’d studied all about Michelangelo and his work in your Art History class so seeing some of the pieces in person was a little mind blowing. “I can’t believe I’m here.” You whispered, glancing around the room. 

“I never get tired of seeing this.” Danielle admitted. “The grandiose makes you feel so small, but in a good way.” 

The golden glow of the lights against the walls made you feel warm and cozy. The vaulted domes of the ceilings inspired awe that you just couldn’t get over. There was nothing like this back home, no intensely rich culture and history that you could just feel in your bones. You would miss that a lot when you returned home. Customs were different here; in that they were intense and made you feel like a tightly knit group. 

There was a sense of belonging that you enjoyed witnessing and made this internship all the more worthwhile. After spending another hour touring every nook and cranny that you were allowed to see, Danielle took you back to the Louvre, which you were particularly excited about. You’d seen just glimpses of it from the Dior fashion show, but now you would get to go inside and explore. 

“The history of the louvre itself is amazing,” you remarked as both you and Danielle began to walk the halls, stopping here and there to gaze at paintings or statues. “It was once a castle under the rule of Philip II before becoming a palace for the successive kings as their main dwelling. Eventually one of the kings switched the main residence to the Palace of Versailles and this building became an unintentional museum, housing the royal collection. Did you know at one point the Louvre was even renamed Musée Napoléon when Napoléon was in power?”

“I did,” Danielle smiled, “but I’ve always been a bit of a history buff.”

“Ah, well then you must have already known all of that!” You lamented and Danielle chuckled.

“No, not all of it, but even if I had, your passion is quite charming. I enjoy talking to you; it’s always an intelligent conversation.” 

“Well I’m glad I could be of some use.” You teased.

                                                            ****

The weekend passed quickly and Monday was too bright and too early, but you were happy to be back at work; it was a welcome distraction from the ticking of the time on your internship. Only a few more days and you would close the door on a once in a lifetime opportunity. You were trying not to mourn the experience while you still had time left. There would be opportunities for that later. 

You had your second to last photoshoot tomorrow and today you were going to be drowning in editing. You spent the morning editing by yourself, Danielle having back to back meetings with Marie and a few of the other members of staff, but at least it allowed you to fully concentrate on your work. 

After lunch you worked one on one with Marie, going over the details of Tuesdays and Wednesdays shoots before sending her the pictures you’d edited thus far. You were mostly done at this point, just a handful more and you were excited to see that finished. You were always a little tired of seeing your own pictures after a dozen or so hours of staring at them. 

Monday finished with nothing more than a comfortable evening and a fizzle of energy, sinking into the plush of the hotel mattress. You would be sad to say goodbye to this bed; it had given you some of the best sleep of your life so far. Tuesday was a different sort of chaos. The energy was new, less intense than fashion week, but still there in its own variety. There were too many people in the studio, full of nervous energy and differing opinions of how they wanted the models to look. 

At Marie’s sharp insistence that they let the photographer do her job, you were diving into the deep end; point and shoot. This was a little more comfortable for you, a little more of what you were used to. The ability to capture what you wanted; what you found beautiful. You were less used to guiding posture and more used to discovering it in its own natural state, but there was something invigorating in the power of it. 

You were in complete control of your pictures, and whether they turned out well was 90% in your hands and only 10% in the hands of the models. As it was, they were professionals so you were assuming the 100%. That was OK, though. You were a perfectionist at best, which was amusing to some because of how candid your pictures tended to be, but they were perfection in their realism, which was exactly how you liked them.

The room was hot and a little stuffy; you were warm and wet in the creases of your shirt, but you lived for this. The models did exactly as you told them and, in the end, you were pretty happy with the images you’d captured. An afternoon spent editing was a price you were willing to pay to ensure the details were right. 

A company dinner with conversations in broken English, too much French wine, and not enough space between bodies in the booths made for a well-rounded evening and you met your pillow with a belly warm from Pinot Noirs.  

                                                           ****

Wednesday morning greeted you with sun and a hangover. It was still too cold so you bundled yourself warm and waited for the car after breakfast. Danielle greeted you at the office, standing just inside the door with a smile and a hot chocolate. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked, eyes flicking across your body and you grimaced. 

“Too much wine,” you admitted, “but I’ll survive.” The elevator was stuffed full of people greeting each other with sleepy bonjours and stiff head nods. It felt like a Monday. 

“Last photoshoot today!” Danielle enthused, stepping from the elevator and you followed after, nodding your head briefly before regretting the action entirely. Your head was still pounding. You needed to drink your water bottle before you could even dive into the drink Danielle had given you.

“Yeah, I’m not looking forward to staring at a computer screen the next 5 hours come editing time.” You said, pulling your water bottle from your bag and chugging the remainder. “I took some medicine this morning when I woke up, though, so I should be a little less dead in 10 minutes.”

Danielle nodded, motioning towards the closet over her shoulder and you followed, going to get the equipment you’d need for the day. You loved the flexibility you got with this internship. You’d heard about how creativity stifling some could be, the dictation of what your work was meant to be like, so you’d been thrilled to find that most creative decisions were left in your hands. Danielle and Marie’s guidance had been invaluable, though, and you really looked forward to continuing to implement what they’d taught in your future career. 

“I think you should use the EOS 5D Mark IV for this one,” Danielle said, going to take the camera from its casing, carefully holding it out for you as she searched for different lenses you could use. “It’s gonna help you get more details with this shoot. The clothing the models are wearing today are pretty intricate so we need you to get some pretty in-depth pictures. Here, take the EF 24-70mm as well, just in case.”

The office was filling with life as you made your way back to your desk, carefully setting the camera down before sitting in your seat and switching to the settings you’d need for the shoot. You had about an hour before the models got here so you went to go set up the room with Danielle’s help, taking a few practice shots to make sure the camera was working properly.

Marie joined you when the models did, helping to show you good positioning that would exhibit the clothing without being too intense. The dresses they were wearing were definitely intricate; lots of beading and gems. Your favorite was a black tulle dress with gold star like designs across it and a deep V-neck into the middle of the sternum. The price of €9674.50 had you gagging, but you weren’t buying it, so for now you would just enjoy looking at it.

Once the shoot was over and the frames were loaded into your laptop, you began the tedious task of editing your final photoshoot. It was bitter sweet in that it meant that your internship was basically over. You would finish editing tomorrow and then Friday afternoon you would fly home. 

Sighing, you sat back in your chair, pulling your arms behind you, fingers linked together as your chest opened wide in a stretch. “I can’t believe it’s almost over.” You mourned, and Danielle turned to look at you, lips twitching up in a small smile. 

“The time really has gone by quickly.” She admitted. 

“I feel like so much has changed.” You said, pushing the lid of your laptop until it was almost closed. 

“In what respect? You or life or something else?”

“Everything, I guess.” You shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot about my craft, but I’ve also been learning a lot about what it means to be a strong woman and it’s all thanks to yours and Marie’s example.”

Danielle looked flustered at your admission, holding a hand up to her chest. “Me? What have I done?”

“Well, you’ve of course given me guidance with my pictures, but you’ve given me unintentional advice that has been invaluable.” At the knit in her brow you continued. “I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way because I mean it completely positively, but in college you found yourself in a situation that was really hard. You knew your strengths and limitations and decided to make a decision that could have destroyed you for the benefit of someone else. If I’d had to make a choice like that, I feel like I would somehow look down on myself, but you’re just so bright and happy and positive.”

Danielle smiled, reaching out and squeezing your hand. “I wasn’t always like this. When I first gave Emile up for adoption, it nearly consumed me with guilt. What mother just gives away their baby? That’s what I kept asking myself. Eventually, I got to the point where I was tired of being my own worst enemy. I had to face my demons and forgive myself. What I did, I did for Emile because I love her. I couldn’t have given her the life that she truly deserved and that was bigger than my desire to be her mother. I had to sort of retrain myself, learn to love the woman I am and stand by the decisions I make. I also had to learn to accept my faults and not let them limit me. I’m not a perfect person, but I’m finally allowing myself to learn from those imperfections instead of letting them dictate my life. It was really a journey of self-love.”

“I’m envious of that,” you admitted, “loving yourself enough to be ok with making mistakes and learning from them instead of being limited by them.”

“Well don’t be jealous,” Danielle said, “do something about it. You can do whatever you set your mind to; look at Marie. The entire industry looked down on her because she was a woman, but instead of choosing to adopt that thinking and let it limit her, she turned around and said, you know what? My being a woman is my strength, not my disadvantage. Then she went and proved it. Seems like right now the person you need to be proving yourself to, is yourself. Self-love is a life long journey, but it’s important.”

“How did you start, then?” You asked, spinning slightly in your chair, armrests gripped tightly between your fingers and gaze trained down on your jeans. 

“I started by forgiving my flaws and telling myself every day in the mirror the things I liked about myself. Sounds silly, but it really works. At first, it was hard. My mind was flooded with self-doubt and loathing, but I just kept practicing. For every negative thought, I counteracted that with a positive one until finally there were only positives left.”

“You’re pretty amazing, Danielle.” You said, looking up at you and she smiled.

“So are you, Y/N. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise, especially yourself. You are meant to be your biggest ally.”

                                                              ****

Later that evening as you stood washing your face at the sink basin of your bathroom, you thought about what Danielle had said. There were a lot of things you didn’t like about yourself, it’s true, but there were a lot of things that you did like, so how could you learn to focus on those things?

Staring into your reflection, you frowned. Danielle was right, it was weird to try and tell yourself the things you liked, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Pursing your lips, you thought hard and decided you wanted to focus on the parts of you people couldn’t see on the outside. 

“Uh,” you cleared your throat awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other.  “You’re a nice person.” Immediately you were flooded with thoughts of how awkward you were, but you rounded your shoulders and pressed forward. “You genuinely care about people; you don’t just fake it for the convenience of others. You always try really hard to get along with other people, but you don’t take crap from anyone.”

You smiled softly, thinking of some other things you liked about yourself. “You actually have a really good moral compass and a good sense of when a situation or person is good or bad; not everyone has that. You have a good sense of humor; you can always make people laugh and feel relaxed with you. You’re really smart, too. You’ve always knocked down every barrier that was in your way because you were determined enough to do it. This is going to be another one of those times.”

You spent so much time standing in front of that mirror that by the time you were finished, your eyes were heavy with sleep and you were trudging back to the comfort of your bed with a head full of praise and a warm heart. Loving yourself was going to be the best thing you’d ever done for yourself.

                                                        ****

Friday morning came after a busy Thursday with a final dinner with Marie and Danielle and a teary goodbye to the former, who had an out of town business meeting and couldn’t see you off to the airport. 

You’d packed your bags in the evening after dinner and double checked everything in the morning before Danielle came to get you for your final breakfast together. With your bags packed and in the trunk of the car, you’d stopped at a café. You still had two hours before you had to head to the airport for your 2 o’clock flight and your chest was tight with the bittersweet ending of your adventure. 

You’d spent yesterday morning and last night after packing, praising yourself in the mirror and even though it had still felt a little awkward, you were already starting to feel a little change. It had given you a lot of time to think about who you were and who you wanted to be and as Danielle went to go pay the bill before you left for the airport, you had another moment to think about it.

One of the biggest things you’d noticed about yourself so far, was the lack of trust you had…in yourself. Maybe that stemmed from the fact that your dad had died and you weren’t able to do anything to stop it, maybe it’s because growing up after that, you were afraid to say no, afraid to hurt others in the way that you felt you been hurt by your dad’s absence. Or maybe you just didn’t trust that you could make sound and reasonable decisions. 

Whatever the reason behind your lack of trust in yourself, you began to take note of what others around you were doing to build themselves up. Danielle and Marie were two of the strongest women you’d ever met. Danielle had scars both physical and emotional from her surgery and the baby that she’d given away. Marie had started an empire and carried it on her back, despite the scrutiny of her time that a woman couldn’t create and run a successful company. 

You admired them deeply; wanted to be like them in many ways. Over time you realized you couldn’t actually be them…but you could be you, and that was pretty great too. You had a lot of great things going for you, a lot of really good qualities. Sure, you had things to work on, had done things that you weren’t proud of…Taehyung came to mind, but you had resolved to become your best self. You were done living your life in the shadows, feeling so afraid of yourself and the power you possessed, not just as a human being, but as a woman. You were done beating yourself up over the person you weren’t and you were ready to love yourself for the person you already were. 

Sitting here in this Parisian café, dressed in your ebony peplum pea coat and cherry red beret feeling more confident than you had in your entire life, you were ready; ready for this change. “You ready to go?”

You glanced up, watching as Danielle came to stand in front of your table and you smiled, grabbing your bag and standing. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” You said, linking your arm with hers. 

“I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks. Time really does fly.” Danielle moped and you pouted over at her as she closed the car door behind her. 

“It really did go way too fast.” You agreed.

“Will you ever come back to Paris?” Danielle asked, reaching over and linking your hands together. 

“I hope so” You said, squeezing her fingers in yours, “And of course you know if you’re ever in my area you’ve got to drop by and say hello.”

“It would be a crime if I didn’t.” She insisted. “I’m really gonna miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too.”

“Promise to keep me updated on everything, especially with Taehyung. I need to know how that all goes, I’m too curious to be left in the dark.”

You laughed, “I promise to give you the scoop, but don’t get your hopes up either. I was pretty unfair to him; I wouldn’t blame him if he still doesn’t want to speak to me.”

“Please, look at you. He’ll definitely want to talk.” She grinned, nudging your shoulder and you rolled your eyes at her. 

Once you’d reached the airport and said your goodbyes, you lugged your bags through check in and security and then made your way towards the gates. It had only been two weeks but felt like it had been a lifetime. You’d learned so much while you were here. 

Staring out the window at your plane, you sighed. You needed to make a plan, figure out how you could ever convince Taehyung how sorry you were and how willing and ready you were to actually give him a chance. 

In the end, it had never been about him and all about you. You hadn’t loved yourself enough to realize that you were worthy of the love he was trying to give you. You weren’t willing to face the heartbreak of rejection so you pushed him away without ever really giving him a chance. 

Now you realized you’d not only hurt him, but you’d hurt yourself. You were unwilling to do that anymore; to be the destroyer of your own happiness. You were so ready to love yourself, to be your biggest cheer leader. You were ready to face the fact that you were deserving of the love people wanted to give you. You smiled at your reflection in the mirror, the same young woman from two weeks ago, but so different too. You felt powerful, like there was nothing you couldn’t do. You were confident and comfortable in your own skin. Your body wasn’t perfect, you had little spots and cellulite in places you weren’t thrilled about; but this body had gotten you through so much and was always ready to get up and go forward in the morning. It was time your spirit caught up. You loved it in all of its little imperfections and intricacies and in learning to love the outward side of yourself, you were learning to love who you were on the inside too. 

Sarah was right, you were one hell of a woman and you were no longer afraid to admit it. Take off was bittersweet; leaving behind the country and opportunity that had allowed for so much growth in your photography and even your confidence was a little scary, leaving with it a feeling of whether or not you could continue when you returned to old habits; but you refused to allow the everyday of your life to retract the progress you’d made. You were too driven. 

It was late when you landed, but despite the hour, your family was still there to greet you. Your mom squealed, arms open wide as you jogged towards her, laughing at her excitement. “Oh my gosh!” She gasped, poking at your beret when she’d stood back. “You look so Parisian.”

You grinned, rolling your eyes, “What does that even look like?” 

“Like that.” Ben chuckled, pulling you into a hug. “Welcome back, Tuck.”

“Thanks Benny boo.” You smiled and he groaned, grabbing at his chest in complaint. 

“Hey Paul.” You said as he pulled you into a firm bear hug. 

“How are you kiddo?”

“Super glad to be off that plane.” You admitted, stretching your back when you’d been released. “Economy is not where it’s at.”

Ben worked his arm around your shoulders and the four of you made your way to baggage claim through the handful of late-night stragglers off other planes. “Still can’t believe you went to Paris. Of course, my kid sister gets to do all the cool things.”

“Hey, don’t complain at me, mister. You’re the one who applied for a job at our old high school. You could have tried for that overseas job.”

Ben shrugged as your group came to a stop by your baggage claim, “You know I’m too conventional for that. I want the adventure, but turns out I’m too lame for it.”

“Can’t argue there,” you nodded and Ben laughed, smacking your arm. 

“Be nice to your big brother!” He frowned and you wriggled your eyebrows up and down at him. 

“It’s pretty cold out there,” Your mother said, linking her arm through yours, “Did you bring a bigger coat or just that?”

“This is surprisingly warm, actually.” You said, “but you know I went out with a bigger coat, I just packed it in my check in.”

“You might want it on.” Paul smiled, zipping his own coat up, “we’re having a bit of a cold snap right now.”

After grabbing your luggage, you followed your family back to the car, loading everything in and finally laying your head against the window. You were exhausted. It was just after midnight by the time you left the airport and after a full day of traveling you were so ready to fall asleep for at least 12 hours. 

Conversation was light for the next 20 minutes, mostly your family talking and you drifting in and out of sleep and conversation. By the time you made it back to your house you were nearly asleep. Ben and Paul helped you bring your luggage back up to your room and you made your way to the bathroom to brush your teeth. 

“It’s good to have you back, Tuck.” Ben smiled, kissing your forehead and you smiled up at him around your tooth brush.

“Are you staying the night?” You asked, pulling your brush from your teeth and turning to face him. 

“Yeah, it’s winter vacation for us too so mom and Paul said I could stay for the last week of your break and then I’ll head back to my apartment.”

“See you in the morning, then.” You said softly, waving him away and he nodded, heading to his childhood bedroom to sleep.

                                                            ****

The next morning you woke to a fresh snow and a mild headache. Jet lag was far worse heading over to Paris, but you knew you couldn’t completely escape the time zone difference so you stretched lethargically before stepping from your bed and making your way to the bathroom, fingers digging into an itch in your back.

“Morning sleepy head.” Your mother smiled from the breakfast table after you’d made your way downstairs. “I made breakfast.”

“I see that.” You remarked in amazement, “you really outdid yourself.”

The table was filled with all sorts of delicious foods and your stomach gurgled as you pulled out your chair and sat down. “I can’t decide what to eat first.”

“How about everything?” Paul chuckled, placing down his book and grabbing your plate to fill it with one of everything.

  “Morning.” Ben croaked groggily from the door, shuffling his way to his seat, hair stood up in every direction and his eyes half closed with the remnants of his sleep. 

“My, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Your mother teased and your brother, having a general lack of energy, just yawned in response. “So, Y/N, you have one week before school, what do you want to do with that time?”

“I want to make a game plan.” You said and Ben looked over at you, one eye closed and the other half lidded. 

“A game plan for what?” He mumbled around a mouthful of food. 

“How to apologize to Taehyung.” You murmured, staring down at your food. 

“Did something happen with him?” Your mother asked, taking a sip of her orange juice. 

“Just kind of had a…falling out.” You said, smiling up at her, “he was ready for something more serious than I was and I was too far in my own head. I want to at least talk to him and see if he’s willing to give it one more chance. If not, then at least I’ve tried.”

“That’s a good idea.” Your mom smiled, “tell me more about him; you’ve been so secretive.”

You laughed, taking a drink from your cup, “I don’t really like to talk about things that aren’t for sure yet, you know that. I’ll tell you about him, though. He’s originally from Korea, has a brother and a sister, he’s studying dance and musical performance and he is so talented it’s ridiculous. He lives with a lot of friends from back home and they’re some of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He’s really good at making me feel like I can do anything. I don’t know, he’s just really cool. Plus, he’s cute.” You grinned.

“As he should be,” your mother nodded. “OK, so you’ll make a game plan. Anything else? I was hoping we could go see a movie or something.”

“Yeah, mom wants someone to go a sappy movie with her.” Ben smirked and your mother swatted his arm.

“It’s not sappy.” She complained. 

“Mom, it’s like hallmark on steroids.” He scoffed and you chuckled.

  “Sure, mom, I’ll go with you. Mostly I just want to relax this week. Eat more than my calorie count allows and lounge on the couch with a blanket and movie.”

“I’m down for that.” Ben agreed, shaggy hair falling into his eyes as he nodded. 

“I want both of you to help me with some things around the house while you’re here,” Paul said over his book and you nodded in understanding.

                                                           ****

After breakfast was over you made your way back to the bathroom for a shower. The steam made you feel warm and lethargic all over again, like climbing back into the toasty heaven that were your sheets. You finished your shower, dressing and getting ready quickly before grabbing a notebook and heading to Ben’s old bedroom, leaving a knock on the solid oak wood panel. 

“Come in.” He called from inside and you twisted the bronze knob, cool in your fingertips, until the door swung open. “Hey,” he smiled from his perch at the top of his bed. “What’s up?”

“Was wondering if you could contribute your man’s insight.” You asked and he patted the spot next to him. 

“Sure, with what?”

“My game plan.” You said, taking the proffered seat. His bed, while unmade and a little messy, was soft and warm, and you sunk into its embrace happily. 

“Ah yes, with that guy Tae something, right?”

“Taehyung, yeah.”

“Ok, so, what have you got so far?” He asked, turning his body so it was facing you, one foot on the floor with the other tucked into the center of his sweats. 

“Honestly,” you sighed, “nothing. That’s the problem; I don’t even know how to start.”

“Well, I guess the only way I can really help is if you give me the details of what happened. Can’t help fix a problem I know nothing about.”

“I was hoping we could avoid that part.” You mumbled.

Ben laughed, “Sorry, Tuck. Time to be forthcoming.” 

You sighed, nodding before delving into the story, watching his face apprehensively as he frowned or grimaced in certain parts and you wrung your hands nervously. 

Ben exhaled loudly when you’d finished, lips puckered forward in thought. “It’s a lot to take in.” He remarked. 

“I know.” You murmured. 

“Well, obviously you both made mistakes, he should have been a little more patient, but you were definitely giving him mixed signals and leading him on.” Ben said gently and you frowned down at your lap, fingers tracing the rings of your notebook. 

“Yeah.�� 

“It’s not the end of the world, Tuck, it’s been almost a month, you’ve both had time to calm down. Now you guys just need to talk. I honestly think it’s going to take more than just one chat, though, to be fair.”

“What do you mean?” You pouted and Ben smiled, ruffling your hair.

  “So far, his romantic experience with you has been your body language and words at complete odds. How’s he supposed to know you’re really ready without you proving it…with time?”

Your shoulders deflated. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“Sorry, Y/N. He probably doesn’t trust your word much right now and you’re gonna have to show him you’re really serious about him this time. Building back trust takes time. Tell him you are ready and that you want to prove it to him over time and then be consistent. You make the moves to see him and you follow the signals and signs he gives you. And…if he says he doesn’t want to or isn’t ready, you have to respect that. Sometimes we burn our bridges.”

“I hope I haven’t burned this bridge.” You admit, looking up at your brother.

“I’m rooting for you.” He said, taking your hand in his own. 

“Thanks Ben.” You smiled. 

“Dad would be really proud of you, you know?” He said suddenly, and you looked over at him, eyes wide. “You’ve grown a lot over the last few years. When dad died, I feel like our family kind of fell apart. You and I were both really angry and I feel like you’ve spent a lot of time self-sabotaging, making it so that people couldn’t get close enough to hurt you anymore. I’m really proud of how much progress you’ve made. It’s not easy to open yourself up again.”

“What about you? Have you learned to open up again?” You asked.

“Well, I’ve always been a little more open than you,” he teased and you rolled your eyes at him with a smile. “But yeah, I’ve kind of been seeing someone.”

“Really?” You heaved, sliding closer, “tell me all about her!” 

He chuckled, flipping the hair from his eyes, “Her name is Nicole, she’s actually another teacher at my school, teaches AP English.”

“Did Mrs. Lin leave?”

“She retired, yeah. Last year, actually. Nicole and I only started seeing each other about 2 weeks ago, but so far I think there’s a lot of potential; she’s really cool.” 

“I’m excited for you. Really. At least one of us has got the romance department a little more figured out.”

“It’ll be the two of us soon enough. If not Taehyung, it’ll be someone else. There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t date, though. You know that, right?”

You smiled, grabbing his shoulder in a tight squeeze. “I know, Ben. Thank you so much for listening. Seriously. Your support makes me feel like I can really do this.”

“You definitely can.” He said. “By the way, mom wanted me to remind you that you still need to open your presents from Christmas.”

“Oh!” You gasped, bouncing from your seat on his bed, “I totally forgot about that. Let’s go downstairs!”

                                                            ****

Later that evening, after you’d had dinner and cleaned the dishes, you were sat in front of the fireplace in your pajamas, book in hand. Paul was watching tv, flipping casually through channels and you could hear your mom and Ben playing chess in the office. You coveted days like these, where you could sleep in and lounge lazily around the house. No responsibilities, just relaxation. 

The downtime gave you the opportunity to think, too. Mostly right now you were thinking about how you missed Paris. All the time in the world and you wouldn’t have been able to explore all the things you’d wanted to. Every cute café, shoved in a small hole in the wall with beautiful vibrant wisteria and vines of honeysuckle hanging from the trellises.  You wish you could have seen them in bloom, but even in winter it was an enchanting sight. 

You missed Danielle a lot, she’d provided you with a lot of insight and a great friendship. You wished you could have brought her back home with you. She wasn’t that much older than you, but she’d taught you so much. 

“Would you be willing to help me in the store tomorrow?” Paul asked, turning his gaze from the tv to rest on you.

“You need me to man the cash register?” You asked, looking up at him. “Yeah, the customers are in need of a pretty face, not just my gruff mug.” He chuckled and you smiled. 

“Sure, I’ve got some time to spare. What time?”

He flipped to a rerun of an old army show, dropping the controller in his lap, brow wrinkled. “Not a super long time, I know it’s your break right now. How about from 11-3? That way I can get Bobby and I a good solid break.”

“Sounds great.” You nodded, flipping your book back open. “I’ve still got the shirt upstairs in my closet.”

“Great. Your brother is coming in tomorrow too, but he’ll be helping in the back with some heavy loading stuff so you may not even see him.”

“Is he going in at the same time as you?” You asked and he shook his head.

“No, he’s actually coming in at the same time as you so maybe you can drive in together.”

“Good. I’ll make him drive.” You grinned.

                                                           ****

The drive to the store was slow in the snow, but the familiar roads and buildings were comforting in their nostalgia. The morning air was still and crisp, leaving a chill in the car that went sweeping into your bones. 

Your breath fogged in front of you, condensation building on the window as you stared out. The streets were mostly empty, despite the hour, but as you made your way further into town the sidewalks became more crowded with people, snow trodden footsteps and the remnants of Christmas decorations. 

Ben pulled into the parking lot of Paul’s garden and home store and locked the doors behind the two of you as you stepped, shivering into the mist covered afternoon. You could see a few customers inside, but it wasn’t overcrowded. 

Moving inside, you shook the cold from your limbs, glancing around the room to find Paul. He stood at the opposite end of the store in the garden section, talking to a man over the top of a large potted gardenia. He waved at the two of you absently and you walked to the back of the store and into the employee break room, sliding your coat from your shoulders and onto the wall hanger by the door. 

“I’m gonna go grab us some aprons.” Ben said, walking into the office and closing the door behind him to get to the shelf. 

The break room was just as you remembered it. Two brown, leather couches, one with a poorly patched hole in the center of one of its seats, an old, wooden table by the sink with a small white fridge and a couple counter tops. There was a small tv sat on a table across from the couches, so you sat down, fidgeting idly with the sleeve of your uniform shirt while you waited for your brother to return. 

“OK,” Ben sighed, making his way back out of the office and closing the door behind him, two grey aprons clutched in one hand. He chucked one into your waiting lap and you stood, fastening it around your waist and behind your back. “Let’s go see where he wants us.”

By the time you returned to the front, Bobby was already ringing up the gardenia customer and Paul was making his way over to the two of you. “Thanks again for coming in.” He smiled, clapping your brother on the shoulder and you waved him off. 

“We’re happy to help.” You replied.

“I’m gonna go ahead and send Bobby on break and get you set up on register, Y/N. Ben, I’ve got a few things I need your help with. When Bobby comes back, I’ll go on break and send him your way, Ben.”

“Sounds good.” Ben nodded. 

“Morning,” Bobby greeted you from his position at the register and you grinned. He was a shorter, slightly stouter man, just a few years older than you, with short, black hair, a rounded nose, and glasses. He was quiet and a little awkward, but a genuinely nice guy and someone you considered a good friend here in the city. 

“How are you?” You greeted as he stepped from the register to allow your uncle to log his information in. 

Bobby shrugged, “can’t complain. Making money to pay for my exorbitant lifestyle, the usual.”

You laughed, patting his arm and stepping back as your uncle made his way passed. “You’ll have to keep me updated on that.”

Bobby made his way back to the break room and Ben and your stepdad walked towards the back of the store, disappearing around the corner. The store wasn’t very busy right now so you grabbed a Home and Garden magazine from beside you and began to flip through to occupy your time. 

Shortly before noon, the bell to the shop chimed and you glanced up as Anna, Sarah, and their mom walked through the door. 

“Y/N!” Sarah squealed, running towards you, Anna hot on her tail and you rounded the register to give them both a hug. “Oh my gosh, we weren’t sure if you’d be here today but tagged along with our mom just in case.”

“Seems like it was a good idea.” Their mom said from behind and you chuckled, giving her a quick hug. 

“Yeah, I just got back the other day and Paul asked Ben and I to come in and help today.”

“Did you buy a beret like we told you to?” Anna asked and you grinned, rolling your eyes at her. 

“Of course, I did. Just wait until you see all the things I got! I’m so excited to show you everything.”

The twins mother made her way to the plant section of the store and you glanced after her, before turning your attention back to your friends. “Well we should hang out before we head back to school. I know you haven’t spent a lot of time with your family, but we’ve spent more than enough with ours.” Sarah teased and Anna nodded vigorously. 

“Sure, you guys know you’re welcome to come over anytime. Why don’t you come over later after dinner and we can watch a movie or something?”

“And by watch a movie you mean gossip about Paris while a movie plays in the background?” Anna said, eyebrows wagging and you laughed. 

“Pretty much.” 

After the twins and their mother had bought what they needed and left the store with see you soon’s, you returned to a sluggish afternoon of the occasional customer question and watching the snow drifts outside the front window. 

Every once in a while, you’d see Ben and Paul lugging heavy plants to the front of the store and Ben would make funny faces about the pain of heavy labor and you’d smile and laugh, waving him away. By the time both Bobby and Paul had taken their breaks and returned, you were ready to get some food of your own so with quick thank you’s from Paul and no problem’s from you and your brother, you both made your way back into the snow, bundled and warm, to head home for food and relaxation. 

You helped your mother make lunch, before the three of you retired to the living room to watch old reruns of The Nanny and eat. It was so nice to be home and have no responsibilities. Even though you missed Paris and you even missed school, there was no way you were going to squander the opportunity to sit around and do absolutely nothing important. 

After dinner, Anna and Sarah came over in their dad’s brand-new Christmas present, a beautiful cherry red Camaro and you remarked on the amazing feat it must have been to convince him to let them drive it. 

Sarah chuckled, “well since we only live a block away, he was willing to allow it. You know if you lived any further, we would have been in the Toyota.”

“This is true.” You nodded your commiseration before grinning and looking at your friends with wiggling eyebrows. “Wanna see my clothing loot?”

“That should not be a question!” Anna insisted and the three of you ran giggling up the stairs into your room. 

You grabbed your suitcase from the floor, flopping it across the middle of your bed and flipping open the top. “You still haven’t unpacked?” Anna asked, sitting at the foot of your bed, one foot tucked into the seat of her jeans. 

You shrugged, “let me live my lazy life.” Pulling some of the clothes from your bag, you began modeling for your friends who indulged you happily with oo’s and aw’s and exclamations of jealousy that made you giddy with excitement. 

“What about your beret?” Anna asked and you smiled, reaching into your closet and putting on the new coat and hat to show them.

“I’m so jealous!” Sarah cried, jumping from the bed and coming to your side to stroke the fabric of your coat. “Feels like wool.”

“It’s a synthetic wool, actually, and it’s so warm!” You gushed. “Also, check out the hat. Do you approve?”

“Very much so!” Anna chuckled, running her finger tips across the brim of your hat. “I hope you brought us souvenirs.” 

“What do you take me for?” You asked, spinning back to your suitcase and pulling out two bags filled with small little goodies and a beret each for your two closest friends who squealed words of thanks and dug through their bags excitedly. 

“Did you get something for Charlotte?” Sarah asked, looking up at you and you nodded, holding another bag up from your suitcase. 

“Duh.”

The three of you spent the rest of the night filling each other in about your separate breaks and the presents you’d gotten and you gushed all about Danielle and Marie and Paris until you were blue in the face and they were green with envy and then you sat down to a movie with popcorn and more conversation until their dad was finally calling them back home and you were climbing back into bed, excited to enjoy the rest of your winter break before returning back to school for the spring semester.

                                                         *****

Thank you sooo much for being so patient and waiting for this 42 page beauty. I’m really happy with this chapter and I hope you love it. Please let me know what you think! I’m desperate for your thoughts and opinions. Haha. We’re almost there, only 3 more chapters! 

Chapter 12

Chapter 14

Copyright © 2017  by taeken-my-heart (Nora.) All rights reserved.

[mysplaced-pen]

Hi! I really love your works. I enjoy reading them during my vacant time and sometimes in the office. lol. Anyways, I do not know if you've done this before, scenario: MC and RFA + trio are high school students, and RFA + trio trying to confess to MC. **i am not sure if you got the idea, somewhat hard to put into words. lol** anyways, thank you in advance ^^

hey, hun!💛 Sorry this is so late, but I hope you like this!

it’s a really cute request ^^ It’s my pleasure to do it and I’m glad you like the others too!~

[ side note: zen’s got lowkey angsty whoops ]

zen

his gang members hate that he always actually goes back to the school

but he can’t help himself - there was still someone there that he needed to see

it was his best friend, mc. whom he had been friends with since middle school

and he was actually pretty surprised they still wanted to see him

they were finishing their second year of high school, like he would be if he stayed

he knew it was dangerous…going back. but he couldn’t help himself

hyun had a huge crush on mc. and he was going to tell them. at the very least so he wouldn’t regret not telling them

so he texted them to meet him outside after class 

he was waiting in their usual meetup spot, which was by a tree near the school

but this time, it was for a goodbye.

“Hyun!” mc’s voice made him look over and smile at them

“Hey babe. How was school?” “Boring without you, you know that”

he laughed, which was his first laugh in a while

it was so easy to laugh with mc…he might not get this chance ever again 

“But anyways, what’s up? I haven’t seen you around lately.”

“Yeah, sorry about that…but I just needed to tell you something.”

“Are you going somewhere?” “Kind of?” “…What is it, Hyun?”

He sighed and took their hand and kissed it gently 

“I needed to tell you that I really like you before I left.” 

“what?- hyun-” they called, but he walked off

yoosung

yoosung wasn’t supposed to fall for mc

he was their tutor for crying out loud

but…they were so cute….

a lil backstory: they met at a volunteer event the school ran

they were partnered up for a help desk, getting people where they need to go and giving out extra supplies

and they’d talk when they got a break

listen, he had no intention to actually fall for mc

what happened, however, was he fell for their dedication to getting through this

they tried to learn the subject and made efforts to just talk to him besides school work

the two of them shared interests, possible plans for the future - along with their insecurities of the future

and a friend of his told him to just ask them out

…what did he have to lose?

it was their last study session together - in the library

30 minutes in and he still couldn’t gather up the courage

yoosung, you literally have 2 minutes left, just ASK 

what ended up happening was he asked while they were both packing up

mc was grabbing their things, but took a second to look up and smile at yoosung

“thank you for everything, yoosung. I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow!”

it literally slipped out - yoosung didn’t even think about it

“how about a date?” yoosung’s mind: whatdidijustdoijustdidthatohmygod

mc paused for a second before packing up again

yoosung felt embarrassed, just going to quickly pack his things 

but he saw mc move a hand to his bag, putting a piece of paper on the very top

“saturday. 8?” and then they walked off

it was their address. and he turned red for a second

jaehee

oh there was no way jaehee could do this

there’s no way mc would like her

they barely even hung out! 

sure, they would text each other every now and then. they’d talk in the hallways and eat lunch

but…they weren’t really friends

yet jaehee somehow managed to get a crush on mc. great.

she was sure mc saw her as everyone else did - quite robotic. not any fun at all

and..she had to admit, she was sometimes

so how was jaehee going to do this again?

ah yes, slip a note in their locker

she was just gonna pass by and slip it in

if it went wrong, mc could just text her a no. she could live with that

if it didn’t then…great! 

that’s what she told herself as she slid the note in

now to wait

it honestly was on her mind all day and she could barely focus on school work

and apparently her being nervous made her more robotic because everyone around her asked her about it

but who cares? she was only waiting on a response from mc 

she’ll probably get it when she gets home

“jaehee!” mc called, making her turn around

oh no no nono  they’re going to reject me right here right now, i was specifically trying to avoid this

“oh, hello mc. do you need help with anything?” 

“yeah, actually. what time should we go? and should I meet you somewhere or at your place?”

“….i’m sorry?” 

“our date, silly”

jumin

usually, jumin han was a confident teenager, but now…well..

im cr ying i just remembered i said jumin’s emo phase was in high school rip

so imagine a small, emo-phase jumin han trying to ask out his crush

you think it would be kind of weird, especially considering his outlook on life right now

but it was actually pretty simple

I mean, of course, besides the fact that he was still surprised he had a crush on someone

V had to literally tell him, “it’s because you have a crush on them, jumin. that’s why you keep thinking about them”

please spare this child

he invited them over after school one day to help them with their math homework 

and, trust me, everything was Prepared

so as you can imagine, it was going very well

they were getting their homework done, there were snacks, and mc honestly seemed to be having a good time

so…he just kind of went for it

“mc, may I ask you something?” 

of course his manners are still top of the notch, even through his emo phase

“sure, jumin. what do you need?”

“would you like to get dinner sometime? we could do tonight if you’d like, and I could have anything you’d like prepared. but don’t feel pressured, of course”

he’s rambling, how cute

mc laughed a little before putting a hand on his shoulder to get him to stop

“are you asking me on a date? or to just stay for dinner?”

jumin blinked, “A date.” 

“then yes.”

707 / luciel / saeyoung

one of his friends wouldn’t shut up about it

“the great luciel has a crusssshhhh” [ he still goes by luciel and hides his Angst, but he’s not a hacker ok ]

“no I don’t.”

he’s not allowed to have crushes, he has too much on his plate to worry about already

having a crush would only hinder him

but….mc was really fun to be around

and they cared about him 

maybe they would…be able to see through his mask 

but they wouldn’t like saeyoung. saeyoung was too weak and sad

no, he shouldn’t waste his time thinking about this, he had work to do

…….15 minutes later……..

wait, he built a little butterfly robot

and now he was seriously considering writing a letter

maybe he will

he just won’t sign it so they’ll have to guess who it was from

you think the butterfly robot would give it away, but honestly? 

it still could be anyone, they shared the same classes and they were all full of people who could do that

so he wrote the letter and sent it off the next day

it reached mc just before their first class together

they walked in holding the butterfly

saeyoung did a really good job, playing around and pretending he had no idea about it 

however, right before class was over, there was a note on his desk

but..he was the last one there? 

he opened it to find it saying, ‘did you forget I know your handwriting? also, I like you too - mc’ 

v / jihyun

you think jihyun would be rather shy about it

however, he was so smooth

the whole thing was really casual

they were paired together for an art project and started working at mc’s house

and they kind of got side tracked from the project to just talking

honestly, they were talking for far longer than they meant to

the project was forgotten

“oh! it’s getting late and I never realized…I should get going..” V said, looking at the time

mc looked at the time as well and gasped, “Oh!  and we barely finished the project”

V just stood up and smiled, shaking his head. “It’s alright, there’s tomorrow. We can focus on that tomorrow”

mc nodded in agreement, standing up as well. “Sounds good. And hopefully we’ll get the chance to finish that conversation”

v started making his way to the door, mc following him

“that sounds great, but I have a better idea.”

“oh do you? what is your idea, then?”

v turned around to face them, smiling lightly.

“we focus on the project tomorrow and finish it. Then we can finish that conversation another time. Over dinner maybe? We could start a new one too”

honestly, it was pretty direct and mc was caught off guard for a second

but they laughed once and nodded, “that sounds great, jihyun.”

V smiled wider. “great. I’ll see you tomorrow, mc”

saeran

no no no no absolutely not

there was no way saeran had a crush on someone

absolutely not 

he refused it

but then he saw mc again the next day

damnit

well…maybe it’ll go away if he doesn’t tell them

so that’s the plan

until saeyoung stares him down

and he knows he’s in trouble because saeyoung knows him too well

so they had a conversation at home about it

“why do you think it isn’t good to have a crush on someone?” saeyoung asked

“because there’s no way they’ll like me back? especially mc.”

and this pretty much continued all night because saeyoung wouldn’t let it go

but they eventually reached a compromise 

saeyoung would pretend to be saeran and ask for him

horrible idea, i know

so….let’s go! 

“hey, mc. may I ask you something?” saeyoung asked, trying his best to act like saeran 

“sure, saeran, what is it?” “would you…like to go out sometime? we could…check out that new place that opened up and get some ice cream after?”

saeyoung could literally feel saeran’s death glare from nearby

mc just laughed and nodded. “that sounds great. tell saeran I’ll meet him there at around 1, okay saeyoung?”

“sure thing, mc!” saeyoung said, “wait.” 

now saeran was really glaring at him

but mc just walked away smiling

…at least it worked

vanderwood

i feel like it was easy for vanderwood

the only problem was that they were friends and he didn’t want to make it weird

but honestly? they were planning to ask each other at the same time

so yeah, it was actually kind of awkward

and neither one of them really thought it through, it literally just showed up in a normal conversation

the two of them even asked at the same time

spare these awkward children

like, okay…listen..

their current conversation had nothing to do with it, either

“hey, vandy. do you want to go out for lunch or cook something?”

“how about we get something delivered? I don’t feel like doing much of anything, really.” 

“alright, i’ll order something in a second.” 

“by the way, mc?”

“yeah? i need to ask you something too.” 

and…you know? they actually spoke at the same time 

“for dinner, you wanna go on a date?” 

they both just..decided to Go For It, huh? 

the two of them stopped everything they were doing and looked at each other for a second 

and then they just laughed with each other

“I guess we know each other’s answers then.” Vanderwood said

mc nodded with a smile

“still, lunch first.” 

[taehcns-blog]

henlo everyone !!!!!!!!!! my name is clove, i’m eighteen, use he/him pronouns, & i’m your resident boy group enthusiast™ hittin’ the tags to bring you my precious angel hwan taehan ! he’s genuinely a mf puppy and all he wants to do is sip on lattes, wear cute clothes, & stare at boys bc he’s waaay too awkward & innocent to approach one whoops !! either way, you can read more about him below so have fun & if you wanna plot lmk !!!!!

( tw. ) ─── depression. death. homophobia. underage sex. typing errors.

001. ooookay gang, this is gonna be v messy and i apologize in advance, but i wanna get this up so i can start writing with all of you sweetie pies, kapeesh ??? anyway ─── taehan was born in the jinhae-gu district of changwon city, south korea. his parents owned and operated a restaurant in the area for 8 years prior to his birth, and even after he was born, the two of them kept their business up and running for much longer !!!! he spent lots of time becoming acquainted with customers, their children, and being almost the face™ of the restaurant, and he adored all of the attention he got ! he wasn’t a shy kid, and often made friends v easily so he was well-liked, and his parents felt almost too lucky to have a son as handsome, sweet, and friendly as he was !!!!

002. however, as he got a lil older, his family was beginning to realize that he was different. unlike most of his friends growing up, he was clearly a lot more feminine than them, and he loved things that not many little boys did at his age. instead of working on the family car with his father, he much preferred to bake things with his mother. he liked playing with dolls, his favorite color was pink, and whenever the neighborhood boys and him would play, he’d always taken on the role of the princess, or the mother, or the ‘girlfriend’ whenever they’d get involved with all of that. both mom and dad kinda shrugged all that off as a phase and didn’t necessarily wish to change their child in anyway ─── after all, he was their pride and joy, so to them, he was still v perfect ... however, it wasn’t like that for lots of others.

003. all of the people that once adored him would now try to ruin all the fun he had, and his parents were p much pissed about it tbh. whenever he’d be running about the restaurants with his dolls, some customers would take them away from him and say that dolls were for girls, or that pink was a girl color, etc. and it began to leave a sour taste in all of their mouths. taehan was beginning to question literally EVERYTHING bc like, he had never once been told that he acted weird or like a girl before ... and it kinda fucked with him ??? like what did that even mean ya feel ??? it was then when he began to ask his parents tons of questions about how he acted or how he was naturally, and they had a hard time explaining to him that some people were just mean and didn’t understand him and that helped him feel better about all of it, but apart of him after that always felt weird. 

004. in school, he thought he’d thought that he’d make tons and TONS of friends bc everyone seemed to like him around the restaurant and his neighborhood. he got along well with girls, but lots of the boys were mean to him; calling him names, treating him bad, and overall, making him feel even more like an outcast than he already did. whenever he’d go home and tell his parents about what was going on school, they would do their best to talk to his teachers, and the principal, but none of them really did anything to help the situation. however, after years and years of him enduring all this bullying, his family decided it’d be best to just relocate elsewhere. their restaurant wasn’t doing too well in the area anymore, and they wanted bigger, better things, so they packed up all their things and moved to seoul, which is where his mother was from initially, and he was excited to be near his grandma, who he always had a wonderful relationship with !!!!!!

005. however, on the drive over there, his family was involved in a car accident that, unfortunately, ended up killing his father. sick with grief, his mother, and himself, didn’t think that life would ever be the same. their move to seoul was now in a different light ─── instead of setting their sights on bigger, brighter things, the two of them moved in with his grandmother and built themselves a new life from scratch. his mother worked the dry cleaning and seamstress business that his grandmother had owned for p much all of her life, and it was a rough time all around tbh. although still a resilient child, he longed to see his dad once again, but he knew that that would never, ever happen... and it made him v sad. his mom never really bounced back from all of it, and even after years had passed, she’s still grieving in her own way. however, life went on, and things got better, but with age came a ton more complications in taehan’s life ... and he often longed for the time things were simpler when he was with his mom and dad at the restaurant in jinhae-gu.

006. in middle school, he was often a wallflower and an outcast, and many of his peers didn’t necessarily feel the need to hangout with him, and it sent him into a bit of a downward spiral. once puberty hit, he began to understand why so many people thought of him to act like a girl in lots of ways. he’d look at boys and stare at them longer ; often liking their appearances and figuring out that girls didn’t make him feel that way whatsoever. he’d often talk to his mom about it, and she said it was normal, and that nothing was weird. she had a good friend when she was younger who liked other men, and she was understanding of all of that. even though at home he felt safe, he became worried that others would bully him if they ever found out the things that were on his mind, so he never confided the truth about himself to anyone ever. he didn’t want his life to be ruined, or to be embarrassed. however, in high school, things seemed to look up for him... but not for long lol rip.

007. he met a boy that he like high-key had a crush on ... and out of the blue, the two of them began to form some sort of friendship. none of it was too serious or whatever. they were kids, and they were just having fun and stuff. however, the more time they spent with one another, the more that taehan was FALLING for him real hard and like ..... all he could think about was the other boy, and he wanted to be around him all the time, and he’d get v jealous whenever he’d choose other friends over him, etc. and it all get low-key messy. so, he asked his mother’s advice and she told him that it may be best to tell his friend how he felt, so the next day, he did just that... but it didn’t end well at all. see, at first his friend said he felt the same way, and one thing led to another and they began to kiss and mess around... however, his friend had his webcam on while they were in his room and recorded everything ... and it got around the school and his friend was exposed as a total snake bc all of this was a dare from his other friends. i hope that made sense lol. needless to say, taehan was totally MORTIFIED and refused to go to school after that ... and his mother felt v bad

008. after that, he spiraled into a horrible depression ... and his mom sent him to a therapist that she’d been seeing for the last few years, and he was prescribed an anti-depressant. the first month on the meds were absolute hell, and his therapist was there to guide him all through it ... but once that trial period was over, they helped level him out a lot ... and he knew there were lots of things he still needed to get over from his past and his present, but he liked that he didn’t feel like ending it all whenever he got into his depressive episodes. to this day, he still takes his meds and sees a therapist, and he’s glad for that. he switched schools after that and felt a lot better, making more friends, and graduating with lovely grades to bring him to his loving and supportive family !!!!! now, he’s going to college and studying business, much like his father, and hopes to reopen the restaurant that his family had at one point in time ... as well as maybe venture into the world of fashion. 

009. he’s still living at home with his mom and his grandmother, and they love him to bits, but whenever he saves some money, he does wanna try living with a roommate or by himself to see what all of that’s about !!!!!! he’s just a simple boy going through life and figuring his shit out, y’know ???

( connections. ) ─── lots of friends tbh. they can be whoever. he trusts women more, obvs, but he’ll be happy with any male friends, too. they’ll help kinda bridge the gap of men he has in his life. potential romantic interest. pls you’ll give me all the fluffy feels that i need to BREATHE ok. this can start however and we can build it up from scratch, or have them be friends that slowly fade into a couple idek. i just neeeeed it. the dude that fucked him over in hs. this could be ANGST city but i kinda want it if anyone’s down lol. a female friend he may have used for a beard at one point / bff. c’mon... think of the CUTENESS. they can be v protective of one another and affectionate with each other, and they’re basically soulmates, but they’re in no way attracted to each other so they’re just bffs. anything else tbh hmu with any ideas !!!!!!!

[bakukirikami]

I'd like to request all the angsty headcanons please

GOD ok this ask is over a week old but im finally ready 2 deliver

under the cut bc this is literally 2k of bakukirikami angst hc’s

bakugou

not rlly super angsty but he’s rlly touch sensitive

mainly bc of the sludge villain which. makes sense

the first time kiri and kami swings an arm over his shoulder he flinches To The Max and they’re shocked bc angry baku just jumped away from them

though it’s good for the beginning of their relationship bc it helps them realise and understand it

they both ask him first if they can hug him and tbh for the first few seconds baku doesn’t know what to do

eventually he hugs them back and Gosh it’s such a good feeling

he feels a little calmer and he just relaxes and shit he feels gr88

he doesn’t even mind if he tells anyone else abt hugging them bc he’s just so glad that he feels safe being held by someone

tbh it’s not easy to overcome something like that? esp for baku, he’s so used to having control that the sludge villain really hit him hard.

the first time they share a bed together baku’s in the middle although he’s the tallest.

he’s been so long without proper touch and kiri and kami really just wanna make him feel loved

at first it’s Too Much Touch and he feels really trapped but his bf’s really did some research abt touch sensitivity and they figured out how to calm him down

he sleeps really well when he’s in the middle bc he knows that he’s literally surrounded by love

he’s the last of the three to wake up in the morning and when he does he can just hear kiri and kami whispering about how much they love him so he buries his head in his pillow and kicks them both so they don’t see him smiling and blushing

eventually after a REALLY LONG TIME he does end up trusting 1a so he doesn’t really mind if they know about his touch sensitivity

there’s nothing wrong with it ofc he’s not any less of a hero it’s just another part of him

but if anyone from another class/in general mocks him about his flinching he will try to explode him and it takes kiri and kami 43 tries to get him to calm down

he finds it really irritating ofc bc he wasn’t always touch sensitive! fuckin sludge villain

when he goes home to visit his family he brings kiri and kami home to meet them

mitsuki hasn’t seen baku in ages so her first instinct is to hug him which is p normal for a mom imo

he flinches for a second and then he realises this is my mom she literally has baby soft skin she can’t hurt me before he relaxes

she still notices his flinching bc she’s his fuckin mom so she asks kiri about it later bc he seems like a good lad

kami overhears and helps explain

later when they’re trying to go to sleep they tell baku and he just shrugs bc he doesn’t mind. he’s getting used to it now

sidenote bakugou’s family fucking love kiri and kami

when he finds out ragdoll lost her quirk he gets a few nightmares about losing his own quirk

makes sense tbh bc the majority of his confidence and arrogance stemmed from his Super Awesome Quirk

usually ends up with him waking up really sweaty and holes in his blankets from uncontrolled explosions during his sleep

he goes to the bathroom to cool off and he stares at his reflection a lot and constantly reminds himself that he’s not going to lose his quirk he’s not he’s not he’s not

what happened to ragdoll isn’t going to happen to him he’s okay

when/if kiri and kami find out they’re shocked again bc they’re not used to insecure bakugou

however they do reassure him a lot that he’s not going to lose his quirk

they remind him a lot that nightmares don’t make you weak at all

he doesn’t usually say anything but if he does it’s usually just “yeah, yeah, yeah, i know.”

“thanks dumbasses”

his dreams usually rotate between hero dreams and fluffy dreams abt his bf’s so the first time he has a nightmare he’s super pissed off bc! He’s strong he shouldn’t be getting nightmares

kami and kiri are Best Bfs they buy baku all might merch when he’s feeling Bad

kirishima

right so listen up kiri’s rlly insecure about his quirk in general so like after baku got kidnapped he really beat himself up about it like A LOT A LOT

his updated hero costume has sleeves from a few of the scars he gave himself during that time

bc of his quirk he rlly doesn’t need armour or anything so everything when they tell him he can upgrade he goes

“fuck i need to hide these scars”, thus, sleeves

during the hero license exam arc kami’s confused bc why the fuck would kirishima, whos ((pretty much)) made of steel need s l e E V E S

kami doesn’t question it tho bc who the fuck is he to judge. kami’s costume is literally just a cool jacket and pants w/ lightning bolts

baku (and everyone else) doesn’t really notice bc theyre used to kiri’s Extra As Fuck costume

anyway eventually bakugou and kaminari are going to end up seeing his scars, whether on purpose or not

when kiri explains baku’s first reaction is just anger bc not only does he think he’s the reason for all might’s end, but he’s thinks that it’s his fault kiri hurt himself

its no one’s fault of but neither of them know what to say but they just both hold kiri really tightly and at that moment, that’s all he needs

DOESN’T LIKE TALKING ABT HIS FEELINGS BC HE DOESN’T WANT TO BURDEN HIS PALS

sunshine kid needs to stop bottling things up blease kiri

spends half of his time in class overthinking about things

he wants to make everyone happy and please everyone but kiri u can’t do that you gotta make yourself happy first

after he, baku and kami get together he talks a lot abt his insecurities and he feels so liberated honestly its a good feel u go kiri 👏👏

they’ll be in bakugou’s room watching a movie and as soon as the credits start rollin he exhales and sits up straight and just Starts Talking

bakugou and kami don’t interrupt them, they just let him talk and as soon as he’s done kami cuddles him and drowns him in blankets

baku does His Thing but kiri still knows he cares so he smiles really fondly at baku which makes him blush bc kiri has the nicest smile!

eventually kami will make bakugou cuddle w/ them

they all sleep a lot better that night.

(kiri’s in the middle)

used to get a lot of shit @ middle school during The Edgy Phase

filed his teeth in anger

vowed to be the nicest person he could be

he doesn’t like thinking about it a lot but he definitely thinks it made him a stronger and better person

got mocked a lot abt his quirk bc it wasn’t “flashy enough” ://

this is already canon but he cried when meeting tetsu for obvious reasons

STILL CANON but best bros w/ tetsu

he talks to tetsu abt their quirks a lot

tetsu is a Comfort Buddy

initially tetsu doesn’t rlly understand why kiri is upset about the lack of originality of his quirk, but once he does understand he’s very comforting

of the two, people say tetsu’s quirk is more unique because he’s transforming his body from flesh into steel, whereas kiri’s is flesh into harder flesh

(this is p much why tetsu initially has difficulty understanding)

tetsu reassures kiri a lot tho and in the end they always feel a lot better about their quirks

once or twice tetsu mentions it to kami and bakugou

out of the blue they’ll randomly compliment kiri and his quirk and he’s super happy

they never say anything to kiri about tetsu but kami and baku are really grateful that he told them

forever upset that he won’t meet crimson riot

kaminari

mmmMMMKAY maya has some angsty kami hc’s here in case u havent seen them yet but ITS MY TURN NOW

super pissed off bc of how he always gets called stupid and dumb!

yes he doesn’t have the best grades but can you stick a knife in a toaster without dying? no? didn’t think so

whenever anyone is a dick about his intelligence he gets really pissed and starts shooting tiny sparks out of his body

when he came to UA he did that a lot less tho

but he does it most often around jirou

(at UA its usually her being a dick)

once she pushed him a lot and he nearly did fry her

kiri had to calm him down and hold him back

when he was little and figuring out his quirk he accidentally fried his favourite book and he cried for ages

got yelled at by teachers as a kid by teachers for accidentally short circuiting the building

bc of this he doesn’t like loud shouting a lot

he Will Flinch

especially when he goes to UA and when all might teaches

nothing wrong w/ all might ofc but his voice is really loud i’d flinch too

like he knows all might’s not going to hurt him but fuck it sounds like he is

after a while all might is the only loud adult voice he can deal with

he doesn’t really want the teachers to know bc its sorta a sensitive topic

when/if kiri and bakugou find out they won’t force him to tell anyone, they’ll just help him cope with it and comfort him

scars on his limbs from not knowing how to use his quirk as a kiddo

constantly terrified of losing control over his quirk and hurting ppl he cares about

idk i think that’s already canon but it’s important bc !! he actually likes the people at UA and he doesn’t want to hurt him

craves affection and attention all the time

he doesn’t need to be the center of attention at all, he just wants to be noticed and would rather not blend it

it’s not like he would go out of his way to stand out though, he just wants to be liked for who he is

it helps him a lot w/ his self confidence since he’s so used to him and his quirk being shoved aside (a result of the backlash of overusing his quirk) 

will cover up his pain or hurt with a joke because he like other people seeing him helpless

always stressed on how to be a better hero

runs his hands through his hair a lot

on bad days he’ll pull at his hair

bakugou and kirishima can tell whenever he’s feeling more upset because they’ll notice random strands of his hair floating around

a short attention span

it contributes to his “bad grades” and he hates himself for it

literally when he figured out just how short it was he electrocuted a couple trees because he was so pissed off

his parents gave him a really old record player for his dorm at UA but it broke when kiri and bakugou were having an arm wrestle in his room

dunno why they arm wrestling in his room BUT THEY WERE

he’s upset for ages bc that’s what reminded him of home

tries every possible way to fix it

he’s not even upset with kiri or bakugou he’s just. Empty

kiri and even bakugou apologise a lot and they actually feel awful for ages

at some point they buy him another one

ofc they know they can’t replace the other one but what else can you do

can’t go a day without someone insulting his hero costume

cries when he can’t buy a new video game and starts shooting sparks if someone else in 1a has it but he doesn’t

he gets really insecure about his body randomly, especially when he compares himself to bakugou and kirishima

but he wouldn’t mind being a little stronger but boi gets distracted all the time

but its obviously different bc ofc baku and kiri use their whole body to fight, but kami doesn’t need to do that

that being said, he doesn’t really want to be Super Buff either

[falpex]

Learn about me! If you want...

Thank you @heck-to-the-nah for tagging me in this list thingy; truly, I was giddy. This is one of those fun “92 questions about you” things that remind me of early fanfiction.net profiles. I’m putting it under the link in case people don’t want to see it. (Also, I did not write this list, jsyk).


LAST  [1] drink: water [2] phone call: my best friend [3] text message: this Creationist I’m trying to convince to be an atheist [4] song you listened to: Eraser by Ed Sheeran [5] time you cried: earlier today, reading a fic (this is probably the answer 90 %of the time [6] dated someone twice: I haven’t done this, but I have gone back and back and back to a guy who would never “define” it. I never say explicitly that we dated, but when I’m talking about my dating history, he comes up [7] been cheated on: nope [8] kissed someone and regretted it: yes [9] lost someone special: my kitty died a year ago and it was horrible [10] been depressed: Pretty bad right now [11] gotten drunk and thrown up: the only time this happened, I was pretty sure it was just a side effect of one of my medications, but now I think my bar grew to like me and was giving me the good rum in my rum and cokes. 
LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS: [12] purple [13] gold [14] white 
IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU… [15] made new friends: yes [16] fallen out of love: no; I’m on a break [17] laughed until you cried: this is what friends are, so yes [18] found out someone was talking about you: this defines my family (but I love them) [19] met someone who changed you: no [20] found out who your true friends are: not in the last year, no [21] kissed someone on your facebook list: nope, going back to that break [22] how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: first, I want to complain about this list construction—how is this an “in the last year”?? I’m not going to count, but all but one of them, who has my same last name and I just assume we are related [23] do you have any pets: 2 cats, one dog [24] do you want to change your name: no, but I did come up with a new pseudonym for writing [25] what did you do for your last birthday: my best friend took me out to dinner, and I facetimed my sister [26] what time did you wake up: every day for the last year? I could never answer that [27] what were you doing at midnight last night: reading this AgePlay fic for the angst (there was not enough) [28] name something you cannot wait for: is this a trick? Something I can’t wait for that happened last year? (ok I’ll stop). I can wait for a lot, but I’m looking forward to getting to see my family [29] when was the last time you saw your mother: January, I think? [30] what is one thing you wish you could change about your life: I wish we had never moved from my childhood home [31] what are you listening to right now: Ed Sheeran [32] have you ever talked to a person named tom: I have a cousin, but I call him tommy john. I’ve also written notes in my friends’ journals pretending to be Tom Riddle [33] something that is getting on your nerves: I’m incapable of hanging posters or pictures up straight. They are always crooked [34] most visited websites: care.com, the blackhawks website, gmail, tumblr, random.org, the skint and this list of popular baby names in the uk [35] elementary: what? Is this a question? Elementary school, I learned that I liked being friends with boys more than girls. [36] high school: I miss high school. I learned to be friends with girls again. I did all the theatre [37] college: I’m so glad I went. I think everyone should have the chance to go. Also, since this quiz left it out: middle school was my goth phase, and music from 2004 to 2007 was the best [38] hair colour: brunette with lots of blonde highlights [39] long or short hair: long [40] do you have a crush on someone: nope [41] what do you like about yourself?: my brain [42] piercings: ears [43] blood type: I always forget, but it’s relatively rare, because I had to get blood as a baby and only my dad and one of his uncles could donate to me [44] nickname: Nikki. Pablo. [45] relationship status: single [46] zodiac sign: ew. I think aries, but didn’t it change recently? It was aries when I last paid attention [47] pronouns: she/her [48] fav tv show(s): the office, parks and rec, house

[49] tattoos: I want to get something on my wrist, but only after I’m done cutting for sure. Maybe when I get a kid? [50] right or left handed: right 
FIRST…  [51] surgery: I had a hole in my heart when I was born, and that was fixed when I was like two [52] piercing: I got my ears done when I was 21; I didn’t think I was going to drink, so I did that instead [53] best friend: There was this girl in kindergarten; I remember her face but not her name. She moved that summer, and I got to do dance lessons instead (my parents were weird) [54] sport: those dance lessons! [55] vacation: probably to Michigan to visit family [56] pair of trainers: ah, now I know this is a british quiz. How would I know this? My baby shoes are bronzed though [57] eating: I know that when I was teething I ate frozen peas and corn, and loved them and I still eat them [58] drinking: if you mean alcohol, I had some giant horrifying touristy drink at Rainforest Cafe [59] i’m about to: I will probably have an éclair. Mcdonald’s if I don’t feel like just have dessert. [60] listening: first listening? My dad is a big soft rock fan, and I know that we used to listen to “Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes when he would rock me before I would go to sleep [61] waiting for: again, is this now or my first? If I didn’t hate these so much, I would write my own list… ok though. I said something I was waiting for, so the first thing I remember waiting for was to get in trouble after I told my mom a lie about a kid from my preschool. She never caught me. [62] want: first thing I remember really wanting was to know how to read [63] get married: I do definitely want to be married. I want five kids and a backyard. [64] career: I want to be a professor. Or an author. Both I guess 
YOUR TYPE… [65] hugs or kisses: hugs  [66] lips or eyes: lips [67] shorter or taller: everyone is taller than me [68] older or younger: I’ve never once dated someone older than me [69] romantic or spontaneous: romantic. [70] nice arms or nice stomach: arms. I’ve never really gotten the obsession over abs. Side-story: I read a fic once where Draco was like a middle-aged wizard with a poochy stomach and ?someone? from next gen was into it. It was a pretty good fic. [71] sensitive or loud: these aren’t opposites? But I would rather sensitive, I think. [72] hook up or relationship: relationship [73] troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker. But I mean in a fun way. Like. Louis 
HAVE YOU EVER… [74] kissed a stranger?: nah [75] drank hard liquor?: yes [76] lost glasses/contact lenses?: probably? Not permanently though. I still own every pair of glasses I’ve ever had, ha [77] turned someone down?: yes. Multiple times [78] sex on first date?: no, but I also don’t really date [79] broken someone’s heart?: I think so, actually. It was a really tough time for me, and I think he ended up better off for it. And the other time, I’m not so sure about, but we don’t talk anymore. She may not have loved me after all. I did love her, but didn’t really know it until too late.

[80] had your own heart broken?: no. I’ve never really fallen hard, I don’t think [81] been arrested? No, thank go [82] cried when someone died? Yes. Well. Not right at the time, but yes [83] fallen for a friend: I’ve had a crush on a friend? I know I just said no like three questions ago, but. This phrasing is different. 
DO YOU BELIEVE IN… [84] yourself?: literally, yes. I have to, it’s the only way to function [85] miracles?: no. I’m an atheist [86] love at first sight?: no. but retrospectively, yes [87] santa claus? no [88] kiss on the first date?: like I said, I don’t date. But yes [89] angels?: again no. [90] current best friend’s name: Do I believe in my best friend’s name? I believe that this is a poorly written quiz. It’s Will. [91] eye colour: nope. My eye color is a lie. [92] favourite movies: Braveheart, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Knight’s Tale

 I don’t like these things, generally, and this one isn’t written super well. But I’m so ecstatic to have been tagged. So. If any of my mutuals want to have a go, please do! I’m not going to tag you though.

[tsgannon]

Speaking of Suicide [and Depression]

“SEATTLE TIMES: Chris Cornell, 52” was all that it said in the alert. Breaking news doesn’t typically cite an age if someone wins a prize, so I assumed what had happened and didn’t need to click through, nor did I particularly want to. The truth was even worse than might have been expected. That you can be stalked to the age of 52 by depression and that it finally gets you around the neck in a hotel room in Detroit seems profoundly awful. Detroit makes me believe in renewal, as did Chris Cornell.

Earlier this week I saw a friend’s post about an untimely death of a friend’s child, a young teenager. “Passed away unexpectedly” or “died suddenly” was the stated cause.  A little over a year ago I learned that as the polite shorthand for suicide while writing my brother’s obituary. The interwebs are very helpful in guiding you to the jargon of obit-ese. I suppose it is less jarring than writing that “he died after a cumulative collapse of the spirit due to chronic illness, a bad relationship, a pre-maturely failing body and an inability to cope with life’s persistent dealing of bad hands and bad choices.” Or that he finally succumbed to anxiety that had reached stage 4 and metastasized long ago and slowly assaulted the whole being.  I’m not sure even morbid looky-loos want to read that in the paper even if being honest and talking about these realities is the only way we can build human relationships. Relationships that include an understanding of darkness and an effort to help build each other’s resilience.

In the past month I’ve read a great deal about the rights and wrongs of “13 Reasons Why.” Does it create a dialogue for mental illness or does it glorify the idea of suicide and suicide as revenge? I am not really sure yet, I’m somewhat trundling though it. Hannah Baker’s high school experience didn’t seem much worse than mine or most people’s as far as I can tell but that doesn’t change the results of fictitious characters or real people. There is not a do-over for most people where you get to realize that perhaps it was an overreaction or you’d like to give it another go. As a mother, I think of things like this in terms of my kids now: how can I raise them to know that high school is full of assholes and that is as it has always been? Heck middle school is full of assholes. By now it is probably pre-k. I can only hope that we are learning we have try to build our kids strong enough to navigate those waters and the tougher ones they will likely experience later. No matter how much we want to, shielding kids from all hurts and wrongs won’t make them go away. And telling them they are privileged self-indulgent snowflakes when they struggle does not help either. I hope balance in civil society somehow restores itself because I am terrified for how to prepare my kids for a world I don’t comprehend.

For many years I watched in detached agony and frustration as depression and anxiety ate away at my brother. In my eyes, they made him unable to deal with the thought of being alone and overly reliant on some very dubious characters, girls mostly, for his feelings of self-worth. He was a person who had fought extremely difficult physical battles in his life and persevered, albeit with major wounds, but there was no moment in his adult life in which I saw him comfortable in his own skin unless he was high on THC or some cute girl taking him for a ride. There was brief moment after receiving a transplant that he was a person reborn, but he was leveled by issues of organ rejection and a latent virus. After that time we often fought furiously as I tried to do what I could think of to help him find his own peace. I remember desperately trying to get him to believe that no one can understand his or anyone’s else’s pain, and that he had to let that go and love himself. His fate and luck had absolutely sucked, but surely there is some joy inherent in life to be lived and some light within to be found? I just don’t know. I failed in my efforts and resigned in pain, frustration and fear that all those hurts might train themselves on me one day.  

For my part and to go full circle, I have a profound passion for grunge music primarily for one reason: it speaks to me about depression, darkness and that being a common experience no matter how isolating it may feel. Chris Cornell, Maynard James Keenan, Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor and the occasional likes of Marilyn Manson and others have been divine gurus of sorts on many long lonely drives. Grunge was a revelation initially of teenage angst.  I can think of few things more freeing that driving the hills and valleys of Montana singing along to the “Superunknown”- the mythical somewhere out there beyond the social shittiness of Hannah Baker-esque high school. I didn’t love it and the self-awareness that I was privileged, relatively popular or a good kid that should be riding high didn’t help.

If this isn't what you see It doesn't make you blind Yea, if this doesn't make you feel It doesn't mean you've died

Soundgarden sounded triumphant in its words and force, music to more than my ears. A few years later I needed it much more. I don’t remember most of my first year of college. It was a blackout of blinding depression, loneliness and emptiness.  My sophomore year was marginally better because I had a car and could turn up the radio loud enough to do permanent hearing damage and listen to Alice and Chains, Pearl Jam and others driving Route 1 or who knows where else in New Jersey agonizing over how by doing everything right I had completely fucked up. 

Hang my head, drown my fear Till you all just disappear Black hole sun Won't you come And wash away the rain

I was terrified I would feel that way for the rest of my life and never know happiness. That I was a broken soul. That there was not another kindred spirit walking on planet earth. I absolutely knew it was depression even at the time– there was no real reason for me to feel that way, other than feeling utterly alone in the universe. To me depression isn’t when you are feeling sad for good reason, it is when you are overcome for little to none. It is not as if having or not having a reason changes the experience any.

For me the clouds lifted for awhile when I left to study abroad for a year. I spent colossal amounts of time walking alone in Paris. Riding the bus in Paris alone. Doing whatever the hell I wanted to do in Paris alone. It started me on my journey as an independent somewhat misanthrope, which seems to be fundamentally a better course. At the time I think I accepted that I was not a person that would ever be accepted to a social circle or never achieve the promise that others thought I had and I once believed in.  Disgustingly privileged people problems, I know. But depression doesn’t come with a sidecar of perspective, particularly when you are 19. I wasn’t cured by a love of Paris or a long close reading of existentialism, though they helped, I truly snapped back when a close friend fell out of a window on New Years Eve 1999 and died. It hurt in a real and present way and I had friends who felt it even more.  It was a true tragedy that sliced through a haze for numbness and social anxiety.

It was in the end those trials that fundamentally made me ok being invisible or just alone. I did battle with the same feelings into my twenties until I actually got a real ass-kicking in my personal shitshorm of 2002-2003.  Suffice it to say that this was real and ugly, but by this time I had the training to cope and I was the not the only one caught in it. Seeing visceral pain in others was my apparent antidote. I hope to never again be staggered by the hurt and betrayal I felt that year, I doubt that would even be possible given the scar tissue developed. I probably listened to Chris Cornell sing these words 500,000 times as I drove around Los Angeles or on my way to the mountains when I moved to Seattle:

On my deathbed I will pray To the gods and the angels Like a pagan to anyone Who will take me to heaven To a place I recall I was there so long ago The sky was bruised The wine was bled And there you led me on

In your house I long to be Room by room patiently I'll wait for you there Like a stone I'll wait for you there Alone

By then it was different.  I had a reason to be upset, it was not an unknowable and consuming fog that could not be overcome. “Like a Stone” rang in my ears like so many grunge songs that this isn’t just me – this is just a time, a phase and a painful place and I can and will leave it. I am fine waiting alone, in fact I will just wander on as the chorus builds. And I did and have never been brought back, though the cyclical shitstorm of 2016 weighed me down until very recently, but not nearly as much. 

I believe we love these artists and musicians because they are brave, gifted and honest enough to find a way to express what many feel at one time or another, or – tragically for many – almost every day of their lives. Chris Cornell spoke to me and many, many others. I am sorry that someone couldn’t find a way to talk him back. Sometimes we capture the right words to reach others in their isolation and sometimes we fail, but we should continue to try.